Friday, April 28, 2006

Better Today

Cami is finally better today. Things have "normalized" and she acting much better. The weather is getting warmer... it's getting nicer out. Monday is May Day and the kiddies at the daycare center are having a hat parade. Our project this weekend will be to work on a hat for the parade. I'm thinking papier mache... we shall see how that goes!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Sick

Is there anything that makes you feel worse than a sick kid? Poor Cami. She must have a bug. She made it through the day yesterday, but this morning she was still reeling from the ill effects of having diarrhea without much of an appetite. She was not interested in dinner last night and went to bed at 7:00 pm. She ran only a very low grade fever. This morning she woke up and I took her temp... 97.5F, but she seemed groggy. A bit of Pedialite and a cereal bar seemed to perk her up some, but it obvious that she is still a bit punk today. It makes my heart ache.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Rough Start

I could smell the explosion before I even got up the stairs this morning. Cami had a major blow out overnight and it made for a rough morning. After I got the poor soul cleaned up, I opened the windows to her room and put on the ceiling fan. It was a rough start to the day. I got Cami dressed and took her down stairs. I offered her a cereal bar (normally a favorite) and she simply said "No." She did drink some Fruit Splashers, which is juice flavored water for babies, and I was glad because I worry about her getting dehydrated. Cami is very petite. At 20 months she is about 32" tall and weighs around 22 lbs. But she is otherwise healthy. On the way to school this morning she was a bit whiny and I asked her if she wanted to see Ms. E, her favorite teacher. Again, the answer was "no." She pouted pathetically when I left. I hope her day gets better from here.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Bubblegum Machine

Cami is a pretty cool kid. She is really not a whiner... Very even tempered; just your general "roll with the punches" type personality. I am always amazed that she is so willing to eat whatever we're eating, play with any toy that's available and participate in any activity. When it's time to move on to something else, she simply does.

So you can imagine my surprise when had an incident over, of all things, a bubblegum machine. Cami usually doesn't ask for material goods. When we are finished looking at toys in the store, I simply tell Cami it's time to put the toys back on the shelf and say goodbye and she does. No drama, no questions asked. Until we found ourselves in a small shop that had a few bubblegum and toy machines. In the store, standing in front of the the machines was a little boy I would guess to be about 4 years old. He was whining and carrying on over the machines. Cami closed in on the boy and observed him quietly. Well, I guess the boy finally wore down his mother because she handed him a quarter which he promptly popped into one of the machines, cranked the handle, lifted the door and pulled out his prize, flashing it in Cami's face as his mother escorted him out the door. At this point, Cami was intrigued. She began cranking all the handles that she could reach and lifting the doors of all the machines. Nothing. She turned her head towards me, stuck her bottom lip out as far as it could go and began to pout.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Healthy, Wealthy & Wise

I got into a philosophical discussion about the education of toddlers with my friend, Dave. Dave has 2 grand-daughters; Abby is 5 and Madison is just a few months older than Cami Rose. All of the girls attend the same school but they are all in different classes. Dave is very pleased with the job the school does in early childhood education. (He is unpleased that Abby is behind in reading because his daughter regularly gets Abby to school late and she often misses reading time, but that is another story). Anyway, Dave is very adimate about early childhood education. I like the school because it is very close to where I work and because I feel it is a safe place for Cami to be. I am happy that the school has a good educational reputation, but I am not interested in having the world's smartest 2 year old as a result. I just want Cami to be happy, healthy and safe. It was a difficult decision to place her in day-care, but I am certain it was the "right" one.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Progress Report

As I mentioned before, Cami Rose is enrolled in day-care. Both Mike and I work full-time. Cami loves her day-care program which is run more like a school for tots than a traditional day-care. They have weekly lesson plans which include vocabulary and motor activities among others. What I didn't realize is that the day-care also provides progress reports and my parent/teacher meeting was this morning. Wow! Parent/teacher conferences for a toddler? I must say, for some strange reason, I was actually nervous!

Well, needless to say, the conference was a breeze. The head teacher (there are 3 in Cami's class) simply told me what a delight it's been to have Cami in school and what wonderful progress Cami has made this year. No kidding. Cami came home in July at 11 months of age. At that time was unable to do little more than lay around and eat. She took only a bottle and gagged on solid food. She did not have enough muscle tone to even sit up. She was like a tiny limp rag doll. We took her to the International Adoption Health Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where we were advised to enroll her in the state Early Intervention program. It was hard work, but she learned the basic skills she needed to begin to catch up to her peers. She started day-care in October. She was still unable to walk, but she crawl short distances and was eating some solid foods. Now, six months after she began the day-care program, she is right on track with her peers. We are thrilled.

Anyway, because of her small size and late summer birthdate, Cami will not move to the "Two's" program until September (some of the older toddlers will move into the "Two's program in June.) So Cami will able to enjoy the summer as a toddler, and I am really glad.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Empty Plastic Egg

Sometimes I think toddlers are more creative than the best professionals in the world. Here is one toddler's creative example of what to do with an empty plastic Easter egg...

Monday, April 17, 2006

Part of the Plan

Cami Rose was adopted from China. I dislike the movement that I see taking place; Chinese adoption is becoming the trendy thing to do. Celebrities have and are adopting from China. I've even heard comments that make my skin crawl like "We're planning to adopt from China before we have our own kids." Makes me nauseous even to see it in writing.

For us, Cami Rose is not an afterthought. Her adoption has nothing to do with infertility or second choices. She is not someone we added to our family to keep up with the Jones. She was always part of the plan. I saw a news magazine program more than 20 years ago when I just 12. The program profiled the population crisis in China and the growing number of Chinese orphans, especially girls. It was then that I first knew. And when the time was right to begin building our family, the first step we took was finding the right adoption agency and filling out an application. That was in June 2004. You will find the end result in the vingettes of this blog.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Slaughtering the Fattened Calf

Well, it finally happened. Last night Cami came barreling through our family room and fell right into a tray table. It happened so quickly that there was really nothing anyone could do. She began to cry the type of cry that kids make when they are truly hurt. I rushed over and picked her up to discover a face full of blood. I was a bit shocked by the sight; it looked like someone had slaughtered the fattened calf on her face! Trying to remain calm, I called Mike for a paper towel as I held my hand under Cami's chin in an effort to collect the pooling blood. My efforts were mostly in vain as the blood dripped from her chin onto both of our clothes. As I dabbed the paper towel, I tried to assess the damage. Where was the blood coming from? Her nose?... mouth?... chin? The amount of blood made her face look as though she had been attacked with a machete. Finally the bleeding subsided to reveal a tiny cut on her upper lip. To help stop the bleeding I gave her some ice, which she thoroughly enjoyed as she is also currently cutting her first molars (poor kid!)

Today she is fine. No worse for the wear other than a slightly bruised, fat lip. It could have been a lot worse... we are lucky.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Other Kid's Parents

My husband and I work full time. Cami, who is 19 months old, goes to a wonderful daycare/preschool. It's really top notch. In her "toddler program" they have a curriculum. The children learn new words, sing songs and make crafts; lots of crafts. We love the school and Cami does too.

Cami arrives pretty early and is subsequently picked-up pretty early in the afternoon. It is unusual that I see any other parents during my drop-off or pick-up times. Yesterday was an exception. Mrs. G was picking up her son at the same time I arrived to pick up Cami. We exchanged polite smiles at which time I told Cami, who was bolting for the door, "Wait a minute, Sweetie. Mommy wants to grab a wipe for your nose." It's no secret that childcare and runny noses go hand-in-hand. So you can imagine my surprise when Mrs G looked at me and said, "Yes, her nose is pretty bad today, but not nearly as bad as it was on Friday." I had no reply. Needless to say, I was shocked! Was Mrs. G keeping tabs on my child's nose? What was she trying to say?

I realize now that this is the beginning. A new chapter in my life and my roll as a parent. It's not enough to deal with my own child or other children, as the need arises, but as a parent, I will also need to deal with other kid's parent.

Lord, give me strength...