It's Official!

Mia is now a full fledged pre-schooler! (see previous post below!) The first day, Mia was fine and Kim was fine. Not a tear in sight (except for me fighting tears while pacing in the school hallway for an hour). As soon as we walked in Mia went straight to the books and wanted to read a story. I convinced her to put the book down and hang up her backpack. She hung it under her cubby hole. Then, she went to start making an ABC necklace with Kim and a couple boys at a table. She could have cared less that I left!

When I picked her up she looked so grown up with her little backpack on her back. She talked my ears off the whole way home. "Mia school fun!"

Day two, the same thing, though this time when I came to get her the teacher said she cried a little bit, but that Kim was coming to her to comfort her. It was so sweet! Kim didn't shed a tear.
Day three, Mia went to D~'s house like her usual Thursday routine. Kim's mom called me to say that Kim was screaming at the preschool for Mia and that she was having a complete meltdown that Mia wasn't there. She was fine though after her mommy left.

All Mia has been talking about is school. It's really cute!

Mia has already picked up new songs and a couple of new words. Unfortunately, I learned on the first night that Mia had also picked up fit pitching. Yes, she already could throw some doozies but this was a whole new scream. Kim's mommy called me about 10 o'clock that same night reporting the same phenomenon with Miss Kim. But, night two wasn't bad, so if that's the worst, I can handle it.

She looks so disgusted because she wanted to run into the school and I made her stop so I could take a picture.



The next two pics are her in the reading zone wanting to immediately start reading stories with her new teacher.





Making an ABC necklace with Kim and new friends.


Miss Kim ready to play


Mia & Kim at the end of the first day

Happy Birthday Miss Mia (and a REALLY BIG step!)

Well today Little-Miss-Mia turned 3! I can't believe it. We've been telling her that her birthday was coming, but she had no clue what we were talking about. She caught on pretty quickly today when everywhere she went she was getting gifts. Her first surprise of the day (and mine too!) was from Mia's big sister H. When I was in the shower, H got Mia dressed for me. I'd ironed her clothes and laid them out on the bed. When I got out of the shower, Mia had on the cutest little birthday dress that I'd been admiring at my friend's baby boutique. H works there and she got the dress and surprised me and Mia with it. It was a little too big, but we found a blouse that worked great under it.

Mia in her new birthday cupcake dress from Sissy

Next we met up with Mia's best bud Kim (I'll tell more about that in a minute). Kim gave Mia a Dora jewelry box filled with necklaces and bracelets. Too cute!

Then, we were off to have our birthday lunch (it's my birthday too!) with D~, Mia's most favoritist person in the whole wide world. D~ traveled with me to VN to adopt Mia. I've asked her to be Mia's godmother. Mia spends one day a week with D~. Anyway, D~ treated us to lunch at a nice restaurant. D~ and her daughter B~ (who happens to be the very reason I ever met Mia) presented Mia with some really wonderful gifts. D~ hand made a really sweet scrapbook page which she'd framed. Mia LOVES the whole princess thing. (Disney has her sold!) D~ had taken pictures of Mia in a Tinkerbell costume and placed it on a princess scrapbook page with all of Mia's favorite princesses. She wrote Mia a beautiful little note on the page. It's really meaningful and precious. (Mia's daddy wanted me to hang it in the living room! sigh...) But to Mia, the best of all was a bin of dress-up costumes complete with shoes, jewelry, a blond Cinderella wig (hilarious!), glasses, hats, pom-poms, the works. She opened all this IN the restaurant, and then proceeded to put it all on and dance and prance IN the restaurant. Stupid me didn't think to (hello!?!) bring camera. D~ and B~ took pics that I'll post when I get them. I haven't laughed that hard in, well, I can't remember how long. Mia was so full of herself. It was so funny.



We got home later and I hung her picture from D~ over her bed, near her photo of her and Kim. Above the photo of her and Kim is her VN adoption box. It holds a little teddy bear bought for her from my friend that lives in Hanoi who we visited with often while on our adoption trip. It also holds two bottles of sand from the China Seashore in DaNang. The bottles holding the sand are from the first hotel that I stayed at when I got Mia. I took the bottles and walked to the seashore and filled them with the sand and some small shells. I've kept the resort tags on the bottles. Anyway, since her special stuff is hanging there over her bed I thought it was the best place for her artwork from D~ (sorry Husband, it just wouldn't mean the same in the living room).



So, now to the REALLY BIG step. Here goes...Kim's mommy has been looking for a preschool for Kim. Another friend of mine recommended one very close by. So, I went this morning with Kim's mom to check out the school and give some emotional support to a difficult decision. I met her in the parking lot. As soon as we pulled in, Mia pointed and yelled, "Mia's school!". Okay. For those of you who know me, I'm a homeschool mommy (who utilizes wonderful co-ops) and I really don't advocate preschool unless there's no way around it. I most definitely hadn't mentioned "school" to Mia, or told her what were going to go do other than we'd see Kim. So, I thought that was really strange. So, we go into the school and I absolutely fall in love with the place. We got there while the kids were having Bible study. Mia could not wait to get in. She could barely contain herself waiting to go into the classroom. Well, we get in there and Mia goes over to the table where the kids are starting a craft and tries to take a seat and get started. She and Kim held hands and explored the room and met the teachers and 'chatted' with the other kids. THREE other kids in the class are adopted Asian children, two girls and a boy. The racial mix was awesome and the teachers were awesome. I was totally blown away. I asked an insane amount of questions like teacher ratio, background checks, teacher education, etc. Mia absolutely loved it there, and didn't want to leave. I loved it too. So....I registered Mia and she starts tomorrow.

We went out and bought a backpack and a lunch box. I just can't believe it. But she seems so ready for it. She does great in Sunday school, and I think she'll do really well with this. I'm just going to do part time in the mornings a couple days a week. And, she'll have Kim too. I'm really excited for her, and it's all she's talked about all day.

We'll see how she does (and me too!)

UPDATE !!!
Yea! B~ Just sent me the pictures of Mia dressing up IN the restaurant! (I love the ones with the glasses; she looks like a librarian)








The Cinderella Wig ~ too darn funny!

DaNang Cuties

These aren't in the order I wanted to post them, but for some reason I can't change the order. Usually I can, but I don't know what's up with blogger...again!

A friend of mine has a children's shop. A lady that works with her made the girls' outfits. I think they turned out really cute. Mia was SO jealous of Kimberlee's ao dia. She kept pointing to it and saying, "Kim pretty princess". Donna's older daughter bought if for Kimberlee when she went to VN to visit her before she was adopted.

Mia LOVED having her picture taken. She told the lady taking the photos, "take more picture". What a ham!

When I look at these girls in the photos it's hard to believe that less than a year ago these two were running around together in an orphanage wearing rags. Amazing!

Just Pics

Thinking about how much I want to keep Mia's birth-country's culture a part of her life, led me looking at some photos I have of beautiful Vietnam (I only had 12,000 to look through, and no I'm not even close to exagerating!). I chose a few favorites to post, but darn blogger was taking WAY too long to upload, so after an hour and a half this is as far as I got.

It Happened

I've heard of these conversations taking place, but I've never found myself in the midst of one...until Monday. I was in the food court at the mall with Mia and Kimberlee and of course Kimberlee's mom and a couple others. There in the food court was a really cute inter-racial family. The young lady looked about 25 and was such a cute mommy to her 3 month old little girl (who btw had THE pretties hair I've ever seen!) and daddy looked to be around 25 as well. They KEPT staring and whispering, and staring and whispering. I thought, "hmmm...do I know them from some where? Could this be one of Husband's cousins I've forgotten about?"

Well, after our meal, Kim's mom and I were walking the girls towards the bathrooms. The young lady jumped out of her seat and ran over to me. Kim's mom walked on to the restrooms. The young lady started asking all kinds of questions about Kim and Mia. She was all into adoption, and so curious. I could tell it was "I want to know because I want to do this too" questions, not just "I'm a nosey jack-ass" questions, so I didn't mind answering her. She told me that she and her husband had decided to adopt a boy from VN because they'd had a girl and all the cousins were girls and they didn't want to risk having yet another girl. GREAT, so I thought! I was so happy for them, at first, especially since they were a black and white couple wanting a VN child. I have to admit, for selfish reasons, I was so happy to know I wasn't on this inter-racial island all by myself. Anyway...then she says, "Don't you just feel so good about yourself for helping out a poor little orphan from one of those awful countries? I know it'll make me feel good when we get our son."

BLANK STARE

"I'm sorry?" "Huh?" was about all I could mutter for a moment. Every post I'd ever read about responding to people like this on any blog or adoption group all went swirling through my mind. I wanted to tell her, Vietnam is NOT an awful country (screwed up version of communism maybe...) but just because it's not America doesn't make it an awful country! My daughter was an orphan in an underdeveloped nation, her nation. I took her from her nation and her countrymen and her heritage and her culture and her language. I would never in a million years utter that her nation, her people are awful! I love her but it's not about me stupid, it's about providing for this child, my child because she couldn't be provided for properly where she was. I had a hole in my heart for her and she needed a mommy and daddy to fill the hole in hers. God brought us together as a family, not me rescuing some "poor little orphan". I was truly speachless. I just couldn't get all of it out; I couldn't get the words together. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I just looked at her and said, "She's my daughter, my child, like any of my other children." She really didn't get it. She looked at me and said, "oh, but I thought you said she was Vietnamese."

"Yes, and she's my daughter, my child, not some poor little orphan girl that I used feel better about myself." And I actually said to her, "Don't adopt." and I walked away. Shocked.

But the sad thing is, some homestudy agency will approve them, some adoption agency will give them the go-ahead, and there they'll be with this child that they view as a charity, not as thier son in the same way they view their daughter. He'll be a temporary void filler and a faux ego booster, all the while being told how he was rescued from his awful country. He'll probably have little to no knowledge of the "awful" country he was "rescued" from. What a terrible exsistance for the little guy.

It makes me sick and it makes me thank God for the love in my heart for MY daughter. And even more for the love in her heart for HER mommy and daddy. And for the love in my heart for her country, and her heritage, her culture, and her language.