And the Nesting Begins . . .

Today I found myself in a strange situation.  Very strange.  I woke up and decided that I needed to deep clean every area of my kitchen.  Now this may be an ordinary, every day sort of activity for the rest of the world, but for me it is an occasion worthy of some sort of great celebration.  My children saw me on my hands and knees scrubbing away, and all they could do was sit and stare at me with expressions that ranged from awed to utterly confused.  What in the world was their mother doing?  I'm convinced that there are enough crumbs stuffed in the nooks and crannies of my kitchen to feed an entire nation of mice.  I don't know why there isn't some sort of mouse resort vacation package that sends mice to my kitchen, promising each mouse family a life of comfort and ease as they feast upon an unlimited supply of people food.  Maybe it is the giant fat pug that prevents this from happening.  See Herman?  Brownie (our pug dog) is good for something! 

So anyway, today I started a project that I have needed to do for a long, long time.  My cupboards are overflowing with junk that I never use.  Everything is in a state of chaos.  I have a general idea where everything in my kitchen is located, but sometimes I have to tear apart a section of cupboard space before I find what I am looking for.  Well, today I decided that my days of cursing my disgustingly gross and unorganized kitchen are over.  I declared war on the chaos, loaded up my video of the recent BBC adaptation of Emma (Oh, how I love thee, Mr. Knightley!), and I got to work scrubbing away years of grime and grease.  And what a job it was!  I'm about half-way done with my task.  My fingers are wrinkled to an unrecognizable state, and I have discovered that my gag reflex is pretty well controlled.  I found some seriously nasty looking food (or at least I think it was food).  If even Brownie won't eat it, it has to be nasty.  It is amazing just how much junk I can accumulate in such a short amount of time.  I seriously should take a picture of my cupboards when they get this out of control and pull it out any time I get a hankering to buy some new kitchen equipment. 

So what led me to take such a drastic step?  I am trying to get my house in order before we head to China in the next few weeks.  I have laid in bed many nights and mornings over the past few weeks and thought about how I need to get my house organized before this big event.  I am sure that overall it won't really matter that much if I have a cluttered closet when we bring Minsy home, but I really, really would like to spend as much time as possible getting to know her and making her feel welcome in her new home.  I don't want to become Super Stress Mom as I try to keep everything in order.  Okay, I'm not normally super stressed about having a perfectly organized and clean house.  That's why there is a need for super cleaning days like today.  But, even when I'm not working on cleaning the house I am worried about how messy it is, and I just don't want to have to worry about it for a few weeks once we're home.  There are a couple ways to achieve this Eden-like condition.  Either my family will magically transform into a well-oiled group of cleaning machines, or I'm going to need to simplify things and declutter my life.  I'm going to work on the second scenario since it is more likely. 

There is something about opening up a drawer and seeing it clean and organized that brings a smile to my face.  It makes me happy.  I don't really feel like becoming completely anal retentive about having an organized and clean home, so I guess I'm not really willing to make the sacrifices necessary to have that happy smile on my face all the time.  But living in an atmosphere of happy chaos all the time does make me appreciate the small triumphs of cleanliness that happen once in a while.  I like to walk through my kitchen and not have my bare feet stick to the ground where I walk.  It's refreshing. 

I feel like I have been planning and planning and planning for this trip to China for the last year.  I have figured out the best way to pack for eight (and then nine) people that will be simple and light.  I have figured out where to go and what to do.  Now I am just in a holding pattern until we get our travel approval (hopefully sometime next week).  Until then I want to devote my time to really getting this house under control.  But, like the FlyLady says:  "It didn't get this way in a day, and it isn't going to get clean in a day either."  Check out her awesome cleaning system at http://flylady.com/.  Well, it really is awesome when I choose to follow the plan.  I admit:  I'm a binge cleaner.  I go for long periods of time without taking the small steps to keep things clean, and then I go plain crazy trying to clean everything up.  It isn't really a healthy thing to do, I'm sure.  So, when I'm feeling really together, I do try to do her system.  It's simple and easy.

So, anyway, here I am, taking some big baby steps by starting with the kitchen.  I should get it finished tomorrow, and then I'll systematically head through the rest of the house, trying to make a small dent in the disarray.  I'm feeling a burst of nervous energy.  I've said all along that in a weird way this adoption feels a lot like my pregnancies did, without the swollen ankles and heartburn.  Maybe this nesting is my mind just helping me to know that the process is almost over.  Then the real adventure begins.  For now I'm off to the kitchen again.  I hear my silverware drawer calling me.

Time Keep Rolling Faster, Faster, Faster

This is how I see myself these days.  So much to do.  So little time.  We are moving so quickly to the day when we can finally meet Minsy and gather her into our arms.  I can't wait for that day to happen.  We have been on this journey for over a year now.  When we began I was convinced that we would be through by the end of last school year.  Then I moved my timeline to be sometime this summer.  Now I am fairly certain that we will be leaving to go to China sometime in October.  Last week our Article 5 was sent to the agency in China who finalizes all their adoptions, and that was the last step that needed to take place before we get our Travel Approval.  Traval Approval (TA) is the only thing we lack before we can get a consulate appointment to finalize this adoption and get Minsy home.  I am hoping that we can get the TA either this week or next.  So much is in other people's hands.  It is a little frustrating, but from the beginning I have felt as if this is all in Heavenly Father's hands, so I have faith that it will happen when it is supposed to happen.  I just hope that it happens soon.  My comfort, at least, is that Minsy is now with a loving family who is taking good care of her.  If that were not the case I am sure that I would be beating down some bureaucratic doors to get her out of there. 

So, I'm excited to get Minsy home, but now that I have a date in my head that seems somewhat realistic I am looking around at all that I have to get done before we leave.  Taking eight people on a trip to the other side of the globe for almost a month is no small task.  There are preparations that we need to take.  I have to work out attendance and grade issues with the school. I have to get our finances in order so that our accountant can get our taxes completed for us (That's right . . . We haven't completed our 2010 taxes yet.  Our situation is so wacky that we never get things done until October each year).  I could go on and on.  There are the things that I have to do to get things ready for our family to leave, but there are also things that I need to do to get things in order for when Minsy arrives.  The Blau house is a house of chaos -- loving and fun chaos, but chaos nonetheless.  Chaos is probably not the best atmosphere to bring a child when she will probably be feeling a bit of angst at leaving all that is familiar and bringing her to everything unfamiliar.  And so I organize -- or try to organize at least.

Minsy in China 8/6/11

This week I got an email from the lady who is working with Minsy's orphanage in behalf of our adoption agency.  She was able to get an updated picture of her.  She seems so much more grown up than she did in the pictures that came with her adoption papers.  Of course, it has been ten months, so there would be a little bit of change.  I just sat and looked and looked at her picture all evening long.  She is so absolutely beautiful, and I could see her entering our family.  I felt a connection.  I was happy for that.  I know that we still have a long journey ahead of us as we get to know one another, but I could see into my heart as I sat there and stared at Minsy's picture, and I could see that my heart  was willing to do all that was necessary to create the bonds between a mother and child that Minsy (and I) would need.  It was a powerful moment for me. 

Ellie is Minsy's size!

With the updated picture we got some updated information about her size.  We didn't get any updated height info, but we did get her weight.  I really have had a hard time wrapping my head around just how tiny she is.  All of her measurements have come in metric, so I needed to convert to picture it with my American brain, but even before I did the measurement conversions, I could tell that Minsy was going to be smaller than the average 4 year-old.  It turns out that Minsy only weighs about 24 pounds.  Surely that is a misreading, but it is consistent with the measurements that we received about her last spring.  I thought that maybe it was just that I was comparing it to my own children's sizes, so I went online to compare her weight when looking at a Chinese girl weight chart.  Minsy falls below the third percentile in height and weight.  Holy Cow!  I am used to having children that are at least at the 75th percentile, and often are above the 90th.  It will be just fine.  I just want to make sure that I am prepared when I arrive in China.  Yesterday we watched a family of children in the afternoon, and they had a girl who is a year and a half old and weighs the same as Minsy.  We had her get on the scale and everything.   Seeing her gave me a better idea of what to expect, but now I realize that it was wishful thinking when I bought the clothes that were size 3T.  Oh well, better too big than too small!

Also, this week I decided that it was time to get serious about trying to figure out our travel plans for while we are in China.  We have to wait until we have a definite consulate time until we make our reservations, but I can at least have a general idea of what to do.  We are planning on staying in Beijing for about a week before we head to Wuhan to pick up Minsy.  Then we head to Guangzhou to finalize all the government paperwork that needs to be done.  Finally, we will spend about three days in Hong Kong getting to know ourselves as a family of nine.  I quickly started to realize, however, that it isn't a simple deal to plan a trip to China with such a large group.  I couldn't find any hotels that seemed to be able to accommodate us when I looked online.  Even when I tried pretend plane reservations there didn't seem to be enough room on any plane.  That doesn't even begin to talk about trying to find transportation for all of us while we are in the country.  I was getting a bit frustrated with the process.  I have done a ton of research getting ready for this trip.  I normally love to take care of reservations and travel plans on my own using the internet, but this was quickly proving to be beyond my meager abilities.  I finally decided the best thing was to turn things over to a travel agent.  We decided to contact Lotus Travel.  They specialize in travel to China for adoptive families, so they understood exactly what our needs would be before we met Minsy and after.  They have been wonderful!  I got an email from Sandy asking what we were interested in seeing in China.  After sending her our list she put together a travel itinerary for us within a day.  It is so exciting to see something concrete already set up for this trip.  We want to make the most of this trip so that we can experience the best that China has to offer so that we can help Minsy to stay connected with her Chinese heritage after she arrives in our home.  Even Sandy had to admit, however, that is a bit more complicated to set up travel for such a large family, so she needs a bit more time to see if she can find the best housing arrangements for us while we are in the country.  I'm just happy that someone is able to make progress on a process that seemed to block me at every turn.

Minsy's Birthday Package

Minsy's birthday is next week on September 1st.  She will be four years old.  This is not her actual birthday.  The orphanage just assigned her one once she was found because they found nothing on her to indicate when her birthday was.  They used dental examination and a cognitive review to estimate her age as 16 months, and then gave her September 1st as her birthday.  We will have the opportunity to change it if we wish, but I don't think we will do this.  Changing her date of birth wouldn't affect her school attendance unless we made her a month older, and I have no desire to do this.  If anything we would make her younger, but that would serve little purpose, so I think we'll just leave good enough alone.  The kids often talk about how Minsy will be the one child in the family who could argue our age rules about makeup (must be 12), dating (must be 16), etc.  She could always argue that we don't REALLY know when her birthday is.  We'll see if that will work.  I'm betting that it won't though.  I am sad that we won't be there for her birthday this year, but we did order her a birthday package from Ann at RedThreadChina.  She sent us a picture of the package that is being sent to Minsy from us.  It was so fun to see!  It includes a cute dress, some hair ties, a panda bear, a disposable camera, a card, candy for her friends, and a letter from us.  If you zoom into the picture you can see the letter we wrote translated into Chinese.  I kept it short and simple.  That's all any of my four year-old children would have ever wanted to hear in a letter.  But I also added a few questions about Minsy that I hope the foster family or orphanage will answer.  A company in China will also deliver a cake to Minsy on her birthday.  So fun!  I just wish that we could be there to see her open the package.  In exchange I hope that we could at least get some great pictures of her looking through the presents and eating the cake.  We'll have a little cake and ice cream here on Thursday to celebrate.  Next year we'll get to do the real deal with her at home.  Yea!

So, I have a few more days of waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  But after that the real countdown begins.  In the meantime I'll spend the next few weeks getting our house in order -- and probably heading for a good professional massage.  The stress has permanently moved to my neck and shoulders.  Now I'm off for a bit of the next best thing to help me relax -- some relaxation therapy with a good book.   Ahhhhhh . . . . . .

For Those Who Haven't Heard Yet . . .

Eliza Ruth QingMin Blau

I've put a lot on facebook about our upcoming adoption, but I feel like I need to at least bring my blog posts up to date with our adoption process so that it is all nice and neat on here when I choose to print this off in the future.

So . . . we are soon becoming a family of nine.  That's right -- nine!  It has been a year-long process that involved a lot of paperwork for a few months, and then waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  We are nearing the end of our journey, though.  Hurray!

The following is a copy of the note that I wrote on facebook announcing our adoption and explaining how we got to that point.  Skip it if you've already read it because I have more detailed info about Minsy at the end of this post.

WE'RE EXPECTING!!!!

by Melissa Landis Blau on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 10:11am

After an eight month process, we are finally ready to officially announce that a new little Blau girl is on the way!!!  This is something that has been in the works since last August, but we probably should explain.  We have six super wonderful children, and until last August we were perfectly happy with our perfectly happy family.  But, we believe that our Heavenly Father has a plan for us, and sometimes those plans are different than we expect, so we are always trying to know what those plans should be.  So, last August Herman had put on a back to school workshop for a school district in northern Louisiana and was making the long drive home.  He was (no kidding) on the Road to Damascus, Arkansas, and as he is totally apt to do, he was speeding along, not paying attention to the change in speed limits that come with the many small towns in Arkansas.  While he was driving he was listening to an audio tape called Major League Dad about a major league baseball pitcher who had adopted some special needs children with his wife and then left his successful career to take care of them.  While listening to this tape Herman felt an overwhelming impression that we were supposed to adopt.  He called me and asked me my thoughts about adoption.  I come from a family of adoption, so it isn't a completely foreign idea to me, but I really hadn't given it much thought at all in our marriage.  So Herman's comment took me completely by surprise.  But, I do have total and complete faith in Herman's faith, and if he feels like we are being prompted to do something, I am ready to jump on board without question.  We were in the midst of this conversation when there, outside Damascus, Herman was pulled over for the second time in less than an hour.  That pretty much guaranteed that he was getting a ticket, so we got off the phone, and I took some time to think things over.  Herman does a much better job telling this part of the story, but to make a long story shorter . . . You know how Herman is quite a talker?  Well, while the officer is working the ticket Herman decides to ask him his feelings about adoption.  It turns out that this officer was adopted, and he had wonderful things to say about his experience and his adoptive parents.  Herman was more convinced than ever that we were supposed to head down this road of adoption.  After some prayer and consideration I joined in the ride.

We did quite a bit of research and decided that we would adopt internationally after weighing pros and cons of everything.  With our family size it limited the countries available to us, and that's a good thing.  I don't do well when I have too many choices.  As it was, it was still super daunting to decide between the few we were offered.  We decided to go with China Waiting Child, which are children in China who are either older or have some sort of disability.  We started working with an awesome agency, Wasatch International Adoptions, and our journey really began.  Mostly it has been a bureaucratic journey because of all of the crazy paperwork I have had to collect, but that's something I usually don't mind doing, so it hasn't been horrible -- just time consuming.  Right now I need to throw out some thanks to people who really helped us during this part of the process:  Jan -- the best notary in the country, I'm sure, Amanda -- the best nurse for getting all our medical records together, and to Mom and Dad Landis, Laurenda, Danielle, Amanda, and Tom and Deena for glossing over our many faults and making us look good in your recommendations for our home study.  Thanks!

And, the home study.  Oy!  What a process!  There's nothing fun about opening up your life to a hopefully impartial judge to see if we have what it takes to be adoptive parents.  But, I probably spent more time worrying about it than it was worth.  We had a great social worker, and our home study actually makes us look so good that I sometimes wonder if she was really remembering her visits with our family the right way.  But, we survived!

And now for the new little Blau girl.  Her name is Wu QingMin, and she is 3 1/2 years old.  We are debating what to do with her name, because some adoptive parents change the name, and some don't.  We are leaning toward giving her a Western first name, but keeping QingMin as her middle name so that she can have the opportunity to choose for herself what name to use when she gets older.  Plus, her Chinese name actually has a little bit of significance because Min was the name of the policewoman who rescued her after being abandoned, so we want to keep that.  Her foster mom and dad call her Minsy, and we think that is cute, so that will probably be our little nickname for her too.  She has a unique history compared to many of the Chinese children we have looked at.  She was a little older when someone left her at the police station -- they guessed around 14 months old.  No one knows anything about her before then, but she could say "mama" when they found her, so obviously someone had been taking care of her up to then.  She has been living with a foster family.  The parents are older with a grown son who is in college, so Minsy has been the queen of the castle for awhile, and it is obvious by the report we read that her foster parents really love her a bunch.  That will ultimately be a great thing that Minsy had such a loving environment to grow in as she was growing up.  But, at first I imagine that she will be pretty freaked out coming to America to our large and loud family.  But, we will survive, and I'm sure that it will be a good situation for all of us soon.  Minsy has club feet.  The good news is that she can walk on them already, so it isn't a super severe case, but she hasn't had a lot of work on them up to now, so she'll need to be seen right away by someone in the US to plan her treatment so that they can be repaired. I'm super grateful for the help our awesome doctor, Dr. Karls, has offered to us as we looked over medical files, and also to my new facebook buddy Katrina Sanders who has lots of experience with club feet. (I will probably be depending on you a lot in the near future Katrina!  So many questions!)

So, now that we have locked her in as our child we just have to work through more bureaucracy to get her home.  We are waiting for approval from Homeland Security saying that we are good people so that China is willing to send her to our country.  Then there are a few more Homeland Security things we have to do so that she can be legally adopted and brought back home through immigration.  China also has a few things to do on their end too.  Hopefully, we can get travel approval and a court date in China for sometime this summer.  Our plan was to take the whole family, but for some reason when we checked today the prices for tickets to China have doubled in price in the last month or so, and although we would love for all of our family to be there, we aren't quite willing to sell a kidney for it.  Hopefully the prices will drop before we have to travel.  Otherwise just Herman and I will travel.  I can't wait!

I feel in a weird way like this has been a virtual pregnancy for me.  I've gained 15 pounds since this started, and I can't stop eating, thinking, dreaming about chocolate.  Why can't that be a legitimate food group?!!!!  I'm tired all the time and can't get anything done, it seems.  And, I swear that today I woke up with psychological morning sickness after we found out last night that Minsy was ours.  Craziness!  But, it's all good.  I've worked through all of this six times before, so I should be a pro by now.

Many people might wonder why we would choose to adopt when we already have a super large family, at least compared to the average family size in the US.  I have had way too many conversations with people in the lines at the grocery store wondering at my cartload full of gallons of milk, cereal bags, bread, etc.  When I explain how many are in our family I often get the "Birth Control Talk" because people are worried I might have slept through that day of class, I guess.  The things that people are willing to bring up in conversations with strangers at grocery store lines is mind boggling to me!  But the truth is something that some may accept and some might think is insane -- We simply believe that this is what Heavenly Father has asked us to do.  We don't question it because we know that this is right for our family at this time in our life.  It may be because of something that we are meant to learn.  It may be because Minsy's foster family was unable to adopt her for some reason and was praying that some good family would choose to accept her.  Who knows?  I just feel in my heart that she is meant to be here with us right now, and we are doing all we can to make that happen.  We'll be in super need of everyone's prayers as the time draws nearer to Minsy coming home.  She'll need all the help she can get to begin to feel comfortable in a new country with a new language, new foods, new customs, and a brand new raucous family to join.  Hopefully, we'll be up to the task.  But I know Heavenly Father will be with us, no matter what!

So, that was my post from March.  Obviously we were not able to get everything done so that we could travel this summer.  We are now looking like we will be traveling sometime around the first part of October.  We'll find out soon -- maybe in around three weeks we'll know for sure.

We can announce that we have decided that her American name will be Eliza Ruth QingMin Blau.  We knew that we wanted to keep QingMin because that is her Chinese name, and it has significance.  We still plan on calling her Minsy as her family in China calls her now.  But we wanted to add an American first name in case someday she'll want to choose to use it.  Whether she does or not is her decision.  We chose Ruth almost right off the bat because of this scripture in Ruth 1:16 which says:

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

We thought that was particularly meaningful as a scripture for a little girl who is leaving behind the country and culture she has known all her life to join our family, our country, and our culture.  We will make every effort to ensure that she does not lose all of her cultural attachment to China or the Chinese people, but this move will be a major change for her.  She is a modern day pioneer.  Amazing!

So, anyway, just using Ruth QingMin as her name didn't ever just roll off the tongue for me, so I felt like we needed something else.  We looked over countless baby name websites.  We thought about names that might have personal significance for us -- you know, our heroes, friends, and family.  Nothing really worked.  I would find names that I liked, and Herman would find names that he liked, but neither of us could agree on anything.  Well, I was getting frustrated.  I felt like I could really start to bond with Minsy even more if I could have a better idea of what her full name would be, and once August hit, I felt like we were long past the time when we needed to have decided something.  I'm not sure what prompted us, but one day Herman asked me what I thought of the name Eliza.  Eliza had been on one of my lists, and it was the first time both of us could agree on a name.  Eliza Ruth QingMin sounded right to me, and I knew that that was the name she was meant to have.  There are some great Eliza's in history and literature -- Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, Eliza R. Snow from church history, Elisabeth from the Bible, her super cousin Elisabeth, etc.  We didn't really choose the name because of any of these great ladies, but, hey, it doesn't hurt to share your name with some awesome examples.  We are still planning on calling her Minsy, so it is possible that Minsy will not even think about her full name unless she has to write it for school and applications later in life.  Hopefully, she will grow to love it.  We really put a lot of thought into all of our children's names, and all of them have loved them.  Once a year or so ago we joked with Hyrum that we were going to change his name to something else.  He got all teary-eyed and begged us not to change the name he loved so much.  That meant a lot to us, because we had given a lot of thought to his name.  It is pretty unusual, and I always felt like it sounded like a really old man name, but as he has grown, we have found that Hyrum is a Hyrum.  His name fits him perfectly, and we're glad he likes it.  Not every child with an unusual name likes their name.

Minsy in China

Minsy's fourth birthday is coming up on September 1st.  We are super bummed out that we will not be able to be there for her birthday, but I am happy that she will be able to spend one last birthday with her foster family who loves her so much.  I was super lucky to find another couple who is adopting a little girl from Wuhan and who seems to be on the same timeline as us.  Their little girl is only a month younger than Minsy, and I really hope that she and Minsy are friends from the orphanage and can stay in contact when they are in the US.  That would be so neat.  I saw on her website that she had all kinds of recent pictures of her little girl and pictures of her receiving packages from her new family.  We haven't received anything like that, but I really wanted to have something updated since our last info came from November 2010.  Tara told me of a lady who can organized these gift packages and get info for us, so I emailed this lady right away to see what she can do for us.  I ordered a birthday package to be sent to Minsy on her birthday that has a big cake, candies for her friends, a doll, a cute outfit, and a letter from us.  Then this lady, Ann, promised to get pictures of the birthday party for us and find out any updated info that she could.  Hurray!  I am soooo grateful that I was able to get this info about Ann.  Hopefully I'll get some updated info about Minsy soon.

I wanted to share the info we got from the orphanage about Minsy when we chose to adopt her.  I loved getting this information.  We had looked through several different possibilities, and it was interesting to see the difference it what information was included in the paperwork with each child.  For some children it was very minimal -- maybe 6 to 10 lines of typing.  But with Minsy there was almost an entire page of information.  It is obvious when reading her info that her foster family really, really, loves her.  They included so much that really gave some insight into her personality.  When reading this information, keep in mind that it is a translation from the Chinese, so some of the phrasing is awkward, but it's understandable.  I'll give some of my thoughts on this information at the end.  Here is the info we received from the orphanage:

Wu Qingmin, female, DOB: Sep.1 2007(estimated), on Jan.17 2009 was found at the Xinhualu Station of Jianghan District, Wuhan City, and Jianghan PassengerStation police station of Traffic Branch of bureau of public security of Wuhan city picked her up, and on the same day sent her to this institute to raised until now.

On admission, Wu Qingmin wore flower cotton-padded clothes, black cotton-padded trousers and flower cotton-padded shoes. After examination by doctors in this institute, she was 7.5kg in weight, 62cm in height, 44cm in head size, and 43cm in chest size, had 14teeth, her heart and liver were normal by AUSC, she suffered from deformity of varus feet. She was estimated that she was 1year and 4months old according to her 14 teeth and saying mother on admission; so her DOB was confirmed as Sep.1 2007, and she was named as Wu Qingmin. Wu stands for Social Welfare Institute of Wuhan City, Qing means all the children have the middle name in that month, Min means on the one hand the policewoman who sent her to this institute has the name, and on the other hand we hope she will be clever and dexterity.

On admission Wu Qingmin only could sit; she couldn’t stand with being held her armpits, and she had varus feet. Teacher fed her milk, steamed egg, porridge, and noodle, and she could eat. After observation of the week, she was not abnormal, and on Jan.24 2009 she was sent to the family to be fostered. Because the brother of foster family had grown up and studied out of town, the father and mother loved the daughter very much. Mother bought many new clothes for her. At the age of 1 year and 5months, the specialist physician whowas employed by the institute went to the family to have the massage and rehabilitation for her; when the doctors carried out the massage for her, she would shout “No”loudly. The institute ordered the appropriate orthotic device. After rehabilitation, at the age of 1 year and 6months she could walk with one hand held; she could eat melon seeds and candies with peeling herself; she could understand adult’s words; if the families spoke to her loudly, she would be unhappy; she had good imitation, she could do after watching once; she could do the action of Goodbye, Welcome and Prositaccording to the orders. At the age of 2 years she could walk alone; could speak the words of Give, Beat, Eat, Watch TV, Play on the street, and Dance; could call Uncle, Aunt, Jiajia and Grandpa on her own initiativewhen meeting the acquaintance; she could remember thechildren’s name who often went to her home; she could fill a bowl with rice by the scoop, and put rice to her mouth, but part of rice would fall down on the floor. At the age of 2 years and 6months she could walk steadily, could speak a sentence of 3-4 words; could speak out her needs on her own initiative; could know numerals of 1-10; sometime when she sat the unfamiliar objects, she would tell mother by gesture back home, and let mother told her what that was.

Now she is 3 years, she can do some small things what she can do on her own initiative; she will put the shoes in order after families enter the house; when mothertrims vegetables for cooking by squatting, she will go to take the bench for mother. But she is introverted outdoors, and is not talkative. When she plays in the downstairs, if she founds neighbor’s water is boiling, she will pull mother and point to that with finger, meaning that the water is boiling; encouraged by her mother, she musters up her courage and runs to shout“grandma, it is boiling”. She needs to be reminded of her defecation and urination; she will go to toilet while playing, with pulling the toilet paper long and playing there. At the same time she likes to watch cartoon and children’s programs, she will eat melon seeds while watching TV; if she doesn’t like the TV program, she will turn off TV, and then draw with holding pencil sitting on the desk; only mother shout “Minzi, come to wash”, she will be sensible to take her towel and washbasin to the toilet, and let mother wash for her. She also will love mother; when mother finishes and rests, she will go to carry out massage of arms and back for mother; if getting the delicious food, she will leave some for mother.

She has routine life; she has breakfast at 8:30, lunch at 11:30, noon nap between 12:30-15:00, snacks at 16:00, supper at 18:00 and goes to bed at 20:30; she loves to drink milk before sleep or after getting up; the favoritefood of breakfast are quail egg, egg, and pastry and so on; the food of lunch and supper are usually rice or noodles, favorite food are fish, meat, bean curd, white gourd, radish and tomato; favorite fruit are bananas, watermelon; her favorite food is yoghourt; she has sound sleep at night. Now she is 72cm in height, 9kg in weight, 45cm in head size and 45cm in chest size, has20teeth. Except her short height and deformity of varus feet, her other development are normal.

We has let her to be vaccinated according to the plan, once for BCG, OPV 3 times, JEV once, MV 4 times, DPT 4times, HBV 3 times, EMV 2 times, and will finish others on time.

Director: XXX

Children’s Welfare Institute of Wuhan City  

Nov.30 2010

I loved reading about how much love seemed to be in her foster family.  I loved to see that Minsy was loving to them in return.  What is more important than that?  Some people have wondered why her foster family does not adopt her if they have all this love for her.  Well, I can't say for sure, but generally, I can say that it is not always as easy to adopt in China as it is in the US.  It is extremely expensive, and that prevents a lot of people from adopting.  Also, not everyone is eligible to adopt, and maybe her family is not eligible for one reason or another.  I also know a few foster families here in the US, and they have so much love in their hearts that they wish to share with others, but they are meant to be a transitional family -- bridging the gap between the loss of a child's biological parents (for whatever reason) to their eventual uniting with their permanent adoptive family.  These foster families are essential and important, and just because they do not ultimately end up adopting the children in their care, it does not lessen their wonderful impact on the lives of those children. 
So, I don't know why Minsy's foster family cannot adopt her, but I will be eternally grateful for them and all that they have given to her in the last few years.  I really hope that I can meet them when we are in China, but I know that that is not really allowed, so we'll see what happens.  If I can't meet them, I'll at least throw up some mighty prayers in gratitude for them.  That should make a difference a little, right?

It really broke my heart to see that Minsy had been abandoned at the age of 16 months.  That is older than many of the children who are abandoned in China.  I have some thoughts about that, but I'm going to save it for my next post.  I feel like Minsy was in a family who was trying to care for her but just couldn't.  When the report mentions that she could say the word 'mother' when she was found, tells me that she had a relationship with her mother until then.  Wow!  I just can't bring up any words that can properly say just how sad that made me to think about how difficult this decision must have been for that mother and how traumatic that must have been for a little girl who was not quite 18 months old at the time.

So, that brings us up to date on the info we have on Minsy up to this time.  I hope to get some new info soon, and when  I do I'll post it.  What a blessing to be involved in this process.  It is just another event in my life that further shows that we have a living God who knows us, loves us, and will guide us on the path that WE need to be on to fulfill all He has in store for us.  What a journey!

Minsy playing in a park near her home in China

A Sad Tale of Purple Corduroy and Leg Warmers

Today was the last day in my week of school shopping for the six Blau children. I have to divide the back-to-school shopping into two days because I think I would go insane if I had to take all six kids at one time to get this shopping done.  When I have attempted it in the past I have ended up bringing home a nice collection of gangsta memorabilia and booty shorts.  I'll think that I have a good handle on what is ending up in the cart, only to see that I woefully neglected my duties as head shopper.  When I was a girl I always thought that I would love shopping.  I never did it much back then because I never had a lot of money, but I was absolutely certain that my lack of funds was the only thing keeping me from total joy as I shopped.  Well, now I'm older, and I don't suffer for lack of funds, but I have found that I absolutely detest shopping.  Does that make me un-American?  I'm not sure.  I just find that it stresses me out to hunt through all the racks of clothing, trying to decide what will best look right on me.  I find something that looks cute, only to try it on and find that it looks ridiculous on me.  The older I get, the harder shopping becomes.  I really only enjoy shopping in one store -- Christopher and Banks.  But, the other day when I was in there I noticed that everyone else shopping there had to be at least in their sixties.  When I started to think about it I thought that that might be the only real demographic of shoppers who I have ever seen in that store.  I'm sure that isn't true, but I think it says a lot about how conservative my clothing choices lean as I get older.

As I shopped with my children this year I think that for the first time I really felt OLD as they pulled out the latest fashions to try on.  I thought the clothes were absolutely hideous.  Shopping for boys is still pretty easy because there isn't a lot of variation in boy clothing.  But it seems like every year the clothing for girls changes.  I really want for my girls to be dressed nicely, but I just can't keep up with the trends.

Whenever one of the Blau kids enters kindergarten, I take them on a one-on-one date with Mommy to Springfield to spend time together while doing back to school shopping.  This year I took JoJo.  He is the last of my babies to enter school (until Minsy gets here soon), and I was a little sad thinking about this as we hung out in Springfield.  Well, while we were there I saw a really cute plaid shirt that was on sale.  I tried it on, and I looked okay, so I bought it.  I'm not normally inclined to buy plaid, so I felt like I was being a little fashion-forward with this risky (for me) purchase.  So, I get home, and we laid out our haul on the bed for everyone to see, and I showed Laney and Savannah that I wasn't a total fashion geek.  After all, I'd bought this very trendy plaid shirt.  Laney looks at it and says, "Mom, those shirts have been in style since I was in 7th grade."  So now, citizens of the world, I can announce with certainty that plaid shirts will be going out of style within the next year.  Prepare yourselves.  It is inevitable.  I bought one, so they are on the way out.

The shopping adventures of this week brought back a couple of memories from my youth that, sadly, shaped my fashion self-image, and have given me huge anxiety about what I am shopping for.  The first memory is of my brief experience with leg warmers.  When I was in junior high everyone who was anyone had leg warmers, and they were soooo cool to wear.  I wanted leg warmers soooo much, but I was part of a large family, and we didn't have a ton of money to spend on clothing, so we did a lot of shopping at outlet stores.  These are not the outlet stores that are so popular in society today where we can go to the Gap and get that super cute hoodie that I saw at the mall at 40% off.  No, these outlets were stores that big chains like JCPenney and Sears would have to sell off their clothes and other things that had not sold from their flagship stores.  Often these clothes were from the past year.  These stores were a great blessing to a large family living on a limited income, and I was able to get by with good clothes, so I have no complaints about this.  But, this is not a story about those stores.  This is a story about the sweet pair of leg warmers that I found one day as my family was back-to-school shopping.  Oh, I had wanted leg warmers for so long, and now I had found them.  They were gorgeous -- powder blue, and oh so warm.  My legs were going to be styling that year.  But then I showed up to school that year wearing my leg warmers, covering an equally sweet powder blue pair of jeans, only to see that I must have been the ONLY person in my school wearing leg warmers.  What happened?  Where had everyone stored their sweet leg warmers?  How had I missed the end of this trend?  So, my super insecure self took my much hoped for pair of powder blue leg warmers and hid them away in the deep recesses of my closet.  Sigh.

And the fashion woes of my youth did not end there.  I believe it may have been that exact same year, but I had found an outfit that I absolutely adored.  It was super cool -- purple corduroy pants with a purple argyle sweater and purple argyle socks.  But the part of the outfit that sealed it as ultra cool was this purple corduroy men's hat.  I believe that it is called a drivers cap or a hooligan hat.  I don't know.  All I know was that it was super cool.  I loved this outfit.  I would have worn it every day if I could, but in order to limit myself a little, I made sure that I only wore it every single Friday.  That is, I wore it every Friday until one fateful day in junior high when we were taking pictures for the yearbook.  The band was scheduled to get their picture taken that day, and we needed to be in uniform.  We weren't actually performing, so we didn't need to be totally dressed in black, so we kept our socks on for the picture instead of changing them into black ones that would match the uniforms.  So, I was wearing my super stylish purple argyle socks.  While we were waiting for the photographer I heard a fellow band member lean over to the girl sitting next to him and say, "Look at Missy's socks."  His comment was not a big deal.  I don't believe that he meant any harm by it.  But, the girl next to him said, "She wears that outfit all the time."  The words themselves don't really sound all that bad, but the tone said everything.  She was saying it like I was this strange breed of junior high student with a weird choice of clothing.  In reality, I'm not entirely sure that she was trying to be mean.  I don't think she may have meant it to sound to my ears the way I heard it.  I'm actually friends with her to this day, so I don't harbor any ill feelings for this little moment in time.  But, the fact is that hearing her say that made my volatile self start to feel self-conscious about my clothing choices.  I didn't want to wear anything so regularly that people would notice it.  I especially didn't want to purchase any clothing that would stand out.  I became a t-shirt and jeans sort of girl.

It is really silly that I have let these insignificant moments from my past determine my future as Herman often points out.  But, it is what it is, and I do fight a little battle regularly to talk myself through decisions so that I don't let silly past experiences deny me present happiness -- not that my clothing choices have anything to do with my happiness.  These stories, however, do come into play as I shop for my children.  As my nine year-old comes up to me in a store with a super trendy outfit that she loves, I can't help but think of my corduroy pants.  As we find clothing that is super reduced in price I think of my awesome powder blue leg warmers.  As I get dressed for meetings or activities I try to remember exactly what I wore the last time I attended the event so that no one will comment on my lack of variety, even though I can never remember what anyone else has worn, so why would they remember my outfits?  All of these neuroses push at me over and over as I shop with my children each year for school, or Christmas, or Easter, or whatever.  I just endure these outings because it is a necessity with a large family who has the audacity to continue to require larger clothing each year as they get older.  Luckily, other than my sweet nine year-old, Katie, my children are pretty laid back about clothing purchases.  They don't require things to be trendy.  They just want to be comfortable and modest.  Hurray!

I don't think that any of the Blau children have had a leg warmer experience.  To be honest, I think that if they had, they are so self-confident that it wouldn't have destroyed them and left a lasting impression as it did when it happened to their dear mother.  Half of these experiences I had that were so devastating to me as a child and teenager were silly, and my reaction to them was more a result of my low self-esteem than because of any real harm that was done.  That's why I think that as a parent it has been more important for me to help my children to be strong and confident rather than focusing on what fashions I am buying for them.  In the end all of my children (and the rest of the children who are in school with them) will look back on the fashions they wore in these years and wonder how in the world they could have ever worn them.  The fashions won't matter -- it's the people who they have become, and luckily I am blessed with great children who are strong and confident and could probably pull off wearing some powder blue leg warmers without it fazing them in the least.

So Operation Back-To-School Shopping 2011 is complete.  I survived.  All six children survived.  I'd call that a success!

As a side note -- I heard this super cute song on the radio today, and I loved it.  It is not a fancy or complicated song.  In fact, it is pretty juvenile compared to many polished and professionally edited music.  But, I liked the message, and it is a song that had Katie, Hyrum, JoJo, and I bouncing our heads in the car while we listened to it.  I immediately went on iTunes and downloaded it.  Herman is headed to Ames, Iowa, tonight with Laney, Savannah, and Spencer to see the Republican straw poll excitement, and when they called from the road I told them about this new song that I just loved.  When I told them the title and artist Laney said, "NOOOOOOOOO!  Mom, please, NOOOOOOOOOO!"  Turns out, this young man just graduated from Waynesville High School in 2009, I believe, and Laney knows him.  In her words, he's a "dork."  Well, I can't help it.  I still like this song, so I feel no shame in giving a little business to this song-writing "dork."  Do you know why I like this song?  It reminds me of Herman when he travels all over the country doing his workshops for teachers.  He will finish a workshop on the East coast at around 3 pm and have a horrendously long drive ahead of him, but he will get in his car and drive all night to get home instead of stopping at a hotel along the way.  He does this because he loves to be here at home with his family, and he is willing to sacrifice so that he can get here a little earlier.  He's my prince who would drive 1500 miles to be with me, and I thought of him while I heard this somewhat cheesy song.  It makes me smile.  So, here's a youtube video with the lyrics to his song, "1500 Miles", by Austin Morris.  Enjoy!

A Profile in Courage

My daughter, Laney, is proof that Karma does not exist -- at least not for me.   It would seem that the universe would require that I would be blessed with a difficult teenage daughter to make up for my own deep shortcomings as a teenage daughter myself.  However, I have been blessed with a daughter who is wise, humble, cautious, caring, and willing to do what it takes to do the things she knows she should do.  Laney often explains that she was a bad daughter during her junior high years, but I honestly can't imagine what she is talking about.  I think she is just comparing her actions to her own high standards now, while I was comparing her to what my low standards had been at that same age.  She strives daily to make decisions that are good, righteous choices that will lead her in the direction she is striving for.  Parenting is a breeze for a child such as this.  So, all of this leads to what happened today.  Today I withdrew Laney from Waynesville High School.  Let me just rephrase that so that it can sink more into my head because I am still amazed that those words were typed on my blog -- Today Laney dropped out of high school.  I can't help but hear the words to "Beauty School Dropout" every time I think of this.  I would have never thought that this would be a decision that I would agree to as a parent, yet here I stand, having made that decision.

Here's the history of how we got to this point:

I would never think of myself as a home-school parent.  I have great respect for those who choose that path, but it has never been appealing to me at all.  First of all, to be successful at this you really need to be a dedicated, organized, and driven parent.  I have seen too many children who are home-schooled who can barely read and write.  They are wonderful children, but they lack adequate academic progress in many ways.  Those parents who I have known who are successful at home-schooling are extremely organized and dedicate many hours a day to making the experience for their children a good one.  I am not that kind of parent.  I am laid back and fairly disorganized, and I would not be doing any good for my kids to lead their learning experiences at home.  I always have good intentions, but I know myself well enough to know that I would fall flat soon enough.  Also, I happen to love our school district.  There are very talented teachers who are wonderful, and I have never worried about their experiences in the schools.  It helps that I feel as if we have several people within the district looking out for us, and all of my children have progressed remarkably well in this district. There are some who make this decision to keep their children away from the bad influences of the world.  I totally understand this, and I don't criticize this decision in any way, but for me and my family, I think that all of us have to deal with bad influence from the world at some point, and I would much rather this happen for my children when I am around to help them navigate this world, rather than when they are on their own after they leave home.  It's just my personal feeling about this.  There are a lot of kids who go to school with my children who are good, good young men and women.  They are navigating this difficult road also, and it is good for them to see that there are others who are making good choices and working to stay above the crud of the world with them.  Our children are self-assured and strong.  They know who they are and where they are going.  Unlike me, who had so many insecurities and constantly tried to act a role that was not my own in order to seek approval from others, my children are themselves.  They are examples to others and avoid the things that keep them from making those right choices.  So that's my original thoughts about withdrawing my children from school.

Now for specifics about Laney's situation . . . Laney has gone to EFY (Especially for Youth) for the past three years.  Each year that she goes she comes home on fire.  She feels such a renewed energy, and her testimony of the Gospel is strengthened, giving her the strength she needs to make good choices during another school year.  For the past two years Laney has come home and said that she wanted to be home-schooled.  I have always quickly dismissed her for the reasons I stated above.  I really thought that Laney was just afraid to deal with the trials that she would face in the school environment, and I felt confident that her fears were somewhat unfounded.  I knew that she would have the strength to make it through.  This year was different.  Laney is entering her junior year of high school.  She has succeeded in so many activities.  Last year she loved so many of the activities that she was involved in, and now she got the added bonus of having her BFF, her sister Savannah, there with her.  It was going to be a great year -- at least in my head.  Laney and Savannah went to EFY this year in Cincinnati, and when she was coming home she explained, once again, that she felt as if she wanted to be home-schooled.  Herman was driving the girls home, and he said that we needed to really talk with her about this because she felt strongly about it.  I agreed to hear her out once she got home.  It was the strangest thing, though.  As he talked to me on the phone I just got this feeling that this time the answer was supposed to be yes.  I'm sure that was just Heavenly Father's way of getting me ready for this big decision.  Laney got home, and we sat down to discuss this decision.  Laney said that she had had an experience while she was at EFY that led her to believe that this was the road she needed to take.  She said that she was talking with one of the teachers at the camp, and she was thinking about all of the great things she was going to be involved with in school this year.  Right in the midst of those thoughts, though, she got an overwhelming feeling that she was not supposed to go to school this year.  She really believed that she was being influenced by the Spirit to make that choice.

Well, now we had to make a decision.  For all their lives, we have taught our children over and over to be prayerful as they make decisions and to listen to the influence of the Spirit as they make those choices.  We have taught them that it is important to follow that influence, even when it might be difficult or even if it makes absolutely no sense.  We believe that it is maybe the most important life skill that we could possibly teach them while they are in our care.  It is more important than any lesson they could possibly learn at school.  As I listened to Laney explain her experience and her feelings about that prompting, I knew that it was most important that she learn the importance of following that prompting, even if it was an unconventional choice that she was making.  I just asked her to double-check and make sure that that was the answer that she was receiving.  She needed to determine if that was a real prompting or just her own personal desires.  So, she double-checked and got the same answer.  We decided to support her in this decision.  She is now old enough that her learning is mostly self-directed anyway.  She will be taking online accredited courses, so if she changes her mind, she can easily drop back in to school without it harming her at all.  This is actually a great semester to give it a try because we will be missing close to a month of school anyway while we head to China in October.  Actually, she may be able to take a lot more classes that normal because she will be able to work steadily through the classes faster as an independent learner than she would when studying with a class at school.  There is a possibility that she could just get her degree a year earlier (although I'm not really in any hurry for her to leave for college any faster).  Laney is planning to do some very interesting internships with our company as well as some volunteer opportunities around town.  We talked to her #1 choice for college, BYU, to see if it would hurt her chances for scholarships or acceptance, and they assured us that all would be well, especially with her high ACT scores.  So it should be fine.  It should.

So, why am I feeling a little bit of panic about this?  This is new territory for me.  I don't want to make a decision that will harm Laney's future.  I want to do what is best for her in the long run.  Today when we came to school to un-enroll her the marching band was playing their pieces for the season this year.  Our band program is so good, and Laney loved being a part of marching band last year.  Hearing them play today made my heart hurt.  I was sad that she was going to miss that part of school.  She might have been able to only come for that part of the day, but our trip to China comes right in the heart of the marching band season, so the band director and we decided that this semester it was best not to be involved.  (Tears. . . )  Then Laney talked to the students from National Honor Society who were there giving school tours to all the new enrollment students.  Laney was supposed to be part of that group, but her new status prevented her from doing that.  She has a gift for helping new students and mentoring freshman, and she will not be able to do any of that.  As I sat there I thought of all the things that she would be missing this year, and it made me sad.  High school can be full of a lot of anxiety and turmoil, but it is also a time full of rich memories.  I was just a little bummed out that Laney would be missing those memories.  But, really, it will be fine.  Laney will still have great memories.  They will just be a little different than typical memories.  I hope that she will still be able to stay in contact with some of her great friends at the school.  I guess she has facebook for that, so all is not lost.

When making decisions like this I think that it is natural to try to explain why we would be prompted to do such a thing.  I think that can be dangerous.  The truth is that we don't know.  It could be because Laney would have had a difficult time missing that much schooling because of our China trip.  It could be because she is meant to get through school earlier and start college next year.  It could be because she will have a special relationship with Minsy when she arrives, and Laney will be able to form a powerful bond with her while she works on her schooling from home.  It could be because of some sort of lesson that Laney needsto learn.  Who knows?  We sure don't.  But we do know that this is what is supposed to happen for her.  The rest of the Blau children will be attending school in the district next year, but Laney will not.  We are okay with this decision.  I feel a little sadness for Laney's lost potential for memories of high school, but I do not doubt that we are choosing correctly in this case.

Faith is an interesting thing because it is such a personal thing.  I cannot criticize another person's faith, and they should not criticize mine.  The understanding and faith that we have is determined by our own experiences, and it is hard to explain those decisions we make because of the faith we have in divine guidance.  It may make no logical sense, but that does not mean that it doesn't make sense.  I have learned that my life never goes entirely according to the plans that I make for it.  I only walk through this life trying to make the best choices I can as I feel inspired to make them.  I know that when I choose according to the promptings I receive I have never been led astray.  I have faith that Laney will be learning this very important truth also this year.  Here's to our new adventure!!!