Princess Snaggle Tooth

Poor Morgan. She's been on a roll with her loose teeth and now that one of her front teeth has gone the way of the tooth fairy, her remaining front chomper has taken the opportunity to stretch out and occupy front and center! Seriously, the girl's gone all trailer park on us.

She's gonna hate me someday for posting that... but it's worth it.

In other news, there is no news. Just a rainy, raw craptastic day. And what do we all do on a dreary evening....



Even the dog is vegging out watching the boob-tube.

Like Watched Water...

You know, like, watched water never boils. No word yet from the mystery lady on Facebook. But we're still going forward with the investigator and hopefully he'll be in KG in June. So until there's some sort of news, moving on.

And what better way to move on than with a little unbridled retarded-ness.

Today I had a voicemail message from the bank that we're refinancing with. It went something like this:

"Hello Mr and Mrs _____, this is Cindy from (Bank of Craptasticness). I just wanted to give you a status update if you could call me at (800)555-5555. At the prompt please pick option 1, then option 1 again (at this point I stop writing down the message). At the next prompt please select option 3 and then number 2. Then enter 65288646 and hit the pound key. I look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience."

Yes, I'm sure you do. But let's face it, that's WAY too labor intensive. What the hell is that?! If she was calling me to tell me I won a million dollars and absolutely needed me to call her immediately, I still probably wouldn't call her back. Seriously, GET A DIRECT LINE!!!

And now for something less crap-tastic, look who went riding today.

For those who don't know, Morgan loves horses... but only as much as she loves bugs and mud, which is still a lot but, you know. I practically have to beg her to ride. Granted, she's allergic, but so aren't I. Suck it up, kid! Seriously, I think there was a mix up at the hospital - this can't be my kid. She just couldn't care less. But today my niece Courtney was practicing for her up coming show and I asked Morgan, in passing, if she would like to ride Mr. Dee and she said yes. Shocking! She did awesome though! Even did some barrels. So I'll hold my breathe and quietly hope she finally gets the 'horse bug'.

What ARE The Chances?

OK, I've kept you waiting long enough...

The other day I was online chatting with a fellow AP (Adoptive Parent) regarding our search for Beck's Birth Mother and she jokingly said, "Don't you wish you could just Google her?"

I laughed. And then realized... I hadn't actually tried that. Hmmmmm....

So of course I immediately Googled her name and BAM! one hit! Some woman from... wait for it.... Kyrgyzstan who received some sort of sales award. No picture. No additional info. But still, my heart was pounding out of my chest! Could this be her? I mean, her name isn't Jane Smith. It's quite a specific name. How many woman from KG have the same name? One of my other friends, who also has a daughter from Kyrgyzstan, told me that it's common that a person's middle name is her Father's name with the suffix "kova". So this Google match has the same first name and apparently, the same Father's name as well.... What are the chances? Probably the same chance of having that hottie Ralph Fiennes showing up at the Tokmok orphanage... oh, wait.

I quickly get in a 3-way chat now with Hilary and tell her about my discovery. Within a few minutes Hilary types, "She's on Facebook"

What?!

I clicked on the Facebook link and the good news she actually has a profile picture... the bad news is Facebook makes it too wee to get a good looksie. DAMN!!!!! But you can tell at least, she's female, she's probably around the correct age and she appears to be Asian. Could this really be her? Could it be this easy to find her?!

So I sent a friend request with a note asking her if she's from Kyrgyzstan. I didn't know what else to do. And then I sat at my computer, refreshing my Facebook page... Hoping she'd at least just accept my friend request.

I'm still waiting.


And waiting.

Easter MADNESS!!

OK this isn't the blog post I promised would be interesting in my 'It's a Small World' series. But it's Easter and I gotta take care of this bidness.

It's been a sugar-driven, fun-packed day! We had the family over for breakfast and then the annual Easter egg hunt craziness. I'm a bit wiped out (after all the Easter bunny had to get up at 5am to go brave the freakin' cold wind, hunting for places to hid eggs that wouldn't be blown away!) so I'll tell the story of today in pictures and captions.

Last night's egg dying festivities



READY, SET, GO!
We made the kids wait until AFTER breakfast to hunt for the eggs (because I'm the Mom and I can *evil laugh*). Morgan was up at 6am with her nose pressed against the window all morning plotting out her every step in the 'Tour de Egg'. They were freakin' WILD with anticipation!



Ummm, Papa, that's not an Easter egg....






It was pretty hard to get this shot before they ripped into their loot!


Several years ago our dog Trixie barked at the Easter Bunny while he was trying to hide his eggs. The Bunny got the last laugh and painted Trixie like a crazy K-9 Easter Egg every year after. Trixie's been gone a few years, but apparently Benji is now victim to the Easter Bunny's antics.

It's A Small World

Have you ever had a week were tremendous coincidences abound. You know, those moments that find you slackjawed and wondering, "what's the chances of that?!"
I've had one of those weeks.
And seriously, this post isn't the half of it. I've got a real goodie coming your way in the next posting... I'm just waiting, and hoping, for a bit more info before I share it with you.

(yeah I know, don't you hate it when people leave ya hangin' like that?)

But for now, check out this picture...


Right there in the middle is my uber-crush, Ralph Fiennes! That alone, makes it an awesome picture. But look closer. He is standing with Tatiana and the other staff members AT BECK'S ORPHANAGE IN TOKMOK! WHAT?!
Hilary sent me the link to his diary detailing his trip to Kyrgyzstan, and specifically about his visit to the Tokmok Orphanage.
He writes:

This was probably the most distressing place I’d seen, I think. Very young children from a few months old to maybe two or three years old. I get a sense of, well, of the palpable love of the women and the lady who ran it, Tatyana.

Tatyana has been looking after children with disabilities for 11 years. But it was the faces of these tiny children (many of whom were clearly undernourished or psychiatrically disadvantaged) that impressed me the most. When we arrived, we sat down with Tatyana who talked about the principles of the centre. Most of the children have been abandoned because they have some deformity, either physical or mental, or because their parents just can’t cope. Trying to advance them in terms of their disabilities.


They deserve better facilities, better buildings, more equipment. Some of the children were very ill. They had serious mental and motor skill problems and they were housed in a very old building that I recognised as being probably from Tsarist times, which was quite rare. Very old floorboards, woodwork and old windows. Again, the western visitor is stumped for an adequate response in the face of what the women at the centre were trying to achieve, were trying to hold together. They were trying to give these children a life.

It was sobering seeing these tiny faces looking up at us. We must have seemed like weird, strange giants coming in with our camera equipment and books and backpacks and things. And these children reaching out. One little girl grabbed my hand and tried to pull me into the room, and I wondered how long they would be here and what their memories would be of this place when they were older. Will all of them have memories of institutions throughout their life and who would be the ones who would find a home?

Of all the places in the world, how amazing that he came to be at the very same little orphanage, in a tiny relatively unknown country (He admits he knew NOTHING about the country prior to his travel) that Beck came from.

*swoon* It's like we have a cosmic connection. OK, I wish.
So let's see, that makes me, what 1 degree of separation? Or is that 2? Me-Tatiana-Ralph. Hmmm, not sure how that works. But regardless, I think it's super cool.

Heavy Talk For 8am

Yesterday when I picked Beck up at pre-school his teacher mentioned to me that one of the students had mentioned the ol' "I came out of my Mommy's belly" announcement and Beck quickly piped up to agree that he had too. His teacher nicely mentioned that Beck had, but that he had TWO Mommys.
Obviously we've never planned on keeping Beck's adoption a secret even though people ask me if we're 'gonna tell him'... Ummm, hello? I think at some point he'd start wondering...
Often Beck will see a picture of our family PB (Pre Beck) and he'll ask where he was and we always explain that he hadn't come home to join our family yet. We've always made it a point that his adoption just be another thread in the fiber of our life; no secrets, no big reveal, just another fact in our every day life.
Well on the way to school this morning Beck and I were talking and I called him 'my Baby' as I always call him (and Morgan for that fact) and he asked me, "Why you call me baby?"
"Because you're my baby." I replied.
"I come out your belly?" He questioned.
"No. You came out your first Mommy's belly and then you came to be with us and I'm your Mommy too."
"What's her name?" he asked
First I'm a bit stunned. He's one bright 4 year old. I tell him her name and he repeats it with a confused look on his face.
"Did Morgan come out another woman's belly?" He continues.
Are you sure you're four???? "No, Morgan came out of my belly."
He's once again puzzled. I went on to tell him that even though they became members of our family in different ways, they are both my babies.
And with that, he ended his line of questioning but I could see that the little wheels inside his head continued to turn.
After our little chat I went home and realized I needed to get going on my quest to find his Birth Mother. I made contact with an investigator (is that the right term?) months ago but it's been put on the back burner since. But I know now more than ever that finding her is the right thing to do. If he wants to know about her at four years old, there will only be more and more questions as he grows. I mentioned it months ago to some people and they responded with a gasp and asked why on Earth I would want to do that. The answer is simply; She will always be important to Beck and I owe it to him to find her. Or at least try.
So I need to compose a letter to her and a list of questions. Where on Earth do I begin?