GERD

Kara has been put on Prevacid for her GERD and will get a blood test for Celiac disease.

She weighs 28 1.2 pounds, dear heavens! 10 pounds heavier than Amanda. she has gained 7 1/2 pounds since she was weighed in Kiev in December. That is a little over a pound a month, isn;t that amazing? She is actually a little too heavy! LOL

GI appointment today

All three girls wearing their sister tees, did I mention my camera is broken? I am sorry for the image quality, my Dh's camera shutter is slow and captures the girls when they move. I miss my Olympus.

Kara and Meghan both see the GI doc today, Kara at age 3 spits up like an infant after she eats, so we need to address this. Meghan has tummy aches and has had GERD, so we want her seen for this as well.

I will update after the appointment.

A morning in the life of our family

This should be posted in all three blogs, as it is not about Kara alone.

Yesterday Tom and Julia went to pick up his mother from and after care facility. She had a knee replacement. We could not all go because there would not have been room in the van, so the little girls and mommy stayed home. Not to mention the fact that even after 33 years, my MIL is not very fond of me. She never has been, I am an outsider into their culture. It matters little that I gave her eight grandchildren. Honestly, I do not believe she counts the last two; she never even bought them gifts when we adopted them, this truly wounds me. Tom says he expected it and shrugs it off.

After Tom and Julia left, I decided to make it a day of watching children's movies and playing with my daughters. Well between feeding and diapering them that is.

We put on our first movie; I gave Meghan and Kara their breakfast and I fed Amanda her while Kara fed herself. When Kara was finished she came over to eat the rest of Amanda’s food, Amanda was not happy with this arrangement at all, and pushed Kara away, who whined and tried to situate herself between Amanda and HER Mommy. I sat her next to me instead and of course this was just too distressing, she whined, cried, carried on, such a little drama queen. She has a phony cry perfected, does it; looks up from the corner of her eyes to see if there is a reaction, and if not, she does it again.

Well, this situation meant I needed two spoons and twice as much food. As I got up to get this, Amanda began to cry, her very insistent infant cry that sounds so sad. So now, neither girl is happy with their new mommy. It is so apparent that Kara is confused, she wants to know why we make her eat by herself and Amanda gets help. I am OK with indulging her a little where this is concerned, as long as she feeds herself first. It is a big step for her to self-feed; Amanda is months away from that skill. Of course, Kara does not understand that.

So there I was feeding Amanda a mouthful, then Kara, and so on. Amanda had a scowl on her face, and Kara had a triumphant grin and a gleeful gleam in her hazel eyes. Amanda makes the funniest faces ever, I love watching her expressions. Sweet Kara’s emotions are all over her face too, and I love her soulful eyes and pouty lips. LOL.

These two little girls are completely different from one another; I could not have chosen two so dissimilar if I had been purposefully attempting it. Both are beautiful; Kara with very large features, and stunning smiles, Amanda an ethereal and fleeting beauty, there are times she can look quite strange, even comical ( I mean that with respect and love, she is a dear little girl), others when you can envision her an angel with wings; she is so lovely.

Kara is muscular, a mesomorph to the extreme, a Mary Lou Retten of little girls (remember her?), stocky, short limbs, fingers, toes, strong, healthy, robust. In fact, she loves turning somersaults and flipping, we believe gymnastics would be a good thing for her. (After AAI screening of course) Amanda is frail, very long bones, ectomorphic in build. It seems she will break if not handled with care, though for all her tiny size, she is strong. She does not seem as healthy as Kara, you can feel it, smell it (yes she smells like orphanage still, I am trying to remember how long it took for that to go away with Kara) A mothers intuition that tells you she is not as healthy as she should be.

After breakfast, both girls get a bath. I put Kara in first and washed her hair, she laughed as the water hit her head and was playful, enjoying herself. This a newer part of her acceptance of bathing; she used to cry. Amanda saw the water and began to scream in protest, which prompted Meghan to dash in to see what was happening. Meghan does not like either girl to cry, and she yells at me for it, I have to hug her every time the little ones get upset. I did not put Amanda in until the water had stopped running as that seemed to be what was scaring her. It did not matter, so I washed her quickly and took her out. Kara wanted to remain to play. Therefore, while I applied lotion, diapered, and dressed Amanda, Kara played in the tub.

With Amanda dressed and happily playing, I got Kara out and did the same with her, she has a terrible rash on her thighs, it has been there since her adoption waning and waxing, terrible eczema, and it needs a lot of moisture. By the time we were done, the movie was half over, so I restarted it, Meghan then came back and watched half of it with me. Then came the phone calls, first DS Terry, then DS Brian, and then DD Julia and finally DH Tom interrupted our movie watching plans again. The girls did not seem to mind, so I just left the movie running.

Kara came to sit on my lap, Amanda went to explore the house, she was doing her funny little sit crawl all over the place, and Kara wanted one on one Mommy time. (Meghan keeps leaving all of us to watch her romantic comedies in my room, the little girls are fun, but only when she chooses to play with them). I sat there with Kara and she signed her version of LOVE and laid her head on my chest, she repeated this many times. I kept hugging and kissing her, she seemed to need that reinforcement, she is confused; Mommy left and came back with a usurper. This was the first time in two weeks she would let me hold her like this; she is just so jealous of Amanda. I was thrilled with her overture, hoping it meant she was accepting her sister’s presence.

Amanda though believes I am HER mommy alone, and once she saw Kara sitting with me she came and sat beside me. I rubbed her short hair and kissed her forehead, but continued to hold Kara. Amanda tried to pull Kara off, what is a Mom to do. I tried to hold both girls, but they each wanted me to themselves. I held on to Amanda and comforted her; Kara plopped on her belly and dejectedly began to suck her thumb, her face turned away from us. I rubbed her back a little. She then decided that she should sit on my lap and in her very Kara way (rump first) she pushed Amanda off. After a few minutes of this, I sat both little girls down with a kiss to each forehead and got up to fix lunch, they both went off in different directions. I have never had two so close in age before, so I am not accustomed to this push-me pull-me scenario. It can be tiring for a mom, and I do understand their emotional states, which makes it difficult because I want them both to feel happy and secure.

Meghan in the meantime seems happy with the way things are, occasionally, she will come for a hug, but she is older and after a tumultuous beginning with Kara, is docilely accepting Amanda. She is my Meghan, my very special sweetheart and she truly does have a heart of gold.

Prayer request

Dear blog readers, in the next couple of weeks two very special children (Sean is a young adult) will be having life saving heart surgery. Both have links on my blog, Emma and Sean, look below my favorite blogs.

Please hold them up in prayer as both of their lives depend on the success of their surgeries.

Ah, my sweet girl

Do ya believe in astrology? Maybe not, but I have fun with it. Kara is a Scorpio, and one of Scorpios bad traits is jealousy (I am also a Scorpio, but close to Sagittarius) Kara is so jealous of Amanda, she just flat out ignores her. She is so thrilled to see all of her brothers, her parents, and Julia, she adores Meghan. She and Meghan are watching a movie as Amanda hangs out with the adults.

Amanda does not seem to care either way, she is content to be with us, however I find I miss Kara time, she is upset with me for bringing Amanda home. Oh well, she will just have to adjust the little stinker.

She is happy despite her new sister, and it has strengthened the bond with Meghan, I am wondering how she will do in preschool. I expect notes telling me she pulled someones hair...I sure hope not. I am slightly anxious about her going to preschool but she needs the therapy, so she will benefit from it, and maybe Meghan and Amanda can play more and bond without Kara climbing all over them. LOL All I know is the two hours without her a day will be hard at first.

Kara is doing a little better

She is all but ignoring Amanda, which is fine by Amanda, who prefers peace and quiet. Kara prefers loud music, rough play, and fierce hugs. These two are so different from one another.

Kara has good and bad days, lets just say that she is definitely retesting boundaries, doing all the things she knows she gets in trouble for, so I have been holding her a lot, giving her hugs and kisses.

The other day DH gets up and leaves his laptop on the end table next to the chair, Kara made a beeline for it and decided it should be flat and broke the hinges. I am of the mind that small children cannot be blamed entirely for the negligence of their parents, and DH agreed this time, he should not have left the laptop down where Kara could get to it.

You can see her in the picture above, the day I picked her up from the orphanage, she was enthralled with the laptop, I put Elf in for her and was trying to change into pajamas and heard a thump, yes, she pushed the laptop off of the desk. Thankfully it landed on the chair, but she got her first time out, see below. Her stroller was her time-out place. Such an unhappy little girl, the stroller was the only safe place for her when I was in the bathroom, she was climbing on the chair and desk and I was afraid she would break her neck.

She continues to try to throw everything down on the floor, why does she do this? My house which is rarely tidy anyway is such a disaster when Kara wakes up, she throws everything down she can find. I tell her no and put it back where it was, I figure we are having a good day when the tables still have things on them at the end of the day. LOL

She actually is doing quite well, she is just acting her developmental age. She and Meghan play pretty well together and Kara laughs more than anything else. We all have some adjusting to do, I expected Kara to regress, Meghan certainly did when Kara came home, so we take each day at a time and are grateful for all the good in each. I am tired at the end of the day, but that is because Amanda is not on our sleeping schedule yet.

Tom repaired his laptop...

A backslide-bound to happen, woe is me-and Meghan

Get this new sister out of here mom, yes, this was Kara's look because Amanda was screaming bloody murder during their bath.

Poor Kara has a bad heat rash, so we let them play in the cold tub for a long time, she is not used to this heat, I know Ukraine can get hot, but Vorzel was a bit cooler than Kiev. AZ has them beat by 10 degrees.
So all three girls took a bath together, trying to save time, something we have little of these days. Amanda cried and made Kara grumpy and Meghan nervous. We took Amanda out early and let Meghan and Kara play a little.

Miss Kara is not a happy camper about not being the center of attention, oh no, she is not. Amanda being sick has pulled away too much attention from our Ukrainian princess and she is retaliating by pulling hair, throwing things off of tables, and well, being a brat. All of her behavior is something we worked months to quell, so we just start over again, that's all...

Yesterday she had a double handed grasp on Meghan's hair, pinning Meghan down to the sofa and Meghan was hitting her trying to get her to let go. I admonished Meghan for hitting until I noticed Kara's look of glee and the pudgy hands entangled in Meghan's already thin hair.

Needless to say Kara was given a talking to and the whole "This is a nice touch" and "you hurt you sister, you can't do that, NO, no pulling hair, do you understand" (does she?) Meghan pouted on cue, but only because she was profoundly hurt, she is not a mean child at all, and does not understand why Kara keeps hurting her. So she cried and pouted for a while, hurt that her best buddy Kara would inflict so much pain on her and laugh, and mad at me that Kara got into trouble. Can a mom never win?

To top it all off, frail little Amanda who was sitting on my lap had to be put down in order for me to deal with Kara's death grip on Meghan's hair. So she is watching the whole scene from the floor with a look of disbelief and then resignation to her little face. She began her breathing hard-grinding teeth-rocking-using her soothing behaviors and Meghan went over to hug her as soon as I got Kara's to let go of Meghan's hair. Meghan needed a hug more than Amanda, who pushed her away with both arms, and this upset her even more.

Kara seems to ignore Amanda, or she just knocks her over, Amanda though skinny and tiny, can hold her own.

Kara is such a bulldozer with people and their emotions, yet I was seeing some great progress before I left, so I have hope we can teach her to be gentler and to have more compassion. Kara does not fully understand that her behavior is hurtful, but she does like making Meghan cry, and that concerns me. I saw the same behavior at the orphanage from all of the kids.

After the whole incident Kara needed loving and I held her while she sucked her thumb a little. She looked in my eyes and signed "Love" and hugged me, kissed me with her funny little kiss of leaning forward and placing her lips on yours ever so lightly and then moving back to look into your eyes again.

It is because of this that I think she knows she did something hurtful, she seems to apologize in her own Kara way, but the impulsivity is an issue for her.

We will talk about her over-eating on another post.

The ugly side of special needs adoptions

How heartbreaking for these special adults.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080716/ap_on_re_us/abuse_adopted_children

One of all three

Aren't they funny? I like this one of Kara, no way was I getting all three looking at me at the same time.

Kara is covered in a heat rash, poor baby, so she can't wear shirts, they make her too hot. I hope a bare chested 3 year old is OK...I ran in to get a tee when I realized some folks may not appreciate it. This picture though, is without it.

It is so good to be home

Kara saw me at the airport and threw herself at me, I nearly dropped her, she is HUGE, Amanda is such a tiny peanut and I got used to holding her, I can't get over how big Kara has gotten, she wore some of the same clothing Amanda wore in Estonia, and they fell off of her too, and now she can;t wear them at all. Too tight for her.

Kara hugged me and gave me a kiss and hugged me again. She was just so precious. DH, Meghan, Julia , and DS Terry were also along. I got hugs from all of them. When I heard we were descending into Tucson I nearly began bawling my eyes out, a sob escaped and I stopped it. The fatigue is great at the end of the trip, as all who have adopted internationally know.

So we finally get home and I sit little Amanda on the couch and there goes Meghan, rubbing Da's hair (or maybe she means Duh? LOL AmanDA, in case you were wondering where it came from) Well Kara was not going to be left out and crawled over Meghan to grab a huge handful of Amanda's mercifully short hair, then Meghan's, then mine. She was so excited she did not know how to express herself poor little girl.

Kara climbed back on my lap and hugged me close, looked at me like she could not believe her eyes, and hugged me again. My little waif who hated to be held in Ukraine, hugging and kissing her mama. No longer little or a waif, but a robust girl with lots of love to give. Lets hope Amanda survives her affection. tee hee

Kara and the kitten

Video snapshots off of Skype. Meghan keeps telling Daddy she will hold Anna, what she calls Kara. She calls Kara Anna because she thinks she is the forst little girl we were going to adopt. No matter what we say we cannot convince Meghan Kara is not she.

Kara has gotten so chunky, look at that belly and chubby little arms! I am praying Amanda gets some flesh on her tiny frame, she is so frail, Kara will mow her down! Amanda though, can defend herself fine, she is feisty too.

I am lucky that I can see the girls (Julia, Meghan, and Kara and DH of course) twice a day on Skype,they are OK for 5 minutes then they want down to play; Kara and Meghan that is, not Tom and Julia...

Tom told me Kara has bonded with our kitten at home, a sweet little black kitten with white boots. He said they are often found in the girls room playing. It is great that Kara will finally play in there, for a while she refused to go in her room except to sleep. I think it is so sweet that Kara has her own pet (though Julia would disagree..., she likes the kitten too)

I miss Kara so much and ache to hold her again, I miss all of the girls, but leaving Kara so soon after we adopted her was difficult. She looks happy and well without mama though, Daddy is taking good care of them, no surprise there.

Amanda and I come home in 3 days, we leave early Thursday morning for Tucson, 19 hours of flying to get us home.

How to get the Criminal history letter for the state of AZ

The state of Arizona does not provide adoptive parents a letter stating they have no criminal history for the purpose of international adoption, it is against AZ state law. Now I have all of this information back home, but I will try to explain from memory:

First of all you will need to get a fingerprint card, and an order form from the FBI to get your proof that you do not have a criminal record. I also attached a personal request letter to this stating why I needed them to rush the prints. When you mail your prints, write in large letters "Urgent International Adoption" on the envelope, believe me, it does help expedite your prints.

I have the forms for the fingerprint cards and the order form saved on my computer, the link the FBI gives is broken, hey FBI, please fix your webpage! I will need your email address to send them, leave a comment to me with your email address, I will not post it to the blog.

How to contact the FBI:

To obtain a copy of your FBI Record, you must send a written request to:
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Special Correspondence Unit
1000 Custer Hollow Road
Clarksburg, WV 26302

You are required to provide the following with your written request:
v An $18 money order payable to the U.S. Treasury;
v A ten-print fingerprint card bearing your fingerprints from a local law enforcement office;
v A return mailing address for your response; and
v A court-certified copy of a final disposition regarding your criminal offense in order to update your FBI Criminal History Record.
Updating this information may resolve your repeated delayed response into an immediate proceed.
The FBI Special Correspondence Unit can only provide information on criminal history records. They have no access to NICS background check records.
Locate information on the FBI Special Correspondence Unit at:
www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/fprequest.html
NICS Customer Service
1 (877) 444-NICS (6427)

The FBI will return the fingerprint card to you with a stamp on the back that says: "No arrest record" in a few weeks, so send the cards in as early as you can.

You will need to get the notarized letter from The Arizona Department of Public Safety to attach to each fingerprint card. See an example of the letter below, (click the lick) but do not print it out.
http://www.azdps.gov/reports/criminalhistory/default.asp

You will call DPS at 1-602-223-2222 and tell the operator that you are a parent adopting internationally from Ukraine and you need their letter to attach to your FBI fingerprint clearance. They will ask you for your name, make certain you give them your name as it appears on your passport. Double check the spelling, have them read it back, I had to have my first one redone because they spelled my name wrong. The letters will be notarized when you receive them.

OK, once you have everything back from the FBI and the letter from the Department of Public Safety, you will need to attach a cover letter to the AZ Dept of Public Safety letters and your returned prints from the FBI. You agency should be able to help you word this cover letter. You will need to notarize and apostille this.

I don't think I left anything out, but since I am in Estonia, I cannot access my computer. Ukraine was fine with the police clearance being done this way for Arizona.

Good luck with your adoptions.