Ukraine Adoption

Sun, fun, eat, drink, sleep. Repeat

I think the title says it all. There's nothing quite like a beach vacation in North Carolina. The ocean is warm, the pool is refreshing, the food is delicious, the tiki bar is, well, let's just say they have a blender.

Only a few more days left, we're going to try to keep having fun.

(More pics in the photo set on the left)

At the beach

There's a tropical storm brewing nearby and we are getting just a taste of it occasionally, but otherwise thoroughly enjoying our oceanfront dwelling.
Our biggest decision in the morning: beach or pool?

I will try to post some pictures later.

Which way to the beach?

We are taking our annual beach vacation on the east coast of North Carolina, and really looking forward to just getting away for a week. I will try to post some pictures while we're there. Our puppy will be boarded, so we hope he'll be OK and won't regress in the house/potty training area...

Our neighbors will watch our kitty, as he wouldn't do well to be boarded. Let's hope he doesn't get angry at being abandoned by us and pee in my closet again. Sigh. At least I had a good excuse to buy some new things last year.

Screamfest

Tara has a habit of screaming, even when she's having fun with her brother or the pets. It's a piercing scream, the kind I could can and sell to horror movie producers. We are trying to break her of this behavior, as it can be disruptive and annoying. Plus, when will we know if she is seriously in trouble??

I grew up in a very quiet house, I don't remember any of us five kids screaming. Austin is a very quiet kid, so this is something we're not really used to even after 3 years of Tara!

Her screams can go from hysterical to laughter in a flash. Sometimes by the time I get into the room, she is laughing with tears still streaming down her cheeks. When I try to remove her from the situation, she gets angry. Sometimes I ignore it. Maybe she just wants attention. Or maybe she is just feeling small and that's her defense mechanism. It's hard to know. I put her in time-out yesterday after a long screech during a pillow fight with her brother. She was more mad at me than him.

If anyone has suggestions on how to deal with this, they would be most appreciated. Or maybe she will just grow out of it? I mean, she won't be screaming when she walks down the aisle to pick up her medical degree....will she? Oh, that would be me screaming. :-)

A first, more than 3 years later

Tara filled her Barbie backpack with rainbow pajamas, pink shorts, a pink shirt and her beloved stuffed dolphin and told me she was ready to go. She was excited to be spending the night last Saturday at Aunt Karen's house. I was excited for her, but I was also a little choked up. For this was to be the very first time since April 2005 when she came home from Ukraine that she and I would be apart for a night. More than three years.

Yes, it's true. I have avoided business trips and our vacations have all been with the family. So while she was ready for her first sleepover, I wasn't so sure I was ready to drop her off and drive away.

The overnight adventure was set up because Tara didn't want to go with us to a baseball game Sunday, and Aunt Karen has been wanting her to spend the night for quite some time. You see, they both love arts and crafts. Aunt Karen had a bunch of projects for them to do; Tara would be thrilled. I knew this.

So during the 30-minute drive in the rain to Aunt Karen's Saturday evening, I reminded Tara to be polite and say please and thank you and to tell Aunt Karen if she needed something. She had band-aids in her pocket and a few extra pair of undies in her bag. Finally, Tara said, "I'll be FINE, Mommy."

Indeed. When we arrived, Aunt Karen and cousin Caroline were there to greet her. Karen pulled out all kinds of artwork for them to work on and explained each project to a wide-eyed Tara. I hung around longer than I needed to, hovering, holding my keys. Finally I said good-bye but they hardly noticed that I was leaving.

At home, I felt a little guilty for enjoying the short-term sense of freedom that I suddenly had. I read a magazine, uninterrupted, and ate an entire candy bar. I had a conversation with Austin, uninterrupted. And John too.

At the baseball game on Sunday, I called to check on Tara. Did she sleep ok? Has she been behaving? Is she crying? Karen told me Tara slept good and was just fine. Does she want or need to talk to me? I asked. Some mumbling on the other end. No, she says she's going to eat lunch now, Karen told me. Oh OK.

We had a lot of fun at the game, and I have to admit, it was much easier without Tara getting bored and restless.

Hours later when I picked her up, Tara told me she had a lot of fun at Aunt Karen's house. Caroline got her McDonalds for lunch, they made chocolate chip cookies, Uncle Mike playfully flipped her around, a pile of artwork sat on the table.

It seems we both survived this milestone.

The Summer of 2008

Hanging out by the lake on an August afternoon.

Tara smiles

Today we found out Tara's kindergarten teacher and we're thrilled! She will have the same teacher that Austin had seven years ago. This is SO cool. This teacher keeps creatures in her classroom and she is very creative, nurturing and fun. Tara will really enjoy her year.

I like this picture, that's why I'm positing it. It's from her studio shots with my photographer friend Amy.

Tara-isms part XXVI

On the way to Grandma's house today, I interviewed Tara, who was busy in the back seat poking at our puppy in his carrier.

If the puppy could talk, what would he say? I asked her. "He'd say goo goo, ga ga." Is that it? "Yes, he's a baby, he can't talk yet." Somehow that makes sense.

What do you like about our new puppy? I asked. "Well, I'm glad he's a boy because he likes to play. Girls just sit around and don't do anything." OK...

If our cat could talk, what would he say to the dog? "Hey! Quit jumping on me!"

In the car, the puppy was panting a little. Tara said, "Why did we get the big-tongue one?"

She asked me when we are going on vacation. In three weeks, I told her. "Is that like, two days?" she asked. No, it's 21 days, I said. "Oh. So like, when I wake up tomorrow, will that be two days?"