on an up note. . .

I know, I know, a Secondsister Jewelry giveaway has been a long time coming, but here it is! These lovely "Meadow" earrings are up for grabs! Leave a comment, and on Monday I'll use one of the weird little online random number picker thingys to choose a winner. Tell your friends! Shout it out! FREE JEWELRY HERE! GET YOUR FREE JEWELRY!

That's not all I have for you either. After a small stint of moodiness this past week, I thought I'd share a few more reasons to be happy about today.

Now available through Nendo- chocolate pencils. Yes, indeed ladies, chocolate pencils. Now, for all intents and purposes, these pencils were created to use as a baking tool to create shavings for desserts. However, I see no reason to spend time sharpening the pencils just so you can get a miniscule amount of chocolate on top of your molten lava cake. I intend to eat these pencils like a carrot. That's how I roll.

As long as we are talking about chocolate, and all things wonderful, check this. My baby sister and her hubby will be married 5 years this November and I happen to know that they are more in love today than they were on their wedding day. Believe in marriage.

Every parent, ahem, every good parent, thinks that their baby's bottom is the cutest thing around. We can't help it. It comes with the territory. I gave birth to my son and in the midst of all the emotion and commotion, I distinctly remember thinking, "Well look at that. That is about the cutest bum I've ever seen." And then I collapsed from exhaustion.

So in China, they put their children in bottomless pants. They say it is for practical reasons, you know, for potty training and all, but I'm not so sure. Baby bottoms- another reason to smile today.

protect this girl

This is how neurotic I am: When I heard about the earthquake in China this morning, I wondered about our birth mother. Did she live in the Sichuan Province? Was she okay? If she does live there, did she loose anybody she loved?



China is so massive that the chances that our birth mother even felt the quake are slim, but I have come to identify anything Chinese as relating to our adoption. Everything seems personal. Chinese traditions and culture have become part of our family, who we are.



I wish I could send a tiger hat to our birth mother. I wish I could hold her hands and tell her that we think of her often and pray she migh have health, happiness, courage and safety.

The Export Business

Ni Hao! Last Saturday was the FCC (Families with Chinese Children) big New Year's party. As usual, it was a huge production with food, music, crazy decorations and a million darling Chinese girls running around in their dance costumes. This is our second year with the FCC and we love it.

There seems to be some confusion in our house about where babies come from. Thomas is under the impression that all babies come from China and are then exported out, not unlike many, many other Chinese products. How do I explain that Mei Mei isn't like electronic gadgets and cocktail umbrellas?

double happiness

Amy's Twins

Part of our adoption home study included "parenting" classes. It came to light three quarters of the way through the course that the teacher, in fact, had no children of her own. No wonder she was an expert on parenthood.

Anyway, one of the good things to come out of the whole deal was that I made a really good friend. Amy and her husband had been waiting for two years for their referral. She was desperate to become a mother. She was jaded by years of infertility. And then things changed.

Amy and Tim finally received a referral, for not one, but two baby girls, twins in fact. I had made Amy a necklace with a cherry blossom and the Chinese name she had picked out which means cherry blossom. I had to quickly add another link with a second name! Katy and Julia have since entirely taken over Amy's gorgeous, sophisticated house. I'll just mention that now, there is a rather large train track encircling their grand piano.

We get together every now and then and I love to see Amy mother her two rambunctious little china dolls. She is a natural.

I think often about the twins, because they are so cute and the story of their adoption is special, but also because, in my mind, Mei Mei has taken on the likeness of Amy's girls. When I dream about her, she looks just like them. They give me something semi concrete to hold on to.