ONE LOVE, SUMMER 2010

Well the months just tick by, with this exciting new family and all, don't they? Where did July, August, and September go? Things happen rapidly around here! Vanessa worded it so well last night when she added this to our nightly prayer: Thank you God for my whole family, even me!

Here are a few princess shots of Nanners and Zo-Zo:

At the end of June we celebrated Father's Day and Jack's birthday. Nicole came to visit and we drove Zoey and Nicole home together as a family. Zoey was so excited to go home, but we did feel a big gap with her absence. As chaotic and exhausting as three preschoolers can be, it was also great fun to have three. In some ways, it is harder to have two than three, since three are loads of entertainment for each other. We built some wonderful memories with our time with Zoey.

For Father's Day, our adoption agency asked Jack to be the guest speaker for the monthly nation-wide teleconference they put on for their contracted families. He was a big hit! We watched the original Home Alone movie while he was on his conference call. Home Alone was the movie we saw on Maui in October 1991 on our honeymoon.

After Jack's birthday we packed up and headed east for 4th of July. First we were in Connecticut, overpopulating Auntie Cyndi and Uncle Dave's house. They took us blueberry picking - Van was so focused and serious for this event she didn't eat as she picked and used both hands to grab, making her the top picker for the group - frog catching, puppy petting, swimming, boating and fishing. Much poker was played with the nephews. We also went to an indoor bounce house park type place. Keenan was a big hit. Grandma came. Vanessa followed the big boy cousins with great intent - only deterred by the bite of a turtle Daddio caught - and loved every minute of action. People commented that Vanessa and her big cousin Daniel looked like siblings.

Then we headed to Vermont in a 100 percent humidity heat wave. Grandma rented a big log cabin up there. Almost everyone was there - even Cousin Andy and his girlfriend Michelle. We swam in the river, caught a toad, bbq'd, ate raspberry pie, saw a wicked awesome fireworks display at the high school ball field, set off sparklers and fire crackers, ate s'mores, attended the longest running parade in the state of Vermont (very down home, I might add), and generally had a blast. We barely saw Vanessa because she and Auntie Anne were busy catching up over tea. Keenan navigated the stairs over and over again so we could keep an eye on him. I'd post pictures, but I didn't have a camera, so I took lots of shots with other people's cameras and now I have none for the blog! (So, Jennings family, if I get any pics on email I'll post them here.)

After our idyllic New England summer adventure, we returned home to exotic California. The first thing we did was go to court for the final step in our adoption of baby Keenan! It was just Mama, Daddio and Keen-wah, we decided to have Vanessa go to school that day. The judge and the other official people all rose with us, we held our hands up, and the judge pronounced us a family. Daddio got choked up and said, "I had no idea this would be just like a wedding!" Yes, as Aunt Mary used to say to her two adopted children, just like mommy and daddy chose each other to make a family, so did we choose each other through adoption. We are family!

Then on July 29th Keenan turned one! We decided to have a low key celebration with just Nicole and Zoey for the weekend. It was nice. Nicole is a blessing to us and has made us feel we are his parents from the beginning, with great encouragement and no doubts.

So many people asked us carefully, "How is it going, this open adoption?" Nicole gives us great confidence, says, "you are his parents," does not question our ways, is sweet about making us feel like experts, and she's not jealous. She makes this work. I say it sometimes feels weird, simply because we didn't grow up seeing open adoptions around us as models, and there aren't Hallmark cards for some of our new, extended family. Other than it being brand new territory, it's pretty natural. Keenan is very, very loved.

At the 12 month mark, our wee man child is sleeping through the night. At his well baby check up they measured him at the 90th percentile in height (surely due to mismeasurement of a wiggly guy with a couple extra centimeters of hair on his head). His favorite song is "You're a Grand Ole Flag" because Zoey (and the whole family) had to learn it for her preschool graduation. He has cut new teeth. His favorite games are This Little Piggy, Chase/Be-Chased-By the Monster, and Fetch. He has a wicked throwing arm and he'll dance to anything even remotely resembling a tune. Keenie is a fancy guy - loves putting on shoes - his, Vanessa's, or mine - and the shinier the better. He still looks at Vanessa like she's a rock star and he loves his Daddio to pieces. At one point we must have shown Keenan how lions greet each other - they touch their foreheads together and say Mmmmm - because that's Keenan's favorite greeting.

Just after his birthday, we took Keenan to Mount Hermon for a week with the Hoyts. Auntie Susan and Uncle Jimmy rented a giant cabin and Vanessa and Keenan were the only little kiddies in the family this trip. Vanessa was thrilled to go to "camp" half days, but Keenan cried the minute we set foot in the daycare center and he sensed a parting of parents and babies. That didn't go over so big.

We also went to Santa Cruz boardwalk and introduced Vanessa to kiddie rides, kiddie roller coasters, log ride and haunted house. Whoopee! Our first ride was on the dragon. I rode with her in a dragon built for two. When the ride stopped, she jumped off, headed out, then turned and wrapped both arms around the dragon's long green neck. She stood there, hugging, for a full 60 seconds. She really liked the ride. Some of the nearby adults chuckled.

While at Mount Hermon, I received two compliments which will sustain me for a year, I swear. Two different people, on different days, said, "you have so much patience." Now that was an answer to prayer.

The rest of August was spent enjoying something we rarely ever do... staying home, not traveling and not hosting visitors. It was quite necessary. I soaked up Jack's presence around the house, as did the kids, and everyone's game elevated a little bit.

Keenan's getting a lot of attention out in public these days. Between his walking, dancing and running and his blondie curls and carmel skin, he's become quite the looker. He's fawned over where ever we go, kind of like Vanessa was in Beijing.

Here is Keenan in action. Hope this video loaded correctly!

Well, I was going to edit this and add more photos, but I dropped the laptop that is working and bent the connector to the external hard drive with all the photos. So, this is it for awhile. Hope that's okay.

MR HAPPY AND THE SISTERS

(Deep breath.)

I'm tired.

It's fun and all, having 3 preschoolers in the house, but this is track season, which means Daddio is gone a lot. I'm functioning as a single mom to 3 kids who don't go off to skool every day.

Vanessa got the flu pretty bad. I took her to the doctor with a croupy cough, vomiting and diarrhea. Her temperature was 103.5 and her oxygen rate was 80. They didn't believe it, because she was running around. Well, I guess they did believe it because they gave her a nebulizer and decadron. Daddio was gone for the week, so I did all nighters, managed the kids by day, and kept Vanessa home from preschool (that's only 9 hours per week). It wasn't easy. I counted the minutes until Jack got home!

I'm doing a fair amount of referee work now. The girls play nice together - usually it's pretend about being sisters, puppies at the Humane Society, Scooby Doo, or students going to college on a plane to San Francisco or Santa Barbara. But they argue with the best of them. I do a lot of emergency praying when I'm not sure how to handle a spat. Of course Zoey misses her mom, too. That factors in.

We got to see Nicole twice this month! She came to visit us and then we went to Fresno to see her and Grandma Debbie because Zoey was in a family wedding. It was great to meet everyone and show off Keenan.

Speaking of Keenan, here are some notes on his development... He walks. He talks. He throws the ball. He helps with dressing himself. He claps his hands. He dances. He says a few words. He feeds himself. He blows raspberries on my belly.

Let's just say his dancing was a big hit at the wedding. He's ten months old for heaven's sake. See him here with Nicole's fiance, Erik, getting a lesson...

Keenan is obsessed with balls and loves to throw them at Milo. He's kind of athletic. He climbed two flights of stairs last weekend at the hotel. He'd never seen stairs before. Our pediatrician, Dr. Bravo, is very impressed.

He does say a few words, too. Not many, but "kitty cat" is the biggie. We think he got this from going to the Humane Society every week to pet the kitties. He also says bath and water (wah) and duck. He adores water. We have to teach him to say Cowabunga because he tackles anyone on the floor with a screech and great glee. He does say a primitive version of "I did it!"

After 3 years and 6 months of breastfeeding without a break, I have weaned. I'm done. Keenan is drinking formula and eating stuff we eat, in small bites of course.

Our friends' son Isaiah is in film school at UC Santa Cruz. He needed to do an 8 minute "observation" documentary on some topic, so he chose Keenan. He came to film on the day Vanessa got so sick. It felt like reality tv around here. Should be interesting to see the final cut.

Our adoption agency, Lifetime, puts on nation-wide telephone conference once per month. This month, for Father's Day, they interviewed a dad: Jack. It was well received, we think. Some of the questions were about open adoption and how that worked, and others were about having a transracial family. Lifetime said they may ask both of us to be interviewed at another time on the topic of attachment parenting.

We've had a few brave visitors, too. Loretta came from Seattle. We laughed and laughed. I had my first shower in nearly a week while she played with the kids. Nicole came. Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Doc came for the day.

I'm looking forward to some simple days and nights. Maybe even a nap.

KEENAN IS 9 MONTHS OLD

Okay, so wee Keenan is walking. Today he took 16 steps in a row. And when Zoey and Vanessa and I walk to the park holding hands and Keenan is riding along on my belly in the Baby Bjorn, he claps his hands as we sing songs. No, we didn't teach him to clap his hands.

My goodness, he is something, isn't he?

AND ZOEY MAKES THREE


Last Friday Vanessa, Keenan and I drove down to L.A. to see Nicole and Zoey with the plan to bring them back up to our house. Plans changed a little. Nicole couldn't make it this trip and she and I chatted for awhile about things, both of us concluding that it would be in Zoey's best interest to come stay with us for a long time - weeks, maybe all summer.


So, we had a lovely time with Nicole, then packed up the kids and Zoey's bike with training wheels, and headed north. As I was driving, with three crying then eventually sleeping kids in the back, all I could think was,

I AM THE LUCKIEST PERSON ON THE PLANET.

Basically, Zoey blends seamlessly from our extended family to our nuclear family. Vanessa couldn't be happier! Keenan is positively gleeful thanks to all the big sister antics. The pets have never had so much attention. Daddio and I have plenty to talk about. It is good.

In other news, I got to meet Keenan's birth father Keaton. It was really, really exciting for me. He was friendly, humble, handsome, and quite clearly the source of Keenan's man-build. Keaton is 5' 9" and has a lot of, um, shoulders. He's manly.

Keaton said he could dunk the basketball in 9th grade, but he stopped all sports about that time because he broke his femur. (He also made sure to tell me he and his other children have bad allergies, which might explain why Keenan has had a "cold" since August 15th.) Nicole said Keaton rarely smiles, but I felt like he was smiling the whole time. (Baby Keenan cried here because we gave him a bottle, then took it out of his mouth for this shot.)

Also speaking of Keenan, he's officially walking - just baby steps - but he will be 9 months old at the end of April, so this is sort of early. Jack saw him take his first step just at the end of 7 months, but now it's official. He still bear crawls, but after I let him hold my finger so he could walk along where ever he wanted to go, he's newly determined to be like one of his big sisters.

On Saturday, Daddio took Vanessa and Zoey to track practice. He packed up Nanners' trike and Zo's bike, the sand pails and shovels, a pack of sandwiches, a change of clothes, the camera and some band-aids. The girls had a blast biking the track, digging in the long jump pit, walking the steeples like balance beams and practicing pole vault (i.e., being thrown high into the air and landing in the pole vault pit).

AJ came over and the three girls played for hours in the back yard, with costumes, notes, hiding places, livestock, swimming, watermelons, Barbies, and the play house. AJ was the mom, Vanessa was the baby and Zoey was the big sister. We adults rested. For an only child, AJ does darn well managing the group dynamics.

Monday Zoey and I made cupcakes - her first time - and she was euphoric about getting to lick the bowl. We made white cupcakes for strawberry shortcake while Vanessa was at school.

I took the three kids to Costco. That was a blast. Zoey wore one of Vanessa's black velvet dresses and her red cowboy boots. Vanessa wore Zoey's black velvet leotard and her black flats.

They rode in the cart and I wore Keenan in the Baby Bjorn. He wore bunny ears. We were a chattering mass of a family, moving very slowly through Costco, thanks to me pushing a cart laden with two kids and a load of loot, not to mention me being somewhat tired with a mini stud on my chest. My best trip to Costco *ever*.

Too bad I didn't get a video of us in Costco, but I took these videos of Daddio jamming with Keenan in the living room. Enjoy.

We've been playing around a lot. Gosh it's fun having a house full of children! And, if you're wondering, Vanessa and Zoey are thoughtful and polite with each other a lot of the time. Zoey is well behaved and Vanessa gets into trouble. She can't resist following that monster will of hers, I guess.

Today, between feeding the goats at the farm, petting the kitties at the Humane Society and going to gymnastics, Vanessa had a triple time out - 9 whole minutes. You see, she walked across a puddle as I was saying, "Don't walk in that puddle please," then, while I was holding her hand, she bolted across the parking lot in front of an on-coming car, and when I retrieved her and clutched her hand she flopped in the mud next to the car as I was opening the car door, Keenan in hand. All this in the span of 3 minutes. When I finally buckled her into the car seat I said, "That scared me. No more shenanigans!" and Zoey looked on with amazement. I have no problem disciplining Zoey, but there has been no need.

Zo-Zo loves us ("You all are my best friends!"), but at night she misses her mom. We call Nicole on the phone and Zoey bursts into tears, then, a minute later, someone says, "Wanna hold Chica on your head?" and Zoey is off, laughing and having a grand time. Tonight I told her about summer camp. where kids go away for the whole summer, and about boarding school, where they go away for the school year.

Daddio pushed the two twin beds together so Zoey and Vanessa can sleep in the same room. We tell them to lie very still and be completely silent and we'll bring Milo and Max to them, which we do. Milo sleeps on Zoey's bed and Max sleeps on Vanessa's. They say, "Shut the door!" so the pets won't leave. We dutifully oblige. Everyone is happy.