A Soccer Mom in her Rockin’ Minivan

I am officially a soccer mom. My rockin’ minivan drives Noah and Zoe to soccer lessons on Saturday mornings. They started last week. Since they are only ten months apart, I had been waiting until their ages were right for them to be in the same class. As another mom with three kids close together once pointed out, “Mommy and Me” classes are common, but “Mommy and Me and Me and Me” classes (or, to be fair, “Daddy and Me and Me and Me” classes) are pretty hard to find. This is a parent-child class, and our goal (ha ha!) is to be able to do it with one parent for both children. We’ve had someone watch Colin the past two weeks so that Christian and I could both be on the field with Noah and Zoe, but we’re going to try it with just one of us next week. Wish us luck!

They have both done pretty well.  Zoe jumped right in with no problem. Noah was a little more hesitant, but there was certainly an improvement from last week to today.

 

I really wanted to get a picture of Noah and Zoe together in their uniforms. I don’t love Noah’s fake smile in this one…

 

…but it’s better than him sticking his tongue out in this one. He does this every time I try to take a picture these days and it is DRIVING ME CRAZY.

 

Zoe on the field:

 

As I said earlier, Noah was a little hesitant about the whole soccer thing, but he LOVES the uniform. He wants to wear it all.the.time. He even wants to sleep in it. We’ve had to say that it is a *special* uniform only to be worn for soccer as an incentive for him to go. The first week of soccer, Noah was the “Star of the Week” at his pre-school, so it was his turn to bring Corduroy home and journal about his adventures. We made sure to take Corduroy to practice with us and then get a picture of Noah in his uniform for his journal. Noah was thrilled.

Florida Photos – Hanging Out at the Condo

Favorite Photo Friday – For Those About to Rock

I don’t know what it is, but I just love this photo. I loved it before editing, but I love it even more now.

For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

 

(here’s the “before” photo) 

Florida Photos – More Family

One of the reasons we chose to go to Florida for vacation was to visit family. My uncle Scott and Aunt Wanda live there with two of their teenaged kids, Scotty and Kristina. My Aunt Dean and Uncle Bill live there, as does their youngest son Steve, his wife Jennifer, and their daughters,  Sarah (8) and Alexandra (2). My parents have a condo in Indian Rocks Beach (they rent it out most of the year), so we stayed there. My mom was able to go down with us, but my step-dad had to work and couldn’t make it.

 

My mom:

 

My cousin Kristina:

 

Aunt Dean, Mom, Noah Zoe, cousin Alex, and Colin:

 

Mom, Scott, Wanda, Kristina and her boyfriend, Scotty and his girlfriend, Zoe, and Colin:

 

Scott and Wanda:

 

 

All of us on the dolphin cruise:

 

Christian in the pool with Colin and cousin Sarah:

 

Sarah, swimming and doing her best to grow some teeth:

Florida Photos – Our Family

The problem with my new photography hobby is that I am not in any of the pictures (not that I particularly liked being in them in the first place). My mom happened to catch all five us in the pool at the same time and took these with her point-and-shoot (which is actually a really good P&S, but something must be wrong with it because all of her pictures are coming out fuzzy lately). Anyway, I wish these pictures were better quality, but I am glad to have photos of all of us together. (Note to self – give Mom a quick tutorial on the dSLR, at least in auto mode.)

Florida Photos – Dolphin Cruise

Florida Photos – The Beach

Colin exploring the beach

 

With Daddy

 

Notice the canteen and the sippy cup. Noah likes to be prepared. And who goes to the beach without their puppy?

 

The Divas: Grandma and Zoe

 

Walking in the ocean

 

Splashing in the waves

 

Pointing is his new favorite thing

 

Zoe looks like a football player because she has her floaties on under the towel

 

Grandma and Zoe blowing wishes in the sand at sunset

 

Noah at sunset, a little worn out

Florida Photos – Ocean Firsts for Colin and Charlie

We were very happy to have our friend, Charlie, come with us for part of our trip to Florida. He’s one of those workaholic types, and he rarely takes vacations. In fact, he has never been in the ocean. He turned 40 this year, so I INSISTED that he come with us. Seriously INSISTED. I tried begging, pleading, logical arguments, etc and he still wasn’t going to go. When I finally told him that he was effing going to see the ocean and I wasn’t giving up on the idea, he eventually agreed. He didn’t stay the whole time because he “couldn’t take that much time off work,” but at least we got him there for a few days.

Colin was in Florida with us last year when we went, but he was only two-months-old at the time and didn’t go in the ocean, so this was his first time, too.

These pictures were all taken the first night we were there. It was sort of an impromptu thing after dinner at my aunt’s house, so that’s why everyone is in their clothes and not bathing suits (which I think actually made it even more fun).

 

Charlie:

 

With Noah and Zoe

 

Colin playing in the sand and water

 

Colin loved walking down the beach, but then he didn’t want to turn around. We were constantly walking with him and then picking him up and bringing him back. My mom had the honors this night.

 

My cousin’s daughter, Alex, is about six weeks older than Zoe.

 

Colin

 

Noah

 

Zoe

Talking about adoption – They are actually paying attention!

In the past, people didn’t discuss adoption. It was a family secret that the adoptee was only let in on as an adult. Adoptive parents “broke the news” when the child turned 18 or something. I even talked to a 30-something woman, adopted from Korea as a child, whose parents had been told, “She looks enough like you that you won’t even have to tell her she was adopted.”

Things are different today. Now adoption professionals say that it is best to talk about adoption from the very beginning. Christian and I try to talk to the kids about adoption in everyday conversation. We want the subject to be something they are comfortable talking about, and we want it to be “normal” and not a taboo topic.

We belong to a local Families with Children from Vietnam group, we went to a local Vietnamese Buddhist temple, we went to a Catholic mass in Vietnamese, and we eat at Vietnamese restaurants. Every time we do one of these things, we talk about how Zoe was born in Vietnam. When we went on vacation and took an airplane, we would say, “We took a really long airplane ride when we went to Vietnam to adopt you, Zoe. You went with us, Noah. Do you remember when we flew on the airplane to Vietnam to adopt Zoe?” Still, we didn’t know if it had really “sunk in.”

Then this summer, my mom shared a story with me. She had taken the kids to the pool with my cousin, Shannon, and Shannon’s friend, Erin. Erin was holding Zoe in the pool when another woman approached her to tell her how beautiful her daughter was. Erin was a little flustered as she explained that Zoe wasn’t her daughter, so when the woman asked where Zoe was born, Erin was caught off guard and drew a blank. Then Zoe chimed in and said, “I from Bietnam.” When my mom shared the story with me later and Zoe realized how excited we were that she had said this, she decided she would say it all the time. Now she goes up to everyone and says, “Hi. I’m Zoe. I’m two. I from Bietnam.”

After that we decided we should talk about where Colin and Noah were born, too, and not just focus on Zoe. Noah and Zoe now both know that Zoe was born in Vietnam, that Noah was born in I~, and Colin was born in S~B~. They also tell everyone that Noah is three, Zoe is two, and Colin is one. (Then they usually add that their cousin Michael is five.)

The other day we were talking about birth moms. I explained that Noah grew in my tummy, but that Colin and Zoe had other birth moms. We said that Colin has a Mama Amy and that Zoe has a Vietnam Mama. It was a quick conversation and we moved right on to baths, so I didn’t really think they were paying attention. The next day, however, my friend Amie from work called me. I was listening to her voice mail on speaker phone. When she said, “Hey Trace, it’s Amie,” Noah exclaimed, “That’s Colin’s birth mom!”  I explained to him that this was a different Amy, but that it was very good he remembered about Colin’s birth mom and Zoe’s Vietnam Mama.

I know the more complicated conversations will come someday, but for now I am impressed that they really are internalizing what we are saying.

Florida Photos – The Nose Pick Series

What would any set of photos be without some of Zoe picking her nose? I just had to share the following series of pictures of Zoe and my mom.

 

A nice picture of Grandma and Zoe, after Zoe’s bath one night.

 

“Hold that thought, Grandma, I have to take care of something.”

 

“Grandma, look what I found!”

 

“No, seriously, Grandma. It’s a really good one. Look!

 

“Here! You take it!”

 

Even though Grandma didn’t want the boogie, she still loves Zoe very much (as we all do!)

Florida Photos – The Pool

Hello again

Hi. It’s me, Tracy. Remember me? I used to post to my blog with some regularity, but for some reason or another, I’ve been absent. Did anyone miss me?

First we went to Florida and I didn’t want to post that we were out of town on the blog. Luckily, however, I DID post on Facebook that I spent my birthday drinking beer in the ocean. Our neighbor happened to read my status update and thought it was a little weird that our garage door was open when I was in the ocean, since our neighborhood is nowhere near a salty body of water. It turns out that we live in a very nice neighborhood because, in addition to having nice neighbors who keep an eye out for us, our garage door was open for 48 hours and no one  took that as an open invitation to take our television or Christian’s car, which was sitting in the garage with the keys in it. Phew. That would have sucked.

Then we got back and I fell while trying to step over a baby gate and hurt my back. When I finally got into an orthopedist, I found out I have scoliosis. Yes, THAT kind of scoliosis – the kind most people find out they have when they are in grade school, and not when they are 33. The fall didn’t cause the scoliosis, but aggravated it, and I have been in PAIN ever since. When the doctor put my x-ray up I said, “Well that doesn’t look good,” as I looked at the very obvious curve in my lower spine. He kept saying, “You’ve never had back problems before? You didn’t have back surgery as a kid?” It kind of freaked me out a little. Apparently I stand and walk wrong and they want me to go to a bunch of physical therapy, but I told them I was not quite sure when I would fit that in, with the three small children and the job and all. So, now I’m supposed to go at least a couple of times so they can show me exercises I can do on my own.

Anyway, I have a TON of pictures to post from Florida. We bought a dSLR in July, so I was practicing a lot when we were in Florida. I’m even shooting in MANUAL. (Insert oohs and aahs here.). In fact, I took so many photos that it was a little overwhelming trying to sort through them, pick the decent ones, organize them, edit them, etc. I will probably be posting them over the next week, so bear with me.

Colin’s first day of school

Yesterday was Colin’s first day of “school.” It’s a church pre-school, from 9am-2pm, and he’s going on Wednesdays. Noah has been at the same school for two years, and Zoe has been there one year. They both go three days a week.

I was really afraid that Colin would cry as I dropped him off, but he did very well. No crying at all. The teachers said he had a great day.

I didn’t get any pictures in the morning because I forgot my camera, even though I wrote myself a note that said, “CAMERA,” in orange highlighter.

I did get pictures when I picked the kids up though. Colin doesn’t look traumatized at all, so that’s a bonus.

 

I tried to get a picture of the three kids together, but Noah would not cooperate. His new “thing” is sticking out his tongue whenever I ask him to pose for a picture. (See “The Outtakes” for further evidence.)

At least I have the outtakes

We took the kids to get their pictures taken today. I have been determined to get a good one of the three of them together, but it just doesn’t seem to happen. I thought maybe if we took them somewhere to have them taken (instead of me taking them) we would have more luck. This one is OK, I guess, in a cheesy-portrait-studio-kind-of-way. At this point I should just be happy they are all looking at the camera, but it’s certainly not THE perfect picture I have in my head. I told Christian I would love to have a picture of them smiling and holding hands on the beach. He told me he wished I could get the $1 million paparazzi crotch shot of Britney Spears to sell to the tabloids, too, but neither one is going to happen.

 

The outtakes, however, are pretty freakin’ funny. I might even say “priceless.”

Favorite Photo Friday – One of the (many) problems with letting her wipe herself

Potty training nuances

Zoe needed to go potty. I asked if she wanted to use the Elmo seat or if she just wanted to sit on the regular seat. She said, “I want to stand up.” I tried to explain why she couldn’t do this, but she still seems a little upset that her brother gets to stand and she doesn’t.

While at the beach, Noah said he needed to go potty. I told him we could walk to the bathroom or that he could just potty in the water. I, of course, meant that he could get in the water and pee. He took me literally though, and just pulled his pants down while standing on the shore. He pointed himself toward the water, leaving me and the other patrons of the public beach staring at his naked little white butt (and his bits and pieces).

Tracy is getting tired…

…of her three-year-old saying, “I’m getting tired of this, Mommy,” when he doesn’t get his way. It’s his new favorite phrase.

Favorite Photo Friday – Another one to show Zoe’s prom date

When I posted this photo several months ago, Michelle said I should save it to show to Zoe’s prom date. I think this one falls into that category, too. Yes, that is a double pick. My girl is THAT talented.

 

When Christian saw that I was posting this photo, he said, “Poor Zoe. She always gets picked on.” Hardy har.

Out of the mouths… My little parrot

Noah has been repeating things that Christian and I say lately.

I try to give the kids choices as much as possible. For example, at bedtime, instead of saying, “It’s time to go potty,” I ask, “Do you want to potty upstairs or downstairs?” Or, if they ask for juice, I say, “That’s not a choice right now. Would you like water or milk?” Today, I asked Noah and Zoe to help pick up toys, and Noah said, “No, Mommy, that’s not a choice.”

We often say, “That’s not OK, Noah,” or, “I’m not OK with that.” When I insisted that he clean up the toys, he said, “No, Mommy, I’m not OK with that.”

When I insisted again that he had to help clean up the toys, he said, “Mommy, I’m getting really tired of this.”

I guess it could be worse. When I was three, my grandpa taught me to stomp my foot and say, “I’m tired of this sh*t.” My mom loved it, I’m sure.

Protected: Mixed emotions about Colin’s birth mom

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