SHE'S A PARAKEET!

We received our photos yesterday ... September 27, 2006! Woohoo!!!! We are ever so excited to introduce Natalie Chuankai Michaela to you!! Natalie = because we like the name; Chuankai = her Chinese given name, meaning triumphant river; Michaela after her Uncle Mike, who, sadly, passed away shortly after we told him the news of our decision to adopt.

And what happened to her animal spirit name of dragonfly you ask? Well Monday I was hoping and praying for "THE CALL" from our adoption agency telling us they had our referrel and photos in hand. But I was very very nervous as we had barely missed the previous month's cut-off date. I didn't want to get my hopes up, only to be dashed again. And then ... when I was bringing Girlie-Girl home from her walk, I discovered a parakeet had flown into our garage (an escapee ... not ours). When Father Monkey looked up "parakeet" in Chinese, he discovered symbols that meant parakeet, but also could be translated singsong girl. I took that as a sign of good things, and sure enough, THE CALL came later that day!! So Father Monkey and I decided her spirit name was not, after all, dragonfly, but rather, it must be parakeet!! Our agency has told us to expect our "GOTCHA" Day to be around Thanksgiving!

And so our beautiful little parakeet/singsong girl, WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!! WE EAGERLY AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL ... WITHIN THE NEXT 2 MONTHS!!! PRAISE GOD FOR HE IS GOOD!!

WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT MURPHY'S LAW?

Murphy's Law ... can it ever be defeated?

In our case, it usually seems as if the answer is "NO." Bad things keep happening, despite often overwhelmingly positive odds for a positive outcome in the given situations.

2 Weeks ago, Father Monkey dislocated AND broke his elbow! Karate. Go figure! Bad luck indeed, for just a little more than year ago I seriously damaged my knee. You guessed it ... Karate was my culprit as well! It took nearly a year to set this mess semi-straight, including surgery, lots of physical therapy, and months and months in a brace. And still, my knee will never be trustworthy again! This karate business is getting expensive! And now, not very long after the completion of my therapy, Father Monkey sustains an injury. And what's more, it seems the news/prognosis for Father Monkey's elbow gets worse with each doctor visit!

Father Monkey has been through 3 visits thus far: emergency room the day of the injury, plus 2 Orthopedic doctor visits. The ER doctor put a splint on. He wasnt sure as to the exact damage, but didn't seem too worried. 3 Days later the first orthopedic visit went something like this: nurse removes splint and bandages; doctor walks in and introduces himself, briefly (hi, I'm Dr. X); he looks at emergency room xrays we had brought to the visit and the very next words out of his mouth were something like "oh this is bad, very bad!"; then he proceeds to examine the elbow, ask questions as to how injury happened, what had been done up to that point in terms of medical help, and expanded on his initial comments, although the theme remained constant; then new xrays were done; these looked somewhat less frightening to him, although there was a suspicious spot that he wanted to have a CT scan done on; the splint was not re-applied, but Father Monkey was told to continue with his sling; so we left the office in a holding pattern of sorts, with dr. orders for a scan; come back in a week, he said. Our initial optimism had slipped precipitously! Well it was more like 10 days, but finally today we got the CT scan results. This was the visit today: Dr. walks in, makes polite comment ... hello ... asks Father Monkey how the arm is doing, and for details of past week (pain level, movement ability and so on); he clips CT films onto light board and explains how the injury is much worse than he originally thought (note that originally he said it was BAD, VERY BAD!); furthermore, he says, Father Monkey's injury is a very unusual one (ooh ... bad bad bad to be unusual ... if you have to go to the dr. for whatever reason, you WANT the problem to be B-O-R-I-N-G!) and he's rarely seen one like it (this dr. is a hand/arm/elbow specialist!); and so on and so on ... bad stacked upon bad; finally, after new xrays, he gave Father Monkey a brace and told him to come back in a week (he plans on discussing the case with a colleague); so once again we left the office with an even worse picture, almost no optimism at all, and still in a holding pattern! Surgery seems likely, but its not an absolute. And full recovery ... hmmm!

I spoke about Murphy's Law in a previous blog ... about how we seem to be the victims thereof all too frequently ... if there is bad luck to be found, its on our doorstep in an instant ... or so it seems! Persecution complex? Maybe ... but true none-the-less! Many times in our marriage we have beat the odds ... and not in a positive sense! If something comes up wherein we should have a positive outcome, but there is, say, a 1-5% chance of negative outcome ... you guessed it ... we most frequently receive the negative outcome! Sigh!!

HOWEVER ... the writing of this blog gives me a tiny boost ... it has just occurred to me that while we are once again battling overwhelming odds, this time the overwhelming odds favor a negative outcome, and the very slight chances offer positive outcome ... so ... HERE'S HOPING WE CONTINUE OUR TREND OF BEATING THE ODDS! Maybe we will indeed trample Murphy's Law this time!

RARE GEMS

Rare Gems ... you know ... those special people who come along occasionally and utterly amaze you with their kindness, generosity or capabilities of this kind or that. A RARE GEM crossed my path today! She's Turtle's Teacher, Ms. O'H.! The kids have been back to school for 5-6 weeks now, and not a day has passed that Turtle hasn't come home with glowing praise for this woman! I have been most pleased, of course, because we've never had a teacher, for Hoppy, Turtle or Fish, who has ranked this high in my children's minds (though admittedly a couple have come close in their estimation ... and one more in my estimation). But ... being a born skeptic, I have been only cautiously happy. After all, what person is really THAT PERFECT?

I did not escort Turtle to his classroom on the first day of school, as I have done in the past. Turtle and Fish attend separate schools ... and both transferred to new schools this year. Turtle's school handles 4th and 5th while Fish's school does 2nd and 3rd. The schools have different start times and in the past I have managed to take one to his class and then the second to his class in the different school. This year however, the schools they are attending have start times only 5 minutes apart. Since the schools are 3 miles from one another, there was no way I could do both kids this year. Father Monkey delayed going to work long enough that day to escort Turtle to school. So ... he met the teacher, briefly, but I did not.

I intended to stop by and introduce myself ... but the best of intentions often goes to the dogs ... and until today, I had not met her. Today I went for the obligatory mid-grading period conference (we get notices telling us when to show up ... NOT asking if we want to come!). I knew she must be pretty good because Turtle does not hand out compliments lightly ... you gotta deserve them in his book. But as I said ... I am a skeptic. To my surprise and delight, Ms. O'H. just exuded good naturedness, and COMPETENCE! She is one of those rare people who is doing what God made her to do ... teaching children! She appears to know kids well ... and how to deal with the often 20 very different personalities in any given class year. From what I can see, she does it with finesse! She's not an easy teacher ... Turtle comes home with a ton of homework daily. But, while some of it is straight (read: boring) book work, some is creative and fun! Most importantly, she requires them to use their brains! This should not be a novel concept, I know, but I have seen too many lackluster, do the minimum only, type teachers in my 8 years of experience with the school system. As such, I have little faith left, sad to say. But even with the homework load, and requirement to use his brain, Turtle comes home EVERY DAY talking about how great his teacher is (doesn't much care for all the homework ... but the teacher is fantastic!). As she and I talked, my confidence in her grew. She's bright, fun natured, and genuinely seems to love her job. What really hooked me was her comment "I don't teach to the FCAT (Florida Standardized Tests taken each year from 3rd -12th grade and required to pass/graduate). I teach the children using State Curriculum Guidelines, and focus on educating them! I do not let a child move on until he gets the current concept being taught. I do not believe in teaching kids how to take tests (many teachers spend the school year essentially making sure the kids can pass this test ... with the consequence that true understanding of given concepts often get left in the dust. For instance, what does it really matter if the child truly UNDERSTANDS how to write paragraphs, just so long as he can write something passable in the 45 minutes he is given. It is all a very formulaic theory that assumes that all kids are the same/learn the same way ... which is of course phooey!).

This "teaching to the test" concept (openly touted by many teachers and administrators alike) has always been a bug in my craw ... after all ... a person's success or failure in life is not going to be dependent on some stupid test score! And besides that, test scores do not always reflect the true abilities of the child. I know this personally. My standardized test scores as a kid always showed an average child with average abilities. Well ... I graduated 2nd in my highschool class of 180, and 1oth in my college class of 22o (Magna Cum Laude). I have a Master's Degree + (additional coursework beyond Master's Level, but not a complete degree), and, I can talk/discuss/debate intelligently on a wide variety of topics, including many outside my area of "expertise." All this from an "average" child! Some kids are not successful test takers no matter how much you "train" them ... I was one of those kids.

So ... Here's to you Ms. O'H! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

WILL OUR DRAGONFLY COME THIS MONTH?

Mother Bunny here -- signed in under Hoppy Toad's password. We're coming down to the wire ... will this be the month our dragonfly flies into our lives? We certainly hope so! We've been waiting for Natalie for more than 3 years now. This past month, more than any other, has seemed an eternity. We thought she might come to us last month and were sorely disappointed. But this month ... how can we miss? Today is the 20th ... rumors have it that CCAA will release the upcoming list of adoptees perhaps as early as this week! Probably wishful dreaming on our part, but in ANY event we will know within 10 days. The list always appears by the end of the month. WE CAN HARDLY WAIT! We will post pictures in this blog, as well as at our family website: http://www.marlarcreates.com. Keep on the lookout ... news of her is coming SOON!