Snowman pajamas!

Owen in his favorite snowman pajamas. He insists on wearing them every night, and he insists on wearing shoes with them to bed. The shoe thing is recent, and it's a bit of a regression -- in Vietnam and the first few weeks home, he wore his sandals to bed and would start to fret if he didn't have shoes on.

So, while he's going through the daycare transition...why not snowman pajamas and shoes to bed? How can I argue when he's smiling like that?

Show me your tears

Rough week, and it's only Wednesday.

Owen started full-time daycare on Monday. I want to believe it's getting better every day, but I think that's wishful thinking at this point.

The transition didn't go as planned. Two weeks ago, Ray started taking Owen to daycare for a few hours a day, gradually lengthening the time. We thought he'd only stay a few hours the first week and we'd increase the time the second week, but he was doing so well that he was staying through nap time by the end of the week.

Then, six days off. The second week, the provider and her kids got a terrible flu, and she closed from Monday through Thursday. So instead of five more days to get used to daycare, Owen went for one day, had the weekend with us, and then we dropped him off early on Monday, Ray's first day back after paternity leave.

Owen wasn't happy about this. I think it threw him to go so early, and the fact that Mommy and Daddy were both in the car for the drop-off, and clearly going somewhere together without him, was tough. He screamed and cried for a long time, the provider said.

Tuesday was a little better, she said, although he was hysterical when I left him. Today, he started crying as soon as we turned onto the provider's street, and was clinging to me and calling for me as I tried to hand him to the provider. It broke my heart.

When we pick him up in the evenings, we can hear him screaming from the driveway. The provider says it's because he sees us pull up, and he starts crying for me until I get in the house.

The provider is great, the setting is small -- only a few kids. I really have no worries about Owen's daycare. I think once we get over this hump, he's going to do great there. I think I found a good place for him.

But this first week...ugh. I feel like the worst mother in the world, walking away from him while he's holding his arms out and screaming for me to take him with me. I wonder if this is causing his little brain to recall, in some fashion, his first days at the orphanage, when he didn't know what was happening to him.

And now Ray is off in the morning to California for four days, throwing another monkey wrench in the transition. Owen will wake up tomorrow to find no Daddy in the house.

I feel like I'm asking an awful lot of the little guy these days.

Happy Year of the Ox

Owen at my adoption agency's new year's party on Saturday. Lots of good food, and it was great to see all the kids. I dressed Owen in his pinstripe suit, since I didn't buy him the traditional Vietnamese tunic and pants that many of the other boys were wearing. They all looked so handsome, I'll have to order one for next year.

Toto, I don't think we're in Vietnam anymore

First significant snowfall of the season. Owen played in it and caught snowflakes on his tongue.





He also made two tiny snowmen. Then he ate their heads.

Hatin' on the breeders

I had my court-appointed interview yesterday for the readoption. It came in the middle of a long day -- stressful day at work including giving a presentation, then rushing home for the interview, then heading back downtown for a working dinner.

The investigator was very nice, very personable. I really shouldn't complain.

But still.

I have never gotten used to the intrusiveness of the adoption process. I really hated having to answer so many personal questions, particularly about my relationship with Ray. I know we're doing this whole thing in a nontraditional way. So we're under more scrutiny even than a married couple. I know we have to 'splain ourselves to people appointed by the court who are only doing their jobs, and part of that job is looking out for the best interests of a child.

But still.

When breeders have to go through this kind of 3rd degree every time they pop a child into the world, I won't be so cranky.