Octopus=OX-ta-pus
Computer=Com-PAY=na
Panera=Pa-PAY-NA
Banana=Ba-BAN-A
Girl=Girl-a
Squirrel= Squirrel-a

There are so many layers to my grief–the fact that she’s not with us anymore, the fact that we didn’t have the opportunity to spend quality time with her before she died, and the fact that we were with her when she died. We have her ashes, a tuft of her fur, and a paw print in ceramic. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with the ashes. For the foreseeable future we will keep them with us.

Molly was my companion for almost 11 years. During the first two years we spent much of our days together. I wrote my dissertation and she hung out with me. We took walks together, ran errands in the car together, etc. When we drove places, she would lie down in the passenger seat and put her head in my lap. it made working the stick shift difficult, but it was so nice to have her head on me. After I started working full time we spent less time together, and that has always been a source of guilt, but we’ve tried to spend as much time with her as we would over the years and she slept with us every night.

I miss her very much.

1) Internet, phone, and cable: Check (yes, people, after a month of waiting, we got it all set up. Plus we got new–and working–cell phone plans to boot).
2) Renters insurance: Check
3) Drivers licenses, auto insurance, and Delaware plates (it took two months to get it all done, but it is finally done. Plus, the Delaware license plate looks great on our car).
4) Started new jobs: Check
5) Enrolled ZZ at school, got his PT set up, etc: Check
6) Closed our our Milwaukee bank accounts and are fully set up with our Delaware bank: Check (It is very nice not having to juggle two bank accounts and figure out which money from what account goes toward which payment).
7) Yoga place, ameditation group, and a Buddhist reading group: Check
Bike fixed: Check (although I haven’t had a chance to ride it yet).
9) Explored parts of the area: Check (although we have so much more to explore)
10) Enjoying the mild fall weather: Check (No offense to you, Milwaukee, but you sucked in this regard)
11) Visit regularly with family: Check (I love living close to family again)

Based on my completed to-do list, it should be clear how happy I am to have moved here. It’s been great. Even the mildly difficult stuff (not having a Trader Joes nearby; having to order my Rishi Tea online, etc.) hasn’t been much of an issue. I have had numerous days where I have felt the joy surge through my body because of our move. I love being back on the East Coast. I love our house. I love that ZZ’s doing so well at his new school and in PT (more on that in another post). I love living close to family and that ZZ has extended family to visit and get to know. I love UD’s campus and I love our Newark Natural Co-op. And given how much I loved living in cities such as DC and Milwaukee, I love that we live so close to the “country.” One of my favorite drives is going one mile from our house up 896N to the Rite Aid. Not because Rite Aid is magical (I mean, it’s a Rite Aid), but because I get to drive up 896 to a peaceful and serene part of the city. We also recently discovered that we have a Ridley Creek State Park sort-of-place a mile from our house, complete with a wide cement running and biking trail, a creek, and lots of woods.

That said, it’s also been a hard move. I really didn’t expect the transition to be so tough, particularly given how “right” the move was for us. There’s been all the day-to-day glitches and headaches and stressed that I’ve mentioned in the this post and my last post. But it’s other stuff, too. We’ve all been sick a lot in varying ways (I’m on round two of a bronchitis/respiratory thing; Molly’s got crazy allergies, ZZ’s had some colds, Paul developed a hernia from the move); I’m trying to adjust not only to a new life and new job, but to working full time again post-mamahood. My teaching schedule is not ideal (I get lots of “I’m sorrys” from colleagues, and one colleague told me I was “brave” when I said what my schedule was). It’s been hell trying to find a doctor (for some reason, primary care physicians are in shortage here), which has made our various illness stuff more stressful and only reinforced my dislike for urgent care. I don’t have a social/support network here yet, although I see inklings of one forming. Basically, the fact that everything about my life changed all at once and I’m having to learn how to do life over again and reinvent the wheel, so to speak, is hard. I’m getting through it, but it’s still hard. At least I know the”macro” of our new life here is good. We just have to get the “micro” stuff settled down and sorted out. And maybe find time for a vacation. Because I really could use some time relaxing on a beach or on a cruise or something. For now, though, I’ll just appreciate our drives out into the country to see fall leaves.

But things are starting to fall into place. We’re settling on our Milwaukee house later this week, we love our new house, we love the neighborhood, we love our close proximity to Main Street and campus (we can walk to both), Main Street is great, the campus is beautiful, ZZ’s in a great class at a great school, and we’re happy with his new physical therapist, and the new jobs are good so far. There are things about Milwaukee I miss (besides my friends)–Alterra, Rishi Tea, Boswell, the Lake, my sangha, my yoga center/gym and the close proximity to Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Beans and Barley. But we’re figuring things out. I found a yoga class that I like (although there aren’t many to chose from), I can use the free faculty gym on campus, I started to attend a small meditation group in town on Sundays, I can order Rish Tea online in bulk, Newark has a decent natural food co-op, and we can make monthly trips to Trader Joes and stock up on stuff. Also, Newark has a few things that Milwaukee does not–a decent Malaysian restaurant, a fun and bustling college town vibe, lots of restaurants only a five minute walk from our office (including a very good Indian restaurant), a gorgeous university campus, awesome state parks just a few miles from our house, close proximity to Atlantic coast beaches (we made our first trip to Rehoboth Beach two weeks ago), warmer weather, and hills.

And although there are things I miss about UWM, UD has some advantages–including better access to online academic journals (this might not sound like a big deal, but UWM’s online subscription collection was so small that I could only access numerous articles that I wrote via interlibrary loan); cheaper faculty parking; a 10 percent tuition faculty/staff discount at ZZ’s UD-run early learning center, a free faculty/staff-only gym, and annual “wellness dollars” that faculty can use for personal trainers and fitness classes.

We still have lots to do to get settled in September, but it should be less discombobulating than August was. I am looking forward to when we’re done with our settling and can just enjoy living here and focus on everyday life and work stuff.

And we need to do all of these things while working, fitting in ZZ’s school and PT, and finding a balance so that ZZ doesn’t get overstimulated. His life has been shaken up a lot over the past month. He started school part-time, and we’ve had to be out of the house a lot over the past three weeks because of all the home renovations being done. Plus, we’ve had two house showings for which we’ve had to leave. When we’re out, he often just wants to go home. he doesn’t even like being in the stroller of car for long periods of time. Yesterday, we pretty much stayed at home (Except for a short walk and a trip to the park) and socialized with no one. Today we’re seeing some friends in the afternoon. But we really have to work to keep the socializing spread out and to make sure that he has days of downtime. Adopted kids in particular are at risk for overstimulation and for getting distressed when there is too much change at once, and ZZ is certainly showing signs of this happening to him.

So here is a list of things we want to do before leaving Milwaukee:

1) See lots of friends.
2) See the local band Maritime perform (I’m hoping to do this next week).
3) Get to a few of our favorite restaurants.
4) Spend time as a family at the Milwaukee zoo and at the Children’s museum.
5) Go to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see the China/Forbidden City exhibit.
6) Go to the Dragon Boat races on the lake next month.
7) Go to Sangha every Sunday.
Get some biking in on the Oak Leaf Trail.
9) Go on a hike near some of the glacier trails.
10) Visit the dog park a few times with Molly.
11) Oh, and sell our house.

Yeah, the house thing could be a big stress for us. Everything on the Delaware end is going smoothly. We have a place to rent near campus, and we’re excited about that. But the housing market is very bad, and we don’t have much time to sell before we move. So we’ll see how this all works out.

Our big news is that we’re moving back to the East Coast in about a month(!). Specifically to Newark, Delaware. This all came about in the past six weeks, which is why I haven’t been blogging much. It’s been a whirlwind of job interviews, getting our hose ready to sell, looking for a place in Delaware, etc. We love Milwaukee (aside from the weather and the new Scott Walker regime), so we are sad to go in many respects. But we will be much closer to family, the weather is better, and we’re closer to lots of East Coast stuff that we have missed living in the Midwest.

Other than the new job and move news, I have lots of everyday stuff to report.

Sleeping: ZZ met a new milestone in early May–he started sleeping in a “big boy bed” in his own room! We weren’t planning on transitioning him so soon, but the owner of the co-sleeper we were borrowing needed it back. He’s doing great with his bed and room. He loves his bed, and he’s sleeping through the night most nights.

“School”: At the beginning of June, ZZ started “school” at our university’s children’s center. This too is going very well. He started going two half-days a week, and then we increased it to three half-days, followed by four half-days. Before he officially started, we visited there with him almost every day for two weeks. By the time he officially started, he had already developed attachments to some of the teachers, he knew which toys were there, and he looked forward to going. He gets sad sometimes when we leave him but he has a very good time there. He likes to play with the teachers, play in the tent, take his walker to the gym, paint, play outside, and push the toy airplane around. Last week, he was there during an afternoon shift and even went down for a nap on his own–he doesn’t even do that at home.

Walking: ZZ continues to make progress with PT. He can use his walker when he wants to. The problem is that he often doesn’t want to use it, LOL. The place where he uses it the most is school. So that is good. He likes to use it to walk to the gym and use it while in the gym.

Language: I don’t even know where to start with this one. He is so talkative! About a month ago, he discovered conjunctions. So now he uses them to tell stories. “We did this, and then…and then…and then..because…” He tells us how school went, what he did that day, what he did with us during playtime, etc. he talks to us about what happened in Ni Hao Kai-Lan, what he did at PT, etc. We ask him questions and he answers them. He’s also great at expressing his feelings. He tells us when he is sad, happy, mad, and frustrated (“I fustated!”). He’s also very much into telling us what he doesn’t like. Yesterday, when I was driving him around trying to get him to sleep, he wanted me to go directly home. I told him that we were going to drive around for a little longer. He said, “Mama, you’re not listening to me!” Sometimes when we sign along to a song that he likes, he say, “No singing, Mama!” (or Baba).

Now that it’s summer, we’re getting out of the house more. He loves going for walks (most of the time), and he likes going to Alterra and getting his own iced tea (tropical crimson herbal). We’re getting to the zoo more, too, which he still loves.

One of his new favorite activities is to “spray.” We’ve done a lot of cleaning in order to get the house ready for sale. He was very fascinated by all the spray bottles we used while cleaning. So I got an empty one and filled it with water. He would spend hours spraying a surface and wiping it up. This was a great way to keep him occupied while I did “real” cleaning.

So we have another month before we move. We’re hoping to do lots of good Milwaukee stuff before we leave.

The next morning, we put together an Easter egg hunt for ZZ in our living room. We his plastic eggs filled with jelly beans. We also hid a basket. The hunt was slow going because ZZ quickly realized that the plastic eggs had candy in them. So instead of gathering up all the eggs and then eating the jelly beans, he wanted to eat all the jeely beans out of each egg before looking for the next. I think he was a bit overwhelmed by all the jelly beans, because he would shove all the beans from an egg into his mouth at once. He had so many jelly beans in his mouth at one point that he was unable to swallow them. He spit them out, and Molly got to enjoy them instead,

Later that day, we went to our friends’ house for another Easter celebration. ZZ enjoyed playing with their sons’ toys. Before dinner, ZZ participated in yet another egg hunt. He definitely had the hang of things by this point, LOL. At dinner, ZZ sat at the kids table with the two boys (ages 2 and 5). He did great eating without us! However, the brothers were a bit hyped up and kept throwing food at each other, which seemed to confuse ZZ. He just sat there eating quietly, watching what they were doing, unsure of what he should do.

Monday was a very special day–the first anniversary of our time together as a family! Yes, it has been a year since we first met ZZ. During the day, we spent some time showing him some of his clothes and toys from China, and Paul took some cute photos of ZZ trying to put on the bug hat that he wore on the day that we met him. The hat was too small for him, but he tried anyway. That night, we went to Lucky Liu’s Chinese restaurant for dinner. ZZ was little hyper during dinner, but we had a nice time. Paul ordered a Tsing Tao beer in ZZ’s honor, as the beer is manufactured in Qingdao.

Today, I finally finished up his first year photo album. Hopefully it turned out okay. I’m hoping to send it to the orphanage by Mid May, along with some toys and candy for the children and nannies. I’m also happy to have it done because now I can turn my attention to starting ZZ’s life book.

Happy Family Day ZZ, we love you very much, and we can’t express in words just how happy we are to be your parents.

And now for some photos:

I remember how shocked I was when I first saw this photo, as he looked so much older than he did in the original photos that we received as part of his file.

On the flight to Beijing, Paul and I were trying to find ways to pass the time. We were excited yet also a little numb, as it was hard to believe that we were finally going to become parents. The prospect of meeting ZZ seemed very real yet very abstract. We spent a lot of time on the plane watching movies on our Ipods and watching the plane’s flight path on the little screens in front of our seats. We seemed to spend a long time flying over Russia, and I was not so patiently waiting to for the plane to cross into China.

We arrived in Beijing that following day and went to our hotel with our travel group. We were very tired but very excited to be in China. We went to a nearby supermarket for room supplies, unpacked our room, and then went to dinner at a Thai place with a few other waiting parents in our travel group. Afterwards, we crashed and went to sleep.

I’m also almost done with the 1st year photo album that we’re going to send to his orphanage in May. I just need to take some photos of our first family day celebration on April 25th.

This summer, we are finally going to start putting ZZ’s life book together. This will take quite some time (in part because of the research we have to do for it) and will always be a work in progress, so I want to get the other project done before we start this one. As I gather information for the life book, I will also finish up ZZ’s 1st year adoption memory book. That is almost done, except for a few sections related to his birthday, birth city, etc.

If any of you want to see the travel blog, email me and I will give you the address and password.