An awesome day in the STL!

Well, we made it from Arizona to Kansas CIty on Monday night, spent the night and then Tuesday there, and flew from KC to St. Louis on Tuesday night. Although Mattix is a bit older and therefore more “active” than he was on our flights to/from DC, he still did quite well. He is going through a bit of a “fit” phase, where in the yells/cries for about two minutes when you either interrupt him while he’s having fun or you don’t allow him to do whatever it is that he wants. There were a few mini fits, but nothing we couldn’t handle. We’re just ignoring them and if this is anything like Mattix’s other phases, he should stop pretty soon on his own. Also, when Mattix gets really excited, he gets pretty giggly and hyperactive. For some reason, getting on a plane gets him all excited. He’s way into it. We belted him into the seat each time and he was pretty darn good. Hopefully he’ll do the same on the three hour flight home tomorrow.

For the first time ever, EVER, Mattix peed through his clothes on me! Seriously. For as many diaper blow outs this kid has had, I’ve never been on the receiving end of a poo or pee leak through. Well, never one to pass up a “first” opportunity, Mattix took the bull by the horns and peed all over my white cotton shirt. So, yeah, I was wearing a shirt that was literally pasted to my stomach with urine. I had changed him just before we got on the plane and the flight from KC to STL was thirty five MINUTES. Yes, thirty five minutes. This kid has spent more hours on a plane in the past four months than I can count, and he managed to pee through a diaper onto me in less than an hour. We were walking off the plane when my stomach started to feel nice and warm. I knew what it was. Can I just tell you that I have ALWAYS packed an emergency shirt for myself, just in case of a pee- or poo-through. Well, it has been a waste of carry-on space b/c I’ve never needed it, so for the first time, I didn’t pack an emergency shirt in my carry-on. Go figure. The only consolation for me was that while I had to wear a urine soaked shirt, my son had to wear this:

So, he may have peed all over me, but at least I didn’t look like a girl! This was his “emergency outfit” that has been packed in his diaper bag since January. He hasn’t needed it in months. Looks like he’s grown a bit, huh?! His little stretchy pants now fit like capris and he looked insanely silly! So, yeah, we were quite the pair, me soaked in urine and Mattix rockin’ the capri pants. He pulls the look off, well, though.

Anyway, enough blabbering because we had the most awesome day EVER. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. The last time we saw Karen, Andrew, and Khai was our last day in VN, when I’m pretty sure each of was either close to or in the middle of meltdowns for various reasons. Karen and I started talking well before we traveled. We cried whined bitched incessantly yelled freaked out talked to each other all the time before we finally got to travel to our babies. We came up with all sorts of alternative plans because we were amongst the first caught up in the new I600 changes and not having control over a situation is not either of our strong area. When nobody (non adopting family/friends) was totally clear on my decision to drink Grey Goose at 10:00 a.m. on a weekday after receiving horrible news yet again, Karen just told me to drink and cry away. We both freaked out when we had three days travel notice. Karen said quite possibly the funniest thing ever when we met in the airport. I’ll write about that later because Karen always says funny things that I’ll remember forever. Her mouth is cleaner than mine, but that girl has a sense of humor that I can appreciate. We traveled down to KG together. We shared what little makeup I brought and hair stuff because ALL of Andrew and Karen’s luggage was lost until our third day. We were all there when we made various first time parenting mistakes that, while seemingly horrifying at the time, we can laugh about now. (Note for future travelers if you’d like to learn from one of mine: If you treat the baby’s whole body thoroughly with Elimite and only spot treat the face, the directions on the package are not BS. It’s true that the colony of scabies will indeed relocate to your child’s face. No, the pesticides in the Elimite will not kill your child if you use it on his face. And no, it’s not easy to cover your child’s face with Elimite, but yes, it’s necessary. And thank God for small miracles, because just about everyone, including Mattix’s doctor, thought that he would probably have permanent scarring from the damage.)

First of all, Khai looks amazing. He’s gotten so big and even more handsome. He’s super funny – he still laughs at me like he did in VN – and he’s a smart little one. Being four months older than Mattix, he tried to teach Mattix a few things. First, he wanted to show Mattix how NOT to mess up his awesome train set. Khai is way beyond his age in this area and fully plays with his trains on the tracks without messing anything up. Mattix enjoys pushing the tracks around and pulling pieces off. Khai tried to help him out, but I’m not too sure he was successful. Khai was quite patient and nice despite the temporary destruction. Second, Khai tried to help Mattix jump to the next stage of development, which involves hurling toys. Khai is going to play baseball and he’s going to be a pitcher. I just want that in writing so that when he plays for the MLB in 20 years and makes 10 million dollars a year, I can say, “I knew it! I called it!” and then collect my fee. Seriously, the kid has skills. He can also dunk a mean basketball, but my money’s on the baseball.

Karen and Khai picked Mattix and I up this morning from our hotel and we ate the most awesome crepes at a great local place. Karen rocks – they have gluten free crepes and I was in heaven! Then we went to the St. Louis zoo, which was way too much fun. It was a nice day and the zoo is great. The boys were so cute together. They were all sorts of sweet and interactive. Khai was very into the “KG Greeting” (headbutt) and Mattix was into the overwhelmed stare down while we were in VN, but today they gave each other sweet little pats and touches. While we were in line to ride the train, Mattix decided to drop one of his famous stink poos. I was NOT getting out of line, so all I’m sayin’ is that I wouldn’t have wanted to be any of the families sitting downwind of us. After a while, Karen said, “I don’t even smell it anymore.” That’s a mommy survival skill. You smell it long enough and you no longer notice it!

{mattix and khai, having a little snack break at the zoo}

(the boys were SO cute. they touched each other a lot, gave little pats, and lots of loves. here, they kept touching hands and putting their little fingers together.}

After the zoo, we went back to Karen’s house and the boys played. It was adorable and sweet. Mattix was a little more timid than I had expected, but he got comfortable pretty quickly and had fun. I guess it’s time for me to find Mattix some friends. I told Karen my kid doesn’t have any friends. We sort of did the cocooning thing when we came home b/c of our rather difficult adjustment, but I’ve been thinking he’s ready for friends in the past few weeks. Turns out he is. Andrew came home from work and we met Ed for dinner when he was finished with his meetings at an AWESOME VNese restaurant. Kathy, this place rivals Little Saigon at home. That good. I ordered four or five different things for myself, shared a bit with Ed, and cleaned house.

We then all went back to Karen and Andrew’s house and Jenna, her big sister Julia, her mom, grandma, and grandpa came over. That was awesome. Matt (Jenna’s dad) and Karen (Jenna’s grandma) traveled in our group to VN. Jenna was such a shy little sweetie in VN. It was so great to see her – she is doing amazingly well. It was also great to meet her mom, Ali. Kathy (Jenna’s grandma) reminds me so much of my mom. The kids all played for quite a while and I LOVED watching them. Such a bunch of cuties.

{mattix and khai, giving each other “love”}

{lots of play time}

{just because he was having so much fun}

{mattix found khai’s monkey (not that monkey, you pervs) and immediately gave him some mattix lovin’}

{khai is clearly the vnese squat master. love it.}

{khai and jenna. sooo cute.}

{kathy managed to get a good shot of all three kiddos together, but until i get a copy from her, this is the best ed could get!}

A while back, Karen and I were discussing Mattix’s apparent decision not to walk. Karen mentioned that she felt like it’s because of his delayed attachment and I’m pretty sure she hit the nail on the head. Mattix has pretty much been capable of walking since we came home from VN, and yet he chooses not to walk. In fact, if you catch him standing up and taking steps and make a big deal about it, he gets annoyed and sits down and crawls. Karen said that when he starts hanging around other kids, he’ll probably show more of an interest. Yeah, Karen must have paid attention while she was earning that Master’s degree b/c Mattix rarely sat down while the kids were all around. He used the furniture a lot, but he didn’t want to crawl much at all. So I guess it’s time to exit the cave and hook Matitx up with some buddies. There’s one more reason we were waiting on the friends thing (I’ll write about it soon), but it’s clearly no longer an issue.

I know I’m going on and on, but I’m writing a lot of this for me so that I remember. I’m so glad that Karen and I have stayed in touch and will continue to forever. We talked a lot about how we want to raise our boys and how we feel about their history and culture. Karen wrote a post the other day that made me so proud to be her friend. (Not that I wasn’t proud before she wrote it, but you know what I mean.) We have very similar views on what we want as far as how our boys feel about themselves as they grow up and the options we hope for them to have in the future. Karen and I read a lot of the same TRA blogs and books and I think we’re very much on the same page. Not that I actually know what the hell I’m doing, but I think I’m doing the best I can as I learn (along with Ed), and it’s so nice to know that other parents are trying to do similar things. It just makes you feel like you can’t be a total idiot if others are trying to parent in similar ways.

I could keep blabbering, but I’m super tired. Mattix is still on Arizona time, so he has been going to bed late and sleeping late. That’s my boy! If only he’d do that at home (I’m not a morning kinda girl.) He’s doing amazingly well sleeping on the hotel room floor. When we checked in, we apparently had reserved a room with a California King. We were like, “Um, do you have two queen beds?” They switched us over probably thinking we were strange for each wanting our own bed, but little did they know that we disassemble the bedding from one of the beds and reassemble it on the floor. Is there anything cuter than this?

{passed out. he sleeps with his little booty in the air for most of the night.}

{mattix is sporting the pj’s sent to us from the adorable ms. lucy, who, much to her parents’ pleasure, no longer qualifies as a “sleep thief.” although mattix is “nearly reformed,” he has earned the right to wear these bad boys until they don’t’ fit! i feel like melissa has begun a tradition that i must keep up. these jammies will be passed onto the next family that endures sleep issues from hell. seriously. the following two photos were taken at our house last week, during a photo shoot wherein mattix modeled his new jammies.}

{what???? me??? sleep thief??? noooooooo!!!!}

We leave tomorrow night, but not before Mattix and I get to spend more time with Karen and Khai. The good news is that Ed will be back here frequently for work, and we can come along whenever we’re up for it. We plan to do that because the fun we had just today makes the travel well worth it. And, as it turns out, this previously anal retentive girl who hated to fly, didn’t love to be away from home, stressed out about packing for days on end, and didn’t like her life disrupted too often, is getting pretty good at throwing some shi*t in a suit case and leaving town. Hey, we did the VN thing, we packed up our lives to move to DC for a month after having only been home for six weeks, so a few days away from home is nothin’. Mattix nearly laughed at us when we told him the flight was only three hours long.

I just had to post a few more. he’s been SO overtired at night, but it’s been the good overtired where he’s all happy and giggly, not the bad overtired. here are a few photos of the fun: