McDreamy Motivation

I have always had a hard time finding motivation to exercise.  For a while, I was exercising on our ellyptical trainer 4 to 6 times per week, and my motivation was solely weight loss, and, after six months passed and I had lost all of 3 pounds...it was no longer motivating for me.  It wasn't doing what I wanted it to, so, why bother?

 

Okay, so, I know, excercise that doesn't result in weight loss is still important for overall health, blood pressure, etc.  That wasn't enough motivation and I was just depressed as hell that I had spent so much time working out and I was no thinner. 

 

In January, we got a treadmill in addition to our ellyptical trainer.  It's a good treadmill because Husband runs something like 8 miles a day.  Fast.  (Have I mentioned this before?  The man runs.  The man is addicted to running.  He runs and runs and runs and runs.  And for years he kept telling me that it felt GOOD to run, and, mostly, the only thing I have ever felt while running is PAIN.  And, in my book, PAIN does not FEEL GOOD. 

 

Anyway, I think I have finally found the motivation I need to work out on the treadmill, and the motivation has a name, and its name is...

 

McDreamy.

 

AKA Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd.

 

Yes, yes, I know that the REST OF THE NATION discovered Grey's Anatomy two years ago, but, I have MISSED A LOT OF TV in the past 7 years.  (See, there are choices one has to make when one is parenting a child who doesn't sleep a lot.  And when it comes to choosing between prime time TV and enough sleep, I am pretty much going to choose sleep every time.  The show airs at 10:00 PM, and I just cannot stay up until 11:00.  And I miss a lot of 9:00 shows because I am putting the kids to bed.  The only shows I have really kept up with in real time are Desperate Housewives (because one of the writers is an old friend of mine in real life) and Gilmore Girls (and I had to drive to my friend M~'s house to watch, because we don't get the CW on our DISH package.) 

 

Anyway, for the past three weeks, I have been walking/running on the treadmill for 40 minutes about 3 or 4 times a week.  My goal is to get up to 5 times per week.  And the carrot I'm using to get myself on that machine is the opportunity to watch Grey's Anatomy.  I have banned the Grey's Anatomy netflixed DVDs from any other TVs in the house, except the one parked in front of the treadmill.  And it seems to be working.  I actually WANT to go and work out.  And, I am working up to running for part of those minutes.  At the moment, I am only running (not fast, not gazelle-like as is Husband, but, actual real running none the less) for 8 minutes of the 40.  But, in the grand scheme of things, that's like 40 minutes per week of RUNNING, which is 40 minutes more of running per week than I have ever done before.  Plus, you know, the other 32 minutes per day of walking.  It has to be good for something.  It has to be making me healthier even if it's not going to make me THINNER.  And I least I get to watch...sigh...Dr. McDreamy.

 

Here's my problem.  Very shortly, I will come to the end of the available episodes of Grey's Anatomy, and THEN where will I be??

 

SO, my challenge to you is - name addictive television shows available on Netflix WITH English subtitles!  (I need the sub-titles because I have low decible hearing loss to begin with, and, even without hearing loss, it is hard to hear all the dialogue - so, shows such as Veronica Mars (which only had subtitles on the DVDs for Season 1, cheap bastards at the CW) have to be ruled out. (Well, plus I've already watched all the episodes of VM.  Twice.  Such a good show.  Anyway...)  I was thinking of trying Boston Legal next, but, it only has captions in Spanish.  :-(. 

 

So, please, indulge me.  What TV shows on DVD will keep me coming back to the treadmill?

 

Gretchen

 

 

 

Errors in Judgment

I realize that all of the international adoption literature in the world will tell me that what I am about to say is wrong. I realize that what I am about to say will probably make other transracial adoptees (some at least) furious. (Although, I suspect that just about everything I say on this blog, ever, about anything, probably is capable of making someone angry with me.)

So, here goes.

Lana was not ready to attend the Asian Festival.

I thought that taking her to the Asian Festival would be a positive experience for her, exposing her to Vietnamese food and culture and people. I thought (and in fact, still do think) I had a *duty*, and *obligation* to remind her of what it means, for her, to be a Vietnamese person.

And it was a horrible, wretched, traumatizing mistake. For Lana. I'm not saying it was a bad festival, not at all. I'm not saying that it wasn't a positive and fabulous experience for the gazillion other trans-racial families I saw there.

I'm saying that Lana was not ready to go to the Asian festival. As near as I can tell, the experience - the travel, the hotel, the enormous crowd - made Lana believe that we were trying to give her away.

I thought things went well, on Friday night. We met up with several other families who adopted from Vietnam, who had come to the Asian festival from as far away as Texas and Oregon (among other places), and we had really fabulous Vietnamese food at a place called HaLong Bay. And Lana, for the first time in almost 2 months, ate Vietnamese food. (Which is not to say that we haven't offered her Vietnamese foods. We have. She has rejected them outright. And vehemently.)

But, Friday night, her eyes lit up when the waitress set the soft spring rolls and nuoc mam in front of her. She dove into the food. SHE DRANK the dregs of the nuoc mam sauce after she had used up most of it eating her spring rolls. (She did this once in Hanoi, as well, and it made me nauseated just watching her do it. Both times. On other occasions she has attempted to drink salad dressing and honey mustard sauce.) She devoured her chicken pho - slurping the noodles and the savory broth with loud and messy gusto.

And at 2 AM, in our hotel room, she woke up screaming in terror. She ran to the bathroom, she huddled on the bathroom floor, screaming and crying and begging for her Daddy. She fell back to sleep wrapped around Dave, and whimpered on and off through the rest of the night.

So, perhaps we should have known better than to take her to the festival. But, it was the main purpose of our weekend trip. (Well, that, and meeting with the other families on Friday night.)

So, we went. And parking was crazy, and there were TONS of people everywhere, and the food smelled AMAZING. And we got bubble tea and a pineapple and lychee beverage and Malaysian food (my best friend from highschool, Amy, has been living in Malaysia for the past decade, and she raves about the food, and I had never had an opportunity to try it. And I have to agree, what we had at the festival was delicious.) I tried to get more spring rolls and some shrimp chips for Lana. She screamed and rejected them. She rejected EVERYTHING. She demanded to be fed "donald's shicken an fries" (McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and French Fries - which I believe she thinks is at the pinnacle of the cuisine found in her new life. This, despite the fact that I am a decent cook, and regularly offer her much better food.)

She cried, she threw fit after fit, and, in one weird moment, she stopped crying when she saw a police officer on a horse. (There were several Asian law enforcement officers at the festival. One of them let Gabe sit in his squad car. Gabe was thrilled. Lana refused to sit in the car.) Anyway, Husband took Lana up to the horse, and the officer let her pet the horse. As they were walking away from the officer, Lana said, "Bye-bye horsey. Yummy horsey. I eat you up. Yummy horsey. Yum." (No, I'm not making that up.) Husband doesn't think the officer heard anything after "bye-bye horsey."

I sincerely hope he didn't.

I have no idea if Lana has ever eaten horse. I myself (inadvertently) ate horse in France, and considering the French influence in Vietnam, it wouldn't surprise me if they also eat horse there. But, I never saw it on any menus. Maybe she was just being silly. Maybe she was just trying to get a rise out of David. Hell, maybe she knows they eat horses in France (she seems to have been educated about a couple of odd things in her short school life in Vietnam) and was commenting on that. I don't know. I have no idea. I just know that Lana's behavior at the festival ranged from bizarre to wretched.

After two hours, we left. We went back to the hotel. All four of us took a nap. We went and swam in the hotel pool (even though it was not as nice as the pool in our own backyard.) We took the kids to the California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and, back at the hotel, we watched Over the Hedge and tried to get some sleep. Lana cried and whimpered through most of the night. We did not return to the festival on Sunday. The kids wanted to swim again, and then we took them to the Columbus Zoo. We visited the zoo, and with some other Vietnamese adopting families whose agency (VORF) was having an event at the zoo that day.

All the way home in the car, Lana demanded, "go faster, Daddy. GO HOME. GO HOME FASTER, Daddy."

She crawled into her own bed last night and slept for twelve hours. She just wasn't ready. I guess I should recognize that Bich Lan spent over four years being Vietnamese in Vietnam. For just over four months she's been getting her feet underneath her, being a new child, in a new family, a family that doesn't look like her, or eat the things she is used to, or speak the language of her old life. She is trying to make sense of that new life, and it wasn't fair of me, so soon into this new family, to put her in a position that made her uncomfortable.

She is trying her hardest to learn to be Lana, in a whole new world. I don't really know where to go from here, in terms of helping Lana feel comfortable as a trans-racial adoptee. She has positive Asian role models in her life, every day, thanks to the diverse staff at her daycare center. I can take her to visit our Vietnamese friends, and cook and offer her Vietnamese foods that maybe only Husband and I will eat. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. Feeling a bit at a loss,

Gretchen

Mommy Got Boobs

I debated blogging about this, truly I did.  But, I decided that I really did think it was funny, in retrospect...

 

Lately, Lana has been obsessed with breasts.  OBSESSED.  Who has them, who doesn't have them, and why they do or do not have them. 

 

I'm not sure when the obsession began.  She likes to come and keep me company if I am taking a bubble bath.  At first, I resented this intrusion into what is, for me, SACRED PRIVATE TIME.  However, it then occurred to me that I used to have some of my best talks with MY mom while she was taking a bubble bath and I was keeping her company.  Also, Lana will happily sit for 10 to 15 minutes with one of her plastic tub-toy-cups and pour water down my back repeatedly.  Really.  It's like a spa treatment.  Probably, there are people out there who would pay good money to have someone pour warm water over their back, over and over, while they are having a bubble bath.  So, I've found I don't necessarily mind the company. 

 

So, I believe the first time the subject she broached the subject, she was sitting on the side of the tub.  "Mommy?" she asked.  "Mommy, what those?" 

 

I debated how to answer this question.  "Breasts" seemed like too formal an answer for a child who is only 4 and whose English vocabulary is still limited.  I sighed.  "Boobs," I said.  And immediately regretted it.  And continue to regret it to this day...because she LOVES the word "boobs" and doesn't want to replace it with any other word. 

 

She recently picked up a bra out of the clean laundry that David was folding.  She wrapped it around herself.  Honestly, I wish I had had a camera at that moment, because it looked absurdly comical.  It was electric orange, for one thing, and the child only weighs 35 pounds soaking wet, so, to say it was gigantic on her is an understatement.  "Look, Mommy.  Lana need this.  Lana need boobs." 

 

"Lana doesn't need that yet."  I said.

 

"Mommy?"

 

"Yes, Lana."

 

"Where Lana boobs?"

 

I sigh.  (See, I sigh a lot with this child.)

 

"When Lana is a big girl, Lana will have boobs." 

 

"Lana need boobs NOW, Mommy." 

 

Sorry baby.  Not gonna happen.

 

"Where Daddy boobs?" 

 

"Daddy is a boy.  Boys don't have boobs."  (The Mansierre or The Bro of Seinfeld fame notwithstanding, of course).

 

"Gabriel no have boobs?"

 

"That's right.  Gabriel is a boy, too.  Boys don't have boobs." 

 

I thought perhaps we had moved beyond the "boobs" obsession, because she didn't bring it up again for a few days.  Until Saturday, when we were in the CEREAL AISLE at a MAJOR GROCERY STORE CHAIN.  Did I mention it was SATURDAY?  When the entire population of this city is grocery shopping?

 

I was wearing a v-neck t-shirt, and I picked her up to put her in the cart, cause she was whining about walking.  From her vantage point in the cart, Lana snaked her fingers into my shirt and stuffed her head inside, and then she peeked back out (still pulling on my shirt and thus exposing far more of my body than I really care to think about) and announced, with happy excitement, to everyone on the cereal aisle, "MOMMY GOT BOOBS!!"

 

Twelve shades of red later, I decided to only let David push the cart. 

 

Gretchen

 

 

 

Lydia???

This morning, for no reason that I can even begin to fathom, I called Lana, "Lydia". 

 

At 8:43 this morning, the following sentence came out of my mouth:

 

"Lydia, put your shoes on, we need to get in the car."

 

This caused both of us to stop and look quizically around.  Me, because it occured to me that I had just called my daughter Lydia, and Lana, because, well, her name isn't Lydia. 

 

I don't even KNOW anyone NAMED Lydia.  I don't think I've EVER known anyone named Lydia.  I do kind of enjoy that scene in The Fisher King where Michael Jeter's character sings "Lydia the Tatooed Lady" to Amanda Plummer's character.  But, it's been, like, four years since I last watched that movie.  Even though I own it.  Sad.)

 

Once, a long time ago, I had a cat named Lydia.  For two days.  (Her name was Lydia for two days.  Then we decided it didn't fit her and renamed her Kashi.  Then we decided she didn't fit US and we gave her to our friend Wendy.  Who pampered her until her untimely death from feline leukemia a few years ago.  Hi, Wendy.)

 

Anyway, I have no clue why I did that. 

 

Also, when I dropped Lana off at school, I started to write July 17 on her drop off sheet.  And it's only May.  It's possible I'm losing my mind.

 

_________________________________________________

 

I'm totally depressed and sad that the crap network that is the CW is not renewing Veronica Mars.  I've only recently discovered (via watching Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD courtesy of Netflix) what a great, funny and well-written show this is, and WHACK.  It gets cancelled.  I'm bad luck like that for shows.  I'm like a TV show killer.  Seriously.  As soon as I start to love them?  They get the ax.  I am not kidding when I say I am bad juju for intelligent television.  Oh, what?  You want example??

 

 Dead Like Me?  Cancelled.  Arrested Development?  Cancelled.  Brimstone?  Cancelled.  Queer as Folk?  Well, first it jumped the shark in the middle of season three, and held on for a while, AND then it was cancelled.  (I mean, REALLY, did anybody buy Ted Schmidt as a drug addict?  Because I did NOT.)  There are others, I'm sure. 

 

________________________________________________

 

I have more to say and no time to say it.  Such is my life right now.

 

 

 

I feel old

A few days ago, I was talking to my 12-year-old niece, J~.  J~ was showing me a photograph she had taken and put on her cell phone. 

 

(Can I backtrack and say, first and foremost, I feel old because, WAIT.  WHAT?  I am OLD ENOUGH to have a 12-year-old niece?  (And it's not like my situation with my Aunt S~, who was only 3 years old when I was born, so, technically speaking, I WAS the 12-year-old niece to my 15-year-old aunt.  NO.  I have a 12-year-old niece and I her mom is my very slightly younger sister, so, not the same thing.  Therefore, I am OLD.)

 

Also, my 12-year-old niece has a cell phone? 

 

God, I am SO OLD.  Because, when I was 12?  It was 1984, and the cell phone hadn't even been invented.  And when I was 15 I was SUPER-IMPRESSED that my boyfriend's mom had a car phone.  (Does anyone else remember those enormous phones, mounted in the center console of the car?) 

What was I saying? 

 

Oh,  yes.  Twelve year old niece.  Cell phones.  I am OLD. 

 

Anyway, J~ had taken a picture with the camera on her cell phone (I guess, to put a fine point on it, it is my SISTER'S EXTRA CELL PHONE, that her children USE.  But, I'm splitting hairs, here.)  The photo was kind of spooky looking, and I said, "wow, it looks like something from the X-Files."

 

And, what did J~ say?  Did she say, "Yeah, Aunt Gretchen, I was going for a Mulder-Scully type feel when I took the photograph?"

 

No.  She SO DID NOT.

 

She asked me what an X-File was.  And then it occurred to me that The X-Files hadn't been prime-time cultural phenomenon at any point in J~'s pop-culture cognizant lifetime.  At the time The X-Files was an enormous hit, J~ either hadn't even been born, or, J~ was still a TODDLER. 

 

Slam.  I am OLD. 

 

Because, really, wasn't it, like, two days ago that the whole country tuned in every Sunday night to see if Mulder and Scully would EVER get it together?  Oh, and yeah, to see if they could solve that week's paranormal mystery, of course.  Sigh.  (On a trivial note, I was watching the X-Files when I realized I was in labor with Gabriel.  It's the episode where Mulder and Scully are being accompanied by a reality tv show.  COPS, I think.  It's the only episode, ever, that I haven't seen all the way through.  But, I was watching X-Files after having eaten a mountain of my Aunt Harriet's pasta with olives, and, suddenly, I was in a lot of pain.  So, I blame Fox Mulder and Aunt Harriet equally for sending me into labor.  :-) )

 

_______________________________________

 

Lana has been annoyed this week because her pre-school has been closed.  She isn't happy about this.  "Mommy.  Go Apple Tree.  Go Apple Tree now, Mommy.  Why no go Apple Tree, Mommy?  How?  How?"  An explanation that the university is closed for a week between semesters has fallen on deaf ears.  "Apple Tree not closed.  No.  Not closed.  Mommy lie."  Yes, Lana.  Of course.  Mommy is lying to you.  Why wouldn't I?? 

 

She seems to have some trouble differentiating the concept of How and Why.  Anyone who speaks Vietnamese have an explanation for this?  Are How and Why the same word in Vietnamese, by any chance?  Or, you know, is she just, a four  year old learning a whole new language and there is no deep linguistic confusion occurring?

 

Lana is also becoming a speed-freak.  And by this, no, I do not mean that she is a meth-addict.  I mean, she likes to go FAST.  "Go faster!" came chirping from my back seat about 10 days ago, and she hasn't let up since.  "Go faster, Mommy!  Go faster!"  She demands this as we are stuck in traffic, or while she is sitting in the grocery cart.  David was running at the park with her in the Baby Jogger, and she was egging him on, "Go faster!  Go faster Daddy!!"  She also did this while riding in the toddler seat on the bike David was riding.  And, while we were walking into Buffalo Wild Wings the other night, she saw a Harley Davidson motorcycle in the parking lot, and announced, "Lana go there!  Lana go fast!"  (Should I add an "over my dead body" here?)  I am starting to suspect that Lana is going to have a fine old time next month at Cedar Point.  Although I am already picturing her sitting in the Snoopy cars, yelling, "Go Faster!  Go Faster Snoopy!" 

 

Gretchen