Sarah's 2!!

Hard to believe the my little baby is now 2 years old, but what is amazing and wonderful is she is now a Perry.

I want to put a montage of photos of her over the last 2 years, i will try to put up a slide show as that might be easier to watch...i will try and do this before her next birthday at any rate!!

Her birthday party isn't until the 5th Feb as she will have a joint party with her friend lilli, and everywhere is shut over new year, so you know it has to be a little later than we hoped.

Happy new year to you all....

Chinese new year that is, i am not running that late! i just live in Taiwan so holidays are a tad different than at home

So next week we get the whole week off! yeah...i will still have to pop in as plants don't stop growing just because your on holiday...science, who'd do that!

However on the 11th Feb i will start a new job, teaching... i guess that the kids won't stop growing either.

meme tag from Essie

So my blog friend Essie over at: http://theaccidentalmommy.blogspot.com/

gave me a meme tag...you may wonder what that is, as i did. but it's the same thing i have seen on facebook. however this time i decided to try and do it...

Here is the meme:

The rules: 
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 2 to 5 sentences, along with these rules.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual book. Pick the CLOSEST!
6. Tag five other people to do the same!

i don't have books at work (i think that a scientific journals would not count as they don't have 56pgs...), and i don't have internet at home

but i do listen to audio books, and podcast at work...so i thought that i would just give you an extract of the audio book i am currently listening too. i stopped it randomly as i didn't know where page 56 is...however the spelling got the better of me, and thus i had to look up the section i was dictating to you or you'd never be able to understand what i was trying to say...it turns out it's from page 170, but i guess the point is that it is random..here goes.

"According to the great alchemist perrier de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the  agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her colour."

Can you see why i had problems spelling these words. my could i have picked a harder sentences to spell! thank goodness for google books, so i could just look it up.

With out searching, do you know what the book is?

As for 5 people to meme i always feel guilty doing that, but if anyone wants to let me know as i'd love to read it.

lost camera

So a few weeks ago  i went for my job interview and got it...but i lost my bag on the way there..i thought that all was well as i had my wallet, phone and keys all in my coat pocket...

i thought i've just lost my bag (which i loved but was well old) and my knitting...which was annoying as i was almost done making Sarah's hat...

However a few days later i wanted to take some photos...and thats when it hit me that the camera was in the bag...

i say the camera as appose to my camera as it wasn't really mine. it was my boy friends (Tom).

Of course i was annoyed and upset at loosing it but more worried about upsetting Tom..so i didn't tell him for a few days trying to figure out the best way to go about that...

I did tell him in the end and told him i will buy a new one. His reply "i don't want you to buy me a new one i want you to have not lost the old one!"

As i can't really do that, as much as i'd like to, i am now looking into buying a new camera...joy of joys. I've found one i like the look of its a cannon 1100..it looks a bit like the old one i lost.

So i will spend my Chinese new year bonus on a camera that i lost. i am such a cluts it's painful (is that even spelt right?).

Tomorrow is Sarah's 2nd birthday..hard to believe really. She will get an umbrella from me...well Tom paid for it so i  guess it's really from him..but i thought of it! darn it.

I'm going to try and make a chocolate cake tonight for her, like the one in the hungry caterpillar she loves that book, and always wants to see the chocolate cake...so i will try.

Final Decree!!

Ok so some of you won't have a clue what that means but to anyone who has ever adopted or is trying to adopt its a big big deal!! (also know as the adoption decree)

i've waited over a year and half for this day and now its here.

SO just before Christmas i got the letter from the judge saying that he agrees that i can be Sarah's mother. Then you have to wait, to allow the family to contest if they so wish to. Then you get this letter which is the FINAL Decree!!

So no matter what they can't take her (as a disclaimer i should state that "they" of course could take her, if i get any more mental and then do something crazy...but in lieu of this happing all is well!)

I am not so sure if this counts as the Got ya' day that many people speak about...or if that was when i first took her home..or when i got the first letter.. who knows but what i do know is that i have the same legal rights and thus responsibilities of a birth mother...so i guess i should pick up my act and get mothering that child of mine!! 

Oh it's her Second birthday this Friday so its double celebrations again..

oh and it means that i will have to go to Iland to sort out her house hold register and medical insurance and well lots of thing...i need to get on the case asap!

Darn strangers being sweet and nice!

So good friends of mine left Taiwan last weekend, they are going home after being here for 6months adopting and fostering there youngest two boys...yes two. they did two at once...which is no mean feat, as adopting one is hard enough.

On Sunday i helped out and looked after their baby (he's like 7-8months old i think..) for an hour or so. 

So i took him, in a sling, to the local park with Sarah. Sarah loves parks but she loves the bigger kids more..however it seems the bigger kids weren't told!

So this Sunday she goes up to a bigger kid (i swear has to be an only child) who was playing in the park with little metal disk things (with pokemon or something on them) and Jenga blocks.... Of course Sarah rushs over and want to play with them and him...he yells at her no don't touch (in chinese of course). She's good and just looks, with her hands behind her back leaning over to get as close to them as possible...very cute. The boys Granddad was with him and gave Sarah a "toy" to play with, well a gun, that fires a ball. He then proceeded to teach my lovely little girl how too pull the trigger of a gun, and knock over Jenga blocks...nice!

The boy was not too amused and whenever they bulid something he thought was cool, Sarah and the Granddad were told to go to the other side and play...which they did until they build something again deemed cool and got moved!

I always thought that children here respected their elders...maybe this has broken down over the years as he clearly didn't.

Then yesterday Sarah was sat in one of those toys that you put money in and it moves and plays music..she's happy just to sit in it and never demands money. Along came a skinny old guy who was eating some fast food. and just lent over and put 10nt in the slot...and kept walking, i said thank you and he looked over his shoulder and  grinned... revealing his black, mostly missing teeth!

People can be really nice just out of the blue...little do either of the men know that i wasn't that happy about it, first a gun...i don't want her knowing about gun, not yet! As for the coin man, this was a lovely gesture, however now Sarah knows that these things play music and move!! Darn those strangers being sweet and nice!

ps after carrying around Declan, i thought wow i could do this again....what am i thinking! God has an amazing way to make woman love children and forget all about the nightmare it was to get them! (I can't speak for men as i am not one)

The start of a new career?

So i got the job as a teacher, and i will start working on 11th feb..so in one month.

This means that i am giving up "science", and moving to teaching...

i will be teaching science but it is nothing like the science that i am currently doing...the kids i will be teaching are about 6-9 years old... ipso facto they aren't quite and PhD level plant science.

I is hard to believe that i will be teaching in a month, i am excited but have my reservations. I will be teaching English for one thing...which is far far from my strong point (as anyone who reads this here blog would have found out!). I am just hoping that they don't ask me to explain things such as when to say without or with out...ect... as i don't know why. Also i am a little dubious as to when to use a comma with in (or is that in fact within??) a sentence...as for spelling...i will be teaching them the art of using a dictionary, based on the fact the phonics can not explain everything~!

The other aspects of the job, teaching science, social studies, maths ect.. i can do that i'm sure. i suspect i won't even need that much prep for those but the English...that will take some work!

So i will be working less hours at this new job, about 4-5 a day, and i will  get paid more...go figure. I guess that i should have looked into doing this right away when i arrived here as i wouldn't be so skint right now...

I will have to find a new nanny for Sarah as i want to find one that is closer to where i work. It's such a shame as the one she has now is really good, (bar the fact that i suspect she feed Sarah meat sometime...but maybe that's just me being paranoid!). I will need a nanny for just half days and i don't know how easy that will be to come by...but i will keep looking until i find a good one. I can keep her current nanny till i find one closer i guess.

I will also have to get internet at home..as i currently don't and rely on the fact that i can "internet" at work...(that a verb right?!)

Oh me on my, oh me oh my, what a lot of things go by...(reading one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish a little too often!)

As for the adoption now word.

Oh Tom's car broke beyond repair...so now he's going to buy a NEW one..really a new car. they are quite cheap now a days what with the economic down turn ect... so i am doing some research into good small, fuel efficient japanese cars...any ideas?

Dummy free before 2, just!

So Sarah will be 2 years old on the 23th (as they say here 123). I had always hoped she'd be shot of her dummy before turning 2, however, Sarah has always had a dummy, at the orphanage she had it permanently attached to her. Seriously it was barely ever out of her mouth. She loves it, the past year i have been trying to get rid of it, recently i have told her it's for babies (as she had started to point out a baby we see one). However i see that the dummy has served to comfort her and i know what that is like. i sucked my fingers until i had a brace fitted (about 15!!), i was gutted when it didn't feel the same anymore. So this is why i have never taken it away. i have restricted it to sleepy times...which is why now when she wants it she says "night night, mummy, night night"..which is of course all a ruse.

However two days ago her nanny tells me that she doesn't need it...who am i to argue, she told me that she went to sleep without even asking for it. So i try that night to not give it to her... and it worked!

Yes she asked for it but she wasn't begging or screaming for it. I just told her no, and she asked for her Spider instead...still haven't taken a photo of that and it looks more and more dishevelled everyday.

Ok so she didn't sleep wonderfully, but not too bad, asked only once for it. which was amazing. I thought that it would be a long difficult battle that i wasn't ready for but in fact it wasn't so bad. Last night she asked for it again, just once so ok...

However she has for a few nights now been getting into bed with me in the middle of the night, first of all it was due to her having a cold and not breathing well...however it seems to have become a little bit of a fixture...which i really can't be doing with. As much as i'd love to co-sleep and all those hippy ideals that i have i can't i am not build for that. I am away most of the night as i can't sleep with, what can only be described as a active octopus, in the bed next to me...nightmare. i am a really light sleeper and her turning in her crib can wake me...so you can image that i don't get much sleep with her in the bed. However the alternative is to let her cry it out..and the last time i did that (new years eve) she puked all over me and herself...nice huh.

So i'd like to avoid that. i think i will wait for this cold to be over then kick her out once and for all.

I still haven't got the letter from the judge with the final decree which is scare but  i can't believe that her birth mother/ family will want her now...it's been going on long enough for them to have stepped up and said..in fact we want to keep her...i guess we just wait and see.

Other news is that i got the job...what job? well i had been half offered a teaching job and had gone for a couple of interviews for it. Yesterday i got it. 

Its a bit scary as i'd be leaving Science, but i think it could be really good for me at the moment, not sure it's the best move for my career but it offers more money, fewer hours (*4 a day) and  more money...

Which all means that i get to spend more time with Sarah and get to save a bit of money for a flight...i currently live from wage packet to wage packet...which isn't fun for the amount of work it do...(as i sit here blogging!)

So i'd either be starting after Chinese new year (are big holiday of course!), or in March...they have to work that out. my boss here wants me to stay till march if i can but i will see what they say.