Sunday at the park and broken caterpillars

On Sunday Tom went to church..which rarely happens so it was really nice to see him there. After church we went to the park with Ann and Tilly, and ran into Heather, which is little to no surprise as it is next to her house. The kids had fun running about. Sarah is able to get on and off the seesaw as well as the lower rocking horse toy thing. She tried for ages to get on the slightly higher one but just wasn't quite tall enough!
This is what slides often look like in Taiwan, I forgot that they are strange as I've been here too long but when i first saw them i thought they were very weird. They are made of concrete but work quite well. They are a tad high and a tad scary when you first let your kid go on them, but Sarah does well by herself these days.

The other day Sarah came to me holding a small piece of wool /yarn, and told me broken mummy broken, i asked her what is, and she signed caterpillar broken. So cute. She thought that the wool was a dead caterpillar! bless her she is so caring.

Big, rhino bettle, grubs.

So we went to Dan Suiw (can't spell it sorry) with Heather, Yaya, Ann and all the kids. They had lots of fun, especially the older two.
I found a shop that sold beetles, i wouldn't normally by them as they are always from some other county but this guy had the rhino beetle from Taiwan, that he breed rather than taking from the wild. So i brought two grubs for Tom. We / all three of us love bugs and want to watch them change from grubs to beetles, and then we can always let them go as they are native. We often get beetles on the balcony so its not like i live in the city and never see them. They are pretty big grubs, but Sarah and i like them all the same. I am sure not all kids would be so interested but my daughter is like me, and likes bugs and grubs. So we watched them for a bit before we put them in their soil home and Tom took them to his place. We will get the back to watch them shortly i am sure as at this stage they are easy to transport.
Here are photos of the grub so don't look if you don't like big old grubs! i warned you...

Onion

On Saturday i had Onion put down, it was so sad. She was really thin and not getting any better. i am sure i could have kept her alive longer but i really didn't want to due to the fact that she was suffering. i can't work out if what i did was right for her but i couldn't bare to watch her waist away like that it was just too sad for me. As a vegan i struggled with this but i think it's for the best. Sarah kissed her, and said bye bye right before he took her last breath. Then she went and got Onions box and said home. so sad.
I will put a slide show of her up at a later date. I don't have the photos on this computer.

Home of Gods love

So we travelled down to Yi Lan (it takes about an hour or so), to go to Home of Gods love. Sarah is registered as living there...but in fact she never has. The amazing couple Ted and Bev run home of Gods love and did the adoption for me. They are truly an amazing couple that have so much love for what they do. They have been in Taiwan for over 40 years and have seen over 800 children go through their home. Some stay for the long term but other come just to wait to find a forever family. They would like to place all the kids in Taiwan, however this isn't realistic as Taiwanese people in general don't which to adopt none family members. So the kids often go to America. All the babies i saw (bar one) has a family waiting for them. It must be so hard to be the other side of the world waiting for your child to come to you. i feel your pain. i am just so grateful that i was able to have Sarah with me the whole time, or at least be able to go and see her.
The house was full of children, i had to step over two babies to get to the loo, they were sleeping in little bouncy chair things. So cute. all of them. Sarah was very sweet with the babies and tried to put fall dummies back in their mouths. She also counted to them when they were crying ( i say count...she can count to three sometimes but mostly she repeats one and two). She did this to try and calm them down as that is what i do when she is upset and screaming. Its not 1 2 3 and time out or anything its just counting to 10 to let her get her breath and know everything is ok. She was saying one two good girl...its very sweet.
This amazing couple did my adoption without charge, i can't repay them for what they did but when i am earn more i will try to give back the financial aspect.
I went there to change Sarah's name, and house hold register. So now i have her birth certificate and everything is in my name and she has her new name with my last name. Her birth mother named her, i asked her if she'd like to and she did. Her previous given name wasn't given to her by her birth mum but someone random, and it was a terrible name for a part English child ( i think i said it before but her name was Yi Ting, which is pronouncedEating...not so good!)
Sarah took a photo of her feet which looks so sweet i thought i'd share.
The couple are Ted and Bev Skiles, my thoughts, thanks, and prayers go out to them.
I will be making an adoption book for Sarah and this photo will go in to it for sure.

2nd Birthday party for Lili and Sarah

So Sarah and Lili had a joint birthday party last Friday. We took them to Playspace,which is a great indoor place for kids to have fun. It must be American or at least western as it resembles nothing i have seen here before. It cost a bit of money, not too much ..but they charge for the cake...even when i made it and brought it in go figure.
So the kids all had fun and as parents i think it was stress free...until the cab journey home (Heathers house) when we had 5 tired hungry kids in the back seat with two adults...the kids weren't so happy.

As you can see from the photos, there was lots to do at Playspace, a big sand box...that Sarah wouldn't step it. She hates the sand and wouldn't even step on it to get to the every alluring bubbles. I had to carry her! She did however love the swing, the slide the climbing frame (which she practically runs up..she's a master climber), and anything else that kept her moving. She did sit down and paint for the first time..in the photo she looks pretty serious about that picture!

I tried to get a nice shot of Sarah and lili together but most of them they were fighting over something...got to love 2 year olds!

The cake was made by me, and thus vegan and i have to say it was pretty yummy. My daughter however didn't even take a bite. She's just not that into cake, she'd rather eat veggies...strange kid. They other kids like the cake so it wasn't made in vain. Sarah got more presents, and most important of all was the bubbles that Heather gave her...which make a big mess but she loves them.

For the love of broccoli

so i have 2 days left as a scientist...wow it's amazing that i won't be doing this every day. 

I will however carry on doing some science stuff as i hope/pray/plan that i will finish my thesis in the mornings while Sarah still goes to day care (all day). When i am done then i will get to spend way more time with her, and i have that to, hopefully, keep me motivated. I need to finish it even if i never work in science again. 

i have to sort out all this stuff at work, stuff as in work as well as just a lot of things that i have at work that i need to clear out throw out ect... that's no mean fait as i'm rather messy/disorganised and thus have tons of junk in and around my desk (both in and out of the lab) so i need to do that really. i am hoping that a fairy will come and wave a wand. I totally understand my blog friends daughter who wants a wand that really works. i do to! none of this plastic pretend stuff one that goes poof and it's all clean.

I guess that isn't going to happen and thus i need to get my finger out (out of what i don't know but out of something*). However i just want to read blogs and look at photos. Here's some of Sarah eating a chocolate biscuit, which is funny as she doesn't really eat them often and in fact when she saw some broccoli that was left over from dinner she threw down the chocolate cover biscuit in favor of the broccoli. my kid is SO cool. She didn't want the biscuit back after either...but she wanted more broccoli. What kid does that?? answer, mine.

*if you are an adam and joe listener then you will know they were talking about this too. if your not it's a pretty funny podcast from the bbc.

Happy new year!

So Chinese new year has come and gone, we had a week off work so it was ace. I got to spend the whole week with my little girl...who is not so little any more.

Today is the first day back and i have to say i miss her. I don't miss the not sleeping part, and the throwing a wobbler because she's shattered part. Nope i don't miss that, but i miss her laughing talking, signing, singing ect... she has been just so adorable you could eat her up. 

(Oh just to let American readers know that shattered also means really tired in British English..i didn't know that until  the day i wrote on my facebook that i was really shattered, and had three people phoned me to ask if everything was ok, i thought that they were being so sensitive to me being tired, until they said "so did the adoption fail, is that why you are so shattered?? i am so sorry"..so i now know that i must mention this discrepancy between our languages.)

She got a buggy (aka stroller, yet another British word i didn't know they didn't use in the US) from the Hammonds with a monkey inside for her birthday and ever since we can not leave the house with out it. It is SO cute SO so cute. she pushed it the whole length of Dann park, it look over and hour. She's loves it. She is adverse to dolls, like really doesn't like them but the monkey in the buggy she loves. Her friend Lili Hammond, loves dolls, loves babies and has tried to share them with Sarah but Sarah pushes them away saying baoyao (no, i don't want it) she really doesn't like them its funny to see a little girl have this reaction. However the Hammonds have had a new years baby, and Sarah has come around a little bit, to the point that she asked about him in her nightly count down of all her little and not so little friends. Every night she will ask me about all of the Hammonds, and Tilly, Anna, and Tom and i say they are asleep or watching TV or what every i think they might be doing...all the kids a are always asleep, even if they aren't! So on Thursday she asked baby? sleep? and i said yes he is. she did it every night since. cute huh. before she just kept telling me to put the baby on the floor, when we were around their house. nice huh. she'd say baby floor, and point. however by the end of the week she even asked to hold him...well for 3 seconds...then she wasn't interested any more. So there is hope that in the future i could have a second child...maybe. I'd need to be earning more money before i can think of a second one oh and maybe next time i will be married....maybe.

I'll post photos of the buggy soon.