Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Lunar New Year!

No, we're not Chinese, but one of our daughters is, and this leads us down a tricky path. It is important for us to recognize and honour her heritage. To deny it would be denying who she is and where she came from. At the same time we don't foster any delusions that we are a Chinese family celebrating in the way a "normal" Chinese family would. That would be impossible. So in the mean time we cobble together a modest celebration to acknowledge the event without, hopefully, bastardizing the whole thing and throwing at our daughter some funky white westernized version of the real thing. Fortunately I've had some tips from our daughter's former foster mother. We are also lucky that our girl is still young enough that as long as the festivities involve authentic Chinese noodles it's good enough for her.

Don't mess with my papaya!

What's this?


It's a karate belt. A white stripe belt to be precise (though to me it looks more like a black stripe, but that's beside the point). What is the point is that my sweet little Maiapapaya was just graded for the first time in karate and earned this nice little number. Tonight I'm a very proud mamma to a very proud little (and I mean 43" little) peanut.

Oh, it gets even better ...

This morning I received an excerpt from a transcript from a meeting of the Parliamentary subcommittee for Citizenship and Immigration. The following quote was an example being put forward by the Honourable Andrew Telegdi who was one of the vice-chairs of the committee (a Citizenship and Immigration subcommittee is currently not sitting because our chicken-a$$ Prime Minister suspended parliament) Mr. Telegdi was apparently expressing his concern with the impending changes to the Citizenship Act:

"Suppose, for example, a Canadian couple are spending a few years working abroad and give birth outside Canada to a baby. Let's call her Anna. It could actually be a soldier. She is a Canadian citizen through her parents. The family returns to Canada when Anna is six months old and she grows up in Canada. And we heard from Mr. Teichroeb, who had a similar situation. As a young adult, she chooses to study abroad and finds herself pregnant. If she gives birth to her child outside Canada, the child is not a Canadian citizen under the terms of Bill C-37.

If the baby--let's call her Mary Ann--happens to be not entitled to any other citizenship, she will be stateless. Bill C-37 does have provisions to allow Mary Ann, and others like her, to apply for Canadian citizenship if they are stateless; however, there are a number of conditions that must be met, including the requirement that the stateless child of a Canadian citizen should have resided for three or four years preceding their application. This means the child will have to remain stateless for at least three years.

This bill also fails to explain on what basis Mary Ann would be allowed to enter Canada in order to meet the three-year residency requirement. Even if Anna attempts to sponsor her child as an immigrant under family class, she will face a challenge in finding travel documents for Mary Ann so she can travel to Canada as a stateless person. She is not entitled to a passport."

Our adopted daughter is caught up by the same problem with the legislation as the fictional girl "Anna" in the example above (having been born abroad, but the child, in our case adopted, of Canadian parents). The plight her child "Mary Ann" faces could be the same as that of a future grandchild for us. While it's unlikely that our daughter will give birth abroad, it's not an impossibility and our own government has just set up the mechanism by which our grandchild could be a stateless individual caught in limbo with no means by which to even enter Canada and attempt to obtain her citizenship.

I have sent some letters, but I am doubtful they will change anything. This garbage has already received royal ascent and comes into affect in April, just in time for our daughter's birthday. Nice gift.

Not really equal ...

(warning: long, somewhat complicated rant about the rights or lack thereof of our adopted daughter. But, ya, it is important)

When I became the adoptive mother of a child from a different country I was prepared for the inevitability that at some point I would have to crawl out of my cocoon of white privilege and advocate for her. I just didn't realize it would have to be against my own government.

At the time when we adopted our daughter we had to apply to sponsor her to immigrate to Canada. When she landed in a Canadian port of entry she was granted permanent resident status (by virtue of being the legal child of Canadian parents) and then we had to apply for her Canadian citizenship. While adopted children's applications were expedited (and the normal three year wait was waived) it was added stress and bureaucracy that many adoptive parents felt that they shouldn't have to endure (heavens know we'd already been through enough). If we had received government approval to adopt these children and they are legally ours in every sense why would they not be afforded the same rights as our biological children and given automatic citizenship? Many other countries, such as the United States, were already recognizing this right for their internationally adopted children. Finally in January of last year a great deal of lobbying paid off and the government began granting automatic citizenship to the internationally adopted children of Canadian citizens.

Unfortunately it seems the equality of rights for our biological daughter and our adopted daughter will be short lived. As of April the federal government will be enacting new citizenship legislation. A major part of this legislation addresses Canadians who were born in another country.

Up until now, children born to Canadian citizens, regardless where these children were born, were granted automatic citizenship. This has become problematic for the government. There are those who have abused this privilege. They will immigrate here, obtain citizenship and all of the rights and benefits that it affords, but then return to their country of birth. They will have children, who are automatically Canadians. These people may never reside in our country again, but will demand assistance in times of crisis. They may come here for free health care if they have a serious medical situation. This is taking advantage of the system and I understand the government's desire to quash this type of abuse. This is the impetus behind the legislative changes that are about to come into effect. But the careless, lazy way the new law has been written will impact upon our youngest daughter.

The new law states that if someone is a Canadian citizen, but was born outside of Canada any children that are born to them outside of our borders or adopted from a birth country outside of Canada will not be granted citizenship. The legislation even goes so far as to specifically mention that this applies to children born in other countries who are adopted by Canadians. In other words, if in the future our biological daughter gives birth while outside of Canada or adopts a child born outside of Canada her child will automatically be a Canadian. If, on the other hand, our legally adopted, supposedly equal in every way, daughter gives birth while outside of Canada or adopts a child born outside of Canada her child will not be granted citizenship. This is ridiculous. Our children are being raised side by side within the borders of our country. They will both hopefully become contributiging members of Canadian society. But, because our adopted daughter happened to be born somewhere else she does not share the same rights as her sister.

There are absolutely no provisions in this legislation regarding residency or ties to Canada (ie. having Canadian parents). The government will not take into consideration the fact that my daughter is living here and is in every way a member of Candian society. She will be classed the same as the system abuser who has obtained citizenship and returned to their country of origin.

You might think "what's the big deal?" "What are the odds that she will have a baby while working or travelling abroad?" Probably not great. What are the odds she will adopt? Pretty reasonable. Many adult adoptees do. But the bigger issue is equal rights. It's the principle.

When we were granted approval from the province of Ontario to adopt our daughter we received a letter. In that letter there were two lines that struck me. They read:
"Once the adoption is finalized, Ontario legislation recognizes the child as a full member of the adopting family and as such the child is treated in the same manner as all other children of legally constituted families. Ontario welcomes the child from China ..." It is hurtful and maddening that our federal government does not seem to share the same sentiment towards our daughter.

For a lack of anything better ...

I've been kind of down for a few days, questioning what I'm doing in my life (nothing serious, you know, just one of those moods - so don't worry family members who I know are reading this, this funk excludes my husband and kids who I'm grateful to say are the best thing in my life). So, because I don't want to bore you with my pity party here's a little Saturday afternoon entertainment. I like these guys. Thought you might too.

Ah, just go google yourself!

So at the encouragement of Elise's last post I googled myself. Quite honestly not a terribly interesting read (though that might be a good thing), just some tags to a couple of articles I wrote for Root and Sprout and a five year old duathlon result. So, for a lack of anything better to write about (I'm actually working on a few new projects and am saving my scant brain power for that) here's some interesting things about myself that you won't find if you google my name:

1. By my formal education I am a Prosthetic/Orthotic technician. I am trained to make artificial limbs and orthopedic braces. Unfortunately where I currently live there are no clinics where I can ply my trade.
2. I used to fence competitively.
3. I once had a drink bought for me in a pub in a small Newfoundland town by a former Star Trek cast member.
4. I know how to weld.
5. I'm a step, bio and adoptive mother.

What interesting things will I not find out about you if I google your name?

Spam update:

So I contacted my email provider's IT department again. This time I went directly through the spam filter's techincal support link. I received a very prompt reply. Apparently it's my fault. They informed me that I should not have my own email addy listed as an approved sender. Of course! Now don't I feel like a silly bitch. But seriously. How stupid is that?! I have to block myself as a sender?!

Oh, and now I have the image of an extremely well-endowed Christmas elf smugly parading around in my head ("nine inches in 2009..." ). Thanks for that Ray.

Fargin' SPAM!

spam: n. Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

You've all heard of it. And I've got it. Applenty. What really has me ticked is that up until a month ago I NEVER had it. My email server's spam filter worked like a charm. Not anymore. Something has changed. SPAM is blasting into my inbox at an alarming rate. And the crazy part is, apparently it's all from me. Yep, I'm not sure how it works, but the spammers have got some sort of work around that is tricking my spam filter into thinking that the email is originating from my address. And even better, they all seem to be coming from folks offering to help me enlarge and enhance my male member, if I only had one. Yes, on a daily basis I get bombarded with such savoury subject lines as "**** her from behind", "nine inches in 2009". I could go on, but the rest aren't really appropriate to repeat. It's annoying as hell, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I report the content to SPAMCOP.com, but that doesn't stop it, it just rats on the senders, if their webhosts really give a crap what they're doing. I've complained to my email service provider and their IT department just gave me some "a lot of people have viruses lately" mumbo jumbo (I HATE when IT schmucks just spew back standarized boxed answers to complaints). I really don't think it's a virus. My sister (same provider) is having the exact same problem. I think their spam filter is on the fritz. The only thing it seems to be catching these days it legit stuff that I subscribe to and everything else just sails on through. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Happy 2009!

After my little holiday hiatus I am happy to finally be back in the blogosphere. I find it difficult to sit at the computer for any length of time with my husband and two kids hanging over me. It makes me all paranoid and defensive ... like they are watching me. And of course it's only a matter of time before someone is climbing on me (the kids I mean - my husband doesn't do that at the computer).

So finally with a little computer time to myself I would like to present my New Year's goals. That's right, goals, not resolutions. Resolutions sounds so stuffy and proper and impossible to honour, so I'm setting goals. Resolutions are to be broken. Goals are to be strived for and reached. So, my goals for 2009 ...

Get in better shape.

Be more positive.

Write more; set some goals and work towards them.

Teach my oldest daughter to play the piano.

Enjoy life more.

What are your goals for 2009?

Finished!

After frantically finishing NaNoWriMo I rattled off a list of projects I needed to get done before Christmas. Today I completed my last task, a Christmas stocking for our youngest. Now with my shopping done too I can sit back, relax and just hang out with my hubby and the kids for the holidays. Sweet.

Stranded

Yep. We are. Stranded. We were heading home from our weekend Christmas celebration at my in-laws. We knew the last portion of highway heading north to our town was closed, so we drove inland to come in from the east. By the time we were about 40 minutes from home the other highway was closed. We are now camped out in a small motel in the middle of no where. But it's all good. The kids are using my hubby as a jungle gym and we are able to piggyback on someone's wireless internet connection. The plan is to watch Christmas shows and brew up some hot chocolate in the coffee maker. It's actually kind of fun.

Update: ('cause I'm bored and this is ceasing to be fun) The above map shows the road conditions in our part of the province. The black bolded highways have poor visibility. The little signs with diagonal lines mean that the road is closed. The conditions are far worse now than when we set out this afternoon from the in-laws. I hope this doesn't mean that we will be stuck here at the Bates Motel tomorrow. The latest reports are that the plows have been pulled off the roads in the three surrounding counties. This is not unusual for our part of the province, but it is for so early in the winter. And we are usually snug in our comfy little home snuggling with the kitties by the fire and sipping hot chocolate, not in a motel on the side of the road ... at least this will make for a good Christmas story in the years to come.

Mystery morsels ...

About three times a year we receive a package from China. The senders are our youngest daughter's former foster family (she spent weekends with them during the months leading up to our adoption). Today the Christmas parcel arrived. In keeping with their intent to help our daughter maintain a connection to her Chinese roots as well as to expose us to our daughter's birth culture, in addition to the usual toys and knicknacks the foster family sent us something inherently Chinese. In the past it has been such treasures as laquerware, miniature clay tea pots, jade trinkets. This time it was food. I'm not talking the delectable chocolate treats that graced our daughter's birthday package. This is the real deal and there's a box FULL of it. I could open a small food kiosk in the local mall, if we had one ... There are eight different things to choose from, some savory, some sweet. There are spicy crackers, peanut clusters, some sort of rice cakes, strawberry-flavoured biscuits, bags of small pecans, chowmein noodle squares (that look similar to rice krispie squares), little sausage thingies vacuum sealed in foil (that we absolutely will not be eating - they went past their best before date during shipping) and these:

I don't know what the heck these things are, these little gelatinous spheres that can't be identified as man made or natural. I considered they might be some sort of processed lychee fruit, but I can't be sure, so I'm thinking they will also be filed in the "will not be eating" category. Our oldest, who is not Chinese and definitely not a culinary adventurer, has thrown everything into the "will not be eating" category. Meanwhile her younger sister is going to town. It is obvious that these are familiar tastes to her and she is excited beyond excited to have a whole box of nummy snacks from home sitting in the kitchen, especially snacks that she doesn't have to compete with her sibling for.

Food wussiness aside, we are so thankful to have these generous people in our lives. It is the exception, not the rule in Chinese adoption to have contact with the foster family (it is usually discouraged). While I understand the reasons for it, it is unfortunate. This family, who now feel like part of our family, are a valuable link for our daughter to her past and her homeland.

update: We got brave. The weird gelatinous spheres are definitely man made. They are an outer tasteless section surrounding black grainy stuff that tastes somewhat like sesame oil. Not good. Even our youngest concurs.

Thought for the day ...

Actually, there are three of them. Today I received one of those friendship chain-letter email thingys. Usually I find them sucky and annoying and don't forward them on/return them (apparently not wanting to bother others with unwanted junk in their inbox makes me a bad friend). However, the one I read this morning had lots of great little motivational phrases and I actually made the effort to pass it on. Here are some of the words of wisdom contained therein:

My mind is like a parachute...it functions only when open.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime! It is never too late to become what I might have been.

If I lack the courage to start, I have already finished.

Christmas Cookie Casualty

My husband has a favorite saying, "it's amazing that the human race has survived so long. The young of the species are so helpless." This is often said in exasperation after one of our kids has done a bone-headed thing. This would be such a case. While assisting with Christmas cookie duty our oldest got injured. Baking would seem to be a pretty innocuous activity. Apparently not. No, she didn't get her finger caught in the mix-master. She burned herself. This seems like an obvious enough cooking injury, but the bizarre part is where. Get this, her chin! That's right, only my schmoopster would burn her pretty little chin while standing on her tippy-toes trying to sniff the fresh tray of cookies newly pulled from the oven. She is now sporting a nasty looking crusty red strip about an inch long across her chin. Fortunately she is very fairly complexed, so the scar probably won't be that obvious. I have made a mental note not to let her help carve the Christmas turkey.

Festive flicks ...

Now that my kiddies are feeling more themselves (both had bronchitis last week & one had a bonus ear infection) and I've had a chance to start my Christmas baking, I'm getting into the festive mood. I love this time of year! One of the things I really enjoy is sitting back and watching a favorite Christmas movie/show with my hubby & kids. This can be quite time consuming since we have lots of favorites in our house. Heavily in rotation are:

Elf - I'm not usually a big Will Farrell fan, but he was born to play this role. I love Buddy!

The Polar Express - Freaky, zombiesque eyes aside, the animation in this movie is fabulous as is the music. My kids have several dance routines they've made up to the soundtrack, which can be heard blasting from our stereo at any time of the year. I'm sure our neighbours are wondering if they're living next to a family of elves (insert Ray's short joke here ...)

The Grinch (the original cartoon, not the Jim Carey abomination of a movie), Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph - classic, classic, classic

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Chevy Chase at his best. Plus it's my mother's favorite, so every year I watch this in her honour.

White Christmas - It just wouldn't be Christmas without Bing and Rosemary crooning that classic tune ...

What is your favorite holiday flick?

Barbie wins smackdown against "bratty" rivals!

I don't like Bratz dolls. If you know me, this probably isn't news. As the mother of two little girls I think they send a horrible message to young kids. If you're unfamiliar with these diva dollies they have exaggeratedly large hips & lips, heavily made-up eyes and tend to sport provocative clothing that usually includes belly tops and mini-skirts (and really, I'm no prude). Whoever thought that it's healthy for five year olds to idealize little hoochie mammas with attitude needs a slap. The really sad part is people have bought into it. They are wildly popular with the line now including games, clothing, bedding, movies, Bratz Boyz and even Bratz Petz. Admittedly even we have one, though she is a sport version, tastefully dressed in soccer shorts and tee-shirt (it was a shameful, though highly successful bribe aimed at motivating our oldest to get over her fear of "getting kicked" during soccer).

Well after the holidays it seems that the these vinyl vixens will be disappearing from the market. Toy giant Mattel, maker of Barbie, the Bratz biggest rival, has recently won a copyright infringement lawsuit against MGA, the company that manufactures Bratz. The court case found that the designer of Bratz was still under contract with Mattel when the concept for the dolls was conceived. To that end, the judge ruled after the holidays all remaining Bratz must be recalled from retailers and MGA's moulds and other equipment for fabricating the dolls must be destroyed. Mattel has also been awarded 100 million dollars for breach of contract and copyright infringement.

While I would have preferred that Bratz were disappearing for more noble reasons I'll celebrate their demise regardless. No more will I have to endure hours of begging every birthday, Christmas, and shopping opportunity in between. I have explained for the last time why they are "inappropriate". Hallelujah!

Now if we could only get Barbie to work on that unhealthy body image ...

The sweetest sound ...

Our family is very verbal, especially my husband and our oldest daughter. They love to talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Which is great. I love it. Words and communication are an essential part of life for someone aspiring to write well.

Our youngest daughter loves to talk too. However, speech has been a big challenge for her. My youngest has a moderate/severe hearing loss. Her loss inhibits her ability to hear certain speech tones such as "s", "sh", hard sounds like "k", and the endings of words. This combined with the fact that her hearing loss went unaided until she was almost three (we adopted her at age 2 1/2) and English is her second language, she has had some significant obstacles to overcome with speech. That being said, she has made monumental strides and with a lot of hard work and the assistance of a kick ass speech therapist she is pretty much on target for a child of her age with both receptive and expressive language. Our biggest challenge now is teaching her the speech sounds that are missing from her repertoire.

Tonight while doing some "home work", for the heck of it I pulled out the flash cards of words ending in the "s" sound ... house, mouse, dice, kiss (we had put these away a few months ago because she simply couldn't produce the sound). Well I almost fell off my chair!

me: What's this? (while showing my baby a picture of Mickey Mouse)

R: mouSe!

I thought it must be a fluke so I tried again.

me: What's this? (displaying a picture of a school bus)

R: (jumping up and down excitedly) buS! I wan to ride on a hool buS!

We all jumped up and down excitedly. Then we did the only thing we could do. Celebrate with banana splits.

Canada Reads!

This week CBC, our national broadcaster, announced the line up for "Canada Reads 2009". For those of you unfamiliar with this event it is kind of a combination virtual book club and debate. Every year Canada Reads features five Canadian works of fiction each of which are presented and defended by one of five Canadian celebrity panelists. The proceedings will be hosted by the always adorable Jian Ghomeshi and will take place the week of March 2 - 6. By the end of the week the Canada Reads panel will declare a winner (although I don't think there is much of a prize other than the honour and a nice jump in book sales). In the mean time you can wade into the novels and join in with the online discussion in the forum. Or, if you're like me, you can wait until the debate, let the panellists duke it out and then choose a book. And hopefully you'll discover some great Canadian lit along the way.

This year's line up:

The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

This is the saga of a woman's life from childhood to slavery and finally freedom.

The Book Of Negroes is being defended by television host Avi Lewis.

The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman

A day in the life of the author's childhood neighbourhood in Montreal comes to life in this tale defended by radio and television broadcaster

Anne-Marie Withenshaw.

Fruit by Brian Francis
This is the story of an overweight, unpopular thirteen year old growing up in the eighties in the largely blue-collar city of Sarnia. In order to deal with the ridicule of his peers the hero of this book retreats into his own imaginery world, complete with glamorous "Bedtime Movies" and a pair of talking nipples (hey, I'm not making this up!)

Fruit is being defended by Vancouver writer and radio personality Jen Sookfong Lee.

Mercy Among The Children by David Adams Richards
This novel set in the Miramichi region of New Brunswick examines the consequences when a boy vows to God that he will always turn the other cheek.
This title is being defended by singer/songwriter Sarah Slean.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

The year is 1903 and a young woman finds herself on the run across Canada's west after becoming a widow "by her own hand."

Gemini award-winning actor and filmmaker Nicholas Campbell will be defending.

Happy reading!

I'm a wiener, I'm a wiener!

May I direct your attention to the shiny new web badge proudly displayed in my sidebar, the lovely colour-coordinated one with the viking ship. Yes, that's right, as of 10:56 pm I crossed that elusive NaNoWriMo finish line, and five days under schedule! I have been a writing fiend (mainly out of sheer panic).

What now? Um, bed. Then I'm taking a short break from the writing thing and focusing on a pile of holiday projects that are hanging over me. I have two Christmas stockings to make and embellish, a little sewing project for Santa Claus, a scarf to finish knitting, a gingerbread house to decorate, generally putting on my Martha Stewart hat (does Martha wear hats? ... anyways, you get the picture). I still plan on blogging though, to keep some writerly momentum going. Besides, I'd miss you guys.

Ok, off to do a little celebratory happy dance, then sleep. My brain is tired.

Slight recalibration ...

Due to the continued wintry weather through the night we need to make a slight recalibration of the amount of snowfall in my previous post ...
Up until now I have never seen the words "momentous" and "colossal" used in a snow squall warning. Crazy.