Well I came across a new forum on Jackson Heights a couple of days ago. Being a big fan of the nation's most ethnically and linguistically diverse neighborhood, I started going through the forum to see all the different topics. When I got to a thread about adoptive families in Jackson Heights, I of course, clicked on the link.

Imagine my suprise to see MY BLOG included and linked to forum readers!!!

Actually, I am quite flattered by my diverse readership. Obviously family and friends are my primary readers. Got a pretty dedicated reading base at work. I am really awed by the number of readers I have from my Guatemalan adoption forum. New friends in Guatemala. And then there are the friends of friends. I understand I have a following in London! So why shouldn't I have a Jackson Heights readership?

So I promise that I will tell lots of neighborhood stories, especially once the weather gets better and I am out and about more. These days we are really sort of homebodies.

Have I told you how much Liana loves her favorite chair?

Well for those of you who don't know, I did not make it to Friday's meeting. I was dressed and ready to go, but the princess is teething and in pain and cranky and was really really really insecure. I could not step out of the room to put on a pair of socks without her screaming as if my sweet neighbor Antonia was torturing her. You know, it was also just way too soon.

Tomorrow we are expecting our first big snowstorm since we have been in NY. In other words, Liana's first snow!!!!

Now we have not be very successful in terms of hats and gloves, as documented in these photos.

See Liana in her pretty faux fur coat.

See Liana in her pretty faux fur matching hat.

See Liana having quickly removed her pretty faux fur hat.

Hats stay on for literally seconds. Mittens have been known to stay on for more than a minute... but not much more.

Did some major grocery shopping yesterday, and all ready to be snowed in tomorrow. My one regret is that I do not have one of those circle things on a piece of rope that you pull while the kid sits on the circle thing. Ah well. Next storm.

Well, tomorrow is my first full-day at work. And Liana is staying with my wonderful neighbor Antonia.

Now I am NOT back at work for quite a while yet, but there is an important meeting tomorrow.

I am a nervous wreck. I'm sure she will be fine.

My new favorite movie is Happy Feet. When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me to the theater to see animated movies. I think Disney was the only option in those days. My dad loved animation, and we would sit and watch the same movie over and over again. We would eat chocolate and popcorn, and he would stand nervously outside of the bathroom, and send old ladies in after me to find out why I was taking so long. On the drive home he would tell me all about animation... about how hard the artists worked. How talented they were, and how poorly they were paid. At home, he would draw stick figures over and over and over again on a pad of paper, and each image would move just a little bit. Then he would flip the pages, and the stick figures would dance for me. He would emphasize again how much work it was to make just a little image move for just a few seconds, and then wax poetic about the work that went into a color, full length feature.

Animation today is computerized. No exploited artists sitting over tables painting cell after cell. And movie viewing with the kids is a different experience. We did pizza night again, (going to be a weekly tradition) and watched Happy Feet in front of the TV. But oh..... my dad would have LOVED Happy Feet. Did they make kids movies that smart when I was a kid? This movie was so profound on so many levels. It was about art and science and morality and conformity and the dangers of dogma and the effects of waste and so much else. And it was also really really really cute. And the protagonist was a really smart, creative, marginalized social outcast. How much would my dad have identified with that?

So yeah. Mommyhood is good. And my world is upsidedown. The evening of the New Hampshire primaries, I knew nothing about the exit polls. I spent the evening with penguins. For better or worse, huh?

Oh my. I forgot to tell you about our Three Kings Day surprise!

I was making breakfast for Liana when my doorbell rang. I went to answer the door, and no one was there. Instead, there was a bag full of goodies, and a Happy Three Kings Day card!!!

Liana got this gorgeous new outfit (seen in this pic) as well as the doll, a plate with animals on it, some decorative stuff, and mommy got some newspaper clippings!

I knocked on my neighbor's door, and sure enough, she fessed up. She did, however, express concern that Liana had not set out her shoes and hay in anticipation of the events, and made me promise that I would not let Liana forget next year.

Well, we continue to eat well. All fruits, as well as a variety of vegetarian protein sources continue to please the princess. Here she is enjoying some tofu! And bulgur wheat! All corn-based products continue to be favorites. I've really got to figure out how to incorporate corn tortillas into our diet on a regular basis. Tamales... well... I've got to tell you. I'm not making tamales. But there is frequently a nice lady who sells tamales on Roosevelt Ave by the train station, so we need to visit her on a regular basis. Have not tried arepas yet, (arepas are Colombian corn patties, served with cheese and butter), but I am sure they will be a hit.

Now when I say that Liana loves all fruit, it seems that she, in fact, loves ALL fruit. Today Liana and I went out to brunch with a friend. She's been a little cranky, (lack of sleep!) and I was just delighted to be engaged in adult conversation. So she was sitting in her high chair, and not seeming to be amused by any of the toys that I hauled to the restaurant with me, so I took the lemon slice, (more like a quarter of a lemon, I guess) from my club soda and handed it to her for her own amusement. Much to my surprise, she bit right in. And made that funny "oh my! that is a lemon and it is bitter!" face. And then bit in again. And made the face again. And bit in again. Face again. Sorry folks, I did not have a camera on hand. But she was so amusing that an entire table of 4 people sitting near us stopped eating and talking, and just entertained themselves watching her lemon eating antics, and exclaiming about how cute she is.

Yeah. She is a cute kid.

Well, the Liana/Sage drama continues. She continues to love and fear him. He continues to be irritated, but increasingly accepting of his new lot. Poor guy. Periodically he swats at her, and she weeps. How could he not love her? She does not understand.

Well we are finally starting to get some sleep. When Liana got to NY, she basically stopped taking naps. In Guatemala she slept 1- 2 hours every afternoon. And instead of sleeping 11-12 hours per night, she was sleeping more like 8 or 9 hours. But those hours were not consecutive. In other words, she would sleep an hour, cry and hour and a half, sleep an hour and a half, wake up, eat, fuss for an hour, sleep an hour, wake up…blah blah blah. Mommy has been exhausted.

We are still having a lot of drama around going to sleep. I am trying to help her develop going-to-sleep rituals that work for her. Oddly one of the rituals that is very very important to her is closing all doors, windows, drawers, etc. She was into this in Guatemala as well. And sometimes she is almost asleep, and she wakes herself up and insists on making me pick her up and check that the door is really securely closed.

Now I like the doors and windows open. So does Sage, who likes to wander in and out at will. Sometimes he will stand on the outside of the closed bedroom door and howl to be let in. Which, as you might imagine, is disruptive to the princess’s sleep.

Liana is still sleeping in my bed, and I think she will be for a while. Sometimes I toss her in her bed after she is asleep. She likes waking up in her bed, which is good. She also likes the fact that she can get up and out of her bed, and then go off and do other things. But she absolutely does not like going to sleep there. Little by little. I imagine eventually having her go to sleep in her bed, and if she wakes up in the night and is scared she can then walk to my room, and I could put a little step stool there so that she could crawl into my bed if she needs to.

Yup. Little by little.

Irene has been asking for photos of Liana at home in NY. I think she has several reasons for wanting to see these pics. First of all, she wants to see a happy, healthy Liana living in her new home, and she wants to hold on to that picture in her mind. Secondly, she lived through much of the decorating drama.

So I chased the kid around the apartment today, and these are a few of the shots I got. Today we will start with the living room/dining room area.

Life in NYC is full of lots of confusing and occasionally irritating stuff. My cat Sage, for example, is a constant source of joy and distress. Liana loves him. She tracks his every move, and reports on his activities. She is also sort of scared of him. Due in part to the fact that he periodically hisses and swats at her. Poor Sage. He had such a wonderful and predictable life. And now, a toddler has invaded his reality. Liana is rather afraid of Sage's face, so she tends to go after the tail. Which results in Sage being startled and irritated, hence more hissing with the face, which makes her more scared of his face, but no less obsessed by him. So yeah. She goes after the tail. And the whole thing repeats.

There are other confusing and irritating things about living in NY. Cold weather, for example. Liana is not fond of hats. Nor mittens. Nor the plastic that I put over her stroller, in part to block the wind, and in part to just look like all the other moms pushing strollers down the streets of Jackson Heights.

But NYC is full of exciting and wonderful things too! Yesterday was a prime example. We started out the day at the Queens Hall of Science, which has a marvelous children's section, and even a playroom for toddlers, as well as story time in the library, etc. We spent hours running around in the warmth, meeting other moms and kids, and just generally having a great time. Then we came home and had the first really good afternoon nap we've had since we came to NY. Then I got a silly idea. I wanted to have a pizza party. In front of the TV! So I told Liana aobut my plans, which I am sure she did not understand at all, other than the fact that she really really liked it when I said "pizza party" (go ahead and say it a few times. it really is fun to say!), so I moved her high chair into the living room and turned on Blue's Clues once the pizza arrived, and dumped her in, and we ate and laughed at had a pizza party in front of the TV!

Yeah. Life is good.

I haven’t told you about walking in the door to my apartment at 3:30 AM, with Liana, arriving home for the first time in two months for me, and the first time ever for Liana. Well the first hint that something was up was the wreath on the door, dripping faux pearls. When we opened the door we saw that there were two, count them two Christmas trees decorated on up. A centerpiece of holly and pine graced my grandfather’s dining room table, and tinsel and ornaments dripped down from the chandelier. The living room windows had lights and tinsel dripping from the wrought iron rods. But none of this glitter prepared me for what we were to find. Under the larger tree there were wrapped presents for Liana. Toys. In the kitchen, on her high chair, there were new sippy cups and suction plates and kids spoons. In her bedroom there were diapers and a ducky tub and baby wipes and diaper cream and baby bath stuff and a humidifier and just stuff!

Apparently a shower for me had been held in my absence, and the fruits of the event greeted us all around the place.

Now I know that I have been very negligent with my blog, and I should have told you all of this right off from the start. I really want to thank everyone everyone everyone who contributed to this warm welcome home. Susana, somehow I suspect that you were the mastermind…. And I would especially like to thank William for decorating in a way that this apartment will certainly never see again.

Now I know that my camera is here, but I cannot cannot cannot for the life of me find it in what has become the chaos of my home. So I cannot post pictures of the sites. And Irene has been bugging me to post pics of Liana at home doing stuff, so that she can envision her. And I can’t do that either.

But here are some pics of my place that are old old old, from my homestudy, (for the adoption). Now the kitchen is exactly the same, except there is a high chair in front of the table, and the floor is covered in spilled juice and thrown black beans, and there are cheerios hidden in every corner. The dining room looks pretty much the same from that angle. I just like that pic because it shows all the arches and stuff that makes pre-war Jackson Heights apartments so stunning.

And the last one is one of the pics I took of Liana's room and put in a picture book for her when we were in Guatemala. When we got home, she really recognized the room as the famous place in her book!

Well first of all I'm sorry for not posting and letting everyone know that we made it home safe and sound. Liana LOVES her room, and is really happy in her new home. She is not, however, sleeping very much. I used to write this blog during her nap time and after she went to sleep. Now I am spending much of that time on the phone!!!!

And, of course, I am having technology crises. Can't post from my laptop because I keep getting messages insisting that I am on a dial up connection and that I need to enter my phone number of some such thing that I don't have time to figure out. And I can't find my camera in the mess that I have created in my apartment, so no pics for you today, dear readers.

But please know we are safe and happy. :)