Have I Not Been Paying Enough Attention?

My best friend from high school (elementary school, actually - we met in the 5th grade) has been living in Kuala Lumpar (sp?), Malaysia since 1996. I've seen her three times in the past 11 years. Nonetheless, she is one of my oldest friends, so, we email or Skype about once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'll admit that in the 10 months since I've been parenting two children, it's been "less often" than "more". I have, on more than one occasion, completely flipped my lid when something disastrous was going on in Southeast Asia and I wasn't able to reach her via email or Skype. (Typhoons, for example).

So, I was somewhat surprised, on Saturday, to find an email in my in-box from her with a subject line, "don't worry, we're fine" and a fairly lengthy email explaining why I should not worry about her and describing the circumstance that led to the Malaysian people rioting in the streets.

And I realized that I had no idea that I should be THINKING about being WORRIED about her. I had no clue.

It occurred to me that the only global information I've been paying any attention to for about two weeks is that which concerns the situation with adoptions in Vietnam.

It's possible that I need to be a bit more mindful of what is going on in the world. Despite the fact that it regularly scares the everliving crap out of me. (Cheney (aka The Anti-Christ) is trying to convince us we need to go to War with Iran? Really? Are we seriously contemplating this? See, I venture outside my bubble for two seconds and I am terrified already.)

In my own little corner of the world, the news goes something like this:

1. Lana loves her dollhouse. I have pictures of her playing with it I hope to post soon. The dollhouse was a kit from Imaginarium, as opposed to something more complicated. She also likes the dolls we got her to go in the dollhouse, who are roughly the same height as Barbies, but, look like regular girls. They are called the Only Hearts Club dolls. My only complaint is that they released an Asian doll named Hannah Faith earlier this year, and you cannot find her ANYWHERE. Yesterday I finally emailed the company and they wrote back to tell me "[d]ue to the overwhelming positive response to our two new dolls, Kayla Rae and Hannah Faith, we were sold out of them in late August 2007. We are currently producing more and these will be available for shipping around the 20th of December." I am hoping to get a hold of one for Lana for Christmas. As is, I imagine, every other household with a 4-to-7 year old Asian girl living in it...so, I'm not holding my breath. (As it is, Lana seems perfectly happily with the two blond dolls that she has. She doesn't play with her Sonya Lee doll or her Corolle doll Lili, both of whom are Asian, as often as she plays with her other dolls. I still think it's important that she have a variety dolls that look like her. Anybody have thoughts on this?)

2. Over the weekend we had a huge birthday bash in Husband's hometown (suburban Detroit) for Lana, and her cousins J~, M~ and B~. Every cousin on Husband's side of the family has a birthday in November except for Gabe. So, we had a big party at a place with Laser Tag, a giant inflatable slide, a rock climbing wall, a giant trampoline, skeeball, Dance-Dance-Revolution, etc. It was fun. I've got pictures of Gabe and Lana on the giant trampoline that I will post along with photos of the dollhouse. Lana was in 7th Heaven with all the attention.

3. Lana had her well-check visit with our family doctor yesterday. She has gained 8/10's of a pound and grown an inch and a half since she's been with us. The doctor didn't seem concerned about this, so, I'm trying not to be. She's only 36.8 pounds. She's wearing size 5 or 5T pants, though, and when she first came home, her 4T pants were a little long. (So, I wonder if she hasn't actually grown more like 2.5 inches instead of 1.5), but, we can only put her in the pants with adjustable waists on the inside. Anything else falls right off of her. She's just such a tiny little thing and it's hard sometimes to get food into her.) She also got 3 more immunizations. OUCH. (I will admit that I have never been present for the shots. I haven't attended an immunization visit for either of my kids since Gabriel's first one. After which the nurses asked Husband to not to let me come again for a visit involving shots if it could be helped...yes, I am pathetic.)

4. We had parent-teacher conferences for Gabriel on Friday morning. He's doing find academically, but, his teacher tells us he seems 'sad'. I know Gabe is really missing his best friend, who moved to Kansas City in August. It's been really hard for him to not have his best friend, and his teacher encouraged us to try to set up some more playdates with some other children in his class. I should have been doing this since Doug moved away, and I'm feeling hugely guilty about the fact that I haven't done this for him.

5. I cannot get this song out of my head. It's a One Republic song called "Apologize" remixed with Timbaland in the background. I don't actually like Timbaland, but, this song is sticking with me. You can watch a video of it here.

6. Husband bought me a device that plugs into my Zune, and then into my cigarette lighter, and then broadcasts my music through my car radio. The other day it was running while I was driving Lana to school, and we had listened to Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant", followed by a Alison Kraus's "Take Me For Longing", followed by The Killers "Somebody Told Me". And I actually had the following thought go through my head. "I really love this station. They are playing the best music this morning." Yeah. Because it's MY MP3 PLAYER (Idiot! Slaps forehead). Evidently I'm kind of a ditz in the morning. And also musically schizophrenic.

LM