Of Pseudonyms

Seeing as Little Bear isn't really a good name for a little girl, and as H and I have decided that the wee lassie shall be blog-anonymous until she is old enough to decide for herself, we've been casting around for a good blog nickname for her.  Her real name doesn't give itself easily to nicknames (which is part of the reason why we like it so much) and whilst I frequently call her 'slush-bomb' (the Mummies among you can work out why), that too doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

So after much deliberation, and with the most tenuous links, her bloggy nickname is  .... (drumroll please) .... Kitty.

And speaking of little girls with nicknames, I've mentioned before that H and I sponsor a little girl in China by the pseudonym of Heidi through the Pearl River Outreach program.  Our sponsorship paid for her foster carer's salary so that she did not have to live in an orphanage while she was waiting to (hopefully) be adopted.  In that foster care she was loved and cherished and given the chance to learn how to be a part of a family to give her the best preparation for life with her adoptive family.

With beautiful timing, the day after Kitty was born we received an e-mail from Pearl River to say that Heidi had been adopted and had moved home with her forever family.  Needless to say it was the icing on the cake to a perfect week and we are now celebrating the addition to our long distance family of our new Bamboo baby, Miss Scarlett:

She's almost two (her birthday's on 17th November) and lives in Changsha in central China.  She may not have Heidi's awesome three bunches hair-do but she's another little cutie. As H says; "we're going to need some more photo frames!"

Pearl River currently need sponsors for a number of the Bamboo Babies - the sponsorship is not bank breaking at $35 a month (which works out at about £22-£25 as the exchange rate fluctuates) - so go and see if any of these little ones are a long distance part of your family.

Happy Birthdays

You know by now that it is an obligation incumbent on every member of H and my families to have a birthday that either exactly or very almost matches someone else's. Until this year, H's Mum had escaped that particular blessing, but this year we have two Happy Birthdays to sing.

First, to H's Mum; 21 and a bit and the delighted recipient of the Banana Monkey socks.

And second, to this little girl, known to us as Heidi:

Heidi is 3 today, (this is her at Christmas, hence the antlers), and she lives in Changsa, Hunan Province, China and she is a very special part of H and my family; our little Bamboo Baby who we started to sponsor through Pearl River Outreach in the autumn.

The Bamboo Babies are Chinese orphans, and the Pearl River sponsorship program pays the stipend for the Babies' carers so that they are in foster care, not an orphanage. I don't know a huge deal about adoption psychology but from what I've read, if a child has been in foster care before she is adopted the she grows up with the idea of there being just one Mummy and Daddy, rather than a new Mummy every day, and it helps her to attach to her forever Mummy and Daddy when she is adopted.

I hope and pray that she finds her forever family soon, but for now we know that she is well looked after and loved and cherished by us and her other sponsors and she will always be a part of our family, albeit at a distance.

Happy Birthday: Sheng Ri Kuai Le

PS: Heidi is not her real name, but as a matter of policy Pearl River keep the children's chinese names private, and give them anglicised names for public use, so to us Heidi she is.