Happy Holidays 2009

The Kid's Chattanooga Photo Shoot

My friend Andy was bringing his family and a photographer, the amazing "HollyB" (http://www.studiohollyb.com/) , to Chattanooga for a photo shoot. We got invited to fill up her morning slot, and amid showers I finally fulfilled my wish to have a professional photographer document the three most important people in my life! I am so glad I did this and from the looks of the earliest takes it was a success. McP

St. Simons Island

This week I have been in St. Simons Island, Georgia for an annual conference. I have been attending this conference for twelve years, and before Alina and Mac were school age we would take them and make it a family Spring vacation. This time last year, at the start of what became a tumultuous year, I took Cal along in a last minute decision that I never regretted. Last year I asked the Jekyll Island Club (the location of the conference varies between Jekyll and St. Simons) for a good sitter for the few hours each day I was involved in the conference. They referred me to Dorothy Carswell, a retired teacher, author and supporter of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. She gave Cal, who was only two and a half, such a good experience I promised myself I would try to take Alina and Mac out of school to see the center and to spend some good quality time together.

What I forgot was how much they remembered about St. Simons, and of all the good times we had there in years past. Around every corner was a memory, and a shared story (Alina: "Daddy, there's where you threw up that time!").

We just got back from three nights there, and it was such a good experience for all four of us. The way I figure, making new memories there is the best remedy! McP

Mac's Book Presentation

This morning Mac gave his book/author presentation, selecting his favorite series "Bionicle" as the books to present. He brought a couple of the action figures as well to add to the event.

All of the children were polite and took turns asking questions, then they each wrote a critique of each presentation.

I can't believe how big my son is getting! I am taking all three kids to St. Simons Island to a conference next week, and Mac is very excited to take three days off school and going to a place where he has many fond memories of our family going when he and Alina were very young.

I am in a constant state of prayer that I am doing everything right in my new role as single-half-time-custody-parent. I have been slipping up to Chattanooga on mornings that I do not have the children to attend the Chapel service at their school. Both Alina and Mac leave their classmates and sit with me! I know that I can't expect that to last long, but they are sweet and seem sincerely to want to spend just a few minutes together in silence before they are dismissed to their classes.

As for Cal, I try to talk to him on the phone each day. He sounds so much older everytime I speak to him. His speech patterns, pronunciation and everything is improving. I miss all of them so much when I do not have them.

McP

Out with the Old, In with the New...

Over the years I have never enjoyed a car more than the 2000 Volvo S-80 that I have driven for the last nine years. I remember the excitement of buying the car in anticipation of becoming a father, just weeks before traveling to Kazakhstan and doing so.

Over the years, I have always had permanent baby seats in the back seat, and only recently did Alina and Mac "graduate" from boosters with Cal's toddler seat in the middle.

After the divorce, I no longer had access to the big Chevy Tahoe that I would often use on weekend outings with the kids. I decided we needed to upgrade. The Volvo just turned over 160,000 miles and the kids were getting bigger and less tolerant of being crowded together in the back seat.

That in fact was the biggest sales point - I wanted something with a third-row so that I could REALLY separate the three! I finally found what I think we need in a 2008 Nissan Pathfinder.

It was funny to see the children's reaction. The Volvo was the ONLY car that any of them had ever known me to have. "Daddy's car" was the dark green, messy-on-the-inside and increasingly crowded Volvo. I wish I had recordings of all the conversations that took place in that car. Because we would never litter, the floorboards were usually literally filled with artwork, books, candy and gum wrappers. I often found Mac's homework there when the teacher said he had not turned it in!

Cal expressed the first tone of sadness that the familiar Volvo was leaving us. He literally cried! Alina and Mac both shared their favorite memories, but were much less sentimental. I was a bit sad to see the old friend go, but the need was so great it was too important to get a better car for all of us. I had originally hoped to drive the Volvo one million miles!

The kids really love the new car! Cal just kept saying how he loved the new car, and then, as if he realized he was betraying an old friend, pointed out that he still loved the old one too! Alina and Mac are eagerly anticipating the DVD player system I am getting for it. Our Summer vacation should be a lot more enjoyable now!

McP

One more thing from Alina's birthday...

Alina's music teacher sent me this photo today... It was taken on her birthday while Alina was singing the Stevie Wonder song "Isn't She Lovely" to her class during the "talent share" portion of the week. She learned about Stevie Wonder through her teacher, and had been listening to his songs at home. She asked me to print out the lyrics.

Once she learned the lyrics, she would sing to anyone who would listen. I heard her on the phone talking to her Aunt Carolyn, and she was singing the song. When I picked up the phone, my sister was crying.

I told Alina that the sentiments expressed in the song about a beautiful newborn baby girl were exactly the ones I felt when I saw my eight month old girl for the first time in Baby House #3 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which this Fall will be nine years ago.

McP

Celebrating Alina's 9th!

We started Alina's big 9th birthday weekend on Friday, her birthday. At school she was honored with a special birthday prayer.

After school, Alina was joined by her good friends Larkin and Kate. They rode from school with Alina and her mother to the mall, where they spent a couple of hours getting Alina's ears pierced and picking up some new clothes for her birthday. Then they all were delivered to Little Khan Tengri for the festivities to begin!

Aunt Nancy agreed to help chaperone the all-nighter that Alina had asked she could have. Before lights out, however, we were joined by lots of family and friends to give our girl a great birthday party!

After the all-nighter, I took Alina, Mac and Cal to Sir Goony's and we all enjoyed a round of miniature golf. It was a great weekend!

McP

Our New Friend

I was excited for the kids to finally meet our next door neighbors. A couple expecting a new baby live there, but every other weekend and all Summer a nine year old boy comes there to live with his Dad.

I had heard the couple speak of the child, but today we all got to meet him. I was at first thrilled to note that he is Asian too! Hogan's mother is Korean, and he lives in Chattanooga through the week and across the state line in Georgia on the weekends. He is a great kid, is into all that Mac and Alina love, and they all hit it off. He and Mac share interests in Bionicle, Pokemon, Bakugan, Nintendo, and they are both reading the "Warriors" series books!

I am very happy that we are all developing a feeling of "neighborhood" around here! - McP

Father-Daughter Dance?

This year Alina and I invited her friend Larkin and her father Tony. We first went to O'Charley's and had dinner. Afterward, we drove to the Walker County Civic Center and went to the dance.

Alina did not want to suffer the embarassment of actually dancing with her father! She indulged me a couple of songs, but really got going when only she and Larkin could hit the dance floor. I thought I would have until at least the teen years until I became too much of an embarrassment for my daughter! Oh well, it was a fun eight years being the hero of her life - perhaps I can resume the role in a decade or so! - McP

AT LONG LAST, A BED.

I don't know how I would have made it through this transition without my family. They helped me secure this wonderful new home, they helped me bring it up to living standards after years of not being occupied, and my sisters pitched in to get me a mattress and box springs - except that it triggered a frustrating roller coaster ride with Sears as to whether or not they would actually send me these items, and whether they would send the right items. First, as I waited for the delivery, they told me that they for some reason had cancelled the order. Weeks later, they told me the order was in, but that there was only one-half of the box springs, meaning that I would be in constant danger of a tilt that would roll any occupant off the bed!

Finally, today it came, but the drama did not cease. The delivery man tried to argue that it was a queen size mattress that they sent, for a king size bed! Finally, I just told him to try it. It fit perfectly.

I needed to get Cal down for a nap. Trouble was, he had quietly hidden himself thinking that I would forget all about the nap requirement! - McP

Mac's Country Presentation

In Ms. McCorkle's class, Mac was to give a presentation, and make some visual aids, for any country in the world. He immediately chose Kazakhstan, the country of his birth.

Mac made me very proud as he patiently listened to his classmates give their presentations. A good friend of his who was born and adopted in Russia gave his presentation, and a classmate from India also gave a talk on the country of her heritage. All of the children are learning to listen, to take notes and give positive response to the presenter by asking questions or making comments.

For his visual presentation, he made a mobile with a small drawing of the Kazakhstan flag, a felt model of a "yurta" (portable tent housing), and some photos of Mac when he visited Kazakhstan in 2006.

I am very proud of Mac. He is a very smart child, and impresses me each day with the depth and breadth of his understanding of the world.

McP

Little Khan Tengri

As I launch this web log in mid-January of 2009 I find myself a soon-to-be divorced father of three. The subject of a divorce was first told to the children just three days after Christmas. Neither the divorce nor the timing of telling the children (almost nine, eight and a half and three years old) was my idea, but I admit that they needed to know, and soon. I was dreading that moment even more than the divorce itself. Their first reaction was predictable, and heartbreaking.

Later that very afternoon, however, I took them to the house that I had found just five miles away, on a mountain overlooking our small town and the place where my law office is located. You can actually see my law office from the front yard! The house was built in 1959 - the same year I was built. It is a small, three bedroom two bath house, but well built and in good condition. I took the children there that very afternoon.

The house had already had a strangely transformative effect on me, and immediately did on the children as well. High up on a historic small mountain on the site where a battle took place in the American Civil War, the views both East and West are incredible.

Mac and Alina thought that we were up on a great mountain, and they reminded me about the greatest mountain in the land of their birth. All three of my children were born in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Alina and Mac were adopted in 2000, when they were respectively eight months and four months old. We all went back in 2006 to get Cal, who was eleven months old. On our second trip, Alina, Mac and I went on many day trips and outings around Southeast Kazakhstan, and into the breathtakingly beautiful Tien Shan mountain range. Alina and Mac were interested in the country of their birth as they experienced it, and when they learned that the Tien Shan is part of the same mountain chain that leads to the Himalayas, they seemed more proud that they were from such a beautiful and impressive place. We learned from Emil, our driver and guide for the two month trip, that "Khan Tengri" is the highest mountain in both Kazakhstan and is on the border between that country and Kyrgyzstan.

Alina and Mac decided to name our new house in honor of Kazakhstan and the mountain Khan Tengri.
I told them we should add the word "Little" to the name of our home, as White Oak Mountain stands only 1,119 feet and Khan Tengri is 23,000 feet!

I have always tried to honor Kazahstan and all those who helped me have the great honor of being the father of these three wonderful children by teaching Alina, Mac and now Cal about the country of their birth, and by always flying the flag of Kazakhstan next to that of our country at our home. Even three year old Cal refers to our new home as "Little Khan Tengri."

Another irony is that "Khan Tengri" is Uyghur for "Father of the Sky." For my three, this is a perfect name for the home their father is providing for them, in the skies over Ringgold, Georgia.

McP