Hi all! I'm trying something new, thanks to Terri Wagner. See what you think of Emily's slideshow.
Sorry we've been too busy to post lately. This month is going to be crazy while we get Emily's costume ready, get the house ready for Halloween, and get ready for visitors! CJ, Linda, and Lia Vocu, our friends from the travel group to China, will be staying with us in a few weeks as we attend a major reunion! Our adoption agency is throwing a big reunion party at Disney in Orlando for all its adoptive families Half of the families in our travel group will be there!
Other News on the Homefront
Let's see, Emily's still in gymnastics and enjoying it. Actually, she enjoys jumping up and down and saying "boing, boing!" more than anything. She loves to do somersaults. We're taking a break from storytime since she doesn't seem interested right now. But Mommy misses the other mommies! She still loves Cousin Mick's ukelele, and carries it everywhere, strumming the strings and singing "eeee, bah bah". Here she does her Sound of Music imitation.
Our local Families with Asian Children (FAC) group held its Chinese Moon Festival, which celebrates the importance of family and the Autumn harvest in China. The kids made paper lanters with glow sticks inside. We activated the glow sticks, turned the lights off, and had a light parade. It was great fun! Every Thursday Emily goes to a local church for Mom's Day Out, where local volunteer moms watch the kids so Mommies like me can run errands and actually do yard work! It's great for Emily since she knows many of the kids from the library and our local play group. Emily has a hard time when I leave her, but then she has a great time. Last week was the hardest, though. I pulled into the parking lot and turned to look at her. She was sitting silently in her carseat, sniffing, looking at the church with huge tears running down her face. THUNK! went my heart, and I almost drove home. But, we persevered, and once the wailing started, I knew she'd be ok. Why does motherhood hurt so much sometimes? Emily was fine within a few minutes of me leaving, although the volunteer mom had to peel her off of me. When I returned a few hours later, she didn't even notice me!
Emily's Speech Therapy
Emily began speech therapy a few months ago. We had her evaluated by specialists and she was 6 months behind kids her age. Basically, she rarely said anything. Well, since speech therapy started, she's now only 3 months behind and a chatter box!She's now starting to say 2-word sentences ("bye bye, dada", "emmy happy"), and picks up new words quickly ("squash", "pumpkin"). Daddy is teaching her the alphabet (she repeats it after him), and she can count to 13 by herself. She knows her letters and numbers by sight. We're working on sentences, and "I love you".
This is a big relief, since we wanted to make sure Emily has a good transition into school in a few years. It may seem like overkill, but this little girl had a rough start, and deserves every opportunity that we can give her to blossom. And she's taking it! Smiles are more frequent (although not for the camera), the house is filled with giggles and laughter (everyone's), and we're looking forward to the holiday season with great excitement. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chinese New Year, it's all going to be even more fun this year as she understands and enjoys more. Oh, and we got tickets to see THE WIGGLES in November!!! Stay tuned...parenthood IS GREAT!!!! :D
Take care everyone,
Caroline
