Cute, cute 3 year old things!

Michelle is at such a fun age. Her language is "exploding", in the words of her speech therapist. And that makes life fun and interesting for the rest of us. Thought I would share a few cute things she is doing and saying.

~Her favorite thing to do these days is walk around with a blanket around her waist and pretend she's a mermaid. She actually says Muh-maid. She loves it when we chase her through the house, trying to step on her mermaid tail.

~She likes to pretend she is an animal for the day, based on what color clothes she is wearing. If it's pink, she's a pig. Brown, a squirrel. Blue, a horse - that's from the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" book. Black, she's a penguin. You get the idea. I have to admit it was a little disconcerting the first time she looked at me and said, "You a pig." But after I realized it was because I was dressed in pink, I was o.k.

~She loves my iPod Touch. I try to only let her play it when we are out, waiting in line or that sort of thing. The other day I caught her looking through my purse. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "I looking for my Ipod." Uh oh!

~She can count to 10 in Spanish now, thanks to Dora. She can also count to 10 in Mandarin, thanks to Ni Hao Kai Lan. Don't judge me - it was a very snowy winter, and at least she learned something.

~Every night when we say prayers, I always say, "God bless Mom, God bless Dad, etc." and she repeats those after me. A few nights ago, we got to the end, "God bless Michelle." Instead of saying her name, she said, "God bless me, the ballerina, and her toes." Guess she was ready to move on from the rote prayers. She obviously had much more to tell God that night.

~Yesterday we were going out with our friend Tyler. He is our neighbor, and every other Friday I get together with his Mom and we go out to lunch. I ran into our other friend, Patrick on the way out of preschool, and invited him and his mom to join us. As we were walking into the restaurant, I told Michelle Patrick was also joining us, and she said, "Both my boys!" Here is a picture of her with both her boys... funny kids!

She was annoyed with them about something. We see this expression from time to time at our house.

A Good Day!

Yesterday we had our one year follow up visit at Walter Reed. It's a long day for both of us. We had to leave our house by 6:00 a.m., run through the clinics associated with the cleft team throughout the morning, stick around for lunch, then meet back with the entire team later in the afternoon for their evaluation. It's amazing to see the difference a year makes. Not only that Michelle is doing better from the results of last years surgery and months of speech therapy, but just that she is a year older and much more comfortable with herself.

Last year she had only been home with us a few weeks when we did this clinic. This year, she knows me. It's hard to explain this dynamic, but those of you who have adopted know what I'm talking about.

She breezed through most of the clinics, but again, we had a lot of "fun" at the ENT clinic. Thankfully they saved that one for last this time. She has unbelievable amounts of ear wax - I've asked several times if there is anything I can do to prevent or help with this, but I'm always told it's just the way she is. So, she had to become a burrito (wrapped in velcro straps on a board) while they dig around in her ears to remove the wax. It's hard for any mom to watch your child be restrained, but I think it's especially hard for me to watch Michelle. I hope she never went through something like that at her orphanage, but you never know. I just pray the whole time she will know I'm there with her and it won't cause any emotional scars. She was a trooper - she was unhappy, but seemed to understand it was o.k. as long as I stayed close by.

The final evaluation was a good one and what we expected to hear. While she does have more surgeries in her future, those are down the road. For now, we just have to keep a close eye on one of her ear tubes that isn't working properly (still in place but closed), continue with speech therapy, and we'll check back in next year.

We came home to enjoy some outside time. This is the first day we have been outside to play, and you can see by the expression on Michelle's face that she was a happy girl. I love the first picture. I kept trying to get her to smile, but she kept opening her mouth. I guess she had been doing that all day, so she thought that was what I wanted her to do.


Yeah for spring! Happy girl!

Hey Lady!

We all were riding in the car tonight and I was singing. So Michelle started yelling, "Hey Lady, be quiet!" After saying that a couple of times, Lizzy told her I wasn't a Lady, I was her mother. After a couple of seconds, Michelle said, "Hey Mudder, be quiet!"

Guess she doesn't like my singing!

Pink 'Lelella'

We were so happy to have rain instead of snow.

It gave Michelle the chance to finally use her pink lelella.

We are back!

I haven't blogged since Christmas, and there are 2 reasons. First, I have been so busy I truly don't know if I'm coming or going. Lizzy had the lead in her high school musical 3 weeks after Christmas, "Guys and Dolls". That sort of takes over our family for a short time while we are in "musical mode". She did great, and we had lots of family come to see her, so it made for a fun and very busy time.

Then, we have been doing the great "East Coast Audition Tour". Lizzy is planning to major in music, and she traveled to 6 of the 7 schools where she applied to have her auditions. Most of those consisted of her singing, taking a theory test and aural test, and for some a keyboard assessment. She applied to schools as far north as upstate NY, and as far south as Georgia, so we have been on the road. It has been fun to visit these schools with her, to watch her decide what she really wants in a college experience. However, I am also glad it's behind us now, and we can resume life as normal, whatever that means. She's already receiving some letters from schools, offers of scholarships, etc., so stay tuned. More to come!

The 2nd reason I haven't blogged much is I had every intention of beginning a new blog. We started this blog to journal our story with Michelle, but we have 3 other wonderful children and we are hoping to start a family blog to feature our other children as well. That obviously hasn't happened for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. I hope to get that done, perhaps this summer. Until then, I'll try to keep this blog a little more up-to-date.

We managed to survive the epic snowstorms here in Northern Virginia. We've lived in places that have lots of snow, but most of those places also have lots of snow plows. That is not the case here, and we spent a lot of family time. I have to admit, it was nice to slow down and have everyone home for a while, but we were all ready to get back to real life.

Michelle is doing great. She is growing like a weed, and in the words of her speech therapist, she is having an "explosion". Not only is she saying everything now, she is much easier to understand.

In Virginia the 3rd grade does a big unit on China. Last week Josh's class had a Chinese New Year Party. I shared some pictures of our trip, and they had some great food. The highlight of the day was the dragon parade. The kids had to make their dragons at home for a project, and then they paraded through the school to show them to all the parents and students. Michelle thought this was wonderful. Sorry I don't have any better pic's of Michelle. I'll try to get some up soon.