Sailing to Seville, Spain on Sunday
Jei-Jei was flying not sailing but just a bit of poetic license on that one. So on Sunday, Ches left for her next away adventure in Seville, Spain where she will attend the University with a group of students from her American college. She was very excited and we are for her, but her visit was all too short. She fit right back into our daily lives and leaves a hole when she leaves. We love her so much! She is such a great person to live with and such an excellent big sister for Julia
Cheshire was home during an important time. There are going to be some major changes around here and she was here for the decisionmaking. David will become Clerk of the Court for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April. This means we will be moving to Madison, Wisconsin, a city that we have loved for a long time. It means selling our dear Indianapolis house and pulling up roots once again. During this transition time, I will be a SAHM! Yes, me, who would have believed it? We are going to need some stabilizing force over the next few months and I am it. Also, I am going to be cleaning, packing, selling the house, finding a new house, unpacking, and getting us all settled in lovely Madison.
Because the news is so new, we've only started telling friends and relatives. Madison or Indy make littly difference to family on the east coast but we are going to be leaving so many loving and supportive friends. It's hard to believe -- I don't think I've processed much of this yet.
Maybe airport pictures are perfect for this post. Endings and beginnings.
The Main Event
Happy Birthday to you . . .
Happy Birthday to you . . .
Happy Birthday, dear Julia . . .
Happy Birthday to you!
Now blow out those candles!
Let them eat . . .
Today we had a lovely party to celebrate a Christmas with Marcia and Matthew and three birthdays! Julia and Marcia share January 16 as their birthday, and mine is next Tuesday. And so, Cheshire baked us a cake and decorated it. It was her second cake of the day, the first not quite a success. She graciously allowed us to make fun of her and produced a very tasty second.
How perfect that Julia's first birthday cake at home was made by Cheshire.
Cheshire and Julia with our dear friend, Linde, who is just home from India and getting ready to finish up her last college year.
And here are our girls with Matthew who helped us celebrate and who is beloved by both Cheshire and Julia.
Jei-Jei and Mei-Mei
My two girls! It seems like so very long since we've all be together. All of us are enjoying our brief days before Cheshire heads back to school. This time in Seville, Spain. We are hoping that we can visit her sometime in the Spring.
On Saturday we had a lovely time walking around the Indy Zoo. Many of the animals are inside in the cold weather but the elephants and lions were very social -- not with each other -- and we had some rare close-up views.
Julia was clearly happy to have us all together. A few times she made sure that we were all holding hands. David on one side of her, myself on the other, and Cheshire holding on to David or I.
Mommy's little Julia is 6 years old
January 16, 2007
Julia is 6 today. I am not home today and so cannot report her doings but she received the best present ever because Cheshire came home today. Cheshire told me that she has never been greeted with joyful screams and so the reunion must have been a good one. We had a lovely weekend of visits.
Last Friday, Julia and I went to Toby’s house and Julia played with Toby’s younger daughter. We visited for almost 2 hours and apart from a very few times when Julia grabbed the toy that Elana was playing with, Julia did pretty well. I was able to intercept the toy grabbing at least twice and Julia did not get upset when I took the toy from her and gave it back to Elana. There were times during that visit when Julia played beside Elana, or in the same room, rather than with her. They ate their snacks together and hugged each other before we left.
Julia found a hobbyhorse in Toby’s playroom. She had no idea of how to use it but loved the horse head. By the end of the visit, Toby and the girls offered the hobbyhorse to Julia since the girls don’t play with it anymore. Julia was so pleased and is enjoying "riding" around the house since then.
On Saturday, Robin came and spent part of the day with us. Julia was in heaven with Alison and Nathaniel. It took the kids a little while to get in sync but once they did, they dragged out all of the toys and played. At times it was hard to tell that one of them was not totally understandable or understood. We had shared birthday cupcakes for Alison and Julia. We sang and they each blew out 3 candles. Alison did it in one blow; Julia took awhile to focus her blowing and then blew each candle out individually.
Then on Sunday, Julia and I went to Lisa’s house – a house with two boys who really have lots of dinosaurs! Julia had a good time. She went downstairs to the playroom/basement and was not heard from for hours on end. Lisa’s kids played with her and I think they were very patient. They are all older than she is and that is easier on her. It was amazing that although she had a great time with the kids and the toys, she was not at all adverse to leaving without any of those toys. My girl is learning.
It is still hard for Julia to have me away for three days. This week we had a rocky start when I first came home, but she warmed to me pretty quickly. She is her Daddy’s girl and she just loves to insist on his doing stuff for her. One evening, we were going to watch television and I gave her the choice between watching a certain movie and going up to bed. She chose going up to bed by just taking David’s hand and telling him to get up and go upstairs.
She is wearing pajamas now – not all the time, mind you, but often. Prior to this, she has put nightgowns on during the day but only went to bed in a shirt and panties. David said it happened for the first time last week when she volunteered to put on pj’s with pants! So first pj’s and first pants since we’ve brought her home. On Saturday night, she wore a sleeveless night gown with a short sleeved shirt underneath an a pair of pajama bottoms. I wonder if we will ever get to pj pieces that are meant to go together or just plain nightgowns. Julia’s fashion choices are so very interesting. We watched the movie Pocahantus and the rest of the weekend, Julia was Poke-thomas. Well, that is when she wasn’t a Ceretops or a Longneck – there is frequently a roaring dinosaur around the house.
4 months home
January 4-11, 2007
Wow. Hard time getting back to the blog There never seems to be time and when I find some time, I want to veg out and sleep. Still, so much is happening with Julia that I must continue but I have to go back to Christmas.
David and Julia came home after my father’s funeral and I stayed in Jersey for a few days more. We were finally all together the Thursday before Christmas, and I was able to work from home for the end of the week which was good for us all. We prepared Christmas – bought a small tree, decorated it with unbreakable figures and all the things that Julia has been making with us, at school, and with her tutor, Dottie. She enjoyed the decorating, she enjoyed having a tree in the house – toy dinosaurs have lived inside the tree and the decorations have been rearranged many times. I am very happy that I took the advice of others to make the tree totally accessible to Julia. It has worked well and no one worried about the more precious decorations that we own. I also didn’t worry about whether she pulled the tree over.
Because of our stay in Jersey, we could not do so many of the things we had planned to get Julia ready for the holidays. The question is would she have understood or appreciated any more for the preparation and I have no idea. She did not expect presents, in fact, it was hard to get her to come downstairs after we made our coffee and readied the camera for her entrance on Christmas morning. She seemed amazed by the boxes and gifts but did not attempt to open anything until we started it.
We gave her a play kitchen and a slinky. Jan, who was staying with us, gave her dinosaur books. These were plenty for her to receive and she was very grateful. Julia has not used the kitchen as much as I expected but it might take time to get use to it being in the house. She can be seen regularly sitting by herself and paging through books and the dino books are a favorite. Sometime she lines up her toy dinosaurs and they "read" the books with her. She also like to mix her horses (3 from my childhood and the new one my sister gave her) with the dinosaurs. She does not really play as if the animals (or dolls for that matter) talk to one another (like Cheshire did), but lines them up, dresses them in doll clothes, and moves them out and about in the house. Generally her play with dolls is to dress them, do their hair, and have them dance or parade about. It reminds me more of boy play than what Cheshire did. While she is playing, Julia is always singing – today it is a few lines from a song in the musical Beauty and the Beast.
We went to see a performance of Beauty and the Beast right before Christmas. Julia knows the story and music from watching the movie, but this was a first live performance. She loved it. She spent a lot time on one of our laps, she also spoke out in the beginning quite loudly, but her behavior was no worse than other kids her age or the woman beside me who sang all of the songs just loud enough for me to hear. I was very happy with Julia’s attention to the play.
We have attempted to do two violin lessons with Julia but she is much too busy investigating the room, writing on the erasable board, and acting very silly. Her teacher, Ginny, started with the traditional foot chart. Julia saw no reason at all to do it at the lesson or to practice it at home. She did listen to what was said and she can do the foot positions because she did it once. Julia did sit quietly on a lap when Ginny played her violin but it was the only time that Ginny had Julia’s full attention. I don’t think the traditional pre-Twinkle Suzuki exercises are going to work for us. Maybe Ginny can modify the system, maybe we need to find a kindermusik.
In the pool, Julia continues doing better and better. She now goes underwater and blows bubbles. She had a great time one day when the guards put a divider in the lane were played in and she went under it over and over. She is not quite kicking enough or using her hands in the right way to move herself but we are in the JCC pool a few times a week and I’m sure it will all come soon. Another two months and the JCC will allow her to take lessons. By then, will she need them?
ShaDiamon and I took Julia to get a hair cut. We went to a kids’ salon with all sorts of toys and movies at each chair, and cars instead of chairs. In truth, Julia needed none of that. Once the woman starting combing and then cutting Julia’s hair, she was all eyes in the mirror. She wanted to see what was being done.
Julia can be very intensely interested in her reflection in the mirror. She watches herself dressed and naked. She checks out when she makes faces and when she poses. She likes to watch as we interact. I have no known any child like this. I know there were large mirrors at the orphanage – we have two pictures of her in a room that looks like a dance studio. I wonder what she is looking to see.
Julia doesn’t like my traveling for work. She ignores when I leave and tries to push me away when I come home. It’s just few hours on each end, but I don’t like it. I wonder if it is delay her development somehow – too much energy spent too negatively.
Right now, Julia is Daddy’s girl. She hates to see him go to work and loves to see him come home. David does spoil her a bit, picking her up whenever she wants it and buying her treats. It does melt my heart when she calls, Daddy at the top of her voice.
Lost post
This is an update from December 9, a few days before we found out my father died. I forgot to post it but I don't want to forget what was going on. And so, from December 9, 2006:
Julia has been home with us for three months now, and we are almost to the point where it is hard to imagine life without her. She is still pretty demanding but she had learned a level of trust that I did not expect, certainly not so soon. Today, Julia was playing with her trains. Actually, she had just set an oval track up with David’s help, when I was ready to leave the house. I told her that I wanted to leave and got out our coats. Julia was willing to leave her toys and come with me. She would not have been willing to do that last month. I think she is beginning to believe that this is her home to stay.
She is really beginning to enjoy kid movies. A few days ago it was Beauty and the Beast and today, it was Cinderella – both Disney adventures. Of course she loves Mulan and the Little Mermaid, and has seen them both a number of times now, but she watched these two new movies with much more understanding the very first time. She repeated words, and commented at times. During Beauty and the Beast, she really loved the scene when Beauty is playing in the snow with the Beast, and they feed the birds together. She also loved the dancing scene and made David get up and dance with her when the movie ended.
Julia was funny in Trader Joe’s today. She notices everything and has so much that she likes. She always wants to buy cut flowers. She pointed out the miso soup box for me to put in our cart, and the chocolate covered peanuts. She also had caught on that they give kids balloons at the check out. She confuses the words balloon and bubbles, but the concepts and sounds are so close. She loves tasting the samples as we shop. Here she is all her Daddy’s girl!
Julia’s favorite toys these days are her dolls, her trains, and her dinosaurs! She has a bunch of doll clothes for various sizes of dolls, but to her every piece of clothing fits on EVERY doll and dinosaur. We use elastics, ribbons, and plastic ties to keep clothes on because there is no use trying to explain that some piece of clothing doesn’t fit the big baby doll or the Barbie or the ballerina without arms. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tyrannosaurus rex in tulle and fake fur.
Dinosaurs are a passion! Last week, we made out weekly pilgrimage to the kids museum to go to an art class and visit the dianosphere. It is becoming a Thursday afternoon ritual. I let Julia spend as long as she wants there and she plays with all the computers that have information, she watches the displays and the lighting changes from days to night and back to day. She digs and scrapes in the bones pit.
This week although we had a little trouble getting into the museum, she was relatively willing to leave at the end of our visit which is a big change from a few weeks ago. Again, I feel like she is understanding that places we go and things we do are not a one time only affair. I value this trust she puts in us and know that it is the beginning of a parent-child relationship with is more than supplying her with the necessities of life.
We had a little trouble getting into the museum. I told Julia that we had to check our coats, have lunch, go to our class, and then go visit the dinosaurs. She wanted to have lunch immediately. It was just a pure power struggle – who was going to set the agenda of the day, and unfortunately for Julia, I felt like it was a good lesson to learn. Julia must learn that Mommy and Daddy are the bosses of herq1 . So we had a bit of a back and forth, even made it outside again, in the freezing cold, because if she would not do what I wanted, we were going home. I was not crazy about doing this. I do believe in fighting only about the most important issues, but now that she is not having tantrums often and understands much of what I say, I felt the time was right. It took awhile and we had an audience of the older volunteers who work the front desk and the admittance stations, but Julia eventually gave in and did it my way.
These days Julia moves more normally. She shoulders are not poised for flight, and her knees are not locked when she stands. Julia’s hair is growing. We’ve trimmed her bangs twice now and soon she will need some kind of a hair cut to shape what is growing in.
1 January 2007
A new year, a new hair do.
Jei-Jei was flying not sailing but just a bit of poetic license on that one. So on Sunday, Ches left for her next away adventure in Seville, Spain where she will attend the University with a group of students from her American college. She was very excited and we are for her, but her visit was all too short. She fit right back into our daily lives and leaves a hole when she leaves. We love her so much! She is such a great person to live with and such an excellent big sister for Julia
Cheshire was home during an important time. There are going to be some major changes around here and she was here for the decisionmaking. David will become Clerk of the Court for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April. This means we will be moving to Madison, Wisconsin, a city that we have loved for a long time. It means selling our dear Indianapolis house and pulling up roots once again. During this transition time, I will be a SAHM! Yes, me, who would have believed it? We are going to need some stabilizing force over the next few months and I am it. Also, I am going to be cleaning, packing, selling the house, finding a new house, unpacking, and getting us all settled in lovely Madison. 
Because the news is so new, we've only started telling friends and relatives. Madison or Indy make littly difference to family on the east coast but we are going to be leaving so many loving and supportive friends. It's hard to believe -- I don't think I've processed much of this yet. 
