Laura is one fun gal! On the way home Wednesday we were talking about her favorites. She told me her favorite CD’s are “Woody” and the “Chipmunks” - “but nobody beats the Chipmunks!” Her favorite food is watermelon and potato chips come as a far second. Her favorite color is “pinky-purple”. What a joy it is to see her blossom into her own little person!
What an eventful week! The week started out with Helen having her adenoids removed successfully and coming home on the same day. We were actually expecting to stay overnight because of her small size and because she had heart surgery just three months ago. Well…she was such a trooper they decided she did not need to stay overnight! What a blessing! She was able to come home and sleep in her own bed peacefully, the WHOLE night!!
That same day she wowed us by starting to crawl on her hands and knees in the pre-op area. We had been told that she might not do this because she was already two and hadn’t yet. She is also extremely flexible and we thought that she might not have the muscle tone to do it. But of course, she is amazing! Now she mixes the hands and knees crawl with her army drag one leg scoot.
Laura is continuing to learn to read! Wow, I can’t believe it but she is four and reading! She is definitely smart like her dad. Jeff has put a couple of games on the “family” computer for her to play. One is Roller Coaster Tycoon. She is able to add trees and all sorts of landscape to the amusement park without reading how to do it. Yesterday she even did something that Jeff wasn’t sure how to do. He says, “Get used to it!” I am sure that she will soon pass us both up on her computer smarts as soon as she can read everything.
Laura continues to grow up (and up and up and up). She is getting taller and harder to carry, seemingly every day a little more.
This fall Laura started home school, with mom as her teacher. Recently she’s begun learning how to read, and is doing great!
Laura continues to take gymnastics and swimming classes, too. She surprised me the other day by standing on her head, up against the wall, without any help. I don’t think I can do that!
Laura is also enjoying going to church and learning about Jesus. She recently learned a great song that says “Oh who made everything? God did, God did”.
We’re really proud of Laura and happy to see her growing up into a “big girl”! She’s a great big sister, too!
Here’s a couple recent pictures of Laura. There are more in her photo album.
Wow! We have had Helen for one week now. In some respects it feels like it has been longer. It has been wonderful to see Helen’s progression of attachment to us and to see some of the real her. She is such a happy and inquisitive girl! She loves to play - especially with paper. We think it possibly is a novelty to her. She can entertain herself folding, unfolding and turning the same piece of paper for a long time. She also likes the “I drop it, you pick it up game”.
She started to learn to feed herself last night. When I would feed her Cheerios she would just open her mouth and make no attempt to try to feed herself. When I would try to have pick them up herself she would pick them up and purposely drop them. Last night she went from hiding her hand under the bib to taking the Cheerio from my fingers and putting it in her own mouth and then clapping. She then would start to fuss if you didn’t give her praise for doing it. If she could talk, one of her favorite phrases would probably be, “Do it again!” I think we have a little ham on our hands.
We are really impressed with the variety of food that Helen will eat. She will try anything and can eat a lot for her 14 lb body. Laura has been quite adventurous as well. She will try most things but has settled on rice (white or fried) being her favorite. She has done really well without her allotment of milk. Here the milk is reconstituted which she does not like. She has decided that her belly button does not call for milk anymore, it calls for food. It will call for milk in Minnesota only.
Laura is doing great as a big sister. Sure it is hard adjusting to sharing her parents especially after having four adults at her beckon call for two weeks in Hong Kong, but she is doing well. It has been wonderful to have Ross and Karin here to help take care of Laura and make our transition smoother. I have heard the other families talk about how they miss their children at home and I am so grateful that I have mine all here. The other day when I out of the bathroom, Laura and Helen were sitting in Laura’s little foam bed and Laura was singing to Helen about how God made all of the big things.
Laura loves the swimming pools here and has readily taken anyone one up who invites her. That is her favorite time to be outside. She has been a real trooper walking lots of miles around the cities with us. She is ready to have cooler weather as she said yesterday, “I don’t want to go outside, I’ll get all hotted up again!” It has been consistently in the 90’s and very humid. I think that we also look forward to temperatures in the 80’s with less humidity. Here we come Minnesota!
We are all very eager to get home and to establish our new routine. Even though we know that there will be a lot more things to keep us busy we miss it - especially our own beds (In China, they prefer extra firm beds) and turning the water faucet on and drinking from it!
Here is a picture of our two girls:
Laura told us this evening that she wanted to pray and ask God “where the animals came from.” After she prayed her short prayer, she told us that God said that “they came from their parents.” I asked her, “But where did their parents come from?”
Laura thought about that for a moment, then said, “They came from their mothers.” Of course, I had to ask, “But where did their mothers come from?”
Laura didn’t hesitate with her answer: “They came from Arizona…it’s really warm there.”
Jeff’s mom (Karin) dropped Laura off after their lunch together on Wednesday. Rachel encouraged Laura to give Grandma a hug and kiss before she went. Karin kissed her on the lips and then Laura wiped her own lips off with her arm.
Karin said sadly, “Don’t wipe my kiss off!”
Laura responded, “No, I was just wiping your slime off my lips!”
Last night I was reading a story to Laura called “The Fox’s Story”. It’s narrated by a fox who recounts his tale of witnessing the angels’ announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, and his subsequent visit to see the Baby Jesus.
At the end of the story, when the fox is looking at the Baby, I tried to explain to Laura that Jesus is the king of the whole world, and isn’t that amazing? Well, that required an explanation of what a king is. I explained that a king is the boss, so that meant Jesus was the boss of the whole world.
After that sank in for a while, Laura noted that “Baby Jesus had a belly button, because he was born.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s right, everybody who was been born has a belly button.”
But then Laura said, “Only one person doesn’t have a belly button.”
“Oh, who’s that?” I asked.
“God doesn’t have a belly button, because he wasn’t born,” Laura replied.
And that, my friends, is some pretty decent theology from a three-year-old!
A couple of nights ago I was putting Laura to bed and somehow we started playing “The Opposite Game”. This game consists of one person saying a word and the other person guessing the opposite.
I started out as the first person, saying words, and Laura guessing the opposite. She was doing very well. Examples: hot/cold; up/down; left/right; happy/sad; etc.
After I while I started to run out of words that have opposites. So I asked Laura to take a turn. She asked me “What’s the opposite of ‘tree’?”. I told her I didn’t know.
With a glint in her eye, she said “a squirrel!” We laughed, and I told Laura that she had made a funny joke. She said “yeah.”
Fun times.
I’ve got a couple more fun stories to tell about Laura today.
First, we were at dinner tonight and somehow got on the subject of where babies come from. After explaining to her that she had come from her mommy’s tummy, I asked Laura if she knew where mommy had come from. Laura thought about it for a minute, then pointed at me and explained “she came from your tummy, daddy!”
The second story is from later this evening when Laura was in the bathroom with Rachel. (Laura has been learning to use the potty this week, so she’s been spending a lot of time in the bathroom). Laura was staring at the clock for a while, and then she told Rachel “There are five ones on the clock”. Rachel at first told her, no, there is only one one on the clock, but then realized, wait a minute, she’s right! (If you don’t believe me, take a look, there are five ones on a standard clock face.) Laura then pointed out that there were two twos on the clock, which is also correct.
Here’s a recent picture of Laura eating some blackberry jam while staying at Grandma & Grandpa Olson’s house.
Yesterday when I woke Laura up in the morning, she was still kind of sleepy, so she crawled into my arms and let me snuggle with her for a while. I always enjoy that.
After we had snuggled for a little while, she told me that she had slept on the floor for a while during the night. I asked her, “weren’t you cold on the floor?”
Laura replied that it had been cold on the floor, so that’s why she got back into bed.
I asked her if she liked the warm blankets on her bed, and she said she did.
Then she said something that made me smile the whole rest of the day (and I’m still smiling about it today): “Daddy, your arms are a warm blanket”.