New Pictures

Last weekend we went down to Collins Park on the Lake in East Grand Rapids for a "Picture Party" that our neighbor had organized. A professional photographer gave us each 15 minute photo shoots and will send us all the proofs online if we want to order any. I haven't seen the professional shots yet. Our priority was to get some pics of all three girls together. Not sure that we accomplished, as Grace wasn't too into sitting still, but we may have some good action shots. Anyway, I took my camera along and took the opportunity of having three girls with their hair brushed, dressed in nice clothes and all together on a sunny day to snap a few of my own pictures. Again, none with all three, but some good individual ones. Those are the above images. A shout-out to Melissa Fronek for the adorable polka-dot dress Grace is wearing and around which all the others were chosen.

Saturday Football Game

The local high school football game was cancelled last night due to thunder and lightning and rescheduled for this afternoon. We thought we would take the opportunity to go catch a game and see our neighbor/babysitter, who is the drum major. Dave's friend Brian from Denver is visiting this weekend and the two of them were out golfing, so I will treat you all to the rollercoaster that is, "A Trip To The Game With Three Kids."

1. We decided to go to the game. We had to get dressed. Thus commences a half hour production of "what's the temperature like? Can I wear a dress? Short sleeves or long sleeves? Long pants or a skirt? If I wear my watermelon tank top do I have to wear a sweatshirt? Can I wear sandals or tennis shoes?" I insisted on long pants and sweatshirts since the house was quite chilly from the night before. I dressed Grace in a turtleneck and sweater with leggings. I, myself wore jeans and a sweatshirt. We got shoes on. We were ready to go. We were happy.

2. We stepped outside the back door only to be hit by a blast of warm, humid air the likes of which we haven't felt here in weeks. We were obviously all overdressed, so we shed our sweatshirts and loaded into the various bikes and contraptions to head off. We were all still happy.

3. About halfway to the high school Sophie had a near miss with a pedestrian. She was coming up behind him and he had moved over to the right so I thought he knew we were there. I called out that we were on his left and told Sophie to go ahead, but apparently he didn't hear me and just that second moved back to the middle of the sidewalk. They collided and he gave what appeared to me to be a dirty look. I apologized profusely and we continued on, but I told Sophie to stop so that I could tell her what to do the next time that happened. She thought I was mad at her and began sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk, when of course the walker caught up to us and felt awful for causing her to cry and began to try to cheer her up. Anyone who knows Sophie, knows that such attempts are futile if not downright detrimental so we were caught in a vicious cycle of him apologizing, her crying and me trying to make them both feel better:

Man: It's o.k. little girl you just surprised me.
Me: Oh, she's fine, just a little surprised herself.
Sophie: (crying) I'm sorry Mommy, I didn't mean to hit him.
Man and Me: No! you didn't even hit him/me. Don't worry.
Sophie: I want my B!!! (blankie)
Me: You're o.k, let's just keep riding.
Man: (bending over Sophie and laying a hand on her back) My granddaughter has a bike just like that. When did you learn to ride it?
Sophie: (shying away from strange man touching her and afraid to answer)
Me: (overly cheerful and wishing he would just keep walking) Oh, she learned this summer, didn't you honey?!
Sophie: (wailing) I don't know why I'm crying!!!!

we were not very happy.

4. By the time we got to the game, all had been forgotten and we couldn't wait to see the band perform and watch out neighbor "run out into the middle of the field and throw that thing up in the air" (in their words more or less) We parked the bikes and went in. No admission. Yeah! No band. Boo!!! Had I thought about it long enough I could have guessed that it would have been nearly impossible for all of those teeneagers to cancel all of their other Saturday plans to show up in the middle of the day for a band performance, but I obviously hadn't thought about it long enough. There was general consternation and despair, followed by vain attempts at distraction, ending in buying them each a snowcone. We were happy again.

5. They wanted to sit in the top row of the bleachers. We did. They were happy. They saw their friends from school down in the front row and weren't happy any more. I told them they could walk down and say hi. Happy. One spilled snowcone on pants. Unhappy. Sophie went down to meet friends and Lily followed. Lily apparently froze halfway down the steps where there was a break in the railing and refused to move. She was led back to me in tears. Unhappy. I walked her down to sit by friends. Happy. Friends had stuffed animals, too and a rousing game of "The kitty cats take a bath in the tub that is a bleacher seat" ensued. Very Happy. It begins to rain...I'll spare you the rest in detail, but you get the drift.

You'll notice that none of the drama involves the "just back from China and getting adjusted" adopted child. No, she was perfectly happy to ride to the game and sit on my lap. What a trooper! We got home, changed and put Grace down for her nap. The girls played while I fixed the ripped out screen in our front door for the fourth time in as many summers. I believe I have now made it a fortress against all hands below 24 inches. Just as I was finishing it started to pour, making the previous rain look like a mere drizzle. Then the tornado alarms started going off and I flipped on the T.V. to see our county highlighted in red with a big Tornado Warning plastered everywhere. One of our neighbors was over so all of us hightailed it into the basement. Sophie, Grace, and our neighbor Marie were perfectly happy to play downstairs and Sophie showed everyone how to duck and cover your head just like she had learned at school. Lily, however was terrified and kept asking what was going to happen when the tomato came. Priceless! "What is a tomato?! What happens if a tomato hits you??! I'm scared of the tomato!!"

We safely rode out the tomato scare and emerged from the basement to find the street flooded and the rain gone, so we all donned our galoshes and headed out to stomp in puddles; more like small ponds for the girls. Sophie's boots were leaking so she kept taking them off and dumping gallons of water out. I kept expecting a frog or something equally quaint to come spilling out as well.

So that was our day. Dinner, p.j.s, playtime, story time and into bed. No one got out of bed, not even once, which means I have achieved my goal of completely exhausting them until tomorrow. I have no new pictures for you. Try to get right on that. Until next time.

Getting back to normal

You've all probably noticed that I haven't been posting as often recently, and I do feel bad about that, but the fact is that one day is not so different from the other any more and everytime I sit down to write I think, "what else is there to say." Maybe it's due to the fact that everything that went on in China was so monumental and now I'd be talking about sibling rivalry and carpooling. Still, this is the stuff of life and maybe easier for others to relate to. The dichotomy now is that things are going so well and at the same time the honeymoon is soooo over.

Grace still cries rather easily about little things and sometimes wakes up out of a dead sleep and in inconsolable for about a half an hour. At other times she is running up and down the sidewalk laughing and chasing her sisters. She is also giving out smiles to more and more people (including men!) Sophie is still very patient and likes to share and help out. Lily's recent behavior is probably a combination of the honeymoon being over, starting school, not napping as often, and being three-and-a-half. She is trying mightily though and her heart is in the right place. The most fun time of day is bed time when all three girls gang up on daddy and jump all over him. It's so conducive to quiet, sleepy children! Our success curve with Grace has also flattened out a little. In the beginning she was doing so well and we had read so much about how quickly these kids improved once they got home. Now that we've been home a little over a month, we keep expecting to see the "fast-motion improvement" and what we actually see is a kid still struggling with some grief and displacement. Underneath that though we are getting a good, clear picture of her true personality which is definitely happy and easy-going. And after talking with other mothers of kids in the same age range we are remembering that many of her behaviors simply come with the territory, adopted or not.

She is still pretty clingy but has become more comfortable with Dave. I have been able to sneak out to basketball practice on my own a few times and even made it to a game while she slept and the babysitter had the other two girls. For those of you who don't know, I am helping out with the Freshman girls basketball team at East Grand Rapids High School. In this crazy state of Michigan where they still insist on making the girls play in the Fall (until the Supreme Court rules on the challenge working its way through the courts) we have played four games already and are currently 3-1. Two of the games have come down to last second shots and both of them have come out in our favor. Our only loss so far was to a big consolidated school district that has routinely been beating teams by forty points or so. We lost by about twenty-five which we chalked up to a moral victory. The team has really come together since the beginning of the summer and already improved their record from last year when they won a total of one game.

The first three games, Grace came along and sat in her stroller at the head of the bench; just another part of the coaching staff. We quickly found out that she likes popcorn so she sits, holding her bag of popcorn and watching the action move up and down the court. Usually by the third or fourth quarter she gets antsy so I walk the stroller back and forth behind the bench and send the subs in with a tap on the head from behind. Hopefully we'll have her all groomed and ready for her point guard position in a few years.

School is still going well for everyone. Sophie and Lily both love their teachers and look forward to going to school every day. The rain has finally stopped and we were able to use the bike trailer for pick ups and drop offs which worked out well time-wise. Grace seemed happy in the trailer. I just have to keep her awake on the ride home so that she still takes her nap when we get there. Our neighbor loaned us a little push-car which is just right for Grace. The neighborhood kids are all clamoring for a chance to give her a push up and down the sidewalk. Those are the newest pictures.

First week of school

We've now officially made it through the first week of school and everybody has lived to tell about it. Sophie started Kindergarten on Tuesday. We all make the trek to and from school on our respective bikes; Sophie on two wheels, Lily on training wheels and Grace either in the stroller or in the seat on the back of my bike. We have invested in a bike trailer so that when Lily starts on Monday, she and Grace can ride in that while we drop Sophie off at Kindergarten. Then I can pedal Lily over to preschool. Then it's home to get Grace down for her nap and two hours later we do the whole thing over in reverse. Luckily the drop off/pick-up times are staggered enough to make the whole thing work, and I can get an extra dose of exercise at least until it snows.

So far Sophie loves Kindergarten and her teacher, Mrs. Doele. I'm getting very detailed reports about all of the activities and which kids had to take a time-out that day. She also loves all of her birthday/back-to-school clothes, especially the knee socks; "They're not socks and they're not tights, Mom. They're knee socks!"

Grace continues to do well. She's just such a happy child for the most part, with a few moments of sadness spread throughout the day. We took her with us to see Lyle Lovett at the Meijer Gardens outdoor amphitheater last week. It was a sold-out show so we were pretty packed in and I wasn't sure how she would do, but she had a blast. We were right down in front, just a few feet away from the front of the stage, and Lyle had brought his "Large Band" with him, a back-up orchestra of about 15 musicians. Several of them were watching her dance around and giving her smiles when she would look up at them. She got braver and braver as the night went on and by the end she was venturing several chairs away in either direction to visit with people and "borrow" snacks from their picnics.

This weekend Dave took Sophie and Lily with him while he went to South Bend to see a good high school friend. Grace has been enjoying the attention that leaves her with but she definitely misses having Lily in her room at night so I have had to move in with her for the weekend. The weather has turned colder so I've already had to go through the clothes in the basement again to pull out her Fall and Winter wardrobe. She's so thrilled with all of her "new" clothes.

I finally got some pictures uploaded. Most are of the first day of Kindergarten. The ones in the field are of the farm where we bought a share in a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. We (or usually our neighbor who splits the goods with us) go every Tuesday to pick up our share, and on some days we get to go out in the field and pick some of it ourselves. Last week we got to pick cherry tomatoes. One of the pictures is taken just as both girls bit into a tomato to try them out. Sophie thought they were o.k., I didn't react fast enough to capture Lily spitting hers out onto the ground. Oh well, it was fun anyway, right kids?

Love,
Susan

Labor Day Weekend

Here are a few pictures from the past week or so. We've really been having a lot of fun and getting to know each other better all the time. The girls are starting to act like true sisters and the pattern of our life as a family of five is starting to take shape. Grace is a handful, a clown, a whirlwind and a sweetheart. Time spent at home continues to be the most challenging because there is still so much for her to explore, and she hasn't even seen the basement yet! Therefore you'll notice lots of outside pictures where there just aren't so many things to get into. She still loves the stroller and the park. We have ordered a bike trailer so that we can all get to and from school on our bikes; Sophie on two wheels, Lily on training wheels, and Grace in the trailer behind my bike. Other than that there's not much to report. The hardest parts now are just getting used to making one extra meal, doing more laundry, cleaning up more often, making an extra bed, etc. It's kind of like having a newborn, only accelerated to the 18 month stage. We still feel as if things are going very well, but don't want to get too cocky, so we're still sticking close to home and keeping things quiet. That's all for now. School starts on Tuesday and Sophie and Lily are counting the sleeps until it comes!