Checking in...

...mainly because I haven't blogged in week now. I guess I shouldn't feel obligated to post something, even when nothing of interest happens to us. But I do feel kind of neglectful if I go too long.

Anyway, an insanely busy week at work had left me pretty depleted by the weekend. So other than the usual laundry and grocery store chores, I was extremely lazy the past two days.

Yesterday, it was a lovely spring day so we met up with some friends at the local farmstead. The girls could ride horses, look at the animals, pan for "gold" and do a lot of other fun things. Emma wanted to go to the fishing hole, but UNFORTUNATELY, they ran out of worms just as we got there (WHEW!) It's funny...I used to fish all the time with my dad as a girl. But for some reason, at this age, I'm not keen on threading a wiggly worm onto a sharp hook.

Anyway, here's a picture I took of Emma and her friends Jia and Laura while we were taking a nature hike out at the farmstead...


And here's my little glamour gal vamping for the camera (and anyone else who happened by)


Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend...I'm hoping for a less frantic work week ahead!

Emma of Arabia

We headed to the zoo today with our friends Mary and Helen. Much to our surprise, the girls begged to ride the camels...a first for both of them. They rode together and absolutely LOVED it!

Emma's got SKILLS!

So in the past 24 hours, I've discovered that Emma has developed two new skills...one minor and one major.

After school yesterday, it was so nice out that I took Emma to the park for a little while. Of course, she headed straight for the swings. So I'm pushing her on the swing when I notice she is pumping herself! I have been trying to teach her how to pump on a swing since last summer, with no success. It seems so intuitive, but just try explaining to a child how to do it...it's HARD! I was so excited to see her pumping back and forth. Believe me, I've practically developed carpel tunnel from pushing that child for hours on the swings. She can finally help out a little!

Now for the major skill. Last night, I was reading a bedtime story to Emma when she stopped me and said "I know that word." I said "what is it?" and she answered "in" (which it was.) I asked her if she knew any other words in the book and she pointed out several other short words like "the", "I", and "get."

This morning at school, I asked her teacher if Emma had been working on reading and she said "Oh yeah, Emma's been reading for several weeks now!" I couldn't believe it! The teacher had Emma go pick out one of her school books and Emma sat down and read me the entire book without missing a word. I actually teared up a little...your child taking her first steps toward reading is so wonderful, especially when you love reading as much as I do.

One kind of funny thing...when Emma was reading to me, everytime she got to the word "you", she would say "not me, but YOU." Her teacher said Emma had been having some trouble with that word and the teacher would give her the hint "not me, but..." Her teacher assured me that eventually she would drop the "not me, but..." part! Funny!

Anyway, no photos of Emma's new skills...but I do have a picture of Emma when she was one...already into reading! It's always been one of my favorite pictures of her...

A day at the park

After a couple of weeks of truly wretched spring weather (cloudy, cold, rainy and even snowy), things took a turn for the better today, with sunny skies and temps in the 60s. When you have a five-year-old who's been cooped up inside for two weeks, it's mandatory that you head to the park on a day like today.

As any child can tell you, the park is full of fun. You can swing...


You can hang on the monkey bars...


You can play in the sand box...


You can ride your soon-to-be-too-small scooter...


And after all this fun, you can still be whiny when mommy tells you that you have to go home to eat dinner!

Belated happy Easter!

I'm sure everyone has moved on from Easter, but I've been away from the computer and haven't had a chance to post anything from the weekend. So bear with me if you're already over "Happy Easter" posts...

We spent the Easter holiday with my parents and had a fabulous time, despite winter-like weather. We went to an Easter egg hunt at my aunt's church and it was 25 degrees out with a wind chill of 10! But frigid weather is no deterrent when a five-year-old is searching for eggs filled with treats!




Here's a nice picture of Emma with my Aunt Hazel and my mom (or Biggie, as Emma calls her!) They are both so crazy about Emma and had fun helping her look for eggs.


Back at my parents' house, we colored Easter eggs, despite the fact that none of us likes hard-boiled eggs. I think we admired them for like 10 minutes and then threw them in the trash!

Easter morning, the Easter bunny was very kind to Emma...she got all kinds of fun little toys (and a little bit of candy.) The big prize were these Disney Princess eggs...


Each egg was filled with some kind of activity. Unfortunately, it was pretty much a bunch of crappy activities that didn't work. Oh well...

And here is MY little princess in all her Easter finery...


All in all, a wonderful Easter that I was thrilled to spend with my girl and my parents. Hope you all had a great holiday as well!

Emma's nap...RIP

Well, it's all but official now...my daughter no longer needs to take a nap. I knew this day would come eventually. I remember when Emma was about 16 months old and she started to no longer need a morning and an afternoon nap. Man, was that hard to let go of! I needed those couple of hours just to get things done. But we got used to just napping in the afternoon and that's pretty much the way it's been for the past four years.

But a few months ago, I began having difficulty getting Emma to lay down and sleep in the afternoons. She would play quietly in bed for 30 minutes or so, and then start hollering that she wanted to get up. On occasion, she would fall asleep for an hour or two. But that became increasingly rare.

At this point, she hasn't taken a nap on the weekend for probably six weeks. She really doesn't need it anymore. The bigger question, though, was how I would adjust to having a non-napping child. That hour or two she slept was a gift in a way...I got so much done! I really thought it would be horrible when she stopped napping. But surprisingly, it's no big deal. If I need a break, I'll ask her to play in her bed for a little while. In a way, it's almost liberating...we no longer have to build our schedule around nap time.

If we've had a particularly hectic day, Emma will still nod off in the car from time to time. I can't tell you how many times I'll sit in a parking lot, letting her sleep for a bit. HINT TO FUTURE MOMS: Always have an unread book or magazine stashed in the car for these occasions. I have caught up on a lot of reading while Emma was snoozing away in her car seat.

Anyway, it's another developmental milestone we've reached...so I leave you with a photo from last year, when my little girl was still a member of the nap brigade...

Just when you think your baby is gone forever...

...she wants to spend her afternoon at the park swinging back and forth in the baby swing.


I have no problem with that!

Thanks, Emma!

I took Emma to the doctor this week for her 5-year-old check-up. Poor gal had to have three shots in her legs (her little arms are still too thin to get shots.) Anyway, pre-shots, we were chatting with the pediatrician during the examination about Emma's progress in various areas. Out of the blue, the doctor asked Emma "So what is your favorite food, Emma?"

Oh crap! I braced myself...what was it going to be? Chicken nuggets? Skittles? Potato chips? Cotton candy? This was not going to turn out well.

So imagine my total shock when Emma smiled sweetly and told the doctor "Broccoli."

BROCCOLI!!!! Well, yes, broccoli is among the limited palate of vegetables that Emma likes (along with corn, green beans, peas and carrots.) But her favorite food?! Who cares...I was beaming like a proud mama. "Yes indeed, Emma does love her broccoli," I said.

So anyway, it looks like I owe Emma big-time for making me look like mommy-of-the-year in front of the pediatrician. Maybe she'll get some extra candy in her Easter basket (or some broccoli!)

The first signs of spring

You know spring is getting nearer when...


you get to ride the new bike you got for Christmas outside for the first time...


and you get to play all afternoon in the park with your friend Jia...


and your mommy takes you to the zoo for the first time since last fall!

On ice

There are so many things that I've done over the past five years that I could never imagine doing when I was a carefree, single, childless person. Among them...eating fish sticks for dinner, sitting through entire episodes of Barney and the Teletubbies, and changing poopy diapers without even wrinkling my nose.

Close to the top of this list would be attending any theatrical production that ends with the words "...On Ice." But that's exactly what we did last night. Yes, Disney on Ice hit our city last night and we were among the 12,000 people witnessing this spectacle. We went with our friends Mary and Helen. Here are Emma and Helen just a few moments before the extravaganza began...


I'm joking about it, but it really wasn't that bad...I have sat through worse family events (Sesame Street Live comes to mind.) For one thing, our seats were on the floor in the second row! Now, had these been seats for Green Day, I would have been out of my mind. But even for Disney on Ice, it was pretty cool. Here's a picture I took...without even using the zoom on the camera. It kind of shows how close we were...


And of course, here was the highlight for Emma...


Nice shot of Prince Charming's bum, isn't it?

Don't ask me how we got these fantastic seats. I mean it, don't ask me. Okay, okay, I admit it...I subscribe to the Disney on Ice newsletter and was able to buy tickets a month before they went on sale. Can you believe what a total mom geek I am? Wait, it gets worse. I just bought advance tickets for HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL ON ICE!!!! Good lord, can you imagine what that will be like? But Emma adores that movie (she has a poster of Troy on her wall.) It will be here in December, so this will be an early Christmas present for her.

But it still kind of amazes me...I was someone who was going to punk rock and techno concerts pre-Emma...it is astounding how much your life can change when you have a kid. I'm not complaining, although sometimes I miss some of things I used to be majorly into. But my life is so much more interesting now...even if I do have to sit through the occasional "On Ice" production.

The shoe wars

Emma has always been about the shoes. Whenever we go to Target, she wants to head straight to the shoe department, not the toys. I bet she easily has 20 pairs of shoes.

She has always been pretty compliant about what clothes I lay out for her...she's not gone through one of those stages where she would only wear one thing (unlike a friend of mine whose 6-year-old daughter has refused to wear anything but a dress for 3.5 years!) But Emma can be totally demanding when it comes to her footwear. She always seems to want to wear the most inappropriate shoes.

Last week, we had a couple of days where it actually hit 80 and I let Emma wear sandals to school. Of course, the weather reverted back to normal and it's back in the 40s now, but Emma cannot understand why she can't continue to wear her sandals or flip flops outside. It's a source of major bickering between the two of us every morning now. And before you give me the old "why don't you give her a choice" idea...believe me, I've tried that. It doesn't work with Emma on this particular subject. Of course, I always win (because I'm the mom) and she ends up wearing weather-appropriate shoes outside. But I'm a little weary of the arguments every morning.

Anyway, I haven't taken many pictures in the past week...this morning Emma insisted on making breakfast for us, so I snapped a shot of her whipping up her famous cinnamon toast. My little Rachael Ray!

Am I losing my mind?

Let me just start out by admitting...I am an addict. For the past five years, I'm been totally in the thralls of an addiction that just won't let go, no matter how hard I try to escape from its clutches. I know it's a demon that many of my fellow bloggers suffer from as well, so hopefully no one will be too judgemental. My addiction is...buying clothing for my daughter.

I think I can say without exaggeration that I am a brilliant children's clothes shopper. I don't know that I've ever paid full price for anything in five years. I scour the sale racks, go to consignment shops, look for special promotions, use coupons and spend hours on Ebay looking for adorable clothes for Emma. For what I spend, she always looks good. Emma's teacher once told me that Emma was the best-dressed child in her school. Yikes...what pressure!

Anyway, one thing I do is pick up a lot of stuff at end-of-the-season sales. For example, I started buying things for this summer at the end of last summer, when summer clothes are at bargain basement prices. So I have been buying Emma clothes for this summer essentially since last August. I just throw them into a big storage bin under her bed. Which leads to the "am I losing my mind" part of of this account...

It's starting to get warmer here (FINALLY!) so yesterday I decided to get out all her new summer clothes and start washing them. As I unpacked the clothes, I began to see that there is a slight chance I may have sort of lost track of what I have bought over the past nine months. Maybe I should let the pictures tell the story...

Here is a photo of two adorable French Toast polo shirts I bought Emma at an end-of-summer sale last fall for like $3 each. I love lime green and pink together (as you will soon see.)


After going through more of the clothes, I also found two really cute Children's Place polos I had bought on sale and with a coupon for an additional 30% off. I had no idea how much I really dug the whole the lime green/pink look...


Okay, it's always good to have a back-up, in case one of them gets stained...I can see that. Then I came across a purchase I made a month or so ago at a blow-out sale at the local Carter's outlet. I think I see a pattern developing here...


Okay, either I'm totally going senile, or I need to get more organized about my shopping. I mean, how many lime green and pink polos does a five-year-old girl need - even if she is the best-dressed kid in her class? Maybe I should start some kind of Excel spreadsheet for Emma's clothes, sorted by color, size or line. Or maybe...I NEED TO QUIT BUYING HER SO MANY FRIGGIN' CLOTHES!!!

But as I said before...it's an addiction and it's too darn much fun! One thing I do know...it's definitely going to be a pink and lime green summer for Emma.

Anyway, I did more yesterday than just marvel over my stupidity when it comes to apparel purchases. It was a lovely day, so Emma and I went to the park with our friends Kay and Jenna. Here's a cute pic of Emma and Jenna having fun together...


And here's a photo of Emma in a contemplative mood...


She's such a deep thinker, my girl!

Emma is currently mad about...

...the Berenstain Bears. I'd sort of heard of them before...I think my sister had given us one Berenstain Bear book a long time ago. But one day while we were stuck at home, Emma watched the BB show on PBS and was totally hooked. Now every day I record the BB show and we watch it when we get home. And we've checked several BB books out from the library.

I guess what I like about the BB books and programs so much is that there is always, in a fun way, a positive lesson to be learned and reinforced. The stories talk about not being greedy or eating too much junk food or watching too much TV.

Over my lunch hour today, I ran over to the local used book store and picked up about six BB books for like $10. I love this bookstore because they have a huge kids' section and I can indulge in Emma's latest book obsession without spending much money.

Who knows how long she'll be digging the Berenstain Bears...like most kids, Emma kind of flits from one thing to another (except for the princess thing, which seems to have no end!) But I'm thrilled to encourage her infatuation with little kid stuff like this as long as I can. The longer I can stave off the dreaded Bratz phase, the happier I'll be.

Goooo Emma!

My parents got Emma a generous gift certificate from Build-a-Bear for her birthday. So this weekend, we headed to the mall to pick out some bears. Emma quickly chose the two bears she wanted and then it came time to select outfits for them. I naturally assumed she would want something princessy for her little bears, so I steered her to the Disney Princess outfits. Much to my surprise, she didn't want to get her bears princess outfits. Much to my dismay, this is what she wanted instead...


Excuse me...cheerleaders?! My daughter wants to be a cheerleader now? I had no idea she even knew what a cheerleader was. Has she been watching "Bring It On" while I take a shower or something? Last night, she actually wanted to demonstrate a cheer she made up. She essentially waved her arms around shouting "Give me a "E", give me a "M", give me a "M", give me an "A"...what's it spell...EMMA!" Of course, I clapped and said it was fantastic.

But cheerleading? Growing up, I was always the athlete, not the person cheering the athletes on. I was talking yesterday to a friend of mine and she says her 6-year-old daughter is suddenly fascinated by cheerleading too. She's approaching it with the attitude that it's a phase and her daughter will outgrow it. I guess that's the way to view it. Of course, if Emma ended up really wanting to be a cheerleader someday, I would totally support her. She's a girly-girl and that's part of what makes her so special. I have to keep reminding myself that...

A girl and her kitty

I swear, I have never seen anything like the love Emma has for our new cat. Every morning when we leave for school, she has to run and say goodbye to her. When we get home, she tears around the house until she finds Sami. The cat sleeps at the foot of Emma's bed at night, which thrills Emma to no end. Emma says "Don't worry if the kitty likes me better, Mommy, because I am her REAL owner." They are quite the cute couple...

Ringing in the New Year (a little late)

Saturday was our local FCC chapter's Chinese New Year party. Because I'm on the board, it's an all-day affair for us (and it's why Emma had her birthday party last Saturday instead of her actual birthday.)

So we went early to help set up for the party - like 9 a.m. - and were there until 4:30 p.m. A long day for sure, but Emma held up remarkably well. She really likes hanging out with the daughters of my fellow-FCC board members. Here's a picture of some of the girls after we went on a McDonald's run to get them some lunch...


The actual event got underway at 1:00 p.m. It was so much fun...there were more than 300 people there and it is so wonderful to see all of the friends we've met over the years with their beautiful daughters (and a few sons!) Emma was running all over the place with her pals...here she is with her good friend Helen...


After the Chinese dance performances, they gave away raffle prizes. Our FCC president asked Emma to come up and hold up each of the prizes as they were being raffled off...my little Vanna White!


Frankly, I was surprised that the winner of this prize was able to wrestle it out of Emma's hands...but she gave it to her.

It was an exhausting day, but a good one. We're so fortunate that our area has such a large and active Chinese adoption community. A couple people in our travel group live in smaller, more rural areas and don't have contact with any other families who have adopted from China. I think that would be very difficult. I'm so grateful that we see so many families who are similar to ours...

Anyway, a belated Happy New Year...we hope the Year of the Pig is a good one for all of you!

Good morning...

...to mommy's 5-year-old girl! Happy birthday, sweetie!

Meet the newest member of our family...

It's Sami the cat! I was the owner of two cats who lived to be 19 and 20 years of age...they died two years ago, within six months of each other. Emma has wanted another kitty, but I've resisted, mainly because after 20 years, it was nice to be pet-free for awhile. But as an early birthday present, yesterday I took her to the animal shelter to pick out a cat. We played with several, but she chose this one and named her Sami. She's 4 years old, declawed, and fortunately, she has very good litter box manners! Emma adores her, almost too much. The cat is a little spooked by her because she wants to hug and hold her so much. But I'm coaching Emma to be more gentle and to give the kitty time to get used to us. Anyway, here's the one photo I have of the two of them together...


It's too early to tell, but it's possible we may have to perform a kitty exorcism on poor Sami - look at those eyes!

A happy President's Day

Emma and I had such a nice day together today. Which is a good thing, since our day yesterday was less-than-perfect. I think we both had birthday party hangovers or something, because she was whiny all day and, at one point late in the day, I practically screamed at her for asking me repeatedly to turn on the tv. It was one of those days where you lie in bed and think about what a horrible parent you are.

Anyway, we started fresh today. It helped matters immensely that, after weeks and weeks of high temperatures in the teens, it was inexplicably 50 degrees today. We felt like putting on our swimsuits and hitting the pool. But instead, we headed to our favorite park to take a walk and feed the ducks. Of course, it never occured to Mommy Einstein that after weeks of below-freezing temps, the lake would be frozen over and the ducks would have headed to a warmer climate (probably northern Canada.) There were no duckies to feed, so Emma threw the bread on the frozen lake instead...


After walking more than a mile around the park, we headed to the local outdoor shopping area where we did a lot of window shopping and then ate dinner at Panera. My vegetarian chili and Emma's wild rice soup hit the spot...


Then back home for a bath and early bedtime for her and I'll no doubt hit the sack right after "24." Ugh, back to work and school tomorrow. But I'm glad my girl and I ended the weekend on a positive note...I felt so crummy after Sunday. Sometimes you just worry that what comes out of your mouth is going to scar your kid for life. But even after a bad day, Emma always seems happy to see me the next morning.

Chuck E. Cheese post mortem

So after yesterday, I can offer one piece of sage advice to moms and moms-to-be...no matter how much your child begs, if they want to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese...DON'T DO IT!!!

I guess I'm being a little dramatic...the party was far from a disaster. The kids had an absolute blast and that's what's important. I just thought it was horrible. Not because of the noise and chaos...more that they have one party after another scheduled and you're rushed so quickly from playing, to eating, to cake, to unwrapping presents...you don't have time to enjoy anything. But as I said, Emma and her friends had a good time. Here are some pics:

Here is the birthday girl!


Here's Emma, Emme and Lola goofing around in front of the blue screen tv thing...I think this was the hit of the party....


And here is as close to a group picture as I could get...


Behind Emma are her friends Maci, Emme, Lola, Jasmine and Helen. Missing in action are Jia and Jenna.

After the party, we had to rush to our monthly China girls playgroup, which seemed rather tranquil compared to Chuck E. Cheese. We staggered home at 7:30...Emma was in bed by 8 and I hit the sack at 8:45. Emma's now playing happily with all the groovy gifts she got from her friends. We need to start getting ready for church shortly. Thank goodness tomorrow's a holiday and we can chill out for another day.