Four Years and One Day

Ellie has a large and colorful collection of "Chucks" for school - Converse tennis shoes with laces. No velcro, no elastic laces, real old-fashioned laces. Which means I tie shoes a LOT. A few months ago while tying Ellie's shoes, I told her that she needed to watch how I did it and practice, because when she turned 4 she would have to learn how to tie her own shoes to get ready for kindergarten. She showed little to no interest in learning the "bunny ears" tying method, so after a few tries, I told her she'd have to start trying again after her birthday.

On Saturday - one day into her 4th year - I asked her as she was getting dressed if she wanted me to come tie her shoes once she put them on. She said "No - I did it." I went to her room expecting to see a mess of knots and found this:



Now if only my little genius could learn her colors we'll be all set.

Happy Birthday Girl

It was a wild birthday weekend. More tomorrow, but I loved this pic. And that face.

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You Say It's Your Birthday

Someone turned the big 0-4 today.



Happy birthday my sweet girl.

Signs of Spring

Daffodils blooming:


Grass greening up:


Enjoying the benefits of daylight savings time on our new swingset:

Sunday

It never gets old...






Yo Gabba Gabba is a very unpredictable show. Best to take safety precautions before watching.

My Curly Girl

I knew when I decided to adopt an Ethiopian child that the hair thing would be a learning curve for me. I have fine, straight, uncooperative hair that defies most attempts at styling beyond consenting to be dried, so the prospect of learning how to properly care for and style Ellie's head full of curls was a little intimidating. She didn't have much hair to worry about when she first came home, so we pretty much stuck to a routine of wash-condition-moisturize-headband and let her curls do what they wanted to. With the exception of the occasional ponytails, we haven't strayed much from that - the headbands help frame her fabulous curls as they grow longer (and taller) and she likes matching them to her outfits for school. Recently the ends had gotten really dry and prone to tangles (leading to tears and drama most mornings), so last week off to the beauty salon we went for a trim.

Our day before picture:

Ellie was such a good girl - in addition to everyone commenting on what "good curl structure" she had, everyone commented on how well-behaved she was since she sat perfectly still and didn't say a word the whole time. I smiled and nodded and wondered if she was undergoing some kind of emotional trauma causing her to withdraw (this is what all that adoption training does to your brain.) In reality, she was having a fine time. She got her hair washed in the "special chair" and then sat under the bonnet dryer for a while for a deep conditioning treatment. Chocolate milk and the Wonder Pets on my phone made the time fly by.


After drying her hair, the stylist trimmed it a little (a lot less than I expected) and then used the blow dryer and a tiny flat iron to straighten it out and style it. Here was the end result:

Is it just me or does she look like Michelle Obama?


Here's Michelle Obama with a bow.


And here's what Michelle Obama hair looks like in the morning when she won't stop playing with it and refuses to sleep in a scarf:

We aren't giving up the headbands yet.

Stuff That's New

I suck. I know. Will endeavor to update in a more timely fashion as my New Year's resolution. Wait - my Chinese New Year's resolution. That's over too? Damn.

So anyway, on to the update:

One of us became a U.S. citizen in December, and more importantly, a citizen of the great State of Texas. One of us had to wait in a Social Security office to get proof of the above, and witnessed (a) a young man with two arms of homemade tattoos give a moment by moment commentary on the night he got pulled over with drugs and a gun in the car and the inequity of being charged and booked in jail for it, and (b) a woman take out her entire plate of dentures in the waiting room while admonishing the little girl waiting next to her to brush her teeth...or else. God bless America.



We visited our friends the Irvings in Montgomery in January, and had a great time. Ellie had her first "sleepover" when she and Jacob camped out in the game room and living room during our visit. She and Hannah had a great time dressing up as princesses and playing with their matching sparkle ponies. We all went to see the Tooth Fairy, and Ellie and Samuel carpooled together and rocked out to the latest Vampire Weekend CD (after I convinced Samuel that the music had nothing to do with vampires, and that his mom wouldn't be mad.) Of course I have only a handful of pics of the weekend, but here's two of my favorites:





These kids crack me up. In the first one they're adorable, sweet, photo-compliant angels, and then two frames later Ellie's doing a Joe Cocker impression and Jacob's practicing his "how YOU doin'?" face.

Global warming? El nino? I don't know the cause but we sure have enjoyed the unusual snowfall this winter. I fear Ellie's expectations have been unfairly raised, but she's had a really good time. We made snow angels (which were preceded by my warning about how sitting in snow will make your pants wet and quickly succeeded by tears and a demand to go inside because her pants were wet), and made snow ice cream which was rejected as "too cold." Fortunately, she like hitting shrubs with a stick to knock the snow off, and drinking hot chocolate, so the day ended well.





I know it seems we haven't been up much the last couple of months, but to me that is kind of a milestone event in itself. When Ellie initially came home everything was so packed with NEW for both of us, that it felt like every day we crossed some milestone or had a new first to add to the childhood resume - first ice cream, first trip to the grocery store, first trip to the park and the zoo, etc. The end of February marked 7 months for us as a family, and I can't believe how quickly we have arrived at the steadiness of family life that I thought it would take a lot longer to get to. I never thought settling into a mundane routine would be such a comfort, but to me it's a sign that we've shifted from a constant state of transition into the rhythm of ordinary - which in our case feels pretty incredible.