Tantrums

Had to share the photo of Lucy's "i don't wanna" pose. This position is very effective as somehow she seems to gain about 20 pounds or gravity increases. She's a girl who knows what she wants and what time she wants it! We had such a fun day today. We went to the zoo in the morning and walked the outdoor trails. We saw about one animal ... mostly Lucy was interested in sitting on all of the sidewalk ledges. It took us about two hours to go maybe 3 blocks. Part of this time was spent with her laying on the ground face down for no real reason. I was trying to go at her pace but honestly I couldn't take it for very long ... in reality if we went at her pace we would still probably be at the automatic doors at the entrance to the zoo THOSE were way more exciting then the tiger or the baby camels. My friend S is about to leave for Ethiopia to meet her daughter. Hopefully the impossible will become possible and she'll actually get to bring her daughter home on this trip.

When adoption is so freaking exciting you can't even think straight

FINALLY .... Mel (see her blog link) has a travel date!!!!!!!! Excitement abounds and joy fills the formerly anxious air. What a wonderful wonderful way to start the weekend. The beautiful Morgan will be in his momma's arms by mother's day!!!!!!!!!

She's a big kid now

Lucy's officially big. She's sleeping in her big girl bed. Tonight will be the third night. The crib is gone. Sad ... I find myself a little worried that if she had the will she could wander through the house at night. Fortunately her door is sticky and she'd have to be real mad to force it open, and I would hear her through the monitor if it got to that point. Lucy is also quite the singer. Almost anyone off the street can easily pick up what she is singing by the tune alone (the words are a bit off), it's adorable to hear her sing. She definately has her idea of what is a good song and what is a bad song, right now the CD in the car only has 3 good songs: track 1, track 10 and track 11 ... sometimes she will tolerate about 1/2 of track 12. Thankfully one of the songs she hates is the banana phone song ... "my cellular bananular phoooonnnneee"! Tonight at the park I learned (from another mother) a new form of "disipline" ... while I tend to explain, distract, time-out and occasionally yell (though this induces tremendous amounts of guilt) this mother just looks point-plank at her 1 yr old daughter (who was throwing a fit upon being removed from the swing) and says "stop it or I'll call the police and you'll go to jail". Amazingly the baby stopped. Hmmmmmmmmmm ....

Urban wildlife

Yes I posted a photo of a bat and some ducks on my blog. You see the park in the heart of Minneapolis was host to more then a bunch of wild kids. This bat was hanging below a bench by the toddler park. A BENCH. Where people sit!!! I am glad that my kid does not allow me to sit at a park. The ducks were too busy fighting to notice that they had drifted within reach of many rowdy kids. The kid ... well, she's wild but adorable! Here she is in her first sleeveless appearance of the spring ... it's a good look on her. Tonight is her first night in her big girl bed .. pray we all sleep.

she met her match

Little Bully Lucy finally had her day in court. Arrrgghhh this is probably one of the more stressful parts of parenting. My child is communicating through hits, pinches, kicks and bites. Nothing I have tried has worked, I admit I've only tried a few things: ignoring, redirecting and time out. After a morning of bullying her FRIEND, Lucy met her match at a city park. I saw the look in her eye as a similar age girl came into her "territory". Lucy walked up to the toddler with her chest puffed out, and instead of cowering away the girl puffed her chest up and pushed Lucy. The girls momma came running. I said "i don't mind if you don't mind, this one [lucy] just might understand the other side". This momma said her child is the biggest bully, I said "I'm not so sure". We watched the girls work it out. It went well. I think Lucy understood the power behind the the other toddlers equally fearless positioning. Once the girls were on an understanding I was able to sit down with the other momma. She asked me if Lucy was from Ethiopia and I said yes and it turns out her daughter is from Russia. They are two months apart in age. Lucy came home at 5 months and equally powerful toddler came home at 15 months. It was another single mom. Apparently her toddler has bullied enough in her daycare to warrant the teachers asking mom to talk to the doctor about it ... well Lucy hasn't had that ... but she does go to daycare in "the hood" and I think some of her behavior is learned, let's just say she doesn't stand out in a crowd (behaviouly) in her daycare. The other mom and I laughed about it all for about 1.4 seconds before Lucy ran off south towards open water and equally powerful toddler ran off north toward oncoming traffic. We'll probably never cross paths again unless our kids end up in juvie together.

Little Lady

Lucy is quite the young lady these days. When we leave the house she usually has to grab two things. Sometimes they are very random. Last night we went for a walk and she grabbed a kitchen washcloth and her I Love Lucy purse and out the door she went. It was very cute with her purse on her shoulder (I don't even carry a purse). Auntie Jen returned from her cruise with two adorable outfits for the little Bahama Momma ... This one she was able to wear in two separate ways, she's very creative!

When adoption is so hard you can't think straight

my friend mel from adopting morgan (see my links I love) just received news that her son's case did not make it through court. She has already waited nearly three months for a travel date and has already seen families who received referrals a month after her get through court and get travel dates. Now Morgan doesn't go through court again for a couple weeks. This is unbelievably hard for her (and Morgan). I realize other have had longer more heartbreaking waits (like those occurring in Guatemala) but this is hard. Adoption can be so hard because so much of the process is out of your control (after having gone through piles of very controlled paperwork). For people who think adoption is as simple as getting on an airplane please hear this: IT"S NOT!!!! When your child is thousands and thousands of miles away and a glitch in a system is keeping her/him in an orpanage longer then necessary ... it's hard. When you can do nothing but sit back and wait for the next thing to happen ... it's hard. When your child is growing up and you can't be there ... it's hard. Dear Mel ... it'll happen, and I am sure you're sick of people telling you to hang in there ... but hang in there. It'll happen. He'll come home and be a happy healthy boy.

hair snaps

I did her hair in small braids and snaps. It went fairly well. The procedure only required one small bag of "hop hops" aka gummies and one viewing of Melmo (aka The Sesame Street All Star Alphabet). I didn't get the way back done because after a point she would, in frustration, yank out one braid for every two I was adding ... I was worried she'd catch up and we'd end up with nothing but a "hop hoped" up kid and a bunch of white snaps laying all over the place.

just photos

Spring for real???

Well, hopefully we have seen the end of snow. Today was a warm and sunny day ... perfect for time outdoors. Lucy has me running scared that she is about to get sick again. First clue was the very random, very dramatic crying she did in the car this afternoon. It wasn't normal for her, not the frustrated cry, not the "I dropped Elmo" cry. I was scared to put her down for a nap expecting the worst. She woke up fine. Relief. We spent the afternoon/evening playing outdoors (see above photo). She was so funny, running around in her new shoes (see photo). She would scream hi to people, and sometimes start jabbering things at them (I am not sure I want to know what she was saying). She almost seemed relieved each time she would spot another human (my dog is the same way when she sees another dog). In the car on the way home she was singing. It was so cute, she would either jabber out the song (to the tune) or she would shout out the last word of the line. For example: Down by the BAY. Where the watermelon GROWS." etc. She knew words to songs that we rarely ever listen to. She's a genius, a musical genius. We get home from this fun evening and the little stinker is running a fever. Acting just fine, but running a fever. It's been exactly one week since the last fever. Does anyone know anything about kids that are ALWAYS sick???? Please tell me there is a problem that is right in front of my face that I just can't see. I am trying not to get too worked up. I am trying to have hope that she'll wake up fine and that maybe the fever was just from her playing so hard and singing so well.

The sunny sun sun ... and a bubble

talk about joy!!! Lucy loves a wild ride on the swing!

Especially with "Melmo"

A girl and her Melmo ... what a cute sight!

Chasing a bubble (trying to eat a bubble)

Hopping down the bunny trail...

Lucy is mostly recovered from the fever in the last post. It's been popping up here and there (the fever) and it's a little odd but nothing else seems to be happening. We went to Bemidji a day late. Lucy did pretty well on the 4 1/2 trip up, despite the fact that she maybe slept for a total of 10 minutes the whole time. I was a little scared as we used up my tricks about 1 hour into the trip. The way back was a nightmare in a way. We left at 6 pm, and I was HOPING she'd stay awake until at least 7 pm. Well, I needn't have worried. Despite complete darkness and insanly boring lullaby's she stayed awake until we were about to exit the freeway to our home. She stayed awake until 10:45pm, almost three hours past her bedtime. I was a FREAK. It was definately a moment that I was frustrated and annoyed by my perfect child. I mean, who stays awake through that if they don't have to???? Well ... anyway we had a good time in Bemidji. Lucy fit right into the M-T family. She had two big sisters, one she felt was small enough to push around (not nice Lucy) the other was the one she wanted to follow around. Today (Easter) started out at 4:30 in the morning with two cops knock knock knocking on our door (or ringing the doorbell ... i dont'remember it was 4:30 a.m.). Lucy slept through the bell/knock and the dog bark. The cops were here to inform that the car had been hit once again parked out on the street. Not a fun moment. Hit and run ... Ummm and once again, public safety officials on the doorstep with me in my not so attractive pj's. Back to Lucy ... the real day started with grandma, grandpa and great-aunt Barb joining us for a walk through Mall of America's indoor amusement park. Lucy in her cute Easter dress/bonnet. We then joined auntie Jen for brunch at home ... and Lucy went down for a short nap. This afternoon Lucy and I went to some old friends for dinner and an Easter egg hunt fun fun fun.

Spoke to darn soon....

Last night when I posted that "Lucy was feeling grreeeeeeaaaaattt", I guess what I meant was, "Lucy is feeling like she's going to wake up with another high fever". Once again we have casa de sicko. Damn. Sorry the swearing had to happen. This is getting so so frustrating. She's still being a good sport about it ... definately not me, I am not being a good sport. We are supposed to be in Sunny Warm Bemidji ... frolicking on the sandy beach (or at least hanging out in the living room in our sweatshirts). Well ... let's hope this sickness is short.

Roadtripping with Melmo

Tomorrow Lucy and I leave on our spring break adventure. I have decided it's a good idea to spend spring break in an area with weather more cold then Minneapolis MN. My theory is that it makes it less depressing to go back to work on Monday if I am not leaving a sunny, warm beach to do so. This explains why two years ago I spent spring break in Fargo, ND .. holed up in a hotel room with one or two children (not my own). This year we are going to good ole' Bemidji. We will be staying with friends of ours who have 3 beautiful daughters. Only 2 daughters are home at this point, so we'll be toasting to whoever in the world (or out of the world) might have the power to get the US government officials up and working to get daughter 3 home. Lucy has been feeling grrrreeeeaaat these past few days. She has developed a true love for Elmo "Melmo". This is a sneaky sesame street phenomenon. For a long time we have been watching a Sesame Street DVD, the ABC's. She has enjoyed the video and would love to watch it every hour of every day, but it wasn't until last week that she decided to join the ranks of toddlers everywhere and declare her undying love for cute Melmo. Today I bought her a little stuffed Melmo ... she held it through the store, and hasn't let go of it since ... she held it through dinner, through getting into PJ's and through going night night ... Melmo's head is soaking wet because she is chewing on his big bulging eyeball. Ahhhh Melmo ... thanks for making her happy. Stay tuned, I'll hopefully post new photos tomorrow morning.

The last day in March

Tomorrow it will be April. I really look forward to warm weather and the opening of a new arena for play (the outdoors). Lucy will probably spend the summer in the little wading pool again. She is growing up so fast, in a little over a month she'll be 2 years old. It's amazing how fast this happens. My baby rarely falls asleep in my arms anymore. This is not some amazing parenting trick, that I have my child "trained" into falling asleep on her own. I mean, I tried to teach her how to stay asleep (calm her self mid-night time) but the inital falling asleep ... that was my time to hold her and cuddle in a calm and peaceful environment. These days, being held is far too stimulating for her. She has too much to talk about. When she is falling asleep she talks about her eyes and her nose, she talks about being nice, she calls out for Sassy the dog, meows for the cats and randomly SHOUTS hi ... she pretends to want to kiss me and then licks my face and laughs hysterically. Eventually I ask her if she's ready to go in her crib and she nods yes. She almost always settles down and falls asleep relatively quickly after this. Tonight, she must have known that after I put her in her crib, I immediately started cooking the chicken for Mel's baby shower. She started talking, singing and lauging in her crib. I let this go on for about 1/2 hour before I turned the stove down and gathered my child from her crib. I restarted the bedtime routine. This time she fell asleep in my arms! I stared at her for awhile, kissed her sweet sleeping face and layed her in her bed ... oh please don't let this be the last time she falls asleep in my arms ... please no!

Wednesday

Well ... knock on wood. I think Lucy is good to go. She is definately ready for a return to daycare (on Monday) as she has been singing a song that she learned at daycare. There are only two recognizable words but all the other "words" are very correct in her head as she says the same thing each time. It's a song in Spanish ... I love that she's learning Spanish at daycare, I just have to keep remembering to listen for it (thank goodness I know the language). She always says "si" instead of "yes" and will often say por favor in place of please. Very adorable little Spanish speaking Ethiopian girl. Tonight for dinner she ate an entire polish sausage. I find this incredible. Yesterday for dinner, she had spagetti with meat sauce. I cut the noodles up. Lucy normally doesn't "do" noodles but has in the past accepted spagetti noddles with meat sauce. Last night, she put a bite of spagetti in her mouth, and worked on it awhile ... before I knew it she spit out perfectly clean noodles and ate the sauce. She's pretty talented. It is sometimes irritating that I have a picky eater. It's the THINGS she's picky about. She won't eat rice or pasta ... it was only in the past week that she accepted bread. She gave up most crackers. Yogurt is a no go ... even in the midst of post-surgery she wouldn't eat posicles (that's ok with me!). Soup, no. Most meat she'll eat, especially if it's covered with katsup. Of all things ... she LOVES the Ethiopian yellow split peas with injera (yeah to this). One night she ate almost an entire can of peas, the next day, she wouldn't even look at them. Fickle fickle fickle.

World AIDS Orphans Day - same day as Lucy's birthday

zoo therapy

Lucy has been down and out for several days. Despite the surgeons claim that there is little or no pain with adenoid surgery ... Lucy was most definately in pain. I took her to the pediatrician on Monday and she had ear infections and chest congestion so they switched her antibiotics. Last night she slept great (waking up only once at 11pm). She seemed happy when she woke up so I decided we would go walk around the zoo a little, trying to avoid people but also just getting out of the house. I think she had fun being in charge of the pace of the walk. She wanted to go backwards, we went backwards, she wanted to splash in a puddle, we splashed, she wanted to pause for no apparent reason, we paused. I am sure the people behind us didn't appreciate the pace we kept, and the abrupt turns and stops but she deserved to be in charge of her life for the moment. Tonight she's already cried out once, and was grabbing at her ear when I went in to rub her back ... oh I hope she is on the mend. Lucy has found a new hilarious sport ... licking her mom. She pretends she's going to give me a kiss, and then at the last moment sticks her tongue out, grabs my hair traps me in and licks my cheek. She cracks herself up. I have been needing extra moisturizer. The adenoid surgery wasn't a sure fire cure to her liquid aversion, and her picky eating. She has finally incorporated some grains in her diet in the form of plain wheat bread, eaten crust first ... what a crackpot. Here are some photos from today, not the greatest but remember we were going at her pace, doing her thing and apparently pausing for photos wasn't her thing today.

Thank you dearest ...

Armpit thermometer ... you are accurate (I know this because I used you right after the doctor took Lucy's temp and you were right on!) and fast. Children's Tylenol Grape: oh how you comforted Lucy and took away her pain and fever. Hop Hops (aka Gerber fruit treats): Lucy loves you so much she will do anything, including drink, for a taste of your sweet goodness ... one hop hop, one drink. Wiggles: you entertained us both, over and over and over and over and over and over ... I really appreciated that one time that you entertained Lucy enough that she didn't realize she wasn't attached to me for that two minutes (my bladder thanks you too).

Lucy has had a rough few days. Saturday was by far the hardest for her, she was obviously in a lot of pain. My poor girl. Today started out rough but she progressively got better throughout the day. We only needed three doses of tylenol today and her fever never got over 100. Let's hope tomorrow is even better!

Lucy's surgery

Well ... Lucy survived her adenoid surgery. I am fairly certain that she expected this outcome. She was such a good sport. Her surgery was scheduled for 12:30 p.m. which meant that she couldn't eat all morning. She could drink until 9:30 a.m. but for those of you who really know Lucy, drinking is not her thing. She was happy most of the morning, I took her mind off her empty tummy by letting her splash in the tub and walk part of the way to the hospital (grandpa picked us up when Lucy started loosing focus). She remained in good spirits until about 11:30, when the hunger, tired and bored started kicking in. I went with her to the OR where I helped the anestesiologist put her under which was about the most traumatizing thing I have done as a parent up to this point (even more then going back to work ... and a year and a half later I am still not over that). The surgery went fast, it took her awhile to wake up enough to join me in recovery. She fell back asleep in my arms, and aside from the 5 minute car ride h ome, and a brief stint with grandpa spent from 1:30pm - 8:30 pm in my arms. She slept through the night and woke up almost her old self (minus the snoring and apnea). She started faltering late morning, and again tonight after 5pm. She is running a fever now, which the surgeon said is expected ... but as "normal" as it might be, I suppose it means another night of my heightened anxiety and checking in on her a lot. Lucy is a rock ... she's not as "out there" happy, but she is still taking all of this really well ... what a superstar she is!

A Lucy a Month ... up to date

January, February and March 2007

A Lucy a Month part 3

June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2006.

A Lucy a Month part 2

Dec 2005, January 2006, February 2006, March 2006, April 2006 and May 2006