One!

Lucy turned one today!  Yesterday and today were very different from the way we had planned it, but today ended up being a sweet, low key day together as a family and a great way to celebrate Lucy, who has been such a joy to our family this year. A long story that I will keep short, but Chris and Austin did not board a bus headed west for 20+ hours yesterday, due to some issues with changing our visa that came up at the last minute (not ever exactly a surprise, but always seems to be complicated). So Chris spent all day yesterday and part of today doing paperwork, signing a teaching contract, scanning, riding the subway for 4 hours and other things.  In a way it is probably a blessing because today both he and Austin were sick with colds and not feeling well.  We also heard the bus got a flat tire and 31 hours later has still not arrived...yikes.

So, while all the boys in the family were sick with colds today, we just got to be together, Skype with family, have some special meals and enjoy a beautiful day at home.  We had not planned much for Lucy's big day today, since I expected Chris and Austin to be gone. We will have a small party after they get back (they will fly there tomorrow).

 She had her first pancake this morning for a special breakfast...I think it is fair to say she liked it.  She especially likes the blueberries in them.

 All day I was trying to get her to put up one finger to show she is one.  I think it was mostly an accident here but maybe not? She also figured out how to push the button that makes "The Wheels on the Bus" song play on the bus behind her...over and over and over. 

 Not sure what to title this pose...looks a bit gangsta rap to me.  She was really "dancing" to the Wheels on the Bus song.

 We ordered McDonalds for dinner and ended up eating outside, it was so nice tonight.  Chris, Austin and the Hunemullers played baseball before dinner and we just had to stay out when dinner arrived.  Yes, Lucy now can eat chicken nuggets and fries with the best of them.

 I had one small present for her today...these 2 textured rubber balls that are everywhere here.  They have some at the church nursery that she loves. 

 She had LOTS of help from her brothers in opening her present and playing with her present.

Lucy seems so old now and I definitely have sad moments about her growing up...but still enjoying her immensely.  When something is hot (or you tell her it is hot) she will blow on her food (and she has a pretty good blow...it took both boys years to blow correctly), when she hears the train outside she says "choo choo", when I sing to her and hold her while putting her to bed at night, she sometimes pats my shoulder while I am patting her back, she is crawling and cruising and almost standing without help but no signs of walking yet, she says about 7 or 8 words, will kiss, clap and wave goodbye on demand, laughs OFTEN and loves her brothers. If anyone around her laughs, she always laughs too.  She doesn't want to be left out of any fun.  She seems to understand so much of what I am saying now and usually cries if I leave the house or attempt to put her in the nursery.  She loves grapes, bananas, crackers, pizza and Chinese broccoli. She is NOT afraid of noises like both boys were as babies and toddlers.  I was nailing something in the wall this week and she laughed with each blow of the hammer.  She imitates the sound of the hand mixer, hair dryer etc.  When she wants something, she WANTS something and gets very upset if you tell her no.  She currently screams whenever my phone comes into view.  You can tell she is used to her brothers always giving her things. Last week in the church nursery (one of us has been in with her almost every week I think) she tried to take almost all the other kids' toys or food at some point.  Think we might have a stronger personality with this one!  But still mostly a very happy and cuddly girl.

Bennett Buddy turns 4!

Today was Bennett's birthday and we celebrated with friends a little early Sunday afternoon. The party was a "Thomas the Train" party, since that is about all Bennett talks about these days.  It was a surprisingly easy party to plan, thanks to TaoBao and nice outside weather. Today we celebrated as a family with a big breakfast (eggs, bacon and homemade biscuits), dinner of Bennett's choice (hot dogs, mac and cheese and Chinese-style green beans), cupcakes and ice cream and a few presents.  He also took cupcakes to share at school and got to celebrate with his friends and teachers.  He continues to seem to like school, though he comes home very tired and seems a bit more stressed than normal at other times...but all pretty normal reaction to spending 6 hours a day (4 times a week) in a new language environment, especially for my little home body. He also started our family's first cold of the season on Sunday, the day of his party. Thankfully he seems much better today.

We are so thankful for Bennett...for his goofiness and randomness, his sweet affection and hugs, his love of being close to people.  Happy Birthday to our little buddy!

The pinata ( a 50 rmb taobao special) was the hit of the party (ha ha...that was a joke my Dad would make)...thankfully no one got hit in the head and everyone went away with some candy.

Best buddy Jesh sharing a birthday hug

So I found these silly mustaches for very little money, so we ended the party by taking silly mustache pictures...

So cute...brother and sister...can't you tell?  Love all our neighborhood friends.

Bennett's First Day of School

Today was the first official day of Chinese school for the boys.  In the end, it will work out that Bennett goes in the mornings from 8:30 to 2:30 (3 days a week I hope) and Austin will go from 2:30 to 5:00 (four days a week, with homeschool co-op the fifth afternoon).  That is a longer day than I planned for Bennett, but it is the only way to work the carpool so I am not making 4 trips day.  He will have lunch and rest time the last couple hours and hopefully it will be a doable arrangement.  He was excited and nervous today but did well.  He smiled and waved goodbye when I dropped him off...though I think if I had stayed two more minutes there might have been tears.  There is actually only one other boy in his class!  Smaller than I expected, I don't know if this is what I would choose, but it is lots of one on one time with the teacher and hopefully this other boy will become a good friend. 

 Bennett was s-i-l-l-y when I was trying to take his picture, in his Lightening McQueen backpack.  His assessment of the day was as follows:

"We went to the playground and to a park."  "I didn't say any Chinese words"  "I didn't like the snack.  It was white in a cup and warm"  "I liked lunch though"  "I didn't sleep at nap but I winked at him".  

So there you have it.  He seemed to like it overall, but came home SO tired.  As I expected.  It is a long day to do in your second language, really very taxing in the beginning.  But hopefully it will be a positive place for him and he will learn quickly...his Chinese regressed a lot after Xiao Chen left us in February. Though, I might be glad he didn't say anything in Chinese, b/c I am afraid his most common words he knows of late are "bathroom" words... when I was reminding him what to say if he needed to go to the bathroom at school, he said (with a twinkle in his eye, but also sort of serious) "chou pigu?"...stinky bottom is the nice translation. Oh Bennett.

It was Austin's first day back as well, though this picture is not a back to school picture (I actually forgot to take one of him today... whoops). It was old hat to Austin and he seemed excited to return.  He will remain in the kindergarten class, along with Bree and another foreign friend.  The teachers all recommended that they not move up with most of their other classmates to the first grade class, since it was going to be some intensive Chinese character writing and a more intense learning environment.  That seemed more than fine to me, since I am not in this for the typical high pressure school environment that is the norm. I think it will be better to have another kindergarten year in his second language.  But back to the picture...this is Austin's baseball class/team uniform!  Ha ha to us...since the 5/6 year old class got Cubs uniforms, the Cardinals rival (how do you like that Uncle Mark?).  He has been twice now (every Saturday for 10 weeks).  He LOVES it and looks forward to it.  Can't believe that it is even an available resource here, but so thankful.

He continues to be such a KID now, wanting to check scores every morning and playing ball in a real uniform.  

Moving out and about

 Lucy is on the move these days...and we are all getting slowly into the swing of a fall schedule that looks to be pretty busy. Between some homeschool, homeschool group, Chinese school at different times for the boys plus our other activities and an active almost one-year-old, this will not be a boring fall.  We are in the trial stages of many of these things and see if we can manage it all or not for one semester at least.  There are still many things on our schedule that are unknown, but slowly some things are settling.  Here are some scenes of my busy little Lucy these days and a surprising move by Bennett today.

 She crawled in under the exersaucer and then couldn't get out.

 This is her favorite "trick"...climbing up into the chair and then standing up.  I have had to put the chair away, because she comes close to falling on her face and I can't always be watching her.

 This is her current look these days...her hair is getting long and one little ponytail won't keep all her hair up.  Bennett remains mystified every time I put her hair up on why I would do that to her. Cute little carolina girl!

Sweet Bennett. This afternoon Bennett was the only one home with me and he kept watching these kids play outside his window.  He kept asking me to hold him up so he could watch.  Then in a very uncharacteristic move, he said he wanted to go outside and play with them.  I wanted to encourage this surprising statement, so I took him outside and then Chris got home and went out with him.  At first, he went and sat alone on this bench...I felt so sad looking at him all alone from the window. He was a little shy at first and attempted to join them but didn't quite know how.  Sadly, Chris said one girl said (in Chinese) "you aren't in our class, you can't play" but I don't think he understood.  He sort of ran around with them for a few minutes and got lots of attention from all the grandmothers who were watching.  I felt sad for him but also proud that he was attempting to make some local friends. I hope we can try again.  I also feel like I had one of my first glimpses of what it feels like to feel for your child who is hurting or left out...ugh.  Though I don't think Bennett was very aware they weren't really including him, it was hard to know it just the same.