Junior Thespian

During Mother's Day weekend, Abigail was an actress in our high school's production of The Wizard of Oz.  She played a munchkin and also a flying monkey.  She was a cute munchkin, but she was worth the price of admission (or worth the 10 hour round trip drive, according to my mom) as a flying monkey.

The first night that she was a flying monkey was opening night (as she was too exhausted and scared during the dress rehearsal to stay that late and put on the monkey costume).  While on stage, she missed her cue to stop stabbing the Tin Man and as a result, the Cowardly Lion carried her off stage and improvised a line about using up all of his courage to get rid of that monkey.  It was a hit and although Larry, who played in the pit and served as orchestral director, asked her to do that for all of the shows, Abigail is a rule-follower and hit her cues for the other shows.  

I didn't think I would be all caught up in the "stage momma" kind of thing, and I wasn't much, but wow, did I love hanging with Abbers backstage, sneaking into the house when she was onstage, and then meeting her backstage to help her with her costume change and direct her to makeup.  At first she was so timid and needed me there, but by the 4th show, she was managing it all on her own.  I was SO proud of her; it was a lot of personal growth for my introverted daughter to get to that point in just a few days.  

After her first performance, she was on a huge actor's high and stayed there until she came crashing down after the last performance when she lamented that she was sad because "I'll never get to be a munchkin or flying monkey again."  In the days following the show, she was on what was dubbed "Wizdrawl" walking around the house singing the songs and wishing that she was back onstage!  

Lar and I looked into summer camps at a local theatre where they are producing Annie this summer with children, but they require the kids to be 3rd grade and up.  So in a few years we will see if she is still bit by the acting bug!

Abigail and one of her 2 best friends back stage on opening night.
Joseph was unsure about the situation.
He became much less sure about it once he saw the Wicked Witch!

Abigail and one of her 2 best friends at intermission on Saturday as they
prepare for their performance as flying monkeys.

Our distracted munchkin down center in green top and orange skirt.

One totally adorable thing that Abigail did with her friend is that the 2 of them held
hands through the whole 15 minute munchkin scene.  Many people noticed that.  At least one
asked if they were sisters!  The munchkin children even had a part where they left that stage
walked around and back down the aisles and onto the stage again and these two
cuties held hands the whole time!

Abigail entering from the left of the photo as a flying monkey.

Abigail heading toward the Tin Man to stab him.

Abigail, scaring the living daylights out of the Tin Man

One Year As A Whole Family (or, One Year Without Sleep!)

In anticipation of the one year anniversary of adopting our sweet kiddos, our 9-family, super awesome, and virtually close travel group has been posting lots of pictures, and saying "last year at this time we were on the Great Wall" and "last year at this time we were gathering in the lobby of the hotel to go meet our kids."  We were on an incredible journey together and care about each others' kids and families. Personally, I can't believe it has been a whole year since I was in China- I loved being in China.

Now, we are settled into the rhythms of a family of four.  Sometimes (like this week when Larry is in the middle of 2 performance schedules and Abigail is in her first musical and is also preparing for a new belt test) the beat to the rhythm seems awfully fast.  But usually it is comfortable and wonderful. 

Joseph is a sweet, loving, funny, determined, silly and devilishly handsome little boy.  He has shown empathy, demonstrated amazing problem solving skills, and is a trickster.  Joseph loves being read to, loves cuddling, loves being outside, enjoys helping Mama and Baba, and fiercely loves his JieJie.  We love him to pieces and can't imagine our family without him.

Holding a pic from a year ago

 

Jos with the flowers he picked for
Bring Your Teacher A Flower Day
at daycare today

Enjoying some ice cream after school!

Wordless Wednesday: Home 11 Months

Spring Break, Part 2

Our dear friend Seung Lan is visiting this week.  We are very excited to have her here.  She played a big role in our wedding over 10 years ago and was a reliable and close friend through our years living in Charleston. But 3 years ago we moved to Virginia and Seung Lan and her husband moved to Japan where they had a spunky, whip-smart, adorable little girl.  The past two days we have been doing DC tourist things: cherry blossoms, tidal basin walk, monuments, the mall, and 3 Smithsonian museums (American History, Natural History, and Air and Space). The weather has been overcast and drizzly, and we have been walking our butts off, but the girls are such good sports and seem to be having a blast!

Read the captions with the pics below for the full story of the past few days.
(And yes, we took Joseph to daycare.  Larry figured it would be easier to explain to him in years to come why he is not in any of the pictures than it would be do deal with him on the long, wet DC outings.)

Hanging out at TJ's memorial
(my absolute favorite)

Travelling many miles each day
by foot is much easier when you
can hitch rides on Mama's back.

Ditto that when you can ride together
on Baba

Getting psyched to climb all those
steps to see Ol' Abraham.

The crowds, which were the worst we have ever seen in DC, kept me
a safe distance from Lincoln.  Abigail took my camera and
disappeared into the crowd and came back with this awesome shot!

Ready to check out the WWII memorial

Over 2 hours of walking, my "starving" child manages a smile
at the Korean War Memorial.

They found reserves of energy buried deep within themselves
and just kept going and going and going

(Except when the 3 year old passed out
for a quick nap on beautiful
Seung Lan's back)

3 Museums in 1 Day
Favorites: Early Transportation (and Abigail
realized the wagon that Laura Ingalls
wrote about- not the red Radio Flyer that
Abigail uses and  had pictured making
its way across the prairie),
First Lady Dresses, Mammals,
Hope Diamond, and Aircraft Carrier

Much to our amusement, the girls also spent
a lot of battery life taking pictures of
each other taking pictures!!

Cheese!

Spring Break, Part 1

We spent Easter weekend at The Farm (my parents' place in PA).
The kids had a blast.  Joseph enjoyed his first Easter.  We allowed the kids to eat the snacks from their Easter baskets for breakfast that morning and they were pretty crazy, but also very happy.

Abigail did farm chores like fixing a bird house.

They colored eggs

Jos doesn't have an Easter basket yet
but he loved his Easter Wagon

After the eggs had been found, they posed for a picture
before eating more snacks

And then it dried up enough that we spent all of Sunday
afternoon outside

Playing in the stream with her Yinski...

and then she fell in....

our old soul

Abigail Update

In December, Abigail came home one day and asked if she could get a violin and have violin lessons.  Lar and I decided that if she could learn to read notes enough to play a little on the piano and stick with it, that we would get her a violin and lessons if she is still interested. This music trial period is also good because Lar can give her lessons on the piano.  (If she ends up sticking with the piano, I would eventually like to find her another teacher so that she can learn to play jazz and casual style music, not stilted classical music, which is what Larry plays.)

She is reading fingerings now, which I didn't know was a thing.  But, she did give her first concert, a duet of "Merrily We Roll Along" while sitting on a stack of books so that she could reach.  Too cute!

In other Abigail's Growing Up news, this happened:

It was loose for 2 weeks before she just "yanked it out" (her words" during school one day.
The Tooth Fairy left her $1 and a new electric toothbrush.
Someone told me that was low and that the national average was actually around $12 per tooth.  Foolishly, even though I know better when it comes to other people and numbers, I repeated that statistic a few times before looking it up and learned that the mode of the payout is a reasonable $1 per tooth, while the mean is $3.70. Parents aged 18-24 and/or earning less than $25,000 year are the demographic paying over a dollar.  [This data is from Time, August 30, 2013]


Not fully understanding the term, Abigail asked me to take "selfies" of her and she posed a dozen different expressions for me.  Who could resist this face?  Larry said that he read somewhere the kids stop being cute to other people (not their own parents) in the age range of 5 to 7.  I can't imagine this face not being cute to any sighted person.  (But then again, I am super biased.)

Sleep Terrorist Update

Most of my readers are familiar with the daily, exhaustive struggles of living with our little Sleep Terrorist.  For those of you who aren't, he falls asleep between 7:30 and 8 pm.  He often wakes several times throughout the night before popping up, wide awake in the 4 o'clock hour.  I mean Up For The Day at 4:something.  It can be 4:10 or 4:23 or, when he is feeling generous, 4:54. Even on the night of the DST time change, we thought we were guaranteed one "sleep in" as his body slept to Old 4:something, it would be New 5:something and it would be like sleeping in, except on that day he awoke at Old 3:50.   
(And sure, several people think they have the solution.  "Longer naps!"  "Shorter naps!"   "Earlier bedtime!"   "Later bedtime!"    "Weighted blanket!"   "Essential oils"    "Melatonin drops!"   It is amazing how many people feel the need to tell us what the Magical Sleep Bullet is just because something worked for the non-adopted child of a cousin of a neighbor of an imaginary friend.  Sometimes, when a person is going through something, they just need someone to listen, nod emphatically, not preach and say "Damn!  That sucks!"    Know what I'm sayin'?)  

A week ago, Lar was sick/congested so he slept in the guest room and somehow (a finely tuned toddler telepathy I guess) Joseph discovered that (A) there was a vacancy in our bed, and (B) he can climb into bed with me while I am sleeping in the middle of the night and I wouldn't even know until I get accidentally toddler-kicked.  

And while he is cuddly, that wasn't sustainable.  Since then, we have been working with him at bedtime.  We practice "waking up" and checking the Bunny Clock.  We practice "going back to sleep" when Bunny is still sleeping and we talk about waking up Mama and Baba if the Bunny is awake.  (The Bunny is set to wake up at 5 am.)  I said to him "Do not wake up in the middle of the night and climb into bed with Mama.  Okay?"  When I said that, he got very sullen and just hugged me and buried his face in my neck and wouldn't let go.  The next morning he woke up at 4:something but laid in his bed crying quietly, staring at his Bunny like I told him to do!

Eureka!  We had suspected that he understands everything, even though he isn't able to speak much yet.  And sometimes he even wants to please us!

But today, this little bed-headed Sleep Terrorist gave us a delightful surprise.  

He not only slept straight through the night, but he didn't wake up until 5:20!  The little guy received so much positive reinforcement for this miraculous feat.  Maybe it was the new Elmo pjs.  Maybe it was all the fresh air and sunshine after a long winter.  Maybe it was an isolated incident.  (No!  Say it ain't so!)  We are being cautiously optimistic that maybe 5:something could be our new normal.  But I won't get my hopes up either!