Virginia Visit, Pool Time, and Doggie Doors

While we took care of some business in Virginia (like putting a contract on our new house :) !!), we stayed at Aunt Steph and Uncle Jim's house for 3 days this past week.  Unfortunately, neither of them could be there (having fun in Italy, Jim?).  


But that didn't stop Abigail from enjoying their pool.














Or from enjoying the ease of use and freedom provided by Huxley's doggie door.

My 100th Post: Life on 'The Farm'

A 100th blog post needs to be special, like a 100th episode in a TV show or something, right?


Well, it has been a special week.  We have spent it on "The Farm" where my parents live after surprising my Dad on Father's Day.  


The most unusual thing about the week was that Abigail suddenly fell in love with her Unicorn Hobby Horse the morning we left home.  It isn't very cuddly, but she wants to be with it all the time, including in bed.  She is so peculiar with what she likes and when she likes it.
  

Abigail enjoys picking blue berries almost every day at The Farm.  She is actually a very good helper because she holds the bucket for people and only picks the blue ones.  

A trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo was exciting, but very hot.  Abigail loved the animals but she was not interested in walking, which made for a long and hot morning.  

In the evenings, Abigail has enjoyed playing with "sparklers" with Gramma.  

One evening, Abigail was pretty worried at bedtime.  After asking her a few questions, I discovered that the one thing she was worried about was that she missed her old teacher Ms. Sharon and she also was worried that she would never get gum again (since Ms. Sharon gave her gum behind our backs to keep her from napping 2 hours per day!)  So Abigail got her first pack of approved gum to chew in the car!

Other fun activities this week have included riding a Belgian draft horse at the neighbor's horse farm, making an outdoor camp fire with Yinski and helping him select the right sticks for the project, and swimming in the pool.


Abigail is never going to want to go home!!

How to Hold a Toad (and how not to!)

This is how you hold a toad to enhance the comfort of the toad. 
Abigail's Aunt Kim taught her this.

 Here is the way that you do NOT hold a toad.  He will not find this comfortable.

Thank you, Aunt Kim, for helping Abigail to understand this!

Weekend near Pensacola, Plenty of Pics

Abigail attended her grandmother Kathleen's retirement brunch on Friday.  

She spent most of the time playing on the sandy playground.

We spent the rainy Saturday (13 inches of rain that day) cleaning out Kathleen's classroom

(she is a kindergarten teacher and let Abigail have many of her books!)

and then hanging out on the screened-in porch.

Abigail had Grandma check out a possible boo-boo.  (It was okay.)

But Sunday was almost as rainy as Saturday so they played inside all day.

Abigail said "Mama, go away!" so she could have Grandma to herself.

On Monday, the rain finally stopped.

We went to the zoo.  Abigail fed llamas.

And then got bit by a giraffe (according to her).

(There was blood, but I think it was a cuticle or something.)
Abigail said the giraffe felt "sorry."

The perpetrators right before the incident happened.

Petting baby goats is pretty safe. 

And very cute!

Our Sweet, Sensitive Kid and the Giving Tree

While enjoying sushi with acquaintances of ours this evening, one aspect of Abigail's personality was pointed out to us that I never really noticed as deeply and profoundly before toinght.


I know Abigail is a sweet kid, with a big heart.  I have even mentioned that she has tried to take care of Lar or I when we have been sick, but she is a really sensitive kid too.  I don't mean the overly-emotional-cries-over-everything kind of sensitive.  I mean the understands-the-feelings-of-others kind. For example, this morning in a store to buy her another swimming suit, Abigail heard a baby/small child crying.  She was very concerned for this kid.  "The baby is crying, Mama."
"That's right, Abigail.  Why do you think the baby is crying?"
"The baby is sad.  The baby wants her mama.  The baby misses her mama.  The baby is hungry too.  Is the baby okay, Mama?"


She was very  concerned for this child that she couldn't even see and even after the child stopped crying, Abigail still wondered if she was okay.


Larry also pointed out that Abigail frequently will look at one of us during the day and say "Are you okay, Mama/Baba?" with genuine concern in her voice.

This evening, I read to Abigail The Giving Tree for the first time.  I had thought that she was too young to understand what was happening on any meaningful level and for that reason, I hadn't bothered to read it to her before.  But once again, she surprised me in a big and wonderful way.  She was so sweet and hung on every word, studied the simple pictures.  When the boy wanted money and took the apples or branches or trunk, each time, she cupped her hands together, scooped something out of thin air, and tried to hand it to the tree and to the boy, saying "Here you go!  Here it is!"  Every time something was asked of the tree, she wanted to give.  By the end of the book, she was barely breathing when she purred in my ear "They are sad, Mama."  Then she wanted to read it again.  She did, with her father the second time, with the same reactions throughout the book.


I love my sweet, wonderful child.  I only wish her birth mother could know what an amazing kid she brought into this world because this is how she came to us:  thoughtful, empathetic, affectionate, irrepressible, sensitive.  

Sunday Snapshot and the Bieber Eye

For any of you who haven't heard of the "Bieber Eye" yet (a lazy-eye condition, described by optometrist Andrew Hogan, that is caused when hair, in the style of Justin Bieber, is always covering one eye of a person), YES, I am worried that my daughter is at risk for it.  But she won't keep pigtails or barrettes in and I don't want to return to the shaved-head look of her orphanage days!

Wordless Wednesday: 1 Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed