Our neighborhood was swarming with kids, many with accompanying parents, all evening. We estimate that we had close to 200 ghouls, witches, fairies, cheer leaders, aliens etc. etc. come to our door. We usually give each one a couple of pieces of candy and we went through almost four large bags of treats. The weather was beautiful and we have a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating with houses close together so luckily we anticipated large numbers.

Happy Halloween to all!

So far this fall we have all remained healthy (knock wood!!!), with no more than a few sniffles here and there. Alyssa has come into contact with a lot of other people at church, playgroup, school, etc. so it’s rather amazing that she hasn’t picked up anything of consequence. The only fever that she has had since we met her was a short duration one following a barrage of shots that she had at an early doctor’s appointment. I hope I’m not jinxing us by writing this.

My parents came for a visit last weekend and we all had a great time. They got in a lot of play time with the girls and we had a couple of meals out at Chinese restaurants. We have also seen Dave’s Mom several times recently and the girls have been enjoying being doted on by all their grandparents.

I know that everyone is wondering what new things Alyssa is doing…….

- She likes to walk up and down stairs all on her own! She still crawls or holds our hand at times when we insist but mostly just puts her hand on the wall and walks by herself. She also tries to hold on to the handrail which is, of course, almost always too high for her. Did I mention that she likes to imitate what others do?! We are back to having to monitor her on the steps closely again after going through a brief period where it seemed that she was navigating them safely.

- She just started motioning with her hand for us to come with her. She used to just come and take us by the hand and drag us where she wanted us to go but has learned that she can save a few steps by gesturing to us. It’s very cute. She turns her hand up and then opens and shuts her hand.

- She is adding new words to her vocabulary and can now say apple (“appa”) and quack (“wock”) when prompted. She also says “uh uh” and “uh huh” for no and yes.

- She is officially an independent toddler who wants to try doing everything herself. We still feed her a bit but she gets mad if we don’t let her use the spoon or fork on her own. Admittedly, she has gotten very good at using utensils and gets almost every biteful to her mouth without much spilling. She is also quite good at drinking out of a cup, as long as we don’t fill it too much. She doesn’t like to use sippy cups. I’m assuming that it is because none of the rest of us use them and she wants to imitate us, although she will still drink from a baby bottle and prefers it at times.

- She throws things on the floor quite regularly. This can include utensils, plates, cups, etc. when she’s not interested in eating so we have to keep a close eye on her at mealtimes so that she doesn’t create too big a mess.

- Did I mention that she is strong-willed? She likes to get her way and will throw tantrums if something she wants is taken away from her. This is sometimes necessary for safety reasons or to prevent her from breaking something so this is a fairly frequent occurrence. Luckily, she is generally very quickly distracted by showing her something else or by tickling her or giving her some other attention.

- We bought a Halloween decoration (a small skeleton in a cage) that rattles and says funny phrases when a button is pressed (and can also be motion activated). Alyssa likes to push the button and then run away from it. She always seems surprised even though she has done this over and over.

- If you ask Alyssa where something is she’ll lift up her hands, palms up, and look quickly around with a surprised look on her face as if to say “Where could it possibly be?” She seems to understand that this is a game and she loves the reaction that she gets.

- Alyssa is very expressive (just like Linnea!) and it’s fun to watch her face change quickly. It’s very hard to capture her many expressions with the camera since they are often rather fleeting so we need to get out the video camera more often or use the video option on our “still” camera.

- She gives the sweetest kisses. From the start we worked with her on “being gentle,” instead of hitting, pinching, etc. to get attention. If she does strike out we remind her to “be gentle” and she will lightly touch the location of the hit, often my face or arm, and then give a soft kiss. When I’m holding her she will also sometimes lightly hold my face in her hands and stare at me and then give me a kiss on the cheek or the lips. It’s enough to melt your heart! She gives loud smacky kisses on the cheek to family members when she says goodbye or goodnight.

- After some trials and tribulations surrounding getting Alyssa to sleep at night I’ve come up with a fairly reliable routine (at least it’s worked for the past four nights!). Dave or I change her into her pajamas and have her brush her teeth. Then I bring her into our bedroom and she gets to pick out one or two books from her small pile of favorites that are in there. We sit on the rocking chair and I read to her, repeating each book twice, while she drinks water from a (baby) bottle. After the book(s), we turn off the light and I continue to rock her while I sing a few songs, such as the “dinosaur song”, Children of the Heavenly Father, Kumbaya, Lullaby and Jesus L0ves Me. After a few songs I just quietly rock her and she drifts off to sleep. After she is soundly asleep I put her in the crib next to our bed and cover her with her soft blanket. She has been falling asleep within about ten minutes of the end of the singing as opposed to up to an hour of tossing and turning when I previously laid her down on the bed (and lay down next to her) after the songs. I’m hoping that this continues to work for her, especially once I head back to work and will have prep work or grading to do after she gets to sleep.

Here are some pictures taken since my last post. Several of the pictures are showing off new outfits that Alyssa received as gifts from various friends. This morning I put the brown dress on Alyssa and Linnea picked an outfit to match her. I threw on my brown sweater so that “the girls” would be nicely coordinated. I thought that warranted a photo session. Thanks Dave for being patient with all of us!

A local garden store had a pumpkin patch party recently and Alyssa and I took a “field trip” there on a recent sunny day. She enjoyed bowling with small pumpkins, doing the bean bag toss and throwing velcro balls at a target. She has quite an arm on her and, although she seems more right-handed, she enjoys throwing with either hand.  They also gave away balloons, popcorn and cider. I was able to get a few good pictures of her at several “photo stops” that they had set up around the area. I’m not sure why she had her mouth open so wide on one of the pictures below but I thought it was cute.

On to the actual post!

We’ve been enjoying the fall weather and the changing colors of the season. Last week we visited an apple orchard with our playgroup and the kids had a blast picking apples, running up and down the rows of trees, sampling apples, playing on the haystack and seeing the assorted animals (goats, turkeys, a miniature horse, etc.). I took a lot of pictures, especially of Alyssa since she doesn’t readily smile for pictures on demand so I have to try to catch her expressions as they naturally happen. Linnea did a great job of showing Alyssa how to pick apples. We split a bag of apples with the other families in the group so that each of the kids (there were 9 there that night) could pick a few apples to bring home. They also each got to eat an apple while we were at the orchard. Alyssa nibbled at her apple for about an hour and wouldn’t let me take the core away from her when she had eaten most of the “good” part of the apple. When she was done all that was left was the stem, which she handed to me. Some of the kids were rather concerned that she had eaten the seeds but I figured that they just added to the roughage.

Alyssa continues to take everything in stride. She has had a lot of new experiences and we try not to overwhelm her but she seems up for just about anything. This week our playgroup went to an indoor playground and she loved running around, climbing up the stairs and going down the slides. There were quite a few kids in a rather small area but she completely held her own and ignored the little bumps that she got throughout the evening. I was very pleased to see that she would check in with me occasionally, sometimes just giving a glance and smile my way and sometimes running over to me. I feel that the attachment/bonding process is still going well but I’m guessing that there will be some challenges when I go back to work and she starts daycare.

Her personality has really come out and our outgoing little girl is doing more and more every day. She continues to babble quite a bit, especially when we are at home. She says the following words/phrases: mama, mom, baba, dada, uh oh, wow, jie jie, nana, yeah.

Things she currently loves to do:

- Go up and down stairs/hills/slides/ladders- She will do this for as long as we let her. I’m usually ready to move on after only two or three times up and down stairs or a hill. She went up and down a slide at the park this past weekend at least forty times! She is fairly fearless so we have to watch out to make sure that she doesn’t climb too high.

-Swing!- She would also be happy to swing for what seems like forever. She smiles and giggles quite a bit at the start and then can look quite serious or even dazed. Several times I’ve made the mistake of thinking she looked like she was ready to stop but got screamed at when I tried to take her out of the swing. She will sometimes make the “more” sign when she is already swinging. This indicates that she wants me to stop her and then start her swinging again. She seems to like it when I pull the swing forward and count before releasing her to swing again….lots of giggles!

-Reprimand her sister- Several times when we have been out somewhere I’ve called over to Linnea to let her know that we will be leaving soon (or giving her some other information). Alyssa will then run over near Linnea and emphatically babble off a long string of “words” that sound like “ba ba ba ba ba ba mom ba ba ba ba” to me. It can go on for a while and it seems clear that she is telling Linnea to listen to me or to do something that I’ve told her to do.

-Play with blocks or anything that she can stack, connect or put in and out of containers- She is good at playing with du-plo blocks and can put them together or take them apart fairly easily. She has a long attention span and can play with one thing for quite a while. Putting things in and out of containers can be tons of fun for her and she is good at helping to put things away when it’s time to clean up.

-Eat like a “big kid”- She wants to use her spoon, fork or pair of chopsticks all by herself even though it is hard for her to get the food to stay put on the way to her mouth. We continue to help her eat by using another spoon, fork or pair of chopsticks that is under our control. She wants to drink from a regular cup although she just slams down whatever is in the cup. This usually results in most of the contents going down the front of her. I’ve compromised by letting her us a cup sometimes but I only pour a small mouthful in at a time. I even got her to drink some whole white milk today by letting her drink it herself with a cup!

-Wave and give “high fives” or “fist bumps”- Alyssa is very social and will wave at just about anyone. She will sometimes continue to wave until they see her and wave back. If she is comfortable she will give friends “high fives” which delights Linnea’s friends and others that she meets. One of my friends taught her how to bump fists last week so that is her latest interaction. After her first few attempts we taught her that it isn’t actually hitting the other person with your fist but just gently touching your fist to theirs. [Linnea was also a big "greeter" at this age!]

-Hug her new puppy- This is somewhat of a breakthrough as she didn’t give hugs to stuffed animals or dolls until fairly recently. We helped to teach her how to hug and kiss instead of throwing the toys to the ground. When her Nana gave her a new stuffed puppy last week she immediately cradled it, kissed it and carried it around for a while (before throwing it to the ground ). She seems to be growing more attached to the puppy and holds it now for longer amounts of time. We are hoping that she will use it (or something similar) as a comfort item when she goes to daycare.

She lost her first tooth several months ago and one of her top front teeth had been wobbly/wiggly since then so we thought that would be the next tooth to go. We were surprised when she came home from school one day and she had lost another of her bottom front teeth. A couple of days later she came home with a big gap in the top of her smile and a large tooth in a plastic tooth necklace. The wiggly tooth kept getting in her way so she finally fiddled with it enough that it was almost out and she gave it one extra yank. Two days later she started wiggling her other top front tooth and yanked that one out as well. We suspect that it would have taken a couple of weeks for it to fall out on its own but once she felt that it was a bit wiggly it was hard for her to leave it alone. In the midst of all of this she had her school picture taken so it will truly commemorate a short window in time when she was missing only one of her top front teeth.

School is going well for Linnea and she seems very happy. It’s hard to get many details from her at the end of the day but we do know that she loves music, art, library visits and the time that is set aside almost every day for the students to draw or write as they create their own books. She is also having success as she spells and reads simple words.

Linnea is quite creative and loves music. She enjoys playing our electronic keyboard and it’s fun to hear her making up songs, sometimes with lyrics to go along with the melody. She doesn’t take piano lessons but she is able to pick out simple songs by ear and has a sense of what sounds good as she is playing. She enjoys the freedom of using the keyboard as her musical playground. Her violin lessons are going well but she sometimes feels restricted by the structure of having to play a particular way. She has an excellent teacher who is good at encouraging her and keeping her moving forward.

Her other main love right now is horses. She, of course, wishes that she could have her own real horse like the girls next door but she has to settle for a growing stable of stuffed and plastic horses that live in her bedroom and around the house. We had a scare last week when she left her two favorite stuffed horses in her backpack at school overnight and we couldn’t locate it right away in the morning. Luckily, someone had moved the backpack to a secure area and her horses were safe and sound. They’ll be staying home for a while until they get over the trauma of being away from Linnea for the night

Linnea has had a bit of a rough time getting used to being a big sister and having to share time with Mom and Dad. Every week things get a little better as we all adjust to being a family of four. The girls do enjoy being with each other (most of the time!) and it’s fun to see them playing and giggling. Linnea has had to do more things on her own as well as help out at times with Alyssa which has been good for her, although she may not always agree with me on that. 

We recently joined our local FCC (Families with Children from China) group and have had a chance to meet other members at several recent events including a garage sale, a party at a farm and an informal playgroup at a nearby park. The group has already been supportive in welcoming Alyssa and our entire family to the local adoptive family community and several members gave suggestions regarding daycare for Alyssa for when I return to work in a couple of months.

We celebrated by getting take-out chinese food and then just hanging out together as a family for the evening. Linnea has spurts of creativity (daily!) and decided to start working on a “book.” She headed up to her room and started drawing picture after picture on a pad of paper. The rest of us joined her and we gave Alyssa a separate small pad of paper so that she would keep away from Linnea’s drawings. Alyssa promptly picked up two pencils, one in each hand, and proceeded to scribble on the pages. She then handed me one of the pencils and I drew with her for a little while until she snatched it back from my hand and gave it to Dave. She went back and forth between us, sometimes just letting us draw for a few seconds, for about half an hour. There were a lot of giggles and just a general fun time for all. Later, when the girls were both dressed for bed, Linnea was being goofy and laying on the floor. Alyssa lay down next to her and copied everything she did…. spinning, raising hands, etc. They are starting to have more fun interactions which is greatly helping Linnea’s adjustment to this change in her life.

We’re having a great time together as a family and Alyssa seems to be adjusting very well. We feel blessed!

- Linnea started Kindergarten and was thrilled to see her friends from last year and meet some new ones that joined the class this year. She is excited about more trips out of the classroom to go to the specialists in art, music, etc.

- Dave took Linnea’s training wheels off her bike this morning and she is bursting with pride that she was able to balance and ride on her own pretty much right away…. she was really ready for this! She still needs practice on starting and stopping completely on her own but made tremendous progress for her first day. [no pictures of this yet... we did shoot some video but don't have it downloaded onto the computer yet]

- We took Alyssa to a nearby park for the first time and she loved swinging in one of the “baby” swings. This was her first time in a swing with us and possibly the first time ever as we aren’t sure if they had a swing that she went on  at the orphanage. She loved it and stayed in for quite a while. I tried to catch a variety of her expressions on camera as she was swinging. There were several times that I thought she looked as if she was done but she resisted getting out when I tried to lift her out. She seemed to be concentrating on the new sensations.

- Alyssa has learned to wave hello/good-bye and, when she is in the mood, will wave to friends as well as to random people passing by as we are out for walks. This always earns her a smile from them.

- Dave’s mother gave the girls a kids music CD tonight that we played in the car on our way home from dinner. Alyssa instantly started swaying in time to the music, rhythmically tapped her hand on her seat, clapped along with the music with Linnea and me and also tried to sing along. We’ve played music for her before but never got this major response. She really loved it!

Just a quick update on what has progressed in the past week:

- Linnea starts Kindergarten this week so we’ve been getting ready for that including a group gathering and a visit to her classroom. She is excited to see friends from last year and I’m sure she will like to get back into the routine of school.

- Linnea was inspired to paint watercolor pictures in our backyard on two separate evenings and then had “free art sales” in our front yard where she “sold” the paintings to anyone lucky enough to wander by. She is quite the salesperson but will need to understand that not everybody wants to buy something, even if it’s free, if she wants to be a real artist.

- Alyssa went to church for the first time last Sunday. She got to meet my aunt and uncle there as well as others who have been following our progress over the months and years. It is wonderful to have our supportive church community.

- Alyssa endured two big doctor visits… one with her regular pediatrician and one with an adoption specialist. She was poked and prodded, weighed and measured at both visits which she didn’t like at all. She also got four vaccinations, blood drawn (they couldn’t access the vein on her right arm so needed to try again on her left arm) and two more needles for a TB skin test. She ended up with very sore legs from the shots as well as a fever for part of a day. It was hard to see her feeling so uncomfortable but she seemed to recover fairly quickly. So far the tests have indicated that she is healthy and developmentally on track. There are more doctor visits to schedule for the months ahead to get an even more full picture. Sorry Alyssa!

- Alyssa hugged and kissed stuffed animals and dolls for the first time since we’ve known her. Previously she just hit them and we suspect that they didn’t have them in her orphanage (possibly because of the difficulty of keeping them clean). She seems very familiar with plastic toys such as stacking cups so we feel that she did have some toys to play with but either did not have or did not prefer dolls/stuffed animals. Dave showed her how to hold and kiss the animals and she copied him. She does like to imitate what others do and really watches all the time.