Thank You For Sharing

Mia's preschool class has an interesting practice. It is called "shared snack." Each child brings a snack each day and the teachers divvy them all up so each child gets a little bit of every other child's snack. (No applesauce or yogurt, please.) I am a little uncomfortable about this, but I go with it so as not to have Mia known as the girl with the Mom-Zilla. Why don't I like it?

1. Because I like to have more control over what my child eats. (After week 1, the teachers sent an email reminding families, "No candy, please!" I found that a bit alarming.)
2. Sarah pointed out that the food gets handled a lot. We think we can trust the teachers, but we don't know if the other parents wash their hands before grabbing a handful of goldfish crackers to put in the ziploc bag. (Eeeuw)
3. Another potential problem is portion control. Sarah reports that Mia doesn't eat a very good lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If every family is a bit generous knowing that the snack is shared with 9 other children, the portions could get a bit large.

Something might have to change here, since by the second week of school Mia was getting rather irregular. I gently inquired via email what exactly Mia has been eating and got the following response from her teacher.

"About our snacks, we have a wide variety of foods. Often a couple different crackers - goldfish, cheese-its, ritz, saltines, etc; a type of cookie; a couple types of fruits - apples, bananas, grapes and raisins are all popular; sometimes cheese or gummies. Nothing too odd."

I wasn't too thrilled to hear about cookies and gummies, but after careful reflection, I will stifle myself. I'm sure there will be plenty of better opportunities to be a Mom-Zilla. In the meantime, we've added prunes to Mia's diet.

Shape-of-the-Month Club

At Mia's preschool, the shapes-of-the-month are circles and ovals. Yesterday, Mia was supposed to bring something oval for show and tell. (I honestly think Mia is a bit young to understand the concept of show and tell, though she does understand ovals and can even say "oval.") I had not noticed this event on the school calendar, but fortunately Sarah is a bit more on the ball about these things. (I promise I'll improve, Mia!) Sarah looked around for something interesting and hit on..... a potato. I thought that was rather creative. I'm not sure I would have seen the potato and said, "Oh, an oval!"
Anyway, Sarah put the potato in Mia's school bag along with a note indicating that was for show and tell. The teachers later reported they initially reached in the bag, pulled out the potato, and thought it was a rather unusual snack. I guess they eventually found the note, because the potato did return home at the end of the day.

Mia's Artwork

See that purple shape in the middle of the picture? Sarah tells us it is supposed to be a circle, and the fact that Mia closes off her circles is a sign of development. Who knew? (If this blog were a newspaper, today would be a slow news day.)

One Year Ago Today....

Mia joined our family. It was a hot, humid afternoon in Nanchang, the capital city of Mia's birth province. Our travel group had flown from Beijing to Nanchang just that morning. Eight families ready to adopt ten baby girls, ages 6 months to 17 months. We traveled to the Civil Affairs office and after Veronica made sure all the babies were there, she called out each babies' name. The family then stepped forward to receive their child. When they called "Ji Lu Xing" the assistant director for Mia's orphanage presented our daugher to us. Jeff captured the moment. That is our Chinese guide, Veronica, in the background. An angel in a green T-shirt, as we would soon learn.

Peekaboo Pantry

Mia loves playing peekaboo. Usually that means she covers her face with both hands and we say, "Where is Mia? I can't find her. Where did she go?" until she pops out from behind her hands and "startles" us. Now she is doing a new game where she actually physically hides someplace and then jumps out. Kind of like Hide and Go Seek, but without the Go Seek part. Last week, Mia hid in the pantry with her pink poodle, periodically popping out to startle Sarah. According to Sarah, she did it over and over and over, giggling the whole time.

Let's Go Swimming

One of the things we really like about living here is that the swimming pool stays open until mid-September. Mia has made a lot of progress since her first dip in a swimming pool last May. For months she clung to us like some invisible velcro, but in the last few weeks she has gotten comfortable wearing her inflatable swim wings. She likes treading water independently, about arms length away from Mom or Dad.

Dirty

Mia is trying out lots of new words. A current favorite is "dirty." She sees a piece of lint on the floor, a scrap of paper next to the shredder, dead leaves on the sidewalk... Then she points and adamantly says "dirty." She frequently announces that her hands are dirty and aims herself toward the powder room to wash them. She can't reach the faucets herself yet, so we have to give her an assist. Last night she saw some cracker bits on the kitchen floor and went into the pantry for the broom. I'm sure it is just a phase, not signs of early onset OCD. Or maybe she is the cleanest toddler in the state.
Jeff taught her that some times "ick" is a better word than "dirty," and should be accompanied by a wrinkled nose.

No Photos, Please [CENSORED]

Since at least one reader considered this post to contain inappropriate subject matter, I have chosen to delete it. It was probably one of those, "You had to be there" stories, anyway.

Camping Out

Soon after we brought Mia home and settled her in her crib, I began asking, "At what age do babies outgrow their cribs?" I asked the ladies at the baby furniture store and sought the opinions of the authors of our multiple baby books. I was surprised that the answer I received over and over was:

WHEN SHE CAN CLIMB OUT OF HER CRIB.

I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, that seems a little late. At least one book author (a highly regarded pediatrician, mind you) addressed my main concern by saying:

PUT SOME PILLOWS AND BLANKETS AROUND THE CRIB TO SOFTEN THE FALL.

Over the past few weeks, Mia had been worrying me just a little bit by hiking one leg up on the side of the crib as if it were a ballerina bar. Still, I was 99% sure she wouldn't be able to climb over the side. That changed last weekend after Jeff reported she'd almost made her big escape. She could put one leg over the edge and almooooost get her center of gravity over the rail. We could tell she was only days away from climbing over the side and suffering a near-certain head injury. We discussed putting rails on the twin bed in her room, and taking the crib rails off to convert her crib to a toddler bed, but we didn't like the idea of her wandering around in her room at night while we slept, climbing on her bookshelves and other attractive nuisances. We just can't make her room safe enough for that. We thought their must be a better option, so we did what we always do:

LOOK ON THE INTERNET

And there it was, the Crib Tent II. Highly recommended by parents of crib-climbers. Keeps the baby in and animals out. (Not that we were worried about animals.) Jeff called a well-known national big box baby store chain nearby and confirmed they had the item in stock. Since Mia doesn't like to be confined, but she does like the nylon play tent in her playroom, we decided the best strategy was to talk it up and make it sound fun:

LOOK MIA YOU GOT A TENT FOR YOUR BEDROOM!!!

This has more or less worked. Mia goes in the tent fairly willingly, though I usually wait until she is asleep before zipping up the side.

Ballerina Girl

Auntie Paula gave Mia this lovely lavender tutu a while back. It has been in the closet waiting for the day Mia showed some interest in putting it on. I finally got tired of waiting. After finding a lovely purple leotard at a church consignment sale, I decided the time had come to dress Mia up like a little ballerina. She twirled around a few times, then plopped herself down to read a book.

The skirt and leotard are big enough to last a year or two, so we'll have plenty more opportunities for ballerina photos.

Preschool Orientation

Mia started back at preschool on Tuesday. She has moved up to the Lucky Ducks class this year. Seven girls, two boys. Mia is the youngest by quite a bit, which I think will be good for her language and social skill development.
Last week, they had an Open House and Orientation so we could show Mia her classroom and meet her teachers. Mia brought all of her people, including Mom, Dad, and Sarah. It was quite an entourage, which seemed appropriate given Mia's virtual celebrity status at our house.
Mia jumped right in and started playing with the dolls.

Hats On

Mia has been saying the word "hat" a lot. She loves to put things on her head and say "hat." Doll strollers, cereal bowls, anything and everything. Except hats.