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.