Children’s museum

We had a busy morning on Saturday.  First, Chinese class, which Bing-Bing loves.  Next, the children’s museum.  Her favorite part is the grocery store, which she visited after painting her face.

She had fun making me Dagwood sandwiches.

Enormous Dagwood sandwiches!

And she bought lots of veggies.

Next, we went to the doctor for her flu vaccine and she did great!  We talked a lot about medicine, as she’s taking a prescription for an ear infection and missed a lot of school last week.  She was also taking Tylenol then, so medicine is on her mind. She said something about a sore throat and I asked if her throat was sore now.

 ”No, Mom.  I don’t need any medicine.  Thank you for offering.

If I hadn’t been sitting, I would have fallen over.  Now I’m working hard to find her the H1N1 vaccine.  Not easy.

Sunday was an off day.  The time change threw us all off and we didn’t get much done.  We did get to a Chinese buffet for lunch and she proceeded to tell us the colors of her foods – in Spanish.  She’s teaching them to us, as I’ve forgotten most of this.  I try to get her to count in Chinese and she counts in Spanish, which is interesting because when I’m studying Chinese my Spanish comes back.

Sunday evening entertainment

Starring:  Bing-Bing & Daddy

Audience: Mommy & aUntie Phoenix

Billy Jonas concert

The concert was really fun.  In the morning before leaving, we told Bing-Bing what we were going to do and said that Billy Jonas got his hair cut.  She was very excited and as soon as we arrived, she wanted to go meet Billy and seemed to have no problem with his short hair.  He was quite delightful with her and all the kids.  His drumming and singing were great.  He plays recycled drums that he makes from buckets, cans, and what ever he can find.  He uses bungee cords to hold his drums together.  It’s very cool and they sound great!  BB has been watching his Bangin’ & Sangin’ DVD for awhile (he has long straggly hair in that one).  We got several CDs and DVDs.  Good stuff!

On Sunday a friend of mine came by for the day and we spent a little time at the park.  I caught her mid-air on this one.

Phoenix, she’s still enjoying catching those butterflies in the tub.  Very cool.

Reading, confetti, & catching up

Bing-Bing has been enjoying reading to herself and to us recently.  This evening was cute, as she had specific rules.  She told the story.  If she got stuck and I attempted to fill things in, I got in trouble, “I told you not to answer, Mommy.”  Okay, and I was quiet.  Sometimes I need to understand my place and just listen.

She also has been loving using her scissors to cut paper.  She is very precise, cutting long “worms.”  Then she cuts the worms into small confetti.  Anyone want to place a confetti order or need a live shredder?  She can spend long periods of time quite focused on this.  I’ll get a picture soon.  She is also getting better at cleaning up after the mess, and what a mess it is!  Tonight she cleaned up all her “worms,” then collected all the confetti in a bowl, and threw it all away.  High fives all around!  Speaking of high fives, we’ve been doing a lot of that, along with M&M rewards, and potty dancing lately too.  Things are moving along in that department, and she is generous with her rewards, encouraging us when we go on the potty too.  I may be expecting potty dancing at work this week. 

Other interesting facts, her favorite color is “rainbow,” she checks her belly button when she’s full to see if it’s sticking out (she’s like a turkey – it pops out when she’s done! – best belly button ever!!!), she’s still wild about pomegranates, but knows not to put the pieces up her nose, and next Saturday we are going to see Billy Jonas in concert.  We aren’t planning to tell her who we’re seeing, because she loves to watch his Bangin’ and Sangin’ DVD.  He wears his hair cut a lot shorter these days and we aren’t sure she’ll believe it’s really him, so we’ll let her decide when the time comes.  We watched a few extras on the DVD, in which he has short hair, and she kept saying, “I want Billy Jonas!”, refusing to believe me when I told her it was him.  I’m sure she’ll hear some familiar songs and hear his name.  I wonder what she’ll think?

Remembering the orphanage

The two photos in this post are in Bing-Bing’s lifebook, which tells the story of the first year of her life.  This first picture was taken soon after we received her.  The woman on the right in the photo above is in charge of adoptions at BB’s orphanage and gave BB her name, Jiang Xue-Bing.  A few months ago when BB looked at this photo she pointed to each of us saying our names (or at least I was certain about three of us) – “that’s Mommy, that’s Bing-Bing, that’s Daddy, that’s …” and she said something I couldn’t understand that clearly has the “T” sound in it.  I know the woman’s Chinese name and there is no “T” sound in it.  Besides, the children wouldn’t call their care takers by their names, but something like “Ayi” (Auntie) or “Nai Nai” (something similar).  Again, no “T”.  I got her to repeat this several times and always the “T”, but I couldn’t understand it.  More recently, the name is clearer.  I think it is “Tong Ting.”  BB left the orphanage at 8 1/2 months and she remembers her.  Plus, she was pre-verbal and she remembers what she called her.  Or so it seems.

She also looked at this picture (above) where she is on the right.  She and the other children from her orphanage who were in our travel group are posing for a pre-adoption picture.  She pointed to the 2nd nanny from the right and said “Mama”.  Then she pointed to a picture of me on the same page and said, “Mama-Mommy.”   She does, on occasion, call me “Mama” and her daddy “Baba”, although rarely and we did not teach her to do that.  I have always felt that those terms are reserved for her Chinese parents or more generically for us (uncapitalized), unless she chooses them.  I’m shocked that she sometimes does.

I have tried to contact the orphanage to find out what the children call the woman in the first picture.  So far I haven’t been successful, but I will keep trying.

Beautiful girl

 

Skippyjon Jones was “too big”

The Skippyjon Jones event at the library wasn’t well organized, but I think BB was excited that he came.  She didn’t want to go up and hug him or high five, like many kids did.  She said he was “too big.”  She was excited about him being there and watched him leave the room with his escort, which he needed as  it was rather difficult to walk in the suit.  She kept asking where he went, so we said he went home to bed.  BB  looked for him outside,  but seemed to accept that he needed to go home to his mom and troublesome sisters and get to bed.  It was a late night.  The next morning she told Hubs that “Skippyjon Jones was very tall and very up and down.”  He was very tall for a kitty-boy Siamese kitten whose goal in life is to be a chihuahua bandito in Mexico.  Oh well, that’s the problem when you have adults dressing up as kittens, but we didn’t mention that.

Growth spurt = clumsy Bing

As of Saturday afternoon, our normally agile Bing-Bing, has become quite clumsy.  It’s strange.  It started at the wonderful birthday party of her buddy Bo-Bo.  We went to the grand event, which Bing-Bing had been talking about for days.  She was so excited that Bo-Bo was turning “two, like me!”  But at the party, our BB tripped at the sandbox and bit her lip on landing with much blood and crying.  No stitches were required, but it is a little fat and yucky.  She also got a few scrapes elsewhere.  We figured this was a random event, but no.  Sunday was full of similar, but not so bloody events.  I happened to measure her on Saturday and she had jumped 3/4 of an inch since 6 weeks ago.  I had been measuring her all through this time, with no changes.  Is it possible that this was a very sudden growth spurt and she just doesn’t know where her body is in space?  We have been discouraging her glorious spinning and grand hopping and all the things she does so well – normally, because unless she wears full body armor, this kid is in trouble!

Here are some recent pics for you to enjoy, including a visit to her cousins:

… and playing at the birthday party.

On a happier note.  We are going to see Skippyjon Jones very, very soon!  She is so excited!!!

Doodle bug

If I couldn’t doodle on my schedule during our weekly 2-hour meeting, I might just go insane.

Thank you, Rachel

Warning: Bragging to follow

BB’s talking was a little slow in the beginning – after all, she did have to adjust to hearing English full-time at 9 months rather than birth like her peers.  But when she did start, it was full steam ahead.  Now at 2 1/2, her language is just amazing.  Five and six word sentences are routine.  She regularly uses adjectives and adverbs.  She names colors, counts to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish (her preschool has a Spanish curriculum).  Happily, we start Chinese lessons soon. 

I was curious if her language skills were typical or if she might be ahead of the curve, so I went to a few sites, like this one, on language development to see how she stacks up and was shocked.  She’s regularly saying things at the level they attribute to 3, 4, and even 5 year olds.  I thought this a little strange.  I mean, of course I’m convinced our BB is a genius, because, um… I’m her mom, but this was weird.  I also thought about her preschool peers, who I suspect speak much the same way.  Were these standards made before many kids went to preschool?  So, I talked to the assistant principal at her school.  She was fairly inconclusive, but said the following.  Yes, BB has very good language skills.  She has noticed that she now has real conversations with her.  She said it might be interesting for us to hang out with the 4 and 5-year-olds to compare.  She wondered if she is studying another language and I said, no, completely forgetting that we’ve been watching Signing Time videos since she was about a year old.  In fact, for a long time it was the only TV she was allowed to watch.  She loves it and has learned a lot and has a pretty good signing vocabulary.  Maybe this has something to do with it.  BB does seem to have a knack for language.  She’s naturally interested in words.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Chinese class and in 20 years when she’s blogging.

Ps.  If there are any child psychologists / speech specialists out there who can evaluate the validity of a site like the one above.  I’d be really curious to know if that is typical, even for kids who go to preschool daily.