Party with the Animals!

Here are some photos of our going-away party/Maya's 1st birthday/Tonito's 4th birthday.
We had the same animal show that our neighbors had at their birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and the kids loved it.

Tia Normita and Iñaki visit!

We had so much fun with Tia Normita and Iñaki!!!:) They came from Mexico to celebrate Tonito's birthday, Maya's birthday, and Tonito's baptism, as we have chosen Normita to be Tonito's godmother. Iñaki is only 5 months older than Maya- but of course 5 months make such a difference when they are so little. He is walking, running, and can say "mas," "mama" (my accents aren't working in blogger), "leche," and the kids favorite (because he is so cute when he says it) is "agua." They came late on Wednesday night, and when everyone woke up on Thursday he just joined in and played with them, and let Tonito and Vivi lead the way. Whenever they are around new people they act a little wild and show off (don't we all:)??) and this was no exception. But the chaos and running around hysterically laughing was so fun, and every night the kids were all so tired from all of the activities we did every day.


On Thursday we went to the awesome arboretum where the Children's Garden is second to none. What a fun park!!! There are so many interactive exhibits and these tree house-type climbing playgrounds, slides, water features to play in, and all of it in the middle of a beautiful forest. Tonito hadn't been there before, and he loved going from activity to activity- he's such an easy-going kid who will just have fun no matter where we take him. We had a picnic lunch and then headed home for naps with 4 exhausted kids.



On Friday we went to the zoo. The kids loved the animals, but Maya was TERRIFIED of the dolphins at the dolphin show. We walked in to this loud techno music and were finding our seats in the front row when a huge dolphin jumped out right in front of us- and that was the end of the show for Maya. She was actually trembling with fear, so I went and sat way back up in the stands and turned her towards me. She just hummed and sucked her thumb and self-soothed, pobrecita. No more dolphin shows for us! But good thing she moved us back, because Tonio, Normita, and the kids stayed in the first row and got soaked:). We saw all of our favorites: the monkeys, the penguins, the bears, the elephants, and some others. It was so cute to see the kids holding hands and running through the almost empty zoo (because hurricane Ike started to show up).

40th Birthday

What a sunny, beautiful day for a birthday party! My cousin celebrated his birthday at a beautiful park preserve and we all got to spend the day by the lake, kicking the ball around, fishing, dancing, having a barbecue and eating ice cream with our family. It was so relaxing and fun to walk around the lake with the kids, and spend the afternoon with everyone while enjoying the weather! I love my family so much!!! We are moving in less than a month and I am going to miss these huge family parties incredibly:(. The kids always have so much fun, and we love to get together with everyone. I hope we have a lot of visitors in our new house!!!:)

Tonito definitely is not scared to go by anyone, quite the contrary. In adoptive families, parents wonder if their child is bonding with them, hope that they are attaching with their child, etc. Ironically, when the child goes easily to strangers it actually could be the opposite of healthy attachment. As an adoptive parent (or really any parent) you want your child to prefer you over strangers, and be a little wary/scared of people they aren't so familiar with because it means they understand that you are the primary caregiver, they feel safe with you, they know you will always be there for them, and they know that you love them more than anyone else in the world. What's counterintuitive for some is that when a little kid willingly gives hugs and kisses to everyone, even strangers, some think it is "cute" and "charming--" when really adoptive parents are familiar with the idea that this could signal a problem with attachment. So it's hard for me to see that Tonito will go and hug anyone- and a small success when he falls and gets an owie and comes running just to me.
Here are some pictures of the party:)-

Big Brown Eyes!

Look at these big brown eyes!!! With Tonito and Vivi at school every morning, Maya and I have been having some mommy baby bonding time:). We get to read books, take walks, and play with toys. Maya is cruising around the furniture and her favorite music table and is practicing standing so that she can walk soon. She LOVES to eat and will taste anything we give her. Her favorite foods are anything brightly colored: strawberries, broccoli, peas, peaches, tomatoes, beans, cooked carrots. She isn't very carb-y, but will eat bread, noodles, rice, and cereal. I think she is the only baby I know that isn't obsessed with cheerios. She loves, loves, LOVES to be held and cuddled! We just got a baby carrier that works for her size and the minute I put her in it she fell smiled, cuddled up and fell asleep. Her toothy smile melts my heart and she has me completely wrapped around her little finger. My lovey baby!!!

Touch a Truck!

Our town has a fundraiser (for different charities) called "Touch a Truck" where dump trucks, semis, tow trucks, a de-icer from O'Hare, garbage trucks, a bobcat, a UPS delivery truck, fire engines, police cars, a cherry picker, etc, etc, etc. gather in a parking lot and allow kids to climb in (and invariably honk the horn just as you are passing). The kids LOVE IT, despite the huge sensory overload. A semi-truck's horn is pretty loud by itself, but put it in a parking lot with 30 other trucks manned by 4 year olds and the sound is deafening. Horns aside, climbing in the back of the ambulance or fire engine pretty much was heaven on earth for Tonito, though maybe just slightly exciting for Vivi (who was a little scared of the horns and kept asking if we could touch a polar bear or giraffe instead of a truck). Maya tolerated it and enjoyed hitting the trucks as we passed them. We call Maya zen baby because nothing seems to bother her (including the noise and being surrounded by really hyper kids).

Funnies and New Tricks

Vivi: Mommy, Tonito has to go potty.
Me: Tonito do you have to go potty?

T: No.

Vivi: Mommy. When Tonito dances, he has to go potty.

(Tonito runs to the potty).

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Vivi: (wearing a raincoat and boots, running to the car in the pouring rain) Mommy, we don't have an umbrella. Grandma and Grandpa have an umbrella. They are SO lucky!

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Vivi: Mommy, when I take a nap I just play. I don't sleep in the day. When I sleep in the day I don't sleep at night. Then I play at night.

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Vivi: When I bigger I a mommy and when Tonito bigger Tonito a papi.
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On the TV there was something about some toys being made in China. Tonito heard that and came running in to tell me "Tonito from China too!!"


Maya JUST TODAY learned how to say "choo-choo"! She is one year old and one week;). Of course we live houses away from the train which passes a million times a day so this was inevitable!

She also heard me playing music and when the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" came on she did the motions (kind-of). So cute! Her words:

mama/mommy
Vivi (we think)
hi
baba (bye-bye)
woof-woof
moo
da (we think is that)
choo-choo

In July we were on our way to visit Auntie Susie in Wisconsin. We were singing lots of songs in the car, doing "this little piggy," and counting. I was counting Vivi's fingers in English, then Spanish, and then trying to do it in Chinese. Then Tonito wanted his fingers counted, so I did his, but of course he only has 9. He looked at his one hand, and then the other, and I swear at that precise moment he just noticed that he was missing his middle finger. I don't know if he just hadn't figured it out that his other hand has all 5 fingers, but the look of surprise on his face as he exclaimed "Broken! It's all gone!" and pointed at the empty space was so sincere I have to believe it was his first time noticing. His eyes darted from my hands to his hands and he shrugged his shoulders and said "All gone."

Fast-forward to this week and again we were counting or doing "this little piggy" and Tonito sighed and said "Tonito no finger. Goed bye-bye," and shrugged his shoulders like "Oh well." He is so open and transparent, and he moved on to this train in about 2 seconds. So then we did his toes (he LOVES "this little piggy") and he got all surprised again "Mommy look! Tonito toes! Tonito toes." I think he was telling me that he had all of his toes:). He is so cute!

First day at school for two special 3 year olds!

I can't believe my two little babies are in school!!! OK, it's only 3 year old preschool, but they have to ride a bus!!!! Every day! Our local school district, which we love love love, has an early childhood program for kids who might need some extra help catching up: either ESL, speech issues, autism spectrum, etc. (many times identified during state early intervention programs). If your child qualifies for this awesome free program, then their siblings can also attend by paying tuition. It is such a great program: 1 teacher plus 2 aides for 15 kids. They have a speech pathologist, OT/PT, and a social worker that pull the kids out for 1-on-1 service if needed. It is such a sought-after program that my neighbor was telling me in this ironic twist "I hope my son qualifies!" Now the only downside of this, is that we are moving the first week of October, so we only get to benefit from this for one month!!! Boooo. The new district in Houston does not have such a program for 3 year olds, and so we are on a waiting list for another preschool. Oh well, so here are some pictures from the first day, which was only 45 minutes long and parents attended with the kids.

He was SO excited to be going to school!!! I had been telling him a lot about how he was going to ride a school bus to school. I wanted to see if he remembered China, so I asked him (knowing it wasn't true) "Do you remember in China, did you ride a school bus with Sha-Sha to go to school?" He thought about it for a second, and then said "No school bus. I walk with Sha-Sha to school." He remembered! Gillian (Sha-Sha) had told her mom that they walked to school together and soemtimes she would carry him!
Vivi was SOOO excited for school, and declared that she wasn't 2 anymore, so that is why she wasn't going to school with Miss Hogan (her teacher last year). She said "I 3 so I go to Miss Kris school."

Here is part of their little classroom- so cute!

Playing with pegs on the first day. They kind-of hung out together checking out all of the toys. I am so glad they are in the same classroom!

A picnic to celebrate the first day!

So technically this is the first day of school with no mommies:). They told us the bus would come around 8:20 and so of course we were ready to go at 8am! You have to understand that for Vivi and Tonito, the school bus was *the most exciting part* of school (quite the opposite for mommy!). We waited. And waited. And waited. And at ten to 9 I had to drive them because the bus didn't come! Apparently many moms and kids took a long time to get on with pictures and all the crying, etc. So I got to drive them on the first day, and then they came home on the bus!



Here they are on the way home!!! These smiles couldn't be bigger! They LOVE the bus, LOVE school, LOVE Miss Kris. No tears, no wishing they were by mommy (come on guys, you could at least pretend you are so attached to me that you were actually sad to leave me??).


On a side note, I felt so different with only Maya at home! We read lots of books, she got to have a very quiet nap while I cleaned and did laundry and email. On day 2 I went to work out at the gym and took her to the Kids Care (where she has happily gone since she was 3 months old). She started crying immediately and they said she was crying on and off the whole time. I think she missed her brother and sister- they are always with her in the younger room bringing her toys, making her laugh, and telling the caretakers if she cries, etc. Poor baby was all alone! She was so happy to see them when they came home from school.





Here is how she and Tonito like to play wrestle- he is SO gentle with her and lets her crawl all over him and give him slobbery wet kisses and hugs while he just lays there quietly enjoying her lovey-ness. They are really cute together- he will pull out all the chairs from the table in the dining room and she takes the Wonder Pets flyboat and he takes his "barco" (Noah's Ark) and they just make them go in circles under the looong dining room table and around the side.
Here she is blowing strawberries!

I think Tonito was pretending to be asleep;).

Animals and Jumpy-slides

Our wonderful neighbors (we will miss them in Houston!) had 2 birthday parties this weekend! On Saturday we celebrated their youngest son's birthday with some animals, and on Sunday we celebrating their oldest son's birthday at "Pump-It-Up."

The animal show (see http://www.naturescreatures.net/) is run by this woman Erin who rescues animals who people originally thought would be good pets (like the 25 ft snake we pet!) and educates kids at schools and other events about the animals and how to respect them. We sat in a circle and listened to her talk about each of the animals and then she would walk around and let the kids each pet them. Then at the end of the party she set up a little pen and put the bunnies and ducks inside, and let the kids go in and hold and pet them- this was a HUGE success and the kids were thrilled!!! The gigantic turtle and snakes she had outside the pen (to avoid snacking) and then the cockatoo sat on people's shoulders saying "hi" and "Maya" (his name). It was so much fun!! Vivi even volunteered to put the boa constrictor around her waist like a belt- I guess if you don't teach them to be afraid they won't be!

Keeping a safe distance from the tarantula:

They asked who wanted to help with the boa constrictor and Vivi was VERY enthusiastic!:)

Petting the baby alligator that someone had released into a forest preserve:

The next day we went to this place the houses huge inflatable playthings- slides, walls to climb up, tunnels, moonjumps, etc. The kids LOVED it and jumped-climbed-ran around for 2 hours, and then gorged on chocolately birthday cake. It was so cool to see Tonito interact with other kids in a big group- I had imagined him to be socially behind, but he held his own in these big jumpy things and was not intimidated by anything. He loved singing happy birthday because he really knows that song well (he and Vivi sing it a million times a day for some reason), and I could tell he relished being "part of the group." It was so cute!!!

After the birthday party we went to my parents house for dinner and then visited a night carnival. Tonito rode on a fast car ride and Vivi chose the merry-go-round. She told us the cars were too fast but "when I a boy and I 5 I go on the coches." They were SO tired and sweaty from all the exercise and excitement- and slept so well on Sunday night!