Middle of the night conversation

While we were in DC, Casey woke up in the middle of the night crying and once we calmed her down she wanted to talk. She told me that I'm a baby (baby Mommy) and she's a grownup, and that I should not run away from her. And I need to sit on my bottom on the chair. She added that she's going to go to work and I can go to Marcy's to play with Hayden and Tobey.

The F word

When we were at Jan and Nawaf's, Laith announced, "Zaid said the F word!"

I thought, "holy cr@#$ , how did a 3 year old learn the F word?!" It turned out that the preschool F word is "fart." Heheh, I think Casey knows that one but luckily she can't pronounce her Fs so no one will know it for a while. Actually, she usually says, "You hear dat, Mommy?" If I say, "What?" she says, "I burp in my tushie!"

I don't think I can bring myself to say, "pass gas." When I start saying that I'll know I'm an old fart.

Last DC playdate

Our last playdate was at Norm and Dar's house. They are my friends from grad school in San Diego. They have a 4 year old, Nate, who I'd never met, and a 2 month old, Zoe. I think Nate and Casey both have Tigger blood in them because he was bouncing up and down when we were arrived, he was so excited to meet us. He showed Casey his toys and then they went and jumped on his bed.

We're back!

It was a great trip but it's good to be back. We got back yesterday afternoon. Casey did fine on the flight, and luckily we had a non-stop flight but it's still 6 hours of being climbed on by a 2 and a half year old. We had lots of M&Ms and since we couldn't find any small lollies she ended up with a giant lolly that she kept touching to her face to see how it would stick. Near the end of the flight she yanked off her butterfly barette and threw it, and so it landed on the head of the woman in the seat in front of her. I watched the woman flick it off and didn't see where it went, so every once in a while I'd try to look under the seat and Casey would say, "What you looking for?" I found it at the end under the pillow on her seat.

She did a great job of wearing underpants all week (diapers at night) but we put on diapers for the plane, because we just couldn't risk it. One of the times I handed her some M&Ms she said, "I go peepee?" Like she couldn't remember earning them.

We went to gymnastics today and were almost ready sooo much earlier than we had to be there, and it's only five minutes away, and somehow we still ended up five minutes late. There were two teachers and both were better than the last one, so it was great. Casey is getting the hang of a few things that she wouldn't try before, and of course she was all over the trampoline. Literally. She kind of took a dive (or two) straight onto a little cushy ramp that you're supposed to somersault down after you're done jumping on the trampoline. I try to be ready to catch her but I can only do so much. I might have accidentally taught some of the kids a new word.

Next stop

Now we're visiting Jan, Eric's friend from college. Casey keeps telling her, "You stay at my house, I stay at your house!" since she visited us a few weeks ago.

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She also keeps telling me, "nice to meet you," as in, "Mommy, I love you. Nice to meet you." I said, you can tell Laith and Zaid, "nice to meet you" when you meet them, since you don't know them. So when she was being all shy when she met them and I whispered to her that she should say nice to meet you, Jan and Nawaf looked at me like I was overdoing the manners thing a bit. I wonder where she picked that up. I asked her, "who says that?" and she said, "me!"

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We're just relaxing and having a great time. It's a bit rainy now so we went to the indoor bounce houses today, which of course was a big hit. Casey's been pretty tired. It's even harder to work out the nap timing when you're in a different time zone.

Visiting old friends

We visited with my friends from my old job in DC, where the friends were amazing but the work was not. The kids had a great time running around and destroying Angie's house while the adults talked. It was so fun to see everyone. I'm glad we had an excuse to come out here.

Kebin!

Sunday we went to check out the museums. We went through them all pretty quickly, which is the way I prefer to do it anyway, but now I have someone else to blame it on. We started at the sculpture garden and got some lunch and then went to the African Art museum. We met my cousin Kevin at Air and Space (probably Casey's fave), and then Casey took a one hour nap in the backpack, so I got quite a workout, and Eric got to pick a musuem, American History. Casey woke up a little grouchy just in time to see Oscar the Grouch.

Then Kevin told us he knew a fun place for dinner. I said fun for kids or fun for 20 year olds. Um, they have good beer. But they had great food too. I forgot how many good restaurants there are in DC.

Hangin' with the big girls

There was a stage outside the restaurant where we went to dinner, so the girls did some freeze dancing (dance until someone yells "freeze!") and ran up and down a grassy hill. One of the moms went to the top of a grassy hill and all of the girls were running up toward her and halfway up Casey looked at me and ran back. Did she learn from the last time? Or did she not know them well enough? She had a blast. She can party even later on east coast time.

Opportunity of a lifetime

We are in Columbia, Maryland, right now, not just because the DC area will let her add 2 states to her total count (once we hit Virginia she'll be at TEN!) but because we're here for a China adoption conference. We wouldn't normally travel across the country for this but I found out from the Yahoo group for people who have adopted from Yangdong, Casey's orphanage, that Director Huang was giving a talk, we couldn't really pass up the opportunity. We plan to go to China to travel and to visit the orphanage in a few years, but who knows if the same director will even be there by then, and if we'll get a chance to talk to him.

I signed up for the whole conference and Eric and Casey just signed up for that final session of the day. When I got down to the lobby I saw him and introduced myself and said we wanted him to meet Casey and (through a translator) they said they were heading over to Baltimore for a few hours and we should bring her down! I got back to the room and Eric was giving her a bath and I said, "Quick! Clean her up so we can take her down to see Diretor Huang!" I may have mentioned that she is not a morning person. She was up until 2am (East Coast time), so really 11pm the night before, running around the rental car place and happily driving the car while Eric put in her car seat, still getting over the excitement of riding a bus, but in the morning, it's like trying to wake a teenager.

Anyway, we took her down and she was very shy, and he gave her hong bao, which is a little red envelope, and it had a jade buddha necklace for good luck. It also had a 10 yuan note inside (about $1) and his business card with an email address. Apparently people email pictures and updates about their kids. We thanked him and told him it was very special to us.

I went to some interesting sessions and some not so interesting sessions (I'm the person who sits by the door so I can sneak out if I have to) and bought her some books - one of them is about China but her favorite is, "Everyone Poops." "Mommy, read the poopie book!" She loves it. I don't know why we haven't gotten it for her sooner! I guess I just forgot about it.

She's up! I'll finish the story later.

Easter Bunny

We got a couple of restaurant recommendations for San Diego. We were starving and trying to find the restaurants and then realized they were closed for Easter. Casey said, "Bunny closed them?" No wonder she doesn't like the Easter Bunny.

We were talking about words that start with certain letters and she asked what starts with Q. I said, "quick starts with Q" and she said, "like quick diaper change?" Heheh.

San Diego

After the Easter egg hunt we went to visit Susan, Steve, and Kyra (10). We had a great lunch and Kyra took good care of Casey. They made us cookies and we had so much fun that we stayed past nap time. We got back to the hotel and told Casey it was quiet time and she actually read her book for a while. Now Eric is sleeping and we're waiting for him to wake up. Yesterday during nap time I took a nap. Casey is rifling through our wallets and I just pulled Eric's benefits card out of her pocket. She took a 20 out of my wallet, saying "I need money" and now she says she wants to go to Starbucks. Nice.

She's taking good care of DogDog, who is wearing his second diaper in 10 minutes, and she used a bunch of wipes and tissues to clean his poo poo diaper, while saying, "ooooh, yucky."

Easter egg hunt #3!

We're in San Diego! I have a conference down here and Casey and Eric are joining me for the weekend. The plane ride was a success. Everyone got their favorite flavor of lolly, even DogDog, and it wasn't too painful. Casey still loves riding on the bus. Her newest thing is to yell "WOOOO" when we go through tunnels, which includes every underpass we see. She really pays attention and she always says, "Dat woooo!" when she sees one coming up.

Today we went to see our friends Heather, Aaron, and Hayley, who are also in town for the conference, staying at Heather's brother's house. We lucked out and got there in time for the Easter egg hunt! You can see from the second picture that we've been working on her speed. She got a pretty good haul, and ate a lot of candy. She had a great time playing with Hayley and Hayley's cousin, Sarah, who are both bigger than her, although she's much older than they are. She juggled with Heather and the girls rode around on little cars. The last three pictures show the girls checking out their loot.

Easter egg hunt #2

Last year when we went to the Easter party at daycare Casey had been there a short time and we were so happy to see her interacting with all the kids. And she had her first bagel with cream cheese. And she was slow and deliberate while picking up the eggs that were scattered all over the ground.

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This year there were little toys sprinkled all over the lawn, and the kids each got a bucket to put the toys in. There were also little wagons for each kid with a helium balloon attached. Casey walked across the whole lawn, ignoring toys and wagons until she got to a pink wagon with a yellow balloon. She must have set her sights on it because she went right for it. It was filled with sand toys but she pulled it around picking up toys and putting them in the wagon and they were spilling out all over the place. She kept picking up clear inflatable balls that had bunnies inside and handing them to Eric. It was pretty funny because he was trying to hold them all and it got pretty unwieldy.

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She ate the cream cheese off the bagels and the icing off the cookies. Later, she and Hayden did laps around the yard pulling their wagons. Those girls play so well together and they crack each other up. I don't know why it's so hard to get a good picture of them together.

More nastics

This week was a little better because we knew what to do. Casey likes the idea of hanging more than she actually likes hanging. She mostly likes jumping off of stuff and jumping on the trampoline. There were a lot fewer people in the class this time, maybe 5 kids. Last time it was about 10. That made it better too, because there is a lot of time spent waiting in line.

Momnesia

Last week I was driving Casey to daycare and I missed my turn. On Monday when I made the turn, Casey said, "Mommy, you did it!" It took me a few questions to figure out what she was talking about. Today when I turned, she told me, "Good job, Mommy!"

Monday night we met Katie and Marie in the park again. I told Eric it would be a good time for him to go for a run or work late or read a book if he wanted to, and told Casey he was out running. While we were at the park, Katie started running across a big field to get to the bigger playground, and Casey ran after her. Marie and I went to get the girls and I explained to Casey that she should ask me if she wants to go to the other playground and that we'll all go together, but she can't run that far away without me. About 10 minutes later they did it again, so I scooped her up and we went home early. Strangely she didn't cry or even seem upset. When we pulled into the garage, she said, "Where my bike go?" and I said, "It's right there hanging from the ceiling." Then she asked, "Where Daddy's bike go?" He had gone for a bike ride. I didn't notice the bike was gone, even after looking right at hers.

I guess soon she's going to have to do all the thinking for both of us.

Officially done with all adoption-related paperwork

Today we went to court to do our California readoption. It's not really necessary but it will let us get a California birth certificate for Casey, which will come in handy in the future. We went into the judge's chambers and she swore us in. DogDog and Baby Lolo came along and during the short time we were in there, Casey put them both on the table and declared, "DogDog's sitting on his bottom!" (At daycare they always tell the kids to sit on their bottoms at the table during lunch.) The court reporter jokingly said, "How do you spell that?" I wasn't sure if they understood what she said but I was afraid to clarify because I didn't want it to get recorded.

Then Casey got to go over to the bookshelf to pick out a stuffed animal or toy. She spent a lot of time looking at the stuffed animals and the helicopters, planes, and cars. There weren't really that many, and I wish I'd taken a picture. I was worried she was going to try to pick one of the giant volumes that were behind the toys but she ended up with a little red car.

It's funny because when Eric and I got married, rather than registering we asked people to donate toys and books to the juvenile dependency court after we heard a judge from that court talk about how they gave them out to kids and we loved the idea. We never imagined that we'd be the recipient of one (from a different court, of course). I remember the judge describing how carefully the kids deliberated over their choice.

In an amazing coincidence, Eric's boss and his family were there at the same time, adopting three awesome kids. They played with Casey while we were waiting, which was great, because Casey kept asking where we were going and it was a little hard to explain. You can see by her face in the picture she was pretty much ready to go home the whole time. Kind of like the first few times at the doctor, although now when I tell her "that'll make you sick" or "you'll get an owie" she perks up and says, "I go doctor?!" I think she thinks if she gets sick or hurt she gets to go back to see Dr. Nick (the dentist), so it's getting tricky to warn her about things because she wants to go back there.

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When we saw their family afterwards we found out that the boy had picked a toy football and asked the judge sign it! She said that was her first time ever signing a football. That cracked me up.

We brought them some of the chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies that we'd made that morning. While we were baking them I asked Casey what she wanted for breakfast and she wanted to hold out for the cookies. We ate a lot of cookies today. Oatmeal is a breakfast cookie.

Sunday at the park

On Sunday we hung out with Max and Ellie again, at a park near their house. There were so many great pictures it was really hard to choose. Probably because Max took most of them!

Casey wore her pink boots. They are not the most practical shoes for hanging at the playgrounds so we brought a backup pair. The girls had a picnic, went on the swings, ate ice cream sandwiches, sent cars down the slide, and just ran around having a great time on a beautiful sunny day.

Big Bunny Fun Run

This morning we did the Big Bunny Fun Run 5K and Kids' Run. Max and I pushed Casey and Ellie in the strollers for the 5K while the guys ran off ahead and then came back for us when they finished. Then Casey had her run around the field by the library. She was already eating a mini-muffin from the end of the 5k so her first length of the field was walking and eating a muffin. The second length was mostly running, the third was walking and the fourth, with the finish in sight, I carried her.

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Afterwards there was a raffle and Eric won 2 country music CDs (the worst prize they gave out!) and then there was an Easter egg hunt.

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She seemed so tired after that and fell asleep in the car on the way home (way before naptime) and then woke up when we got home. Everyone took a shower and then I fell asleep in the bed, Eric fell asleep upstairs on the couch, and I think Casey played by herself, going back and forth waking us up every once in a while. Finally she fell asleep at 4 (very late!) but better late than never.

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The last picture shows Casey checking out her loot. Luckily I think she's forgotten about it because it wasn't toddler friendly candy.
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Speaking of candy, the last couple of days she's used the potty all day at daycare. We told her she'd get chocolate chips (the new M&Ms) at home if she went at daycare and it worked!

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Oh, and Casey was NOT a fan of the big bunny... . She will go up to any dog she sees, but a man in a bunny suit, keep him in sight and far away. The whole time we were in line to pick up our numbers she told me she didn't like the bunny and she wanted him to stay away. I'm always surprised to see what she's afraid of. On an application for preschool it asked whether she had any fears, and I wrote vacuum cleaners. Hopefully they'll have a sense of humor and move her up to the top of the wait list.

Babysitters

Last night Max, Jonah, and Ellie came over to hang out with Casey while Eric and I went to see a lecture. Casey wanted "Donah" to put her to sleep so he had to lie down with her until she was out. In the morning she asked where he was. Casey had a great time playing with them and Max said she was really good. Today she told us she missed us though.

Nastics

We went to our first gymnastics class today. I knew that parents had to participate, but I thought that meant I would have to spot her on the balance beam or while hanging from the bar. I have a cold again, so jumping and walking like a bear set me off on a coughing fit. The class was not great. Some of the parents who had been there before were surprised and disappointed to find out that their favorite teacher was no longer working there. When we'd come by the rec center earlier to check out the room, there were pictures of kids doing gymnastics lining the hallways. They were all gone. The substitute teacher was not very fun or good with kids. And she assumed that everyone had taken the class before, so she would just set everyone off on an obstacle course and I had to ask other parents what to do. I told her a couple of times that we'd never taken the class before.

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I only got one decent picture, while Casey was on the trampoline (her favorite part of the class). I tried for a mid-air picture but couldn't get it. She is definitely not worried about bouncing in a way that keeps her on the trampoline.

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Afterwards, I dropped her at daycare because her friend Katie was going to be there today. Casey RAN into the house yelling KAAAAAAATIEEEEEE! It was really cute. I tried to get a picture of Casey with Katie and Hayden, her two best buddies from daycare, but for some reason they wouldn't cooperate. This was the best I could do. I hate to put these two terrible pictures up, especially after the beach pictures, but that's all I have.