Friends and Warmer Weather!

Today marks day 97 since we got Mia!

Holy cats, this week just flew by!  One major change is pre-school, friends and how well Mia is doing.  According to her teachers, she is starting to come out of her shell and talk and play WITH the kids - not ALL of the time but I will take this "baby step"!  WHOOOOOOOOO!  This is HUGE for her since for the first couple of months she basically played alone, stuck very close to the teacher and scowled at the kids when they tried to talk to her (even when a couple of them would speak to her in Mandarin).  She has even started talking about her "friends" at school named Gabby and Addie.  It melts my heart when she says "Mia friends" and she gets excited to go to school in the morning!  :)  Her teacher also told us that during song time she decided to sing a song in mandarin to the kids.  Apparently she must have made up something silly because the other little boy who speaks mandarin in her class was cracking up!  When the teacher asked him to tell her what she sang the little boy just kept laughing and laughing but never told her what she said.

Since the weather was a bit warmer this week, Mia was able to play outside several times with some of the neighbor kids as well as some dear family friends of ours.  She had such a blast!  I am SO excited to see her outside this spring and summer.  She honestly cannot get enough outside time.  I LOVE IT!  :)

So when we brought Mia home, I always wondered what she was saying while she was playing by herself.  NOW I KNOW!  She has quite the imagination.  She tells us stories about "nice, pink, dinosaurs" who are her friends and all sorts of things.  LOVING being able to understand all the chatter.

Mike is now officially "daddy".  When we asked her why not "baba" anymore she said something to the effect that I call Mike "daddy".  UGH!  It is my fault and she is right.  I call him "big daddy" sometimes.  OH NO!  When I tried to plead my case and say to Mike, "but I call you big daddy"  she smiled and started calling him "big daddy"!  YIKES!  :)  Mike was less than thrilled but smiled his way through the conversation.  By nighttime he was back to plain ol' "daddy".  Phew!  :)  

This week Mia has been talking about her friend Jahn Jahn from China a lot.  She found a picture frame and asked me what it was.  I told her that you put a picture in it.  She said she wanted to put a picture in it.  I asked her who she wanted a picture of and she said Mama and Mia.  I said okay!  Then she told me that she wanted a picture of her and Jahn Jahn instead.  So, I found one, printed it out, put it in the frame and she took it and ran to her room.  She then came running back into my office and said "Jahn Jahn now in Mia's room" with the proudest smile on her face.  Very sweet.

One thing that threw me off a bit was that out of the blue she said she had 2 mama and two babas.  When I asked her where her other mama was she said her baba told her bye bye and made Mia cry.  OMG!  I have no idea if she was talking about her nannies and a male at the orphanage or if she was talking about her birth mom and dad.  Remember in the orphanage they referred to the nannies as mama.  I SOOOOO hope she does not remember being left.  Anyway, I quickly got out the pictures they sent us with her and her nanny in them and asked her if that was the mama and if one of the guys in the picture was baba.  The first time she said "no"!  Other mama and other baba.  And then when I asked her again a minute or two later she said, yes!  That mama and that baba!  Totally confusing.  Regardless she told me that she misses her China mama and wants her to come live with us.  All I could do was tell her I was sorry that Mia was sad and that she cried with China baba said goodbye.  Of course I told her I (and her baba (Mike) would never say goodbye and that we would be together forever.  When I told her I was sorry that happened to Mia she said "it's okay mama".  MELT.  Poor sweet girl.  I then asked her if she needed a big hug and she said "yes".  That was tough.  I always knew those conversations would happen but I am not sure I was prepared yet, especially since I am not sure exactly what she is saying.  Regardless, I know she has a lot to say and is processing a whole lot.  I am just happy she is talking to me about it.  I ALWAYS want to make it safe for her to talk to me and love her China mom and dad.  I know for certain this child was loved because of how she loves.  I will forever tell her how loved she was by them and how much we love them and are eternally grateful.  God help me on Mother's Day this year!  I will be SO happy for me, but SO heavy hearted for the woman (and man) that had to make the incredibly difficult choice to let someone else raise this sweet, amazing, adorable little girl.

Have a wonderful week everyone and God Bless!  :)

Logan reading to Miles and Mia.  Logan is so sweet to little ones.

Sweet baby Joss...Look at those AMAZING EYES...and check out those EYE LASHES!  They are to die for!  :)

The four Kings...LOVE THEM! 

John and Mia...So stinking sweet.  She just went up and put her arm around him.
John is so amazing and has such a soothing soul.  Obviously Mia felt it.  :)  I love how kids just know...
Also LOVING the post pony tail hair!  ;)

Super Moon...

Mia and her Dad looking at the super moon.  

Mia and her doll house.

2 princesses!

Logan and Mia

Silly Faces

So happy it is warm enough to play outside!

Happy!

And the pink princess is out!

Everything is BEAUTIFUL!

My goodness!  Time has had a crazy way of getting away from me these days.  Life, as always, has been really busy.  There seems to be very little time to sit down, collect my thoughts and update this blog very often.  That said, I really want to keep this going, not only for my family and friends who like to know what is going on, but also for all of those parents in the process of adopting who are curious as to what joys and challenges may lie in front of them.

Okay, here we go...

Each week that goes by is so amazing to us.  Mia is learning so much and is bringing us so much joy.  She seems to be getting happier and happier every day.  So many people tell us that she is lucky to have us.  I feel just the opposite.  WE are the lucky ones to have her.  She has enriched our lives in ways that I will never be able to articulate in a way that does it justice.

Food and sleep are about the same other than my choice to wake her up in order to take her to pre-school everyday.  She is grouchy in the mornings but is getting better.  It really just depends on the day.

Speaking of daycare, we figured out something VERY simple that has made all the difference in the world.  We now call it school instead of "going to play with the kids" or "daycare".  I think since she knows that Logan goes to school and comes home everyday that she will too.  UGH!  I cannot believe that was the simple little key to it (well, that and time with us).  The funny thing is we called it school when Logan went so I am not sure why we didn't with her.  Anyway, now she waves goodbye and enjoys herself while she is there.  Last week she went to the botanical gardens and LOVED seeing all the pretty flowers.  Apparently she fell asleep on the bus on the way back to school and they could not wake her up so they had to carry her in.  That kid can sleep!  :)  She is starting to talk about her friends when we ask her about them but still prefers to play along side kids her age and not necessarily with them.  I know all in good time that will change, especially when the kids are able to understand her better.

Although it still sounds much like a two or three year old, her English is really starting to come along.  She now stringing more and more words together.  She is also really enjoying learning her letters and colors.  She found our GZonk flashcards (a few pictures of the cards are below - these cards are awesome and based on one of our families FAVORITE books - G is for one Grand GZonk).  She loves to do them over and over again repeating after me the letter, then the sound.  She also insists on tracing the letter with her finger before moving on to the next card.  She is starting to sing the ABC song and is up to letter "G" after that it is Mia's version.  :)  A new word that seems to be the favorite is "okay" which we love when we tell her to go do something.  She happily answers us "okay"!  :)  She also has been asking "what is it"? to things that she does not know.  She cracks me up all the time when she asks me what something is or after I sing her a song or whatever and then says "good job mama"!  :)  With all the language progress and while we are so super excited for her, there is a downside.  Besides missing hearing her speak Mandarin, she has officially broken her father's heart for the first time.  She is now calling him Daddy instead of BaBa over half of the time.  He really loved her calling him BaBa as it was just a special little thing between the two of them.  We are a little unsure where she got daddy since Logan calls him dad but I am pretty sure he is going to be daddy all the time sooner rather than later.

Mia was supposed to have her first of two dental appointments to get all of her cavities filled.  When they took more x-rays, they noticed it was worse than they thought so the decision was made to take her to the hospital and have it all done at once (instead of 5 plus visits it would take her in the office).  It was a bit scary to think of her going under general anesthesia but I knew it would be best for her.  On Friday at 5am in the morning we took her down to St. Joe Hospital (it is the only Fort Wayne hospital that has a dental room).  She did great and so did the nurses and doctors.  They did not stick her with any needles or anything until she was under (by gas).  Waking up was a whole other story.  They wanted us back there when she woke up but she woke up faster than expected and was terrified not knowing where she was at, what had happened, where we were at and of course HATED the IV that was now in her tiny little hand.  When we went into the recovery room she was crying SO hard and the nurses were not able to calm her down.  It was the cry we heard when we first adopted her and were on the way back to the hotel for the first time.  Her heart rate was 140 and she was clearly very upset.  As soon as she saw us and I picked her up and held her, she calmed down, stopped crying and her heart rate went down to 90.  The nurse just smiled and said there is nothing like a mommy.  As much as I hated to see her crying and upset, it really solidified that she sincerely knows that I am her mama  - and a very proud mama at that.  It is so nice to know that I do calm her and bring her peace.  If you remember in the beginning, before adopting her, one of my prayers was that I would be able to comfort her when she was upset.  It appears we are there and that prayer has been answered.  Thank you God!  :)

Thanks to Mike's mom, Mia and I went to Disney Princess on Ice this week.  She absolutely loved it!  She was clapping, dancing (on my lap) and singing.  Her eyes were so big as she watched the show.  Very sweet.  It was the first time we have went just the two of us to do something special like that other than getting our nails done.  As much as I loved our special time, I have to tell you, it was a bit bittersweet for me as I have never done anything like that without Logan.  I really missed my boy.  That said, Logan would not have liked all of the princess action.  He has done great tolerating it around the house but I think this may have pushed him over the edge.  :)  Last weekend, Mike took Logan on a man-date to see the concert Video Games Live.  Logan LOVED having that special time with Mike and talked about how amazing the show was for days!  Here is a link to the show in case you are interested.  http://www.videogameslive.com

A cute little story...

Mia has been asking me for a bathing suit for a while now.  I found a super cute one at Van Maur that Mia LOVED.  We got home and tried it on and it did not fit.  Mia instantly started crying and saying "mama, too little, mama too little".  I tried to explain that we would take it back and get another swimming suit (knowing that was the biggest size they made that suit in).  Anyway, we were at Target the other day and found a far less cute but doable pink swimming suit with a few ruffles.  She was so happy and kept telling me "mama, swimming suit is bigger" over and over again at the checkout.  When we got home that night she wanted to wear it in the bath.  I told her just this one time we could.  I then lifted her in the bath tub (in our room) then went to do a couple of things in the bedroom.  When I came back in to check on her, she was still standing up.  I told her to sit down and she looked at me totally confused and said "Mama, swimming suit no wet".  I realized she did not know she could get it wet.  I told her it is okay to get the swimming suit wet and splashed a little water on it and said "see. okay"!  She smiled and said "silly mama".  Then she sat down and said "Oh thank you mama - swimming suit beautiful".  I love seeing all these firsts with her.  It is hard to imagine that she did not know what a swimming suit was used for but it totally makes sense.

Another couple of cute short stories.  Mia is so easily impressed.  We were in Williams Sonoma returning our coffee machine for the second time (that is a whole story of its own) and as we walked past the copper pots, Mia exclaimed very loudly "Oh mama, BEAUTIFUL"!  I have to admit, they are pretty but I guess I just never really noticed.  It was so great seeing them through her eyes and they are now even more pretty to me.  Last, but not least, we were going to Red Robin for dinner last night and I decided to take the long way and walk through Macy's.  First, when we walked in her eyes lit up and she said "mama, SHOES"!  Yep, that is my girl!  :)  Anyway as we walked and made our way into the middle of the store, she stops and starts to twirl around (in her fluffy pink dress) arms straight out, head back and saying "beautiful" over and over.  It was so super cute.  Mike (being starved) eventually brought us all back to reality saying to Mia "okay Annie, come on let's go".  It was funny.  :)

Everyone is always asking about Logan and how he is adjusting to being a big brother.  I really appreciate that because it would be so easy for everyone to just ask about Mia and how she is doing since the adoption is so new.  As I have reported in the past, he is doing great and is such an amazing big brother. He is so kind, patient, nurturing and I could not be more proud of him.  That said, the other day he brought home a cube that asked a bunch of questions that he answered and then folded into a square.  I would love to share with you what it said.  Remember, these are Logan's words.

Question:  What was the best day of your life?
Answer:  The best day of my life was when I got a sister

Question:  What happened?
Answer:  I got a sister

Question:  Where did it happen?
Answer:  I was at my house when it happened

Question:  Who was with you?
Answer:  My parents, grandparents and my cousin were with me

Question:  Why was it the best day?
Answer:  It was the best day because I got someone to play with

That is all the updates for now.  To sum it up, we are happy, blessed beyond words, enjoying each other, and looking forward to everything the future has in store for the Krisher's.  See you in a week or so.  Have a wonderful weekend!  :)

Mia and her baby.  Still loving to rock the pony tails.

Happy Girl

Concentrating

Showing us the Grumpy Old Troll card.
When she is grumpy we ask her if she is being a grumpy old troll.
That usually turns her attitude around pretty quick.  After all, who wants to be
a grumpy old troll?

Below - Mia and I before Disney Princess on Ice

ABC Flashcards - GZonk Style