Strep Throat, daycare and other ramblings

I forgot to mention (and only do so now for my journal's sake) that we had to take a trip to the doctor last Tuesday morning (before Amanda's eye surgery). My doctor, that is! My throat was sore and it was hard to swallow, and since I have a tendency to get strep throat once every winter I knew that's what it was. At first I was worried because I didn't want Amanda to get it and delay her surgery, but then I remembered I had to sing at the wedding! Singing and sore throats don't go together well. They gave me some antibiotics and I was much better just a day or two later, and Amanda never did get any symptoms, thank goodness.

I had bought a baby bottle (before trip 2) so that I would play "baby" with her when she came home. I had read that it's a good idea to do some regression behaviours, like drinking from a bottle and rocking the child like a baby, etc. Amanda really enjoyed that, being "baby Amanda". Of course I had to take my turn and be "baby Mama", which I didn't enjoy as much as she did! =) I bring it up because I remembered that, when I got strep throat, I had to quit taking my turn with the bottle. After that we didn't use the bottle much.

This week, we visited the daycare for the first time, an hour each day. "Miss Nancy" is her teacher and she is an older lady (probably my age!) and seems very capable and even-tempered. I stayed alongside Amanda the first day, observed the second day, and made myself scarce Wednesday & Thursday. She did really great and of course is used to being in a group of children. The other children were quite interested in her (because she's new, she's small, her eyes were all red, and she says weird words, like "spah-see-bah" instead of "thank you"). The first day when she left, some of the kids came to give her hugs, and one girl walked away saying, "She kissed me on the cheek!" I snuck a video camera in the second day and took just a little video of her coloring and playing. She needs work on her coloring and cutting (cut around the turtle..ok, or just cut right through his middle) but Miss Nancy was very impressed with her tracing skills on the letter 'T' and her name.

The kids in Miss Nancy's class go to the bathroom on their own (or an older child goes along) so I've had her doing that at home while I just watch/supervise. She probably had been going potty by herself in the orphanage, but I have been doing clean-up duty since we've been together. The kids also are supposed to say, "May I go to the bathroom please, Miss Nancy?" so we started working on that phrase right away (without the "Miss Nancy"). It didn't take her long to get it down. She uses it at home, so hopefully it will transfer to the classroom easily (not like Miss Nancy won't let her go if she doesn't have it right). I also worked this week to extinguish the word "spah-see-bah" and permanently switch to "thank you". It made me kind of sad, as it's probably one of the last Russian words she uses with me (other than "peeseet", which we are also replacing). She chatters on her own a lot, of course, and still sings some songs, but even the songs have English words popping into the middle. This morning I noticed one Russian song had "billy goat" in it quite a bit. She has been trying to sing "Hush little baby... mockingbird... billy goat" with me but those words are the only ones that have stuck, so billy goat pops up here and there, along with mockingbird. Anyway, spah-see-bah was gone pretty quickly, but peeseet is hanging on. She follows up quickly with "may I go to the bathroom, please?". Such a smart girl!

Today the two 4/5-yr-old daycare classes took a trip to Chuck E. Cheese from 10-11:30, which is basically the time when we have been visiting, so Amanda got her first trip to Chuck E. Cheese! They were supposed to arrive at 9:45 but were late, so we had the place to ourselves for awhile. I didn't buy any tokens but she had fun running around, trying out the little rides and checking out the big stage puppets. When the other kids arrived, everyone got tokens and there were little kids everywhere! She didn't stick with anything for very long but did manage to pull herself up the climbing structure and down the slide. She didn't get into the tubes that go along the ceiling, but I'm almost glad as I had visions of her not coming out. The kids had some pizza and then we said good-bye until next week. I'm working part-time the next two weeks, and then full-time. I think the timing is pretty good. I'm really glad we've had all this time together, but I think she's ready to be around other kids again.

After Chuck E. Cheese, we had Amanda's first visit with her pediatrician, Dr. Mike, who was recommended by a coworker and also was a friend from my volleyball days (I'd forgotten he's a pediatrician). I was thrilled when he made room with her in his practice, as I'll be more comfortable with someone I know. We discussed her immunizations, noisy sleeping (better since her surgery, for some reason) and her frequent urination. They checked a urine sample and everything was fine there. I think it will work itself out with time, as will her staying dry through her nap and overnight. She already is dry through her nap most times (hmm, hopefully that holds in preschool), but nighttime success is a ways off. But I'm not worried, she's been through a lot of upheaval! She had three immunization shots today, which she handled pretty well, howling during but clearing up for a couple of stickers.

We visited my work Tuesday after our daycare visit. They were alerted that we would stop by about 11am, so we had a bit of a crowd. Galina, the Russian lady from work, stopped by and chatted a bit with Amanda and gave her a purple care bear. She's so nice! She went back to her desk for a little bit and Amanda started calling out, "Galina! Galina!" I told her Galina would be right back. She really felt a connection with this warm, kind lady who spoke her language (not surprising, of course). Everyone at work seemed surprised at her small size and at how well she was picking up English. We stayed maybe a half hour and then went to lunch with my friend Michele from work. That was fun and then we dropped Michele back at work and headed home.

Wednesday, after her nap, I decided we'd had enough of being inside and entertaining ourselves, so we went to OakView mall, where there is an indoor play area for kids. We had it almost to ourselves for awhile and then a bunch of kids came. Amanda spent most of her time on a slide, and when one little girl came and tried to go in front of her, she got very aggressive, pushing the little girl and shouting something at her. She is certainly not a pushover! She did play nicely with another little girl and enjoyed going down the slide with her. We haven't been in enough situations with other kids to know if she is too aggressive (in play/competitive situations). We'll see. In an orphanage setting, it's possible (probable?) that fighting, whether for attention or toys, was part of the daily life. We spent over an hour at the play area and she had a great time. She started to make a fuss about leaving, but I told her if she was naughty about leaving then we wouldn't come back. Then she was cooperative, putting on her coat, etc. We also stopped at Goodwill. Didn't find much but did get a cute pair of white church shoes for her for Spring/Summer.

Michele asked what we do all day, so I thought I'd list some of the activities she enjoys:
-puzzles
-Boggle Junior (finding the letters on the letter cubes to spell the word on the card)
-painting with watercolors (mostly straight lines - I considered it a major breakthrough after we talked about circles and she painted a circle and filled it in with different colors. It was really neat!)
-playing tag with Mama around the kitchen table and living room coffee table (good exercise and quite a giggle-fest)
-dragging her stuff around in a large plastic bag while in her dress-up shoes
-taking baths (bought some bath crayons but was very disappointed in their performance)
-riding the little bike with training wheels (from Dadushka/Grandpa) back and forth across the basement floor
-pushing the shopping cart with her dolls in it back and forth across the basement floor while wearing her dress-up shoes
-playing memory with a Bratz doll & pet set (disturbing in that you take the heads off the pets' bodies, and the dolls/girls split in two, and you have to find the matching parts under the little cups. She enjoys putting the animals back together when we find a match. It's more fun than the cards because it's 3-dimensional. The dolls/girls aren't so easy to match, so we don't use them as much as the animals.)
-setting up stools to read the phonebook, mess with paper and pen or maybe color a bit (not much coloring, but lots of arranging books/crayons/stools)

What else do we do all day? I don't know, but we filled the hours between meals, and now we will have day care and work and will wish we had more nothing time to spend. I'm glad I'm working part-time for two weeks - not only will it ease her into daycare a bit, it will ease me back into working!

Wearing Mom's jeans and shoes around the house:

Before surgery (little does she know, although I did call Galina the night before and have her explain that we would be going to the doctor and they would be "fixing" her eyes - something like that. Galina said she didn't really seem to get it)

My poor baby! (pink bandage is holding the IV to her hand, black puppy was from Dr. Troia, baby bottle for "baby Amanda" on pillow w/apple juice)

Pictures after surgery. This was Wednesday, 3/5 - a girl and her many chairs!

Eyes are looking good!

Tough to catch her "in action"! I took other pics but they were just blurs!

Clear eyes! These pics were taken today, 3/7, and she has a red blotch under her left eye (can't see in the pics) but otherwise they're really looking great! Her hair is getting longer and I have to figure out how to keep it from looking too crazy...

Mama and Amanda
Aawwww! (hair corralled - until she pulls everything out)

Trying to ride her mini-bike with "Amanda kitty" and "Mama kitty"