"...and all the children are above average" - especially mine!

I guess I took a few weeks off from blogging. It's been a pretty regular few weeks ("It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon..."). Amanda's been doing great, continuing to be a smart little cookie, and even impressing me a few times.

She's been wanting to snap her fingers for quite awhile now. She has been "snapping" her thumb nail and a finger nail against each other to make a noise, and makes me listen to that quite often. I've shown her how to actually do a finger snap, but it's tough for her. This last week and weekend, she asked quite a few people if they could snap their fingers. Not asking for a demonstration, but taking a census. This morning, on the way to preschool, she says, "Listen, Mom" and snaps her fingers! It was light, but the technique was spot on and she produced sound! I was very impressed. She is a determined girl! Tonight she showed me again, and did it with both hands. A small thing, but I was impressed.

Catch up on past events:
Labor Day weekend:
We traveled down to my sister's in Kansas, and I had drawn a map with numbers along the route to try to counteract the irritation of "Are we almost there?" (She's started asking that on the way to preschool, or on the way home, which is a 15-20 minute trip! No way did I want 3 hours of that question). I thought it might give her some feeling of control to know where we were on the journey. It was cute when she started referring to the numbers. "Are we at three?" "Is this five?" If nothing else, those questions were much more fun to answer than "Are we almost there" "No!"

We had a great time with my sister's family. Abby played with her quite a bit, but usually ended up bringing her to me for timeouts due to hitting, biting, slapping (!!). I'm not sure what brought it on, but I suspected that Amanda wanted Abby to be her peer, and maybe even boss Abby around. Abby is older than Amanda, but not old enough to be a true authority figure, so Abby probably tried to be a bit in charge (as she should have) and Amanda would have nothing of it and reacted badly. That's my psychoanalysis. Anyway, lots of timeouts in the naughty chair at Aunt Patty's, and once I sat her in the car (my on-the-road version of going to her room) with the doors and windows open and me sitting far enough away to be detached but still watching.

Sunday, after church, Patty took Brittany to the emergency room due to a terrible sore throat that wasn't responding to the antibiotics that had been prescribed earlier in the week. They ended up being there until 8 or 9pm. Poor Brittany had laryngitis, mono, and an abscess. Might as well get your "money's worth" out of a trip to the doctor, I suppose! They thought they might have to send her to Kansas City or somewhere to have the abscess taken care of, but were able to reach a doctor to handle it at Fort Riley. They lanced it (I think that's the right terminology) and when Patty & Brit came home, Brittany could actually talk again. She had been a silent presence on Saturday and Sunday morning, greeting Amanda and me with a "Hello" sign when we arrived Saturday.

Monday, we toured Chapman, where the kids go to school, and saw the terrible destruction from the tornado that wiped out a good portion of the town (including all the schools, of course), on June 11, 2008. The damage was terrible, but I saw so many people with t-shirts listing the struggles the town had endured in the past year or so (the tornado, a terrible ice storm..can't remember the others), ending in "Bring it on!",. It was great to see their community pride and solidarity. That was also very much in evidence at the parade. Brittany got doctor's clearance to participate in the parade and Amanda enjoyed seeing her on the school athlete/cheerleader float. BTW, it was a very hot day to be walking around the town! I was glad that we'd staked out a shady spot for the parade. And talk about candy! Amanda and Abby were kept pretty busy picking it all up. It got to be too much after awhile. We headed home when the parade was over. It was a great weekend (outside of Brit's troubles).

My birthday was last Friday, and Amanda enjoyed that. I mentioned it to her the night before, and told her that Aunt Barb and Aunt Cindy were coming up. She was so excited to know it was going to be my birthday! She asked if I was going to have cupcakes (that's the thing she mentions most about her birthday. Not the cat cake I worried about and stressed over, but the easy-peasy cupcakes we took to school). The next morning, I was rushing us around to get out of the house, and on the way to preschool, she was talking about going to school, and she said, "And after school, then Tyotya Cindy and Tyotya Barb gonna be here, and then it's your birthday!" I said, "Oh yeah, that's right - it's my birthday!" I'd forgotten. I told her that actually, it's my birthday right now, all day, so she sang the birthday song to me - so cute! And when we got to school, she had to tell everyone it was my birthday. That night we had pizza with Barb & Cindy, and ate cupcakes (Barb supplied the cupcakes, thankfully, since Amanda considers them key to birthdays!), and later popcorn, and watched movies. It was a great night, and I appreciated Cindy & Barb celebrating with Amanda and me!

My foster care agency had a picnic Sunday, which I almost forgot about. I'm not actively being a foster parent, since I'm actively being a parent to a small child, but I'm keeping up my certification and can occasionally do respite for foster parents for a weekend (haven't had any takers since March or April). It was a fun picnic and Amanda had a great time at the park. It was such a nice day. We've had some really great weather - warm during the day and cool at night. I love fall.

Saturday, Amanda & I had lunch with some friends I haven't seen since I brought Amanda home. Mike & Linda and their kids Nathan (16?) and Megan (12) treated us to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. Yummy!!!! Megan asked if we could come out to the house that afternoon as she wanted to show Amanda their dogs and cat and house, etc. I didn't have anything planned for the afternoon (conveniently had forgotten that I needed to mow, but I did get that done Sunday night), so after I took Amanda home for her nap, we headed to their house, which is about 20 minutes away. I probably should have arranged to go another weekend - they don't see us for months and then they can't get rid of us! But it was a nice afternoon, and Megan enjoyed playing with Amanda and showing her everything. Megan also enjoyed giving Amanda things she didn't need or want anymore. I told Mike I wasn't going to visit them again if I kept leaving with boxes of their stuff. I have a small house and theirs is huge! Amanda enjoyed the key chain lip gloss which she called lipstick and got all over her face and glasses on the way home, and Linda also gave us a bunch of videotapes (including Barney, unfortunately). As I was walking out, Megan was calling out to me, "You forgot the Barbie roller skates!" but I kept walking and I heard Mike say, "I think she meant to forget them!" (They were too big, and I know they would just collect dust in the corner somewhere.)

Note to Amber (who gets tired of being called Meagan, another cousin's name): this Megan was called Amber quite a bit on Saturday! Probably 40% Meagan, 40% Amber and 20% Brittany.

Speaking of stuff gathering dust...Saturday morning, as I was doing laundry, I initiated a clean-up on her downstairs playroom, which had very little carpet showing due to all the STUFF on the floor everywhere! She picked up the stuffed animals ok, but got distracted. I saw Spook chewing on a small horse's mane/tail, and rescued it, and told her, "See, here's another reason to keep things off the floor. Spook was chewing on this." She took a look at it, tossed it on the floor away from both of us, and then looked up at me with a bit of challenge in her face. I was so mad!! I decided to try a Love & Logic technique while I cooled off. I sat her in a chair in the middle of the playroom and then went upstairs and got a large plastic bag and came back downstairs. I sat for a little bit and then told her she should pick up anything she wanted to keep. She stood in the midst of all the STUFF, looked around and said, "I don't want it". Then she saw one thing and said, "Oh, maybe this" and picked it up and said, "That's all". I was so mad again, I started shoveling stuff in the sack. Then I realized I was doing the cleaning, and had her put things in the sack. She tried to rescue her doll when she realized it was on the floor, but dolly went in the sack with everything else. She didn't even seem to really mind that, either. Talk about a kid having too much stuff. I took the bag upstairs and need to put it in a closet. I'll probably use some of it as stocking stuffers at Christmastime. The Love & Logic theory is kids will want stuff back and can earn it by doing small chores, and then will learn it's important to pick up their toys, but this kid doesn't even notice it's gone. Even her doll - she has 3 or 4 others. I'd read about adoptive parents culling their children's toys, mostly due to sensory overload for kids who aren't used to anything of their own, much less a miniature toy store, and I've thought about it before. Now I'm thinking I should do more. Every Saturday: either you pick up your playroom or Mom gets another sack of stuff. Note to family: think clothes, games and puzzles for this child when it's Christmastime!

I still sing "You are my sunshine" to her, and if I sing something else, or if I'm not thinking about singing, she'll ask me to sing that song to her. When I start singing it, or if it plays on one of our music CDs, she usually squeals, saying, "Me! Me! Me" and hugs my neck. Awhile back, I started saying, "You! This little girl right here, with the curly hair". Now, if I don't say it, she'll say, "Say 'This little girl'". I've been wanting to mention this for awhile but kept forgetting. It's so precious. Sometimes (mornings, afternoons, just whenever) she'll say, "I'm your sunshine. Just me, no one else. And you're my sunshine."

I was trying to remember what we did the weekend of Sep 13-14 and I realized that was the weekend Mom & Dad were in town for a marriage conference. We got to spend a lot of time with them, even horning in on their "date night" Saturday night, when we all went to a restaurant/bar to watch the Husker football game. Amanda wore her Husker dress, of course, and had a great time charming the adults and playing with/watching Cristina, the little girl my friends adopted from Guatemala. And the Huskers won - what more could you ask? Earlier in the day, Amanda & I went over to Glenda's house for a play date with her grandsons, aged 4 (Risto) and 7 (Dax). It was a fun couple of hours, although it had a rough beginning when Amanda and Risto had some territorial tussles over the toys (please allot me some allowances for the alliteration). Sunday, after church, we picked up Mom and Dad, who treated us to dinner (lunch to us city folk) at a local restaurant. Amanda was naughty at times, first running away from Babushka while we were going through the buffet line, and later, when Mom & I went to the bathroom, I asked Dad to just watch Amanda, who was quietly coloring her place mat. When we got back from the bathroom, he shook his head at me and told me she wouldn't listen. He had a spoon in his hand, and Amanda had sugar packets in various states of disarray on and around her plate. From what I understood from Dad, she had grabbed the packets, and Dad told her to stop. She then grabbed the salt shaker and tipped it in her mouth, saying, "Yum" and wouldn't stop even though Dad told her to. Finally, as she tried to get the pepper shaker, he picked up the spoon and held it at the ready, daring her to try it, which is how they were when I got back to the table. All I could say was, "She's a brat sometimes, I'm telling you!" She can be SO NAUGHTY! Well, she didn't get any candy and I made her apologize to Dad.

Those are the highs and not-too-lows of the last few weeks. =)

Ready to go watch the game:
I asked Mom to send me a copy of the picture I took of her and her date, but she hasn't shared that one with me yet!

A picture of Brittany and Amanda that Brittany fancied up, from Easter:

One of the teachers at preschool had her hair really cute yesterday afternoon, but I couldn't get a picture to do it justice (and she wouldn't hold still and smile nicely):