The ninety degree weather today caused us to dust off Elijah’s sprinkler and let the kids loose. It was Maylie’s first time to have “water fun” outside of the bathtub and she took to it with gusto. She is turning out to be our fearless climber and frequent faller. She’s a toughie though, and rarely cries from her bumps and falls- unless she knows we’re watching. Then she turns on the drama. Much to her brother’s frustration, she’s also a proficient and impulsive scratcher. I found myself telling Elijah today that she’s a bit like a dog; when she starts to growl, back away. Of course, it’s also the sweetest thing to watch how she backs up to sit in his lap when he’s watching TV.
It’s not like she doesn’t want to be held- it’s just on her terms. (Doug says that’s just being a girl, but what does he know?)
Elijah is almost an official kindergarten graduate. He’s looking forward to summer break and (fortunately) swimming lessons. He’s also counting down the days until he gets to visit his cousins. He continues to be proud of his little sister and when Maylie and I walk to pick him up from school he likes to make sure all of his classmates have “seen his baby sister”. They have and are intrigued with “how we got her” (which we’ve had to repeat several times- one little boy asks almost every time he sees her, “How did you got that baby?”- not offensive coming from a six year old but in a few more years he might need to rethink his tactic - and grammar.)
As for adult reactions to our little dark-haired beauty of the family, most people seem genuinely curious. Often times, it seems as if people at the grocery store etc. like to talk to her (“Well hello pretty girl!”) with the hopes that I’ll go into “our story”. Most times I don’t feel like diving into all of it unless they really are interested in adoption. It’s her story and as she gets older I don’t think it would be wise to “display” it with mere strangers. None of the looks/comments/questions have been negative. The most surprising one came at, of all places, a Chinese restaurant where our Chinese waitress was thoroughly confused as to our family situation and just wasn’t satisfied with our answer of “We’re her parents, we adopted her from China”. It seemed to surprise her to find out there are orphans in her country. It’s ironic how most people in China don’t know about the orphanage situation- such is life under the deception and control of communism. I’m a bit on a soap-box about all of this because I’ve been reading a true- account book about three generations of women in China called “Wild Swans” that begins in the early nineteen hundreds and ends in present day. I finally understand (to an extent) the dangers of communism and the monstrosities of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. I highly recommend it to anyone. How I digress….
Anyway, on a lighter note… here’s how our daughter likes to drink from her sippy cup. “Look Mom, no hands!”
Other highlights from this month include Mother’s day and Maylie’s dedication day- on the same day.
It was fun to celebrate with family and Maylie was able to spend a few hours with her six-month-old cousin Rowan. Doug and I also happily escaped for a night to Door County (escape implies “without children”) and had fun sipping coffee and biking around Peninsula State Park.
~Rachel
And due to the popularity of last month's Jedi picture... this month we took the kids to Sears for photos and ended up with this: (wink)
Darth Elijah and his little Sith-ter - I think Elijah's taking it a bit too far (Doug)
Oh, and Rachel said she'd prefer a "princess" to a Jedi - I can handle that one too :)
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