Happy Gotcha Day Number 3!!

It's hard to believe another anniversary of Gotcha Day is upon us. It seems like no time ago when we were so impatient to hear any bit of news about our little Amelie and now she's getting so grown up and in school already!


A few days ago, I brought up the idea of Gotcha Day to her and what happened on Gotcha Day in China. I told her more about how she lived in the orphanage and the nannies took care of her until we were able to get her. I told her how, on Gotcha Day, she and the nannies got on the bus to come to see Mama and Baba. She completely focused on everything I told her and asked a lot of questions about each bit of news. I told her that Gotcha Day was the happiest day of mine and Baba's lives and I asked her if she knew why. She said, "because you got to get me?" and I nodded. I may have mentioned this to her before...


We started off the day with Amelie getting us to the point of tears laughing so hard (so much so that Allen laughed his breakfast eggs right out of his nose). Amelie said, "Mama, does a rooster lay eggs?" and I said, "No, chickens lay eggs". She followed by telling us a joke, "Why did the rooster lay eggs?" and we said, "Why?" to which she said, "to be nice to the chicken". At which point we laughed (it's all in the delivery in case it doesn't translate well in text) and then eggs shot out of Allen's nose and we never quite recovered after that.


Today, we celebrated the 3rd celebration of Gotcha Day by all taking the day off work and school. We went to Weeki Wachee Springs knowing how fascinated she is by mermaids and wanted to surprise her by showing her 'real live' mermaids. Amelie was thrilled to see a show with live mermaids where they re-enacted the story of The Little Mermaid which she knows very well. She started off by waving frantically at the mermaids who swam close by the window and watched the rest of the show intently while Allen and I were laughing hysterically at the turtles in the Springs that followed the mermaids' every move in the attempt to eat their hair. After the show, Amelie said "See! I told you mermaids were real!"


The rest of the park was pretty dead and the water park was closed so we made our way to nearby Tarpon Springs and had a wonderful time walking around the sponge docs and going in and out of shops and eating at a local Greek restaurant. I went into a spice store and the owner commented on how he admired people like us for taking children in and raising them. Then, continued on to tell me about how he was given up by his birth mother when he was 18 months and it was the best thing that ever happened to him because he went to a great, loving family. I told him we were out and about celebrating Amelie's 3rd anniversary of Gotcha Day and he gave her a stuffed animal puppy from his shop which she loved!


Amelie, who loves frosting on cake exponentially more than the cake itself, had me in tears laughing again today when Allen looked away from his dessert and Amelie, very nonchalantly, and with the precision of a surgeon, used her fork to remove the frosting from Allen's eclair and ate it before he ever turned around. Allen then turned around, not having a clue as to what transpired and Amelie, quite nonchalantly again said "this cake is only mine". At which point I lost it and had tears coming out of my eyes.


Amelie, over the past 3 years, has made us laugh and smile, pained when she is hurt and feel immeasurably proud of what a wonderful child she is. How lucky are we?

School Days

Lots has been going on in the Valentine household. But, the biggest news is that Amelie is now in Lakeland Montessori and just finished up her 3rd week there. She has been so excited and engaged in the whole school process that she now wants to go full days. Currently, she is going 1/2 days but feels left out when I pick her up right after lunch before she gets to play with the other kids on the playground. So, we've discussed with her teacher and the director of the school and she'll go full days next week as a trial period. We'll see how it goes! If it works, she'll take a nap after lunch, then get to play on the playground with her fellow PreK friends.

She's been a little magpie when I pick her up and tells me all of the exciting things she got to do that day like who she sat next to at lunch, or what work she did that day, or if Amanda came into the classroom or who had what in their lunchbox or precisely what each of her teachers was wearing that day. The other day, we were driving around in the car and she told Allen and I, "I told Ms. Helpling that I changed my name to Sleeping Beauty." Then, she follows by slapping her forhead and saying, "Oh shoot! I forgot to tell Mr. Romey!"

Over the summer, we had a great roadtrip with Nana when we drove all the way up to Maine. We stopped in Virginia to see Natural Bridge and Luray Caverns which were both beautiful. The highlight for Amelie was the maze at Luray Caverns in which she successfully navigated our way out. We also stopped at Old Sturbridge Village, MA before ending up in Maine. Sturbridge is a colonial village where the people who work there try to demonstrate living and working the way the villagers would have lived back in the 1800s. This was also a neat stop, but one Amelie would probably appreciate more when she is older.

Of course, we had a wonderful time in Maine seeing Granny Great. We also got to see Cindy and Mike for the first few days, our Lakeland friends Christine and Madelyn and my friend from Quebec - Marie. Amelie tried her first lobster and was a HUGE fan! We headed over to Old Orchard Beach for the first time ever too.

On the way back, we had a wonderful time staying in New York with my wonderful friend Laurie and her 2 kids Sage and Blake. I hadn't seen Sage since she was 1 month old and now she's a few months younger than Amelie! It was great meeting Blake who is 1+ and walking all over! We got to visit her sister Linny and her 2 kids at their lake house and spent a wonderful day boating, swimming, playing. We also got to visit our China friends the Nielson's who were in our travel group to pick up their little beauty Stephanie. Amelie and Stephanie were instant friends and had a wonderful time. We then headed to Maryland for a great visit with Katie's parents Bob and Ann. Katie's sister Jessie got to hang with us too and we went to the Calvert Maritime Museum and a great bluegrass festival. The only disappointment was when we drove on to the farm where the bluegrass festival and Amelie said "Hey! This grass is green!"

Amelie has now been taking Gymnastics for a couple months and is very enthusiastic. My favorite part is watching her launch herself across the long trampoline in her own unique style.

Amelie is now very into My Little Pony and Barbie movies and stories. However, she does, occasionally reprise her role as Darth Vader and is recently getting interested in Avatar again. For the most part though, she is very girlie.

Amelie is very articulate and suprises a lot of people with how well she speaks and how broad her vocabulary is at such a young age. She does still have a few words that have her own pronunciation. For example, instead of saying "Mama, did you forget?" (unfortunately, this is something that happens a lot), she'll say "Mama, did you feeget?" Or, instead of "they like to play with each other", she'll say "they like to play with reach other".

She has gotten very good at telling stories and making up scenes for things even if we're just playing or riding in the car, she'll say, "Okay Mama, let's pretend that you're Alexa and I'm Liana and we're walking through the garden". Of course, many of these scenes are taken from movies, but many are unique. So, I recently had her tell me a story all her own and I wrote it down. Our next step is to print it out and illustrate it. It's a cute little story about pony princesses. I'll be sure to hold on to it so she can refer back to it once she's a famous author.