Merry Christmas and Happy 2009!

It's been a while and I really do need to catch up. Today, we are facing the Day After Christmas anticlimax. But, this has been the most fun Christmas yet. With Amelie being 4 now, we are in prime Christmas years. We spent the month from Thanksgiving until Christmas listening to Christmas music, baking Christmas things, watching Christmas shows, looking at lights and everything else we could think of to get into the Christmas spirit. She woke us up at 5:30 to see if we could go out and look to see if Santa came. Of course Santa came - with a vengeance! She was just as eager to see and help others open theirs as well. She was so excited and full of energy and it was so much fun to watch and experience this with her.

Amelie has changed so much just within the last 6 months. As she got closer to 4, she seemed to have acclimated much more to a role of a nurturer to those younger than her (she had previously been somewhat impatient with babies and children smaller than her before). She has adjusted so well to school and is now coming home writing her name and asking how to spell other words so she can write those out as well. We have notebooks scattered throughout the house and car so she can write and take notes whereever she may happen to be. Other things like games and art project are much more enjoyable now and our options for things to do around the house have opened up a lot to us now.
Since I last updated the blog, we celebrated Amelie's birthday with a party at Backyard Adventures with 17 of her friends. She had a blast even though, at times, she showed she is still not at ease being the center of attention. She had been planning her birthday party since May when we were in D.C. and even wanted to invite Barack Obama (who was not able to make it). We also got to celebrate the actual day with the Suitt's since Victoria's birthday is on the same day. We all went to Disney and really enjoyed getting to watch the girls experience Disney together.

We also have been camping twice - once to Fort Wilderness the day after Thanksgiving and are now making it a tradition to camp there the whole week of Thanksgiving and get to stop by Granny Great's on the big day before going back to enjoy our Disney passes. We went camping again in December with Ging and Poppy at Fort Desoto where we got to fish right from our campsite. We experienced one of the dramatic storms the first night we were their where the wind was quite impressive, but had a much less eventful trip the rest of the time.

Amelie still amazes us with her ingenuity and creativeness where she can take random objects and see something else in them. When we were at Fort Desoto, there were little stands with plaques of information about different things at the fort. Amelie would stop at one to tap her stick and conduct music.

Bunny is still her best friend who travels everywhere with us and is a great emotional support (or great turmoil if we make the mishap of forgetting him like we did on Thanksgiving). When we were camping at Fort Desoto, Ging and I had taken her over to the playground and were about to head back when Amelie said, "Wait a minute, I have to rub Bunny's ear first". We all stopped while Amelie went into a trance for about a minute to rub Bunny's ear on her ear. She also did the "nursy" thing with her tongue. After about a minute, she said "Okay, I'm good now and we could go on our way.

She is a very affectionate and loving child who asks for hugs throghout the day. One day, I was having lunch with her at her school when one of her friends walked by. Amelie called her over and gave her a hug and a kiss before she went on her way. She has also shown natural leadership skills to those around her (even if they are several years older). She has a very positive way of getting others to do her bidding while making them feel good about it. Some friends recently went to observe Amelie's classroom where they got to see Amelie in action. They were the fly on the wall for me. They told me how Amelie was so proud to see someone she knew in the classroom that she kept bringing her friends over to introduce them to each other. She then had brought some work on to the rug where she had one of her friends holding the box top for her. Another friend soon came over saying she wanted to help and Amelie had a dilemma since there was only one box top. She quickly solved this problem by saying, "I know! You can hold this corner and you can hold this corner" and they both did as she said and were smiling the entire time. Eventually, 2 more friends came over and Amelie had to find jobs for each of them as well.

Fall Fun

Well, it's officially Fall in Florida now. The weather over the past few days has been wonderful - finally, because it's been very hot up until now!

Amelie is full-fledged into school right now and doing very well. She has a group of friends whom she talks about every day after school. Mostly, she says that she is friends with girls and not with boys, although every now and again she mentions a boys' name as a potential friend or someone who made her laugh. For example, today she said she sat next to Emerson at lunch and Ben and Sebastian were cracking them up. Apparently, they were being quite silly. The other day, she got in the car and said very seriously, "Now Mama, listen to this". Of course, this got my attention. She then said, "I have a best friend, her name is Raelaene and she's a kindergartner".

She started the year going 1/2 days, but then wanted to go full days to be with her friends. So, we switched her to full days and she's been doing well. She's not napping there because the group nap setting was just to interesting to her. The first week she switched to full days, she would get in the car telling me amazing stories about how kids could just lie down on the ground (on their mats) and sleep! Some would "just sack out!" according to her. So, soon after, I get a note from her teacher asking if it was possible for her to just come into the classroom after lunch/playtime with the older kids instead of staying in the nap room. I spoke with the teacher in the nap room who told me that Amelie always liked to chat with her during nap time. The teacher would have to tell her it was time for napping and she couldn't talk since everyone was supposed to be napping. Amelie then would talk the rest of the nap time in a whisper and told the nap room teacher that she loved her. Not surprising, no one gets too upset when Amelie breaks the rules.

The girls from the older class who work the car line in the morning love to see Amelie coming in. Even with closed windows, I can hear the girls yell "It's Amelie!" and rush over to help her out. One of the girls even abandoned the child in the car in front of us one morning when she realized Amelie was next. Oops...

We've been working on some other projects at home. Allen put together a homemade pizza oven which we've been having a lot of fun with. He also makes very good homemade dough. This was a huge hit since we all got to shape our own pizza crust and put the toppings on our own pizzas. This, of course, made a big mess which was part of its popularity. Amelie was very excited about this whole process and was very eager to help me make my own pizza.

We also started doing a makeover of Amelie's room as part of her birthday present. She has definite ideas on what she wants now since her favorite colors are pink and purple. It will be a princess room and we have more work to do, but she was very eager to help with the painting.

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.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all of the great Father's in our lives! Baba, Papa, Poppy and those who've passed - Bampa and Grandaddy - we love and miss you!

Amelie has been very excited about Father's Day all week. She does love getting presents, of course, but she also loves it when others do. On Wed. Ging and Poppy sent presents home with Amelie for Baba. I told Amelie that Baba had to wait until Sun. to open them. She said "I want to give Baba his presents now". I told her that he had to wait until Sun. to open them and that they should be a surprise. She said, "I just want to show him the presents" - she was pretty proud of the wrapping. She brought the presents in to Allen and said "here Baba, this one's a gardening book and this one's a rock shaped like a potato for you to put on the papers on your desk". Oh well, I guess we'll keep working on that message about surprises. This morning, she was beside herself because all week she had been asking - "Is it Father's Day yet? When is it going to be Father's day?" She runs off to grab his presents and brings them into his bed. She then tells him "Here Baba, here's your gardening book and here's your rock".

A lot has happened since my last post. The biggest, perhaps, is that Micah and Katie got married! We had a great time in D.C. for the week getting to celebrate the wedding and Micah's subsequent graduation from medical school. Amelie and Emerson were flower girls and looked beautiful. Amelie, who does not like the spotlight, had to be coaxed down the aisle as she crouched and glared at all those who dared watch her walk down the aisle. The wedding was beautiful and Katie and her family are wonderful. We had a great time with everyone.

We had a great time touring D.C. and Amelie was excited to see Barack Obama's house. We did travel over to Chinatown and had lunch at Wok n' Roll which used to be Mary Seurrat's house where John Wilkes Booth spent a lot of time plotting Lincoln's assassination.

Travels

We've gotten to do a few camping trips - one with the adoption families group over at Trimble Park in Mt. Dora and one with our good friends the Sangers down in Sanibel. We recently got to spend time with Amanda's family down at the beach at their timeshare in Stuart where Amelie has a fabulous time with Emerson and Amanda's sister Sam and her friends.

Welcome Home

We recently got to meet our friends Dawn and Emma who just recently came home from China with Ethan who is a remarkable and sweet little boy.

Amelie

Amelie continues to amaze and impress us with her enthusiasm for all things. She still gets genuinely excited to see everyone and is in a phase where she wants to buy something for everyone. The other day, we were in Wal-mart and Amelie pointed at something and said, "I would like to buy this for Qiao". Usually, she wants to buy something for Emerson whom she talks of constantly.

She still seems wise beyond her years and most of the time, I feel like I'm having conversations with a girl much older than 3. Others too, seem to be amazed at how young she is when they hear her talk.

Amelie is still very much attached to Mama and Baba and would like to be carried everywhere most of the time.

She is getting very good with letters and sounding things out and I think she'll learn to read very quickly when she sets down to it.

She is very interested in mazes right now and is getting quite good at them.