On the Ice

Today was Wynn's first time on ice skates. I told her this morning that we'd be going after lunch. 

As Scott was getting her dressed (at about 8:30), she insisted that she didn't need to put on shoes because she was going to wear skates today. After explaining to her that you don't wear skates the entire day - just when you're on the ice, she was made happy by being told that she could wear her helmet around the house instead.

She did a nice job for a first-timer and now has about 30 minutes more experience on ice skates than Baba does. 

There were a few tumbles, of course, but she took it all in stride. 

When she saw that I was skating on the rink, she yelled, "Hey! Look at Mom!" 

- Ann

Happy Chinese New Year!

Awesome shirt from Uncle Paul! Colbert 2016!

The little red rice cooker we got at Target back in 2007 did a fine job for what it was, but as we find ourselves cooking more and more Chinese dishes, and feeding more friends & family as they realize how tasty the "real stuff" can be, we needed something better.

Yes, we've taken the next step. A hardcore rice cooker.

We picked it up yesterday at our favorite store, United Noodles in Minneapolis. Yes, it ran $169, but it has almost 3x the capacity, has a timer so you can fill it in the morning & have cooked rice ready for you when you get home, and has an even heating element to prevent scorching. There's even a little slot to keep the rice paddle!

We've cooked jasmine and sweet rice already in it, and they've both come out beautifully with no fussing.

Happy Birthday, Wynn!

The rumored snowstorm never happened, so instead we enjoyed a sunny afternoon at Ann's folks' place. Uncle Paul brought a sled, so Wynn was treated to several trips around the yard. 

She has figured out the "hold on to the handles" part, but not the bit about "lean into the turns." So she got to experience a classic sledding wipeout, face-first into the powder. Snow was down her back and in her hair when I picked her up out of the drift. I asked her, "do you want to go some more?"

She looked down at the sled, and then back at me. "Yeah," she whispered.

After supper, we broke out the "cake" (have to admit, SuperTarget does a mighty fine job with the baked goods - light yet moist cupcakes going on there), and Wynn got to show off her breathing exercises for Speech Therapy. She blew out those candles all by herself!

Note: our sweet daughter is a frosting maniac ... licked one cupcake clean and grabbed another off the tray to do the same before we pulled the rest away, to her great consternation. Now I'm not one to be casting stones about liking the frosting - but she did run me ragged tonight playing 'horse'.

Milestones

Tonight, as I was watching Wynn stand coloring at her easel in p.j's, I thought about how big she's getting. Her feet seem to grow every day, and she is so sturdy, strong, and confident. So different than when she first entered our lives back in China. 

Tomorrow Wynn turns three. This year she understands what a birthday is and has been excitedly talking about getting cupcakes to bring for her class at school. When I told her that a birthday means you get presents too, she asked, "From Santa?" (That's what having a birthday close to Christmas'll do.) 

When I asked her how old she was at dinner tonight, she held up two fingers and said, "Two." 

"How old will you be when you wake up tomorrow?"

"Three!" she said and held up the correct number of fingers.

I realized, after doing a bit of math in my head, that Wynn's third birthday signals another milestone for us as a family: We have just reached the point where more of Wynn's life has been with us than was without us. :-)

Happy New Year. Ow, my head...

My head is throbbing, joints ache, I'm gobbling pills, and washing vomit out of bedsheets.

Too much New Year's partying? Hardly. The most recent adult beverage I had was about two months ago.

No, all three of us humans now have this cold that seems to have struck the country over Xmas break. Poor Wynn was coughing and sneezing all the way up to 12:45 this morning, when BLAARP! she chucked all the snot out of her tummy and onto her bed.

We stripped her and her bed. Ann hustled the pile down to the washing machine while I washed Wynn and dressed her in clean pajamas. I grabbed some pillows and a quilt, and lay down on the floor next to her bed. She slept OK after that, but I'm still stiff and sore. 

She's been in good spirits today; I hear her upstairs running sprints through the living room. (It's supposed to be naptime.) Ann's run out of steam, and, well, I'm hiding down here blogging...

More Holly Jolliness

Wynn is quickly learning that both Mom and Baba are seriously good cooks, and that she needs to closely observe what we do so that she can assume her rightful place in the kitchen too. Here, testing the cake batter. (Inside-beater technique learned from Baba.)

Shadow wants in on the Xmas Morning unwrapping festivities. We are happy to see him figuring out our daily routines and learning how to read us. Still needs some work on "sit" and "heel," however.

We said, "she likes to imitate everyday routines; get her toys like little toolsets and vacuum cleaners." The folks said, "Really?" And we said, "trust us."

Totally nailed it! She's been pushing this Bissell look-alike around a couple times a day since Thursday afternoon. (If it only *really* worked...)

More presents? Is it like this here all the time?

"Magic, magic, poof!"

(You don't see the set of tools that she and Grandpa then played with for the next half hour.)

Baker, magical princess, carpenter, finance specialist, engineer, martial artist, author, and more. She's played at so many things just today. Yes, the carpet is strewn with toys. But to see her enjoy so many divergent activities fills us with amazement and wonder at what kind of person she will become.

There's still a lot of work ahead for all of us in 2009. Children to teach, dogs to train, dreams to pursue, a nation to rebuild, a world to save. The potential in our little girl, and what she has accomplished in this short while, inspires us. 

Keep reading, keep responding, keep working to realize the change inside all of us. Happy New Year!

Fun in the snow, with a new friend

Winter break has begun, and fittingly we received a reasonable amount of snow today for the kids to frolic in.  After naptime this afternoon, Mom and Wynn suited up for a foray into the front yard.

I broke out the long coat, too, and leashed up the newest addition to our family to go for a short walk.

His name is Shadow, and he is a ten-month old tricolor Sheltie we adopted last weekend from a breeder in western Minnesota. This past week we have all been getting to know each other and establishing some ground rules - such as Shadow sleeps in the bed with Mom and Baba.

Wynn really seems to like him, and he has done very well around her. She is a little anxious about us paying attention to the pup - wiggling in when we are trying to teach him a command or engage him in play - but we won't go so far as to call it sibling rivalry. They're already figuring out how to collaborate with each other...

In other news, Wynn had a recent follow-up appointment with her surgeon, and it looks like it will be a couple more years before any additional reconstructive work is needed. In the upcoming year, we will be ratcheting up her speech therapy activities to try to stay a step ahead of her ballooning vocabulary.