Two at the Zoo

We met up with a few of the families from our travel group today at a local zoo to celebrate our girls' 2nd birthdays.

Want MaMa

Want MaMa seemed to be the Grace's favorite phrase this past week. She started with a little fever early Thursday morning and at one point on Friday it was over 104 degrees. It was pretty scary for a little while but we were able to get it back down to 101 with a little Motrin. With Grace being under the weather all she really wanted was to stay attached to Jen's hip. She would tolerate me for a while but was sure to let me know that she "wants mama".


Grace is normally on the go for all waking hours and doesn't usually sit and snuggle with is for more than a couple minutes at a time. This weekend there was plenty of snuggling to go around as all Grace wanted to do was lay on the couch with us which was kind of nice.


Even though she was sick, she needed some fresh air so we bundled up in a fall outfit and went out for a ride....

Dora Party

We celebrated Grace's birthday this weekend with family and friends. Some pics of the day below.

Blowing out my candles
For me?

Dress up with Bames

My sweet new ride

Happy Birthday Grace

We had a little party with just the three of us to celebrate Grace's 2nd birthday. As you can see she is excited.

Settling In

Last week was a pretty crazy week. I mentioned earlier that Grace started daycare on Tuesday which is going surprisingly well so far. We are trying to get used to our new schedules of getting up much earlier in the morning which has us really dragging by the end of the day. Grace is taking it all in stride. She seems to love daycare. She is in a very small class so she gets a lot of attention which is good. She has cried a little during the day because she wanted us but we haven't had any hysterical screaming at drop off yet.

Grace has also been dealing with some sort of allergy this past week. It started last Sunday when she woke up with some redness under one of her eyes. The next day she woke up with her other eye swollen on her upper lid. It seem to be bothering her much but we took her to the doctor just in case. The doc just prescribed drops and Benadryl. Over the next few days the swelling seemed to subside and reappear every other day. We haven't yet been able to figure out if it is something in her diet that is causing it. Hopefully it is not the cat. She has a checkup with her doctor this week so hopefully we will learn more then.

We ended this week ed with a trip up to Annika's to celebrate her 2nd Birthday. Mei Lu was also in attendance. Hard to believe that our girls are all turning two!!!

First Day of School

After School we party

Lunch with Annika and Mei Lu

First day of school

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Trip To The Farm

We took our annual trip to Smolak Farm today for some apple and pumpkin picking. It seemed a bit warm for apple picking today but we weren't complaining. Some pics of our day below.....

Ridin' out to the pumpkin patch
I want these daddy

Finding the perfect apple

A little help from daddy

Emjoying the "fruits" of my labor

"Huss"

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Fishy Face

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Mommy Work

Most of our friends and family know by now that Jen is going back to work tomorrow after staying home with Grace for over a year. Grace knows that I leave every morning to go to work, she has even been there a couple times so I think she makes the connection. We have been trying to prepare by asking her where Mommy is going to work next week. So every one in a while she will tell us "Mommy Work" so we think she gets it but I don't thing she fully realizes what it means for her yet. We are pretty confident that she is going to do great though. She isn't starting daycare for a couple weeks so she will be splitting time between Gram's and MeMe and PaPa's.

Jen, on the other hand, is not doing so good. We have had couple bouts of spontaneous crying and we have been very busy running around getting everything ready. Jen tried to make the most of her last week home last week as well. Monday was my 38th birthday so we celebrated when I got home with a nice dinner and cake.

On Tuesday Grace and Jen went to the beach with MeMe and the MKs for for her last beach excursion of the year.

On Wednesday the girls came into the city for lunch with daddy. There is a nice park not too far from where I work so we had ourselves a little picnic. On Thursday Jen and Grace met up with Carrie and Annika for a playdate at a park up in New Hampshire.

Birth Culture

I came across an interesting article in the Boston Globe today about embracing birth culture with adoptees. I thought some of the adoptive parents who read our blog would find it interesting.

The article is written by a Taiwanese adoptee who warns parents not to go too far with celebrating or idealizing their child's native culture or it may have damaging effects. Back when international adoption started to become more common in the 70s and 80s adoptive parents were told to bring their children up as "American" and not to confuse them with their birth culture.

When these adoptees became adults social workers realized that not teaching adoptees about their birth culture was damaging to adoptees. Some adoptees felt that because of the way they looked they did not really fit into American culture and they also did not fit it with their native culture because they know nothing about it.

So adoption experts switched gears and social workers now stress (as ours did) the importance of birth culture in our children's lives. The author of the article warns adoptive parents not to just focus on the fun parts of birth culture like food and music. But to also to discuss the more difficult topics like racial stereotypes and bullying.

Overall though the author advises adoptive parents to just "relax". Find a happy middle ground and give your kids the space when they need it. Grace is a bit young to start with any real birth culture type stuff but is nice to have articles like this to refer to for later on. If you are interested in the article it is linked below.

Boston Globe

Firsts...

It was really hot here this weekend so on Saturday we decided to go to the local mall to get out of the heat. While we were there we decided to take Grace on her first trip to Build a Bear Workshop. She got a gift certificate for Christmas and we figured she is old enough now to appreciate it.

Grace selected the spotted snow leopard and named him "Kitty"

Watching Kitty get stuffed.


Washing Kitty with Mommy

I love my Kitty

We also took Grace to see her first baseball game this weekend. We didn't quite make it to see the Sox play the Yankees but we did see their Single A affiliate The Lowell Spinners. The Spinners have a nice little park, the tickets are cheap and the games are really kid-friendly. It was a little warm out but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Another Homerun!!!!

Three hats are better than two

Story Land

We took off on Tuesday for a trip with the Shahs to Story Land. This was Grace's first time at an amusement park and she had a blast. We stayed at this themed hotel called Adventure Suites. Most of the rooms had some sort of theme, except ours. The room we stayed in was called the Owners' Quarters, it seemed to just have all of the leftover decorations from the other rooms. But it worked out for us since it had two bedrooms, a sitting room, a living room and a kitchen. So after the kids went to bed we got to stay up and catch up a bit. The bedroom we stayed in had a bunk bed and Grace slept the whole night in the bottom bunk. This was a pretty big deal as it was the first time that she has slept through the night not in her crib or with us.

We had a little bit of rain at Story Land but we made the most of it. There were a couple rides that Grace was not tall enough for but most of the rides seemed geared toward small kids. Some pics from the week below.

I Rock!!!
Bunkin' with the girls

The Kings

Ridin' the whale

Family Portrait

Milestones

I haven't posted in a while about some of the new things that Grace is up to so.....

• 2 Year Molars - Earlier this month Grace had a week or so that she wasn't sleeping well. We didn't think much of it at the time. Then last week Jen noticed that Grace has one of her two year molars about half way through. Guess we have a few more to look forward to in the upcoming months.


• Potty Training - We started noticing lately that Grace has been really interested in all things potty. She knows that when mommy and daddy go into the bathroom it is for pee-pee. With all this interest we decided to introduce her potty seat. We have a couple of those kids' seats that just go over the toilet seat, the regular potty seats kind of gross us out. So we started sitting Grace on it before her bath at night and most of the time she will pee. She has also been telling us lately when she has to go poo-poo so that makes it really easy, we just bring her into the bathroom as long as we are home. The whole potty thing took us a bit by surprise, I think it will be a while before she is completely trained but she is pretty good about it. Jen went out this week to get some panties so I guess that is the next step.


• Possession - Lately Grace has picked up on the fact that certain things belong to certain people. It is pretty cute when she points out Mommy's chair, Daddy's chair, Grace's chair. Or Mommy's car and Daddy's car.


• Sentences - Grace has started using three word sentences. Some of our favorites are: Git Dow Oo-Tee (Get down Lucy). Mama Ba ba Pees(Mama Bottle Please) and I la lu (I love you).


• Independence - Grace has also started showing is she has quite a mind of her own lately. Sometimes it manifests in a temper tantrum. Unfortunately she has had a couple lately in restaurants so we have to be a little more careful of when and where we go out to eat. She has also started needing to pick out which clothes and shoes she is going to wear for the day. Makes for some interesting outfits but mommy is glad she has a girly-girl who usually prefers to wear a dress.

I am on vacation this week so we have some fun stuff planned. I will try to do a mid-week post with some pics since I haven't posted any lately.

The Kid's Got Rhythm

Ignore the guy lounging in the background

Daycare Decisions

We are getting closer and closer to Jen going back to work so Jen spent some time last week checking out the local daycare providers. I think I may have mentioned in the past that we plan to send Grace to daycare 2 days a week. She will be spending 1 day a week with my mom and 2 days with Jen's parents. Our major motivation for sending Grace to daycare is socialization. So overall we are looking for a place that will be fun for her. We have pretty much decided against an in-home type daycare as we prefer a school-like setting. To help out with our decision we ranked the 3 places that Jen visited on the criteria that are most important to us. We kept it simple by just ranking 1 to 3, 1 being the lowest 3 being the highest.


Daycare 1

Jen and I went to an open house at this place earlier in the summer and we initially thought this is where we would be sending Grace. This is a locally owned daycare with just one location but it is a pretty large place caring for about 40 kids from infant to pre-school. It is basically at the end of our street so it is very convenient. The price was reasonable and Jen really liked the staff. I was a bit freaked our at how is seemed a bit dirty but I guess that is pretty normal given there are kids running around all day. Our initial visit was on a Saturday so there were no kids there so it was a bit tough to get a good impression. Jen went back last week when class was in session and unfortunately she wasn't impressed. Of all of the criteria above attentiveness is definitely the most important to us. We want to make sure Grace is being watched and will be safe. The teachers were sitting together talking and watching the kids from afar. I realize that everyone needs a break sometimes but you would think that they would be a little more attentive when someone is visiting.

Daycare 2

The second place Jen visited was one of the corporate daycare companies that has centers nationwide. Jen really liked this place. The teachers were attentive and there is a big focus on academics. The place was very clean and there was a lot of flexibility offered that non-corporate daycare facilities can't provide. This was the most expensive place we looked at but price really isn't a factor since we are only sending Grace for 2 days. The one glaring thing we didn't like about this place was that there was no diversity. All of the kids were white and we really don't want Grace going to a daycare where she is the only Asian or minority.

Daycare 3

The last place Jen visited seems to have it all. It is a locally owned place but has about a dozen facilities in our area. They are very reasonably priced and have a good mix of focus on academics and fun. The diversity was great and the staff was extremely attentive while Jen was there. So far this place is at the top of our list. We may visit another one of their locations on my vacation in a couple weeks just to see how convenient it is but I think our decision has been made.

Water Week

We had a really nice week here weather-wise so Jen and Grace spent most of the week by the water. On Monday Grace got to check out her new pool which she really seemed to enjoy. Unfortunately she fell getting out of it and jammed her toe. She wouldn't walk on it so Jen took her to the doctor. Fortunately it is nothing serious, just a slight sprain. She seemed to be getting better throughout the day and is completely back to normal now.
Tuesday called for a trip to the ocean to model the new shades. The tide was out and it was much less windy so Grace was able to enjoy herself much more.
Wednesday was a trip to a local beach where I grew up. Grace and Jen met up with Auntie Melinda, James and Sam for some more time in the sun.
Jen also went to meet up with Auntie Kris, Kathryn and Karina at the pool for the day on Friday. I have a feeling if this keeps up she is going to sprout fins and swim away like a little mermaid. We took the weekend off from the water to do a little car shopping. I really didn't want to buy a new car until Jen went back to work but between the MA sales tax increase next month, 0% financing, and the federal tax credit for a new car purchase that were were planning to take advantage of anyway, the time was right. So, as of tomorrow we will be proud owners of a Dodge Grand Caravan. Jen fought getting a mini-van for a long time but after seeing all of the convenience features she finally relented. Grace taking her test drive below.
We ended the weekend with a cookout at the Shahs and a sample of Biren's homemade Limoncello, Mmmmmm. Good way to end a weekend. Below is Grace upset that she didn't get a taste.

Vacation is always too short

I think I mentioned in my post last week that I was on vacation this past week. We kept very busy after getting home from Maryland on Monday and had plans pretty much every day. The weather here in New England was still pretty rainy earlier in the week so we took in some indoor activities and brought Grace to see the pish (fish) at the New England Aquarium. Grace really enjoyed the aquarium especially the turtles and sharks.

Mommy Grace and the Jellyfish

Later in the week when the weather started to clear we meet up with one of Grace's China Travelmates Zoe for a trip to the Southwick Zoo. Grace really enjoyed the petting zoo and feeding the deer.

This past weekend was spent at the beach with our friends Kristen, Biren, Karina and Kathryn. The weather was much warmer than the last time we came up but the water was still very cold and rough as the tide was in. Although it didn't seem to bother Grace one bit, she really just loves the water.

Grace and Bob running

Takin in the view

Where's our dinner ?!?!