Oh the drama

Today had such promise! Our weather has been miserable lately, but the morning was beautiful and we all went for a walk to the park. Both girls were so happy...



I think it was Willa's first experience with sand! She wasn't interested in touching it with her hands (or eating it, thankfully). Instead she spent the entire time very intently digging a hole with her feet.


Upon our return home, we checked the status of our plants.

Jia was especially thrilled about this development...


We kept talking about how it was *finally* nice out. Finally summer. We decided to have dinner on our deck outside. We finished making the meal and gathered each and every thing we could possibly need during dinner so that we could simply all sit and enjoy our food. We had beautiful blue skies and puffy clouds. Just as we were sitting down, the tornado sirens went off. Then the drama of screaming children and rushing to get inside began. We are grateful that we were spared the tornado, but about ten minutes after we hurried inside, this happened:

Tons of loud hail. Jia was intensely sad because she thought summer was over! Poor kid! One day of summer is too short, even by Minnesota standards.



Jia has started calling Willa "Willie" by the way. Not sure how I feel about this. I do have a soft spot for Willie Nelson. Maybe it's okay. She doesn't seem to care.

Continuing our upward trend

Willa had her six month check-up (and lots of pokes, poor kid) yesterday. She is now 99% for height and 98% for weight! And her head circumference seems to have jumped 20% (not so sure about the measurements on that one). Willa's too big for the straps on her bouncy seat. She is also too big for her infant car seat, and we're all tired (Willa included) of struggling to stuff her into it. We had the infant seat for maybe a month total! The doctor gave us the okay to switch her to the rear-facing toddler one. She's growing so quickly!

On the eating front, remember how Willa loved the rice cereal? That lasted for about one week. Then she refused to open her mouth for anything but her bottle for weeks! She has been sick and is getting at least three teeth now, so that's likely part of it. She has still been interested in eating though - and follows each bite we take. So I had a grand idea. Jia agreed to let me feed her baby food in front of Willa. I would say "Ahhh!" and Jia would open her mouth and take a bite and then say "Yum!" Jia was such a good sport about it. Willa didn't buy it for a second. And Jia ate all the baby food (and actually asked for more).

Then I offered some of my lunch to Willa - she opened right up! Since then we have been feeding her veggies from our soup and things like that. Guess it's no baby food for this kid!

For the birds

We had a great long weekend. We spent time at the park and a local lake. A pair of geese and four goslings joined our picnic by the lake. They walked over and sat down just a few feet away from us! Then we chatted with a family who had found a lone duckling in their yard. They brought it to the lake with hope that it would be adopted by a pair of ducks with other ducklings there (they had researched it and this is what was recommended if possible). Jia was so excited about this little ducky. Jia also picked up a dead bird (a low point of the day as I made her stop eating her lunch until we could scrub her hands). But, all in all, a terrific low-key weekend. Really, I feel that all weekends should have three days instead of two.

Side note: As I mentioned in an earlier post, as we're so tired, Jia has been finishing our sentences, and she's usually right. Here was our earlier conversation:

Me: Jia, today we're going to the...um...
Jia: Store to get some milk. We're all out. (Right.)
Me: Yep, and then we're going to...um...
Jia: Get some gas, we're running low. (Right.)
Me: Mmm-hmm. And then we're...
Jia: Going to send Willa back home to Taiwan. (Wrong.)

Wow, did that shock me. I didn't expect it so soon (or at all, really, after all of our talks about it). After some discussion over the course of the weekend, it appears that Jia just wanted to double-check that Willa is here to stay. How nice!

Here are some sweet photos I took of Joe and Willa today:

Parenting preferences

I recently read a post from my buddy Kathy about Mommy Wars, specifically about how certain things can divide us moms (and dads) as parents. There are so many: formula-feeding, sleep-training, attachment parenting, potty-training, diapering, processed food, organic food, organic clothes, wood vs. plastic toys, discipline...the list goes on and on. After doing research and making decisions on such things and then implementing them, I've changed my mind bunches of times!

For example, before we got Jia, I saw a study that showed that juice is generally worse for kids than soda pop. It has very few nutrients, more calories and can possibly even stunt growth. (And then there's the tooth decay aspect.) So I told my entire family, including my grandmas, that we wouldn't be giving our kids juice.

Then Jia came along. She hated water and milk caused problems in her little system. She was perpetually dehydrated. She was underweight. Where does that leave us? Juice. Especially pear juice, as recommended by her doctor. It made her little body function so much better.

Jia is funny about it. She has such a refined palate that when she was at her friend Lily's house, she busted her mom for diluting her juice. Jia commented to her, "You put water in it." This girl knows exactly what she wants. She still drinks very little in general, so I've practically become a juice-pusher. She gets it whenever she wants. Yep, she does.

As a result of all of this, I try my best to keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself unless someone asks for them (or unless you're my husband) rather than be judgmental. Because really, what do I know? Parents know their kids better than anyone else and always want what is best for them.


Side note: Thanks everyone here and elsewhere for the nice comments on my lame scrapbooking. I only did that because I didn't want to upload loads of nearly the same photo, and I don't know how to do collages. So there you have it.

Weekend

Some cute photos of Jia this weekend...



And some of Willa...

Theme party

We're going to a princess-themed birthday party today. Jia's birthday is in August and I asked whether she'd like a theme for her party. She likes butterflies and polar bears and such, so I was expecting to hear something along those lines.

She told me she wanted a "ketchup" party. Thankfully her birthday is a while off so hopefully I can change her mind by that time! Or maybe I should go with it - but what would we do? Ketchup crafts?

At any rate, I'll be getting her a shirt that says, "I put ketchup on my ketchup."

One Month Willaversary!

It has been one month since Willa joined our family! I can't believe it. The time is flying. She is the perfect addition to our family.

On Mother's Day, we were sitting together and Jia said, "Willa, I'm going to read you a book." Then she grabbed a book. I couldn't see which one. Then I heard her say, "First, I kiss your toes" and then she bent over and kissed Willa's toes. "Now I kiss your ears" and she walked around to kiss each ear, and then each cheek, and she continued on and on. Willa gave Jia big gummy smiles in return. I don't think I've ever seen anything so touching. (Willa's gummy smiles will soon be toothy ones. She refused to drink another bottle last night and I felt the top of her mouth - another tooth!)

I'm astounded at what a positive change Willa has brought for Jia as well. I was anticipating some regression as far as Jia's attachment to us, but it has been the opposite. Jia had refused to do certain bonding activities with us before, and now that Willa is doing them, Jia wants to as well. As a result, she has become more affectionate with us. We now get many hugs and kisses and hear "I love you" much more often. It's almost like Willa was the key to opening up Jia's ability to love and accept love, what an incredible thing.