The blog lives...

Okay, yes, despite not having posted since forever, we're both alive. Here's my weak excuse for not posting: first computer issues, then just lack of time, followed closely by either laziness or lack of blogging rhythm. So there, done...

This was a big week for Lulu who is now a great big four and a half years old, though her teacher says she's definitely at least 40!

First, on Tuesday, July 24th, the wiggly tooth was finally plucked! Wahooo. It was creeping me out watching that thing bend 90 degrees one way and then the other. We'd been trying for a couple of weeks to pluck it out, but success finally came, as did the tooth fairy the next morning bearing Hello Kitty lip gloss and nail polish and some shiny quarters. Here's the video of the tooth pulling.


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Then, we had the California readopt on Wednesday. It was a pain to gather all that paperwork myself, but $20 to do-it-myself was better than forking out $500 to have my agency do it. It wasn't much of a ceremony, but I signed a final document in the Judge's chambers, took a quick pic and were back off to the routine. I dropped her back off at school and then zipped to work. Later, after swimming lessons, I had promised her dinner at the restaurant of her choice, so unfortunately, we celebrated at McDonald's. Of course, how can you beat a "restaurant" that gives out toys with your meal and has a labyrinth of colorful tubes you can climb and slide through!

On Thursday, Lulu took a leap off the diving board into the 13 foot end of the pool. She's only had about 10 hours of swimming lessons and up until we started about a month ago, she'd been in a real pool only once or twice. (We live where it's too dang cold to swim almost any time of the year.) Lulu is an absolute fish with literally no fear of anything water related! Her teacher calls her his little nuclear reactor. On the first day of class she was the youngest by at least 2.5 years and all the other kids had been swimming for ages. There wasn't a thing that they asked the kids to do that she didn't raise her hand and scream, "I can do it!" And she usually did; though she often sunk after a forward glide or backstroke, but she never panicked. Now, just a few weeks later, she's got the whole blowing bubbles, arm-stroking, side-breathing (sometimes), kick like all hell thing down. I never, ever thought she'd get this far when I enrolled her. I just thought that in preparation for our trip to Hawaii, it might be good for her to have a little bit of confidence in the water. Who knew this little Guilin girl was part fish?



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And hey, this video just cute (I uploaded this accidentally trying to upload the pool one, but since it was uploaded, I thought I'd share.)



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So we are down to the last week of summer here. School starts on August 6th. Lulu's preschool follows the local school schedule, so she'll be moving up to the pre-K class from the preschooler class. She'll be 5 in December, but if she was about 5 days older she'd be starting Kindergarten! Whoa, where did the time go? In any event, I'm glad I don't have to make the decision as to whether or not to send her off to Kindergarten at 4 and a half. But she's probably perfectly ready academically: she's got all the letter sounds down and is figuring out that when those sounds go together she can read words. Nothing earth-shattering, mostly short vowel three-letter words, but for a kiddo who didn't know a word of the English language 18 months ago, a pretty darn amazing feat. She saw Akeelah and the Bee a few weeks ago, and now she wants to spell everything. I find little pieces of scratch paper all over the house with words she's written - even saw one that said COLGATE on it and it was written so neatly I thought I had started a grocery list!

Well, I'm sure you can't tell at all that I love my girl. She's the chattiest, goofiest, giggliest, most sweet, loving, sensitive soul I have ever known. I won the lottery with this little one for sure. I'll try to pull myself away from her more regularly to post to this blog. I'll try...