The One Place I Call Home

Okay, be sure to scroll below for more pictures--I can only post about 5 at a time so I had to split them.

Well, sorry to leave everyone hanging!! Can I say that 4 kids is a lot of kids??? Maybe you knew that! I can usually get Lilla and Hope Song Yi to stay in their room/our room (we split them for rest time) for about an hour each day. Unfortunately I spend that hour making appointments! I think that will get better as time goes on. Right now I have about 24 minutes until the timer is up so I will be fast!

Things have been going well, definitely a two steps forward, one step back feeling. We have had 2 more of the irrational-I've-lost-my-mind tantrums (not me, Hope) and I have noticed they definitely come late in the day when she is hungry and/or tired. One was when she said she did NOT want a bath, so I said okay, but if you don't come now, no bath. And I know she understood and she said, okay, no bath. Lots of acting and hand motions. Well, right as Lilla's water is draining, here she comes wanting a bath. I felt I had to stick to what I said so I didn't let her take a bath. The next 30 minutes were very pitiful, and included a toothbrush and PJ standoff. I "won"--I decided if I said brush your teeth, it has to happen. I go into like a...well, I would say zen, but I think it is the holy spirit...type place and I just feel like I can wait and wait and wait until we can get through what we need to do. The trouble comes if I need to be somewhere on time! Finally she opened up and I brushed for about 3 seconds just to say I did it. followed by 20 minutes of wailing. But I just held her again like before and she finally calmed down and the sun came out.

It is definitely a battle of wills. Thankfully though she is pretty willing to choose from what we offer and go where we need to go (orange or apple? walk or ride in the stroller? mommy buckles you or Landon? I never thought Love and Logic would come in so handy!!) but it is when she refuses to move or doesn't want what is there and we have to choose for her that we have troubles. She can be STUBBORN and if looks could kill, well, our house would be pretty empty because we have all been on the receiving end of her glares.

BUT she is so loving and open and trusting that we just WANT to help her get through whatever it is. Jake has been awesome and she loves when he lifts her out of the car or helps her do something. And if Landon pulls her hand and says "Let's Go!" she comes. Today we went to the pet store and Jake and Landon had fun showing her all the animals and Landon shared his chicken nuggets with her today when she didn't like what I ordered her. So sweet.

She is speaking English more and more and the hybrids are funny. Yesterday we were doing these little dress up bears and she kept saying "Wo (I) I like it!" and we also hear lots of "Wo yao (I want) go outside!!" Yesterday she said "wo xihuan shee-pool!" And for those who don't speak Hope, that means "*I* like school!" I think she is tired of watching Lilla go to that fun place every day and she has to stay in the car. Lilla's favorite game in the car is to say "Song Yi, say--" and she gets her to repeat word after word, and her sis is a very willing partcipant. They are playing together pretty well, but definitely are like two monkeys at bedtime, keeping each other awake.

So, the doctor...opthomologist Monday. He wasn't really interested in her eye. Well, he checked her "good" eye pretty thoroughly and prescribed glasses to protect her eye. It is very healthy and her vision is good. Great news! I think next month is when we will find out more. We will see an ocularist, which is a very interesting doctor who specializes in treating people who are missing eyes, whether by birth, disease or accident. They are artists as well because they create and hand paint the prosthetic eye. The opthomologist was very hopeful that Hope Song Yi would one day look very balanced, but it will be quite a bit of work and a long journey because she has been so long without an eye that gradually they will need to use expanders to create space in her socket. Also he said her eye opening is quite small on that side and will likely require surgery. She is SUCH a good patient. We were there 2 hours and had to move from room to room for different equipment, eye drops etc and she did great.

In other eye news, lilla went to the optometrist yesterday and we found out she needs glasses. She is near sighted. So both girls picked out frames yesterday and will have their glasses in about 2 weeks. Lilla picked spiffy red frames and Hope picked pink with flowers on the side. they look quite cute!

The pediatrician visit for Hope was uneventful (by the way we are now calling her Hope Song Yi to her face and Hope amongst ourselves)and tomorrow we will get blood work done to check her titers (to see what vaccines she got that actually gave her immunity) and other stuff, including the juvenile arthritis screening (because of her toes). We are supposed to take a stool sample too :-(. When I explained that to her and acted it all out so she would understand (so help me if someone puts me on Candid Camera or something) she was NOT happy about that. We'll see.

Oh, and thankfully, we had no real water damage from the flooding, just water in the crawl space but it seems Mark was able to catch it in time and is airing it out with fans each day. Time's up!!!

Here's a picture of the kids during the storm--they played outside during the worst of it!!


The newest member of our Rock Band...


This girl can have FUN with a box!!


The best surprise yesterday--Jake and Landon cleaned and vacuumed the playroom when I was gone with the girls getting glasses!