Magnificent Meredith!

Meredith is No Longer an Only Child!

2010-03-16T21:52:00.004-04:00

We have just welcomed Meredith's little brother, Lucas Simon, to our family! This means it is time to retire our "all about Meredith" blog and move to a more accommodating blog. You can find pictures and updates about both kids on our new blog, "Grace Times Two":

www.gracetimestwo.blogspot.com

To finish up this blog, though, I must post the other promised photos of Meredith's musical talents. Here she is playing the trombone, the instrument that both Rob and I played in our younger days.

and then -- my favorites -- singing into a "microphone" (this time a candle) with her first set of braids. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see your comments on our new blog soon!

Bingo (and other stories)

2010-02-24T14:36:00.004-05:00

Meredith never seemed to get particularly attached to any of her stuffed animals as a baby. I know some kids need a certain doll, toy, or blanket to fall asleep, but not her. Just something - anything- that is fuzzy and she can rub on her face will do.

This has, however, changed very recently. This week Meredith started spending more time carrying around a little stuffed dog that I got her a month or two ago, for 25 cents at the dollar store (yes, I shop the clearance bins at the dollar store). When we first got him, I tried to encourage her to name him, but had no luck. Besides things that already had names (like the ever-present Elmo) she hadn't ever named anything. When she got a baby doll for Christmas and we asked what the baby's name should be, she said "Meredith." Hmm. I tried to get her to call the dog "Husky" (you now know what the dog looks like) but it just didn't happen. He migrated to the bottom of the toy bin with so many other unnamed huggable creatures.

Then a couple of weeks ago I saw that she was playing with the dog. I asked what the dog's name was. She said "Bingo!". Well, isn't that something! She had known the tune to the Bingo song before, but it was always the version from her Christian preschool (which had completely different lyrics, culminating in J-E-S-U-S instead of B-I-N-G-O...or, in her case, "J-E-uh-uh-S"). However, I'd begun to hear her sing what sounded like the traditional version of the song about the dog named Bingo. I don't know where she learned it, but she definitely knew that Bingo was a dog, and apparently he was HER little toy Husky.

Bingo has now been joining us in the car sometimes, in the living room for playing with, at the dinner table occasionally to watch us eat, and in bed. Last night I put her in her bed (yes, bed! what a big girl!) and started to walk out as usual - she burst into tears and I went back over to her to find out what was going on. Through sobs, all she could say was "BINGO!!!". So I went and found him and brought him back. What a lucky little dog he is, to have a little girl love him so much.

In other news, Meredith is mastering all kinds of new songs, like the Zaccheus song and the B-I-B-L-E. I usually sing to her before bed - often a hymn - and she recently wanted a song about airplanes instead. I sang what I could think of...."Leavin' on a Jet Plane". She now LOVES this song and I am asked to sing it every night, and even sometimes before naptime. Thank you, John Denver and Peter, Paul, & Mary. Meredith also loves songs about angels, so if you have any ideas I would love to replace some the angel-related Christmas songs I am still singing in late February at her request.

Meredith also recently did something that seems to be a tradition in my family - she created a name for McDonald's that is not quite right. My brother used to call it "Mickey Donalds" as a kid, and my cousin called it "Uncle Mickey's". Meredith has joined their ranks with a declaration of "Old McDonald's!" whenever we drive past the golden arches. Let me note that I can count on one hand the number of times she has been inside a McDonald's, so for all I know, she is pretty sure that inside there is a cow, and a pig, and a sheep....

We are about 3 weeks away from the birth of the baby we will be adopting from Jacksonville! Watch this blog for details about him (he's a boy!) and for directions to a new yet-to-be-created blog that will chronicle the adventures of our new, larger family. Just as Meredith's role as complete center of attention must change, the blog that carries only her name - magnificent though it is - must also be retired.

Music, part 1

2010-02-09T08:29:00.003-05:00

I have a series of great music-related photos and videos that I will be posting over the next month or two. Meredith is an avid music lover - she danced to "Raising Sand" (album by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant) from infancy, and has always liked drumming and Raffi. We introduced her to the piano early and she loves to play it - both the usual banging and also attempts at more varying tempos and styles with little individual fingers moving with some degree of intention.

Today I have two photos and a video for you.

The first photo is Meredith's earliest exposure to trying out a real guitar. Our then-housemate Chris was letting her play, and she loved it!

The second photo demonstrates that Meredith can turn absolutely anything into a microphone if it is of even remotely-similar shape (at our house this has include wooden sticks of all sizes, candles, etc.). This photo may be her most creative - it is the handle of an old victrola (antique wind-up record player). The "microphone" was barely accessible but she just couldn't help herself -- she had to get in there and sing for us.

Finally, the video below shows a remarkable discovery Meredith made - that she can play the violin! She had seen violins before (I guess the music teacher at her preschool plays one) and she started "bowing" with a stick on Rob's arm one day. He showed her how to bow on her own arm, and a star was born. The video is sort of long, but you get a lot of violin and singing action so I hope you'll enjoy it!

Family update & prayer requests

2010-01-26T13:56:00.004-05:00

Many people have been asking us lately about the adoption plan we posted about back in September. I now realize I have not kept people updated as I should. So here's the news: our adoption plan is still in place, and our baby is due in 2 months! We are starting to freak out a little bit, but we know we have many people to help us make this dramatic transition.

However, I do want to ask for your prayers, because this last week we learned that our baby's birthmother is dealing with some pregnancy-related health issues, including high blood pressure and gestational diabetes. The baby is doing fine though. Our attorney says the birthmother is in good spirits, but of course we feel bad for her having to go through this. We did not end up going to a doctor visit with her yet, but are planning to meet her and her husband for lunch this coming Saturday, just to touch base and get a chance to see them again in person (which we haven't done since we met them in September). I'm really looking forward to it, and I think it will help me kick it into high gear when I get home -- somehow I imagine it will be a great reality check to see her at this stage in the pregnancy.

Speaking of kicking it into high gear, this is also what needs to be done with my research projects at work. I have been realizing over the past few months that very few people are aware of the career path of an academic, or my location on that path....so I thought I'd summarize for you. The job I have is on the "tenure track," which means that I am on a path with the potential to lead to tenure. Having tenure is basically very strong job security, so of course I would like to get it. The tenure track is typically 7 years at UF, at which point one is evaluated for his or her excellence in teaching, serving the university, and advancing knowledge in their field of expertise through publications (with emphasis on that last one). Along with most universities, UF allows an extra year if a child arrives while someone is on the tenure track, so I got an extra year added on. This means I will turn in my packet of materials -- sort of an "application" for tenure -- in August 2011. While this is 18 months away, it is right around the corner in terms of publication, because the time that elapses between submitting an article to a journal for the first time and ultimately publishing it (often at a different journal, after several rounds of rejections and revisions) can easily take this long. I need to send out all of the articles I am working on very, very soon if they are to be part of my record when I am being evaluated. If I do not pass the tenure evaluation, I will have a year to find another job. Obviously, this isn't ideal.

Let me make a note about this - people outside an academic environment are often horrified to hear that I could be fired if I don't have enough publications. I want to put in my two cents here...I actually think it is a reasonably fair system. It gives me strong incentives to work hard while living out my dream job. I am paid to both teach and do relevant, important research that is valuable to society and brings recognition to the university as a place that promotes scholarship. In principle, it's a fair system. The downside is that there is always some risk that publication takes an extra-long time due to circumstances beyond my control, such as having an article sit for 13 months at a journal only to be rejected, or revising something according to an editor's instructions but then finding he is no longer interested in publishing it. This happens, and it does not seem fair. But seemingly random things also work in my favor sometimes, and so I am trying to keep a positive perspective. In all of this, God is going to accomplish his will.

So there are two big prayer requests:
* for the health of our baby and birthmother
* for my diligence in getting some more of my nearly-finished articles out the door to journals before the baby arrives and life gets crazy again

Thanks to all you pray-ers out there :)

Is this a conversation?

2010-01-19T13:56:00.004-05:00

Just a short one today, to let you in on a funny conversation I had with Meredith. The background info that you need to know is that we all went to visit Oma and Opa, and Grandma and Grandpa, in November/December, and that I went to Atlanta by myself the first weekend of January for a conference.

This conversation happened just a few days ago:

Meredith: Mommy go Atlanta, come back!

Me: Yeah, I did! And I came back!

Meredith: Meredith go on a airplane!

Me: Yes you did. Where did you go?

Meredith: Close the window!

Me: Yes, you sat by the window didn't you? (she liked opening/closing the shade)

Meredith: Yeah!

Me: Who did you go to see?

Meredith: (nothing)

Me: Who did you go to see? Who was waiting for us?

Meredith: Waiting for us...the FROGGIES!

Me: What? There were froggies waiting for us?

Meredith: No! (said in a tone of "come on, Mom, that would be silly"). Waiting for us....ABCs!

Then I realized: you just can't assume a 2-year-old is in the same conversation you are.

A few holiday pics...

2010-01-11T22:31:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the long delay. We had a great time during the holidays, with travel to MN for Thanksgiving and Ontario for Sinter Klaas (which is early-mid December; it's the Dutch "St. Nicholas" day celebrated by Rob's extended family). Then, for our first time in 9.5 years of married life, Rob and I enjoyed Christmas in our own home! It was so glorious to be at our own church for Christmas Eve service! My parents and brother came to visit over Christmas and we had a tremendous time.

I am going to post just a few holiday pictures. We left our camera in MN at Thanksgiving and got it back after Sinter Klaas, so we may get some photos from others later on to post (hint, hint, Beth!). Also, in the next week or two I've got both a video and another set of photos getting ready to go. So enjoy this little taste for now!

Here's Meredith dressed up for her preschool's "Thanksgiving feast." She loved the hat.

This is a great picture to illustrate one of Meredith's greatest passions: airplanes. We were on our way to visit grandparents and Meredith was walking around the airport with her little backpack, finding places to look out the window.

Christmas Eve! This is the cutest little dress ever (if I do say so myself), worn by the cutest little girl ever! She has gotten very good at "posing"...many of her camera-aimed smiles are now a little extra-smiley like this one.

An adorable giggling girl...

Hope your holidays were as great as ours! I'll update again soon!

Life with Meredith

2009-11-06T07:52:00.003-05:00

Every so often, I like to blog about a bunch of little things that make life with Meredith so fun, interesting, puzzling, and hilarious. So here are a few tidbits....

* SHAPES *
We have been working on teaching Meredith her shapes. As you know, she knows octagon ("ah-gun"), but there are some others she loves too: diamond, heart, and oval. When she sees these shapes anywhere, in any context, she tells us. There are a few shapes she has yet to mention: square, circle, and triangle. Our daughter is apparently a connoisseur of obscure shapes.

* COLORS *
We did not have much luck for quite a while with colors. Meredith didn't seem to care about it, or maybe just didn't understand the concept. Once she started to understand what we were fishing for, she started to oblige us with a reply when we asked what color something was, but would always just name some random color (she must be thinking "I know they want something from that list"). She has now progressed to the point of non-random replies -- instead, the answer is always "blue"!

* HER NAME *
We know we gave our daughter a killer of name to pronounce, so we felt fine when she answered the question "What's your name" with "ME!". Hey, the first two letters is better than nothing! But over the last month she has moved from Mayith, to Maydith, to something with a slight middle syllable...Mayadith. Very impressive!

* SPECIAL WORDS *
There is a little Canadian flag Meredith likes to play with, and she also notices flags everywhere. Seemingly unrelatedly, she also loves frogs. And she eats with a fork. What these things have in common (flag, frog, fork) is that when a child pronounces g as "k" and doesn't get the subtleties of "l" and "r", and isn't too particular about vowel sounds, they all sounded like the same special word. I'm happy to say that the pronunciation is moving up, for instance with "frog" now more like "fwok" (and often "fwokkie"). She has gotten the "g" at the end of flag, and perfected the vowel, but still no "l"....I guess that's an improvement?!

*FOOD *
It is probably in the course of eating that I most often think to myself, "Yep, she is adopted." Although Meredith does like (and say quite well) cake, chocolate, candy, and pie, these are not her very favorite foods. Her favorite foods -- the ones we bribe her with to get her to eat her meat or other main dish -- are: peas, carrots, lettuce (yes, lettuce, no dressing), green beans, broccoli, cucumbers, corn, raw onions (yes, raw), grapes, and mandarin oranges. The "will not eat" list is short, but includes mashed potatoes. WHAT?!?!? She is truly a mystery. I like mashed potatoes so much that I said so in my sleep once (just ask Rob).

* THE STRAY "F" *
For whatever reason, when Meredith started pronouncing words ending in "p" she liked to turn it into a "pf". At least a few of these are still lingering...when she hears an alarm clock, she says "beepf!", when she wants a sip of our drink she says "popf!", and when she wants her favorite fresh fruit she says "grapef!".

* BOOTS *
Someone from church passed down some amazing fashion-statement boots that Meredith enjoys. I have a pair of boots as well, and when I put them on yesterday, Meredith looked at her own sneakered feet and said "Off! Mayadith! Boots!" so we had to go put them on. I'll be sure to take a pic next time she wears them.

Well, I could write more but I'm out of time....so until later, thanks for reading.

Costumes!

2009-10-30T14:38:00.004-04:00

You may remember Meredith's cow costume from last year. Since I can't resist, here's a reminder of how cute (and little!) she was last year at this time:

Every so often she sees that cow costume in her closet and wants to put it on. It doesn't fit quite as well now...

What should Meredith be this year? Well, we got a package in the mail from my parents about a month ago with two costumes they had picked up at garage sales, in case they might fit Meredith. They are both adorable!

It is roasting down here in Florida, so the costumes are a little hot, but we're continuing to hope for a cool evening tomorrow as we take Meredith for her first brief trick-or-treating outing. Not sure which one she'll wear yet, though the Froggie is my favorite!

an addendum to the "Stop" entry

2009-10-07T15:08:00.002-04:00

I learned today from Meredith's teacher that they had NOT discussed that the stop sign was the shape of an octagon at school (she figured it was too advanced for these little guys). That means that Meredith either learned it from a puzzle she has with different shapes that we have done with her, OR more likely, from watching this clip with me probably 3-4 times because I LOVE it so much....

"Stop!"

2009-10-06T14:42:00.002-04:00

This week is "safety awareness" week at Meredith's preschool. She came home yesterday with a sticker on her shirt shaped like a little silver sheriff's badge that said "Seat Belt Patrol", along with something she painted that had a picture of a policeman and said "Obey the Law!". But most importantly, she brought home an "ah-gun".

Come again?

You know, an "ah-gun." She eagerly pointed to a little red stop sign that she made out of construction paper (with sparkles around the edge), mounted on a paper towel roll, and repeated it: "ah-gun".

I asked "What do you want to do again?" -- though she usually says "a-gin" for "again" I thought maybe I just heard her wrong. We had been playing some games with the sign, so maybe she wanted to do something again? The "stop" and "go" game had been legitimately fun, I have to admit....she would hold up the sign and yell " 'TOP! " and we'd have to stop until she said "Go!" again. But we weren't playing a game right then, so something wasn't right.

"Ah-gun" -- her little hand pointed at the stop sign.

I tried my usual maneuvering...."Yeah, that's a stop sign. What does it say? S - T - O - P. Stop! Is that a stop sign?"

"Ah-gun."

Then, once again, Mommy came through for the win.....

"Are you saying that it is an OCTAGON?"

"YEAH!! Ah-gun!!!"

We have a child genius on our hands, folks. Luckily, when she woke up this morning and the first word out of her mouth was "ah-gun" we knew what she wanted.

Exciting news!

2009-10-01T23:42:00.002-04:00

We have some exciting news that we want to shout from the mountaintops, but for now, to speed things up, a blog post will have to do!

Over the last year or so, we have been looking into our options for adopting a second child, this time adopting an infant domestically. We have had an application registered with an adoption agency since January and have also been connected with an attorney who specializes in adoption cases. The attorney provides case-by-case information to a large pool of potential adoptive parents (via email) each time he has a new case in which a pregnant woman would like to make an adoption plan. We have applied for cases with him in the past (even before we got Meredith) but obviously nothing ever came of it.

So I'll cut to the chase. Last Thursday we sent an application for a new case. This Monday, the attorney called us to say we were the top choice of the couple who want to place their child. Yesterday (two days later) we had the opportunity to meet with the birthparents to make sure that they were comfortable with choosing us, and that we were comfortable moving forward with an adoption plan. Praise God, we had a really good meeting with them and all four of us left with confidence that this was going to work out really well. Which means.....

*** We would like to announce the anticipated arrival of a new baby into our family, coming in late March 2010!! ***

That's the important part of this post! You can stop reading now if you're busy, or if you're satisfied with that info and not desperate for details. Now if you've got some time on your hands to read more details, we know people have lots of questions for us so we're trying to give you some info to go on.

MORE DETAILS.....

Below is some information, and you can feel free to ask us other questions too, though sometimes the answers will be things that we can't or won't share. Our philosophy is that our child should be the first to get (and choose whether to share) substantial information about his/her birth parents and their situation, so (as with Meredith) we are respecting both the parents' privacy and our child's life story by limiting the info we share with everyone else.

That said, here are some things you might be interested in:

BACKGROUND OF THE BABY

A few facts:

* due date is estimated at March 25, 2010
* the baby will be almost 3 years younger than Meredith (who'll turn 3 in June)
* the birth will be in Jacksonville, Florida (about 90 minutes from us); we will bring him or her home from the hospital
* the birthmother is in her late 30s, and has given birth before (full-term, healthy birthweight)
* both birthparents have provided detailed background info and family medical history for us and our child to have access to
* as of now, we are all planning to be surprised about the gender of the baby at the birth!

We are so thankful that we will be able to tell this child several things about both of his/her birthparents. We will be able to tell him or her that even though they were at a rough place in life, they were loving and committed to each other (they are in fact married - unusual but not unheard of for people placing a child). We will be able to tell him or her that they made an adoption plan early in the pregnancy because they were sure that this would be the best way for their child to have his/her needs met in a healthy family setting, and they wanted that family to be involved right away. We will be able to say that they chose us among several other families, based on a questionnaire about our family and our values, and that they were excited that this child would have a big sister! We will be able to tell our child what their birthparents look like, what they like to do, and a bit of what their personalities are like. It is such a special gift to say we will be able to tell our child about both birthmother and birthfather - this is often rare in adoption situations. Someday, we will be able to tell our child a bit about the situation their birthparents were in at the time of placement, and why it made sense for them to choose adoption. (If you are wondering this too, you'll need to trust that there are good reasons for us to choose gracious understanding over judgement and skepticism for these people, whom we have already come to love and respect.)

THE PROCESS BEFORE THE BIRTH

We will have contact with the birthparents through the attorney's office, and I will likely have the opportunity to join the birthmother on a couple of her routine doctor visits, hopefully when there is an ultrasound. I was afraid she'd feel awkward, or like I was "checking up" on her if I came along, but she helped me get more excited about this because she wants me to get a chance to experience news about the baby in real time, alongside her. She is a really sweet and thoughtful person; though in many ways she's very practical and stoic (and I can relate to that), I could recognize how she was starting to get excited for me as a first-timer in this stuff. It makes such a difference to think that we could enjoy these appointments together, so I am now looking forward to them! Right now we don't anticipate any other meetings, until we're all there at the hospital in late March (where I may be in the room for the birth....that's still to be determined. Those who know my reaction to even a commercial for any medical drama on TV know why I'm nervous!).

Other than doctor visits and the birth, the attorney handles the day-to-day issues of making sure the birthmother has what she needs during these next 6 months, which will include both physical needs and opportunities to be counseled through the process and make sure it is a healthy adoption for her. The attorney will communicate with us regarding any updates. His reputation is particularly strong for treating birthmothers well, which we think is incredibly important. This reputation was confirmed with the director of the crisis pregnancy center that has been involved in the case so far (she also attended our meeting yesterday, which was at the center) -- she specifically said that she likes it when women choose to work with this attorney because he really recognizes and appreciates their situations and makes sure they are never taken advantage of. With the horror stories out there of women who feel their babies were taken from them by pressure from attorneys, agencies, or crisis pregnancy centers, this healthy situation we are in is something we value very highly.

COMMITMENT/FINALIZATION ISSUES

The way that the adoption process works in Florida, the birthmother cannot legally consent to our adoption until after the baby is born (the paperwork is generally signed at the hospital a day or two after birth, but then is legally binding at that point unless she could prove fraud or duress). In other words, we are part of an adoption plan right now that we have every reason to expect will move to completion, but it is legally possible for the mother to change her mind at any time. We think it's fair and just for her to maintain that right, but she has also made clear that she has absolutely no intention of exercising it. The support of her husband and extended family helps solidify this plan.

There are two ways we could proceed from here.

We could be cautious, recognize the worst-case-scenario, and not really plan for the baby to be ours until he or she is in our arms in late March. This in some ways feels like a natural, protective response to the risk we are taking. It creates at least an illusion that we wouldn't be so heartbroken if it didn't work out, since we weren't "setting ourselves up" for it.

But we have decided not to take that approach. Between the judgement of the attorney (who has lots of experience, as well as being a Christian and an adoptive parent himself) and our own judgement in terms of meeting with the birthparents yesterday, the odds of a failed adoption look low. I liken it to the risks of things like health problems or even miscarriage: they are always a risk, but you cannot live in the shadow of what might happen...you plan for a healthy baby and then change course if you have to, with God's strength. Similarly, we are planning for this baby to be ours, and if the unthinkable happens and he or she does not become ours, we will surely be heartbroken and depend on God to sustain through that difficult time. But we are not going to live in anxiety for the next six months anticipating this -- instead, we are going to plan for things to move ahead as anticipated. If you find it hard not to worry on our behalf, we'd love for you to pray instead!

LIFE WITH BABY

It is gonna be a wild ride - but probably not the adoption part, just the baby part (ack! a newborn! exciting but terrifying!). But as far as the adoption goes....after the child is placed with us (at the hospital) the adoption goes through various legal finalization processes over the following months that should be straightforward. Our ongoing agreement with the birthparents is to provide quarterly updates/photos for them to enjoy, for as long as they would like to receive them. Having met some birthmothers before (via a really interesting meeting organized by our adoptive families support group) we know that these can provide just the assurance that is needed that their child is thriving and safe in the world. I believe these will be sent through the attorney's office. It seems like this is becoming a sort of standard plan for a "semi-open" adoption. A more open arrangement would involve continuing in-person contact, while a confidential arrangement would break all ties completely. The nature of our agreement in this area is not in terms of a legal obligation, but rather one in which we will be committed to whatever agreement we make on a personal level. These birthparents are entrusting us with their precious child, and we will honor any and every promise we make to them.

Finally, most importantly, you probably want to know what Meredith thinks about all of this (this is her blog after all). The question, "Would you like us to have a baby come and live in our house?", was met with a matter-of-fact, "No."

Oh well! We've got 6 months to convince her, and if she's not convinced, she will just be stuck!

We are so grateful for all of you. Thanks for reading, and for your support and prayers in the coming months.

The croooose!

2009-09-21T12:27:00.011-04:00

For my Dad's 60th birthday (which is actually next week) we surprised him with his favorite kind of vacation - a cruise! We'd gone on a cruise together once before and had a great time. Mom successfully kept the secret from him for months! He thought they were just coming down to visit. We also invited Rob's parents, who came with us on the other cruise, and they gladly accepted -- and so they surprised BOTH my parents by their arrival at the airport at the same time! So the 7 of us headed off for 4 days together on a big ship headed to the Bahamas :)

There are tons of pictures from the trip, so I'll just post a bunch here with some short headings.

The airport!

The ship: Carnival Sensation

This is our first meal after boarding the ship (lunch). We ate our lunches in this cafeteria-style area and then had nice fancy dinners every evening.

We got off to a good start on the first day of the cruise, as I won a little Carnival medallion and an art print (which I don't really like, but oh well). It was a trivia question: What language failed by ONE vote to become the national language of the U.S. ? Well, I don't know if it was Frau Hewitt who taught me this or someone else, but I was pretty sure it was German. Two other people jumped in ahead of me, but both of them were wrong. The first one was amazing....the (British) emcee of the trivia game repeated the question to her and she said "Britain...I mean like British, whatever they speak there...." It was like watching Jay Leno go Jaywalking in real life. So he explained to her that the language he was currently speaking was in fact English. The second lady guessed French. So I got the prize! Very exciting, eh?

Here is a nice photo that Rob's dad took of sunrise on the first day of the trip:

Enjoying Freeport -- several of us got off the ship and headed to the beach. Beautiful!

Back on the ship, we were always greeted with a new towel animal when we returned to our room. This day it was a walrus - the room steward had even put Rob's sunglasses on it.

Formal dinner night was the perfect night to have them bring my Dad a little birthday cake!

Thanks to our waiter, Pablo, for taking this shot for us.

Meredith was amazingly well-behaved at our sit-down dinners.

Here comes her lovely meal! (There was a lot more on another plate, as well as some fruit, but we were trying to keep it manageable to get started.)

Later in the evening on formal night, Dad and I sang in the Karaoke lounge. Ok, fine, so we sang EVERY night in the Karaoke lounge. But we looked the coolest on formal night :) Dad became a minor celebrity, with his own groups of fans who would recognize him during the day on the ship!

Here is a view of Nassau from the ship. We didn't spend much time on land because it was very hot and humid.

We discovered one great thing about being docked at a destination: many people from the ship are gone, leaving us with the full run of the place! The ship had a splash park, waterslides, and a mini golf course on the very top. It was perfect for our little girl!

The grown-ups tried out the waterslides too! Here are Rob's parents.

We went mini-golfing twice (in case you notice Meredith switching outfits...).

When she got close to the hole, Meredith decided it was most efficient to just pick up the ball and put it in.

The last dinner -- Meredith went all out, with a patch that matched her outfit! Everyone oohed and aahed over her as we walked by. The waiters had made her a little boot out of a napkin, which we used to bring one of her cookies back to our room after dinner.

Here's what Meredith sometimes does now when you ask her to smile. Apparently, from this picture, she learned it from me.

We had such a special and memorable time with our family. It's not the kind of thing we can do often, but we hope we'll have another chance someday to cruise again with everyone.

That pesky "R"

2009-09-04T08:46:00.002-04:00

A couple of fun stories....

Meredith has always been a fan of picking up little rocks out of our landscaping. Quite a while ago, when she was just starting to walk on her own, we would go outside for a walk and she would pick up a rock and carry it in one hand for the whole walk (while she held my hand with her other one). A couple months ago she started saying the word "walk," which was really helpful if I was carrying her around somewhere and she wanted to get down and walk. She said "walk" yesterday when we were coming back inside after being in the car. Seemed like a strange time to say she wanted to walk (she was already walking)....then I turned around and watched her pick up two rocks from the landscaping. Then she looked at me and said "Walk." Aha...she was not saying walk. She was saying "rock." They just sound identical :)

Yesterday we were at Walgreens and Meredith was pointing out a bunch of helium balloons to me. Usually she would say "boomboom" -- that's always been her word for "balloon." Yesterday, she was pointing and saying "hot." I mentioned in an earlier post that she knows the meaning of the word "hot." Knowing this, I tried to figure out what was "hot" about the balloons. We had never talked about hot air balloons, so that wasn't it. So we had the usual type of conversation:

Meredith: "Hot!"
Mommy: "Do you see balloons?"
Meredith: "Hot!"
Mommy: "Honey, what is hot? I see balloons. Do you see balloons?"
Meredith: "Hot!"

At this point Meredith was pointing to a specific balloon. I looked up at it. Did it have a picture of a fire or a sun on it? Was there something that reminded her of heat? No. It was a heart-shaped balloon. Heart. Take out the "R" and you've got something like "hot"! So I said "Oh! Is that balloon shaped like a heart?" This was, as usual, followed by the excited happy sound of a little girl who had once again, with great persistence, made herself understood. What a trooper.

Cookies

2009-09-01T16:54:00.003-04:00

Today Meredith was having a snack - a little bowl of crackers - and some milk. I remembered that we had some cookies on the counter that needed to get eaten up, and I figured I'd give her a treat.

Me: "Do you want a cookie?"
Meredith: "Cooo-kie!" (and a big nod)

So I got her a cookie and we sat here eating our cookies together (you figured that I got one too, right?). I asked her to take some drinks of milk, which she did sometimes (other times, it was the polite "no"). At one point, she grabbed one of her crackers with her free hand and put it in her mouth. I think she must have just been spacing out and forgetting there was a cookie in one hand already....the reason I think this is that she put the cracker in her mouth and then immediately removed it and handed it to me, still whole. Apparently when you pit crackers against cookies, crackers do not win. Well, who didn't know that? But it's good to know she figured it out too.

After the cracker mistake, she pointed to the bowl of crackers....

Meredith: "Coooo-kie!"
Me: "You have a cookie in your hand. Those are crackers."
Meredith: (continuing to point at the bowl) "Cooo-kie!"
Me: "Cracker"
Meredith: (pointing inside the bowl) "Coooo-kie".

Would you believe it? I had served her crackers in a Sesame Street bowl that had Cookie Monster on the bottom of it (you can only see him when you are running low on food in it). When I realized this I said "Oh! Cookie MONSTER!". She made a very happy sound indicating that I had finally understood what she was telling me, and then kissed Cookie Monster through the remaining crackers.

Those crackers are still there, but the cookie....well, that's long gone.

That Hair

2009-08-22T11:00:00.006-04:00

Although Meredith's glasses are always the first thing mentioned by anyone commenting on her exceptional cuteness, her hair is a close second. I remember thinking that Meredith had a decent amount of hair when we got her....here's what it looked like:

Since we came home just over a year ago, her hair has developed a life of its own. Luckily, it is quite fun to try to tame it (though our babysitter Jenee is better at it than I am). Here's a recent photo that shows Meredith's hair in its natural state. (We have only ever cut her bangs.)

And here are some of her many amazing styles! Please note that no styling products have been used, so the wildness and curls are all her own!

1) The Classic Single Pony

This sometimes goes on the side (as below) and sometimes in the middle. It often depends on how much Meredith wiggles as I try to get it centered. (Note that the thing on the right side is something in the background - she doesn't have a spike coming out of her head!)

2) The Post-Pony "Big Hair" Look

Yep, it's a lot of hair.

3) The Double Pony

Only Jenee has ever succeeded at this masterpiece. The most I've done is a little one on each side, with the back part still down.

4) The Multi-Pony Extravaganza

I was quite excited to pull this one off. By the end of the day it starts falling apart, but it looks adorable while it's in!

5) The Post-Sweaty-Nap Curly Head

When Meredith's hair is dry, she has some wispy curls at the back. When it is wet....

I hope Meredith will love growing up with such a wonderful head of hair!

The Miracle of Communication

2009-08-14T10:26:00.003-04:00

It is fascinating to begin to know what Meredith is thinking about. She has over 50 understandable words now and seems to know what most of them mean even in different contexts.

For instance, we taught her that the oven is "hot" and the car is "hot" (always dangerous to touch the outside of the car here during a FL summer!). The other day I warmed up some food for her, and when she touched it she said "hot." What a delight to realize that she knows what the word actually means!

I like to think Meredith spoke her first sentence yesterday, though Rob says it doesn't quite count. What do you think? Here's the scenario:

***

We were sitting in the dining room for breakfast, where Meredith's high-chair faces the window, which has blinds. She often likes to look at vehicles going by in the mornings.

Meredith: "Oh-bul!"
(this, of course, means "open".....she says "apple" very similarly but the context usually helps us know which one she's talking about!)

Mommy: "What do you want opened?"

Meredith: "Window!"
(pronunciation clear as day, taught by her Oma a couple weeks ago)

***

So I say - it had a verb and a noun, so it's a sentence, albeit with a Mommy interruption :)

Meredith's most commonly used word, like many other children, seems to be "no." However, it is only sometimes a whiny or obstinate "no"....it's more often very matter-of-fact:
Do you want more chicken? "No".
Do you want more noodles? "No".
Do you want a drink? "No".
Do you want some fruit? "Mmmmm!!!!"
Can you say 'yeah'? "Yeah!".

Until she has a clear "s" sound, we are going with "yeah" or a nod or "OK", which she is beginning to use without prompting. What a big girl!

better late than never - Easter pics!

2009-08-05T10:16:00.009-04:00

I had promised long ago to post Easter pictures. I am finally organized enough to do it!

Most of these are from our church's Easter Egg Hunt on the Saturday before Easter. At the end I'll post her photos on actual Easter in her Easter dress :)

We were very blessed that the church decided to divide the Easter Egg Hunt into three age groups this year instead of just two, so Meredith's age group (I think it was 0-2!) had an area of the grass that was covered with eggs in the wide open so everyone would find some :) Here she is, hard at work!

I should explain why she has an Easter bag instead of a basket. She actually does own an Easter basket. I got it at an after-Easter sale in spring 2006 (yes, 2006) because we thought we'd be traveling that summer for the adoption. Little did we know we'd have to wait for two more years! I was so excited to finally be using that Easter basket this year. So why doesn't she have it? Well, between getting the diaper bag packed up and figuring out how we could help out at the event itself, it was forgotten! Just goes to show that the child is more important than the stuff :) Fortunately, we had her personalized toy bag with us (thanks to the Rushes for that!) so we emptied it out and used it for eggs. Worked great!

Here's Meredith with her little friend Lily. They have been hanging out together a few times a week for quite a while now -- her family is in our small group Bible study, and Meredith and Lily play together there as well as at church and music class. They are just getting to the point of playing together rather than alongside each other - it is SO cute!

You may recall that Meredith was the big winner at the Fall Festival Diaper Derby last October. Well, her winning streak came to a screeching halt at the Easter Egg Hunt's "Egg on the Spoon" race. But she was so cute...totally understood what she was supposed to do and gave it a good effort!

The starting line...

Look at that speed! Well, OK, it was just the wind blowing....but so far, so good!

Looking good....er....wait. Where's the egg?

A careful Meredith looks for the egg.

Back in business! Although notice that the other kids are already done with the race and moving on....
(The careful observer will notice that the egg appeared to move - that's because I "spliced" together footage from two rounds of races -- the first one involved a failure of some kids to follow directions related to holding the egg with their free hand! Both rounds went about the same way for little Meredith though).

It was certainly a fun day and we look forward to next year!

Meredith wore a beautiful dress for Easter (thanks to the Omlis!) and even willingly kept her hat on for quite a while. What a cutie!

In Sunday School that week, Meredith learned that Jesus is alive. Amen to that! He is alive and has certainly been blessing us!

Naptime

2009-07-21T15:32:00.002-04:00

Today, Meredith fell asleep in the car on the way home from a lunch date with me and a friend. When I put her into bed she woke up a little, but I figured she'd fall right back asleep. Here's what I heard - intermittently - over the next hour (all in a perfectly content voice, with no crying):

"O-K, O-K, O-K" (somehow she makes "okay" sound like two words)
"Butay,butay, butay" (we've never figured out what this means, she's said it for months)
"Wunday, wunday, wunday"
"Yuck, yuck, yuck"

This was followed up with some motorboats, and then...finally....sleep. What a funny girl.

Cheerios!

2009-07-03T11:13:00.002-04:00

Look how far we've come with the eating! Meredith now eats her own bowl of cereal for breakfast. It is so nice for us to watch her eat instead of feeding her!

Happy Adoption Day, Meredith!

2009-06-23T23:56:00.009-04:00

June 24 is another special day we celebrate right on the heels of Meredith's birthday - it's her Adoption Day!

While we aren't doing gifts (given the proximity with her birthday, it would probably be overload), we are going to celebrate with a cake! We'll also enjoy looking at some photos and some special souvenirs we brought back to remind us of Russia. Most importantly, we will praise God for bringing Meredith into our family.

In case you haven't seen pictures, here are a few special ones from June 24, 2008, when we picked up Meredith at the baby home.

And here is Meredith now!

What a big girl! And what a blessing. We love you, Meredith.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Meredith!

2009-06-16T23:34:00.005-04:00

Today is Meredith's birthday! Although she and I didn't get to spend much of the day together (she traveled home with Rob while I stayed here in Wisconsin for a conference), I got to sing "Happy Birthday" to her this morning. It was really special to have our first birthday together with her.

Last year on this day, we were in the middle of the 10-day waiting period between going to court for her and getting custody, so we weren't with her.

The year before that was the actual day of her birth. It is hard to think about that, because she was in such rough shape, born 3 months early and weighing under 2 pounds. I wish we could have been there for our little girl. It makes me a little choked up sometimes to think of her in that hospital alone. But we know she was not alone. God was watching over her even then, and it is humbling to know He had her in the palm of His hand even when we didn't yet know she had been born.

But enough reflecting. This year we finally got to join the party to celebrate Meredith in person!!! We had a birthday celebration with my parents on Saturday. I'll post more when I have a chance, but here are a few highlights.

Among other gifts, a friend of mine offered her old cell phone when I told her how Meredith likes to push the buttons on mine (potentially causing trouble). We wrapped it up for Meredith to open as a birthday present. She knew what to do right away!

I am praising God today for our little girl.

Join me!

Wun-day

2009-05-28T22:32:00.004-04:00

I thought I'd tell you a little about what Meredith's communicating these days.

First, her words:

duck (guh) -- also applies to other birds, including Big Bird
balloon (boomboom)
mama (mama)
daddy (dadday)
moon (moo)
button (bud'n)
frisbee (bee)
squirrel (gwuh)
stroller (diddle diddle) -- yeah, we don't know why either
ball (bah)
baby (baby)
boat (buh)
want (wun)
gwun (meaning currently unknown!)

Then, her animal noises (which are sort of operating as animal names for her!):

owl (hoo)
cow (moo -- yes, she finally uses an "m"!)
horse (neighing sound)
monkey (oo)
dog (bowwow)
frog (bowwow -- despite our demonstrations of "ribbit")
sheep (same as horse)
lion (roaring sound)
pig (very realistic snorting sound - no "oink" for her)

She also uses some baby signs - she seems very adept at them, so if we had used them more maybe she would know more of them...

want
please
thank you
all done
eat
more
book
ball
help
no (shakes her head)

She stood in front of the fridge yesterday signing "want" "more" and when we opened it for her she immediately reached for her sippy cup and took a drink! So cute!

Meredith has also impressed us greatly with her ability to recognize letters of the alphabet. Well, 2 of them. Maybe 3. But it is so cool! She will point to a letter "O" and say "Oh" or "Ooh", and her letter B is as clear as day. We're still working on A. Not pressing her obviously, but it is fun to help her learn something new and then have her point to it in her books.

Finally, the subject of this post is her latest repeated word: "wun-day". She has been saying it over and over again for the last two days. I may have solved the mystery when I realized that one of her current favorite books begins: "One day Danny went to the museum." Could she really be repeating the first two words of the book? I guess we'll never know.

When you let a toddler try your drink...

2009-05-05T15:46:00.003-04:00

I know one should never give a little kid alcohol. And I know caffeine isn't good for them either. But I figured it couldn't hurt to give Meredith just a little sip of a Frappuccino (frozen coffee/milk/sugar) - she would no doubt think coffee was disgusting, as I did from childhood all the way through college. So I gave her a sip.

Well, here's the verdict. (This video was taken earlier this year.)

The Beach!

2009-04-14T14:44:00.008-04:00

Although I have been to see the beach, and occasionally swim in it, I had never been on a "beach vacation." However, when friends of ours invited us to join them in a big house on the beach with 2 other couples for a week, we decided to go for it! We couldn't actually do the whole week, but we enjoyed our Wednesday-Sunday immensely and can't wait to go back. We drove up to the panhandle and got beautiful weather at our house right on the Gulf.

Here are a whole bunch of photos to give you an idea of what a good time we had!

But first, here was Meredith's response to my attempt to pack her suitcase for the trip.

I actually couldn't get her to stay out of it so I waited for Rob to get home in order to have a chance to throw her clothes in!

The first morning we were there, Meredith got to see the ocean for the first time! It was windy but beautiful.

A happy girl with her daddy!
Walking toward the water...
...making the cutest footprints! (If you click on the photo you can see her Canada sweatshirt, pony tail, and little pink shorts close up! So cute!)

There's the water - wow!

Checking out the sand with Mommy.

Ready to try the water with Daddy? This series of photos gives you the idea...

...ummm.....
...c'mon honey, it's ok....
....NO !!!!
Ah, safe once more!
The next day Meredith played with her "bee" in the sand. We forgot to buy her some buckets and shovels, but she didn't notice :)
We played on the beach again the next day with a different swimsuit! (Let's be clear, though, there was no interest in swimming....)

Meredith was doing the actions for her favorite song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". The photo below is "how I wonder what you are". Notice that she has a patch on her eye - we are doing this for 2 hours a day to help work on the strength of her weaker (right) eye. They make very cute patches these days, with girly themes, and they work just like bandaids. She's been very cooperative.

..."like a diamond in the sky" (well, a u-shape...)
Here's the gorgeous view from our back deck. I originally thought it wouldn't make much difference if we were right on the beach or a block or two away, but this convinced me that it's worth staying RIGHT there. We could sit on the deck and see dolphins' fins come up when they were swimming around out there. It was amazing!

Here's Meredith wandering around on one side of the deck (yes, all of the posts were checked for stability - Lindsay did it before I even got there!).

The other side of the deck had tables and we ate all of our meals out there. I didn't think to take a picture until the last day so we're missing one couple who had already left (sorry Kevin and Christina!). It is hard to describe my joy in eating so much food cooked by other people :)

Meredith enjoyed her new friend Eli!

This picture looks like something that would be in an alumni newsletter where some old roommates all got together after having babies around the same time. Well, we've never been roommates - actually all of us were already married when we met each other - but we all became moms within the last year and are having a great time!

Here's hoping for another chance to do this soon!

And now some unrelated updates - I like to mention key progress that Meredith makes when I put up a blog post. The news is exciting -- three big things:

1) After weekly appointments for 2 months, the occupational therapist is so happy with Meredith's fine-motor progress that we're cutting back to every-other-week for checking in with her.

2) On Easter, Meredith ate little pieces of ham by herself WITH A BABY FORK!!! I was in shock.

3) There is another new word, and it's the first one that is basically pronounced like the actual word (imagine that!). If you point to a button on your clothing, or to her belly button, she loudly tells you: "BUDN!" We could say it's her first 2-syllable word, but that second part doesn't really have a vowel so I don't know....but it is sure cute!

(Note: photos from Easter will be coming soon, but we need to organize them....Meredith was great at the Easter Egg Hunt!).

Great Speeches

2009-03-30T15:42:00.006-04:00

When I was in high school, I was on the speech team one year. My speech was in the category "Great Speeches" which involved reciting parts of a great speech, with my own commentary in between. I never did win -- though the Frederick Douglass speech I used was amazing, I don't think I was an amazing speaker.

It looks like we may, however, have a future public speaker in our family. This video was taken after at least 10 minutes of performance had already elapsed, at which point we went to get the camera assuming we would likely have missed everything by the time we started taping - happily, we were mistaken!

We'd love to know what you think Meredith is talking about - please make a comment!

our quirky girl

2009-03-24T17:16:00.003-04:00

Here are just a few of Meredith's latest antics and quirky skills....

* She has learned a new word. Is it something really useful, like "yes", "no", "eat", "ball", or "outside"? No. The word is frisbee. She says "BEE!" Clearly she has been to the disc golf park with her Daddy a few times :)

* Both the dog and - strangely - the frog say something like "vow! vow!", spoken in a very growly voice. The cow says "boo".

* Whenever she is presented with a door, she is happy to knock on it. She also knows the part in the book "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" that says "He can go like a hand on a door - knock knock!" We don't even have to say the "knock knock" anymore - she fills it in by knocking on the book. Same with the goldfish kiss - she blows a little kiss to the book!

* There is nothing that cracks her up more than someone standing a little ways away facing her and then coming towards her saying "I'm coming to get you!"

* She has a little book that says "Rhinoceroses snort and snuff" and has learned how to make a little sniffing noise. We knew that it had fully sunk in when she made exactly the same sound when we were reciting "Dr. Seusses ABC" and got to the part where "Rosie's going riding on her red rhinoceros". I say reciting, not reading, because we were doing this in bed in the dark with her last week at 1:30am - we were trying to get her to sleep the first night of our vacation (we had driven from 8-11:30pm and she had slept most of the way, only to discover her second wind when we arrived....). You can imagine our delight when we made it all the way to "R" and then heard our little rhinoceros sniffing to show she was 100% awake.

* She has her front set of teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom) and one gigantic molar. Another molar is now coming in on the other side. There is a lot of drool and hand-chewing. She also chewed on two crayons yesterday.

* Rob was looking for his slippers this morning. Meredith had been hanging out in our room while he shaved and got ready. He found his slippers in the wastebasket, along with some other socks and my comb.

* She loves book that have flaps to open and see things underneath. One book about Jesus and the loaves and fishes has a page where the people are looking for something to eat. There is a flap you can open to see a man looking behind something and finding a sandal, with the words "No fish here, just an old sandal." This is by far her favorite part of the entire book. She flips it open several times, and if you don't say the phrase, she waits and stares at you, holding the flap open, until you do.

* She can do a set of actions to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". For the "like a diamond in the sky" part she is supposed to put her two thumbs together and two pointer fingers together to make a diamond shape, but she has decided that just the thumbs will do, making it more of a u-shape.

* Any picture of a kitty in a book gets a kiss! Little bears sometimes do too.

* She is starting to shake her head for "no". If you ask her to say "yes," she does a big nod with her signature fake sneeze. We have no idea how to stop her from doing the sneeze.

* She still enjoys a ride in the sling once in a while, which I love. It is supposed to be good up to 35 pounds so we've still got a long way to go (she is about 22 pounds now).

* She is starting to occasionally sing a little tune or pop out a few high notes.

* Yesterday Meredith put some of her snack crackers on the floor when she was done eating. I told her she needed to pick them up and put them back on the plate. Later I looked at the plate -- it contained all of the picked-up snack crackers plus a dry leaf that had apparently been on the floor nearby.

* We are working on her identifying "shoulders" and "knees". It is really funny when you ask her where her knees are and she points proudly to her shoulders. We'll get there...

* If her glasses get bumped out of place, she straightens them back out. She only takes them off when she's in the carseat in the back of the car where no one can stop her.

Well, hope that gives you a glimpse of Meredith's developing personality (or at least, her developing revelation of it to us)! We are having a great time as her mom and dad.

Where is Meredith's __________ ?

2009-03-04T17:07:00.006-05:00

Rob started working with Meredith on identifying her body parts a while ago, and she's proven to be very receptive. She was looking very cute yesterday in her diaper (had to take off some wet clothes) and one sock, so I thought I'd ask her them and take some photos.

Where is Meredith's nose?

Where is Meredith's ear?

Where is Meredith's belly button? (this can be hard to find sometimes!)

Where are Meredith's toes? (two-photo action shot)

Where are Meredith's teeth?

Where is Meredith's tongue?

By the way, Meredith likes taking her socks off and playing with them, that's why she was only wearing one. This has caused me to speak in sentences I never would have imagined, like yesterday when I heard myself say "Do NOT put the sock on the plate!"

You'll notice that Meredith looks healthy but not very chubby - it seems her new skill of walking is really wearing off the calories. She has only gained about a pound in the last 3 months. She is still fine though, we are just continuing to cram that food in! And, thankfully, she is cramming some of it in herself now! Some favorites are goldfish crackers and diced cooked carrots. Hooray!

Meredith has one other new joy - she seems to really like wearing mittens, and outdoor gear in general. She brought the stuff over to me yesterday and we put it on! Luckily it was chilly out, so we followed it up by going outside and utilizing the gear.

That's all for now!

Canadian Dr. Seuss at our house

2009-02-08T20:43:00.003-05:00

I thought I'd let you in on a recent reading of "Dr. Seuss's ABC" at our house. Rob was reading it to Meredith as follows:

"Big A, little a, what begins with A?
Aunt Annie's alligator, A, A, A"

"Big B, little b, what begins with B?"
(etc.)

"Big Y, little y, a yawning yellow yak
Young Yolanda Yorgenson is yelling on his back"

"A B C D E F G
H I J K L M N O P
Q R S
T U V
W X Y and.... ZED!"

"Big Zed, little zed, what begins with zed?
I do. I am a Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz, as you can plainly see."

(addendum by Rob)
"That's a silly one Meredith. It doesn't rhyme."

Fashion Statements

2009-01-25T22:08:00.004-05:00

Meredith has been looking pretty adorable lately. Thought you might enjoy a few of her latest looks!

First, her feet finally got big enough to wear the shoes to go with this awesome outfit from our cousins Kyle and Robin!

Second, it has been chilly here (OK, in the 20s, I know that's not too bad). The other day we had to go out and run some errands. I got Meredith all dressed up in her new hat, mittens, and scarf from Grandma and Grandpa. Had to get a picture before I covered it all up with her coat...her outfit was very color-coordinated!

Finally, you may be aware of the important football game that happened recently - the Gators won ANOTHER national championship! We are pretty sure it was because Meredith was cheering them on in this outfit. The top is actually a Vikings jersey (from our cousins Katie and Craig) and the skirt was made by our friend Krista - it is an official Gator print (see close-up below).

I have one other photo that is off-topic but it cracks me up. How crazy is our daughter? She is so crazy that when attending her first wedding (congratulations Anita and Saul!) she walked around so much that when we got home, we discovered one shoe had been rubbing her wrong and, even though she had thick tights on to protect her, the back of her heel was just about bleeding! She had to wear a bandaid for a week. Look at that poor little foot! And I thought she'd be older before she started having to deal with this...

And for those interested in updates of what's going on, here are some highlights:

* Meredith is getting better at putting food in her mouth - still quite behind, but making progress. She is also a scavenger - if we are eating anything while she is walking around, she comes over to try it out! She's very open-minded about food, which is fantastic. She just really likes to be fed by someone else. We are on a waiting list to see an occupational therapist to get some hints to help with fine motor skills.

* Meredith really started walking a lot on her own this month. She loves walking anywhere - doing laps around the different parts of the house, walking around the block, and sometimes almost running! She also can turn in circles and make herself dizzy, which she seems to enjoy.

* Meredith is doing really well with her glasses. People are very curious about them and think she is so cute! We have a follow-up appointment this week so we'll see if we get any new information. I am guessing they will just want to know if she is wearing them regularly (yes) and if we notice anything different about her apparent eyesight (not really).

I'll post another update soon - thanks for reading!

Christmastime!

2009-01-13T15:54:00.010-05:00

We had a wonderful time up north for Christmas. We spent several days in Minnesota, then several days in Ontario, and also a couple of days in Michigan for my dear friend Anita's wedding. The trip was very relaxing, though I've now learned that little ones do need to be watched even while I'M on vacation :)

Here are some favorite photos from our trip. I'll start with our trip to my parents' place in Minnesota.

Ready to open presents on Christmas Eve!

Meredith figured out how to open gifts pretty quickly. Especially the bagged ones!

My mom made Meredith this amazing fleece blanket with ducks and frogs on one side, and gators on the other! Meredith LOVES ducks (it is still one of the two words she says - "duck" and "balloon", along with some additional names like mama and dada). She also, as it turns out, loves sucking and chewing on fleece fringe. So this was a real winner!

We had to take a "halftime" to let Meredith get ready for bed. We thought she might fall asleep, so we were going to save the rest of her presents for later. However, she had other plans. So she came back out to continue in the festivities! She sat on Grandma's lap in her new fuzzy pajamas. She was only sort of interested in the clothing she got...

...but was VERY interested in my brother's cat, Nora!

My brother (Benny) got a book on cats, and Meredith was very interested in reading it with him. I love this picture!

Though she doesn't understand Santa yet, Santa knew that Meredith was a good girl this year. He brought her something he knew she would love: balloons, balloons, and more balloons! I think there were about 30-35 of them. She had a great time batting them around! I'll try to post a video if I can later.

I love this picture of Meredith all dressed and ready to start the day!

Daddy couldn't resist demonstrating static electricity with the balloon and Meredith's hair.

Meredith really loves puzzles, and since we are trying to work on fine motor skills, we got her another one for Christmas. It has provided hours of entertainment since then! She really likes it if you let her throw the pieces and you try to put them back in before she has them all out again.

Our coy little girl...still loves to tilt her head to get a response.

We were excited that Meredith would get to go out in the snow, probably for the first time in her life (given the amount of bundling of babies in Russia in summer, we don't think they probably bring them out in winter much). My dad and Rob got her all bundled up for a fun but short outing to the yard, while Mom and I were having our annual day-after-Christmas shopping fun :)

We went to my extended family (Mom's side) on the Saturday after Christmas. Meredith liked the other kids, but most especially loved the dog Sammy!

Kissing a new Christmas bear!

After all of our fun in Minnesota, we hopped on a plane to Buffalo (thankfully non-stop). The next night we had Christmas Eve all over again!

Ready for present time!

Meredith had mastered the art of gift opening by now (sort of).

Me and my girl.

You can see the shock in my eyes in the picture below as Meredith opened a special gift from her Oma (Rob's mom). It is a crocheted duck! This is special because Oma re-taught herself how to crochet after 20 years and managed to find a duck pattern to make this for Meredith. So cute!

Meredith likes the duck a lot - she can play with it for a long time....

....especially if she is giving it kisses.

What a happy girl!

Daddy helped open some presents too.

Along with spending time with Rob's immediate family, we saw some cousins. Below is Meredith with our cousin's little girl, Jenna. They are about the same age (Jenna was born in September, which is when Meredith would have been born if she hadn't been a preemie). We had a great time at their house, and also a groundbreaking discovery. After a whole month of trying to get Meredith to walk without anyone hanging on (the magic sweater lost its touch) we learned that what she really needed was (a) a little cousin her size who was walking everywhere and (b) a hallway with a full-length mirror on the end so that she could watch herself walk toward it! She started walking within a few minutes of our arrival and hasn't stopped since!

We also visited with our cousin Matt and his wife Sarah Jane. Matt picked out a special gift for Meredith - a toy robot! Let's just say he knows Rob very well.

Well, hope you enjoyed the photo fest! Sorry it took so long to get it posted. I will leave you with a really adorable shot from my parents' house. Who could resist this smile?

P.S. As you can see in the photos, Meredith wears her glasses most of the time but does sometimes take them off for a bit. On the whole, though, we think it's going very well and are excited that she is so cooperative.

A New Look

2008-12-16T22:18:00.004-05:00

Last week we had a follow-up visit with Meredith's ophthalmologist, who had checked her eyes about 3 months ago. The verdict at that time was that she was quite far-sighted and that one eye was weaker than the other. There wasn't any sign of natural improvement this time, and so she wrote Meredith a prescription for her first set of glasses. These should hopefully strengthen her weaker eye, and potentially help both of her eyes. It's even possible she won't permanently need glasses - but without them now, she could actually lose sight in her weaker eye due to the strong eye "taking over." Obviously that would be bad!

The optician gave me a little speech when I showed up with Meredith. It went something like this:

"Children Meredith's age don't have peer pressure. No kids her age can make fun of her for her glasses. So what we need to prioritize are durability, comfort, and effectiveness in staying on."

You can guess what that means...a friend said "it sounds like they could just use goggles." He was joking, but it's not too far from the truth! Luckily, Meredith is so adorable that she even looks cute in her new pink baby glasses:

She has been doing quite well with keeping the glasses on. She obviously isn't a huge fan, but we've found that after she pulls them off we can usually just put them back on and they stay on for a while. They have a strap around the back since her ears aren't really big enough to hold them up!

A game that Meredith has been enjoying lately is tilting her head to the side and having you imitate her. It never ceases to crack her up. This picture turned out really cute...

We will be going up north for the holidays, so we may not post for a bit - but hang in there! We should have a nice Christmas collection of photos for you!

The Magic Sweater

2008-12-11T17:59:00.001-05:00

Check this out!! A new milestone for sure....recorded December 1, when all four of our parents were here for the Thanksgiving holidays!

Hooray for a Crayon in the Mouth!

2008-11-18T21:23:00.004-05:00

You may remember that we're having issues with getting Meredith to put food in her mouth. She doesn't put ANYTHING in her mouth. We have been working on this with all kinds of various cookies, crackers, etc. If we break off a piece, she will let us put it in her mouth and she'll chew it up and swallow, but then give her a piece in her hand and she just throws it.

Not long ago, our babysitter Jenee had the great idea of Nilla Wafers. She caught Meredith red-handed giving one a little lick:

This is when the excitement began! I found I could get her to do the same with an animal cracker (the kind with the pink and white icing). But still, she wouldn't suck or bite....just lick a little, or even just touch it to her closed mouth and then later lick the crumbs (silly kid!).

Then yesterday, I gave Meredith some big crayons to play with, and she actually stuck one in her mouth - just for a second - and I of course said "no" and she was fine with that (didn't taste too good anyway). But inside I was saying "yes! yes!" because this meant she was starting to be interested in trying to taste things.

And finally, today, was the big breakthrough. The key: a cheese stick. It is one that looks like string cheese, but it's a more delicious mix of mozzarella and cheddar. First I pulled a piece sort of loose off the top, so that when I put it in her mouth and told her to "bite" she would easily get a piece of cheese. (I tried this for a bit yesterday and it had worked, but she wouldn't transition to doing it herself). I have found that she loves this cheese. Then I stopped breaking it up for her, and just let her suck and gnaw a bit while I held it (don't worry, I had her in my lap the whole time in the unlikely event that she bit off too big of a chunk -- she doesn't seem capable of that right now anyway). And then....

.... I gave her the cheese stick....

... and ....

... she put it in her mouth and bit a tiny bit of cheese off!!! By herself!!!

And she did it again and again until she got sick of it - probably 15-20 bites before she wanted to move on! She has quite an ingenious system - since her jaw is apparently not strong enough (or maybe coordinated enough?) to bite off a real piece of the cheese stick, she instead puts the stick pretty far into her mouth, closes her few teeth around it, and then slowly pulls it out, so that she scrapes some cheese off. The cheese stick sort of looks like it was in a pencil sharpener, but I think it is beautiful :)

Classic Fall Outfits

2008-11-03T17:21:00.005-05:00

I brought Meredith out on a walk the other day and it was a little chilly, so I took this opportunity to try on a little outfit that Rob's aunt and uncle gave us. It is a little big but just about fits! And in a month or two the matching socks (from Rob's parents) will fit too -- Meredith seems to have disproportionately tiny feet :)

The picture above captures my many efforts to catch a photo of Meredith in this outfit while she crawled like a madwoman back and forth across the couch.

Below are my ultimate successes!

We also just got a bundle of winter clothing from another friend, and this amazing dress was in the box. It is corduroy (I love corduroy!). Here she is sleeping after church on Sunday.

Speaking of which, I hear a little girl waking up, so that's all for now!

The Little Cow Who Didn't Moo

2008-10-27T22:22:00.005-04:00

This Sunday was the Fall Festival at church. We took this chance to dress Meredith in her Halloween costume (and since we think trick-or-treating with her would be too obvious of a candy grab on our part, this was her one chance to wear it!).

Several people asked Meredith if she could "moo". She answered with silence. Not even a "buh". But she was so cute that no one cared.

I thought I'd post a few pictures - here she is looking at the animals at the petting zoo (kids could actually go in, but they were starting to pack up by the time we got to that area so we just looked from the fence).

Here is our little calf checking out another little calf:

Such a big girl!

Excited to pet the sheep!

How cute is that little tail?

Meredith also now holds the title for Diaper Dash champion! There were three crawlers in the competition, which involved crawling across a large blanket from Mommy to Daddy. Though Meredith can crawl fast, she decided not to. She meandered slowly over to Rob, turned sideways a few times, and general cracked us all up. Lucky for her, the other two kids decided that they did not want to crawl at all :) The prize was three raffle tickets - unfortunately, she didn't win the raffle, but I do have those ticket stubs for the scrapbook! Here she is, in all her glory, crawling toward Daddy:

Hope you all have a great Halloween!

A few "words" (?)

2008-10-12T22:27:00.002-04:00

Our pediatrician asked us if Meredith calls us mama and dada yet. We told her she says those words, but not in reference to us (or anything in particular). She definitely knows what they mean though - if we say them to her, like "Where's Daddy?", she usually looks at the right person.

However, we have made more progress with a few other words. None of these are totally consistent, but here's what we've got:

First, she pretty consistently refers to her toy ducks as "gah". We say "duck, duck, duck" and she clearly thinks she is repeating after us when she says "gah". She now calls it that even without our prompting.

Second, she loves looking at pictures (we have a constant slideshow on the screensaver on our coffee-table laptop) and she sees photos of her Grandma and Grandpa regularly because of some photos on our computer from when they visited. She definitely recognizes them, but hadn't called them anything. Today, though, it seems she is making a connection and calling them either "bama" or "babba" or something in between. Very cute!

Finally, my personal favorite new word is "boomboom". It means balloon. Rob has been telling me this for a while but I didn't believe it was true, because she also said it sometimes when no balloon was in sight. But as we sit here watching the slideshow with her, when she sees a picture with a balloon (which was her first favorite toy after coming home, thanks to Auntie Burcin!) she is as clear as day: "boomboom, boomboom". Adorable!

Our efforts for word # 4 have been futile so far. The goal is "moo". Meredith is going to be a cow for Halloween (it was a cute costume at the Weecycle baby thrift store that fits her perfectly). We will post pictures when the time comes. It is my great hope that by the time of our church's fall festival (Oct 26), when the costume makes its debut, she will be able to say "moo". Here is how the training is going:

Me: Meredith, this is your cow (holding small plastic toy cow). What does the cow say? Mooooo! Moooooo!

Meredith: (silence)

Me: Mooooooo! Moooooo! The cow says Moooooo. Moooooo! What does the cow say?

Meredith: Buh.

Other training sessions involve a large stuffed cow and a picture of a cow in a book she likes. All of them consistently result in "buh". So we may just have the first cow known for saying "buh" instead of "moo".

(Note: I've decided to try to post a bit more often by allowing myself the occasional post without photos - hope everyone enjoys the stories too...)

Meredith's Latest Skills

2008-09-29T20:59:00.000-04:00

Enjoying Life with Meredith!

2008-09-29T16:41:00.007-04:00

Look at the hair on this girl!

I've been asked several times for a blog update, and I've been meaning to do it. Just a little busy these days! The semester is 1/3 through and we are doing well, but the time is flying by. In all my "spare" time, I am still writing thank-you notes for gifts received in July (sorry!).

All in all, this last month has been good! Meredith's favorite thing to do is to have you walk her around everywhere (she holds your two fingers - she could do just one, but she doesn't like it and she'll stop until she gets that other finger back!). My back has been in serious pain, but I know it is just a phase, and probably when she starts running around on her own I will wish I had the kind of control I do now!

In preparation for the day she starts toddling around on her own, check out our fireplace area:

Instead of paying $50+ for a foam padding fireplace protection kit, I bought a few yards of fleece at Wal-mart for $8 and we used good old duct tape to stick it on (the fleece is folded in several layers to make it pretty soft). We'll let you know if it works or if she finds a way to get it off :)

A favorite game continues to be peek-a-boo. I know smaller babies like this game to be played by others, but Meredith likes to do the hiding and revealing by herself.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

As a standard measure for international adoptees, we asked to have a developmental evaluation done by the local "early intervention" program. They offer free services for children with developmental delays. The woman who came to our home concluded that there's no evidence of any delays and that Meredith is really doing well for a child who was in an orphanage. She is very verbal, has good motor skills, and in general is on-target for her preemie-adjusted age (and thus not qualified for further program services, which is fine). Her only difficulty right now is eating - and it isn't that she won't eat. She is actually willing to eat anything that's reasonably soft. But she will not put anything in her mouth herself. We've recently gotten her to eat these little crunchy stars (sort of like fast-dissolving Cheerios) which was big progress, but she only eats them if we put them in her mouth for her, and she mostly just sucks on them until she can swallow (not a lot of chewing). We'll be continuing to work on that and update you as things progress. I think there will suddenly be a day she realizes that she herself has the power to transport food and drink to her mouth - and then things will be off and running. My guess is that orphanage life always involved being fed by someone so that is all she knows. It will just take some time.

Today we had her 15-month (12-month adjusted-age) pediatrician appointment. The pediatrician is happy with how things are going. Meredith is still on the growth chart, though no higher than before (around the 10th percentile for her adjusted age). She's 18 lbs 6 oz and is 27.25 inches tall. I have a feeling there will be a growth explosion when she starts eating more on her own - meanwhile, we will make sure she's getting plenty of food the old-fashioned way, on a spoon we put in her mouth :) Our pediatrician said we can start with whole milk instead of formula, so that will probably be nice for her - at least I for one think it tastes a lot better!

We are very excited to be getting some new regular help around the house. Starting on Labor Day (ironically) we had our first every-other-week visit by a cleaning lady. It is so nice to have clean sheets appear on our bed (and Meredith's crib)! And you can imagine our kitchen and bathrooms are always in need of some spiffing up too. It is a load off my mind. I have told people, it doesn't really save me much time, but rather it saves me guilt -- because I wasn't cleaning these things much anyway, I was just feeling bad about it because I knew they should be clean :)

We also made a more exciting move - we have our friend Jenee coming over twice a week to help out with Meredith! If you haven't met Jenee, let me tell you she has a way with kids. She comes over on Wednesday afternoons so that I can work at home, and also on Friday mornings so that Rob can stop using vacation times to be off (he will continue to take Tues/Thurs mornings off to be home while I teach). Of course, it's a big move with attachment to decide to have another caretaker, but we feel like things are going very well and that Meredith knows who her parents are. We are also so thankful to be able to do this in our home very part-time, since we do want to keep "nesting" here.

Not only is Jenee a great babysitter, she is also a quilter - we love the quilt she handmade for Meredith, with a specially Russian-looking design and color scheme:

Many of the pictures you're seeing are courtesy of our friends Brandon and Krista (and their families) who have been in town visiting and have taken more pictures than we have lately! I would be remiss if I didn't include a photo of their little sweetheart Emma!

Amazingly, 3-month-old Emma and Meredith seem fine living in the same house for a couple of days. We thought they would wake each other or set each other off more with crying, but they operate pretty independently. We just have to stop Meredith from grabbing her too hard (same issue with cats actually...).

Finally, lest you'd think everything is always perfect at our house, here's Meredith when something isn't going her way:

Her face stays red, and the tears stand on her cheeks, long after the episode is over. She is a bit of a drama queen I am afraid :) My mom thinks Meredith is "strong willed." I think she might be right. I also think she might be an extrovert - which scares her poor introvert parents. Hopefully we won't drive her crazy...or vice versa!

We'll be posting a video as soon as we get it loaded - it's a good one. But for now, hope you enjoyed the pics and the updates!

Finally a second post!!

2008-08-21T22:43:00.012-04:00

Well, life is busy and happy here! So busy and happy that we haven't had a lot of time for blogging. So this batch of photos is meant to help make up for it.

First, a few photos from Grandma and Grandpa's visit (my parents)...Meredith had a great time when they were here. Below we've got her with my mom, with both my parents, and then with my brother Benny. She loved looking at him!

The next photos were mostly taken by Rob's sister Beth, who is a fantastic photographer. Look at these expressions she caught while we were visiting Rob's family in Canada...

Meredith is much loved by her Opa (the Dutch word for grandpa, Rob's dad) and also her great-grandpa, who is her only living great-grandparent.

We went up to the Hamersma cottage in central Ontario for a few days. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a wonderful rustic place in the woods next to a creek with a small waterfall. It doesn't have running water, and we use a generator for electricity (usually just for a few hours in the evening for some light).

Here is Meredith with her Oma (Rob's mom) on the cottage porch.

We learned a few great things about Meredith at the cottage:

1) She doesn't mind eating her baby food or drinking her formula at room temperature rather than warmed up.

2) She isn't bothered by crawling on wood (yes, that's right, she's crawling!) as long as she has pants on.

3) She apparently tastes good to mosquitos (several bites) but she also heals quickly.

4) A sling ride through the woods with Daddy puts her to sleep.

(don't worry, the thing holding up her head was not on there when she was awake - she was allowed to look around -- just apparently too sleepy to do so after a bit!).

5) And finally, she JUST fits in the cottage wash basin for a bath.

Does she look chubby to you? Here are a few stats:

weight at birth (June 16, 2007): about 2 pounds
weight in May when we met her: just under 13 pounds
weight at the pediatrician in early July: 15 pounds 6 ounces
weight at the pediatrician today, 6 weeks later: 17 pounds 13 ounces

All I can say is WOW! She is growing. Don't worry, she's gotten taller too :)

The last part of our trip to Canada involved a big surprise party for Rob's mom's birthday. Meredith's cousins (well, technically Rob's cousins' kids) had eagerly awaited her arrival. Little Jake (in the middle) even brought her a picture he made for her. His mom Robin - holding their littler one, Mitchell - told me that Jake had made picture after picture and she has asked him to just select one to bring for us :)

Jake and cousin Olivia check out Meredith in her stroller.

The scenery at the party was gorgeous, as it always is at Aunt Ann and Uncle Jack's garden center, http://www.griffinsgreenhouses.com.

Here is Meredith enjoying some time with her Aunt Ginny.

We got a nice family shot at the party. Unfortunately Ginny's husband Justin couldn't be there, but otherwise the picture turned out really nice. In the lower right is Rob's sister Beth, who was taking most of the pictures (and hence wasn't in any of the ones I posted up until now!).

I'll wrap up this blog entry with the news that Meredith's top two teeth are now strongly in place. I had to work a bit to get a good photo, but if you click on it you can see all four of her teeth clearly! She is sure growing up fast.

We'll be sure to keep you updated with all the new developments as time goes on - thanks for reading!

Welcome!

2008-07-29T22:34:00.000-04:00

It's so good to have friends and family who want to join us in watching our little Meredith as she grows from week to week and month to month. Just in the last few days we have noticed some new things:

* She says "mama", but it usually comes out "mamamamamama" and isn't particularly directed at me (or anyone).

* She says "daddy", but only in Aramaic ("abba"). It's more like "abbabbabbabba". It isn't particularly directed at Rob (or anyone). But when she was holding a toy sheep the other day and saying this, I was very impressed at her accurate sheep sound.

* She claps, but mostly holding her left hand still and clapping down onto it with her right hand. All of you here in Gainesville recognized this immediately as her very intentional Gator chomp. See exhibit A below. (Sara Joy, this is the outfit I picked out for her on your behalf - Classic Pooh!)

* She is starting to take two naps at fairly regular times each day and usually sleeps through the night for about 8-9 hours. This is incredibly awesome!

* She is outgrowing the clothes that fit her when we got her about a month ago. See exhibit B below for her chubby arms and cheeks!

* Her hair is getting shaggy! See exhibit C below, a picture taken by Grandpa (my dad) when she was, shall we say, not crazy about her dinner.

* She had no teeth when we met her in May, one tooth when we visited her June 11, and eventually a second tooth when we had her with us in Moscow. Now those two bottom teeth are almost done growing in, and meanwhile the stubs of her top front teeth have just become visible. She is growing so FAST!

We will update this blog at least monthly to tell you what is going on with Meredith and to post some pictures or video clips. Please keep us all in your prayers as she continues to adjust to life in our family and as we continue to learn about life with a little one!