reflections

Tonight's post will be a bit scattered, so bear with me. This morning Erin, Joe & Henry were nice enough to invite Ted and me to Apex to swim. Needless to say, playing with ONE child at the pool was soooo nice. We went down all the water slides, did the monkey bars, the lazy river...everything. Ted was perfectly content the entire time. We had such fun. He's going to have a super birthday party there.
When Sam and Mae got up from their naps, we went to the toy store so they could pick their present from G'pa Moeller. $20 goes a long way for little kids, and it was a looooong event. Ted waffled between another Bionicle and a Playmobile set. Sam had trouble choosing between a stomp rocket, a toy trumpet, and a knight sword (with sheath!). The sword won, as did the Playmobile set. We decided to just deposit Mae's $$ into her account. This was the first time the boys 'chose' a toy. It was tough! We probably won't do it very often, but it was fun. They put their change in their piggy banks. Ted said that the cashier thought that he was a little grown-up. I think he thought that because she was talking to him so politely, just like any other customer. Cutie.
After Mae's black bean soup dinner, a bath was required. She was fascinated with the water coming out of the spout (her normal position is at the other end). I know it's wasteful, but I allowed her to just sit with her little hand under the running water for a while. She just laughed and laughed. Oh, and after her soup we shared a cookie. I had a coffee and was dipping my cookie into it, just like she had dipped her bread into her soup. She put her cookie out and said, "Bip bip? Caw-kee?" So, I let her dip her cookie in my coffee...wonder how much caffeine that put into her system. What a funny kid.
I spent much of this morning working on the previous post, Then and Now. Tonight, while rocking Mae in the rocker while she drank her bottle, insisting that SHE hold it, I thought about how fiercely independent she is. I know that people say that they 'learn' to be self-sufficient in the orphanage, but when we first received Mae, she couldn't hold her own bottle or eat from a spoon. Someone had held the bottle, fed her with the spoon..etc. She had been cared for...she wasn't in the type of orphanage that propped the bottle, for example. No, I think this independence is just in her personality. Those referral pictures were a snapshot...the real Mae is emerging, day by day, giggle by giggle. And she's a pretty cool kid.