My Kid Circus

This girl just continues to blow us away.

One of the first things that we learned about this girl is that she likes to fall asleep sucking on a blanket.  She prefers to STUFF her mouth full where you wonder how she can breathe.

I didn’t really want to mess with it.  I hate to interfere with any of my children with their soothing lovies, and I think this is magnified with a child with an orphanage background.

However, we decided it was necessary when she wasn’t able to eat broccoli the other night at dinner.  In this picture you can see how big the gap between her teeth has become.  She can really not bite down on anything with her front teeth.

So, we approached this in a Hannah way.  I talked to her about it, I rocked her, and I put her to bed without her blanket.  She said that was ok, cried for about 20 seconds, and then was fine.

It still hurts my heart, and I worry that she isn’t expressing some of her true grief about losing her prized blanket, but I am also so very proud of her.

We have told her that after she gets used to sleeping without the blanket in her mouth that she can have it back to snuggle.  She is loving demonstrating for us how well that she will be able to snuggle her blanket.

Sweet girl.  I can’t wait to give it back.

This shirt is in honor of a true heart warrior from China, Teresa.

Adopting any child is an incredible, amazing experience.  The parents that leave me speechless, however, are the parents who adopt a child who they are told will never make it. The parents who want to bring home a child so that they can know the love of a family before they leave this Earth.

What an incredible gift of selfless love.

A couple of weeks ago, Hannah had her yearly well check up.  It was fairly uneventful, except for one thing.  She failed her vision screening.

That took us to the pediatric eye doctor.  After multiple tests the doctor sat down with me.  It turns out that Hannah has a “boatload of astigmatism”.  My poor girl was not seeing well AT ALL! He offered me a box of tissues and said, “I’m about to break your heart”.  I actually had to laugh a little bit about that one.  There are many things that can and do break my heart as a mom, but I am okay with my children needing glasses. 🙂

Today we picked up her new glasses.  I was waiting expectantly for her reaction as she viewed the world clearly for probably the first time in her life. I stood there with the video camera ready.  The tech put on her glasses.  Hannah smiled.

That was about it.  I guess that is the way it is with a three year old.

She has two pairs of glasses now.  Her “Dora” pair that we got in Chicago with Hannah’s Auntie Lynne, and her pink school pair.

How could these glasses break my heart? I think she is adorable. 🙂

It has been raining and raining around here.  And raining.  Because of that, all of the 4th of July celebrations around here were cancelled or postponed.

Luckily, we got a little bit of celebrating in on the 6th.  We had a wonderful morning of bike parades, face painting, bounce houses, and field games.  It was all a bit muddy and damp, but we had a good time.

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For a long time, Hannah has happily told everyone that would listen that she is from China.  I always love the pride in her voice as she says it.

This week however, when anyone has said anything about China she has said adamantly, “Hey, I AMERICA now!!”.  So true.  Happy 4th/ 6th of July!