S'mores, oars, & snores

Kate checked off two rites of passage this week: her first day of pre-school, and her first s’more. Technically I guess it wasn’t a true s’more, but really just a roasted marshmallow sans chocolate and graham cracker. We’ve mentioned before that she’s pretty fearless and physically reckless, so I was a little on edge when she was bouncing around right next to the fire. But she and Sam both thoroughly enjoyed several marshmallows and no children were injured or burned in the process.

We had a good trip to Dawn’s parents’ house last weekend [the mini-farm], and Kate slept away from home for the first time. She’s slowly warming up to Dawn’s mom; no major breakthroughs last weekend, but good steps of progress. She and Sam had a blast in the canoe with us on their lake. Each kid had an oar and demonstrated pretty solid control of it, somehow managing not to drop it in the water the whole time. I was grateful for the trolling motor, though, because despite their good intentions, their rowing wasn’t quite efficient enough to create any actual motion. Sam enjoyed pulling Kate around in the wagon, and Kate seemed to like the princess treatment too. Just to make sure that Dawn’s dad was impressed with Sam’s promotion from passenger to puller, Sam told him “Pop, I am you, and Kate is me!” It’s fun to see how he sometimes proudly declares “I am a big boy”, while at other times he’ll say “When I grow up a little bit, I can drive the car like Daddy.”

Kate and Sam both had a great first week at pre-school. They’re in a 2 year old class that meets 2 days a week. Kate just turned 3 in late June, but we decided to keep her in the 2 yr class since she’s obviously behind on language and just overall development. Our original plan was to keep her out of the class for several weeks so she would have more time to adjust to us and life in the states. But she’s done so well at church and with other kids & care-givers, we thought it would only put her at a disadvantage to make her start late and miss the get-to-know-you phase. At our pre-school, the teachers come and take the kids right out of the car. We were a bit worried that Kate might freak out when her teacher, whom she had only met once at the meet & greet, came to take her away from Mommy. But it was Sam, not Kate, who got a little misty on Tuesday morning. It’s such a huge blessing to see Kate adjusting so well to her new environment! We had really prepared ourselves for a long road of tough transitions, but we’re really encouraged that she’s jumping in to new environments. And it’s not like she’s bonding with anyone as if they’re her family; she also seems to clearly understand that this is her home and we are her mom & dad.

Sam and Kate have been playing better together recently, despite a few episodes of fairly brutal sibling abuse. Tonight Sam begged to go into Kate’s room when Dawn was tucking her in so he could read her a story. So sweet! And Sam is starting to explore some of his views on cultural differences: they were teaming up to tackle a puzzle of jungle animals the other day, and Dawn told Sam that “Kate has never played with a jungle puzzle before.”
“They don’t have jungle puzzles in China,” he says.
“Not where Kate lived, buddy.”
“They just have Ni hao Kai Lan puzzles in China?”

So either Sam thinks that this cartoon, “Ni Hao Kai Lan”, is an accurate portrayal of all things Chinese, or perhaps he read somewhere that all kids in the communist regime only play with one standard-issue game.

In addition to shoes, soup, and sushi, Kate also loves sleep. She sleeps about 2-3 hours per day more than her little bro, including naps. So our original plan was for them to share a room, but then we decided that it wasn’t fair to rob Kate of so much precious sleep just because Sam gets up so much earlier. Not to mention that he snores sometimes too...  So we converted the study into Kate’s room, and she is adapting very well to having her own room. Now we just need to help Sam remember that when he wakes up early and comes looking for Mom and Dad, we’re probably not hiding out in Kate’s room, so it’s a much better move to come in our room before barging into hers.

One last editor’s note: I have done a very poor job of following up on the comments that many of you have left on the blog. But don’t take my silence as a lack of appreciation. It’s great to hear from you, and we’ll try to do a better job of continuing the dialogue with follow-up comments. Thanks for reading!