Daycare Trials

Maya survived her first week of daycare in pretty good shape. Each day was a bit longer there and by day 3 she was ready to try a nap there. As with any new experience there's good, bad and ugly. In this case,

The good: she's social, quiet, plays well, attentive to other children when they are hurt/crying, listens to & understands instructions, naps with the other kids

The bad: her naps are only 30 min instead of 2 hours so she's grumpier at home at the end of the day

The ugly: she's become a biter! Sometimes over a toy but sometimes completely unprovoked but she's chomped several kids this week. Yikes!

I hope week 2 is better...

Talk-Talk-Talk

Prior to March, Maya only spoke a few words but had several signs that she used to communicate her needs. This was a simple, but quiet, way of life.

Some time last month the verbal 'switch' in her turned on and she has now become a chatter-box. She's talking non-stop, even if its not understandable. If she's not reciting to us what every item is, she's telling us its colour or shape. If she can't do any of those, she's parroting back what we say or ASKING us what EVERYTHING is. Boy, oh boy. Toddlers ask a lot of questions! Plus, they hear everything so we're now having to spell certain things so she doesn't get cranky...

Life has just gotten a bit more complicated...

Daycare

Today was Maya's 1st day at daycare. Other than waking us up early (3am and 630am), she was ready for her day on time and in a good mood.

Once at the daycare, she jumped right in to the festivities, barely giving me a glance. The only attention she paid me was when she had dirt on her hands and wanted someone to wipe it off. Otherwise, I was persona-non-grata.

We spent 2 hours at the daycare and the staff was so impressed with how she handled it, we are going to speed her transition schedule. Tomorrow, I'll drop her off then leave for 2 hours before coming back to have lunch with her then take her home for a nap. Wednesday or Thursday I'll leave her there to try a nap with the other kids. Hopefully, it'll all go well...

Mo-Co-Co

John got his Ducati insured last week and today was his first day riding it to work. Maya isn't a fan of the noise of motorcycles but every one is called 'da-da' regardless of the make, model or colour.

When John left for work this morning, Maya didn't like seeing him leave but when he got on the bike and rode away, she pointed to him and said:
'Dada on mo-co-co' (Daddy on motorcycle) 3 words!!! Woo Hoo…

1 year since acceptance

Today marks the 1st anniversary of the date we signed the referral & medical documents to adopt JIANG, Xin Mei. What a roller-coaster ride that was last year getting the referral, telling our families, waiting for the referral translation, reviewing the documents, investigating translations errors, getting adoption pediatricians to review the medical files, paying the fees, signing the official documents and driving them over to the adoption agency... It was quite an experience and one of many that will come from our life with Maya.

1+ year since referral

We missed it! Thanks to my blogger friend Lori, I realized that we completely missed our 1 year anniversary of Maya's referral. It was such an important day, I find it hard to believe that we forgot. So, I've posted pictures of her now and then to show how much she's changed.

Olympics Opening Ceremonies

I've been practicing for 2 months now to be part of tomorrow nights Olympics Opening Ceremonies. It's been a tough go but we're now a few hours away from the big event. There have been several technical problems in the past 2 days which I'm hoping they will have sorted out very quickly. I also pulled a ham-string which I'm hoping won't affect my performance tomorrow. We've done this SOOOO many times it's getting boring but the overall show looks amazing! I know I'll look back fondly on this some day...