Little Miss Independence

Where did my baby go? She's only been with us for just shy of 5 months now and already she is getting so much more independent. She wants to do so much on her own that I can hardly believe it!!!

I commented the other day that she only lets me hold her for her nighttime bottle of milk these days. She also has totally figured out her sippy cup, so I guess bottles are about to go. Though the other day I put milk in a sippy and when she took a drink she looked at me like, "Umm, Mommy, this doesn't go in here!"

Thursday I decided that her fingernails were WAAAYYY to long. (Hello Captain Obvious, her face was scratched in several places...) So being the loving mommy that I am, I decided to trim them before she added more boo-boos to her adorable face. She was in a quiet mood so I scooped her up and began the task. Unlike previous trim times, this one was NOT easy!!! She squirmed, grabbed at the clippers, and screamed through the entire process. I was afraid that I had nipped her little finger, but as soon as I was done this moment told me the real truth...

She just totally wanted to do it herself. (Just in case you are worried, I closed the clippers before I let her have them).

Just a few minutes later while I was getting dinner ready (I made a chicken pot pie from scratch ~ using the leftover chicken from the whole one I roasted the other day. I'm growing up Mom! I can now prepare chicken that has bones!) she signed to "eat please," so I got her some blueberries. While I was rinsing them she went to the dining room table, pulled out my chair, climbed up and waited for me to bring her a snack. She looks so cute and tiny at the grown up table!

We're not ready to stop using the high chair just yet, but I think she is!

I guess these are just more signs that our little one is growing. So much for her being so developmentally behind due to being in an orphanage for 6 months... (We are grateful to God that our prayers for her even when she was unknown to us were heard!)

In other news we had a big disappointment this week. It turns out that both Caroline's and Marisa's families (two of Kylie's Lianjiang "sisters") were planning a trip to meet halfway between their homes and spend a weekend in St. Louis. When we visited with Caroline in May we told Cindy to let us know when they were planning to go and maybe we'd fly out to see them. Ian and I talked about it and decided that expense was worth the memories that would be made. So we threw caution into the wind and put in our available dates to go to St. Louis.

We managed to schedule a weekend that worked for all three families (no easy task when you consider that Caroline has three siblings and Marisa has four!) and were getting excited about seeing two of our China families and exploring a new city. I had checked on airfare and it was going to be just over $250 each for Ian and I to fly ~ a bit expensive, but who can put a price tag on seeing friends? Then when we went to book the flights I found out that airport taxes between the two cities are $91 each!!! (For comparison, next month we are flying to my cousin's wedding in Ohio and the taxes between here and Dayton are $31.25 each). So that was going to add about $300 to our flight costs (Kylie still flies free, but we have to pay taxes on her too) which made the cost of the weekend ~ when you add hotel, food and general fun vacation stuff~ too much.

What a bummer!!! If we were able to go we would have seen all the girls in the red couch photo since we've been home. Stupid airport taxes!!! If only we were made of money... or time. We actually considered driving for the length of time it took us to consider it and then check on googlemaps how long it would take. With an estimated time of 11 hours and 3 minutes, we decided that may be a bit long for a weekend trip.

Starting from the left are Caroline, Marisa, Kylie, Kristin, Olivia, Sarah and Lottie. We've had visits with Caroline, Kristin, Olivia, Sarah and Lottie already and we would have seen Marisa next month. Hopefully it will work out for all of us to gather at the beach next summer, including the girls from our group that aren't in this photo: Darby, Hallie, Grace and Nellie.