"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break."
--An ancient Chinese belief




Monday, February 21, 2011

Lulu needs glasses!

Lulu's ophthalmologist's appointment today took close to 3 hrs! She had to have her eyes dilated, and that wait alone was close to an hour. I'm so glad we waited this long before scheduling this appointment, since she is now much more patient and knows a lot of English. She did a great job answering questions to what shapes were on the screen and the small pictures she had to pick out. They also patched one eye, and then the other, as well as put strange looking glasses on her. Those she kept wanting to take off.

Lulu has astigmatisms and her vision is a little poor with both distance and seeing close up. Her right eye that has the micro cornea is worse than the left. The doctor said there was not much difference in the sizes of her corneas. In China, her right eye was measured at 9 mm and I believe 11 mm is about normal. We have pictures of her as a baby and toddler in China, and her right eye was obviously a lot smaller compared to the left one. Now they are looking a lot more equal. Other than her vision, the health of her eyes are good. Now we just need to go and pick out glasses!

Haiden's Bday Party, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year

The past couple months have been pretty busy and I hate being so behind again with posting. A big event for us was this year's FCC Chinese New Year. I am so bummed though that I hardly have any pictures! Brad bought a new top of the line camera but didn't have enough time to try it out before the event (although he read up on it a lot, practice is what he really needed). So, although I saw him take a lot of pictures and video, he deleted a lot of them since he said they were blurry. And when he recorded Lulu's dance the sound was very muted, although the dance just before hers came out well. So, very bummed that I don't have one good family photo, or much of anything else. I didn't bother to take many pictures with my camera since I thought Brad had it covered, and because I really need a better camera. At least I have good memories and was so glad that my family and Lulu's teachers were there. It meant so much to her and she had a blast!

For Valentine's Day, Lulu and I made little gift bags for her classmates and I attended her school's afternoon party. We bought her some cute little trinkets, a little bear, and some chocolate. I'm really enjoying experiencing all these holidays and events with Lulu. They are all firsts for her, and firsts for me as a mommy.

This afternoon Lulu is finally going to the ophthalmologist. She was diagnosed with a right microcornea in China, and I just know that her vision is affected. I think she is farsighted. I've been trying to prepare her that she may need glasses, and how cute they will look on her like they do on her friends.

We are planning our first trip to Disney World!!! We were going to wait to go in April for Lulu's birthday, however we keep being warned about the crowds at that time. So we may be going the first weekend in March. Lulu is very excited about it. I think she is ready for it, and we will plan to make two half days of it if we need to.

Pictures from Haiden's Bday party, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year
















Thursday, February 3, 2011

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is Chinese New Year... year of the Rabbit! I kind of messed up since I just found out last night that Feb. 3 is Chinese New Year in China. Our FCC group is celebrating Chinese New Year on Feb. 12 and I didn't realize that the actual CNY is today. Lulu's preschool celebrated CNY today and the kids had fried rice and eggrolls for lunch.

Lulu is going to be one of the dancers at our FCC Chinese New Year celebration. She will be doing a ribbon dance with girls in her age group. She only has one more practice and I hope she does okay in front of such a large group of people. She has not seemed too in to the practices, but tells me she wants to do it. Two weeks ago she didn't want to go to practice or be one of the dancers. She later told me it was because she was tired that day. I can't wait to finally be able to celebrate the event with Lulu here. We attended 2 of the FCC CNY celebrations, and we really enjoyed them. My family, Lulu's teacher and one of the school's administrative assistants will be attending this year.

Lulu has also been practicing 2 dance routines for tap and ballet, and her recital is in June. I'm so glad they're starting to practice this early so she will have plenty of time to learn the routines.

Lulu has been doing great at school. She has become a little social butterfly and all the teachers and school staff knows her. She has known the alphabet for awhile now and can recognize all the written letters. Her English is a lot clearer now and she has an amazing vocabulary. We have seen a lot of improvements with self control, attachment and patience, and when she does have meltdowns or tantrums, they are now a lot shorter in duration. She has come such a long way in the past 9 months. We are so very proud of her!