Raven in Fairbanks

Just a quick post to introduce the new link on my favorite blog list. RaveninFairbanks is my sister-in-law, Kathleen. She is Matt's older sister and she is the one that took us across the bay for dinner and fishing last week.

We have been busy this week with Matt's dad here from Pendleton, OR. My daughter, Sarah, comes home from Flagstaff, AZ tonight for a two week visit so I will write more this weekend with new pictures of what we have been up to all week!

I am way behind on my charting from work. This work business is really cutting into my blogging time! For every day that I work, I have at least 2 hours of charting to do that night. I have to get better at putting my kids to bed on time so I'm not up all night charting. I can't chart in the daytime because our electronic medical record system only has so many "licenses" so I have to defer to the doctors, nurses and admin staff that are actually at the office. Besides, I have my nose buried in a novel right now while Maya is napping.

I am reading book called Stealing Buddha's dinner by Bich (pronounced Bit) Nguyen. It is a memoir of a Vietnamese refugee growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan after the mass exodus from Veitnam just before and during the fall of Saigon. My friend Stephanie Silianoff loaned it to me. Elizabeth Curry had told me about it in Vietnam. Although the author is about 8 years younger than I am, it is very interesting for me to compare her experiences of assimilating to America to mine. Since I was adopted, there are many differences. I definately had it easier growing up Asian American in California instead of Michigan.

Okay, it's almost midnight and I've blown all my charting time so I might as well tell you about Maya's "fun food therapy session". I wasn't sure what to expect, I guess I imagined her sitting on a plastic mat covered in Jello and pudding. It was actually not that messy. Susan the OT offered her a variety of Gerber toddler puffy foods, dry crackers, fruit leather and a popsickle. She was also given a plastic teapot and tea cups to pour water with. She liked pouring water but hardly ate any of the foods (and I brought her at 11am so she should have been getting hungry for lunch). She even rejected the fruit leather even though she scarfed a whole one down last week. She turned her nose up at the juice popsickle (What? This is NOT Tillamook Mudslide Ice cream, Susan!). We had a hard time keeping her in the therapy room because she was more interested in exploring everyone's offices and offering food to the secretary and the home outreach worker. I secretly felt vindicated that Susan could see first hand what I deal with three times per day. But seriously, this feeding issue is wearing me down. I have to remind myselft that it's good that she is at least trying new foods, even if she spits most of it out. She has managed to gain another pound. She is up to 19 pounds now. Okay, so it's at night, with her clothes on and a full diaper...So I guess the olive oil in her formula and nightly ice cream fest is helping.

On a more positive note, her language has really taken off. She says come, cold and "there it is". She also says "good girl" and "bad boy" (our dog has been acting out lately). She also says thank you and she is just starting to say excuse me. My mom taught her to say that when she burps. It's very cute. She even called Matt, "Dad" a couple of times this week. She calls Matt's dad Poppop but it sounds more like Papa. She says nana for banana. She calls both Riley and Chris Yiley. She is starting to say Grandma and she can say Nanna. I've stopped teaching her signs because if she knows a sign, she won't say the word. The other reason is, I don't really know that many signs!

The other good news: Sarah comes home tonight! She gets in very late (like 4am) so the boys will not see her until they wake up in the morning. It will hard to keep them from running into her room at 7am to wake her up. Hopefully she can go back to sleep when I take the kids to Grandma's and go to work at 9am.