Catching Up: We've Been Busy

It's not so much that we've been busy, I suppose, but that the new demands of everyday life have left us with little time or energy to keep up with the blog. That and the fact that we aren't really reaching the same level of excitement hour-to-hour that we did while we were in China.

So what's been happening? Back on the 14th of May we had Dada's First BBQ, our annual meat fest where Eliot smokes a bunch of meat and we invite everyone we know over to eat it. This year it also functioned as something of a coming out party for Dada. We had a lot of fun--there were a number of families with children, several near Dada's age, and they had a good time playing together (the tub full of ice water for the drinks and watermellon seemed to be a favorite with the toddlers). Everyone enjoyed the meat (brisket, prime rib, and sausage from Austin's Smokey Denmark. Unfortunately, we were so busy making sure no-one went hungry that we never took any pictures of this event. Doh!
Dada is now walking with confidence and starting to run.

She's also growing like a weed. We can tell when she's having a growth spurt because she gets grumpy for a day or so and then starts eating like there's no tommorrow. She's also cut most of her teeth--I think she still has a couple of molars to bring in, but she's got a pretty happenin' toothy smile now.

She's starting to really walk with confidence and run a little. I found that the half-empty mall near our house is a good place to take her to run around--wide halls with few people to run into and, when we're tired, we can watch the kids ice skating.
Just Monday she started walking on the grass in the back yard by choice. She also likes to slide on her little play scape, which now she can get to on her own, without us having to carry her to it.

She's starting to say a couple of words more or less clearly--"more", "doggy", "no", although it's mostly babbling. She still loves to play "mobile phone", where she holds anything vaguely phone like to her ear and walks around babbling in a clear imitation of a phone conversation. It's really quite amazing how accurate her imitation is, complete with pauses, laughter, etc. I'm in Dallas for the week and when I called home last night, Julie put her on the phone. When I said something real, like "Dada, this is daddy" I got no response, but when I imitated her phone babble she babbled back. Not sure what it means. Her babble and mine sounds vaguely like Mandarin. I'm certainly not saying anything real--no idea if she's trying to.

This last weekend we went to a new member's meeting for Families with Children From China (FCC), a local group started here in Austin that mostly facilitates play groups and such like. That was fun--Dada got to meet other little girls near her age. We're hoping this will give us some more play group options. They also organize a couple of events every year, such as a Chinese New Year celebration. Everyone seemed very nice.

This picture is a little fuzzy, but if you look closely you can tell that it's a female cardinal on a nest, which is right outside Dada's bedroom window, nestled in the overgrown rose bush that serves as landscaping at the front of the house. We haven't looked at the nest from the front, but we assume there are (or soon will be) eggs. It should be interesting to watch the progress of this little bird family over the course of the summer.

Yesterday Julie got out the wading pool and it seems to be a big hit. Now that summer temperatures are settling in, a wading pool is a good idea, especially as the sand box is placed where it is in direct burning sun during the middle of the day, which seemed nice in March but now is only suitable for playing Laurence of Arabia, a game that Dada's really not old enough for yet. She still hates taking a bath but she loves the wading pool. Go figure. I think it's the hair washing.

That's about it on the Dada front. She's eating lots of different things. I've tried giving her very small amounts of spicy stuff, like salsa and the sauce from lamb curry, and she seems to like it. At least she didn't spit it out and start crying. I'm hoping we can help her develop a taste for a wide variety of foods before she gets to the stage where she'll only eat mac and cheese and peanut butter.