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Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Sunday, January 31, 2010

JANUARYS - 2010, 2009 AND 2008

January 2010 - big changes since last year. Alice had her second major experience of snow, she loves it, especially eating it and throwing snowballs. She loves our 3 dogs and our fish and snails, currently 6 fish and 1 large and 1 very small snail. She goes to nursery 2 full days per week, she loves going, she has a packed lunch each time and nearly always has egg sandwiches (a real labour of love as I detest them!) She's learning a lot very quickly, especially letters and numbers, she can sing the alphabet song with a few interesting edits (T, U, B!), identify 10 or so letters and count to 13. She's more strongly than ever attached to Flat Panda and was devastated to lose one earlier in the month. As for toys, her favourites are computers and playing games - D*tty Dinosaurs, D*odlebugs, dominoes and Un* Moo. Alice adores technology, I don't know if that's nature but it's definitely nurture! Princesses are a huge part of her life - small dolls, card games, sticker books and bedding but not films. Dressing up is still a very popular activity, especially as a Princess, fairy or an animals, she's more and more into pretending - both telling me made up things or becoming other things, especially animals. Monsters are also a big part of life but not a good one - they're frightening and can be found almost anywhere, a lot of films are frightening too. For most of last year Alice had lots of favourite films to watch but at the moment she'd rather watch TV - Sh*w Me, Sh*w Me or Hi 5 in particular. She loves books and, given the chance, will select a whole pile of books if anyone offers to read to her. Her favourites are Elm*r, the Sn*il and the Wh*le and a mermaid book, she still listens to Elm*r twice every evening after I've said goodnight. In the car she really likes to listen to Be*uty and the Bea*t. She's finally beginning to sing along to songs on the CD and even unaccompanied at times (she tends to sing Twinkle or Christmas songs). This month she began dance lessons and got a special reward at school for dancing too. She is very sure of her favourite people and always delighted to hear that we will be seeing them, especially A, O, L or GFN. She likes going to soft play centres but her very favourite activities always include animals - farms, zoos and aquariums. She also loves going to the theatre and went to the cinema for the first time last month (which she enjoyed but it was a bit too loud for her.) She's a social child who knows her own mind, she's opinionated and you won't change her mind without a good reason! Her favourite foods are mashed potato, cheesy pasta, eggs (especially egg sandwiches or boiled (dippy) eggs) and chocolate in any form, she's recently discovered hot chocolate but really only likes it lukewarm! She's demonstrative and very affectionate, she's becoming more and more helpful but she's still not very good at looking for things, even when they're in plain sight (like me!) She loves water too - playing with in (or in it), baths and swimming, she gets very wet at school and regularly comes home in a different set of clothes to the ones I left her in as she gets SO wet! She continues to love life and bring such joy, we are so lucky.

January 2009 - Alice has given up milk from a bottle (she had milk every morning and most evenings). Her speech is less clear recently but she's speaking in longer phrases and repeating EVERYTHING. She's finally really interested in story books and loves repeating the key phrases - her fav books are Dirty Bertie, Owl Babies and Elmer, she still hasn't got a long enough attention span for the Gruffalo! Role playing doctors and in the kitchen are favourite activities, jigsaws are finally interesting but turn taking games are much more fun - Who Knows Whose Nose is the best yet (ELC). Princesses and dressing up are Alice's most favourite activity. She can count from 2-5 but needs prompting for 1! She can fairly consistently name blue, white and a few other colours and she know the names of most of them but can't match them all up yet. She did love sausages, but not any longer, beans are still off the menu and toast isn't popular. Alice continues to love eggs and has now learnt how to eat boiled eggs. Her most favourite foods are oranges, cheese, potatoes, ham and chocolate.

January 2008 - lots of new words, lots of new teeth and most noticeably Alice took her first independent steps.

Some things haven't changed - most noticeably her easy going, affectionate personality (though that is now matched by being 2 and wanting control!) and her love of dogs.

(This is a post that I originally posted in 2009 and I felt it was time for an update!)

Sunday, January 25, 2009

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, JULY

We celebrated a year together at the beginning of July, Alice had great fun playing in the garden, her first experience of the paddling pool and she made her first cake!

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, AUGUST

Alice's first major holiday abroad, first ride on a roundabout, 2 nights on a ferry, 14 in a gite, many many miles travelled, a language explosion and lots of happy memories - that was August 2008 (and a tummy bug that we'd rather forget!)


Thursday, January 22, 2009

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, SEPTEMBER

Alice became noticably more vocal and consequently more demanding, and did lots of playing - in the garden with GFN, playdoughing and shestarted 'pretending' in her play!

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, OCTOBER

Alice partied the month away - celebrating Mummy's birthday, her baptism and her second birthday, all within 6 days! She also made great progress with her swimming.

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, NOVEMBER

Alice tried being a big girl (potty training - but Mummy decided that for now she's still too little), got sick quite a bit, sleeping suffered, saw lots of friends, survived life at home with no water for a while and aced her 2 year development check!

2008 A REVIEW IN PHOTOS, DECEMBER

My little star started Nursery without a backward glance, performed infront of a huge audience (out-wiggling everyone else!), met Father Christmas again, relished every moment of Christmas and embraced our new puppy.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

REVIEW OF 2007 - 1st HALF, BEFORE ALICE!

January
  • A lot of worry and refreshing websites about referrals - even the worst estimations only reckoned on 3 more months to wait (it was actually 4 more!)
  • I returned to work part-time and loved it.
  • I was waiting for the builders to start replacing windows.
  • I ordered the rocking chair for the nursery.
  • 'Whatshername' was almost definitely going to be Clara - and referred to as Clara on the blog!


February
  • Lots of time spent starting a memory book (needs lots more done as I haven't done any for months and months - not since referral!)
  • Lots of time spent browsing nursery fabrics, no decisions reached!
  • Rocking chair arrived - hardly used then, used nightly now.
  • Lots of time spent looking at pushchairs - my short list kept growing and neither of the p'chairs I've ended up with are on the list!
  • A name poll on the blog would have 'Whatshername' called Charlotte (nearly 29%), Alice only got 11%
  • The builders started replacing the windows, then it snowed!!

March
  • I listened to rumours and thought that I could be included in the next batch of referrals - due to arrive early in April, I was wrong and pretty devastated.
  • Another Mothering Sunday spent waiting was very hard.
  • A fab family wedding - at times I struggled being there still not knowing about my baby.
  • Nerves becoming increasingly frayed as I struggled to focus on anything other than WHEN.

April
  • Spent the beginning and the end of the month haunting the internet to find out if my date had been matched.
  • Referrals at the beginning of April only covered 2 days - not only was I not included, but this then cast a lot of doubt as to how much longer I would have to wait, ugh.
  • The middle of the month seemed to last forever (between referral batches).
  • I worked on putting a care package together - as it turned out it would never be sent as Alice's orphanage don't distribute the contents until the day the child meets their parents.
  • I dreamed of a holiday, I needed a holiday but couldn't risk booking one being so close to referral!
  • Family birthdays and parties, good (distracting) fun!
  • I finally found out that my date had been matched - had to wait until May to find out if I was definitely included (just reading the last entries in April has made me cry all over again).

May
  • Huge numbers of visitors to the blog, waiting with me.
  • China's rules for adoptive parents changed on the 1st - making me ineligible for future adoptions.
  • Then I heard the best news of my life - I'd been matched!
  • The other UK family that were matched also had a baby from the same CWI - we'd be travelling together.
  • I heard the basic details - name, age, province and gender (I had to ask!)
  • I started shopping for my baby - more shopping as she was so much younger than I could possibly have hoped for.
  • A week after hearing the basic details I had more detail - paperwork and photos.
  • More baby shopping - nursery things, cotbed, changing table
  • I went to a seminar in Birmingham - for the first time I was identified as 'Whatshername's Mum!'
  • Lots of thinking about 'Whatshername' and what her name would be!

June
  • Lots of travel plans, visas, guides - lots of emails, phonecalls and a bit of stress too!
  • A trip to Dad's and first meeting with E and Princess A.
  • Final decisions on nursery colour schemes - decorating began, carpet laid and curtains ordered.
  • Report writing distracted me for a minute or two!
  • Last day at work for a while.
  • Travelled to Kunming in China!
(The more important 2nd half of 2007 will have to wait - I'm off to bed!)