Esther's dedication

On Sunday, we had Esther dedicated in church. We solemnly committed ourselves to "the love and nurture of [Esther], to teach her by word and by deed, by instruction and by example, by correction and encouragement, and to lead her towards knowledge and the ways of Jesus" and to "pray for Esther, and provide for her spiritual growth just as [we] provide for her physical, emotional and intellectual growth."

Then we heard the congregation commit to "pray for, encourage and support this family, as they grow in the grace and truth and image of Jesus, and...welcome Esther into the life of this Church, as [their] own sister in Christ."

Many of our closest friends here were out of town this week, so we will have a separate time of commemorating Esther's dedication with them later, but it was very important to us to make this commitment in the context of the whole church of which we are a part.

Esther was reasonably quiet during the ceremony, but amused the congregation by trying to grab the microphone from Tim and me. Then during the service she entertained several rows of people behind us by winking at them, producing some pretty incredible facial contortions. I suppose I'd rather she be funny in church than throwing a tantrum, but I do feel bad when she's distracting people!

For the special occasion, Esther wore a beautiful lavender dress given to us by our friends in Kunming. We did a photo shoot before and after church. Anyone who's not a parent would be amazed at the number of unattractive pictures we got as a result, but we did end up with some cute ones as well. And here are some of them for you to enjoy!

Olympic spirit!

Last Friday we watched the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics on a big screen with our friends at Grace Fellowship (a Chinese fellowship). It was a fun atmosphere, as everyone rose for the Chinese national anthem, cheered for the spectacular moments of the ceremony, and laughed at the incongruous cutting-in of commercial breaks. For the occasion, Esther wore a little outfit that we had bought in Beijing which says "Beijing 2008," along with numerous Chinese characters that I don't understand but assume have something to do with the Olympics. The braiding around the edges is in the Chinese team colors of red and gold. Here is a picture of her modeling the outfit on our porch, ever-present stick in hand. Perhaps she'll grow up to be an Olympic fencer?

NaiNai, YeYe, and the great outdoors

It's been so long since I last posted that I hope I can remember how to do this!

I really love our neighborhood.  There are lots of reasons for that, but one of them is the population of our apartment complex.  There are people here from all over!  I periodically see residents wearing saris or the typical costumes of various African countries, and the other day I saw a woman in full Vietnamese dress crossing the parking lot to throw her trash away!  One of our new neighbor families is Chinese.  It consists of a highly-educated, working mother and father, a two-year-old boy, and--typically--live-in paternal grandparents.  (Actually, they live in a different apartment, but only because a three-bedroom isn't available at the moment.)  The grandparents love children in general, and Esther in particular.  Whenever we are out at the same time, they will play with her and speak Chinese to both of us (they only speak a few words of English, mostly things that their grandson says a lot).  So although Esther will likely never meet her birth grandparents, she is well on her way to having a surrogate NaiNai and YeYe (the terms, respectively, for paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather).  That makes me very happy!  It's also good for me to have to use Chinese to communicate, although it's rather uncomfortable never being sure if I told them what I thought I told them, or left them with the wrong idea entirely!  (Like, at one point they asked me a question which, from the words I understood, I guessed to be whether Esther was my only child--but they could also have been asking whether I lived alone.  I told them yes, and hoped I was answering the right question!)  Esther has also made a great fan of the grandmother of an extended family of Vietnamese immigrants, who I can't communicate with at all except for body language.  Fortunately body language is all you need with a baby, so the two of them understand each other perfectly.

On another note, it's amazing how many people talk to me now that I have a baby!  I'm actually starting to get to know a few of our neighbors, something I had thought was well-nigh impossible in an apartment complex.

I've been trying to take Esther outside for a walk on a regular basis, now that she is walking well.  There is a wonderfully large grassy area just in back of our apartment building which is perfect for rambling through.  Esther's favorite parts are the woodchips in the playground area, the stairs going up the hill, sticks, and squirrels.  Today we were lucky enough to see three or four squirrels relatively close.  Esther stamped her feet, hissed (her current way of expressing pleasure and excitement), pointed her stick at them, and was generally thrilled.  Of course when she started towards them as fast as she could toddle they ran away.

Like I said, this is a great place to live!