Right now Esther has two confirmed words: "there" (pronounced "deh") and "down" (pronounced "deu," vowel as in book). She may be saying a few others as well, but those are the only ones we're sure of. Meanwhile, she has a lot that she wants us to know! So, we have scenes like the following:
Linette (looking at a book with Esther): "Look, somebody has a backpack! See the water bottle in it?"
Esther: Suddenly gets up and goes running into the kitchen. Comes back out, firmly closes the book and drops it on the floor, grabs Mommy by the finger and tows her into the kitchen. Stops at the kitchen sink and lifts up her arms.
Linette: Looks above the sink and guesses that Esther wants the cereal that is sitting on top of the cupboard. Puts Esther in her chair and gives her some cereal.
Esther: Cries and throws the cereal on the floor.
Linette (thinking back to the water bottle in the book): Offers Esther a cup of milk.
Esther: Guzzles the milk. (At which point Linette realizes that Esther wasn't asking for cereal, but wanted Mommy to pick her up, take a cup out of the cupboard by the sink and give her a drink of water, which is her post-tooth-brushing routine.)
Daddy was a little more astute at figuring out what she wanted this morning:
Esther: Eating food off the floor below her chair.
Daddy: "Are you hungry?"
Esther: Laughs and runs to the refrigerator.
Daddy: Puts Esther in her chair and gives her cottage cheese, which she eats happily.
Esther (when the cottage cheese is finished): Points to kitchen.
Daddy: Gets out milk.
Esther: Pushes milk away and points to kitchen again.
Daddy: Points to cereal.
Esther: Laughs.
Daddy: Takes down box of Puffins.
Esther: Shakes her head.
Daddy: Takes down box of Life.
Esther: Shakes her head.
Daddy: Takes down box of Cheerios.
Esther: Laughs.
Daddy: Gives Esther Cheerios, which she eats happily.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
You give me allergy!
A few years ago Tim had to go to Italy for work, and I joined him afterwards for a vacation. As we were on a tour bus full of Italians headed for the coast, I was idly listening to a rather hackneyed love song in English when the singer warbled, "You give me ecstasy! You give me fantasy! You give me allergy!!" Talk about trying a little too hard to rhyme!
I don't know if Esther has ever fantasized about lentils, but unfortunately, we confirmed today, she is allergic to them. We really like dahl (an Indian dish with lentils and yummy spices), and eat it often. We have been giving it to Esther since she was about 11 months, and she had liked it a lot until recently, when she started not eating very much of it when I served it to her. (Now I wonder if her sudden loss of interest was because her mouth was itching.) Then the last two times I served it to her, I noticed hives around her mouth shortly afterwards. They went away quickly, but I called her doctor, who referred us to an allergist.
So this morning I held Esther down on her tummy on an examining table while a nurse pricked her 17 times with various possible allergenic substances (eight nuts plus all the ingredients in dahl) and Esther bawled and arched her back and tried to get away. Two of the pricks were for control purposes: a histamine (which anyone should have an allergic reaction to) and saline solution (which shouldn't provoke a reaction in anybody). Interestingly, Esther's skin reaction to the histamine was smaller than average, to the point that the nurse commented on it and asked us if she had taken any antihistamine recently (she hadn't). Her reaction to the lentils was the same as her reaction to the histamine, and she also had a modest--but not quite definitively allergic--reaction to the cardamom. Everything else checked out negative, even the peanuts, which apparently can be cross-reactive with lentils. When the doctor came in to look at the results, she told us to keep Esther away from lentils and cardamom, gave us a prescription for epipen jr. and instructions on how to use it, and ordered a blood test (RAST) for the entire legume family so we can find out if Esther has any allergies related to her lentil allergy. She thinks that Esther may grow out of her allergy, but wants to re-test her next year, and if she has a smaller reaction then they will do a food challenge. Esther tolerated having her blood drawn pretty well--I pointed out the blood spurting into the collection tube in an enthusiastic, what-a-lucky-girl-you-are-to-get-to-see-THIS! tone of voice, and after that our main problem was not that she was traumatized by the needle but that she wanted to grab the tube. On the whole, I think Tim was more traumatized by the visit than Esther was. It's hard for daddies to watch their little girls being hurt!
So, now I have to go fill an epipen prescription. (For anyone who doesn't know, epipen is a syringe of epinephrin that can be easily injected by a layperson into someone having an anaphylactic reaction such as severe difficulty breathing or a dangerous drop in blood pressure.) On the one hand, I'll feel safer for having it. On the other hand, it brings me closer than I'd like to a world where my child's life could be threatened by something as benign as a bite of food. Then there are the practical problems: making sure we carry it with us every time we go out (because who knows when Esther will put something random in her mouth!), making sure the staff in the church nursery know where it is and how to use it...it feels like overkill for something she almost certainly won't need, but the circumstances under which it's the most nuisance to have it with her are also the ones under which she's most likely to have to use it, if she ever does. (Lest I'm scaring anyone, the vast majority of food allergies are NOT life-threatening, Esther's two reactions so far have been not only mild but remarkably short-lived, and from her reaction to the skin test today, as well as the fact that she never scratched her hives or seemed to be aware of them, I'm guessing that for some reason she doesn't react strongly to allergens in general--so she's not at great risk for an anaphylactic reaction; it's just a precaution on the part of her doctor.)
Now we are going to become label-readers as well. Lentils, at least, should be easy to avoid--they're not super common in Western food, and I think they're typically a main ingredient of whatever dish they are in. Cardamom isn't super common either--but it's amazing how many store-bought foods have "spices" as one of the ingredients on the list. So I will either be avoiding those foods entirely, taking a risk on exposing Esther to a substance she may be developing an allergy to, or calling the manufacturer to find out exactly what they mean by "spices." Sigh. I do hope she grows out of these allergies!
On the bright side, now we can give her peanuts and tree nuts! I had asked the allergist to test those since we were there anyway, because now that I'm learning more about allergies I'm paranoid about giving Esther any potential allergen until she can talk and tell me if she's having invisible symptoms of a reaction (like itchy mouth). But that may be a year or two yet, and in the meantime her pediatrician has recommended high-calorie snacks (at her 18-month check-up on Friday she had nearly reached the 50th percentile in height, but is still below the 5th percentile in weight), and nut butters are a very healthy high-calorie food. So now we won't have to feed her ice-cream for every snack! ;-)
And I think I just heard Esther murmuring to herself in her crib, so I'd better go check and see if she's awake!
Linette
I don't know if Esther has ever fantasized about lentils, but unfortunately, we confirmed today, she is allergic to them. We really like dahl (an Indian dish with lentils and yummy spices), and eat it often. We have been giving it to Esther since she was about 11 months, and she had liked it a lot until recently, when she started not eating very much of it when I served it to her. (Now I wonder if her sudden loss of interest was because her mouth was itching.) Then the last two times I served it to her, I noticed hives around her mouth shortly afterwards. They went away quickly, but I called her doctor, who referred us to an allergist.
So this morning I held Esther down on her tummy on an examining table while a nurse pricked her 17 times with various possible allergenic substances (eight nuts plus all the ingredients in dahl) and Esther bawled and arched her back and tried to get away. Two of the pricks were for control purposes: a histamine (which anyone should have an allergic reaction to) and saline solution (which shouldn't provoke a reaction in anybody). Interestingly, Esther's skin reaction to the histamine was smaller than average, to the point that the nurse commented on it and asked us if she had taken any antihistamine recently (she hadn't). Her reaction to the lentils was the same as her reaction to the histamine, and she also had a modest--but not quite definitively allergic--reaction to the cardamom. Everything else checked out negative, even the peanuts, which apparently can be cross-reactive with lentils. When the doctor came in to look at the results, she told us to keep Esther away from lentils and cardamom, gave us a prescription for epipen jr. and instructions on how to use it, and ordered a blood test (RAST) for the entire legume family so we can find out if Esther has any allergies related to her lentil allergy. She thinks that Esther may grow out of her allergy, but wants to re-test her next year, and if she has a smaller reaction then they will do a food challenge. Esther tolerated having her blood drawn pretty well--I pointed out the blood spurting into the collection tube in an enthusiastic, what-a-lucky-girl-you-are-to-get-to-see-THIS! tone of voice, and after that our main problem was not that she was traumatized by the needle but that she wanted to grab the tube. On the whole, I think Tim was more traumatized by the visit than Esther was. It's hard for daddies to watch their little girls being hurt!
So, now I have to go fill an epipen prescription. (For anyone who doesn't know, epipen is a syringe of epinephrin that can be easily injected by a layperson into someone having an anaphylactic reaction such as severe difficulty breathing or a dangerous drop in blood pressure.) On the one hand, I'll feel safer for having it. On the other hand, it brings me closer than I'd like to a world where my child's life could be threatened by something as benign as a bite of food. Then there are the practical problems: making sure we carry it with us every time we go out (because who knows when Esther will put something random in her mouth!), making sure the staff in the church nursery know where it is and how to use it...it feels like overkill for something she almost certainly won't need, but the circumstances under which it's the most nuisance to have it with her are also the ones under which she's most likely to have to use it, if she ever does. (Lest I'm scaring anyone, the vast majority of food allergies are NOT life-threatening, Esther's two reactions so far have been not only mild but remarkably short-lived, and from her reaction to the skin test today, as well as the fact that she never scratched her hives or seemed to be aware of them, I'm guessing that for some reason she doesn't react strongly to allergens in general--so she's not at great risk for an anaphylactic reaction; it's just a precaution on the part of her doctor.)
Now we are going to become label-readers as well. Lentils, at least, should be easy to avoid--they're not super common in Western food, and I think they're typically a main ingredient of whatever dish they are in. Cardamom isn't super common either--but it's amazing how many store-bought foods have "spices" as one of the ingredients on the list. So I will either be avoiding those foods entirely, taking a risk on exposing Esther to a substance she may be developing an allergy to, or calling the manufacturer to find out exactly what they mean by "spices." Sigh. I do hope she grows out of these allergies!
On the bright side, now we can give her peanuts and tree nuts! I had asked the allergist to test those since we were there anyway, because now that I'm learning more about allergies I'm paranoid about giving Esther any potential allergen until she can talk and tell me if she's having invisible symptoms of a reaction (like itchy mouth). But that may be a year or two yet, and in the meantime her pediatrician has recommended high-calorie snacks (at her 18-month check-up on Friday she had nearly reached the 50th percentile in height, but is still below the 5th percentile in weight), and nut butters are a very healthy high-calorie food. So now we won't have to feed her ice-cream for every snack! ;-)
And I think I just heard Esther murmuring to herself in her crib, so I'd better go check and see if she's awake!
Linette
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Our little climber
In general, we like Esther to stay out of the kitchen cupboards. But we have one cupboard that we have left unlatched so that she can open it up, remove or add contents (one time I opened the door to discover Tim's shoe reposing in our largest pot!), and generally have a good old toddler time. This was the scene inside "her" cupboard this morning:
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I'm better than a green blanket!
There's always something to worry about when you're a parent, right? If we had had a birth child, I think my two bogeymen in the closet would have been SIDS and autism--two things that are really scary and that can happen no matter how many things you do right. Since our child was adopted past the age of early infancy, my bogeymen have been autism and attachment. For those of you who aren't psychologists or part of the adoption community, here's a rundown on attachment as I understand it:
Basically, when the relationship between a parent and child works as designed, the child experiences the parent as a source of comfort, pleasure and protection. The child thus comes to trust the parent to meet his/her needs, and enjoys the parent's presence. This is called a secure attachment. A child with a secure attachment seeks the parent out for both fun and help, and shows a healthy balance between dependence (trusting the parent to meet needs) and independence (trusting the parent not to go away). When something happens to disrupt the normal workings of the relationship--an extended absence of the parent, for example (I believe attachment problems were first described in children whose mothers had been hospitalized for an extended period of time), or a failure of the parent to meet the child's physical and emotional needs--then the child is at risk for developing an unhealthy attachment style. Unhealthy attachment styles include anxious attachment (e.g. the child doesn't trust the parent to stick around, and so reacts with panic if the parent so much as goes into the bathroom and closes the door), avoidant attachment (e.g. the child doesn't trust the parent to meet his/her needs, and so bends over backwards to prevent the parent from being in control of need-meeting, either finding another way or person to get the needs met or simply ignoring the needs), reactive attachment (e.g. the child expects the parent to reject him/her, and so takes control of the situation by acting in ways that will bring rejection on the child's terms), and ambivalent attachment (e.g. the child wants the parent's care and attention but can't bring him/herself to receive it). Children with unhealthy attachment styles have a greater-than-normal need to control the people in their most important relationships. They can be very charming to everyone other than their primary caregiver, which is itself a form of control. Children raised in institutions, where they may have had many caregivers and never had the chance to form a special, close relationship, or where they may have regularly experienced having physical or emotional needs that were not quickly met, are at special risk for attachment disorders. Children who experience a drastic change in caregivers at a young age, even if both the "before" and "after" caregivers are loving and responsible, are also at special risk.
So, before we got Esther I did a lot of reading about how attachment works and how to parent children in ways that mitigate the effects of unhealthy attachment and promote the formation of secure attachment. After we got Esther, I practiced what I had learned, watched her closely, and, occasionally, worried. She cried when I walked out of her sight for two seconds--could she be anxiously attached? She ran to a visitor that she had never met before and held up her arms to be picked up--was this indiscriminate affection a sign of trouble? She played by herself contentedly for half an hour--was she avoidantly attached? The first time we left her in the church nursery, she had a wonderful time and apparently didn't miss us--was that normal??
Then there were the signs of a developing attachment, which I greeted with relief. There was the day I was walking Esther around a restaurant, and one of the servers (not from the U.S.) picked her up without asking my permission, and Esther turned around and looked intently at my face, I'm sure to gauge my reaction, before she turned her attention back to charming the woman who was holding her. And there was the time I wanted to let my mother-in-law hold her in the rocking chair, because for once in her life Esther had actually sat still long enough to let me rock her, but Esther wouldn't have any of it because she wasn't feeling well and only Mommy would do. Then there was the time I left her on the porch with two of her grandmothers, people she knew and loved, while I went into the house to fetch some papers, and she stood by the door watching for me until I came back. And in church, right after she learned to walk, she had walked a little ways away from me, and when I knelt down and opened my arms to her, her little face lit up and she practically ran into my hug. And many, many times when she was teething on her molars I would pick her up crying from her crib and feel her snuggle into my shoulder, stop crying, and fall back to sleep.
I was thinking about all this last weekend when we went camping. We were a little unsure of how Esther would sleep in a strange place, but we had brought the all-important green blanket which now makes trips in the carseat bearable and which is necessary for her to fall asleep in the crib. She didn't have any trouble falling asleep, but towards morning she went through a phase where she kept half-waking and beginning to cry at finding herself in an unfamiliar place. At those times I had to hold her tightly against me, and she would subside back to sleep as long as I didn't let go. Later she would start to wake up, reach out and touch my hair, and go back to sleep again. I realized she wasn't reaching for her green blanket; she was reaching for me.
Last night I thought about it again when Esther and I were watching a friend's big dog through the kitchen door. Esther was very, very intrigued by Otis, and was having a wonderful time until he barked and scratched on the door. She jumped, and, without taking her eyes off the dog, sidled towards me and sat down on my lap, where the alarmed look faded from her face.
It's a good feeling to know that out of all the places and objects in the world, I'm the one that makes her feel the most secure. For now, that's exactly the way it should be.
Basically, when the relationship between a parent and child works as designed, the child experiences the parent as a source of comfort, pleasure and protection. The child thus comes to trust the parent to meet his/her needs, and enjoys the parent's presence. This is called a secure attachment. A child with a secure attachment seeks the parent out for both fun and help, and shows a healthy balance between dependence (trusting the parent to meet needs) and independence (trusting the parent not to go away). When something happens to disrupt the normal workings of the relationship--an extended absence of the parent, for example (I believe attachment problems were first described in children whose mothers had been hospitalized for an extended period of time), or a failure of the parent to meet the child's physical and emotional needs--then the child is at risk for developing an unhealthy attachment style. Unhealthy attachment styles include anxious attachment (e.g. the child doesn't trust the parent to stick around, and so reacts with panic if the parent so much as goes into the bathroom and closes the door), avoidant attachment (e.g. the child doesn't trust the parent to meet his/her needs, and so bends over backwards to prevent the parent from being in control of need-meeting, either finding another way or person to get the needs met or simply ignoring the needs), reactive attachment (e.g. the child expects the parent to reject him/her, and so takes control of the situation by acting in ways that will bring rejection on the child's terms), and ambivalent attachment (e.g. the child wants the parent's care and attention but can't bring him/herself to receive it). Children with unhealthy attachment styles have a greater-than-normal need to control the people in their most important relationships. They can be very charming to everyone other than their primary caregiver, which is itself a form of control. Children raised in institutions, where they may have had many caregivers and never had the chance to form a special, close relationship, or where they may have regularly experienced having physical or emotional needs that were not quickly met, are at special risk for attachment disorders. Children who experience a drastic change in caregivers at a young age, even if both the "before" and "after" caregivers are loving and responsible, are also at special risk.
So, before we got Esther I did a lot of reading about how attachment works and how to parent children in ways that mitigate the effects of unhealthy attachment and promote the formation of secure attachment. After we got Esther, I practiced what I had learned, watched her closely, and, occasionally, worried. She cried when I walked out of her sight for two seconds--could she be anxiously attached? She ran to a visitor that she had never met before and held up her arms to be picked up--was this indiscriminate affection a sign of trouble? She played by herself contentedly for half an hour--was she avoidantly attached? The first time we left her in the church nursery, she had a wonderful time and apparently didn't miss us--was that normal??
Then there were the signs of a developing attachment, which I greeted with relief. There was the day I was walking Esther around a restaurant, and one of the servers (not from the U.S.) picked her up without asking my permission, and Esther turned around and looked intently at my face, I'm sure to gauge my reaction, before she turned her attention back to charming the woman who was holding her. And there was the time I wanted to let my mother-in-law hold her in the rocking chair, because for once in her life Esther had actually sat still long enough to let me rock her, but Esther wouldn't have any of it because she wasn't feeling well and only Mommy would do. Then there was the time I left her on the porch with two of her grandmothers, people she knew and loved, while I went into the house to fetch some papers, and she stood by the door watching for me until I came back. And in church, right after she learned to walk, she had walked a little ways away from me, and when I knelt down and opened my arms to her, her little face lit up and she practically ran into my hug. And many, many times when she was teething on her molars I would pick her up crying from her crib and feel her snuggle into my shoulder, stop crying, and fall back to sleep.
I was thinking about all this last weekend when we went camping. We were a little unsure of how Esther would sleep in a strange place, but we had brought the all-important green blanket which now makes trips in the carseat bearable and which is necessary for her to fall asleep in the crib. She didn't have any trouble falling asleep, but towards morning she went through a phase where she kept half-waking and beginning to cry at finding herself in an unfamiliar place. At those times I had to hold her tightly against me, and she would subside back to sleep as long as I didn't let go. Later she would start to wake up, reach out and touch my hair, and go back to sleep again. I realized she wasn't reaching for her green blanket; she was reaching for me.
Last night I thought about it again when Esther and I were watching a friend's big dog through the kitchen door. Esther was very, very intrigued by Otis, and was having a wonderful time until he barked and scratched on the door. She jumped, and, without taking her eyes off the dog, sidled towards me and sat down on my lap, where the alarmed look faded from her face.
It's a good feeling to know that out of all the places and objects in the world, I'm the one that makes her feel the most secure. For now, that's exactly the way it should be.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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, pr
oducing 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?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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!
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!