Since Charlotte was so excited about the idea of getting into the swimming pool, we asked one of the instructors to give her a "swim test", not so much to assess her abilities but really to see if she would be willing to sit on the steps and wait for her turn and if she would swim with the instructor without Mommy in the pool, etc. Of course our daughter was a star! She loved it, and did everything the instructor asked of her.. so while Jack and Lili had their lessons, I worked it out with the front desk to enroll Charlotte in a class immediately following Jack & Lili's classes- and then changed Charlotte back into her swim suit so she could take her first lesson right away! I might be bragging because I am a proud Mom, but Charlotte did better in her class than the three kids who had been in it for five weeks already! Unfortunately I wasn't prepared with my camera (I never thought she would have her first lesson right then and there!) so I don't have any pictures of this! I will take some this week and post to the blog next weekend.
Last weekend Charlotte decided that when she wakes up in the middle of the night that she is no longer going to head into Mom & Dad's bed. First of all, Mom or Dad will always use that opportunity to take her to the potty (Charlotte doesn't always make it through the night "dry", so we have had to put her into pull-ups at bedtime), and if it is too early in the evening (before 11pm for example), Mom or Dad will take her back to her own room to get her to go back to sleep in her own bed. Well our strong-willed daughter was having none of that- so she figured a way around all of our night-time rules.... she heads right over to Spencer and Kyle's room, and crawls into bed with Spencer and goes right back to sleep. One night I heard her head in there around 9pm and I tried to get her settled back into her own bed- but it sure made her MAD! And I've decided that this is not going to be "the battle that I pick".... it makes her happy, it makes Spencer happy to wake up in the morning and have her there, so why fight it? And of course, it is just too adorable....
And then there are the times when I decide to go ahead and "pick a battle" because Charlotte does have to learn that there are rules in our family that we all need to follow so that we can live together happily (or at least in a somewhat civilized fashion!) And at those times Charlotte shows her unhappiness about bending to my will by having her version of a tantrum.... she just goes limp and wants to lay on the floor on her back. Rarely does she yell or cry, she just refuses to do whatever it is I want by just laying there. This happened several times at the aquarium when I wanted her to stop climbing on wall displays, or hold my hand as we crossed the street or walked in the parking lot, etc. And right there in the middle of the street while I was asking her to hold my hand and holding onto her arm when she refused, Charlotte just goes flat out on the ground and will not move. My reaction at these times is to pick her up, and carry her facing outward (so it is different from a cuddle-kind of carrying her), and to state again what I need for her to do, and then not react further. In the beginning (in China and our first days at home), Charlotte could hold a pout about this for a long time- up to an hour. Now when something like this happens, she only pouts for a few minutes and then just goes on with her day. And I am finding that the lessons are starting to stick, the next time I need to hold her hand in a parking lot, she does remember and "gives-in".
Charlotte has also had to live for a long time without a Mommy and Daddy figure in her life, and she has had to become very independent. In the beginning there were so many things that she refused to allow me to help her with, things like buttoning her pants, or helping her in the potty, etc. And in the beginning, she would rather struggle for 15 minutes to do it herself than allow me to help her. If I tried helping without her "permission" she would yell at me, and wave her hand in my face, and truthfully that kind of flat-out rejection hurt my feelings! Now, Charlotte will ask me to come with her to the potty and will ask for my help, and I always ask her if she wants me to help before just "taking over". Another thing is that in the morning Charlotte will want to find me and smile at me and say "hi", but she does not want me to hug her and cuddle her yet. That comes later once she is getting dressed and having breakfast. The idea of cuddling and hugging when you wake up is something that she is not used to, and she just isn't ready for that yet.
In terms of communication, a biggie is when we are eating a meal together. She does this funny thing where she says "mama" and then smiles at me, and then looks at the thing she wants more of, and then back to me... over and over so I can see what she wants. She must have been taught that pointing or just taking more of something is not allowed, so she won't do it. I try to give her words for what she wants... "Mommy, can I have more please?" and then tell her the name of the object "corn", or "apple", etc... and she smiles and repeats everything I say, and then of course is rewarded with what she desired. But it is this funny little dance we do at every meal. Charlotte also doesn't understand why we don't all have the same thing on our plates (okay, Mommy doesn't either- why can't we all eat the same thing!!) and she wants what everyone else is having. So if one kid picks cereal for breakfast, another a yogurt, and another eggs... well she doesn't understand why she just gets eggs, and not the cereal and yogurt too. And trying to get her to understand that no one got all of the foods is hard to do without having enough shared language... I say it, but I don't think she is "buying it" yet!
One last funny thing- Charlotte is quite the mother hen and tattle tale. If she sees one of the kids doing something that she thinks is the wrong thing, she will call for me, "Mama"... and then tell me the culprit- "Mei Mei Lili" and then will act out the offense.... motions for eating and then walking to the playroom (Lili has taken her yogurt into the playroom away from the kitchen table). And Charlotte laughs when I give her words for what she is acting out... "Charlotte, is Lili eating in the playroom?" She is so happy that she has communicated all of this to me, and that I get it!
Every day it is something new- the joy of discovering water play with our water table outside, telling her sister Lili to "sit down" when she was standing on her chair, watching her eat a BBQ chicken drumstick right down to the bone with sauce all over her pretty little face and hands. Such a privilege we have to witness all of this.
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