Tag Archives: Little Princes

01/28/10

{28/365} Eyeglasses and Too much lovin’

When I made Little Princess’ eye appointment for today I didn’t realize that her neuro appt would be the day before, but I decided not to change the eye doctor appt. That was my first mistake but not my last today. Even though the last eye appointment was over a year ago, I still remember it vividly. It was HORRIBLE and I swore that I would never let that happen to them again. So we tried out a new eye doctor who has his own two year old who has glasses, so I knew he knew what he was doing. I explained what upset me about the last appointment and was assured that would not happen at this office. It didn’t, but Little Princess remembers the last time (I would too if it had been me). She wanted NOTHING to do with the office and while I did have to hold her still no one held her down and forced her eyes open. We knew it would not be easy, but that was an understatement. Good thing Aaron and I went together with her – bad thing we left her security item with Alison, her brother. She was so upset about not having him with her that it did not help. (I will talk about his experience in a minute.) After an hour we were released, we were told that yes her eyes were worse BUT that she was on the borderline for actually having glasses. He knew she had a twin and we decided that we would bring them in together in July – he told the staff to clear 2 hours for us, we will be the only people in the office! I LOVE when Dr’s are not all about the money and about the patients! We have a lot of doctors like that who we see and we drive to see them because our kids are important to us! Anyway, he said in July when we come back there is about a 95% likelihood that she will need glasses, which we are ok with now we just have to get her used to the idea! I am open for suggestions!

While Little Princess was at the eye doctor, Little Man was at Alison’s with one of his many little girlfriends. Alison said he was a little clingy and that she was sure he was running a temp. I felt horrible for leaving him with her but she gave him some Tylenol and he seemed to be doing better. I got there and we both realized it appeared he was getting his final two teeth and he was playing like his usual self so we let it go. Alison then told me that her daughter – I will call her Pants – had been trying to hug and kiss him ALL morning. It was WAYYYYY cute. But Little Man wanted nothing to do with Pants no matter how hard she tried. He would humor her for a few seconds and then gently push her away. Pants was so cute and never gave up! I wanted to take pictures but I had left my camera battery (not the camera just the battery) at home, so no pictures and the perfect argument for an extra battery. But it was beyond cute! Oh and so you don’t think Pants was just after Little Man she gave EVERYONE hugs! Little Man is a kisser – everything living or not gets kisses…Pants is a hugger and a good one at that! She is sooooooo cute! And even though she is 13 (almost 14) months younger than Little Man and Little Princess they are all almost the same size….it is sad I know. So I hope that hugs are in my future now!

Some pictures from when we got home and I retrieved the camera battery:

01/26/10

{26/365} Can a 2 year old read?

Ok so I am going to sound more than a little crazy here and I think that is ok or at least I hope! So if you know me or even Aaron you know that we both read A LOT, we probably have a couple thousand books in our house (most in the room we lovingly call our library). Anyway we have hundreds of children’s books and a new children’s book enters our house probably at least once a week if not once a month. So, it should be no shock that Little Princess L-O-V-E-S her books. It is not unusual for us to read four or five books to her in one sitting, nor is it unusual for her to want us to read the same books over an over all day. She now pretends to read the books to us…it is cute and usually no one has a clue what she is saying. Recently though that has changed….here is a picture of one of her favorite books:

As you can see it is a compilation of Disney stories. We read the stories to her when she asks. We always start with the first page of the story and never read the cover or the first few pages. So when she brought the book to us pointed to the word Disney and said “Disney” we just looked at each other and thought wow she is paying attention somewhere, smiled and moved on. She proceeded to bring us every Disney book we own and point to that word and say “Disney” – we knew that was not a word we would have read to her. Aaron and I talked about it and decided it was a complete fluke but thought wow she is smarter than we ever gave her credit for (and we had labeled her a genius before…).

So tonight she brings me the above book, hands it to me to start the music and lights and I expected her to point to the white area where the button to push to turn on the lights and music. She instead points to the word music and says “music” and Mommy about had a heart attack. I asked her what that said and she said “music.” I called Daddy who was still at work and she read it to him…

I still cannot believe that she read those two words. And while I have NO CLUE when Aaron started reading (though I suspect it was earlier than when it was taught in school), my mom has always told me that I loved a book called “Sam the Scarecrow” and I memorized the book and then started reading the same words in other books. I was 3 or 4 – they didn’t teach reading until first grade then. I suspect Aaron’s story is similar. While I don’t think I will be pushing her anytime soon I will be praising Little Princess when she does read the right words, I will also keep reading to her! (Oh yeah and I should also say that her vocabulary is expanding every day at least 10 or 15 words…she repeats EVERYTHING we say or at least tries, especially if we are talking to her specifically.)

01/23/10

{23/365} Smiles…

It was just over a week ago, I was talking to a friend – one who I do not get to talk to often enough and we were talking about our kids! Her daughter is only a month younger than Little Man and Little Princess and for the sake of this post this is important though I usually would not bring it up – their little girl is also adopted AND also suffers from TSC (the same disorder that Little Princess has). She has been following along lately and just loving the pictures of the twins (even the ones that are blurry because I have not been checking my focus points…user error and not camera error!) Anyway she said to me that Little Man and Little Princess are always smiling! I have been thinking about that and what I said to her…

For months we saw so few smiles from them, we knew they could smile – they gave them willingly to their foster parents but when we got home they went away for awhile, which we kind of expected. But what I didn’t expect was my desire to see them smile in pictures. I wanted the smile. To me it represented that they were happy here with us and when they were not smiling I worried a lot that they would rather be back in Korea. The smiles I see now make me believe that they would rather be with us, even if they throw tantrums and fits sometimes.

I love those smiles and search them out for the pictures I take…so sorry if there are a lot of smiles this year! I need them and LOVE to see them!

And I had to include this picture because Little Princess took it:

01/15/10

{15/365} Chicago

Most of our regular readers know that Aaron and I used to spend a lot of time in Chicago but since Little Man and Little Princess came home we have not been together. I went for BlogHer. And other than flying into the airport Little Man and Little Princess have never been either. Sonny had only been to the airport. We planned a trip between Christmas and New Year’s but Sonny choose to do something else instead. Aaron and I looked at her schedule and decided that since she didn’t have school today or Monday, today would be a great day to go. Aaron took the day off work and we made a list of places to go and see.

When we got up this morning we realized that it would not be a good day for the skyline as the fog was horrible, but we were determined! So we got in the car and left! We headed straight for the Magnificent Mile. Sonny was in the backseat taking pictures and I in the front…she was mesmerized as we drove around a bit before we went to Watertower Place. We like to park there and it is even more convenient now that the American Girl store has moved to Watertower Place.

So we parked and got everyone ready and away we went! Little Princess has been obsessed with the American Girl catalogs since we received our first one and we wondered if she would like the store as much…as you can see she LOVED it (Little Man screamed for most of the time in this store – he had just woke up from a nap):

We then went to some other stores, making sure Sonny wanted to go no where anytime. Our next stop mesmerized Little Man and Little Princess the most – we went to the huge Disney Store where they happened to be having a pretty good sale and well they made out like bandits but it didn’t cost Mommy and Daddy much! I got a few pictures before they realized the WHOLE store was everything they knew and loved – Little Princess was saying “ninnie” a.k.a. Minnie and ” pretty pretty princesses” and finally “lightening” the whole time we were in the store! It was so cute! Also, she finally realized Daisy and Donald are ducks…bad for us, good for her….she is still duck obsessed. She actually does not call them Donald and Daisy, she calls them “quack quack.”

On our way to our next stop we saw this sign:

We have to remember to check that out! Also during the drive while Little Princess slept Little Man kept his eye out for trains (of which there were a lot since it was rush hour on a Friday) then every time he saw one he would pull his little arm down and go “whoo whoo” it was so cute we were laughing! We then went to H-Mart — I had heard about this store but being there just made me feel like I was back in Korea. There were times I thought Aaron and I were the only Caucasians in the store! Aaron actually saw the man he met and talked to for an hour when he was walking Little Princess around on the plane on the way home. I was in pure Korean cooking heaven and there were taste tests of food all around the store! Sonny even added a few things to the cart! I was too busy shopping to get any pictures BUT you can bet there will be some pictures of some of the food I make over the next couple of weeks! And I already begged Aaron to be able to go there once a month to stock up on the stuff I cannot get anywhere else!

Our next stop was Little Man and Little Princesses first trip to Rainforest Cafe! They loved the fish so much we were chasing them around trying to make it so they were not disturbing diners, so no pictures. But it was so cute every time a new fish crossed Little Man’s path he would say “what’s that” and point. I am pretty sure they scared more than one fish by pounding on the glass even though we tried to stop them. It was almost 9 p.m. by the time we were done…so it was time to go home but everyone had a great day!

On the way home, we decided that in the spring we would take a train trip up (we cannot wait to see Little Man’s face)and go to the museum, the aquarium, the Hancock building and maybe a few other places, probably during Sonny’s break! Can you tell we love Chicago and hope that our children do too!