Wednesday, April 2, 2008

“I could not, would not, on a boat. I will not, will not, with a goat.

I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them on a train.

Not in the dark! Not in a tree! Not in a car! You let me be!

~Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham

Well, our beginning quote just about sums up our 4-year old Jia at this point. Jia has a mind of her own and when she makes up that mind there is no telling her otherwise!

My apologies for waiting so very long for an update, once the holidays started rolling by it got more and more overwhelming to think about catching up.

Jia’s most important news is that she went to Dr. Storer last week and she is great. The doctor says that she is healing wonderfully. The limb difference is very minimal, less than he thought and our little girl is joyfully walking, running, skipping, jumping and bouncing all over the place. When she goes to Dr. Storer’s office she says “all done, only pictures now” and she smiles hugely for her x-rays. She even gave Dr. Storer a hug and a kiss on the way out.

As for the holidays:

Halloween: Jia went as the pirate of greed going from house to house yelling “more”. At that point she was out of her cast but not walking yet so Anna, her big pirate cohort had to carry her all around the neighborhood.

Thanksgiving: saddled up to the table and ate many, many helpings of mashed potatoes. She participated in prayer and with some prompting said she was thankful for “her family”.

Christmas: Almost set her Dad on fire at the Christmas Eve services by insisting on holding her own “Silent Night” candle. Wrote a letter to Santa, which included many pictures from the Toys R Us catalog. Hung her stocking right in the middle so Santa would be sure to see it. As opposed to last year when shy little Jia opened one gift, this year she had no problem whatsoever tearing into all of her “many things” Jia helped her Mom and big sisters make Mom’s special stuffed potatoes, lots of cookies and tons of requested pumpkin rolls. She loves to be in the middle of things, especially in the kitchen. I have to say that by far Jia is our neatest child. She doesn’t like to have anything the least bit out of place.

New Years Eve: We think that fireworks and sparklers were in her past as she was quite adept at both and loved throwing “snaps” all over the pool deck. She made it to midnight and watched the ball go down while sipping sparkling apple juice and eating cheesecake.

Chinese New Year: Jia threw a party for her class at school. She went to school dressed in a beautiful, traditional Chinese suit and wore her little red “lucky dot” on her forehead. She treated her class to fried rice, fortune cookies, Chinese White Rabbit candies and red Chinese New Year envelopes. Her teacher Ms. Leslie really got into the spirit of the day and read the kids Chinese New Year books, had them all draw pictures of mice (Year of the Rat) and Chinese dragons, all the teachers at the school collected money and gave Jia a card and her very own special red envelope. That evening Jia once again celebrated at our favorite Chinese Restaurant-Dragon Gate. They had a big party in the parking lot with dancing dragons, acrobats, Kung Fu exhibitions, firecrackers and more red envelopes. Inside there was a whole roasted pig—Jia said “Mom, pig sleeping” I agreed that the pig was very tired.

Valentines Day: Jia’s teacher had all the students write their own names on each of the Valentines that they passed out, so Jia wrote 20 Jia-Li’s, made a Valentine Bag and came home with lots of chocolate (Jia + Chocolate = not a pretty sight)

St. Patrick’s Day: You will notice in Jia’s funny shirt collection, Jia was totally convinced for at least a day that she was Irish. She now realizes that she is Chinese again and points at all Asian people she sees and wants to talk to them. She knows that our family has many colors and many countries and that we are all so proud of each color and each country!

Easter: Mom had a really bad flu and it was pouring down rain so things were low key, but the Easter Bunny did visit our house. Jia was thrilled by the indoor egg hunt, coloring eggs and then making an awesome batch of deviled eggs with Anna. The Easter Bunny also brought Jia a “Monkey George” (Curious George), which is the series of books that Jia always checks out of the library. Jia and Dad enjoyed a honey-baked ham, the rest of us, especially Vegetarian Katie, not so much.