Brian's shoulder surgery

Brian had his surgery today, and everything went really well. His surgeon repaired his shoulder, so now instead of a 100% chance that it will dislocate again, he now has a 95% chance that it won't. It will be wonderful to not have to worry about it dislocating all the time. I think that Brian is really happy to have this behind him. Truly, he probably should have done this years ago, but it seems like this past year has been especially hard to wait since he had so much healing to do after the last dislocation. He has always worried so much about it dislocating, especially during the winter when the sidewalks and parking lots are icy. It will be good to not always have that fear in the back of his mind. He says he already feels better (although I keep warning him that the pain meds have not worn off yet). He still has a long road of PT ahead of him, but this feels a lot like we have finally reached a milestone. The big challenge during this week while he is home recuperating is to make sure he actually rests and doesn't try to build, repair, or paint something. I actually took the whole week off so I can stay home with him and watch him like a hawk, um, I mean "encourage him to rest".

Dragonboat

A few weeks ago our local FCC chapter had our annual Dragonboat Festival, one of our favorite events. Each child brings a homemade "dragonboat" and we have dragonboat running races, sack races, and a dragonboat parade and a big picnic. I think Brian gets even more excited about building a dragonboat than Amelia does. While most kids bring Dragonboats that they have decorated themselves (which is the point, after all), he spends so much time designing ours and then builds ours out of cardboard and paper mache, and then paints it elaborately. This year our dragonboat included battery packs. Why, you ask? Because the eyes light up and flash. Next year he is trying to come up with a way to make it breathe smoke (I told him he might be going a little overboard with that idea, but Amelia thinks it would be cool). I pitch in by making the tail (which I thought was fabulous), but the rest is all Brian. Amelia helps with the decorations in the end. I was actually afraid that it was really going to be too big and heavy for her to wear and run with this year, but it didn't seem to slow her down. Although Amelia will probably use this one for a few years, we are hoping that Natalie will be home with us to go next year and Brian will get to make another one for her.

Each year there is a raffle, and Amelia wanted this Chinese Lion Dog puppet last year but didn't get it. She wanted it so much that she even asked me if we could look for one when we go to China. This year there was another one in the raffle, and she was so excited this year when they called her name!

Dinky Doodle

Today I was listening to Amelia sing "Yankee Doodle". She had sung it several times before I realized that she thinks the song is "Dinky Doodle". I wonder how long they have sung that in school and whether anyone noticed that she didn't quite have the lyrics right. I ended up giggling a little too much over it, and she got upset with me. I told her that I love her version. It is almost as good as her version of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" which goes "Baa Baa Black Sheep, Heavy Heavy Wool". Cracks me up every time...

Believe it or not, we have a name (and a story)!

I have waited a little while to post this, just because we have waffled so much over names over the past three years, but I think we have finally made a decision. Natalie. Natalie has actually always been on our list and one of our favorites and has always had a lot of meaning for us. We even considered it for Amelia's name, but decided that she just felt like more of an Amelia (and boy were we right!). Even though it has been one of my favorites for as long as I can remember (my favorite doll growing up was even named Natalie) I have always been hesitant because it has become so popular and I worry that there will be five Natalie's in her class at school. However, we got a wonderful sign that this is what our next daughter's name should be and have decided that it really is the perfect name...

When my mother-in-law was sick toward the end of her life, she told us about all the things that she wanted us to look for in her house after she was gone. She had made detailed (and I mean DETAILED) lists of which items she wanted each of her sons and daughters-in-law and Amelia to have. We found a list of her jewelry and who each piece should go to and why. I guess I should back up and say that although we have been in the process of adopting a second child for a very long time, my mother-in-law rarely mentioned it, and rarely commented when we mentioned it. Amelia was the light of her life, but she rarely spoke about her future second granddaughter. My mother-in-law's name was Nancy. When we found the list of her jewelry, at the bottom she listed that her "N" pendants should go to "Erica and Brian's next daughter if her name is something starting with an "N", like Natalie..." I don't recall ever mentioning to her that we had considered that as a name. When I saw that she had not only thought about our second daughter, but had planned to give her something that had been hers, I started to cry so much that I had to excuse myself from the room. Brian knew exactly what I was thinking. It really meant so much to both of us to know that she thought of her, and to see a name that we had both always loved in that context and in his mom's handwriting, we knew that we had found our name. It makes us so sad to think that she and Brian's dad will never know Natalie, but I think it gives us comfort to know that she at least thought, even briefly, of her granddaughter being named Natalie. So she will be named Natalie, in memory of Brian's mom.

Strawberry picking

Yesterday Amelia and I and friends of ours all went strawberry picking at a local farm. It was a beautiful day, and the girls loved picking the strawberries. I wanted to get enough to make some freezer jam and have enough to make strawberry shortcake. I should first tell you that I haven't gone strawberry picking as an adult, so my mom has always been the person to tell us how many strawberries we can use. Last year we picked raspberries and it took a huge amount of raspberries to make five jars of freezer jam so I assumed it would be the same with strawberries. I was so wrong. We picked WAY too many strawberries. We filled two of the containers in the photo above. I feel like I have done nothing but mash up strawberries all weekend. So far I have made 11 jars of freezer jam, 1 strawberry pie, eaten several bowls of strawberries on my own and encouraged everyone else in the family to eat as many as they could, given large bowls of strawberries away to neighbors and family, and we stil have a huge amount that I need to figure out what to do with. I think tomorrow I will put the rest in freezer bags for strawberry shortcake later in the summer. We sure did have fun though! And to show you that I haven't learned my lesson yet, I am already planning to go blueberry picking next month!

Another bad day at the movies

Last night Brian and I took Amelia to see Up. We had all been looking forward to it based on all of the ads that have been on the D*sne*y Channel for the past several weeks. It looked adorable. If you haven't seen it, don't read this post. I don't want to spoil anything for you. I guess overall the movie was good, but not at all the cute, funny and uplifting movie that we had expected it to be. Firstly, for those of you who have seen it, you can imagine that it wasn't the best movie for people who have just lost their parents/parents-in-law and have spent several weeks going through old photographs of them and thinking about their lives. I know it was just a cartoon, but that part was really hard for Brian and I.

The worst part of going to this movie was that Amelia was completely beside herself for the entire movie. Most of the scenes were scary to her, and parts were so intense for her that she was sobbing on my shoulder and saying (loudly) that she just wanted to go home. The people around us must have thought that we were the meanest parents because we didn't take her out of the theater when she was freaking out, but honestly I wanted her to stay to see that everything ended OK. If we had left during the worst part for her (when the explorer captures Kevin) she would have asked us for weeks what happened, and we wouldn't know. I was hoping that she would feel better about the movie if she saw a happy ending, but even the happy ending didn't help. She was pretty upset until she fell asleep when we got home. It isn't the first time that she has reacted like this during a movie. She was very upset at R*atat*uille and Happy F**t as well, but I think this movie bothered her the most. I don't know why she has such strong reactions to movies that we see in theaters, maybe the darkness and the large screen and the loud sounds make everything more intense. At any rate, I think it will be quite a while before we try to see another one.

It wasn't all bad, and I think I would have enjoyed the movie if Amelia hadn't been so upset. I thought that the dog was adorable. It just wasn't the cute movie I had hoped it would be.

Shopping for shorts - wish us luck!

It is unheard of...Amelia has actually outgrown all of her shorts! To help you understand just how monumental of an occasion this is, she has worn many of the same shorts for three summers, and some would still fit around her waist but they were getting far to short to be appropriate. I had her try on all of her shorts the other day, even the hand-me-downs from friends, and I was shocked that most of the ones that I was still willing to let her wear are really tight on her. We are used to her pants getting too short way before they get too tight, so I think we were just shocked to have something fit her too snugly. My mom called yesterday to see what we were planning to do today and asked if she could come visit for the day. I told her that we would love to see her, but that she would have to accompany us on a shorts-finding mission. This might be tricky since usually shorts that fit her in the waist are still around the 3T-4T size and are then not long enough for her. Are there any stores other than Ch*ldren's Pl*ce that make shorts with an adjustable waist?

UPDATE: We were very successful at our very first stop - T*rget! All of their girl's shorts and capris had adjustable waists, and she even fit into some of the 5T outfits. My Mom came with us and we had so much fun picking out the outfits and Mom even ended up buying most of the clothes for her. Thanks Mom! Amelia is now all set for the summer (and judging by the waist sizes when they aren't adjusted, she will be set for at least next summer as well!)