First Visit to the Doctor

Ruby's own birthday mark-CM2

We finished up the girls' birthday celebrations with a family gathering hosted by Grammy and Poppop. It was so nice to hang out together with cousins and aunts and uncles for the afternoon.  The girls loved the big balloons, dollies, and books they received as presents.

Ruby's language is starting to grow, I think. In the last week she's started repeating more words after we say them, though not using them independently yet.  This is new for her. It is as if she's decided to learn to speak English.

Here's a list of English words she does use independently: uh-oh (she knew this one in China), more (she learned that one pretty quickly!), no, up, mama, dada. 

This week marked the start of the big girls' co-op. It meets one day every other week. Their daddy is teaching a class on martial arts there this semester, and I plan to stay home with Ruby.  He takes them for three hour-long classes, allowing Pearl to learn about the solar system, manners, and drama. Sapphire plays and works on a letter worksheet.  Pearl was excited about the start of this group, and she created this poster and asked me to put it up to 'celebrate.'

Our other family news is that the paperwork is not over. I've begun learning about the process of China's post-placement reports. We make one through our agency once she's been home one month, six months, twelve months, then three more stretching out to the final one at six years. We'll be scheduling the social worker to come to the home, take a look, and submit photos and medical info showing we are taking good care of Ruby.  I can't help but wonder who in China gets to read all of these reports.

Ruby had her first doctor's visit and four shots, and then we walked across the hall and filled four tubes with blood.  She did very well--didn't cry for her TB test, but waited until two nurses hit her up with needles in both thighs.  She was a little shocked that these nice ladies would do that!  We have no concerns following her medical exam, so we'll just keep updating the shots we promised the government we'd take care of. 

The big girls were impressed by all of her bandages.