Referral day plus 4 years

This is the referral picture that I received of Lauren. I love how her toes are curled. Lauren still does that. It is so cute that she did that then and still does.

Here is my wonderful girl today. She is full of life and I just love her.

Four years ago today I received my referral for Lauren. It seems a lifetime ago and at times it feels like yesterday.

I knew that I was getting my referral sometime that week because all the yahoo lines had talked about the referrals coming and they were pretty much right on target. The talk had started the week before and it was pretty certain it would be on Monday or Tuesday. I had thought about it all weekend and I excited and a bit scared. This is back when CCAA were doing pretty big referrals so I knew I would be in the group.

Monday morning I remembering sitting at my desk at work and reading that some referrals were coming in. It was such a weird feeling that in a few hours I would know a little about my daughter. I had not told many people at work that I was adopting so I was waiting at my desk without anyone in the office knowing what was happening to me that day. I remember being so nervous that whole morning. I was e-mailing other families that were expecting referrals it was an exciting and strange day. I can’t explain the feeling of knowing that you were going to find out about your child for the first time. This is the child you had already bought a ton of clothes for and that you had decorated the room for and have a ton of toys for and have dreamed about and thought about for a year. Yet you know nothing about the child.

Then the word came:

YES, you are in the group. JUST found out her name and dob and that is all they have translated on yours right now. Everyone is getting restless so they are doing this part below right now.

NAME:Lei Qing Rong

d.o.b. June 27, 2003

GuangDong Province (southern tip of China)

There is a long story on why it was e-mailed but what I do remember is that I just stared at the words on my computer. I didn’t know how to feel. I was a little disappointed that she was not younger but it seemed so unreal and so strange. I didn’t have a connection to the name and really didn’t feel anything but being numb. Now when I look at these words I see Lauren but then I didn’t know what to expect.

At that time our agency didn’t e-mail pictures so I had to wait until the next day before I got pictures. That night I remember wondering what she looked like. Would I fall in love with her? Would I think she was the cutest baby ever? It was a strange night. I do remember going shopping and buying her a few new outfits. But mostly I remembering being so scared about what she would look like.

The packet came to my work the next day and I remember the receptionist bring the FedEx package to me. I saw the return address was Children’s Hope International and I knew that it was the information on my daughter. I was shaking when I opened the package and took out all the papers. I remember getting the pictures and again not knowing what to think. I didn’t fall in love with the pictures however, now when I look at them I don’t understand why I didn’t. She was very cute in the pictures and I should have been over the top in love but I was still so in shock I could not process the whole thing.

I did show her to some of the people in my office and I sent out a message letting people know. The next day they had a party for me and I told the rest of the office. I think I really shocked a lot of people with my news.

As I stated above I was disappointed with her age. This was for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted a really young baby because I wanted a baby. I thought that because she was almost one she would not be a baby anymore and that she would be walking and feeding herself and all that. I was also worried that the clothes that I bought her would not fit her (6 to 9 month size) and second, I wanted to see her turn one. Boy was I wrong on all accounts. Lauren was a baby. She was not walking, in fact she was not even crawling. She was not feeding herself at all she was still eating number 2 baby food. And she was small. The clothes fit her perfect (if not a little big). Although I missed her first birthday I got to see a lot of firsts. I got to see her crawl, stand, walk, feed herself a bottle, start to feed herself food. I got to hear her first sounds and first words. I got to see her learn to play with toys. I got to see her hair grow out. It is funny to look at her now because her hair is so long and thick and beautiful but when I got her she had hair that was about ½ inch. She has a very large head so it looked a bit odd.

That day 4 years ago was a great day and I love to think about. There are many times I pull up that old e-mail and remember that day. I am so lucky that I got this little girl. She is a perfect fit with me and my family. She is the best thing that ever happened to me and I love her so much.

VBX

When I was growing up part of summer was going to vacation bible school. I remember going as a child and later teaching when I was in high school and college.

This year Lauren was old enough to go to vacation bible school at our church. However, this year they called it vacation bible experience. (VBX) Everytime I would say something about VBS Lauren would correct me and tell me it is VBX!

Lauren went everyday and she had a great time. She made new friends and learned new songs and stories. The teacher even commented one day on how social Lauren is with everyone. She said that all the girls wanted to be Lauren's friend and sit by her and play with her. After some of the girls in her preschool class this made me happy.

At the end of the week they have a program with all the kids in it. There were a ton of kids. It was neat to see Lauren up there singing with her classmates.

At the beginning of the week they gave us this transfer to put on a shirt. She was to wear this shirt everyday. What a pain. I had to wash that shirt by hand every night. I should have put in on a dark colored shirt and not white!

Cheerleader

Since January Lauren has been taking a cheerleading class. Lauren's cousin, Blaire, is a competitive cheerleader and Lauren thinks it is so neat. She loves try anything that Blaire does. So when I saw that Little Gym had a cheerleading class I signed her up. She like it and she learned some cute moves.

Today was the end of the class program. The class did a dance and a cheer and they did some stunts. It was really cute and Lauren tried really hard. She was so serious during the program. I kept trying to get her to smile. I did get a few pictures of her smiling.



Lauren told me that this move is a high V.
This is her during her dance.

My happy cheerleader.

This is one of the stunts. I can't remember the name of this one.

This is a spider. I was shocked that she could do this and balance.

Then she did this one later and I was so impressed. She is really growing up.

At the end of the program they get a medal. It is very cute and Lauren seemed to enjoy the class and the program today. I am not sure we will do this in the fall but she had fun this spring.

Birthday Party Fun

On Saturday we celebrated Lauren's 5th birthday. Although her birthday is not until the end of June we have her friend's birthday party in May. We do this because if we wait until the end of June there will be no one here. It seems that a lot of families get out of the valley as soon as school ends and they stay away until school is about to start.

We had scheduled this party for earlier in the month but due to about 4 other parties scheduled for that same day we changed it. It ended up working out great but it was a very busy week. We had the last day of school, school graduation, trip to the waterpark and then the birthday party. Lauren was so excited but she would not give me a good smile the whole time. It was driving me crazy. So the pictures are not the greatest.

Here is Lauren waiting for her friends to come. To me that always makes me worried that no one will show up and I will be stuck with 30 gift bags to take home. In the end I didn't need to worry. We had a great showing. It was great to see all her friends including her friend, Hannah, from California

Lauren had a great time on all the fun things. Here she is going down the slide panties and all. She was running from one thing to another it was hard to get her to slow down. She acted so different from other parties that she was been at. She knew this was her party and so happy.

Finally a smile.

This is a group picture of most of her friends. There are a few missing from this picture but they all had a great time.

Her cousin Sammie decided to sit next to her when they sang happy birthday. I think Sammie thought it was for her and when it was time to blow out the candle she helped. It was pretty cute and Lauren seemed fine with it.

Every year when we have sung happy birthday to Lauren she has bursted into tears. I am not sure why, but this year she just smiled.

Blowing out the candles. Once Sammie saw what she was doing Sammie blew out the number 5.

Cousins having fun.

We then went home and opened the gifts. She got so many gifts and she had a great time opening them. Now I just have to find room for all of them.

It was a great birthday and Pump it Up does such a good job with the kids. Lauren is so excited to be 5 years old.

Preschool Graduation

Today was the first of many graduations for my little girl. She graduated from preschool. She was so excited about this day. When we were deciding what she should wear she wanted to wear something fancy because her cousin, Elaine, wore a fancy dress to her 8th grade graduation earlier in the week. I think she picked out a great dress and looked just beautiful today.



The students put on a very cute program with singing and talking parts. The last talking part went "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 blastoff, watchout kindergatern here we come." it was so cute!



Here are some pictures from the day.



Here is my kindergartener!



All ready to go.

Getting her diploma from her teacher.

I love this picture. She was looking at the tassel.

I told her that at the end of the program the graduates throw their hats in the air. It was so cute to watch her do this also.

It was a great day and I am so proud of my little girl.

(Everyone loved the scrapbooks. They thought they were great. It was nice to hear such nice things from everyone.)

Last Day of Preschool

I tried to get a good last day of school picture of Lauren but she was in one of her moods where she was trying to pose. So this is what I got. Still very cute but silly.

These are pictures from the kid's scrapbooks. This is from Lauren's book. On the pages are note from the student. So on Finlay's page there is a short note to Lauren.

More kid's pages.

These are from the teacher's books. I gave the parents pages and had them or their child or both write the teacher a note. I love who these turned out!!

Here is Lauren's page to one of her teachers.

Today was Lauren's last day of Preschool. Tomorrow is her school's "graduation party" . I can't believe that my little girl will no longer be in preschool. She started preschool when she was 2 years old and she went two days a week. When she was 3 she went three days a week and now that she is 4 she goes four days a week. She has never cried when she was dropped off at preschool even that very first day. She has loved all her teachers and she loves to play with her friends. Although this year has frustrated me and there are times she was upset, if you ask her about school she will tell you how much she loves school and her friends and her teachers. Preschool for Lauren was a great experience and I think she will do great in kindergarten.

I was just reading someone else's blog and they had a comment about how they pulled their child out of preschool because they didn't feel that the child was learning enough and that preschool was just like babysitting. I feel bad for this child because there is much more to preschool then learning the ABCs. I am glad Lauren went to the preschool she did. There are so many different types of preschools from play based to academic based. The school I sent her to was a play based program. Being a former teacher, I know that each child will learn at their own speed and to force learning (flashcards, practice writing and and the like) does not benefit them in the long run. The child might learn to read a little faster but studies have shown that by the end of the third grade kids are all about at the same level no matter how they started.

I wanted Lauren to have fun and learn to play with other children. I wanted her to learn to sit in circle time and to take turns in a group setting. I knew that reading and writing would come at her speed. Which it has. A play based school teaches children through play and it works. Lauren has never done a worksheet in class or they have never done flashcards but it is amazing because she is starting to read. She loves to write and had been writing since she was just over three.

The other thing I love about this school is their approach to creative art items. You will never see a coloring book or coloring pages at this school. What you see is a lot of blank paper, scissors, stickers, markers, crayons, paint, staplers, tape, glitter, and the like. I get great art projects. I was at a friends house the other day and I saw an art project that is made by a 3 year old child and you can tell that she was told exactly what to do to make the project turn out. I am sure that every child's art project look alike. There is no creativity with that type of art. I have taken the approach from school and Lauren has a whole cart full of art supplies. I get so many cards, notes and letters that are decorated in such a wonderful way. She loves to make art projects for her friends and cousins. It is great to see her not hold back and think that there is a right way to do something. She tries things and that is great.

All is all Lauren has grown so much since she started school. It will be sad to leave the community that we have been in for the past three years. A couple of the kids will be going with Lauren at her new school but it will be a brand new experience for her. She is so excited about going to kindergarten.

I am so excited that preschool is over because I packed my last lunch!!!!! Lauren had to bring a lunch everyday to school. That is a lot of lunches for the past 3 years and now I am done. She will probably buy her lunch most of the time next year.

But what I am most excited about is that I FINISHED THE SCRAPBOOKS!! I posted a few pictures of them. The student books were 6 x 6 books. The books have 22 pages in them. The 22 pages are: 2 class pictures (one funny and one not), a page for each of the 3 teachers, a page for each of the 14 students, 2 pages of the student doing activities in the class and a question/answer page. The pages with the teachers and students, I had the teacher and students write a short note to each other. They turned out really cute.

The teacher scrapbooks turned out great. They are 8 x 8 and 30 pages, two class pictures and then two pages for each of the 14 students. The students pages have one page of pictures and on the opposite page is a note to the teacher from either the parent or the child or both. They really look nice. I would have liked to have done the students in an 8 x 8 size but I was given the books to use for the students but I think they turned out nice. I think the teacher books look a little nicer but that is probably because they are nicer books and bigger.

Memorial Day Cookout

Today we were invited to a cookout with some friends. We met these friends about 3 years ago when all our girls were in the 2 year old class at Little Gym. None of us go to the Little Gym any more but we have kept up with this friendship. We have a mom's night out every 6 to 8 weeks and we try to get the kids together every once in a while. It is nice friendship because the girls really get along and us parents also get along really well.



As the parents talked and caught up with each other the kids tried to swim a little but the water was still a bit cold. We were all a little surprised that they did get in the pool for a little while.



It was a nice day to hang out with nice friends. We had a great time.

I love when I see pictures of Lauren and she and a friend are holding hands. I think it is so sweet.