Life Lessons

Wednesday night we went to the Praise service.  I figured Claire would have the best chance of getting used to church in a service that was going to be mostly music.  She did well, but she did add a new phrase to her vocabulary, "Too many people!"  If that is how she feels about a Wednesday service, I wonder how she will like Sunday morning?

We didn't eat before church so came home to have a snack/supper before bed.  While she was eating I noticed blood running down her chin. A quick check showed me that there was a loose tooth.   Another new phrase, "Eat on this side, ouch.  Eat on this side, no ouch."   Very useful thing to figure out.

By mid-morning Thursday, I had had enough of drooling blood and complaining, so I explained, "Bye-bye tooth, no ouch."   Hey, with our current vocabulary, this is pretty awesome communication.

She agreed and I pulled the tooth.  We put it in a red envelope to save til bedtime. 

Biting on a piece of gauze until the bleeding stopped.

Next morning, wouldn't you know it, the tooth was gone and the envelope held $2.  Claire had to call her Daddy and let him know.

"Bye-bye tooth, hello money!"

Guarding that envelope with the money that belongs only to Claire.

Of course, the rest of the day we had to discuss that this was indeed Claire's money.  It wasn't Daddy's money.  It wasn't Mommy's money.  It wasn't Ben's money.   You get the idea.  I don't need to run through all the children from the Foster Home.  :-)

Since this was Friday morning and the social worker was coming for our first post-placement visit, we made plans to go to the store to buy something with that money as soon as the "lady" went home.

To fill in the time, we baked some cookies.  Claire loved squeezing the dough out onto the pan, although she thinks that squeezing is "too heavy" because it taxes her hand strength.  It was fun to make cookies together, and to share them with Ms. Lydia later. 

The mixer is "too noisy."

Mixing is hard work.  "Help you please."

As "heavy" as that dough was, Claire wanted to squeeze out every single cookie.  It was quite a workout, but she didn't give up!

Our post-placement was actually quite enjoyable.  Lydia asked questions and we answered while Claire did fun things to amuse us all and keep herself center of attention.  The one question that made me hesitate was when Lydia asked if Claire was using 50 words.  Well, I hadn't really counted, but that seemed low.  I said she has a vocabulary of at least 100 English words.  (I was wrong.  Saturday morning, I started a list of each word or phrase she used correctly all on her own. I didn't count things she repeated after hearing someone else say it, and I counted phrases of 3 to 6 words as just one word.  For example: "Dry your hands on a towel" got counted as one word.   She has at least 300 words in her useable vocabulary After being home just 2 weeks!  I am so, so, so impressed!)

Our family shot for the post placement report.  Taken just 2 weeks after getting home.

Of  course, the minute Lydia went out the door, Claire told us to get our shoes on to go to the store.  She never forgets anything she wants.   A little questioning revealed that she wanted to buy ice cream with her money.  Introduce Dairy Queen.  So what if it was 4:30 .  We could just eat supper a little late.  We had money to spend.  

Claire picked up that lesson quickly, too.  She ordered her cherry sundae and handed over her newly acquired money.   As we walked to the table to sit down and wait for Daddy to bring our ice cream over she summed it up well, "Bye-bye tooth, hello money, bye-bye money, all gone."

At least she still had the ice cream to enjoy.   Some lessons can be learned sweetly.