memorial day at the beach

Ibrahim loved this hat and Lua too, of course.

Ishmael held on to this lettuce from his garden at home almost the whole time he was playing at the beach.

Ibrahim coming to get me!

The shirtless duo pretending to go to bed

Ibrahim planting a smoocher on Ariel's cheek!

We spent much of Memorial Day at the beach at a picnic. It was a nice time. PERFECT weather, really.

montana and back again...more

Chilly days after the summery days

Helping herself to someone's helmet at the playground

Baby miniature horse and its mama

Vintage Fisher Price barn

I went from being "mama" to being "mommy" while we were away. Not my choice but it is all good. She also got into saying "I don't like it." AND "I like it." often. Her doll became her "daughter". She went from saying "yeah" to saying "yesss".
She got some very cute "big girl" underpants. Those little underpants are too cute. She also now has a very nice boy doll. We have been lacking in the male representation in her dolls...so hopefully she will take care of her "son" now too. When I asked her what she wanted to name her new doll, she said, "mine". The perfect name.
We went to fairground to check out some animals in their pens there. There was a baby miniature horse with its mama. And some more miniature horses, sheep, and llamas.
Aunt Bobbie lent us some toys she saved from when her girls were kiddos. She had this vintage fisher price farm with the animals and farmer as well as a fisher price house with furniture. Great stuff. Nicer than the current model because the animals had moving parts. They also have this great set of stacking cups because they have different ways they can be stacked with different groupings. One time Johari was playing with the stacking cups and really created a method of deciding what could fit in what. It was really fascinating to sit back and watch her method emerge through her play.
We also got to go to a great story time at the public library.
She created a song about Kent and Bobbie's dogs, Edgar and Otis. She would just sing their names over and over. She loved to get her dog fix with them.
We made friends with a grandchild of a neighbor and went for a walk with them around the neighborhood one evening.
One time we discovered a really cool kids' TV show called "Little Bill". It was really well done and not offensive or annoying. She kept asking for it other days but it was always on when she was napping. So we didn't get any more Little Bill.

Waiting for our airplane to go home with her daughter and son.

montana and back again...parks

Dragon's Hollow Playground

With the summery weather, we went to the playgrounds a couple of times a day sometimes. There is an awesome wood playground next to a carousel. And then there were school playgrounds and city parks. We even tried to use a private school's playground on a Sunday but got kicked out even though Johari was loving that one.

to Montana and back again...water table

Well, we went to Missoula for about a week and a half. On the airplane going there we sat behind a 7 year old girl that was wonderful. They got to swap baby dolls for a while.
We had several days that were summery hot while we were in Missoula. And Grandpa had gotten Johari a water table for just that occasion. She loved playing in it. She decided to climb up into it as well. Pouring water can be endless hours of fun.

friends hanging with friends and a babysit.....

Ishmael enjoying the driftwood fort

Ish, Lua and Johari having a good time together

Stacy, Hyon and Ibrahim getting to know each other

Carmel joins us too!!!

Cheryl and Jordan on the carousel!

Let's see what have we been up to. We spent the day at the zoo yesterday with Cheryl and Jordan. We saw a few animals, ate some cheese fries, went on the carousel, but mostly just hung out on the sidewalk eating snacks and having fun. Trading shoes.
We had an awesome day last Friday... Stacy, Ishmael and Ibrahim came over and met us at the beach. Then, Hyon and Lua joined us at the beach as well. Then we got Carmel to take care of and hang with us as well. The kids had a good time together. It was a cool range of ages mixed together and enjoying each other. The sun shone on us. It is fun to have friends meet other friends. Then Ariel came over for dinner. It was a really full and fun day. I was TIRED by the end of it.
Mother's Day we went out to lunch with another crew... Cheryl and Jordan, Nawo, Christina, and Carmel, Grandma and Grandpa and me and Johari. Johari ended up taking a nap on the couch in the mix late that evening. It was nice to have her just really fall asleep when she was tired and for her to be able to sleep in the presence of all that was going on at the time.
Last week we went over to Jordan's house to babysit her for the evening. It was a funny turn of events because as Cheryl and Aaron were leaving the house, Jordan was pushing them out the door and Johari as crying that they were leaving. Who would have thought!!! We had a good time together. Until 9...then Jordan got tired and wanted her mama and fell asleep sitting up after crying for a bit. But we got through that with a bit of 'Tom and Jerry' and ice cream remedy.

Video clip of Johari strutting her stuff

Johari likes to wear Grandma's high heels!!! Good thing we have Grandma with her high heels around otherwise how would Johari have been able to get in touch with this enjoyment of hers....MAMA has none!

Lola had a good life....

Today, Lola passes on. She had a long life of 16 years!!! That's a tough girl. I got her the year after I graduated from high school at the old Maxwell Street Market. (A Sunday street market on the near south side of Chicago.) She was a little pup all alone in a cage. I had gone with no intention of getting a dog, but couldn't help myself. So Cecily helped bargain a price for her. And we took her home. She went to college with me in St. Paul, MN. She was a scavenger at heart. She was always looking for eats until the last few months. She could find a morsel of food underneath a snow bank! She was an awesome dog. Johari came to love her. And Lola came to tolerate Johari. She had painful arthritis and doggie dementia for the past month or so. She was an awesome dog. We will miss her.

PLLLLLEEEEEASE!!!!

Johari's communication is exploding again. Sometimes she just uses a word that I understand as a whole sentence and sometimes she is making sentences. She is very clear about what she wants to happen. The other evening when we were going to head to the book store and she had some snacks in her chair with her, she directed me to get tops for the snacks so she could put them in the back pack and take them with to the bookstore. WOW! The other night she even said that she was "tired". I was surprised. She doesn't usually welcome heading to bed. She identifies "farted" and "burped". Now we are into the good stuff :). Right now, everything is either "hard" or "heavy". I feel bad that this is what the world has boiled down to at this point. The power of language! But "hard" and "heavy" doesn't seem to be bringing her down in her adventures. "Away" means she wants to put something away or she wants me to put it away. "Hold you" means holding, but there is always the 'you' put on it. So it may turn out like "hold-you me" or "hold-you baby". She definitely has the potty thing down pat now. She has even used the big potties when we we are out (with me holding her over it). Pretty cool!
Today she found my travel connect four game. And she started putting the chips in it. She wanted "Mama, Play Me." So we played Connect Four without any goal except to put chips in it. Pretty fun!
She likes to say, "No, Mama." It is so sweet the way she says it, really! She will even say it to Grandma, "No, Mama."
She likes the power game and these kids are great at giving you the cue to start up a power game for them. So the main one that we play is I say "Please" over and over. Begging her to let me do whatever it is that she has decided to play the game around. So I may have to beg to throw her pee into the toilet from the potty. Or I may then have to beg to put the potty back together. Or I may have to beg look at a magazine or a book. It is a great game for them to recover some of the power that gets taken from them throughout the day.
Sometimes we do a Sumo stance dance together. It is pretty funny.

video clips....

Beach with friends....

Today is a gorgeous sunshiny day! Really nice. So we headed to the beach as soon as we could get ready. And Twitney and the kids met us there as soon as they could get ready. :) Johari and I were probably there playing for about 4 hours. It is such peaceful play and exploration at the beach. She was rubbing sand on all parts of her body...her cheeks, her legs, her arms. I think she has sand in all of her cervices. When she gets up from her nap, it is time to wash the beach out of all of her cracks and folds. There were some very cool hopping bugs where we were sitting. It is interesting how peaceful the beach is but if you stare at the sand it is always moving. Little grains are constantly shifting.

Emma, Julia and Joey were so happy to get in the water a splash about

Johari refuses to get in the Ergo backpack even when she wants me to carry her so I tried the Chinese carrier the other day and she was down for it. OPTIONS!!

crafts, kids coming over, Johari going out, tongue work

Jordan at the playground!

Windy beach fun

Homemade popsicles

A piece of artwork by Johari that she called "SHY"

A plate that had special markers to decorate it...mostly done by Johari except the dogs are done by request

The other side of the plate....cat by request only

Playdough fun with Joey and Emma

Hanging at the mall with her friend, Julia, sharing snacks

Johari has been busy doing more arts and crafts. She has been drawing a whole lot. On her easel. On body parts. On paper. Sometimes when she is drawing she gets this super intense look on her face with FULL concentration. I love watching that. We also are trying to do a little beading. Mainly she likes to pour the beads from bowl to bowl to floor. But I did notice one time that she was actually putting a few beads on the plastic beading string. I thought that was pretty cool. A woman that came to visit at the house brought her some glitter glue. That was super enjoyable. She would pour a big puddle of it into the palm of her hand and them smear it on her easel or on paper. Then she would get back to squeezing the tube out into the palm of her hand. We went to Ishmael's birthday party and Ishmael's aunt gave Johari the plate to decorate. She worked on that over time and was very intense about her drawings on it. We are getting into the world of playdough. She had played with homemade salt dough a few times. But I decided to go ahead and get some manufactured playdough and some tools to work with it...cookie cutters, a rolling pin, garlic crusher and so on.
About a week or so ago, Johari started communicating when she feels shy. If a stranger smiles at her or someone she doesn't know well interacts with her, she comes to me and says she feels "shy". It is so nice for her to have another emotion that she can convey. So she made a glitter/chalk/marker piece of artwork on her easel and told me that it was "Shy".
Johari loves to talk on the phone now. When she wants to call someone she tells me that she wants to say "hi" and hands me the phone. Often she knows exactly who she wants to call as well. And if they do not answer she leaves her "hi" message.
Ishmael stayed with us for a night last week while Stacy went to her cousin's birth. It went well until he needed to sleep then he was worried and not sure what to do. We had a whole bunch of fun...eating popsicles and playing in the park and feeding the fish and taking a bath and more. Emma and Joey from across the street came over the other day after school. We had fun together. Everyone got into the playdough fun.
Then Johari had 2 outings without her mama this week too. She went out with Hyon for a few hours the other day. They went to play at someone's house and then to the beach. I think they had fun together. Then Wednesday evening Johari went to Jordan's house for a few hours without mama and had a great time. She was exhausted by the time we were taking her home.
I got a tongue scraper yesterday. I have never had one. But I have noticed that Johari's tongue is very white. And I know that one time when I went to a Chinese medicine clinic in Chicago, they told me that my tongue is white. So I have been trying to figure out if this white tongue stuff is some sort of internal imbalance or if it is just typical mouth "stuff". Although I haven't figured this out, we are going to start trying some regular tongue scraping and see if our tongues can get uncovered and free.
Johari likes to help me bake things now. She likes to pour the ingredients in and put the muffin papers in the tin and mix the batter around. I love baking together.
We have some new items from storage. Yesterday, she found the dress that Liz brought back from China for her and wanted to wear it. It looks nice on her. She didn't want to take it off for bedtime so she is sleeping in it.

There is more but that is enough for now.