"Daddy, I want a pony" to "Daddy, I want a Cessna"

Thea is only in school Wednesday and Thursday this week, so in an effort to provide constructive and stimulating activities to occupy our time, we went on the weekly tour of Princeton Airport. Thea was very excited about this, and woke with "Today is our tour of the airport." And then she asked if there was going to be moving sidewalks. The moving sidewalks at the Newark, Beijing and Hong Kong airports were a bit hit with her, so I had to help her scale back her idea of the tour to the size of a small airport.
We got to see a lot of small planes taking off and landing, and two helicopters that also flew in as well. The highlight of the morning was getting to climb into the cockpit of a two-seater Cessna and work the controls.
Micah was just along for the stroller ride, but he was on good behavior thanks to a tiny beach ball given out by a representative of the Princeton Health and Fitness Center.

After lunch and Micah's nap, we remembered that it was the release date of the new Backyardigans book, Super Spies. Backyardigans are very big deal to Thea - a child who doesn't like dolls, isn't 'into' Disney - princesses or otherwise, and who has a passing interest in Dora and Diego. So I got tasked to calling Borders and Barnes & Noble to see if the book was in stock. B&N won, so we set off on our adventure to Princeton Marketfair. After we picked up the book, we went to the ice cream stand in the food court, Thea got her usual, vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. Micah is not a big fan of ultra-cold stuff, no interest in vanilla or the German chocolate cake ice cream that I got. Thea was "still hungry" after that and wanted sushi. Huh? Where this came from, I don't know; I do know that the raw stuff isn't going into my kid. So I got a shrimp and scallion roll - and then had to remove the seaweed wrapper and the scallions before she'd eat it.

By late afternoon Micah was in whacking mode and Thea was getting cranky, so we decided to do a mini backwards day: baths before dinner and pancakes, fruit and o.j. for dinner. Thea was really into the idea, so it was sort of fun.

Jillian's Christening, etc.

We went on a trip to Hackettstown today for Micah's birthday-and-orphanage mate's baptism. It's been about five weeks since we got back from China, but I still can recognize her voice when she cries (and she only fussed while she was having water poured on her.) Micah and Thea were remarkably well-behaved even though we took seats at the back of the group gathered for the baptism, just in case a quick escape for a screaming heathen child (or two) was needed.

Thea did her usual slow to warm up, but not ready to leave when it was time to go home shtick at the party afterward, and Micah chowed down, walked around, and otherwise was Micah. He pretty much goes with the flow unless he's really tired.

Making the trip up there was good practice for going up to the Summit Speech School for Micah's evaluation in mid-September.

My mother got an upgraded computer on Sunday, and my internet connection was used (with my permission) and in the process all the emails in my in-box got downloaded to the hard drive of her new computer. So if you're reading this and you sent an email over the weekend and are wondering why I haven't responded, it will be waiting for me when we get to my mother's house on Friday.

"You have a messy house."

This comment I got from a little playground friend of Thea's who had stopped by to see if she could come out and ride bicycles. I hope tact comes in to his life soon, because if he lets fly with another comment like that around me, he won't live to see his next birthday much less get invited to Thea's birthday party. The house was in total disarray last week from Thursday through Saturday because the living room was rearranged to put up the play yard for Micah. But it was neat piles of stuff, not wading through debris or even anything close.

A victim of reordering our world to incorporate Micah was the chair that matches the sofa. There will be no memorial service for this hideous doesn't-know-if-it's-a-chair-or-loveseat, and the couch should be nervous because it's made out of the same butt-ugly fabric. Once the play yard was up and the living room put back in a little bit of order, the parts of the crib were pulled out from under furniture throughout the house, and while Steve, Micah and Thea were out in the pool, I put the crib back together. Only eight screws, but a pain in my neck. Thank goodness for an old Nordstrom's hatbox that I used to prop the bottom/spring thing to be able to keep it within reach of the screw holes instead of growing an extra set of hands.

Anyway, the bottom line is Micah has a room, even though he's still camping in the Pack-N-Play in our room. I've been rocking him to sleep in there, and once a few more things are exiled to the attic or wherever else we can stash them, and the baby monitor gets plugged in, he'll move.

Micah had his first visit with the local ENT last Wednesday. The guy had the personality of a paper clip, but his office staff was nice. And I met another family with a child with bilateral microtia/atresia. The little girl is now six years old and is entering mainstream first grade. Thanks to surgery, she went from moderate/severe hearing impairment to mild impairment. She also had the plastic surgery to create auricles, and even though I'm not as concerned with the cosmetic aspect as restoring as much of Micah's hearing as possible, the appearance of those ears was amazing. On September 6th, Micah is scheduled for an audiogram to test his hearing.

Update

Today is Micah's first appointment with the ENT, who will be the gateway to the audiologist, which will lead to an evaluation of Micah's hearing that we can send to the Somerset County early intervention program, which will lead to getting speech and hearing services. He's oblivious, and napping upstairs. We're finally getting into a routine - after one week in Wuhan, one week in Guangzhou, a third week in Bethany Beach, he's finally coming to know what being in the same place day in and day out means.

Thea's in school - she's been more balky the past two weeks at going to the Chinese immersion program than she was the first two weeks she attended (prior to the trip to China.) I'm losing my taste for forcing her to go even though she's happy once she gets settled in, I hate the idea of her dreading going to school each day.

I finally ordered actual prints of our pictures - in this same time frame after Thea's adoption I had pictures to send to friends, her album for the trip put together, and all my thank-you cards written. The second time around I feel like a complete slacker.