First Swim Class

Xing Xing had her first swim class on Monday.  She LOVED it.  She started out in the baby pool and then they went to the big pool.  This class mostly just gets the kids used to the water.  When she had to leave the water, she cried and cried.  She kept saying "Water, Ba Ba" all the way from the pool, to the locker room and to the car!  Looks like there's another swimmer in the family!  

CEO, Chef, or clothes model?

Will Coral be a Chef at Club LeConte or will she be a CEO of an electric company? Or a clothes model? April made the chef's apron and hat for her.  We went by Bill's work and saw him and she was "working" at his desk.  I've included a short video of her walking her puppy.  She decided since Ba Ba walks Mi Mi and Gable she'll walk her puppy which is named Aixing.  She names everything Aixing.  Not much going on this week.  We went to a multicultural music day at the early learning center.  She went to the kyuki-d0 and did the entire class by herself. The teachers were very proud b/c it was a very large class.  April also made the blue outfit with matching purse she's wearing with the china doll print.  I'm trying to hire April to be her personal clothes maker. LOL.  She has clothes from a site I found called livilu originals.  We did meet a new friend this weekend.  Her parents moved to Minnesota from Texas.  The daughter is 3 and is from southern china.  They played well together.  Coral had one little accident.  She was running on the driveway and scraped her face.  You can it in the picture of the orange dress and the polka dot outfit.  She starts swim lessons on Monday with Ba Ba.

Xing Xing is my name!

We found this shirt at Target and just had to get it for her! I swear, she recognized "Xing".  It is too cute!  As you can see, she still loves her blankie.  She was being very sassy in these pics!  I'm thinking of adding some bows or ribbon to the shirt to "girl" it up some.

Coral saying her name and I love you!

Appointment at Cleft Lip Clinic

Coral had her appointment yesterday.  She was seen by about 10 doctors.  It was very well organized and someone was with the entire time.  She has normal hearing, so we now know that she is just choosing not to listen to us..LOL.  Seriously, she is fine. She will continue to be monitored on a yearly to bi-yearly basis.  The orthodontist said  she is going to probably need is braces.  The plastic surgeon said that her lip looked great and that she would not need any further surgery.  The ENT doctor said for us to consider a larynsocopy (sp) to check her throat to see if there is anything on her vocal cords to cause her to have a raspy voice.  He doesn't really think there is and that the raspiness is caused by vocal strain.  She could have had to cry or scream a lot in the orphanage to get attention to get her needs met.  We also found out that her type of cleft, which is a midline cleft is a very rare cleft.  I believe it's like something like 1 in 10,000.  This type of cleft can also affect other midline defects. This refers to such things as the heart, brain.  The cleft and other midline effects are not related per se, but they may have occurred at the same time in the baby's gestation.  That is to say that if something affected the formation of the face that something could have affected these other parts.  The doctors do not see any red flags because she is developmentally where she needs to be and she does not have any heart murmurs or seizures.  I repeat, the doctors are not really concerned about her having any problems in this area.  We are going to have an MRI done just as a precautionary measure.  Again, the doctors really do not think there is any problem.  So, we're going to do those this summer.  We were really pleased that everything went so well and that she is fine.  

Bunny House

Bill and Xing Xing had a lot of fun building a bunny house.  Didn't they do a great job?  Xing Xing couldn't resist eating a little of the frosting.  They are very proud of their work.

Gotcha Day Video

Okay, here is the Gotcha Day video.  We had an emotional time, so there were a few minor technical difficulties.  Try not to cry...it'll be hard not to!  The video is about 1 minute 30 seconds.  That's not her you hear crying in the background.  We had to keep it short b/c we were going to post it on our travel blog...but we didn't have an adaptor.  We have the entire thing on Bill's camera.