The girls have bought so much into our lives. I could go on and on and list all their wonderful attributes but it is the spontaneous laughter that they cause that has me smiling all of the time.
Rosie has added a new word to her vocabulary. It is Titty. She hells it really loud because she is always so happy to see a titty. I of course just giggle and encourage her to say it again and again just like a naughty child. You see, the teller at the bank, who just loves the girls, went shopping at Sanrio and bought both girlies some Hello Kitty things. They love them and Rosie just adores her Hello Kitty stuffed toy. So whenever she sees it she yells with glee, Titty. But other people have Hello Kitty merchandise as well and we see it frequently in our day to day meanderings and Rosie always yells out when she recognises it.
At the end of the day yesterday I was so thankful that this episode was behind us and thankful to know all that we knew and to have Lily safely tucked in to bed and sleeping soundly. Once I arrived at school this morning I had to fill out lots of paperwork and was also given a form to be filled out by her pediatrician. I rang her office and she said to bring Lily in cos she wanted to check her out for herself. I picked Lily up from school, grabbed the forms, a copy of the prescriptions and off we went.
Lily checked out fine. She does not like the reaction on her skin from the bites and and of course she still has some hives left over. She determined that Lily needs to go and see an allergist because with this episode and her nasty reaction to mossy bites she feels that she is going to be allergic to bees etc and the next reaction is probably not going to be very pleasant. She gave us a prescription for some more meds. Lily has to stay on the steroids for a few more days and I also learnt that an allergic reaction like this can happen again within anytime for the the next 4-5 days...oh joy!
Since I posted this yesterday I have heard from a lot of parents of Chinese children who are also allergic to bites. Apparently it is very common amongst them.
We see the allergist on Friday and if I learn anything that pertains to our children in general I will share it with you.
Lily is fine and rather pleased with her EpiPen? We have told her it isn't a toy and she gets that but she just really loves having one. Nut case. She wasn't at all happy to find out that it will be locked away in the nurses office at school and that she won't be carrying it around in her book bag.
She is 6 and this has never happened before so in my overly optimistic opinion it won't be happening again!
As you know if you read yesterday's post, today was our national adoption day picnic and we were excited about it. The kiddos were up bright and early and things were wonderful. I headed into the shower, Jacob was loading the car and the girls were playing upstairs. As I was drying my hair I could hear Lily saying to Rosie, "here is a drawer for you to close", I figured that since Rosie loves to close drawers Lily was opening them and Rose was shutting them, no biggy. All of a sudden I heard a blood curdling scream, I dropped my hair dryer and shot into my bedroom to find that somehow they had knocked over/pulled over Jacobs huge chest of drawers and it was resting on them. I screamed, which is really unusual cos I am the voice of calm and reason in bad situations and Jacob came running. I had righted the chest and grabbed Rosie who was bleeding from a cut on her face and yanked Lily out of the way. Jacob ran to Lily and I tended to Rose.
I calmed down instantly and checked out both of the girlies thoroughly. They both got smacked in the face by the drawers and were sporting small cuts and bruises but that was it! It is what it is and yes it could have been much worse but it wasn't. Enough said.
We headed off to the picnic, better late than never and as soon as we arrived I asked Hollis if our social worker was coming. She said. yes. so I said, Oh Cwap! Our SW is fabulous and of course she noticed the cuts and Lily's eye which is now black and we joked about how I really shouldn't beat my kids.
The picnic was going really well and loads of people that we haven't seen for ages were there. We all talked and the kids played and Rosie was running around like one of the crowd. I met a really nice lady called Ana and we chatted for ages cos she wants to move to the Special Needs program and wanted information on that. (the red thread comes into play here)
Lily was having such a lovely time playing ball, playing on the playground, blowing bubbles, whirling her hula hoop and basically just enjoying her friends. At one point Jacob was watching Lily and I was watching Rose when Lily comes up to me wearing her dad's shirt. She told me she had fallen over in a red ant nest and daddy was making sure there weren't any more ants on her clothes. I asked if she was OK and she said she was but very itchy. Not five minutes later Jacob is carrying her over to me and she is crying and scratching like mad. I started to talk to her but she was really upset so we went to the car so I could take off all her clothes and have a look myself. Once I sat her down I realised that she was covered in hives. I asked a friends hubby to look at her as he is a paramedic and he told Jacob to go and get some Benedryll quickly. Jacob took off with Rosie and I stayed with Lily and watched as her little body got bigger and bigger and her eyes started to swell shut. I kept wiping her down with really cold water on paper towels and under my breathe I was begging Jacob to drive faster. She could still breathe properly and that wasn't changing so I hoped she would be fine. Another Mum came over and told me to dial 911 but I didn't. Jacob appeared with the goods and that is where the red thread with Ana comes into play. It turns out she is a nurse practitioner so I called her over to the car and asked her to look at Lily. Ana said it was pretty bad and to give her a massive dose of Benedryll. We also used topical benedryll and within about 10 minutes things started to calm down. Lily was instantly wiped out by the meds but she wanted to stay. Ana said that she must stay on the antihistamine all night cos the swelling could come back and could get much worse.
Obviously we had to leave but Lily really didn't want to. After about 10 minutes she got really sick so that was it. We headed home. I rang our Dr. from the car and she said to take her to an urgent care clinic because of the facial swelling. I dropped Jacob off at home and Lily and I went straight out. As we were waiting to see the Dr. her hives back back with a vengeance and her face started to swell again, needless to say we were seen immediately. My little trooper is on a very heavy dose of steroids for the next 4 days, she received even more antihistamines from the Dr. and is now in a drug induced sleep and feeling much better. She now has to carry an Epi-pen everywhere she goes and we have been warned that next time it happens the reaction will most likely be much faster and much worse.
Since she has a really nasty reaction to mosquito bites we have always thought that she might be allergic to ants and bees and now we know for sure. The good side of this, cos you know me, Miss Silver Lining, is that this happened when we were around medical professionals so we were able to deal with it very quickly. If something like this has to happen make sure you have good people around.LOL
All Lily has had to say about it is, "wow, I am just like Grandpa. If I keep the bees away from him he can keep the ants away from me."
This has been one of the longest days I can remember. Jacob just made me laugh because he said, "this day just had the Emergency department written all over it right from the second we woke up". And so in the scheme of things the dresser falling on the girls was not a big deal but those tiny weeny little ants, damn they were huge! Oh and the dresser....securely anchored to the wall, now!
I think I have photos somewhere but I need to hit the chocolate so I will post them later.
I have noticed that my blogging is very sporadic. It would seem that I only blog from Thursday through Sunday? The rest of the week is to damned fast!
We are all learning a new language. It is fun but very challenging sometimes. It is the language of Rose Qi Min. She is talking very well all things considered and she cannot go up a flight of stairs without counting them. This is how it goes: won, do, fee, war, ive, yix, yea yea, ate, nie, den. And then she gives herself a huge round of applause and of course we join in. Actually she always says the number eight after every single number but what the heck she is brilliant in our opinion! Perhaps she says the number eight all the time because eight is considered lucky in China.
Not only are we learning a new language but we are also learning to take things slower, much slower because she has learnt to say, Ro-ree do it. So everything is now taking a kazillion times longer cos Rosie has to do it herself. It is very very sweet and I love it.
If there are any teachers out there reading this please give your opinion on gifted programs. We have to decide within the next couple of weeks whether to put Lily into the gifted program. She is in the advanced class now and would leave that and enter the gifted class for social studies, language arts and science. The rest of her classes would remain the regular ones as they don't offer gifted across the board. If we put her in it she will leave the advanced class and will go to a regular class and will have math etc in that, which makes no sense to us. Also if we pull her from gifted at any time she will not go back to the advanced class but will go to the main stream class, again it makes no sense. Ahh, dilemmas.
This afternoon Lily had the best time playing with a cardboard box. First she did this:
And later she got very creative and did this. She spent ages doing it and had a blast and this evening both of them were running around in it until Rosie scared herself.
(note to self. Buy more foil and tape at the store)
Lil' is still very much enjoying her American Girl books and tonight she learnt all about Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret when they were younger. As we walked up to bed she was talking in her English accent and I was the queen and she was princess Elizabeth. At one point I said to her, "How do you do?" in a really proper British accent and she just lost it. She couldn't even talk she was laughing so hard. So as she giggled herself silly I explained to her that in England you don't say, "Hi, nice to meet you", you say, "Hello, how do you do". When she finally stopped laughing she said, "Why do you say, "how is your doo?". Egads....she kills me!
We were watching an old DVD of Lily yesterday and I am in shock. She is huge and so "six" now. She used to have the cutest little squeaky voice. It is so eye opening to see how fast she has grown, how much she has learnt and how sweet and kind she has become. When we first bought her home we were convinced she was the bouncer at the orphanage!
Tomorrow is going to be a really wonderful day as we are celebrating National Adoption Day with a South Florida Asia Group picnic. This time last year Andie was with us and we were being very tight lipped about a certain little girl in China who we had fallen madly in love with and who's files we were schlepping all over town to every medical professional we could find.
I bought Rosie a new bib today. I love it because this is what it says on it: My Mom's Hotter Than Your Mom! No self esteem problems around these parts! Bwa ha ha ha.
Our tickets for Annie arrived today. Lily and I are going alone, it is going to be our special day. When I told her about it she just wanted to know what kind of snacks they have at the Arsht Centre and if she could wear a dress. In February her and Jacob are going to see Cirque again. I might just crash their day cos I love Cirque Du Soliel.
This post has hopped about more than a cat on a hot tin roof. Sea sick yet?
As I mentioned yesterday my blog book is now finished. I have part one and part two and I must say that part two came out even better than the first. I really didn't think I would be as amazed and or excited this time around but I was wrong.
I loved the first one but honestly thought that the paper could have been of a higher quality. This time however it is top notch and the quality is first class.
If you have a blog I strongly urge you to have it turned into a book. This is Lily and Rosie's story and they can sit down and thumb through the pages and see what they did when they were little and all the bumps in the road on our journey to adopt Rosie. I know I have all this stuff is on my computer but it just isn't the same.
Lily had no idea that we were using one of her drawings for the front cover so when she saw it she was elated.
Amy and Kristen from book my blog are real troopers and worked so hard on this book. Apparently this is the biggest one they have ever done due to all the photos. Amy, and I am sure she won't mind me saying so, is a perfectionist. All the photos have to be lined up just so and all the text needs to be in perfect alignment otherwise it just isn't good enough. If you are thinking of doing it and have questions either leave them in the comment section for me or click the link to Book My Blog and ask the pro's.
It is so strange to have everyday of my life in book form. There is no way you can remember the day to day stuff and some of things that we did or that happened had completely slipped my mind.
Do it you will be so happy that you did.
And on a totally different subject: Miss Rosie no longer drinks out of a bottle. I have been telling her for the past month that she is a big girl and that baby's use bottles. I told her that her bottles needed to go into the rubbish. So I did the switch and so far so good. Of course I am not going back on it and tomorrow we will have the throwing out ceremony. ( for those of you out there who are astonished that at 21 months she was still using a bottle calm your little selves down and remember that she was in an orphanage for 12 months and the only nutrition that she got came from her bottle. It was also a great comfort to her and a wonderful way to bond.) But enough is enough. It is sad in away cos it is the first step away from babyhood and she is my baby even though she is getting so big.
When Lily teachers need to tell us something they place the letters in her homework folder and she brings them home. Sometimes she knows the notes are there and other times she is clueless. On Monday I opened her folder and there were 2 notes. The first one was an invitation to a ceremony honouring her for having perfect attendance and the second one was an invitation to a ceremony honouring her for her GPA. The award ceremony was this morning.
Schnoogie, we are very proud of you. What you don't realise yet because you are too little is that you have set the standard very high for yourself by achieving these grades so young! I hope that you continue to love school and learning, I am sure you will as it is who you are.
We bought her a new set of the American Girl book series as a reward. Talking of the American girl series, she loves them. She cannot wait to have her bath so that she can settle down and read about their latest adventure. Tonight we read about Molly and the blitz in London in 1944. When I walked her up to bed she wanted to turn the lights off so that she could pretend it was a blackout. Once we found the bed she climbed in and I followed, under her strict instructions. She pulled the covers over our heads and then suddenly announced, "bombs away!" and made an explosion sound. She was even talking with a British accent. She made me laugh so much that I was crying. By the time I kissed her goodnight we were both out of breathe from all the giggling.
Rosie didn't get to take her nap this morning because she went to Lily's school and then she had to accompany me to the doctors office. Literally seconds before we needed to pick up Lily from school exhaustion prevailed and this is what I found, on the floor no less:
Why did we go to the doctors office? Because my eye is screwed up again. I got 2 whole weeks without any steroids at all but that is not the case now. As much as I like my Dr. I have decided it is time to seek a second opinion. This has been going on since June and I am over it, so over it. Next week I meet with a Dr. that my Dr. bought in on my case a few years back. He is a corneal expert and I had forgotten all about him. Keep everything crossed please. I am tired of looking freaky. Forget about the possible vision loss it is all about the vanity as far as I am concerned. Ok that isn't all true but look for yourself.
This is a hideous photo that was taken yesterday and I was talking as Jenny took it but it shows my eyes. Now my eyelid is starting to droop....eeewwwww!
As the parent of adopted children somewhere in the back of my mind always looms the horrid conversations that will, with all likelihood, happen when the girls are teenagers. I know that I am jumping the gun a little bit by thinking that far ahead but I think it is self preservation. Plan for the worst and hope for the best: words that Jakey and I live by.
As I have mentioned many times before Lily is wise well beyond her years and has a very deep soul. Tonight after the girls were out of the bath I was combing Lily's hair and she in turn was combing Rosie's. The following conversation took place.
Lily: Mummy, look at all this new hair that is growing on Rosie's head. Me: I see it but it still isn't as much as is still growing on your 6 yr old head. Lily: Let me see if you have any. Me: I don't but I do have this funny hair here that is called baby hair that is always really blonde and never grows any longer than an inch. Lily: Why do you still have baby hair? Me: I don't know. Grandpa has it too. Lily: Maybe I got mine from my birthmother. Me: Yes, maybe you did. Lily: I have got a lot of things from my "real" parents. Me: I thought we were your real parents? Lily: No, they are. They gave me birth or whatever it is called. Me: That's true they did but usually when you have birthparents and adoptive parents the adoptive ones are the "real" ones. We are the ones that love you and ... Lily:(butting in) They love me too. Me: Yes they do, very much. Lily: So they are my real parents.
I wasn't ready for that. I went on to tell her that she can call them and us whatever she likes because it is her life and her story. I didn't want to appear shocked or upset because I need her to be able to tell me and ask me anything and if she thinks she has hurt my feelings or made me sad she won't be truthful she will be protective. My irrational brain went into overdrive and I felt like a child myself and wanted to beg her to say she loves us more. I know that is dreadfully childish and believe me, I didn't react the way my heart wanted to. I felt like I had been jilted by my first love. Such strange emotions were stirred up and within seconds I thought, she wants to go back to China, she feels "different" because she is adopted, she is confused, oh my God she isn't happy. I understand she has questions and she knows she can ask us. More than anything in the world I don't ever want her to be hurt. I didn't push the issue and when she was done talking I carried on as usual but if anyone has a band aid for my heart I really need it.
The conversation continued for a little bit longer and she aired her feelings. We have always been very honest with her about her story and nothing that she says should surprise me but I just didn't expect this yet. I rang my friend Hollis who is so good at keeping her head and dealing with situations that arise out of the clear blue sky and we talked for ages. We have loads of books about adoption but she suggested one that I have never heard of and it is now being overnighted from the fine folks at Amazon. I want to bring the subject up again because I now have a clearer head and will be better able to deal with it. I know you don't get "do overs" in real llife but I am going to try and do this over and see if I can work out where this statement came from.
When I tucked her into bed and kissed her she said, I love you, you're the best Mother in the world. Thanks Schnoogie, I'll take it.
I haven't posted any photos of Lily riding lately and she has really improved. Tonight she got to ride her favourite horse, Marquesa. She is so natural on horses and tonight her instructor and I talked about entering her into a competition. She has to be 7 to in order to qualify so Frenchie is starting to groom her now. Yikes, I have a feeling I am about to be increasing my rates!
Rosie, as you are quite aware, is afraid of her own shadow. She loves to wander around all the animals at the farm but she just won't touch them. Tonight before we left I talked to her about that and asked her if she thought she might be able to touch a horse tonight. She bebopped out of the car and ran behind Lily over to the horses. Once Lily was situated and feeding Marquesa her carrot I picked Rosie up and walked her over to Latin Fire, possibly the most docile horse in the world, and she reached out and stroked her muzzle. Then she touched her neck and was very proud of herself. I think we are getting somewhere. The biggest shock of all came when Frenchie picked her up and held her for about 3 minutes. I pretended not to notice because I knew if Rose saw me looking she would motion to come back to me.
Rosie has been very slow to warm up to people. I have one child who is an extrovert and one who is an introvert, at least for now. She is making progress and we do not push her. She needs to find her feet in her own time. She always has a lot more nerve if her big sister is with her but I think that is just because she wants to emulate her. We see changes in her on a daily basis and she truly is getting brave. Now when we are at the play group on Wednesdays she takes off and plays either by herself or with the big kids. She barely even looks to check I am still there.
This is what Rosie Posie got up to today whilst Lily was riding. She finds it very funny when the horses chomp on their bits or just move their lips. If you are quick enough you can just catch the fat part of her lip from yesterdays escapade with the tile.
What a day! It started very early as a certain child cannot seem to get her head around the time change. She always used to wake up at 6am but since Sunday it has been 4am and she is up...really up and doesn't go back to sleep. This mornings wake up call might not have been so bad if I hadn't stayed up really late watching the election results pour in. Being a foreigner I cannot vote so I just crossed my fingers and hoped like H*ll that things would work out. I went to bed smiling but at 4am the smile was a little disfigured.
Rosie then decided that she only needed an hour nap today so by early afternoon she was wrecked, but wouldn't nap so I sat on the couch with her and she decided to fall off. Face first smack into the tile! Lots of blood and lots of tears later and she has a bruise on her chin and a fat lip. I am not sure why but these things don't freak me out I just stay very calm and deal with whatever it is and try very hard to make them feel better ASAP. She soon forgot about it and Lily came home from school and they tore through the house like a couple of tornadoes.
On Wednesdays we always go to the park and meet our friends there. We all take some food and the the kiddies play and we nibble and they nibble and all of us have fun. Lily and her friend Julia decided to climb a tree. It was a Bottlebrush tree so it wasn't very high but the trunk was divided into two so they were able to "climb" using that as a base. They were having fun and I warned Lily not to go to high. Rosie was watching them, as was I. I turned my back for a couple of minutes and thwump! Lily hit the ground actually she landed on her sister. Rosie was fine and got up laughing but Lily wasn't quite so lucky. As she was slipping she dragged her arm down the branch and tore all of the skin off of it in a 2 inch square. She didn't cry but I could tell by looking at it that it must have stung so much. I cleaned it up with what I had available and she went right back to playing but by the time we headed to the car she was really starting to feel it. She put on a brave face right up until bath time. Usually when they have cuts and scrapes I slather the owie with zinc oxide cream before they get into the bath and it stops if from stinging but this scrape needed to be cleaned thoroughly so I told her I couldn't do it and warned her it would sting. I told her to make up an opera and belt out the words as loud as she could because by focusing her attention towards something else I knew we would succeed in cleaning it. It worked. I won't say she didn't yelp a couple of times but I let her wash it so that she could be in control off her pain. It wasn't until she was in the bath that I realised she had scraped her legs pretty badly too but they were nothing in comparison to the inside of her arm. I put some cream on it and a dressing cos Band Aids don't come in odd shapes and then she was fine.
Rosie, who hates to be outdone, spent her time in the bath nursing an invisible owie on her arm and even managed to keep her arm straight just like her sister the whole time she was in there. As I put her jimjams on she even winced and made a fuss and then would giggle. I asked her where her owie was and she looked a bit puzzled and then pointed to her lip....this kid is nuts too.
So the walking wounded are both sleeping and I am heading in that direction as well cos I need more sleep than 4 hours a night. Maybe if Mama is well rested she can prevent the accidents from happening! And if I don't get a goodnights sleep I will be joining the walking wounded as I will be walking into the walls.
My head is all a whir with many different thoughts, problems and silliness that have been ruminating around in my grey matter for a while now so if I were you I would skip this post because at best it is just going to be me on a bender.
When Rosie goes down a slide or is being pushed along on a toy she shouts, peee, instead of wheeeeee. It is so funny.
Thank God Halloween is over. I don't think I have ever eaten quite so much chocolate. I eat a lot during a normal week but last week even I was astounded, no I think appalled is a better choice of words.
Part two of my blog book should be arriving on my doorstep at any minute. I am really thrilled about it but very disappointed that it has taken this long. It was my Mothers day gift??
My Uncle rang me today to see if the girls like to paint. I said they love it and he said good, I have just bought them 100 paint brushes. Well, I guess I will never ever have to buy them paintbrushes again. He then asked if he should be them a set each....I don't think that is necessary but thank you all the same.
I am done with the eye doctor finally. This is it, it won't get better than this. As long as I don't actually try and use both eyes I am fine. LOL. I go back in 6 months to have my vision checked cos by then I should be healed completely....allrighty then.
Somebody who is supposedly very close to me is not being very honest with me. I don't know how to handle the situation but I am going to have to soon cos it is really eating away at me. Usually I jump in 2 feet first but this time I am going to have to use diplomacy. ( I will need to look that word up in the dictionary if I am going to pull it off.)
I am so glad today is election day. No more campaigning. This has been a very long campaign and now it is all over bar the shouting. Well maybe not cos I am sure Florida will mess it up once again. Not all of Florida of course, just the part where we live.
Lily loves to read and is currently hooked on the American Girl series. She will sit on the couch curled up with her book and laugh her little head off. It just makes my heart smile.
Our close friend CF is in China for 6 months so we are running her house, taking care of bills etc. Today I had to pay a bill over the phone for her. She is Chinese and we joked on Skype yesterday that my Chinese accent might need a little help in order for me to pull it off since I was using her credit card. I practiced this morning at breakfast and when Lily finally decided I sounded like her Goo Goo I picked up the phone and started being her. It was really funny and so hard for me not to laugh. At one point I must have sounded a little too authentic cos the lady in billing asked me to repeat myself. Lily was cracking up but I did it! I then had to immediately call our contractor and without thinking started speaking in the same stupid voice. Lily found that even more hilarious.
Rosie likes soft things under her feet and hates to be bare foot on the tile. I am with her on that one cos I don't like being barefoot on tile. We bought her some slippers but she thought they were toys so that didn't work. Today I found some slipper socks and she loves them and wont take them off.
Rosie has started telling me that she has to pee pee. It is always after the fact but she loves to sit on the toilet and use the loo roll. I decided this morning to pull out a potty chair for her but it proved to be a little premature as she decided it was a hat. Sadly I didn't get that on video cos I was to busy shaking my head in disbelief. Lily and her marched around the house for about 20 minutes with various parts of the potty seat balanced on their noggins.
When Lily was little she didn't take vitamins but Rosies doctor wanted her to. She had these nasty, smelled like hell and tasted even worse infant drops and everyday was a fight. So I switched her to Flintstones and I cut them into 3 pieces and she loves them. Hooked on them is a more accurate definition. She comes up to me at least 3 times a day and asks for "vitties".
I will leave you with the cutest little feet in the cutest little socks, or bocks as Rose calls them.
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine, also an adoptive mama to two girls from China, contacted me and asked if Lily and I would be interested in doing a lemonade stand and bake sale to raise money for Half The Sky. My answer was a resounding yes.
I believe that it is very important to teach our children to give. We live in such a wealthy society where the need for instant gratification appears to the sole purpose of life. It makes me cringe a little. Surely the most important things in life cannot be measured by the "stuff" you own. Growing up my parents did an unfathomable amount of charity work. I am not talking little things either. They put on and hosted huge events that attracted people from miles away year after year after year. These events were so much fun and all the monies raised were donated to charity. I can vividly remember the excitement as the day of an event approached.
Shortly after bringing Lily home I learnt of Half The Sky and we immediately got involved. Lily did a sponsored walk every year and we donated the money to them. Of course now we are forever indebted to them for the love and care they gave to Rosie during the first year of her itty bitty life. Lily understands that we have things that a whole lot of people do not have and probably will never have. She understands that it is important to help those less fortunate than ourselves and she does so willingly. When I told her we were going to have a lemonade stand she was giddy.
We started baking yesterday morning and continued until about 9pm. She helped with a lot of it and I give her a lot of credit. We took a few breaks to take care of other things and have a few minutes of silliness but for the most part she was right there by my side.
This photo is for my father. He loved condensed milk as a little boy and apparently so do his granddaughters!
But then the weather changed and the sky fell down. It poured and poured. We tried to hold umbrellas over the baked goods and also tried to remain optimistic. The girls would run out from under the umbrellas each time they saw a person and would accost them. The day wasn't a complete wash and we managed to raise $112 but had it not rained we would have done so much better. The girls didn't care about the weather they still laughed and played, drank lemonade and stuffed their little faces with cookies. Tonight we are all eating cookies...leftovers from our cut short due to bad weather bake sale.
Lily is very proud of her accomplishments. She is also telling everyone that more people bought her cookies than anyone elses. I told her it is rude to boost but just this once she deserves it.
