Farm Day

Miriam had her first field trip yesterday!  She went with her preschool class to the farm.  As usual, the most difficult part of the experience was deciding what to wear.  I knew this was going to be the case, so we started talking days ago about the farm and what outfit would be appropriate.  The preschool asked that the children wear long pants and long sleeve shirts.  Since Miriam loves skirts and wearing as little as possible, I knew we had to do some preparation for this day.  Good thing is the girl is also a rule follower, so once she heard her teachers say to wear long pants and long sleeves nothing else would do.  I know how hot she gets so I tried to put her in three quarter length sleeves...we had to change.  The big day finally arrived and we put on the outfit we had decided on...minus the shorter sleeves...I thought all was well, so I went to get dressed. It was my last day of Bible Study, so Joey was going with Miriam to the farm...I came out of my room and Miriam declared that I looked prettier than she did.  This can not be the case, SO we had to come up with another outfit.  I am not sure why the one she finally chose was better than the first, but in her mind it was.  Once getting dressed was out of the way, she had a great day!  There was a hayride, lots of animals, and a snack, but the highlight for her was getting to ride a pony.

5 Months Home

Yesterday marked 5 months that Miriam has been in our home.  A sweet friend also reminded me that it was at this time last year that we accepted our referral for our precious little peanut.  Here is the first picture we received of Miriam:

When I first saw this picture, I thought she looked so scared and alone.  It made me want to fly to Congo right then and hold her.  My other thought was...Really, who makes a dress with a wrench on it?!? What a difference a year makes!  As I wrote that statement, I thought that is not true...a year can make no difference without God.  So let me say that in a better way...Look what a difference a year makes when God is acting...and redeeming...and loving...and restoring...and creating a family.

Here are a few things I want to remember about the 5 month mark ( Mostly I am blogging because I can't remember anything):

Phrases we hear and things said:
As Miriam improves in her English, she talks more and more, so funny things come out of her mouth frequently.  
Miriam still calls all houses...mouses...still not sure about this one, but it continues
One more question...we hear this frequently and it is usually followed by...not a question. She just wants to get our attention so she can tell us something.
Pronouns are causing Miriam lots of problems...well that is not true...she really doesn't care that she is getting it wrong.  It is causing us lots of problems because we can't tell who she is talking about.  Girls are he/him and boys are she/her.  We are working on this one.
She likes to "whistle"...she really does like to whistle and does it a lot...but when she says this she really means that she wants to wrestle...which she loves to do with Caleb.
Miriam to Joey...Dad, why you kiss so loud and smile so loud (laugh)?
Also said to Joey...No kisses at Chik-fil-a cause you too loud and everybody look...hmmm Joey must be a loud kisser.
When things get to be too much for her...or we are telling her things she doesn't want to hear...Miriam declares to all of us...It's time for quiet!

Sleeping:
Yay!  It is better!  I gave in and decided to bribe her.  Miriam was saving her money for a doll she saw at Target, and so if she stays in her room past 6 o'clock then she gets a quarter.  She has done it for long enough now that she forgets about the quarter.  I also think it has helped to train her to sleep past 6.  She is also very thoughtful and concerned about her mama getting enough sleep.  Miriam goes to the bathroom by herself in the middle of the night and puts herself back to bed.  Now, the girl does have mama radar and if I am ever up before 6 o'clock then she is up also.

Miriam goes to school now, too and loves it!  She goes to our church preschool a couple days a week.  One of her favorite parts of preschool is Lunch Bunch.  For some reason, the idea of taking her lunch to school and eating with her friends is a big deal.  We bought a princess lunch box and practiced eating lunch things so that she could go. It has helped expand her diet and the things that she would eat...hooray!

Miriam is also taking swimming lessons.  The only thing I have to say about that is...she is NOT A FAN!  We are on the count down of 4 more lessons.  She does love the water and loves the pool...but not lessons. She is a fan of having her picture taken in her swimming lesson paraphernalia!

Princess guitar...As I said earlier, Miriam was saving for a doll from Target, BUT when she saw a princess guitar on another adoption blog, she had to have it.  We drove immediately to Toys R Us and she handed over her savings.  This guitar has brought much joy to Miriam and our family.  She sings and makes up songs all the time.  Here are a couple of her songs accompanied by the princess guitar.

Losing a tooth

Today, Miriam lost her first tooth since coming into our family.  This is not her first tooth to lose.  She came with two permanent teeth.  We have talked a lot about this tooth and what happened when she lost the other ones.  Apparently, the ones in Congo just fell out of her mouth...which was a little scary she said.  This two has been wiggled and jiggled and looked at for days.  Today, she decided it needed to come out. So, we wiggled and jiggled and read some library books on loose teeth.  Then, she let Papa pull it out.  The tooth has been deposited in an envelope to put under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy.  Miriam tells us in Congo they threw her tooth onto the roof of the house.  I can't quite tell if this is tradition or they just needed something to do with the tooth.  Miriam thinks putting it under her pillow and waking up to money is a much better idea.

Princess Miriam

Today was a beautiful day...warm with lots of sunshine.  This afternoon, Miriam and I relaxed on the hammock while she ate a bowl of ice cream.  While we were hanging out together, I asked Miriam to tell me a story.  This is it.  I am going to try to write it as she told it to me.

One day there were a princess her name Miriam.  Her brown. Her live in Africa. It tooks a long time to her family comes picks up her.  One day my family come pick up me. They took me to hotel.  It was the Hello Kitty Ndako.  They took me on airplane to our address.  I was happy and scared. They love me so much forever and ever. The End!

Best Story Ever!

My Little African

Miriam is continuing to adapt so well to her new family and home.  As she does this, pieces of her way of life in the DRC are beginning to fade away.  I love it that she is learning English so quickly, but when she can't remember words in Lingala I am saddened.  Miriam now speaks mostly in English.  When she plays by herself with her dolls it is in English.  She sings and prays in English, too.  A few Lingala words are still hanging around but only a few.  Here are some of them:
Motolo-belly button
Na Yebi Te-I don't know
Ndako-house...her English for this is still mouse which may be why she uses ndako
Te-no
None of us are fluent in Lingala, so we just say these few phrases with her in hopes that some of it will stick around for a while.

Miriam has grown used to a running water and a daily bath.  She loves electricity and all the wonders it brings to her...a little tv watching whenever Mama agrees.  Chik-fil-a is a big plus to living in America...their sweet tea is like nectar to Miriam.  There are things that she misses still from life in Congo.  I think first and foremost is that she misses someone sleeping with her.  We were looking at pictures the other day of our time at St. Anne's Compound when we were with Miriam in DRC.  She said that was her favorite ndako. She calls it the Hello Kitty ndako because we had Hello Kitty stickers on the door of our hotel room.

  Through a little probing, I discovered that the reason she liked it so much was that we all slept together in a big green bed.

She says now she has to "sleep by myself" which she pronounces myshelf.  Most kids want their own room...not Miriam. Unfortunately for her she has a mama who needs/loves/craves sleep and doesn't do a family bed.  She does get to come in and get some good snuggle time in the mornings.

Another thing Miriam misses is the hot Congo sun. We have had some cold rainy days lately and these seem to put her in a funk. She can handle the cold weather when the sun is shining but a cloudy cold day is not her favorite..really it is not my favorite either.Here is a beautiful day we spent by the lake when we were in DRC:

So, all of that is to say...I love it when I see glimpses of Africa still in her.  I never want those to leave my girl.  They are her heritage...her place of birth...something I always want to be a part of her.  As she plays, I see pieces of the DRC coming out.

Lately, one of her favorite things to play is washing her dolls clothes.  She ties her baby to her back and puts the clothes in a bucket.  Then she gets in the bathtub and washes her clothes.  Miriam has either had to wash clothes when she lived in the DRC or she carefully watched someone else wash clothes, because this girl can  wring out some dirt.  Once the clothes are washed, then she pulls up a chair and hangs them on the clothes line.  She would do this every day if she had enough doll clothes to cycle through.

M

Miriam also likes to make clothes for her dolls which mostly consist of wraps in brightly colored clothes which remind me of all the beautiful African fabrics we saw in Congo.

When we picked up Miriam from the orphanage, someone had lovingly put her hair in lots of little tufts. When I had to take her hair down in the great lice adventure, I discovered that it had been done with string instead of rubber bands.  This is how Miriam likes to do her dolls' hair.  She gets some of my sewing thread and sits and works on their hair with it.

Another favorite activity is cooking. These days Miriam's favorite thing to make is homemade peanut butter.  She takes her peanuts and puts them in my Liberian mortar and mashes them up with the pestle.  I am sure she saw this type of cooking many times.  Once she gets them all ground up, we add some oil and she mixes some more.  Then we all get to taste her creation...some of us are less eager to eat this mixture than others.

When we were in DRC, we went to a fabric market...which was an interesting experience in itself. We let Miriam pick out a fabric that she loved.  The girl loves some color and she picked out this one...yellow, pink, black and gold.  Our translator took us to the house of a seamstress who made these outfits for Miriam, Helen, and Caleb.  They all wore them to church on Sunday.  Caleb must love Miriam a lot to be willing to wear this shirt to church.  Luckily, she asked Caleb to wear it, so I did not have to ask him.

I hope in a few months there are still things Miriam does that remind me of Congo.  We will continue to encourage her to remember her life before she came into our family and to treasure her heritage.

Another song

Miriam has an ever expanding song repertoire...sometimes to my chagrin...Come on Barbie, let's go party!

Jesus Loves the Little Children