Next Time Won't You Sing With Me?

Sera playing and asking me to take her picture

Sera loves the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle and Itsy Bitsy Spider and Wheels on the Bus and the ducks going out to play one and...

Well, you get the idea. Sera loves to sing. She's been singing her own version of the ABC song for at least a year. She starts with ABC then jumps to QRS and wraps it up with WXY and Z.

Yesterday, she was singing in the car, and I confess, I wasn't really paying attention. I was listening to a story on NPR. As her song ended, she broke out clapping and cheering, "Yay Sera!" She started her song again, so this time I paid attention, and she made it through the entire song, three times in a row. Now listening, I cheered with her.

Sera's daycare/preschool, whatever you want to call it, is definitely a huge addition to our budget, but it is so worth it. While I would love to stay home with her, I have to admit that she is getting so much from being there. I'm a high school teacher and I don't have other children, so I don't really know when she should be hitting many childhood milestones. I do know that she can count to ten easily, twenty sometimes. She knows her shapes, even that our downstairs bathroom mirror is "oval, like a big egg". She definitely knows all her colors. She can count to four in Spanish (thanks to Dora). She also knows that arriba is up and abajo is down. Ni hao is hello, and xie xie is thank you. She now draws mommy, daddy, Shadow, and herself. We're all big round blobs with eyes, nose, mouth, two stick arms, and two stick legs. She adds hair to the top, and on daddy's picture, she put hair on the bottom, too, for his beard. She's also learning to play with other children and to share. She's still not great with that at home, but we're working on it. She thinks sharing means she gets to share with whatever mommy or daddy have, but if it is her's, it is her's...unless it's her idea to share with you, and then you must take what she is offering no matter what. Yes, we are working on no, thank you.

I recently put together Sera's lifebook with pictures and her story ending with our arrival in Chicago. It was amazing to look through all of our pictures and see how much she has grown in two years. This project really made me sit and reflect on this time. I can honestly say that every day with Sera is a joy. Don't get me wrong. She's not perfect. There are definitely moments when she drives me crazy, and I love every minute of it.