little weirdo

Sunglasses...................................................Check

Cell Phone ...................................................Check

Gravity Defying Ice Cream............................Check

Bird Watching Binnoculars.............................Check

Inappropriately Placed Hairband....................Check

last post was nothing compared to this life's best!

So Daniel just came home from a conference in Palm Springs and Sonora jumps in my bed and Daniel came and turned on the Dodgers ...

no really, it gets better ...

and he has a bag of bugles,

I know ... doesn't sound that interesting, but hold on ...

and Sonora is licking the salt off and feeding the soggy ones to us ...

okay, seriously, I know this just sounds like it's going downhill, but here it comes ...

and I say thank you Sonora and she says "you're welcome mommy." while looking at me straight in the eye and I was touched by her politeness and her intent and I said, "Sonora, you're the best baby in the world." and then she looked at me and said

(here it is)

"You're best MaMa in world"

and I burst into tears.

I think that there has been no other more touching thing said to me in my life except when Daniel said, "will you marry me."

So there I was bawling in my bed and Sonora said, "Oh no! Daddy, Mommy crying!" And Daniel said, "No, Sonora, mommy's okay, she's happy." and Sonora was puzzled and said, "mommy happy?" and I smiled at her and she said in a confirming way, "mommy happy."

And I ran here and blogged it.

Now I know she has no concept of the world or the word best, but the fact that I say it to her all the time and she knows it must mean something good and she wanted to say it back to me, that meant everything to me and it was the best part of mommyhood to this day. I doubt I will ever forget it, but I have been told that these vapors of moments, these flashes of time escape us in the busy-ness of life, so I made sure to journal it.

Have a nice weekend ... I just did!~

life's best ...

I have been sick all week. Migraines, vomiting ... there were some moments that I didn't think I would pull through. I was puking and Sonora burst into the room and said, "Ma Ma, sick?" and then grabbed my leg from behind and held on for life WHILE I WAS THROWING UP! I kept saying, "Sonora please leave ... get out ... mommy needs a minute ..." in between heaves, but she wouldn't budge.

Finally when I stopped, she ran into the living room, came back with a Lego Duplo block and a toy spoon and said, "here Ma Ma ... eat this medicine ... feel better."

Oh my gosh ... at 22 months, the girl wanted to take care of me. I was stunned and so in awe.

Well, this morning I had a blood panel test done to see what's up since I have been feeling more and more ill lately. Sonora had been a real trooper these last few days, so I decided to take her to Disneyland and let her run around and get some of her cabin fever out.

We took a small detour to Chili's in Irvine where a dear friend of mine met us for a super spontaneous late lunch. We enjoyed our silly character of a waiter while we quickly swapped stories to catch up on life's recent events all in between entertaining Sonora who was trying her hardest to act like a grown up, though she just wanted to be silly and jump around. After lunch at the car, Vicki and Sonora had some fun taking pictures of each other, and Vicki was astonished at Sonora's mad camera skills. She was so impressed, she handed Sonora her own camera and we asked her to take some pictures of us ...Daniel joined us after work and we did Tiki Room with pineapple whip and I got us a spot for fireworks while he took her to see Small World.

On the way out, she wanted to stop in the little mini theatre on Main Street so I told Daniel I would go on ahead to the News Stand where I left a purchase to be picked up later.

I was there waiting and all of a sudden a crowd comes walking through the tunnel and I saw mouse ears in the distance. They were walking sooooo slowwwww and all these people were flashing pictures and looking at Minnie and her guest of honor. I grabbed my camera and left the empty stroller I was pushing hoping to catch a glimpse of some star so I could show Daniel when he finally made it through the crowd to get to me.

Imagine my surprise (okay, not THAT surprised ...) when it was SONORA that Minnie was escorting out of the park tonight! I said "Sonora! Are you walking with Minnie?" And she said, "Ma Ma! Minnie holding hand! THIS hand!" and she held up Minnie's in her hand to show me.

I video taped a bunch of it and took a few stills.What a great moment ... one of life's best ... to be looking for a celebrity and find the jewel of my heart being treated like royalty and then for her to be so excited to see me and tell me about it and want to share it with me! I am the luckiest mommy in the world!

Tumbleweeds and fireflies

When I was a young girl, there were tumbleweeds rolling down the streets and boulevards where I grew up. I grew up in a city, but our city had a baseball field that was adjacent to a dairy complete with a cow farm. Yes, to me, baseball fields smelled like cow waste. I found a blog about my city and it is so awesome to be able to read other people's memories of the same intersections and have someone else validate me and my memories. I called Amy the other day, my best friend of 30+ years now, and asked her ... "do you remember tumbleweeds from when we were young?" And thank God she said yes. I wasn't sure if I was confusing an old Western movie with my own history. I remember, faintly, chasing fireflies in my front yard on summer nights ... well, in the street right in front of my yard, since I was never allowed to walk on the dichondra. She is allowed to walk wherever she wants ... and come to think of it, my parents think she walks on water.

It may seem tedious to some that I write this little blog and fill it with memories of words that Sonora made up that day, or a picture here and there of an event, or non-event, but I don't know how long I will be around for her and if we will ever get our second baby. I don't have brothers and sisters I grew up with to be able to look to and say, "remember when mom and dad *insert memory here*" I want Sonora to at the very least, be able to look here, read about her history and maybe have it spark a memory that she created herself. Hopefully a good memory filled with love and laughter.

She had both her bottom eye teeth break through this week. She still says Ay-pote for oatmeal. She wears her hat backwards every time. She told me the other day when I was singing "you can fly" from Peter Pan, "Ma ma, me can't fly."I said, "why not baby?" she said, "broken nail." And she held up her fingernail to show me.

When asked what our names are, she says, "Daddy Jason Saunders" and "Mommy Catherine Saunders" and calls herself Sonora, unless she adds her middle and last name, and then she switches it to Nodedoh Adeline Saunders.

She LOVES to sing and had her first performance at our friends' home, the Bolins. We performed "a musician I am and a playing I will go" from Dora the Explorer. Janet on flute, Sonora on morocco's and me on the drums. She sang, played her instrument *shake-a shake-a shake-a* on cue and waited her turn while we played ours. She took a bow at the end. Wow. All at only 22 months on the day.

She has switched her favorite ride at Disneyland from Small World to Tiki Room and has already said "wake up Jose" in the microphone to start the show!

The other day she asked me, "ma ma, water come where ... water from?" I couldn't believe it ... already wanted to know where water comes from. I had to clarify to make sure that was what she was asking, and indeed she was.

She can identify 13 states on the US map now. California, Florida, Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Oregon, New York, Hawaii, Idaho, Texas, Alaska, wow ... I forget the rest right now ... but take my word ...

She loves the song Baby Mine and sings along till she falls asleep.

She still LOVES to paint and draw. A couple days ago, she learned to make a lollipop by drawing a circle and a line. Then, later she went to the bathtub and got her foam letter O and her foam letter I and put the O over the I and brought it to me and said, "Pop a Pop!" she was so proud of herself for building a lollipop out of found objects.

She keeps insisting that she is MOMMY's BABY each time Daniel tries to give her a hug.It makes me sad, and yet not so sad, considering I always wondered if she would ever really like me. She loves to antagonize him, and well, it's kind of mutual.

She is still not weaned. Judge me all you want, but this girl will die if I cut her off now. We are working on it, slowly but surely and in her time it will happen and she will be healthy and well adjusted, of that I am sure.

She shares food. Unlike her mommy.

She worries for other people when she sees them cry ... even a cartoon baby blue bird today. 2 Sundays ago, there was a baby crying in childcare at church and Sonora grabbed my hand and walked me over and said, "mommy, fix this." I sat down and sang twinkle twinkle little star and for a moment, the baby stopped crying, and I was my daughter's hero. Best feeling in the world.

This blog is silly at times, this blog is personal and also sometimes insightful, but mostly, this blog is for our child(ren) so that someday, they will know what I was thinking and how it all went down ... how history in our home was made, and maybe this blog will unlock some kind of mystery to who I am as a mom, as a person ... maybe in reading this, Sonora and Lord willing, her sibling will say, "wow ... I get it now ... it's because mom thought like this ... it all makes sense."
I love you, my baby girl ... and someday, you will be my grown-up girl. I love you forever and ever.

It's about time ...

Well, lots of changes here at the ol' blogspot tonight! First, you will notice I finally got a sense of style and designed a new background ... hope you all enjoy the new look.

We are beyond knee-deep in this adoption process, and yet everything seems to have come to a screeching halt. I read on my yahoo news feed yesterday that the baby boomlets have come to a lull. This was confirmed by my social worker a couple weeks ago. I don't know exactly why ... are fewer people getting pregnant? Are the women who are getting pregnant deciding to keep their babies? Are the unwanted babies surviving? Many questions that I have and am not sure I really want to know the answers to. I keep praying and as usual, trusting God to lead us and guide us and be there to jerk us into action, the right action when necessary.

As for Sonora ... the little Einstein can now identify 11 states on the US map. She has transitioned on her own without any prompting from us to saying her name properly. I almost cried. Someone asked her what her name was 3 days ago and she said, "So-NORA!" And with a nod of her head, that was the end of "no-de-doh".

We have been passing on clothes to our friend's daughter, Katie. She is a few months behind Sonora and every couple weeks as Sonora grows out of something, we fill a bag and put it by the door so we can grab it on our way to church. Every Saturday night before the passing of the wardrobe, Sonora will inevitably look in the bag and say, "mine?" And I always say, "no, those are for baby Katie. We're bringing them to church tomorrow." Well, Thursday, I went to Santa Ana Main Place Mall with my parents who wanted to put Sonora on the kiddie train in the mall. While there, I saw a store called the Pumpkin Patch that I had never been in. I bought Sonora a couple little black and white outfits that are ADORABLE and my mom got her some orange clothes at the Children's Place since orange is her absolute favorite color *and the one I like least in the rainbow*! Well, when we got home, I went to my room and started laying all the clothes on my bed so I could cut off the little plastic strings that hold on the tags. As I was taking things out of the bag, Sonora looked at all the clothes and said, "Mama, for baby Katie?" I said, "No, Sonora, these are for you." She then took a big gasp and said, "for baby ME?!" I was so sad ... I RARELY shop for her, one because we can't really afford my taste, and two, because we are so blessed to have had clothes passed on to us that have literally obliterated the need to shop. Still, I was sad that when she saw a bunch of new clothes, the first thing she thought was, "this must be for somebody else ..." Anyway, I pulled out the BRIGHT orange shirt and said, "Sonora, this shirt is just for you, do you like it?" And she said, "for baby Sonora?" (just to be sure) and I said, "yes, just for you!" And she grabbed it and went running down the hall screaming, "DA DA! DA DAA! Shirt orange baby me orange me!" And then went into his office and held up the shirt and hugged it.

I don't understand why this bothered me. One of the things in my life that I didn't like is that my parents showed affection by buying things and spoiling me. They didn't ever hug me, or verbalize love. Here I am trying to be a good mom and love on my daughter every day. I give her praise and accolades for the most minute accomplishment, I hug and kiss her till her face is raw, and what does she get a thrill from? A $12.00 orange shirt. What the heck? I mean, it's not like we never buy her anything, seriously ... anyone who has been here sees that she lacks NOTHING!

Whatever ...

I have lots going on lately. So much is happening where we live. So much is happening with all my friends ... birthdays, baby showers, wedding showers ... Today I got to see someone I love to death and it just wasn't long enough. There isn't enough time to catch up, to just be there with the people in life who mean the most to me ... and that includes Daniel. He is working tirelessly. He gets calls all day and into the night. Since we live onsite where he works, we get doorbells and knocks at times that I consider private family time. I am learning that I can't be the go-to person for people who live here. There are too many problems and that is Daniel's job to deal with, not mine. I care about people, but I can't allow myself to get caught up in the details of what's going on, because it's overwhelming. Like I have said before, there are just some things you don't blog ... and you all know me ... I blog A LOT.

I think my next venture will be to teach Sonora to dance ... wait, let me rephrase that, to teach Sonora some dance moves. She already knows how to dance, and she dances from the heart. I don't want to squelch that little spirit by forcing her into a choreographed box. We went to Ruby's tonight after Daniel's softball game and she yelled, "Ma Ma, PEE PEE!!!!!!" And so I leaped over Daniel and did the walk-run shuffle to the restroom and when we got there, the music inside was about 21 decibels higher than it was throughout the rest of the restaurant. Sonora stopped dead in her tracks and there we were in the handicap stall and she wouldn't let me pull her pants down. Remember, she is the one who told me in no uncertain terms that she had to go, and go NOW. Well, she would do a little dance and then stop and say, "music" and tilt her head so her ear faced the ceiling as if to say, "mom, can you hear how loud it is? Listen ..." and then do another dance. I kept saying, "Sonora, you can dance after you go potty." And then she started saying, "ma ma, dance (with) me ... dance." How could I resist? My favorite person in the world asking me to do my favorite thing in the world ... seriously ... it doesn't get any better than that ... well, except it could have been any place else other than the bathroom stall ... but there we were, dancing and my cup was overflowing.

Then there's Dress like a Pirate Day. Unofficially, that is. Enjoy these silly pictures of us taken right before we left the house for Disneyland. I do all of Sonora's facepainting before we go ... saves me 12 bucks a pop, and nobody is any the wiser ... well, except for all of you who are reading this ...darn it! My cover is blown! Now you all know that I am frugal and I facepaint. What next? Someone discovers the earth is round???

It's a wonderful life, indeed.

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