Progress on a number of fronts
So I had the second D&C last Friday, and have been "recovering" again. There's not much physical recovery to do except wait, now. As far as emotional recovery, I have signed up to go to a Pregnancy Loss Support Group at one of the hospitals in my network (not the one where I had the D&C, twice, but across town; it seems to be the only group of its kind in the whole system). It's free, meets every two weeks, and you can attend for as many or as few times as you want.
Cecily has lots of words now! Some were actively taught to her by Erik or Miss Hellen or me, but some we have no idea how she picked up. I should make a list before I lose track of them all. Not necessarily in the order acquired, nor in order of frequency uttered.
- Mama
- Dada
- Okay
- No (still working on "Yes")
- Num-num
- Baby (also used for the Kitty-cats at Aunt Kim's)
- Hi hi hi!
- Bye
- Nose
- Eye (still working on "Mouth")
- Doggie! (also used for squirrels, birds, and almost every other kind of animal except ...)
- Cow
- Down (still working on "Up")
- Shoe (but not "Shoes")
- Hat
- Key (but not "Keys")
- Um-gm (her way of saying "Thank you")
- cuckoo (from the cuckoo clock)
- 'boo! (in response to "Peekaboo!")
- bawk bawk bawk bu-gawk! (like a chicken)
With all the excitement of encouraging and reinforcing Cecily's English words, I haven't been speaking as much German to her lately. We still listen to her German music CDs and read aloud from her German books every couple of days. And it's OK; I don't expect her to start saying German words until considerably later. I figure she'll be comprehending them well before she can say them herself (which goes for English, too, of course).
At the wading pool in the park, Cecily and I met and talked with a really nice mom (T.), her partner (E.), and daughter (R., a few months younger than Cecily). I'd really like to remember and stay in touch with them - as opposed to most of the kids on the playground, whom we may play with once and never find out the names of. I know which apartment building they live in (it fronts on the park), but not their actual apartment number. We parted without exchanging further details, just "Hope to see you again."
Then last night was apparently National Night Out, which was flying completely under my radar (or I was flying under the radar of this event? Never encountered it in any of the cities I've lived in before). F., our neighbor to the south on the 3200 block (whom I met via email last summer) made a point of putting a flier in our mailbox to let us know about the block party on her block, in which we could be included despite technically living on the 3100 block. But I never saw the flier! Erik took it out of our mailbox and thought it was junk mail, so he didn't bother showing it to me. Or so he told me later.
But anyway, luck was on my side last night. Cecily and I were hanging out on our doorstep after dinner, just watching cars and birds and doggies and people go by. Then we saw F. and her husband, who were coming home from their block party. They asked why they hadn't seen us there ("What? It was tonight?"), and then said we could probably still find people celebrating at a tent behind the community garden on the 3200 block. Our own block, the 3100s, was completely silent, like it would be on any normal weekday evening. Too bad!
I wasn't sure where the 3200 block party was (this neighborhood has a community garden on just about every other block!). Cecily and I walked south anyway, and ended up finding not a tent, but a bunch of chairs and tables and people sitting in the middle of the 3300 block of our street, which was barricaded to car traffic at this point. They welcomed us even though we didn't technically live there, and Cecily climbed up in a grown-up chair, had some dessert, and met a girl, M., who's almost three. Once M. learned Cecily's name, she kept saying it over and over in great excitement. We found out what house she lives in too, for future reference.
Someone had set up a sprinkler contraption for running and riding bikes through, which many kids did, including Cecily. She loved it, and her clothes got completely soaked, so I stripped them off her, at which point she was running around in nothing but her diaper and sandals. And it was getting dark.
Cecily did have more social success at this block party than I did, mainly because I kept having to excuse myself in the middle of an introduction to someone, in order to go rescue Cecily from some danger, real or imagined. Multiple times, I thought of going back to our apartment and getting Erik, but he was playing computer games and isn't generally as motivated as I am to try to meet the neighbors, so I didn't.
Finally, I dragged Cecily away from the sprinklers and the mud (not without considerable protest on her part) and schlepped her home. On the 3200 block, just kitty-corner from our house, such that we'd be able to see them through our apartment windows if we were inside, a family sitting on their doorstep said hi to us. I didn't get all their names - there was one adult and like six kids hanging around - but at least now we recognize each other visually, and can go over and chat, on future occasions when they're on their doorstep and we're on ours. (One of the kids there was a one-year-old boy, S.) I never used to be a doorstep-sitting person at all, but Cecily likes it so much, I may start doing it more often. At least, until the weather turns freezy again.
Also, apropos of nothing, in the last two days some of my Saudi students at the ESL institute have taught me how to write my name in Arabic, which is much harder for me than it was in Japanese (even back when I first started learning to write my name and didn't know anything else in Japanese). But I'm determined to practice until I get the Arabic script version of my name into my long-term memory! In all my spare time (hah!) maybe I'll even try learning Arabic someday. Like when the kid(s) are grown up and out of the house, haha.