It's Monday

I'm so sorry for neglecting my blog so much this past month. I guess I haven't felt like there's much to write about lately. We're just living life here. Work, school, dinner, homework, bedtime... Rinse and repeat.

We took the girls to a hotel/waterpark two weeks ago and had a great time. Who would have thought that Lin, who would barely put her feet in the water last summer, would have such a great time at a water park? She LOVES the water! I'm thinking about getting her into swimming lessons before summer, so that she knows the actual mechanics of swimming. She's great on the water slides but I think she would still be hesitant if she were just in a regular swimming pool. Thinking about how great she is on her bike (she never learned to ride a bike in China) makes me think that if she knew how to swim there'd be no stopping her!

We have booked a trip to *Disney*World* for this fall! We will celebrate Lin's 14th birthday there and, needless to say, we are all very excited! In fact, I'm afraid that Ruby may be a bit too excited. Did I mention that we're not going until October?! I worry that over the next several months Ruby's excitement will grow and grow until she is a complete disaster by the time we board the plane!

Lin has been just a little bit of a challenge the last few days or so. There's another blog I follow that describes "the wall" that older adopted kids hit at some point and I wonder if that's what Lin's experiencing. The realization that being in a family is actually not always great. There are behavioral expectations. There are siblings to deal with. There are household chores to do. There's homework every day. There are days which are, quite frankly, lousy. And for me, dealing with my first teenaged child, I'm not sure how much slack I'm supposed to give her. My first instinct when she starts getting a bad attitude about things is to tell her to straighten up. Knock it off. Deal with it. But then I wonder if that's the right thing to say? I certainly don't mean that I will cater to her and baby her when she's in a lousy mood. But maybe I should be a little bit more understanding of what she's going through before I judge her too harshly. After all, she started a whole new life at probably the most difficult time for any kid. If she wants to pout and be sulky once in a while, maybe I should just get off her back.