We're Ba(ck)

Well, Lillia is still cute, even if her old man has been a remiss blogger. Here she is with a gaggle of Iberis sempervirens at our front walk.


We HAVE been gone a lot, and I doubt there are many looking at this blog these days since I have been so remiss at regular entries, but here goes:
First off, here is a picture of Suzanne and Lillia in the Florida Keys in late April, which we visited for a medical conference in Miami. Following this photo, Suzanne tossed Lillia to me with surprising athleticism.
Luckily, I caught her.

Next while I stayed home, holed up in my basement doing 72 hours of continuing medical education video courses, Suzanne traveled with Lillia, her aunt Betsy and Uncle Henry, to the north east to see cousin Molly (below, with mom Janet and Uncle Henry in background) graduate from the Maine College of Art, with her BFA in Painting. Quite a trip, with Lillia tossing her cookies at the bottom of the jetway on the flight out to Boston, but recovering, as always, with much grace. (no pictures of this, thankfully.)


Lillia, taking in Molly's pictures at an exhibition.

Returning from Portland, they were able to stop in New Hampshire, to visit the Tardiff's and baby Anna, who was from the same orphanage in Yangchun as Lillia.


Swapping old times over apple juice and muffins.


Next stop, Linden NJ, where lillia danced with Grandma Joan...

...and later snacked on milk and cookies.

Lastly, a few pictures from Lillia's 2nd birthday. The cake was Suzanne's famous orange cake.
Many were there, including Cobin, below...


...and Judy and Elayna, above, who were also from our travel adoption group.


Finally, a picture of Lillia passing through the gate to the Plant Asia exhibit at the Denver Botanical Gardens. It has been a beautiful spring.

And now, the news (and an explanation of the "clever" title of this blog entry):

Lillia has turned two, and her language skills are slowly improving, though if you are a believer in the Denver Developmental milestones, she is quite behind the curve in language. She is a delightful girl, loving, cute, and very smart, well-coordinated and dexterous, but not quite ready for language as we know it. She has difficulties with consonant clusters and consonants in final position. Until recently all final consonants were replaced by /p/ or left off, so that sit becomes "sip" and plane becomes "play". She is starting to pronounce /t/ in final position, but has a long way to go. When she speaks she only uses single words. We are working with a speech therapist, and are not quite ready to turn management of the family stock portfolio to her yet.

Of course there are many other ways to gage intelligence then loquacity--and Lillia is quite bright. We are working with baby signs that are based on ASL, which helps somewhat with her frustration, and ours.

We expect the language lobes to kick in any day now, at which point, many friends have said, life as we know it will be over.

Love, Tom (and Suzanne)