Bringing home Juliet

So a lot has been happening, but I do owe it to our new arrival to put up some photos!

Juliet Thalia Lee, born August 2, adopted August 4, home from Utah August 14. Here she is, wearing a gorgeous hand-sewn dress from our dear friend Kris. How she sewed this and mailed it in time to reach us a few days after we got home ourselves, I have no idea. It's also the only thing we own tiny enough to fit Juliet.



Both big brother and sister are enamored.




Of course, their enthusiastic "helping" has to be carefully monitored; Eleanor in particular thinks she herself is much stronger and wiser in baby lore than she actually is. ("But mommy, baby Juliet WANTS a pruntzel (pretzel)!" "OK, mommy, I will carry Juliet downstairs and hold her on my lap for you." "Mommy, the baby is CRYING!" (while we are driving home from church, stating the painfully obvious))

But they are pretty sweet together...



And of course, the obligatory bathtub photo (with gracefully draped washcloth). She really loves her bath!

Juliet had her first doctor's appointment today, and apparently is pretty healthy and normal, by the way. But ridiculously short (3rd percentile for height)! At this rate she'll never be able to wear Eleanor's clothes, which would be a tragedy to make me weep...

Nora's first professional hairstyle

We had our first morning with "Miss Tamekia" today, and I am totally sold! This wonderful stylist/hair consultant came to our house, gave me a 45-minute lesson on improving my hairstyling techniques, then braided Eleanor's hair (about six times faster than I can), and THEN took me to the store to buy styling products so I can try to copy the process. Eleanor has "fancy" hair now, and I have a new arsenal of ideas and equipment (and now I know why my braids get fuzzy so quickly, how to get my twists to stay put, how to get my knots not to come undone, etc). Besides being good at what she does, this is a lovely and friendly woman who answered all my questions and made both of us feel totally comfortable. I am DEFINITELY bringing her back.

A couple photos (I added the beads myself):






In case you can't tell, she has a zigzag part in front with braids going perpendicular to each other, with two "star" clusters of braids in back coming together to make pigtails of braids, and then some vertical braids at the bottom.

Incidentally, doesn't my daughter have a lovely profile?

How kids perceive race?

You've probably heard that, in general, people have more trouble distinguishing members of other races than members of their own, right? That is, white people have trouble telling Asians apart; Asians have trouble telling African-Americans apart, etc.

So we're looking at photos this afternoon, and Eleanor says, "Is that you, Mommy?"

I say, "No, that's Aunt Gina. And we don't really look very much alike!"

Miles contradicts, "But you have the same skin!"

OK, if that's all it takes, I guess we do look alike... For that matter, how many times have I been asked if Miles and Eleanor are twins? And so far, with only one exception, it's never been African-Americans making that comment. So truly, do my children look that alike to white people? Because they don't to me.

Just an interesting point to ponder.