Delicious Ambiguity

An update of what Maida is doing now was requested! It's hard to sum her all up in a blog post, but here we go... Maida can run, jump, walk backwards, walk sideways, walk on her toes, climb on anything and has no fear of trying anything new. She loves to explore and is great at entertaining herself. She loves to sing and hum and dance to music. She can say anything you ask her to, but her favorite words that you'll hear her spontaneously saying are: mom, dad, Bump (for Bumpa), Gaga (for Grandma), bird, bug, boat, book, box, duck, dog, car, card, church, go, cracker, hi, milk, more, ahhh (for all done), horse, socks, shoes, side (for outside), fish, yes, yeah, nine (for no), Bible, cheese, glasses, and eyes. She also does sign language and can say these things in signs: more, all done, hi, bye, pray, I love you, outside, please, thank you, and milk. It's so cute when she walks up to you and asks in sign language, "more please," it just makes your heart melt! She loves going swimming in the lake and loves to swing. It's hard to get her out of either! She sleeps nine to twelve hours every night and takes one three hour nap every afternoon. She's more of a momma's girl than daddy's girl, but isn't too attached to either of us. She knows where the new baby is (in mom's tummy) and likes to give the baby kisses. She's a picky picky picky eater and somedays won't eat anything. Her favorite place to be is outside and she even busted through Bumpa and Grandma's screen door to get out one day. She loves to hide and play chase. She looks for trouble all day long, you never know what you're going to find her in. She loves to pray and asks us to pray with her all day long, and sometimes all night long! She raises her hands high up in the sky when you say, "Praise the Lord," and loves to go to Sunday School. Her best friend is Barkley! and they both love to cuddle together. She tells me "pa" after she's gone poopy or poddie in her pants and I've kind of started poddie training her, but she's scared of the poddie!

I think that about sums her up! She's growing up so fast and seems so old already. I love being able to communicate with her, and her tell me what she wants. It makes life a lot easier.

I'd like to end with a prayer request. My Aunt Pat, Uncle Merlyn's wife, had a stroke last weekend. She is still in the Intensive Care and there are a lot of unanswered questions. Little brain damage was noted, but her speech is still far from normal. She mumble things, but gets frustrated because she can't say exactly what she wants. They've had her up walking around and trying to read children's' books, but there is still a lot of progress to be made. They have linked the stroke back to her Lupus and have discovered that her body is eating its own plasma, causing the blood to thicken, causing clots, which caused the stroke. So they have her on a machine (kind of like dialysis) to cycle plasma back into her blood. They have no idea how long or how often she'll need to be on this. I know it will be a long road for them. Please pray for the Kinkel family! Thank you.