Red Couch Photos

"S-A-T-U-R-N."  Madison is shown above spelling the name of the sixth planet in our solar system.  This is somewhat of a surprise to Daddy, who has seen the curriculum's spelling list:  she's working on words with "at" at the end, including "cat," "sat," "bat," and "hat."  These are the sorts of words she's expected to know, and if she does well enough with those, she can go on to learn the more challenging words.  Words like "matter" and "Saturn."

So today, Mommy called the office on the computer.  Daddy just so happened to have a model of Saturn with him, and Madison just so happened to be able to spell it for the entire office.  As soon as she nailed it, the entire office erupted in cheers!  Way to go, Madison!

Anyway, today was a big day at church as always.  We had a great night, continuing our spirit of adventure, but Mommy and Madison stayed home to get some much-needed rest.  It's just that she has to get up very early, otherwise we'd have her at church very quickly.

Daddy did go home to see everyone, of course.  It was late afternoon, and Daddy raced home to hang around with Mommy and Madison.  We ate together, and had some playtime - but soon Daddy was off and back to work.

So what's with the title of this blog entry?  Recently we were looking at Peggy's old site, where our log-in date families talked with one another and shared photos of the children.  There was one folder that caught my eye, called "Red Couch Folders."

Here's a blast from the past.  It's a "red couch" picture, something traditional that families adopting children from China used to do.  They probably still do, although not as frequently.  At the White Swan hotel in Guangzhou, there's a red couch in the lobby.  It's tradition to dress up all the children being adopted, placing them on the couch for a group photo.  I'm not entirely sure why this is done, but it is a nice thing to do for a group shot.  We all do a day or two before checking out, and going back our separate ways.

Our strategy with restless Madison was effective:  place a container of Cheerios right in front of her.  The other children did not fare so well.  The game plan for this official portrait is simple:  parents put the children in place, and run!  That's when the pictures are snapped, hopefully before the younger ones start to panic and cry.  That doesn't take long at all!  Several of them started wailing, crying for Mommy - but Madison never even flinched.  She just sat there, content with her Cheerios!

It's neat seeing all these children - five years ago.  One is in Oklahoma, another in Texas.  One is in Florida, and another in Pennsylvania, and another is in New Jersey.  There's one in Iowa, and another one in Seattle, Washington.  All different walks of life, all taken around the world - just like that.  One moment, you're listening to a Chinese orphanage director, and five years later you're memorizing the spelling of "Saturn" in English.  What an amazing journey!