Catching up on good things

So many things have been happening lately that I've not really written about the small, sweet things that are filling our days. One is the frequent visits by the Tooth Fairy. This picture was taken on Christmas, and the gap in front widened considerably the next day when Abbie lost her other front tooth. As you can probably see, she already has a permanent tooth coming in, and it's just as enormous as I thought it would be. Is it because I am from Oregon that I and all my kids have front teeth that resemble a beaver's? We will probably have to do the same thing on the top that we did on the bottom, having the other two front baby teeth extracted to make room for the two front permanent teeth. And, you gotta love that dimple!

She loved Christmas this year, and that made it so much better for all of us. As I was tucking a wide-awake Abbie into bed on Christmas Eve, I told her, "You know, Santa won't come until you are asleep!" Her eyes fluttered for a moment and then shut tight. For a selfish moment it made me think about telling her Santa comes EVERY night for little girls who go right to sleep.

This past Sunday she was able to go to Sunday School again, and I knew she had a great time by all the goodies that came home with us. Every girl in her little group just had to get something from the goodie box for Abbie. She held on to the little fish keychain all day, and when I went to put her to bed I found a bookmark folded into her blanket. But, until today I didn't know how well it had gone! I talked to my friend, Kathleen, who is Abbie's "Sunday School Auntie" -- her first words were , "I can't believe the changes in Abbie!" She went on to tell me how much Abbie used her voice, which matched what we've been seeing, or rather, hearing. At one point she said something to Abbie and immediately Abbie turned her head all the way around to look at Kathleen in the face. RJ came out of the service to blow his nose, and when Kathleen told Abbie that RJ was out there, Abbie started making all kinds of noise. At the end of the session they were taking prayer requests from her little group of kindergarteners and first graders. Kathleen had previously told them that Abbie would really like to get up and play and talk with with them, so it was very sweet when one of the little girls asked that they pray that Abbie could "get out of her wheelchair and play with us." When Kathleen asked Abbie if that is what she wanted to do, Abbie vocalized immediately. I guess the looks on the faces of the girls communicated their happy surprise and their realization that Abbie really does understand what is going on and really wants to get up and play with them.