Hiking on the Kulm with Ingo and Edith, and Leilani falling asleep and being “schlepped” most of the way.
Visiting with Franz:
Mmmmh, chocolate ice cream…. Auntie Inge gave Leilani a big portion and poor Andy had to finish it:
Leilani made a mother’s day gift – Trude did not see it yet:
Yesterday we hiked the Raabklamm, a small gorge carved though some limestone layers by the Raab stream. After a bit of coaxing and promising to tell her stories, Leilani walked almost 2 miles …
… and was really good, stepping over roots and rocks and holding on to ropes and other handholds–and we went through all the adventures of Pippi Longstocking I could remember.
With (l-r) Gerd, Lara the dog, Trude and Gerd’s brother, Ingo (and his wife Edith in the photo above):
After playing in the river, she got too tired and the path became too hard and Andy carried her the rest of the way.
The last of the many foot-bridges across the stream, rebuilt 3 years ago after a flood:
Ladybug:
Leilani’s new pool and boat, just the right size:
And a new Arielle (the little mermaid) bathing suit from Inge and Franz.
Yesterday in the car Leilani was singing – “We are the same, the same, the same, all one sun,” (repeated over and over) I was impressed, since it sounded like one of her self made songs, but probably it is a new age song that she has heard somewhere before.
We are very pleased with Leilani during this visit, not only does she sing very nicely, she also behaves great, is very adventorous and brave, but without being too daring or doing risky things. She also tries any kind of new food we put in front of her (dandelions with garlic, asparagus, various Austrian and Italian dishes) – her usual comment is “Du kochst sehr gut Oma” (You cook very well Grandma).
Finally, she plays a lot by herself, we realized it’s the first time we can let her play unsupervised in another room and not be worried (the fact that she sings to herself helps us know she hasn’t wandered off). One of her activities is cutting up paper with children’s scissors. She’s always been fascinated by cutting with scissors, I suppose it’s something she saw big children doing. But now she can do it herself, holding the scissors the right way and opening and closing them to cut repeatedly, all the way across a page. She also makes random cuts, reducing a page down to small shapes that she even drops into a bowl instead of on the floor. Andy thinks it’s some sort of self-calming activity, where the concentration helps her be calm, because she’s done it several times for up to 45 minutes late at night when she would otherwise be whiny. Best of all, we’ve figured out to give her colored paper, and then we use all the little pieces to make collage pictures, another activity she likes.
