Back from BZH (Brittany)

Back from France and I don't know where to start. We spent a little over a month back home and it was good to reconnect, hang out with friends and family and relish good times.
Zoé thoroughly enjoyed herself with her numerous friends: Anna, Sevan, Shahé, Noélanie, Clementine, Bleuenne and Malo, and her two cousins Clara and Titouan who had not seen her for more than a year. I thought that the age difference would prevent them from having a grand old time, but on the contrary they really bonded and had fun.
We spent time at the beach, took nice walks along the coast, went to the farm to feed our favorite animals donkeys and pigs. Zoé even went horse back riding and loved it.

Zoé fell in love with her favorite Franco-philippina babysitter, Lucita. It enabled me to take time off and spend quality time with Mom. Lucita pampered Zoé with new hairdos every time she came and Zoé now has a name for these " Coiffure Lucita". I am not as good, so we are back to the little bow...there is so much I can do.

Zoé got to feast on her favorite foods while in France: croissant, she became quite addicted; buckwheat crepes filled with cheese that she called "Quesedilla Bretonne"!!!, quite hilarious, and fresh fish. She's always been a good eater, but now she likes salad with radishes and celery, with French vinaigrette dressing. She's my girl ;-)

Zoé's French greatly improved as she now can tell you exactly what it is that she wants:
"veux manger quelque chose" (I wanna eat something)
"Veux regarder un truc" (Kiddie slang for I wanna watch something)
"veux mettre chaussures" (I want to put my shoes)
"pas chaque fois" (not every time, especially when she wants a frozen yogurt and I tell her that it's not every time we have daycare that we get a treat)
"J'ai deja mangé" (I already ate)

Lise and jean-Claude, family friends from Paris came to spend a long weekend with us and Lise made a Balloon Tree for Zoé, who simply loved it.

Zoé discovered Buddhism while playing with Buddha.

I am glad that we were in France to celebrate Mom and Dad's 40-year anniversary. What a journey! 5 kids, 6th grandchild on its way and a plethora of beautiful memories to worship. Zoé got to really connect with her grandparents and she talks about them constantly. She now knows how important family truly is.

Zoé has a great personality and is always eager to try new things and challenge herself. Now that she walks, her world has no boundaries. We are looking forward to her foot surgery (June 2nd), so that she can really be more at ease when walking. She does fall quite a bit, but she has a good protective mechanism and usually knows how to fall so that she won't hurt herself.

The foot surgery will not be too invasive, but it will require for Zoé to be in a knee-high cast for 4 to 6 weeks. We might even serial cast her other foot. We've opted for Shriner's Hospital in Sacramento. The doctor we saw there knows MMD really well and I feel good about having Zoé be in such good hands. They are going to cut her Achilles tendon in order to lengthen it, and also cut her arch, for Zoé has cavus feet (High arch). After that, she will be fitted with a new pair of AFO's (Ankle Foot Orthotics). According to the surgeon, he believes that Zoe will probably need orthotics for 'the rest of her life', indeed, it will give her the support that she needs to conquer new grounds and territories. We'll manage to find cute shoes I am sure, and if not, it won't be the end of the world.
I do worry about the anesthesia, but I am sure that they have everything under control, for patients like Zoé who have MMD.

We got back into our weekly routine right after jet lag was over. Zoé slept 1 hour from Paris to San Francisco...so we did a lot of playing, reading, DVD watching. Zoé's favorite thing was to walk up and down the aisle greeting every passenger with her high-pitched "Hi!" "How are you?"

We've now added Speech Therapy once a week, to help Zoé work on bilabial letters such as: M, B, P, etc. We continue taping her face and I will take her to hippo therapy (Horse) once a week as well. We did see our favorite osteopath in France that Zoé called "Copain Massage", he worked again on realigning Zoé and I do believe that every time she sees him, she improves dramatically.

Voila, dear friends and blog readers. I've filled you in on our latest news. I will make sure to keep you posted in the weeks to come.

ps: you probably noticed the cute round glasses her Nanny and Papy bought her, as opposed to the blue ones we had chosen in California. She looks very French, no?