success!

i just typed a long post, but then i accidently erased it...

zella had a great time spending the night with kim and her kids! i was so excited for her. she had never spent the night away before, and i have never spent the night away from her. so i was nervous about her having a hard time when it came to the sleeping arrangements. zella is very good at following instructions, but i thought she might throw the instructions because she would be having so much fun with zach and taylor. but she followed the instructions, and they only got out of bed about 5 times. kim said that they got out of bed and ran into their room, kim would bring them back and get them all settled down. (i think that it became a game, and that they were having way too much fun to settle down and go to sleep...) on the last run to their room, craig brought them back and got them resettled, and that was the last time they got out of bed.

the next morning, i went to get zella. i walked in the room and she looked up and then went right back to playing. i was talking with kim and zella got up and went over to kim, sat right next to her, and grabbed kim's hand and said "I don't want to go home". now i had two choices, i could be sad because she didn't want to say hi to me, or i could be happy that she didn't want to come home because that ment she was having a good time. i choose the second one. that small gesture of holding kim's hand showed me that she felt safe, had a great time, and didn't want it to end.

so i think i will be able to have a better time in vegas, knowing that she will be having a
mini-vaca herself.

(but i still think i will call several times each day!)

jill b