Niranjana, Melissa and Andy

Andy picked up Niranjana from preschool Monday and took her to Kiwanis lunch, to see Santa at the mall, to pick out some Christmas gifts for moms and grandmothers, and to mutually select Niranjana's gift from Daddy at Toys R Us.

They spent about five hours together. Three bathroom trips. And apparently zero tantrums, arriving home safe, happy and tired.

Two funny tidbits were reported in the past week by our Aunt April, who gets a different perspective of our daughter based on her timing at preschool and the comments from her precocious son, our friend Leifer.

On the playground:

"This morning when I dropped Leif off, Niranjana was playing goalie in soccer. She cracked me up as Leif and Isaac were walking out together. She yelled, “Hey you two, my team needs someone fast!” Leif was more than willing to go help out!

On gender roles:

Leif: “When I get older I am going to wear a dress.”

We are the proud parents today of a new reader.

Niranjana brought home her first little phonics book from pre-kindergarten and is able to read it all the way through. It's a milestone to take it home, as she had been working on it last week at school. The plot is thin — a cat named Max uses a pan and fat ham to nab a bad rat. But it's reading! See the video at http://www.youtube.com/andyperdue.

Niranjana's imaginary brother has returned. Apparently he was away at university, because he's now a scientist.

"My brother is a scientist. He lives in Antarctica."

"My brother is a scientist. He lives underwater and he does backflips over the sharks. One shark almost ate his hand, but the shark missed." (laughter at the expense of the shark)

"My brother is a scientist. He swam up from underwater onto the ice and he hit his head on the ice so hard his helmet came off."

He also might have done some research in a rain forest.

How old is her brother? "105 years old."

I'm about 66 percent done with redecorating Niranjana's room, with the firm intention that she then will sleep there.

It took about six weeks to figure out the scheme and pinpoint a weekend when I could paint with Disney Behr colors from Home Depot. Niranjana said she wanted a Jasmine room. Since Jasmine gear can be hard to find, I steered her toward "a room that Jasmine would want to sleep in."

Yep, our church voted to leave the ELCA (see previous blog). So we're starting to explore other churches.

We usually went to church with some close friends. The four of us outnumber the three kids. Armed with snacks and quiet activities, the adults can catch at least a little bit of the sermon while boxing in the children.

Turns out, our friends also were interested in trying a new church, although their main reason was to find something closer to home. Like within walking distance (on a nice day).

I was born in a Lutheran hospital to a mother raised Lutheran. Baptized as a baby with my father in a Lutheran church. My dad was our Lutheran church's congregation president during my formative teen years. I graduated with pride from Pacific Lutheran University. I was married in a Lutheran church.

Now I find myself needing to find a new church. Not necessarily a new denomination — I find myself agreeing with the ECLA on some recent controversial decisions. http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organiza...

Niranjana made a piece of art today that, on another planet, would look like a dragonfly. Then she told this story to the afternoon teacher, who wrote it down:

This is my dragonfly. It only visits people who are sick. It only flies away when people chase it. Sometimes he can drop a present for everybody. It can hide from anything when he is shy or when he's never seen somebody. He always comes to help when somebody has blood.

Niranjana got her first bike today, earning it by doing so well with her visual therapy.

From Toys R Us, we headed straight to the park, so Niranjana could try out her new bike. Let's go straight to the video highlights and post-ride interview:

As our dear friends said at last night's Gotcha Day gathering, it's hard to imagine a time when Niranjana wasn't here. These two years sure have flown by. With Andy's health finally back on track, it feels like we finally might be coming out of survival mode.

Andy says that Niranjana is cute 95 percent of the time. I give her only 90 percent, as I think she tests me more than she does her dad. That would be typical for a mother-daughter relationship, as I'm sure my mom would give me a 90 percent rating even today (sure hope it's not less than 90 percent!).