October 15,2026- Hana has gotten more boisterous, in the house. She is also a lot more animated, and the inflections in her babbling more clearly indicate meaning and expectation. We made two more walks, up and down the stairs, and she spent more time exploring her future bedroom and the upstairs common area. She was happy just sitting quietly for a while, in the middle of her bedroom carpet. The rest of the time, she had a lot of commentary.

Hana and I went to a small bake sale that some children in the neighbourhood to the northwest of us had put together, this afternoon. It drew a small crowd, and I chose several cakes and cookies that I can share with Aram and Yunhee. Hana doesn’t pay much mind to pastries. She does, however, know what ice cream is, and is not happy about it being off limits to her, for the time being.

HANA’S NOTE- I like my upstairs room. I will be okay with sleeping there, when Mommy and Daddy say I am ready.

EXPANDING CIRCLES: Missouri- The Show Me State is another of my favourites. Two of my cousins live there. They are sisters, as it happens-one living in Blue Springs, near Kansas City and the other in Avilla, a small village between Joplin and Carthage. My maternal grandfather’s family lived on the other side of the state-in St. Louis. He left the area and settled in Saugus, MA, siring nine children, including my mother. I have been in Missouri at least two dozen times, the first being 1972, being let off in Kansas City, and spending two days there. then catching a lift to Columbus, OH.

The turf- Missouri, in its southwest and mid-south, shares the Ozark Plateau with Arkansas. Southeast Missouri, the “Boot Heel”, is the northernmost part of the Mississippi Delta. West Central and Northern Missouri are areas of rolling plains, the heritage of glaciation.Missouri is drained by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, which have their confluence near St. Charles, northwest of St. Louis. The White, Osage, Gasconade and St. Francis Rivers also drain the state.

FIRST NATIONS-Missouri is the ancestral home of the Nutachi, who are also called Missouria. This tribe was nearly wiped out by raids of the Sac and Fox, in the mid-Eighteenth Century . Their remnants joined the Otoe, in Oklahoma. No major clashes between white settlers and Native Peoples are known to have occurred in Missouri.

Where I fell most at home- Sarcoxie, Avilla, Joplin, Carthage, Wheatland, Columbia, Rolla, Kansas City

Where I feel most peace- Sarcoxie, Wilson’s Creek, New Madrid

NEXT: Kentucky