M is such a great great great baby! I can't even believe it. She has adjusted so well to us. The other day I asked her, "Have you been here forever?" She has been in our hearts forever - That much - we know.
It is very cool to see her amazement when we go anywhere new. I remember her fear of the shopping mall on Day 2 of meeting her. She was petrified, confused and certainly not enjoying the experience - She didn't cry but we knew she was so nervous. Shopping doesn't make her nervous anymore. The baby who wouldn't touch ANYTHING in the store is now grabbing garb off the racks and picking out shoes. Oh Boy! I have a girl who loves to shop! Lord help us - well, mainly, Lord help Chris - but we are gonna have some fun! I took her to the mall yesterday - no stroller - I actually bought it on the way thinking I could whip it out of the box but it had to be assembled. Anyway - we went to 3 stores. She was grabbing shoes like there was no tomorrow at Journey for Kids - too funny. She had an entire conversation with the lady at Children's Place - it was too funny - she probably said, "Mom got an email that pink cords were 4.99 so we had to scoot over here to grab a pair." As we were leaving the mall, she was trucking out in her uberly cute pink boots and a lady said, "She looks like she's got this shopping thing down." I thought it was pretty good for the first USA mall visit.
I also can't believe we left for Thailand a month ago. Wow - what an amazing experience. I just remember how one minute (well 22 months really) we were watching everyone else travel and celebrating with them and living vicariously through them and then we blink and have a month worth of pictures and it's like she's always been here. If I had known that, I would have stressed less.
Everyone wants to know how M is sleeping. She is definitely doing better - I'm not sure why but she is waking up off and on all night. She is crying out, sitting up, rolling around etc. Not sure if she dreaming or what. She doesn't wake up for long but it has to be affecting her quality of sleep (and ours). This is an improvement over the time change issue we had with our AM parties without a doubt. Anyone else have this?
For those who are wondering - she slept in a crib in her foster mom's bedroom. Her foster mom would rock her to sleep and then put her in her crib. We started out rocking her to sleep and then laying down with her. For naps, we don't have to lay with her - she just lays on our bed with a bottle. At bedtime, we normally lay down with her. With all the night-time crying, we're not really willing to put her in her crib which is on the other side of our house. We definitely would get less sleep if we had to get out of bed to get her back to sleep all night long. I really have no idea how many times a night she is getting up - it is a lot - but fortunately, I don't wake up enough to check the clock or count every time just enough to get her back to sleep. So yes - we ruined her good sleeping habits! LOL
This week brought the UofL UK basketball showdown. We lost the game but our cheerleader was SO cute we didn't really care. I can't believe she left the sunglasses on but she actually loved them. Too funny - she is such a show boat!
We also scored our first kisses - First the sock monkey, then the dog (Mario - not the stuffed dog), then me and then Dad. How funny is it that she kisses the dog before her parents. Hey - she knew us 2 weeks longer than the dog...
Her favorite show off thing is definitely to say Aaaaaaah after anyone takes a drink. She just looks at the Starbucks cup and says Aaaaaah. So cute. This week she started talking more - She' says Bite, Bye Bye and waves, Mommy, Papa, Nana, Hi and Bye while holding her hand to her ear when the phone rings, she loves music, along with the never ending DADADADADADADA! She loves her DADA!
She also says SHEW when we walk outside. It's about 90ish degrees all the time in Thailand. So this 10-20 degree stuff we are having right now is all new to her. She laughed at the snow - about 4-5 inches. Have to wonder what she's thinking. She only stayed out for about 15 minutes but I had to land some pictures with her and the snow - of course, I'm praying we won't see snow again this year. She doesn't look like she extremely happy in the pictures but she was curious about it. She would touch it and play with it. I have to comment on the boys here - Matt LOVED the snow and Mark HATED the snow- he would say No Snow No Snow over and over. Now they both love sledding.
No I did not coordinate the pants with the gloves, but it's cute!
They are hard at work - earning that next video game!
8 comments:
Every time I see her little face I think "She is SO CUTE!" Timothy definitely had crying episodes off and on at night for a while. I wondered if he was dreaming too. Seems like a lot of the grieving would come out at night or when he was sleepy... which isn't bad (it has to come out somehow) but it's hard. Hang in there! I'm glad it's getting better and that she is doing so well! : ) She is ADORABLE!!!
She is sooooooo cute!!
I love all the things she says! It's so funny that she says, "Shew" when she goes out in the cold! A girl after my own heart. ;-)
Thanks for the sleeping update. We are trying to learn all we can about what to expect.
She's just BEAUTIFUL!!! So glad she's adjusting very well!
What a most adorable snow angel she makes. Sounds like Miss M is more and more at home all the time. Thanks for the update!
The pics are awesome! The snow pics are adorable!!!! Can't wait to see you guys again - love, love, LOVE reading about all of the daily experiences.
Love your little cardinal! She is so cute and it's great to hear how well you're all adjusting. It's been a month! Amazing.
ADORABLE!!!!! She seems to definitely be the most perfect fit for your family!!!
The sleep thing - yeah, first of all she did have good sleeping habits as far as Thai kids in foster homes is concerned, she slept on a crib ours didn't so it will come back to her. And she sleeps well on naps - which ours didn't...we struggled for about 3months...
So with all that I got to say as Melissa said - the grief does come out at night in their sleep - which is good, just rough on our bodies and theirs, but at least she naps). We slept with K for the first month, by the second month we moved a mattress to her bedroom floor and I slept with her durign that month - she go used to her room and at least working parent at the time got to sleep on the week a full night then the weekend we swap. Also, by month 2 she started to sleep longer periods without waking up...after that we started leaving her in her crib - gradual progression.
As you know it will get better!
She is too cute, I can't wait to meet her. It sounds like she did better than Tucker. We spent 20 min. getting his three shirts and bibs and boots and coat and hat on. We went outside put him down and he screamed his head off. We tried to make a snowball and show it to him, he hid his face and screamed even more. Needless to say we spent about 5 min. outside. He did however like when i made a snowcone for him with the snow and juice so it wasn't a complete loss :)
Post a Comment