What a change

Can this really be the same child??? What a drastic change I notice when I look back over her referral pictures, pictures from when we were in China, and then her most recent pictures. She's turning into a big little girl now. Knowing her now and how she reacts, we can see how scared and shut-down she was on our adoption day. The blank look on her face is her scared look, and of course who could blame her with all these strange people around! She probably just wanted to be back in her familiar stainless steel crib in the room full of crying infants. Then I look at the little personality that she is now - full of fun, mischievous, loving, and oh so BUSY, and it's hard to imagine this is the same child.

We still like her a lot...

anything with a steering wheel

She loves to drive...or at least pretend to drive. Everytime she goes by something with a steering wheel she points at it frantically and makes her "driving" motion with her hand. It doesn't matter if it is a car, truck, riding lawn mower in Home Depot, or a tractor - she wants to steer it.

New Years in Puerto Rico

We decided to be brave and attempt a trip down to PR to visit C's family for New Years. N did really well on the plane and was a real trooper, despite the airline's delays and getting into San Juan much later than we had planned. Because of all my business travel, we were able to get an upgrade to first class - which was SO much nicer for us. The extra room was a great blessing since N was able to wander around the seats a lot easier.

C's family thoroughly enjoyed their visit. It was the first time her father and brother had met N, and they immediately fell in love with her. C's sister was also visiting from Tokyo, so she got to spend some quality time with her "Titi" also.

Her Spanish comprehension is really amazing already. She seems to understand everything they were saying to her - or at least was able to fake it pretty good (like her father!) She always wanted to be outside: chasing the small lizards around, watching the ants, or running around the yard. She really had a good time and with all the exercise, playing, and running around she pretty much just collapsed every night - which we enjoyed.

The Beach

We took a trip to the beach...finally...late this summer. N. had a blast just playing in the sand. It took her quite awhile to get used to feeling the sand on her feet and walking in it. Once she got used to that, she spent the next hour just picking up sand and watching it fall through her fingers. She's very curious, and has a tendency to just walk up to strangers and stand there and look at them, which can be somewhat embarrassing to us as we run over and usher her back to where we are.


She wasn't too sure about the whole water and waves thing. I think that will take awhile for her to get used to. I guess when you're that short, the waves look much more ominous. It was fun...

No Time to Blog

Wow, it has been awhile! I'm not very good at keeping this up-to-date. N. takes a lot of our free time now, as you can imagine. She is really incredible, though. Watching her learn, and explore, and develop has been fascinating for us. She has bonded very well with both of us, and even our extended family. She walks, runs, climbs, gets into everything, and is fun just to watch. She's up to over 40 words (a combination of sign-language, Spanish, and English). And as you can see from this picture, her voracious appetite is exhausting!

To Day-Care or Not?

We are very fortunate to be able to have C. at home full-time now. She is really enjoying being a "stay-at-home mommy" now. With this major transition that N. has gone through in the past two months, it is pretty essential. We are hoping to be able to continue on one-salary, and we're willing to make the sacrifices that it may take. Reminds me of the line from a Jonathan Coulton song "we're gonna need more money...".

I came across this interesting article in the NY Times related to behavior and day care. I'm sure there is a lot of validity to the story, but as it states in the beginning, parental guidance was still the largest factor in good child behavior.

Sleep

...or the lack thereof. Sleep has become a luxury we can no longer afford. I read on someone else's blog that their baby was perfect, except for her sleeping habits. How true for us, too. I guess it's really not that bad most of the time, but she does have her nights. And it's so hard to figure out a pattern or a cause and effect for the good sleep nights vs. the "up every other hour crying until you pick me up for a couple of minutes" nights. Those with biological children would probably say to just let her cry herself to sleep. "If you keep picking her up, she's going to keep expecting that". But, of course, that's not the same for adopted children. We need to keep fostering her dependence on us so it strengthens her bonds with us. She needs to know that if she needs anything, even if it's 3am and we are sound asleep, we will be there to comfort her. Unfortunately, I don't think we've let her down yet.

She is very good at going to sleep. We try to have a routine (eat, play, bath, reading, bottle), and usually by the end of her bottle she is pretty much asleep and all we have to do is lay her down in her crib until she falls asleep. Some nights she is ready by 7:30 or 8:00, other nights it is 9:30 until she is ready (haven't quite figured that one out yet). But when she is ready to sleep, it is easy to put her down. When she's not tired yet, it becomes a battle. So we take the easy road and just extend her playtime or reading time until she is ready.

The other night she did wake up screaming at about 10:30pm, which was scary. Luckily we weren't really asleep yet (10:30 on a Saturday night, and we're in bed, what have we become?). She was almost inconsolable for about 20 minutes, it was so sad.

I think a lot of her waking up has to do with her eczema and itching. She seems fine during the day and doesn't scratch that much, but when she gets tired she scratches. And when she wakes up in the middle of the night she seems agitated, and scratches.

Alright, she must have known I was writing this, she just woke up crying...