Counting and Spring

Things have been pretty busy in our home lately. Between Ken being in the thick of tax season and I settling back into the school year, there has not been time left over for blogging. So, apologies for the lapse in posting.

Since my last post, we celebrated seven months home with Angelina. We are getting the biggest kick out of Lina’s newest skill. Since Lina came home, whenever we would walk up or down stairs, I would count them out loud. Now that she has become more vocal, she now counts stairs with me. However, it does not stop there. Lina has turned into a counting machine lately! She loves to count on her fingers, count the bites of food that she eats, and counts the pieces of food on her plate. Currently, she is counting from 1-13, pretty successfully most of the time. I am working on trying to capture this on video, but it has proven to be difficult as when Lina sees the camera, her hands go up in front of her face. Little turkey.

On another note, we are starting to see many signs of spring here in New Hampshire! We have had so much snow I was wondering if this was ever going to happen. I am so excited to get Lina outside this spring. She has grown a ton and has gotten so much stronger since she has been home, I know that she is going to enjoy running around and playing on her swing set so much more now than in the fall.

This Sunday it was actually nice enough to go outside without a hat and even with a spring jacket on! Here are some pictures of Lina enjoying her first ice cream stand visit of the season!

A Busy Vacation

My school vacation week is wrapping up tonight. Lina and I had so much fun being home together, our week was full of different adventures. I have not forgotten how wonderful it is to be home with my daughter, but I did forget how very tiresome (and sometimes hard!) it truly is to be home all day with her.

I will leave you our week in pictures:

We started the week by celebrating various birthdays at both sets of grammy's houses. It was a full weekend of presents and cake! Lina got this wonderful shopping cart where the basket actually comes out and she can carry it around by itself. She has been shopping all around the house this week.

We spent a morning at Bounce U. Lina had a blast but was a bit too young still to fully enjoy the equipment by herself. I helped her bounce and slide on everything, Mama was ready for a nap that day!

Because we had so much fun in January, Lina, Grammy and I took a trip to Boston to visit the Children's Museum again. Again, Lina had a blast, and Mama was ready for a nap after!

About mid-week, Lina came down with a cold, so the last few days of our vacation were pretty low-key. Of course, trying on Mama's moose hat was very fun.

And, though there is house full of expensive toys, Lina would rather just use the vacuum cleaner as a horsey.

Finally, She Is Starting To Get It...

I still rock Lina at bedtime, mostly because its the one time of day she will just relax in my arms and not want to be on the go. We usually spend 15-20 minutes together before I put her to bed for the night. Over the past few weeks, she has started something new which has just been melting my heart.

She will tap herself on her chest and say, “Leeenaa”. Then she will tap me on the chest and say, “Mama.” Then, she will point at the door and say, “Papa”. (Ken is out of the room at this point) She will do this about 5 times in a row until she is content with herself, then will settle in and enjoy being rocked.

I think Lina is finally starting to understand her place, along with ours, in the family. What a great feeling.

6 Months Home & Day Care Update

Tomorrow marks 6 months home! I have not given a great description of Lina’s progress lately, so here it goes, please forgive my wordiness!

Lina has always enjoyed eating, hence the 6 pound weight gain during the first four months home! Lately, she has been trying and enjoying different types of fruits and raw vegetables. This is such a change from the summer when she would just spit these things out. Just this past week, I gave her cold cereal with milk for the first time, complete with a big bowl and spoon…she just loves it. It’s quite interesting to watch her eat it.

We have seen huge strides with Angelina’s language development. Though she is not stringing words together to form small sentences, her vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds weekly. She tries to say everything we say ( I realize we are at the point where Ken and I need to start watching what we say). Some highlights are: “luv—ou”, “neeena” (Lina), “okay”, “down-tair” (downstairs), “mamee” (grammy), and “peeeez” (please). She also will finally point to each of us and call us Mama, Papa, and herself Lina.

With regards to attachment, I am happy to say that we still are seeing progress. Sometimes, the progress is painfully slow and not to the point where we would like to be. Then, we see where we have come from, and I feel so much better. I go through stages where all I do is think about the “A” word, and tend to drive myself crazy with what Lina is doing and not doing yet. Then, I have to remind myself that we have only been home 6 months and the attachment process is just that, a process. I love that Lina loves to cuddle with us and wants us to hold her, and brings us into her play all of the time. I don’t love that she still is very comfortable with strangers (minus her grandfather who she shies away from regularly) and that she shows no separation anxiety when I drop her off at her day care. I know these things will come with time; I just need to remember that attachment is a process.

Recently, Lina has become quite the little helper. She loves to help me unload the dishwasher, and set the table. She likes to fold the clothes with me, and asks for napkins when she sees me dusting and wiping of the counters. She loves to have us read to her, and sing to her. I do believe that music will be very important to her one way or another while she grows. Potty training was going well, but now is on the back burner as we make our transition into day care. Speaking of day care, she is doing very well at Karen’s house. Karen (her day care provider) says that Lina is starting to interact more with the other kids and she is happy and plays well with others. She eats and sleeps well there as well. I could not be happier that she is acting well while in Karen’s care. She has developed this lovely, loud screech that she has been using this past week. Let me set the scenario: I leave the room (screech), I switch the laundry (screech), I turn my back to make dinner (screech). You get the picture. I am sure this is just an attention seeking behavior, and Ken and I have chosen to ignore it. Hopefully this too will pass. Other than the deafening screech, we have not noticed much of a change with regards to our new schedule, besides the fact that Lina is just so tired at night, for that I am glad. A good tuckering out is perfect for a two-year-old.

Again, sorry for the long post. If you are still with me, here are two pictures. One taken the first week home, and one taken just yesterday. What a difference!

New Routines

I look back over the past five and a half months and wonder where the time has gone. I remember so vividly everything about the day we took Angelina in our arms forever. How she looked at her Papa with such innocence in her eyes and how she held her mouth out for me to feed her. How she fell asleep peacefully in the two arm chairs that we had to put together and line with numerous blankets. Now, 5.5 months later, I sit here on the brink of returning to work, wondering again where the time has gone.

Lina will be going to a small day care. The woman works from her home and is my girlfriend’s mother-in-law. I have all confidences in this woman and think she does an excellent job with the kids. On a full day, she cares for 7 children, and most days Lina will be one of three or four. This has brought me great peace of mind as the last thing I wanted was for Angelina to feel in any way that she was being brought back to an institution-like situation. I like to think that being in a smaller day care will help all of our transitions along and Angelina will not regress too badly. Only time will tell.

Lina has been going to day care for half days this week to ease into her new surroundings. She has been doing well, which makes me happy. I have not seen too much of a regression yet, though we are also not there full time. As I expected, she really is not that upset when I leave and has not gotten really excited when she sees me return. I know that this is because her attachment to us is not complete. I think the day she is upset that I leave her will be the first day I will feel not guilty for leaving her!

I suppose that if I do have to work, then returning to teaching is the best job a mom can have. I will be able to wake Lina up from her naps (that is, of course, if she has not spent the whole 2 hour nap time unzipping her sleeper and taking off her diaper). And, in 90 working days we will be able to enjoy the summer together – but, who’s counting?! I am ready for school, newly equipped with a new frame that has a picture of Lina and some new clothes. (Lesson plans…hmmm…I have no time for those now!)

My only hope is that our new routine does not interrupt our attachment progress or cause damage to the fragile attachment we have begun to secure. Wish us luck.

Bryansk Babies

Over the past several months, I have been very lucky to connect with two women who have also brought home children from the Bryansk region of Russia. Finally, after months of blogging and emailing, we were able to get the three Bryansk Babies together for some fun in Boston.

We spent the morning at the Boston Children's museum. The kids had a blast! All of the exhibits are centered around toddler play, with all hands-on activities. Of course, the children did not understand that significance of our play date, but the three of us are hopeful that as our children grow, they will feel connected to each other in this very unique way.

Here are some pictures of the day:

Angelina playing at a bubble station.

Sitting in a chair in the big play room.

Driving the boat.

And, of course, the three Bryansk Babies! (Don't they all look so thrilled that they have to sit and pose for a picture? hahaha)

From the left: Tammi's son Nicholas, Angelina, and Lori's son Aaden.

Happy Birthday, Angelina! Happy New Year! 5 Months Home...3 Posts in 1!

We have had 3 major happenings while on vacation in North Carolina, so here is the three-in-one blog post. And, just to note, Angelina did wonderfully on the 16 hour car ride down and back from NC. We drove through the night, and she slept relatively well in her car seat. This made her parents very, very happy!

The day we arrived in NC was also Angelina's birthday. We celebrated with a cake and a small party. She loved the new baby and stroller she received, as well as her cookie monster book. Nothing warmed my heart more to see my daughter opening her birthday gifts, I am so honored to be her mother and though it was her birthday, it was I who received the best gift. My wish for you, Angelina, is that you always are happy and feel loved by your Mama and Papa.

Here are a few pictures of our birthday celebration on her actual birthday and some pictures of when we celebrated Angelina's birthday with her grandparents.

I learned so much about how Russia celebrates New Year from our friend that we visited while in NC. I thought I'd share it for all of you who read this blog who also has a child adopted from Russia. Our friend, T, when she moved to America was surprised that, to Americans, New Year was basically an excuse to have a party. In Russia, it is more symbolic and meaningful. They follow the Chinese New Year system that assigns an animal to each year. So, 2009 is the year of the bull. On New Year's Eve, parties are centered around trying to please the animal of that year. This means wearing colors that are assigned to that animal, etc.... So, for the party that T threw, she asked all of her guests to wear yellows and oranges, earthy colors that represent the bull. Also, she did not serve red meat, as that would obviously upset the bull! The superstition goes that if you please the animal, you will have good fortune and prosperity through the year. We had a wonderful party, everyone had shades of orange and yellow, and as a centerpiece, we had a toy bull. We rang in the new year with wonderful tradition Russian food (no red meat!) And, of course, we had plenty of new year's hats, confetti and glitter! What a fun way to bring in 2009. I think that we made the bull happy!

In the morning, Angelina got to open up her gift bag that Father Frost left under the New Year's tree. In the bag was a stuffed animal, oranges, and Russian candy. Here are some pictures of Angelina seeing what Father Frost left her.

Last Friday marked 5 months as a family for us. I think that I will do a detailed update on her progress on another post, but watching Angelina grow and change has been such a joy for Ken and I. After 5 months, I finally feel that we are making excellent attachment strides and are starting down the road of building a secure attachment.

Here are a few pictures of 5 months home: