One Month as a Mama!

It has been one month since we became Dania's full-time parents!  The first week is still dream-like as it was in Moscow, but it has been that long already!  She is sitting beside me looking through a book right now-something she wouldn't have done 30 days ago.

This past week has been the week of wonderful homemade gifts!  Thank you everyone for everything but I do love a good homemade gift since it's usually something one of a kind.  She has also been to a few different houses now and was wonderfully well behaved and not over excited when leaving.  One of those houses was Mike's parents' place and there was another dog there, Finn, and she was trying to kiss him like she kisses Leia, even though Finn was much more enthusiastic to return the kisses and would have continually knocked her to the ground if we hadn`t been there. LOL!  She sure loves dogs!

She also loves the moon light in her room.  I put that in just to make a `night`corner and so that she would never be completely in the dark - it`s a sensor light that turns on as soon as it`s dark.  She looks to the light whenever we are putting her down in the crib, wants to see it turn on.  Then, in the morning, when we come in to get her and walk over to the window, she looks to the moon to watch it turn off.  I love it!

I think the weather has finally turned here too and the lake time is done.  We got in one more awesome day (but you never know with the weather here)...

She is starting to gesture for items that she wants and she`s baby talking more.  I am anxious to hear her first English word - I don`t count Mama because that`s the same in Russian!

She also has funny eating habits that she has picked up from us.  When she is taking a mouthful of food she makes a Homer Simpson-esque biting noise.  That was what we did to make her want to eat... kind of like the airplane for the Simpson generation.  And when she has the food in her mouth she always makes the noise, ``mmmMMMMmmm`` in a very sing-song voice.  I was doing that while we introduced new food because I didn`t want her to reject different textures and tastes before she got a chance to actually taste it.  I would make that noise and she would, and by the time she said mmMMMmmm she had tasted the food and was usually ok with it!  Now, at a friend`s house, she tried a sugar cookie and made her noise and the `chef`though it was funny!  Then she started screaming and reaching for the cookie jar!  Her first `LOVE`for food is sugar cookies! LOL!

She is also recognizing a few words.  She knows `bath¸` for sure, and I think she knows `come here`and `Leia`and `hair`.  She loves Pat-a-cake and other rhythmic songs too.  She loves the Muppet Show!

This seems to be a random blog post... no exact point and no train of thought to flow from topic to topic.  It`s kind of the way the day goes with her! LOL!