Week 7

Can you believe that is all it has been???  I'm soooo antsy for that permanent resident card!

Well, this is a big week coming up.  We have our social worker 'play date,' (we've been calling it that because we both know that there aren't any issues and this added first report is unwarranted) tomorrow.  We have the eye doctor on Tuesday and the pediatrician on Thursday.  I'm hoping the pediatrician will have a better idea for a timeline for the ENT doctor since my GP said he really doesn't know or have a patient reference.  He just sent the referral to the hospital at the same time he sent the pediatrician and eye doctor. 

We've been putting sunglasses on her to try and get her used to wearing something.  It will be interesting as I'm sure she will need glasses... Oh!  My favourite is when I get her dizzy during our prebedtime dance parties and her one eye goes all wonky from being unable to focus!  WoW!  The first time I saw that I kind of had my heart jump into my throat!  Hilarious now, though!

Ok, so this week we took her to the community pool to try her out and she loved it.  I had a HUGE round of "oh, she's so small," in the women's locker room.  Sigh.  Just the beginning.  I told them the quick version on her story and she pointed out her eyes and they all forgot how small she was.  Beautiful.  I suspect we will get a lot of that now that we are going out more with her.  Just have to say that aunt Candy made her a monkey hat and it was almost too small so she's not THAT small!  (Such a cute hat too!  Dania could pull the ears when asking where her ears were!)

We also had our first round of strangers mentioning genetic looks too!  LOL!  We went to vote and she received a future voter sticker, which she was completely enthralled with, and just sat quietly and played in a chair off to the side with whomever wasn't in the booth, and the lady running our poll was so impressed with Dania's calmness.  Then Dania started 'flirting' a little - her definition of flirting is to show you where her hair is and ask for a fist bump.  The lady kept telling her how pretty she was and made comments about whose side the looks came from... we just smiled and laughed.  As I buckled Dania into the car I conspiratorially stated how we were going to fool a lot of people in the future and it will be our joke to giggle at afterwards!  I think that's the angle I'm going to go with for those situations where we don't bother explaining since it really doesn't matter to a 2-minute stranger.

We also went to our first party with her.  This was a birthday party for our friends' daughter turning 3.  Dania had met 3 of the kids that would be there and we dressed her up in a cute outfit (now that some of the bigger clothes are fitting!) and went over wondering how she would react since it was the first big crowd of little kids since the orphanage.  Well, she spent the night trying to kiss the dogs (3 of them ranging in size from 6 pounds to 85 pounds), slowly circling the whole scene, and playing beside a kid who would sit still for a few minutes.  I was soooo happy and, again, impressed with how well she did!  She honestly did not seem upset in the least and also didn't seem like she was out to please anyone (a coping mechanism I'm on the look out for) and just had fun!  She had no problem going to sleep after and also didn't shy away from people.  She is so amazing.  Yes, I'm biased, but I really have to wonder what's going through her head, and I know others think that too, but she is just so chill!  She also expressed an affinity for the kid-sized foam chairs so we had to go get her one.  I was looking up where to buy them and at one place they happened to be on sale so we just went for it and I am so excited for her to find it in the morning!  She sat and bounced herself in it for a long time.  I'm hoping she will sit with her books in it. 

She is starting to point to thinks in her books now.  She loves flipping pages and is pretty rough with the cardboard books but she will point to something specific and say, "ghka-ghka," and wait for me to say the name of the picture and then turn to another.  Things like that make me antsy to get to the ENT doctor but I have to remember that she was losing her Russian and then gaining her English.  A normal human, on average, wouldn't start the 'ga-ga-ing' at specific thing like she is saying what it is at 7 weeks.  She really could still just be absorbing.  She makes the L, M, K, G, H, sounds so it's just a matter of practice and exposure.

Ok, That's all for tonight... well, it's morning now, but we spent the Sunday night at our friends' playing board games and we put her down there and then do the sleep transfer after a few hours and I just HAD the need to blog right now!  I wanted to get this stuff in before all of the appointments.  This will be a big week for entries, I'm sure.

xoxo

 Her new "uh-oh" face.

 After swimming.

 Daily walks with sunglasses now.

 

Being pulled around by Erik at the party.