Big Strides

In my opinion, she has just had three big moments in the last 30 hours! 

(Wow!  Two entries in less than a week! hahaha)

First stride:  She laughed at something that she observed as opposed to something that someone was doing to her or at her.  Up until now, she has only really laughed if we were making faces at her, tickling her, or playing games WITH her.  Last night, she was watching her friend D dance around and pretend to be a Lego character.  She all of a sudden started laughing at him!  I asked him to do it again and she laughed again.  She never cared that he wasn't doing it FOR her benefit (he was actually demonstrating a character from the movie for my benefit).  This made me sooooo happy.  She followed this up by seriously trying to mimic him but because she cannot jump, it was just a lot of arm throwing and grunting hahaha.

Second stride:  She tried to play WITH someone tonight.  We had a friend over for an hour, or so, and normally these two will play independently beside each other, or Dania will watch her play and then play with the toy once E has moved on.  Now, as of lately, she has understood chasing games because of E but she has never played with a toy with someone.  Tonight, she picked up a block that E was playing with and wanted to add it to the stack.  Of course, E didn't want to have help because she is completely capable and promptly tried to take the block from Dania and do it herself, but again, this was a new concept in her attitude and habits.

Third stride:  Her first 'mine' moment, or what I imagine to be a mine moment since I can't understand what she is actually saying hahaha!  Later tonight, E picked a toy out of the box, a light-up microphone, and began singing and dancing.  Dania walked over and began pointing and indicating to me that she wanted it.  When I told her that E was playing with it first, she wanted nothing to do with that and did her typical angry tense-up and squeal.  She did this several times and I encouraged her to make E's plush frog dance to E's singing instead...which placated her for the moment.  I was really curious as to when she would have a 'mine' moment because she spent her first 17 months in a place where she had no 'mine.'

So, in the wake of these strides (again, in my opinion) I have compiled this little comparison photo.  Six months and ten days difference.  She has 4 inches of height, a few pounds of weight, and an unknown amount of muscle! 

She still has that perfect nose and HUGE eyelashes!  (That sentence just made me smile HUGE!)