How did I celebrate? I got her photo taken for her citizenship application! Yeah! Hopefully that whole package can be mailed off shortly. Have to double check everything and pay the fees and then as long as everything is good to go, she will be Canadian officially!
We had dinner with our new friends who also adopted from Russia. Dania was much more talkative this time around. She really took a shine to their middle son, aged 7 or 8, and is so happy she can say I's name! We got to watch their video they made of her trip and look through the photo book they made. The city they adopted through, Kazan, was sooooo different from Sterlitimak. It was a big city and had touristy spots and lots to see. It was okay for them to stay in a hotel and go out on their own hahaha. Such a different experience that way!
We have had our 6-month followup visit to the eye doctor and now he isn't happy with how her muscles have failed to develop with her. She is definitely nearsighted now. She is worse in the right eye. He had thought it was slight enough before that it would grow with her, but I guess not. It's funny because I feel like she has fine eyesight now... she sees things far away (like the book the lady reads to the group at the library) and doesn't lean in as close to books now. He referred us to the kids hospital (again) so we now await an appointment with their eye doctors. At least she won't need a barrage of blood work for this! I did forget to submit her requisition at her surgery to double check for rubella and chicken pox vaccinations, and I've been waiting for a reason to go back to the hospital to get it done... eye appointment is a PERFECT reason.
We are also going to be seeing the speech pathologist every 3 to 4 weeks now. We go again next week. We shall see what happens now. We are very much working on getting her to blow with her mouth (working with bubbles, harmonicas, noise makers) and the 'B' sound. I am curious if it is someone else doing these activities with her if she will be less frustrated; she should benefit from your classic student-teacher relationship.
On top of it all, we just had our first week of big change with Mike back at work. It went okay. I need to learn to relax a bit more. I see a mess and if I can't clean it right away I start to get upset. For example, Leia was sick on the floor and I had to let it sit there until I could ensure Dania was happy and distracted and Leia was okay. It sat there for about 45 minutes before I could get to it to clean it thoroughly. GUH! I just feel very hurried when it comes to anything not Dania related. All my time with her though? HILARIOUS! She wants to be outside as much as possible and I am SO okay with that. I love heading out right after breakfast and playing in the sun. I've been on a few stroller walks with her too (thanks again to everyone who helped gift us that gem!) Last year I didn't get to go on really long walks but she is okay with it now for sure! As long as cars pass us every once in awhile lol! She gibbers away about everything, reads to herself aloud now, tries to sing, pretends to be the dog in more ways than I like, and makes me laugh and feel soooo happy to see the light in those brown eyes.
Oh! We got her ears pierced! I was sick of her being called a boy (even with the frilly red coat with the butterfly broach). I had thought about after seeing a friend's cute pictures of her daughter. The extra sparkle was just adorable with the round face and cheeks. I mentioned it to Mike and we went the next day. She sat there quietly and suspiciously while the lady marked her lobes. They kept commenting on how small and dainty her features were. I had never noticed before, but she doesn't have a lot of lobe! Mike sat on the chair and held Dania on his lap while the ladies lined up the piercing guns. 1...2...3 BANG! Done. She gasped, did the silent cry while tears welled, let out the cry, I picked her up, they showed her a bucket of lollipops and she was done crying. It was about 6 seconds of crying in total. She then kept pointing to her ears and then to mine. I really think she understood what had just happened. I take mine out every night so sometimes in the morning I don't have them in and she will point out the difference, but all in all, she is so fine with it that I'm not even worried about infection from hand transfer. She did take one out while refusing to go down for a nap. These are the standard piercing studs that snap into place so she must have pulled HARD! I woke her up and she pointed to her lobe and said "OOOWWwwwwWWWW." Right away I knew where to look, the window ledge. Sure enough, both pieces were on the floor by the window ledge. She likes to stand and look out her window while she poops or is anti-sleep. She was a little pissed about having it put back in but that, so far, was the only bad instance of her handling them. The lady had mentioned they can get pinched too tight and I'm wondering if she did that and then counteracted... she just looks so cute!!!
Oh, also, she is shooting up in height again. She has grown almost 2 inches since her birthday! That's almost an inch a month! GIANT!
