Potty Trained

It's been a week in underwear and I think I can now say that she is potty trained.  We had two bad days and the rest were great!  Only 1 accident in the last 3 days, and that was when she got excited with Aunt Candy, so, how can you blame her?!  She also spent the day at daycare and when I picked her up she was still dry!  We put a diaper on her for nap, but it is more often dry than wet when she wakes up.  She also wears one overnight, but that's it!  She now needs to be weaned off of getting Reese's Pieces when she tells us she has to pee and goes in the toilet!  HA!

I have also given up on trying to understand the eating habits.  After 6 days in a row of absolute screaming, she ate dinner no problem the next 3 nights.  Sigh.  As long as she tries it, I'm okay... but come on, just try it without it taking an hour!  Keep it up kiddo!  

She is also singing so much now that it warms my heart and makes me long to get her into some sort of music class.  She watches little nursery rhyme videos on the tablet and I can now recognize her requests, "Mama sing Old McGonna?" and recognize her tunes when she sings in her room.   I just have to remember these sweet moments when she tests my patience - which she is starting to blatantly do.  A new phase now where she points out that she is doing something she knows she isn't allowed to do, like running up to me with something small in her mouth and showing me just the corner of it sticking out while pointing at it!   At least every morning when she says "hi Mama!" I forget all that happened the day before... usually.

A Whole New World

We picked up her glasses today and it was amazing to watch her response.  I was so curious to see what would happen because she can see things, just not clearly.  As soon as they were on and she took a look at the lady who just fitted her, she started nodding her head up and down to see through and then above the lenses.  We all giggled.  The lady then took the glasses off because she realized the arms were too long.  She couldn't find shorter arms, so they are on order, but she got a head strap and put the glasses back on her and made it so they wouldn't slide down her bridge-less nose.  She ran around a bit and then she stood up and it kind of dawned on her that it was different on a bigger scale.  Her mouth actually dropped open and she was looking around the store as a 'big picture' for the first time.  SO ADORABLE!  We went for a walk in the mall and went under the skylight and when she was looking she said, "woooOOOOoow!" because she could see the details of the clouds through the skylight!  She also ran to a store that had a shelf of stuffed animals on a front display - like, ran from far away because she saw what it was!  I let her play with those for a bit and then wanted to take her to the book store.  She sat on the ground and opened a book and did the "wooOOOOooow!" again.  She doesn't always do this for books but I cannot say whether it was for the new clarity and being able to take in a page as a whole or if it was because there was a shiny spot on the page; either way, she didn't keep hitting herself with the pages while she looked at the book because she wasn't as stooped over!

Now, after a whole weekend, I can say that they have made a bigger difference then I imagined.  She giggles and laughs SO much more now - which I adore!  She can see our expressions better and mimics so much more.  She stood under a tree on a walk and just stared up (I'm assuming noticing the layers of leaves for the first time), she saw all the fun stuff at the waterfront at the same time Mike and I saw it, she pays attention to things for a longer time in general!   She watched the small tv we have in the upstairs for the first time ever!  I took her downstairs and she sat in a chair instead of standing directly in front of the big screen - not for a very long time though.  What can I say?  Old habits die hard!  She skyped with my family and giggled more at their faces because she could see them clearer too (and also at the little face of her in the corner because THAT was now like looking in a mirror for her).  She has not tried to take them off herself since we left the store on Friday morning.  She asked once to have them off but when I shot her down she just kept doing what she was doing without a fuss.  I think it's the strap on the back of her head pushing her hair that bothers her more than the actual glasses.  She has not fought us once when we put them on after waking her up in the morning or at nap.  AND, my fav, she can actually lay in bed beside me while we read bedtime stories.  She doesn't have to sit up each time I turn the page to see the smile on Gerald's face that she knows is there!  Then, she also doesn't cause a stink when we take them to say goodnight.  It has been an absolute joy to watch her with her new eyes.  

(crap, I thought I'd get through that whole thing without tearing up and there I go on the last sentence.)

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!)

Busy, Busy, Busy

Yes, I would have liked to type sooner but life (OLYMPICS!!!) got in the way!  I also type for my job so, sometimes I just want to hide the keyboard!

First and foremost, Dania is completely healed.  She came through that like a complete trooper.  The followup with the surgeon was great and he was very happy with how the closure looked.  She definitely doesn't have as much food out the nose while eating, that's the biggest change, but she also has been trying to talk a whole lot more.  She isn't necessarily making the different sounds that she couldn't before but she is watching my mouth again (I hadn't really realized that had stopped) and she is repeating syllables.  She really, really wants to talk.  She will need to do a lot of work still.  Really, with English, she is only 9 months old.

She also turned 2 last month!!!  What an exciting day!  I made two cakes, one for her first birthday and one for her second, and we had a little shindig.  I know she was overwhelmed with the amount of people.  She hung around my legs and wanted to be held a lot while people were arriving and then she stayed quiet and kind of just bounced from person to person.  I had asked that if people wanted to bring gifts that they bring books because she loves them so much.  I had asked people to think of their fav kids' books or ones their kids enjoyed and to pass on the fun.  She has spent so many hours going through all of them over and over again ever since the party!

What I am working on with her is trying to get her to finish the sentences in the books I am reading to her.  Kids' books are so repetitive and she definitely knows what is coming next but she doesn't quite grasp this concept.  She will follow along with me and then if I leave a blank she stares at me and taps her collar bone because my first strategy was pointing at her hahaha!  She will repeat it after me but just isn't quite there yet.  The speech pathologist said to make sure we follow her lead in the books and not to force the story to progress how it always goes... which is what we've been doing with the Grover book.  She knows what page she wants and what words she wants to hear!

She has developed her temper and her demands of us are growing in volume too.  She is thankfully not pulling her hair out anymore when she gets angry... she just slams the floor or tries to hit us.  She finally had a tantrum in front of friends so that people can believe me when I say she is feisty and can be very difficult!  She is always so complacent in front of people and she did give me a black eye in one of her fits, but having eye-witnesses felt good! hahaha!  We try very hard to curb her hitting and we give her options but if she is not happy with those options we do not bend over backwards to change anything.

She is also sleeping in a big bed now - I say as she is currently walking around in her room instead of sleeping - and she usually goes to bed much quicker now.  She does not always have a nap, but we give her quiet time and she just plays in her room.  I have also developed a theory that she goes crazy around full moon time...she must have Russian werewolf inside her.

I just checked and the full moon is tomorrow hahaha! 

On the administrative side of things, I got her a SIN card so we can set up an RESP for her and so that I had another piece of government issued identification for her citizenship application.  I have it filled out, just needed the extra ID and a new picture to send with it.

She continues to amaze me, make me giggle, and frustrate the hell out of me on a daily basis and it is the best.