Smile Mama Smile!!

It's been one month since court, which is hard to believe. In some ways it's going too fast in others it feels like she's always been here. She keeps growing and surprising us each day. Here are a few short stories.

I was in the car with her the other day and we were listening to music. Then I heard our little N yelling from the back seat.... "Smile mama Smile.... Da..." I looked in the rear view mirror to see her pointing to her smile. Lonestar was playing at the time and I realized in the song they kept saying "Smile" --- It made me laugh and proud to know she was connecting and understanding words she heard.

While we were in Magadan, Steve wore a Key West shirt. It was N's first English words. Steve would point to his shirt and she'd yell Key West and laugh.
Well the other night on the radio Steve and I were driving home and had both kids in the back seat. The DJ was talking about Jimmy Buffet and Key West, next thing we know she's screaming "Key West, Key West" -- we couldn't help but laugh. We agreed we'll have to take her there some day.

Her dentist appt. went okay. She wasn't too happy to see the dentist again, but they both made it through. He filled the three cavities on her front teeth and then bonded them to hide the cavity. It actually doesn't look that bad. She wouldn't let him get too close to the edges so if you look closely you can see the dental work, (it kinda looks like she needs to brush her teeth..) but again you have to look for it. So all and all we are pleased. Our dentist also took x-rays and said her teeth will fall out in about a year, so he didn't want to do anything major.
Now her "pretties" as we call them make her happy. She looks at my teeth and then puts her finger on them and rubs mine to show me how smooth my teeth are and then rubs her finger over her teeth and says "Pretty". So now that we have her happy with her teeth --- we have been gum free for two weeks. I told her she can't have any gum with the new pretties. (While that's not really true-- it was a nice way to break her habit of always asking for gum!)

So far we had her and B baptised, took them to Dorney Park, had fun at the neighborhood community day and Knobels ( an old fashioned amusement park) She is adapting well. Steve and I live a fast paced life, so we talked about putting things on hold or to just let her jump in and take it as it goes.... We chose to take it as it goes and so far she is doing great. If she gets too stimulated we just leave. I'll post pics soon.

Her vocabulary is growing. She says things now like---
"Oh my gosh!!"
"How cool" ( I think her little learning computer is teaching her those)
Her learning computer is also teaching her the alphabet and she keeps surprising us how quickly she is learning the letters.
Now she so confident in counting 1-10 that she's pointing the calender and asking what is 11-20. So we sit with her and go through the numbers.

Her understanding is coming along much faster than her talking. (Which is expected) We, again, were in the car the other day and I had a Russian Learning CD on. It was going through different phrases. She was repeating the Russian I was repeating the English. Then when the CD announcer said.... " I am an American Citizen" She yelled.."MAMA" she said the sentence in Russian and pointed to herself. She makes me so proud!!


She has started to play with baby dolls. One day I walled into the living room to find a china doll, I had sitting in her room in a high chair for decoration, laying in B's swing. The hair had been fully brushed. Next to her was her real baby doll in the exersaucer. I couldn't help but smile. While I would have preferred her not to have brushed all the curls out of the china doll (I got from my Great Aunt... ) what did I expect by leaving it there. I wasn't thinking. It looked cute for a little girl's room, but now it's just part of her play toys. I am happy she is finally playing and loving her dolls. She now has three. The blond china doll doesn't have a name, but the one with the brown hair that looks like her -- she calls N... (not her actual name but her nickname) and the third baby doll is a bald baby.. she calls.. B. So her names aren't too creative but she is learning to love and care for them. She's also having fun telling me that "her" B has ca-ca-ed and she has to change his diaper. My husband came home one day to find a diaper folded up like I do on the floor in the living room . In surprise he asked "what is this?" I said that is "N's little B's diaper.. he ca-ca-ed." My husband then asked the next logical question.. "where did she get the diapers?" I said your mother. She gave N some new born diapers to change her baby. "Great" was his only response as he shook his head and walked away.

My all time favorite story since we've been home is this:

It worked out that the hardwood floors we wanted were scheduled to be installed the week we came home. So we get home.. try to relax and enjoy being home and then boom... move all the furniture out of the living room and master bedroom so the floors can be installed. Meanwhile I'm trying to catch up on laundry from our trip and get her situated into her room. I had asked Steve to watch the kids while I went to get my hair cut. Steve called me and asked me where her clean clothes were. I said in the basket in B's room. I didn't get a chance to fold them yet. When I got back Steve just had this smirk on his face! I asked "What happened?" He said... "Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be smelling little girl's underwear!!" Chuckling I smiled and shook my head. "What happened?" "Well you did the laundry. And put the clean clothes in a basket that looks like her Tinkerbell basket for dirty clothes. So she assumed the clothes were dirty. So when I went in to get her a clean pair of underwear.. she backed away and waved her hand and shook her head no. I said yes, these are clean. She just kept shaking her head. Then she Screamed something in Russian and put her finger over her nose! Then I realized she thought these were dirty. So I said.. no... and smelled them to show her they really were clean. She then smelled them and smiled and started to laugh."
I couldn't help but laugh at this story as he told it to me.