Sofie has been home for 5 months now! It seems like such a short amount of time but feels like she has been with us forever! We love her so much. She fits in perfectly! And I think we fit in pretty well in her world 🙂

We are all attached to her and she too us. Interesting she has attached to each of us quite differently. With Livi, I notice that she plays really well by her, much better than she does with other children. Sofie likes to play close to Livi and expects her to be close by. She goes to the toys Livi has been playing with. All common little sibling stuff. So awesome! She is pretty dependent on Livi for sleeping too. Not sure if this is a good thing but they share a room so I guess it is a natural progression of the attachment thing. With Jon, Sofie looks for rough housing. I suppose that is a typical Dad role! She is more chill with Jon too. She is calm with him… I can relate 🙂 I’m generally more calm with him too. With me, she is needy. I love being needed by her, most of the time. She likes to be close to me and climbs all over me when we are home. When we are out she is starting to look back for me to make sure I am still around! This is huge by the way!

This past month Sofie had her first FAMILY Christmas! She was a little confused at times but went with the flow. She also had her first FAMILY vacation! We had a big family reunion in Mexico! Despite our worries that she would regress with her behaviors and eating patterns, she again blew down our expectations. Although she did revert to some of her old coping methods during travel, she progressed in other ways on the trip. She ate and drank wonderfully the whole week, enjoyed herself in the water and began saying “hi” much more consistently and clearer! Sofie started her music class again this past week. She was so excited! When she saw where we had pulled in to park she started screeching in her car seat! She did awesome her first class back. She has come such a long way and this class is such AMAZING therapy for her! She fully participated, did all the actions even though it was all new songs, moved her mouth in the shape of the words we where singing and has better rhythm than I do! Seriously. She is a dancer. You can’t help but smile when you watch her. She also had her first experience in snow just a few days ago. She did not think much of it. She did not like it to much but did tolerate standing in it and watching us build a snow man.

As far as her development she continues to progress. She understands us almost completely even though she was ESL. She wasn’t talking any Bulgarian words when we got her but this is still amazingly fast in my mind. She is a climber. I see broken bones in her future. She can get out of her crib despite her sleep sack. She can follow a few simple two step instructions, like “Pick that up and bring it to Mommy, gentle!” That one gets said a lot and comes after she throws something. She is throwing much less and only hits or pulls hair when she is over-tired or hungry which I try to be careful to not let her get. She is playing with things all time now and frequently even appropriately! Just this week she walked over to the toys in a waiting room, sat down and started playing with the doll house totally appropriately and by herself! No prompting! (Remember she had no idea how to play with anything besides throwing things in the beginning.)

She can say a few words now and they are coming out more often. “Up” and “Hi” are her most frequently used ones. “Mama” and “Nay, Nay” come out usually when she is more distressed over something. She can sort of say “Hello” but only with prompting. “Dada” is in her repertoire too. These last two weeks she has been making a ton of new sounds which I’m excited to see where they take us. Still waiting on a speech therapist appointment but I just learned that the health unit offers a free clinic once a month. I think I’ll try to get her in there. She has about 15 solid ASL signs to communicate with and she is working on more. Jon and I should really take a class. Along side her speech development, her oral development is taking off! She has been putting things in her mouth a lot more! She pretends to be feeding herself with a cup and spoon from their kitchen set and has been eating markers!

We saw her pediatrician this past week for a follow up and to get some referrals. He said she is doing really great. We should finally be getting some referrals for a Cardiologist, Optometrist, Ears specialist (just to rule out any issues before we get in to speech therapy too much), Ped’s Dentist and a dietician. She is now in the 5th percentile for weight. She is a whopping 24 pounds! Which matches her 5th percentile of height. She is just about 33 inches. She’s gained over 5 lbs in the past 5 months but only grown 1.5 cm. Dr. PP was not concerned about the lack of growth “yet”. He figures there is probably a lag because of so many years of malnutrition, but we are going to keep an eye on it.

Orthotics were recommended by her physiotherapist but not her Pediatrician. There is some debate as to what is causing her knock-knees. We have decided to go ahead with the orthotics, but wait to get them in the summer before she starts preschool, when she’ll be wearing shoes a lot more.

I should go now since Sofie is sitting on the desk beside me using every bit of self-control she has not to touch the keyboard or screen. I’ve tortured her enough… time to play with my girls!

Sofie has been home now for 4 months! Where has the time gone? Our baby is not the same frail, infant sized kid that we took out of the orphanage 4.5 months ago. She is still teeny tiny, but she has some meat on her bones and a roundness to her little body! I love it! When I do “squishy’s” on her after baths my fingers no longer touch so easily when I wrap my hands around her limbs and “squish” the lotion down. She ends in fits of laughter every time I do it! She is now 23 lbs. That is up about 3.5 pounds! One pound since last month. There has been a bit of up and down in her weight but she’s been increasing about a pound a month. We have a follow up with her pediatrician in January so I’ll hopefully get a clearer idea about what the her goal weight is and at what rate.

I think it is safe to say that the honeymoon is officially over and she is either experiencing some grief and loss of her old life or just becoming a typical moody three year old who has found her voice to be able to protest! It is most likely a combination. She throws tantrums now and whines frequently. She doesn’t like being told no. When we are firm she will bring her finger up to her mouth and curl her face up in to the saddest cry you’ve ever seen. Her tantrums usually consist of her flopping to the ground and throwing her head and arms back. Her tantrums can happen at any time but are usually reserved for us at home when we are too busy to giver her much attention or there is little stimulation. She also frequently tantrums if I have been out or away from her for a little bit and then come home. Instead of running to me, like she does with Jon or new people, she throws herself to the floor whining. I’m trying to take this as an attachment sign. Maybe she is mad at me for leaving or feeling comfortable enough with me to communicate her dislike. She definitely only reserves this behavior for me though and I’m waiting for the day she shows me that she is excited to see me but doesn’t make me feel guilty for leaving!

Sofie has continued to flourish this month and keeps showing us her new found skills and abilities. She has started to learn how to suck from a straw! This is a wonderful accomplishment. It means potential independent drinking soon! We can now give her a no-spill water bottle and have it available to her all day! Hopefully this will increase her liquid intake because currently, I think, she is probably only drinking about half the recommended liquids that she should for her weight. She has learned how to climb on the kitchen table and scare Mommy and Daddy. I see more stitches in the future! She had her first taste of Boterkoek and met Santa! She met her Uncle Sean when he came home from China. She gave Mommy and Daddy the official poop smear experience. So. Gross. Now she wears her sleep sacks backwards. She got her Care Card number finally and managed to stay healthy when everyone else in the house got the flu! Yay for having a great immune system!

I’m sure Christmas will be fun with two girls this year! I can’t wait too see how the next month goes! I love my girls so much!

Sofie has been home for two months now! I’m not entirely sure where the time has gone. Days seem long but they fly by! I can’t get over how quickly Sofie is developing. This month has been filled with new feats that Sofie has accomplished and new experiences for her.

Sofie is getting to sleep so much better which makes for a happier baby and a happier family! We’ve just started putting her to bed a little earlier, on top of the new lullaby regime. We were always having to wake Sofie up in the morning in order to get her down for a nap on time and wake her up from her nap in order to get her down for bed at an okay time. For three days now we’ve put her to bed at 7pm and she is waking up just before 8am by herself! She is ready for nap time at 12:30pm which we are still trying to get better at so she can wake up by herself between 2:30 and 3pm. Livi is going down for her nap around 1pm until about 2:30pm and bed at 7:45pm (she reads until 8ish) to wake up at 7:30am. All in all, we are pretty happy with how this whole sleep thing is finally working out! Hooray! We have our evenings and afternoons back! It only took two months! I hope it lasts…

Sofie’s language is also taking flight. She consistently calls me Mama now and is starting to try to say Dada. She says baba for baby and bye bye usually mimicking us. She is also starting to say Ha (Hi) more consistently too! She understands English so much better than I could have hoped. It is completely amazing how quickly she picked it up. I’m not even convinced that she has any trouble understanding us anymore… well, at a 1 year olds developmental level anyway. She can follow simple verbal instructions like “no” and “arms up”. She gets tickled when she puts her arms up! When we say no to something she shows us that she understands by gently motioning what it was she wasn’t supposed to be doing while shaking her head ‘no’. Then she may or may not repeat the action with full force 🙂

Sofie is hitting and pulling hair WAY less but still grabs and throws anything she can get her hands on. I barely see her rock like she used to anymore. She barely pulls her own hair. She still clicks her teeth and jaw sometimes but that has lessened too. She is much more gentle and you can tell that she is feeling more secure. She still has no problem going up to strangers but she always comes back to me and wants me when she is upset, so I think the attachment stuff is going great too!

She still doesn’t chew food, suck a straw or drink with out spilling and we are still waiting to see a feeding ans swallowing OT but she is eating great. We just have to make sure the food is small and softish. I meant to weigh her today but forgot… so I’ll do it tomorrow and update this 🙂 She sure has chunked up though! She is 22.5 pounds! Up a pound since last month and up 3 lbs since we first got her!

Sofie still loves music. She hates sweet potatoes. I know! Weird kid. She likes her space but wants people around. She prefers adults to kids. She likes to clap, dance and eat! She eats a lot now 🙂 She loves playing with her baby dolls and Mommy! She LOVES getting ‘tossed’ around and tickled. I think she is going to love roller coasters! Can’t wait to see her smile and hear her glee while her heart is racing and I’m trying not to die from the side lines!