First week home

Playing peek-a-boo with herself in the mirror


We can't believe that a week ago, we brought Leah Jin-Ri home. She's been adjusting so well and attaching and bonding with both of us. She's so snuggly and loves to fall asleep in our arms at naptime and at bedtime. Since I'm still feeling sleep deprived, I don't mind sharing naptime, but eventually I'll need to use her naptime as a time to get other things done. It's not always easy getting her to her crib at night or during naptime since she wakes up and cries, but we're working on that. She smiles and giggles in her sleep, which is the big bonus of holding her. She's such a playful and fun-loving little girl. We couldn't have wished for more.



We took Leah out for another short car trip again, to get her used to the car seat and being in new environments. This time, I don't think she even protested at all when we buckled her in. She usually falls asleep pretty quickly in the car, so I think it'll soon be easy to take her places. We ended up at Target because we needed a few things, and it was fun to see her look around and take it all in. We showed her the big red Elmo doll that talks and dances when you push a button on his foot. She watched him with great interest and thought he was pretty funny.







We also decided to test drive a Jumperoo to see her reaction. She was fascinated by all the toys on it, and jumped a little bit, but the one in the store didn't have working batteries so she couldn't get the full experience.



But at least we got our answer about whether it's worth opening up the jumper we already bought her. We've been hesitating about opening it since she's getting so close to walking and the weight limit is only 25 lbs. But we figure, even if she doesn't get much use out of it, it'll still be a another nice containment/entertainment device for when we need to walk out of the room for a minute. We put it together tonight, and John even had to run out to the store to get batteries at midnight. We can't wait to show it to her tomorrow morning. Every morning, we play a CD with Korean children's songs, and she sits on the playmat with her toys and sways and dances to the music through the whole CD. I think tomorrow, she'll be jumping to the music.

Tomorrow is our first post-placement visit with our social worker. Since we live in Ohio, we'll have 6 monthly face-to-face visits over the next 6 months before we're cleared to finalize the adoption. Holt only requires 3 visits, but Ohio is one of the strictest states in terms of adoption laws. Lucky us.