The week in review

This past week, I moved some safety gates around and finally gave Leah access to the kitchen. She was excited about having another new area to explore. We played hide-and-seek around the kitchen island, and she enjoyed standing under the kitchen table, examining the window vertical blinds, and looking (and standing) inside the fridge.



I removed some of the cabinet drawer knobs to make them less tempting for her to try to open (or put in her mouth), and so far she hasn't even bothered with the cabinets and drawers. She walked around in her little shoes in the kitchen and seemed to think that was really cool feeling....she was pointing at her shoes and trying to jump up and down. Anyway, it's nice not to have her whining at the gate when I have to be in the kitchen, but it's also one more area for her to mess up.

Her first word was duck, and these days she's also saying night-night, ba-ba, mama. She points at pictures of dogs and cats and says dog and cat very well. In fact, she's been very excited about dogs and cats this whole week, and every morning when she wakes up, she sees some photos of my furbabies on the dresser and gets really excited. And as far as receptive language goes, she's starting to understand a lot, too. We're doing the "How big is Leah? So big!" thing, and she raises her arms up and smiles. She still bows when we say "annyonghaseyo" and even does it when we say hello in English. She can clap and dance on command as well.

I've mentioned before about her kicking her soccer ball around, and this past week, she's gotten even better. When I bring her downstairs every morning, the first thing she goes for is the soccer ball. She kicks it and follows it all around the room for a long time. And if it gets stuck somewhere, she picks it up and drops and kicks it again.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I have an even better video of her dribbling the ball with John but unfortunately it's too big to upload.

In gym class this week, Leah was so excited and outgoing. We start out every class sitting in a circle doing activities. This week, Leah decided she'd rather go play during that time. She was so smiley and happy and was even trying to jump. You know me, I would have taken some pictures, but that would have probably been inappropriate since the teacher was talking. Later on, she went right up to some apparatus and figured out what to do on it all by herself. She was all over the place. My job is basically to keep her from falling and getting hurt, but she definitely needs no prodding to try things out.




The next day, we had our playgroup with two other kids from gym class. The other girls are about 5-6 months older than Leah, but she's very interactive with them and loves playing with new and different toys. So far, she has no manners. She likes to steal the things that the other girls are holding...so I'll have to work on that one.



Last Friday, we had our monthly post-placement visit with our social worker. Leah was very engaging as usual. She was walking around and showing off, running around playing with her toys, and digging in Diana's bag and examining her toenail polish and shoes. John's flight home from his business trip to Europe was delayed so he wasn't able to be there this time. But at least he is finally back home now. He's had a very busy travel schedule lately and had only seen Leah for 24 hours in 2 weeks.

Three months ago yesterday, we arrived home with Leah. Can't believe how well she is doing and how much she has grown after just three months.

One month down!

Yesterday, we had our 1-month post-placement visit with Diana, our social worker, and it went great. Leah was a totally different girl this time. If you remember, during our first visit, she had only been home one week and basically went into shut-down mode as soon as we sat down and started talking. But this time she was really active and entertaining, being her normal, funny self. She wanted to get down off our laps and onto the floor, cruised around the ottoman and the couch, showed off her standing and balancing skills, approached Diana with a big smile, bowed to say "an-nyong-ha-se-yo" to get our attention, kept trying to grab the papers and pictures off of Diana's lap, inspected her purse and bags and sandals and toes, and was basically just being silly and smiley the whole time. After Diana left, Leah was fine and didn't seem to have been affected by the visit like last time. In general, yesterday was a really good day. She took 2 nice long naps and was well-rested and happy all day.

A few steps forward, a few steps back

We surprised Leah Jin-Ri this morning with her new jumper toy. She didn't quite know what to make of it at first, but then once we played her favorite Korean children's CD she was dancing and jumping around. She figured out that when she jumps, it makes sounds and lights up, and we taught her how to spin the seat around to look at all the different toys around the circle.



She also received a cool new Leapfrog counting musical toy from Grandma & Grandpa this morning, and she really liked it. She really loves music and responds immediately to it by dancing and swaying. We get such a kick out of it.



But Leah was a bit out of sorts today after our first social worker visit. This was the first stranger we've had in the house so far, and it made her quite nervous. Our social worker was great and knew not to focus on her too much, get right in her face, or try to hold her, and we all just went about our business for the 1-hour visit. When we sat down in the family room, Leah sat on John's lap and was very shy and wouldn't smile. We could tell she knew we were talking about her. She sat in John's lap and put her head down on him for comfort and fell asleep right away. It was probably a stress reaction, since it's very abnormal for her to just fall asleep like that without a lot of effort on our part. After a while, she woke up and started coming to life and smiling a little, but she wasn't being herself at all.

After that was over, we played and had fun as usual all day. Here are some more pictures of her playing in the mirror. You should see all the slobber on the mirror at the end of the day!




But later, when we took her out for her daily excursion, she had a major crying fit in the store and in the car on the way home.



This evening, it was difficult to get her to sleep. It's only been a week and she's obviously still grieving her losses and feeling overwhelmed by all the changes in the last week. It'll just take time, understanding and patience.