Last lamp standing

We thought we'd done a pretty good job of baby-proofing the family room, but it's still a work in progress. Even before we brought Leah home, we'd been busy re-arranging the room, changing out furniture, removing decorative accessories, and replacing a sharp-edged coffee table with a big leather ottoman. In the last month, I've also had to remove another end table that she was using as a climbing device and three more lamps because she was either trying to pull them down or chewing on the cords.

It's amazing how kids gravitate towards the very things that you don't want them to touch. So instead of having a bunch of things in the room that we have to tell her to stay away from, we'll just put them somewhere else for now. There's only one standing lamp left in the room, and I have the lamp base wedged underneath the couch so it won't tip over. She still tries though.



She recently figured out that the fireplace glass doors actually open, and since she could pinch her little fingers in the folding doors, we'll have to do something about that right away. It's always been hard keeping her away from the fireplace. She seems to love crawling along it, standing on it, banging on the glass doors and admiring her reflection.



She's also figured out that her tiny arms can reach inside the lattice doors of the TV cabinet and push all the buttons for the TV electronics. So, we're just trying to keep up with her, especially now that she's started walking

First visitor

Our very first visitor, my sister Holly, came to visit this week for 3 days and we had a great time. Leah was a little shy and wary at first, but that only lasted about 10 minutes and then she approached Holly and let her hold her. Leah was soon being her funny, entertaining self, especially now that she had a captive audience.

She danced to her favorite music, showed off her impressive walking skills, made her silly face where she squeezes her eyes shut and purses her lips, and tried to steal Holly's camera whenever she was holding it. I think Holly now knows what I mean about how hard it is to get good pictures of Leah since she is always on the move.

As a mother of four-plus, and a grandmother of three, Holly's been there and done that. So she helped me brainstorm about some of our sleeping and eating issues, and I learned a much more efficient technique of changing a poopy diaper (which I immediately put to good use).

It was also really awesome not to have to worry about cooking and cleaning up the kitchen for a few days, since Holly really helped out with that. She cooked us a really nice steak dinner the first night and we had takeout the rest of the time.

I think the timing of this visit was just right. Leah has just started feeling much more secure and less anxious the past few weeks, and so we think our self-imposed isolation policy, although it's been really hard on us, has been a really good idea.

Walk on...

We've lost count of how many times Leah has been walking and how many steps she's taken. She's been doing it pretty regularly now, so I think we can officially say that as of the last weekend in April, at 9.5 months, she has started walking! She can even pivot and change direction, stop and squat, or turn around to look at us, and keep on walking. But she is just so tiny, it doesn't seem possible!

Baby's gettin' her walk on!

So far, Leah's been doing about 3-5 steps pretty regularly. But this morning, Leah took about 15-16 steps towards me, then a few minutes later she took another 7 steps. And later when John got home from his trip to Brazil, she showed off by doing another 12 steps for him! We don't have it on video since it's still pretty sporadic, but she's definitely making great progress and it won't be long before she's really walking.

Too many pictures

It's official. I've been put on notice for taking too many pictures of Leah. It's only been about a month since she's been home, and my computer hard drive is already overloaded and at the critical stage. It's probably because I take about a zillion pictures a day and never have time to actually sort through them to delete the bad ones, so they all end up being stored. Today, I ended up having to remove a bunch of things from the computer and transfer them to a new portable hard drive, so I think I'm ok for now.

Anyway, can you blame me? First of all, she's just so darn cute, I can't even stand it. Secondly, even though I have the camera with me all day long, it can still be a real challenge getting a good picture of her since she's always moving. Even after snapping 10 pictures of the same moment, I somehow still end up missing the great little faces she makes because my camera is too slow or the picture ends up blurry. It's been so much fun having a new subject to snap pictures of again. Leah's so much fun to watch and I don't want to miss a thing.

Running hurdles around the house

Now that we've installed yet another baby gate in the family room (that makes 3 downstairs and one upstairs), we're essentially doing hurdles to get anywhere around the first floor. It's a little inconvenient, yes, especially for me since the height of two of the gates is exactly the same as my inseam measurement, and I've already clumsily fallen once trying to get over while carrying stuff (fortunately, not Leah). But given the configuration of our house, it's easier to keep her contained in the family room, which is now fully baby-proofed, than to give her free roam in the kitchen and access to the second set of stairs that start in the kitchen. Plus, we'd prefer not to drill holes into the banister and the walls if we can help it.

From the first few days home, Leah has decided she loves to climb the stairs, and does so without notifying us. I'd say she climbs the stairs about 2 or 3 times a day, with me right behind her, of course. The reward for her is that she gets to go up to her room and get toys out of her toybox all by herself, so she does it every chance she gets.

Fun weekend

We finally had some nice, warm weather on Saturday here in Cleveland, so we decided it would be a great opportunity to take Leah outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air, especially now that she's finally getting more comfortable with everything. We went to a local play park and took a walk and held her in our laps on the swings. Let's just say she was not too impressed and just sat there with a blank expression.




I mean, this is a kid who is normally a real dare-devil. She loves any physical activity, like being thrown high up into the air, being hung upside down by the ankles, being zoomed around the house like an airplane, riding in the baby carrier while I run and jump around. Nothing makes her laugh like riding on daddy's shoulders while he runs around the house and up and down the stairs, or when we hold her and then pretend like we are about to drop her. So it was a little out of character for her to not enjoy the swings, but we have found that it usually takes a while for her to warm up to any new experience, and this was her first time outside at a park with us here. In the meantime, we have scoped out the park situation around here. We found a better one that looks like more fun, and we'll try that one next time.

We also ended up at the Babies 'R Us and Toys 'R Us twice this weekend. I've noticed lately that even though she will still sit in her jumper, she prefers to walk around the outside of it to play with it. So we got her a couple of fun new toys, a stacking toy...




...and the Leapfrog Learn & Groove musical table, and she can stand next to it and walk around it. It was a real hit. She's fascinated by all the buttons and levers and the sounds and music it makes. She dances and squeals and jumps. It's so tiny, but it's the perfect size for her and it'll definitely keep her entertained for a while. It might drive us a little crazy, since she loves to open and shut the same little compartment over and over, playing the same song. But hey, she's having fun.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

After our trip to the toy store on Saturday, we thought we might try to go to the Korean restaurant 30 minutes away since it's been a month since we've had any Korean food and I was really craving some. Well, we got about 10 minutes away and she was not having it, so we ended up at a Wendy's instead. Not quite the same, but it was her first "restaurant" experience with us here. I fed her a bottle while we ate. As usual, she attracted a lot of attention, and two older ladies who were eyeing us started talking to us, "Oh, HE's so cute, what a charmer, I've been flirting with HIM and HE's just darling!" We quickly corrected them to say she is a girl, and they immediately switched to, "Oh, she's just a beauty, how gorgeous, what a pretty girl...". So, if you're keeping count, that's the 3rd time people have thought Leah is a boy, even though we always have her dressed clearly as a girl. So, how long will it take for her hair to grow out?

On Sunday, we ended up at the baby store again to buy a new baby gate and stock up on stuff we needed. Nowadays, I carry her everywhere in the baby carrier, which she greatly prefers over sitting in a shopping cart. In fact, this week, I managed to take her places 3 times by myself in the car and with the baby carrier, and she did great! She's been easy in the car these days, barely protesting when being put in the car seat, and as long as it's a short drive and I strap her into the baby carrier at the store, she will go anywhere with me.....so it looks like I'm finally being released from house arrest.

After we were done at the baby store, we decided to give the Korean restaurant idea another chance. This time she did great in the car. And at the restaurant, she was very funny and charming. We kept her busy with some applesauce, some sticky rice, and potatoes. We had a barrette in her hair this time so there would be no confusion! Anyway, she was being really animated and was making eye contact with other people in the restaurant, bowing at them, smiling at everyone and trying to get their attention. The two waiters loved her and had a lot of questions. We actually found out from them that there is a Korean association near the restaurant where we could take Korean lessons with her. This is great news since we didn't know of this before and think it would be great to expose her to the Korean language as much as possible, as well as learn Korean ourselves.





On the way home.....

Smart girl

On Monday the 13th, Leah did something I thought was pretty darn smart. She has a Ball Popping machine by Playskool that she plays with a lot. You put balls in it, and push a button and music plays while a fan blows the balls up into the air and some balls wind back down into the tubes. I usually set it on its side because she often tips it over when she tries to use it for support. So I was in the kitchen doing something (a big step in and of itself since she is now letting me walk away sometimes)....and suddenly I heard the ball popping machine come on and her squealing. I looked over and she had set the machine upright, pushed the start button, and was was feeding balls into it all by herself! I think that's pretty clever for a 9-month old!

This picture is from a different day, but just so you know what I'm talking about...

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 visit to the doctor

Yesterday, we took Leah Jin-Ri downtown to the Cleveland Clinic's main campus for a post-adoption check by an international adoption pediatrician. We wanted to give Leah a few weeks to settle in before putting her through that ordeal, plus we needed to have her added to our medical insurance plan first.





Before we went, I was truly dreading the whole day since the last several times we took her anywhere in the car, she screamed her head off. I was expecting this to be another difficult day for her. Boy, were we surprised! She did great in the car. She didn't even cry when we strapped her into the car seat, and she didn't cry the entire way there. She just sat there contently. We came prepared this time, and we brought several toys just in case, and we played her favorite Korean children's cd and sang along. She eventually fell asleep along the way.

When we got there, she was very drowsy, and I strapped her into my baby carrier and we brought her upstairs to the doctor's office. She did such a great job. She was cheerful and playful. She smiled and cooed at the doctor and didn't put up a fuss at all. She needed to get a couple of immunizations in her thighs, which wasn't fun for her, but luckily, that only took a minute and was over. Here she is waiting for the nurse to come back in and give her her shots.





The hardest part came when we had to take her downstairs to the lab to get her blood drawn. They only allowed one parent to go in with her, so I sent John in since I knew I couldn't bear to watch, plus I didn't think I'd be as good at holding her still. John said it took 3 people to hold her down for about 15 minutes, and they had to try both arms because she was struggling and twisting so much. Poor thing! I winced as I heard her screaming bloody murder from the waiting area. It seemed to go on forever. Several nurses came out front telling me how incredibly strong she is. I was not surprised to hear this since I know she is definitely one strong little girl! Eventually it was over, and they gave her some ice for her arms and said she'd probably end up with bruises. We let her calm down first, and then ended up at the cafe to have some lunch since we were starving by then. I strapped her onto my front and gave her a bottle while we ate lunch, and she fell asleep after gobbling down her bottle. The ride home went really well, too, and she only cried a little bit from all the stress. You could tell she had just been through a lot. But she was amazing and we are so proud of her!

Here she is back home with band-aids on her arms. What a trooper!



By the way, it happened again: We had her dressed in pink girly stuff with these cute panda pants on, and the baby carrier is also very girly, yet we still got 2 comments, "Oh, he's so cute!". Hmmm, I guess we'll just have to wait until her hair grows out for her to look more like a girl.