No No No, Me Me Me and other new discoveries

It started about a week ago. Leah was practicing the words "No No No" and shaking her head No when we'd ask her a question or offer her something, and using "Me Me Me" when she wanted something. She usually stomps her feet in both cases for full effect. John told me that during the week he was taking care of her, she would "Shhh!" him and shake her head No when he started singing. And one day she didn't like the outfit he picked out and she wanted to choose a different one. We've got one sassy girl on our hands, I'm afraid.

Leah has also figured out how to open doors and is letting herself out of her room in the morning. She's finally able to reach the door handles. Our house has door levers instead of knobs, and she is now tall enough to get up on her tippy-toes and open them all by herself. John said she just started doing this a few times while I was away. On the morning that he left for Shanghai, he had forgotten to put the baby gate back in place at the top of the stairs, and I found her at 6:30 am with her door open, standing and crying at the top of the stairs. Thank goodness I caught her in time since she likes to think she can walk down the stairs forwards like we do. And just today, I saw her coming out of the laundry room, and I always keep that door shut. She can open the pantry door, too.

Singing. She started this several weeks ago. Leah loves watching Sesame Street and particularly loves Elmo. I always sing the Elmo song to her, the one that sounds like Jingle Bells, and she sings it all the time now, too. When I say the word "sing" or "can you sing?", she starts "da da da, da da da". And she says the word "sing" and starts singing spontaneously just by herself. It's really cute.

Acting out songs. When I'm singing to her in the car, I can see she's doing the motions along with the song. I play the CD from Kindermusik for her in the car and sing a lot, and she is really catching on and recognizing the words. For instance, she acts out the "If you're happy and you know it" song and "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and just about any song that has the words jumping, stomping, waving, wiggling, etc.

Blowing her nose. She's been doing this for quite a while, too. Whenever I'd hand her a Kleenex, she would practice and imitate me, but now she's actually getting good at it. It's great since she always has stuff in her nose that I can never get out, so when I give her a Kleenex and say "ok, blow your nose", she'll do it, and she blows hard, too.

Trying to get dressed. She really wants to figure out how to get her clothes, socks, and shoes on. She sits there for quite a while working at it and gets really frustrated. But she doesn't quite realize that pants don't go on your head or around your neck. One thing she's gotten good at lately is unzipping things. So it's hard keeping some sweatshirts and sweaters on her because she's always unzipping them and taking them off.

Waving Hi and Bye Bye to everyone. She used to just open and close her hand, and it was usually facing her, but lately she's figured out how to do the beauty queen wave. She loves saying Hi to people while I'm strolling her around. And she says Bye Bye when we're leaving and going back to the car.

Blowing bubbles in her drink. We always give her a cup to drink from, and she can control it and drink really well from it without spilling. Nowadays, just for fun, she loves to blow bubbles in it. She's also figured out how to make a bunch of silly sounds with her mouth by patting her mouth or running her fingers over her lips.

Coughing. She just started developing a cough yesterday (we'll have to get that checked out) and she would ask "Dis?" while she was coughing. She always loves to learn the words for what she is doing. So I'd tell her that she was coughing and pat my chest and cover my mouth, and now she does that, too. When I say the word "cough", she does it. She even does it in her sleep. Last night, she started coughing in the middle of the night while she was sleeping, and asked "Dis?" and coughed a little more and then fell back asleep.

Clifford the Big Red Dog

The weekend that I returned from my trip, John told me that Clifford was making an appearance at one of our local Barnes & Noble bookstores on Sunday. He happened to notice this when he and Leah were there during the week, and since Leah absolutely loves Clifford and watches him every day on TV, we had to go.

First, a lady from the bookstore read a Clifford story, and then Clifford arrived. Leah definitely recognized him and was pointing and waving at him and shouting "Doggie! Dogggie!". She got to go up to him and meet him and gave him "high-fives". The guy playing Clifford had absolutely no personality, but Leah didn't seem to notice.

Afterwards, she had fun playing with all the other kids at the train table and running around looking at all the stuff. We usually have her in a stroller when we're in stores, so this was a big adventure for her to be able to run around the whole bookstore by herself!

Conversations with Leah

Tonight, while I was putting Leah to bed, it was starting to rain outside pretty hard. She pointed up at the ceiling and asked, "Das?". So I said, "It's raining outside. That's rain. Those are raindrops falling on the roof." To which she immediately replied, "Woof woof, doggie! doggie!" and fell asleep.

And whenever I say the word Shanghai to her, she replies back with an enthusiastic "Hi!".

Hanging around

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Here's a little video from Halloween week when Leah started hanging and swinging on the bar by herself at the Little Gym. The second part of the video was from the 13th. It's now her favorite activity there, and she spends most of her time doing this over and over again until she's tired. She can also climb the baby rock wall all by herself and slide down the other side.

She practices at home by hanging on the kitchen counters and table!

First Haircut

When I got back from Shanghai, I suddenly noticed how long Leah's hair was getting in the back. But since it's still so baby fine and wispy, it was starting to look a little scraggly. So one evening during her bath while her hair was wet, I got the urge to do something about it. I tied the bottom of her hair into a tiny ponytail and snipped it off before she even knew what was happening! Of course, I will save it for her baby book.

Before


After

I had to make a few corrections over the last few days just to even it out, and since she never sits still for a second, that has been a bit of a challenge. But I think it looks really cute now that it's blunt across the bottom. Sadly, it does makes her look older, though. sniff...sniff...

Back home

Well, John's first time playing Mr. Mom went pretty well, even though he said he was in survival mode all week. I'd say he exceeded expectations. He actually managed to keep Leah diapered, dressed, fed, and entertained all week. He even took her out every day on little trips to the park, the shopping mall, the bookstore, out for lunch and to her gym and music classes! But two things he couldn't quite figure out were: putting barrettes in her hair to keep it out of her face, and taking pictures. He only took two lousy, dark pictures of her the whole week! But otherwise, he did a great job.

I had an interesting but exhausting time in Shanghai and couldn't wait to come home. John and Leah missed me a lot, too. I got a huge, beaming smile from Leah when she first saw me on Saturday morning, and when we went out to eat that day, she couldn't stop hugging me and giving me kisses in the restaurant. It was so precious! It's good to be home.

Role Swap

This week should be interesting as both of us will be thrown out of our comfort zones. John is taking a week off to play "stay-at-home-dad" while I jet-set off to Shanghai by myself for a "business trip". We're currently investigating a possible expat assignment in Shanghai and need to do a look-see trip to find out what we think of potentially living there for a few years. Of course, we'd prefer to go as a family, but since Leah is not technically an American citizen until her adoption is finalized and, additionally, can't travel out of the country until she has a U.S. passport, we have to go separately. We also don't feel we can leave her with someone for a whole week, as she hasn't even been cared for by a babysitter yet.

So wish us both luck! We're going to need it.

Wild Turkey on the Loose

It was a lot of fun taking Leah out trick-or-treating for the first time. We first hit our neighborhood for the first hour and then raced over to some friends' house to join them. Leah was a little confused about what exactly was going on at first, but soon caught on. She carried her little basket around and was holding it out for people to put the treats in, or grabbing the treats herself. Of course, should couldn't just take one!

She scored a whole bunch of full-size candy bars at our next door neighbor's house, who thought she looked so cute. When we caught up with our friends later, it was really cute to see the little girls together. Leah had so much energy and was running all over the place, and always in the wrong direction. She had such a great time, she started crying when it was all over and we had to leave.

Like a Sponge

Leah's doing new things all the time, it's sometimes hard to keep up with her. Here's what she's been up to in the past few weeks....

Playing pretend. Trying to put her pyjamas on her stuffed pug and put him to bed. This is usually when I'm trying to put her PJ's on her after her bath, and she won't let me have them because she's so busy trying to dress her doggie. She gives him hugs and kisses and when she lays him down on the bed, she goes "shhhhh" and puts her finger to her mouth. Well, she doesn't quite make the right sound (sounds more like "ffff") and actually puts her finger on her teeth, but she's getting close. And she's still enjoying her tea parties, and mostly conducts these while sitting on the window sill above her toy box. She loves to offer us tea and cakes. And of course, she's always making pretend phone calls and playing with her Little People toys.

Washing herself in the tub. Just during the past few days at the beginning of her baths, she has started standing in the tub, holding her hands under the faucet and then rubbing them together trying to wash herself. When I say "wash your arms", "wash your tummy", "wash your shoulders", "wash your face", etc. she does it. She just learned "shoulders" the other day and when I say "where are your shoulders?", she shrugs them and tries to touch them. In Kindermusik class, there's a song about taking a bath called "wishy washy wee" that she loves. I sing it to her a lot and do the hand movements, so I think this is where she's getting this from.

Acting out her books. She has started acting while I read to her. The other day when our social worker was here for her visit, she was reading "Bear Snores On" to her, and Leah acted each scene out...dancing, sleeping, eating, etc. Our social worker was really impressed. Another book that Leah loves is "A Mother for Choco". She acts out when Choco is sad by rubbing her eyes and looking down, and when he is happy by raising up her arms and shouting "aay!". It's lots of fun to read to her now that she is so interactive.

Cross-referencing. In her counting book called the "123 Train", Leah loves when we get to the page where there are 8 turtles. She just beams and smiles so big. The other day, when we got to that page, she got up and got another book, "A Mother for Choco", and flipped to the page with a turtle on it. Then she did the same for the bunny rabbits. She's been doing this with other books, too. When showing her picture books of objects, she often goes and retrieves that object. For instance, we showed her a picture of keys (real keys), and she got right up and got her toy car keys and brought them over. She saw a picture of a xylophone once and got up and started banging on her alligator xylophone. She can identify so many words correctly nowadays. Her vocabulary is really expanding.

Toilet paper. Just tonight, Leah surprised us when she got hold of a few rolls of toilet paper. They were just sitting on the living room floor for a moment. Before I could get to them, she had started playing with a roll. She didn't unravel the roll or anything, but tore up a few pieces and was pretending to wipe herself! Speaking of potty learning, starting about a month ago, she has become very aware when she is going pee or poopy in her diaper. She points to her diaper and goes "das? das?" when she is going. I mentioned already how she got out of the tub to go use her potty. She's done that several times during her baths. Before that, if she was starting to go pee in the bath, she would point to herself and ask "das?".

Getting up on kitchen chairs. Once again, we've had to rearrange the furniture because Leah has managed to get up on the kitchen chairs by herself. I've even tried using a few different types of chairs from around the house, but she can get on all of them. She's so proud of herself. One day I found her sitting on the chair looking at my laptop on the kitchen table. Another time, I found her standing on one. It's just a matter of time before she's starts climbing onto the table and kitchen counters. So, while we're telling her not to do that, we've also just started taking the chairs out of the kitchen when we're not using them.

Talking. She's saying more and more words. When she's in the right mood, she will pretty much attempt just about any word or person's name I give her. I just say "Can you say.....?" and she tries it and then nods her head and smiles proudly. She'll usually get the right sound or the number of syllables. And some words she says perfectly. Some of her favorite words right now are "Oooooo, Wow!", which she exclaims very dramatically all the time when she sees something she likes. Plus, she says "Hi" and "Bye Bye" and waves to us all day long. She also says "Bye Bye" and waves when she closes something or puts something away. Plus, she uses her sign language for "hungry" and "more".

Our little turkey

This week at Little Gym, the kids got to wear their Halloween costumes and they all looked so cute. Leah got a lot of laughs in her turkey costume and it was so fun seeing her run around in it. We have a make-up class on Friday, so we'll either put her back in her turkey costume or try her ladybug outfit for that one. We're really looking forward to taking her trick-or-treating and hope the weather cooperates!