Things are going well for little Avery. She is enjoying her new home and playing with her big brother and cousins. She seems to be adapting well, but she is VERY attached to me. Literally she has to be touching me when I am nearby. She doesn't go near strangers and loves to cuddle only with us or her brothers which I guess are all good signs she is realizing who her immediate family is. Grandma has been a trooper watching her and my two nieces while I am working. I have been back to work FT since the day after she got here, so Grandma is a lifesaver! Since I couldn't dump my teaching responsibilities on my coworkers, I am planning on taking my FMLA for the fall semster. So if all goes as planned, I'll be home with Avery from May until next Jan 2011.
As far as her appetite, she is still only eating apple sauce, oatmeal, bread, peanut butter and yogurt. Hasn't really brancheed out in the food area at all. She will not drink milk (even chocolate milk.)
We have moved her into her own room on a twin bed. She stays put for about 11 hours which is nice! When she wakes, she stands in the doorway until we come get her. Usually she wakes around 715, but this morning it was 630. All in all we are not complaining for a second about how well she sleeps. Actually my five year old wakes me up many more times in the night than she does.
We are still working on "sharing" as right now if we take anything out of her hand, that turns into a temper tantrum. Although, it does seem to be getting shorter in duration! I think it will help greatly when she understands what we are saying. Right now I show her how to share and she looks at me like I have two heads. I tried to speak Creole to her, but she doesn't seem to understand that either. I haven't heard her say any words in Creole. She does attempt English, but it's not understandable. For example, the word CUP is "Da". Most everything sounds like Da. She does say "Mom" well. I am wondering at what point we should look into speech therapy if she doesn't pronounce most sounds. She does a lot of pointing, but not much speaking so far.
Hair... all I have been able to have her sit still for (barely) is little pig tails. And honestly, after we take her shirt on and off just once, her hair is all ratty looking. Haven't figured out how to make it last longer, or how to get her to sit for longer than 2 minutes.
Next weekend, she and I are flying to NY for a shower and to visit Granny (Mike's mom) and I think the boys are looking forward to some quiet time with Daddy. That is one thing my boys have noticed, the noise level has tripled since she arrived! But they also follow that up with they don't mind and they're getting used to it! They absolutely adore her! But, she sure is loud when she puts her mind to it!
So that's how we are doing so far. Sorry about the blurring cell phone photos! Haven't had time to upload the good ones from the real camera!
5 comments:
Sounds like you are doing well. What a relief to have to worry about different "life" things like hair rather than whether or not she will ever come home!
Sounds like things are going well. I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures.
Taking 7 months off will be nice. You guys will have lots of fun together!
Love hearing how she's doing and seeing her in the pink hoodie. Glad to see it fits so well.
love reading your updates!
*my girls hated chocolate milk, too. we gave them vanilla milk or pediasure at the beginning.
Glad things are getting better. Avery will speak when she is ready- it may be another month or more. Sophia (2) reverted to baby babbling, whimpering and pointing most of the time, but will copy what I say occassionally. I have her attempt to say the words before I help her. I tell her I don't understand pointing, etc and she needs to use words. So far she tries after initial tantrums.
My girls drink rice milk. They spit out cow milk. You might want to try that. Have fun on your trip!
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