Thursday, January 30, 2014
One Year HOME!!!!!
Sweet T you have been home an entire year! It seems so literally like just yesterday we were making our miracle journey home from China! I still marvel at God's faithfulness on your "delivery" to America and our home. If you want to remember that special day click HERE. It is honestly one of my most read blog posts. We saw God move so deeply with the perfect timing of our layovers etc that it is just such a blessing for me to read it over and over again.
We are so very blessed to have T in our family. She is such a delight! She adds so much free spirited joy to my days. T loves life! She appreciates the little blessings and squeals with delight over me wearing socks that are not white :) She just loves it all!
T is changing and growing every single day. I have much to say and almost don't even know where to begin.
Growing:
T is growing like crazy! A year ago 6 month onesies were falling off her petite body. Compared to her peers I get that she is still on the petite side, but to me she is a big girl! She is wearing 18 mo pants and 18 or 24 month size tops. We love the bigger size of tops mostly to cover up a bit of the cloth diaper bum she has going on. I wonder if her pants will all fall off of her once she is potty trained. T's feet are growing, but they are still a very dainty and narrow size 4! Her hair is getting long as well. She weighs about 22-24ish pounds.
Eating:
Girlfriend LOVES to eat! She loves meat! I am so thankful we eat meat around here because it is her favorite. Every kind. She also loves bread... which we don't have as much of around here, but we try to hook her up with we can. She also loves to eat ice. I know this is bad for her teeth. Sorry Tom and Adrienne. We only let her have the crushed ice chips but she so loves them. They really help her teething... more on that to come. She loves popcorn, whew... how would you survive around here if you didn't love popcorn?! She loves "raw-rah" (Chocolate) which is peanut butter and honey with a little cocoa powder. She loves most fruits. They usually have to be hidden until the end of the meal so she will eat the other parts of the meal. . She loves avocados, and by love I mean she cries HUGE tears when they are gone. "Hummy" (hummus) was one of her first words and another favorite food. She eats everything that we eat at night with delight. She will often have a bowl of rice as a side dish. She loves snack foods too... like chips, suckers, pretzels and other treats from parades and long car trips.
Teething:
When we met T one year ago she had NO teeth... just soft gums. Right as we were traveling home she cut her first tooth. The first 6 came right at the beginning of our time together. They were pretty brutal. Then we had a big teething break. Late this summer she started teething again and has not stopped since. She is now getting #13, 14, 15 and 16. She is the slooooooowest teether ever. Teething really really affects her moods and her sleep. We got her an amber teething necklace and it might help some. Sadly, I have to admit that we have given her more Tylenol due to teeth pain than I ever imagined, but sweet girl needs to sleep.
Sleep:
After a summer where she slept insanely well, things have taken quite a turn. T came to us with poor sleep (teething, not sure) but then became a rock star sleeper. She was sleeping 14 hours a night and taking a great nap during the day too. She would go weeks and weeks at a time without ever waking up. The glory days! She now wakes up about 1/2 the nights. Brandon is T's bedtime and nighttime helper so he has had to deal with lack of sleep issues too. Every once in a while she will have a great night of sleep which tells us that she can still do it. We are hopeful that after the 4 teeth she is getting finally finish coming in we will have almost a year break before the 2 year molars. The one year and two year molars typically come about a year apart and she just finished getting hers around late November so we are really praying for a break.
Verbal:
T has found her voice. She is learning and saying new words and phrases every single day. Over our Christmas travels she said the best thing yet, "I wah-yah" (l love you)! I would say she says over 150 words, maybe over 200. Some of the cutest things she says are: "Wat, Wat" (Watch, Watch), "Hewhoa" (Hello), "Heh Meee" (Hold me), "By ya" (I want to sit by you) "Eye" (Rice, Ice, Yes, or Eye) She is saying new words every.single. day. Her understanding of words is awesome. She can follow simple requests and can point to most body parts as well. She can still make the most awesome sounds and every time she babbles it has a Chinese ring to it. No, I didn't say she can speak Chinese, but it just doesn't sound like Northern US babble. This is typical, but oh so cute. She doesn't really sing too much, but she loves music and attempts a few songs. She has finally started to shake her head up and down for "yes" which is a great help to us. She only says "no" for yes and no so there is still some confusion, esp in the church nursery.
Things she likes to do/play with:
T LOVES babies! She got many dolls for Christmas and every one of them was opened with squeals of delight. We frequently have dolls in every room of our house. I round them all up at night and put them in the baby pack and play for the next day of little mama care. T also loves coloring/art stuff, but she is partial to all surfaces but paper for unleashing her creativity. What did parents do before magic erasers and washable markers/crayons? T enjoys books in moderation. Every once in a while we read every word of a board book in on setting. T loves running and playing "I'm going to get you" with M and daddy. T loves her trampoline and jumping like crazy. T loves playing tea party. She loves her tag blanket and can't go to sleep without it. If she is at someone else's house and they have one, she will attempt to bring it home with her. She sounds girly, I know... but she also loves to play with trucks and wrestle and get dirty. She loves to play in the sink and get soaked. She loves to listen to music, esp certain songs from Sound of Music. She tries to sing along and even does some actions to "So long, farewell." She has started to really appreciate cuddles and hugs and kisses which makes this mommy very glad! She likes to play in the snow on the rare occasions that the real feel temp is higher than +10. She LOVES shoes!!! We have way too many pairs of hand-me-downs and she is forever trying them one. She also loves wearing other people's shoes. When we have Friday Night Group she is always prancing around the house in someone's shoes!
People she likes:
T loves her mommy and dada. She also loves her big brother. When she wakes up before "Ki-ah" she begs to play with him and seems lost without him around. She wants everything M has. If he has an owie on his finger, she surely does too. If he needs aquaphor so does she. She loves "Ca-cah, Day-dee, L, and baby" our dear friends. She knows the baby's name is J, but calls him "baby" just the same. She actually had a conversation with J's mom Charissa recently about how J used to be in her tummy but was now laying on the floor on a blanket. Big things for a little girl to figure out! She loves all the people in our Friday Night Group and squeals with delight when she sees any of the kids. She also loves her grandparents and pretends to talk to them on the phone and in photos. She also loves many adults that she sees each week at church. Really, she is quite social!
Personality: T is our "girl on the go" as we like to call her. She is so busy all the time. She just wants to go, go, go. She is usually in pretty good spirits. She is eager to try new things and has little to no fear. She has incredible empathy! I am overwhelmed with her deep care for others. I have never seen a young child with a deep level of compassion for others like T has. It is easy for my mind to spin with how God is going to use this unique gifting in the future, but I know I just need to wait and watch. Her empathy is the perfect attribute in caring for her big brother. When he has hard times she is so quick to offer him her toys, tag blanket, snacks etc. She seems to be able to access situations quite well. She embraces the fun in little things. She will say "YAYAYAYAYAY" because you are giving her orange slices.
Physical stuff:
She is right on track with her peers in meeting every developmental milestone... in fact she is often ahead. We have gained SO MUCH ground in the last year. She is one brilliant little lady! If she could reach the railing she could even do stairs on her own.
Potty Training:
I am pretty sure she is super close to potty training. She loves to sit on the toilet and tells us when she poos. I am NOT going to try (if I can help it) to train her until after our late February trip to the Smoky Mts. We have LONG car rides and having traveled with a newly trained child in the past I know it is much nicer to train them when you are going to be home for a while and not planning an 10 hour car trips.
Not her favorites:
T is not a fan of diaper changes. She is not a huge fan of many veggies. She is pretty anti long car trips and she is not a fan of sleeping during car trips. She doesn't get too excited about sleep. She doesn't like loud voices or music. She hates the Sound of Music song "16 going on 17" though I don't know why. She is not a fan of sitting still. This is a primary reason for a sometimes lack of photos of T on the blog. I feel bad that there are not more of her, but most photos of her are her turned away from the camera at the last second or of an empty screen because she has already run away. Bummer for me, since she does so many cute things I can never seem to capture.
Prayers for Sweet T:
This hasn't been the easiest season in our family and T has been affected by everything as well.
~Praise God that T is a part of our family. Praise him for His great work in her life this year! Praise Him for her heath!
~ Safety: Pray that God will protect T from physical harm.
~Emotions: Pray that God will protect T's heart from the actions and pain she experiences.
~Patterns: Pray that the negative learned behavior patterns will stop!
~Joy: Pray that her spirit of Joy will continue!
~Sleep: Pray that she will relax and be able to get back into a good sleep cycle.
~Teething break: Pray that T would finish cutting these teeth and get a long break from tooth pain
~Attachment: Pray that she will continue to attach to everyone in our family in a healthy and meaningful way.
~Daily Grace: Sweet girl is giving us a run for our money lately and has become very high needs. We are in deep need of grace as we parent her and grace to extend to her!
We feel so blessed that God has allowed us to be worthy of parenting T. She is such a beautiful soul and for the last year we have gotten to see more an more of her beauty and personality shine through. She is so quick to learn and so determined. Oh how I pray that God uses her great gifts to bring Himself Glory in her life.
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