4 weeks home!

Emily at 2 weeks home................................. Emily at 4 weeks home

Wow!! It's hard to believe we have been home a month! Emily is doing very well, continuing to grow and fill out. You can see this from week 2 and week 4 at home. She is now in 12 - 18 month clothing exclusively and slowly moving towards 18 months. She is bigger at 14 months than her brothers were. This is a good thing as she is a great eater. I'm hoping her eating habits would help to motivate the boys to eat too, but alas it has not worked out that way. There are days where it feels the entire adoption process seems like a dream and it feels like she has been here forever with us. She has started to hug her brothers this week. It's so cute. She will just walk up to Boy Wonder or Bubba and throw her arms around their waist. And she loves to dance with you too!

She has also started to hold her lovey "bunny" and will snuggle up with it during nap and even carry it with her outside the crib. This is such a relief for me as she was not interested in touching anything soft. She seemed to prefer only hard plastic or wooden objects. She also will hold her baby dolls..by the feet but it's a little start. She loves to talk on the phone. She holds her hand or a remote control or the real phone up to her ear and starts babbling to herself. This is something she has done since she was in the babyhome. I remember when we arrived the first day on trip 2 her caregiver said, "talk to mama on the phone," and she would put her hand to her ear. It was very sweet. Emily is also understanding more and more in english and if you give her a simple direction she can follow it. Her newest word is "buh bye" and she waves. It's very cute. She also can say baby, and bird. The five signs she knows are; "all done," "milk," "more," "eat" and "herself". We are also working on the sign for potty. :-) Emily loves music and loves to swing and loves to laugh. She is just a joy to be around.

Her development seems to be progressing normally and her attachment also seems to be going very well. But attachment is still the area I worry about the most. She has less anxious attachment and doesn't panic if she can't see me in the room. And when we are out and she is walking she will look back to see if I'm near or will reach for my finger and take it and walk together. She has very good eye contact when she is communicating or playing with you. She loves to pat your face and if you say "no, no, Emily." She will look up at you and then shake her head no, and move on to something else. But yesterday she did reach out to a stranger at the park I was talking to. And I'm not sure if she thought it was someone I knew and it was okay since I was talking to her awhile but needless to say, we will continue to work on that.

Here is Emily with her brothers. She is really taken with both brothers but it's very hard to get Bubba's photo. He is going through a no photo taking phase.

Emily, Mama, and Bubba

Emily and Boy Wonder the last day of his preschool.

silly kids!!