Things about Daisy...

Since we have been home and adjusting for a few weeks I though I would update what Daisy is up to.

She still loves to eat.  A typical breakfast is:  1/2 packet of oatmeal, 1/2 banana, 1 egg, 1 carton yogurt.  I am not kidding here.  Breakfast is usually her biggest meal but she would eat all day if I offered it.  She usually has lunch and dinner and a few bottles of formula in between.  She will eat anything I am eating, i.e. pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, salsa.  The other day she ate a coupon.  Swallowed it whole before I could stop her!

She is adjusting really well.  She is happy most of the time and loves exploring our house and destroying everything she can get her hands on.  She literally does not sit still, but will occasionally sit in my lap for a quick book, quick being the key word.

She is a ham.  She loves to make us laugh, especially when she is supposed to be going to sleep and she doesn't want to.  She pulls out all her tricks and tries them out on me to see if I will play.  She squints her eyes shut really tight like she is pretending to sleep, then peeks them open to see if I'm laughing.  She points to her belly button, she puts her fingers in my mouth, offers up her feet for nibbling and tries to play peek-a-boo.

When we first got home she was deathly afraid of our dog Simpson.  He could not even be in the house if she was awake or she would just cling to me and cry when she heard his jingle jangle coming.  Poor Simpson spent a lot of time outside.  We have gradually been letting him come inside more so she could get used to him and we would just hold her and show her that we liked him.  She is now much more comfortable with him and will pet him a little and walk up to him and look at him.  She also has decided it's fun to take his toys from him which could be a problem because he is not a fan of that game.  I just make sure I am right there when they are in the same room.  It's going to take some time for them to become totally used to each other.

Daisy is a pretty good sleeper.  When we first got home she still had her cough and then a few days later it got worse and she got a fever.  I took her to the doctor and he put her on an antibiotic which seems to have cleared it all up after 10 days.  But boy were those first few days home a nightmare.  We were all jet lagged and she was sick.  There wasn't a lot of quality sleep happening and I thought I might die.  Since she has been feeling better she has been going to bed around 9:00 and waking anywhere from 7:30 to 10:00.  Not sure why she can't settle on a time.  She also has a penchant for waking up around 4:30 or 5:30 at which time I give her a bottle and pray she goes back to sleep quickly.  She usually naps in the morning, about 3-4 hours after waking up and then tries to steel a quick evening nap.  We are all still figuring out what is going to work best.  We run a fan for white noise and sometimes play some music.  This all seems to help.  Steve and I have both been known to slink out the door on all fours while holding our breath!

This is one girly girl!  She loves clothes and shoes.  One day recently she walked over to her closet, opened her arms wide and embraced her clothes with wide arms while squealing.  She loves her shoes and gets mad when we take them off.  She especially loves the squeaky shoes we got her in China.  She stomps around with delight when she's wearing them.

Daisy likes her bath time but hates getting water on her face.  This is just something she is not getting used to like I thought she would.  She cries and cried when I rinse her hair, no matter how hard I try not to get water on her face.  (With Zack I would just pour large buckets of water on his head and he was never bothered, I am not used to being so gentle!)

The attachment books say not to let her watch TV for the first year.  Sometimes a mom is desperate though and a couple of times I have asked Zack to show her a cartoon for a minute so I could get something done.  But alas, she has not been interested.  Today, I broke out the Baby Einstein DVD's.  It was a hit!  She loved it and played on the couch for at least 20 minutes while it played!  When it first started she was so excited she started shaking!

She seems to like music.  Sometimes she makes sounds like she is singing, it's really cute.  Sometimes I tell her to dance and then I move her arms around and she thinks that is really funny, but she hasn't initiated any dancing herself.

She likes kissing her stuffed animals but has only offered humans kisses a few times.  But we kiss her a lot so hopefully she will come around!

She still does not have any real words but says, ba ba, ma ma and da da, and a few other sounds I can't type.  She has said ma ma and da da in reference to us, but only a few times.  We just talk to her as much as we can so she can process all these new sounds and words.  She does seem to understand a ton of what we say to her.

A few days after we got home we took her to see the cardiologist.  Dr. Cowley ordered a chest x-ray and an EKG which were done quickly and painlessly and then he examined her.  He felt like there is probably nothing wrong with her heart.  No murmur is heard, her chest x-ray was pretty normal, and her EKG was completely normal.  He wants to repeat these tests in 6 months and if it's the same he will see him again when she is 3 and do a sedated heart ultrasound to see if there is a hole between her atrium.  If there is, they can fix it then.  If there isn't then we will never have to see him again!  He thinks she looks healthy and there is nothing to worry about right now.  We are so grateful and happy!  To think that they thought she had a very severe heart defect in China!

We are loving this cute girl more and more every day!  We are so happy to have her in our lives!

**Pictures taken by my friend Lindsey at http://cheekyandtrig.blogspot.com/.  She's awesome!