Daisy's Diary

This cute baby has been keeping me a) too tired to blog and b) too busy to blog.  We are all still adjusting to having The Energizer Bunny Daisy join our family, but I think we are finally in the toddler groove.  We all love her to pieces and can't stop kissing her, much to her annoyance.

She has grown and developed so much in almost 4 months of being home, it is amazing!

Like I said in my last post, she has understood almost everything we say since about 2 weeks after she came to us.  She will shake her head yes or no for most things we ask her.  She follows commands like, "Go put the book in your room", or "Put it in the garbage", and much more.  She is also happy to pick up the messes she makes and wipe up her own spills!  I know that won't last so I'm milking it while I can. 

One thing I am not sure she understands is when we ask her if she loves mama or dada, she shakes her head NO! vigorously.  I would like to think she doesn't know what we're talking about but I have a feeling she does since we tell her we love her while kissing and hugging her.  It's kind of sad but I have to remember that if someone replaced my family (a foster family but the only family she knew) with a new family out of the blue, without any warning it would sure as heck take me more than 4 months to love those new people!  We are happy to give her time and we are not worried because she is a happy baby, loves to laugh at our antics and seems to generally enjoy life.  She will also give us kisses when we ask her, most of the time. :)   

She has recently really started talking, has quite a few words she uses spontaneously and will try to imitate almost any word we ask her to say. 

These are the words she now says by herself:  mama, dada, Zack, Daisy, grandma, ball, up, down, out, car, baby, ouch, flower, sock, ah oh, don't touch, all gone, peek-a-boo, book, Jesus, doggie, fish, birdie, bye bye, cracker, trick or treat (when we tell her to). 

The other day I went to get in the car and wondered out loud where my keys were.  I set Daisy down and ran to look for them all over the house.  After a minute I found them, went back down stairs, picked her up and started for the car when she said, "there it is!"  It took me a minute to realize she was referring to my keys!  Little smarty pants!

When Daisy first met us, she would eat anything and everything.  She took bottles from me and I fed her baby food with a spoon.  Slowly she has stopped the bottles, will only take a sippy cup or straw and she will not allow us to feed her.  She has to do it herself and she likes to use a spoon.  This makes for one messy baby!  She goes through at least 2 outfits per day and could use 2 baths a day but I just give her a lot of good wipe downs.  She has become a bit pickier and loves junk food, especially Cheetos and chocolate milk and loves Grandpa Rodgers because he sneaks her chocolate!  She also has a great love for Simpson's kibble.  So gross!  She does not like beef, avocado, cottage cheese and fruit, except apples and bananas. 

She's just getting started on the mess!

Miss Daisy is super active.  She is going, going all day long.  She LOVES being twirled, thrown, tossed, dropped and caught, and turned upside down.  She also jumps off heights into our arms (sometimes when we are least expecting it) and loves "jumping" on the tramp.  She recently started doing somersaults!  If she finds Zack's Razor scooter, she tries to ride it, but it is too heavy for her and falls to the ground taking her with it.  She enjoyed going to the pool all summer long and asked to ride the water slides at the water park.  She loves water and if she finds the garden hose running or the sprinklers on she is soaked within a minute.  Since she loves water so much we have to keep Simpson's water dish outside.  A few times she has gotten to it and dumped it all over the kitchen floor, then she slips and falls down repeatedly while trying to escape her mama's high pitched "NOOOOOOOO!", which then makes mama laugh hysterically.  (I know it's mean to laugh at a falling down baby but it is seriously funny to see her soaking wet, slipping and sliding all over the kitchen with such a guilty look on her face.)

Getting ready to jump to Zack.  She can do this all day at the pool!

She also loves to climb things.  She climbs onto the kitchen table, tried to climb the deck railing, climbs ladders, and once climbed the stove!  Luckily it wasn't on but the oven door opened and threw her to the ground!  She tried it once more but I was able to stop her in time.  So far she has not tried to climb out of her crib, but I expect it any day. 

One night Zack volunteered to get Daisy ready for bed.  Changed her diaper, put her in her jammies and read her a story.  It was awesome!

Daisy loooooves Zack.  Probably because he is the best brother ever.  He plays with her all the time, carries her around on piggy back, makes her laugh, reads to her, takes her outside to play and he has even happily changed her diaper!  When he is home she follows him around and tries to steal toys from his room but he always catches her and gets the toys back because they are choking hazards and he is a good brother like that.  He has never said a negative thing about having a new sister or loosing a big portion of our attention.  It makes Steve and I so happy to see them together.  

Lovin the piggy back ride

Daisy is not a good sleeper.  She doesn't like to fall asleep and it can take 30-60 minutes to get her down at night.  We have to rock her to sleep and she fights it every step of the way.  Once she is asleep she might wake up anywhere from 3 to 12 times.  When she wakes we have to go in and pat her, but sometimes we have to rock her back to sleep, sometimes she is just awake for an hour or two.  Sometimes I sleep on an air mattress on the floor of her room so I can say "shhh" every time she cries.  She just really needs to know we are there.  We have tried having her sleep with us but that is just not going to work for any of us.  Letting her "cry it out" is not an option.  If you want to know why, you will need to go read a book on attaching to an adopted post-institutionalized child.  I can recommend a few if you're interested.  :)  We are trying magnesium supplements, I will report on how that works out.  The good news is she naps well, 2-3 hours in the mornings, which sometimes allows me to nap too.

She has been sick quite a bit.  When she came to us in China she had a terrible cough/cold.  It started to go away but returned when we got home.  Then she got 4 molars.  Then she got an ear infection.  Then she got Hand-Foot-and-Mouth disease.  She has been on 3 antibiotics in less than 4 months.  I hope we can keep her well for a while, but winter is coming.  Sigh.   

Ready to go!

A few other tid bits:  She is getting better at riding in the car and can last about 45 minutes before she gets too antsy.  She likes to chastise Simpson.  I think we need to model better behavior for her!  She loves putting on shoes and walking around, even if they don't fit or have wheels on them!  She enjoys watching cartoons in the morning with a cup of dry cereal and a sippy of milk.  This gives mom time to wake up and become functional. (Who am I kidding, I'm not functional until at least noon.) 

Future roller derby girl!

Daisy has been saying mama and dada since we got home and we assumed she was referring to us but now I am not so sure because of something that happened about a week ago.  We were sitting in the rocker, getting ready for a nap and she looked at me and said "mama?" and I said "yes, I'm your mama."  She got this look on her face like she had had a revelation and then said "mama!"  Ever since then she pats me and says "mama!" all the time and does the same to her dada.  It makes me sad and happy all at the same time.  I hope she will be happy with us as her family.  We are so happy to have her as our daughter and sister and love her so much!