Cutie pie..

Okay, I know...I'm prejudiced...I think my little bit is the cutest little munchkin on the planet. She and I are having so much fun now that she's getting bigger. She's starting to be more interactive with her toys and with me and Andy. She's discovered that she likes squishy things like blankets, stuffed animals, balls, towels, and Mommy. So she's hugging everything. She goes 'baby' and makes me hug them. I give them back and she hugs them and giggles.

We've also been practicing blowing kisses. She blows kisses at me from the back seat and I grab them and take them. I was putting her to bed last night after doing bed boucing. She had laughed so hard I think she was about to bust a gut. She giggled all the way to bed and as I was going out the door she blew me a kiss.

We are still struggling with who is in charge and how to she should express herself when she wants something, but we're coming along.

We got rid of some of her older toys she was bored with at a consignment sale and we bought some other ones. She loves her mega block legos and books. Total book fiend...she sits and looks at her books all the time or gives them to us to read to her as well.

Well...that's an update for now. Much love to all.

Urge to post...

It's funny, but when I'm out of town is when I get the biggest urges to blog. I guess it started when we came home with little bit. It's been 6 months since we came home with Alina this week. I can't begin to say how different it is now compared to in the beginning.

Alina flew with me yesterday to a family reunion in Raleigh, NC. This is Nana's family (my Mom). We hooked up back in June with Andy's extended family in Michigan. One of my cousins was turning 90 so her only wish was a family reunion which hadn't happened in about 3-4 years.

I was worried about flying with Alina by myself. It was the first time flying without Andy and changing planes. We did great though. Love the Nashville Airport, they had a kids playing area right across from the gate where we were waiting for our flight to Raleigh. Got lucky in that the Raleigh flight had plenty of space so Alina had her own seat. She's such much easier to entertain as a self seated toddler versus the smaller munchkin. We looked at books for the first 30 minutes of the flight...ate pretzels...and played puppet games with the bag they put for sick people. So it worked out great.

Alina turned on the charm at the reunion looking all cute. Her hair has grown so much her bangs were almost to her nose so Mom cut her hair this morning. It was nice to see her eyes...she batted them and was cute and smiley. Fortunately we were at cousin Janey's house and she had a Pack-n-Play so Alina crashed for about 2 hours this afternoon for a nap. She with down without a fuss tonight as well in the hotel, snoozing right along after having a full day of fun, food, and then running around in the hotel and hotel room for about an hour. She sighed and rolled over to sleep...she's such a blessing and fortuantely for me a good little traveler.

Well, back home tommorrow. We fly through Balimore on the way back so it's a little longer trip. I hope I'm as lucky with empty planes.

Much love to all.

Sand in odd places...

There are things you want in life for your child. Straight teeth (Andy wants to avoid orthodontics), happiness, health, and generally you want them to feel safe. Well, silly girl,where Alina reacts opposite to what I expect.

Saturday we went to Gulf Shores and went to the beach for the first time. Alina had seen sand in June in Michigan, but it was so cold we couldn't stay long and she didn't want to touch the sand. Well she screamed and cried when I tried to put her onto the sand...but walking into the ocean we got swatted by a salty wave. She squealed in delight.

Kid absolutely loves water. I think she's going to be a fish once we teach her how to swim. I found out the YMCA has a class for Moms and kids starting when they are 3years old to learn how to swim. I'm going to work on her sooner though.

We saw my father and stepmother in Gulf Shores. Pop (my Dad) hadn't seen Alina walking and his first sight of her was when we were coming towards the restaurant. Alina was stomping her way on the sidewalk straight at him. I could see him melt. She's got him and her Daddy just twisted around her cute little finger.

I can definately say, she's got me too.

Daycare is going much better. This morning I took her into her class and put her morning snack down. She sat there pretty as a picture eating her cataloupe and watching some kind of kids show. I blew her a kiss and said 'bye bye'. She blew me one back, smiled, and turned back to her show. It was so funny. I felt dismissed by the queen. She's quite the character.

Well, love to you all...

Jealousy

Okay, I'm jealous. Alina is being stubborn. She calls out when she sees Andy now 'Dada' in that cute squeaky voice. She used to say 'Mama' occassionally, but now she won't say it all. It's all Dada...Dada...Dada...(no petty jealousy here).

Andy says it's just her word of the moment so she will wear it out and then pick something else.

Daycare was all week this week for the first time. No breaks, but she's done great. It's worked out well...I take her in the morning and Andy picks her up. He's a teacher so he gets off about an hour before I would and they are already home by the time I get home.

I thought originally that daycare would wear Munchkin out, but nooo....she's wired up. She plays all day...naps less...but is even more hyper. What's the deal with that. But she still goes to bed easy at night which a huge blessing. We've had to push her bedtime about 1/2 hour in order to get her to bed and she's ready to go easily.

Love to all.

Over 4 months..hitting daycare

I was remembering about two weeks ago about the journey of the last 4 months. We came home with our little girl on March 28th. It's unbelievable to me that I've had this wonderful addition to my life such a short time ago, but she's become such an integral part of all of our lives.

We've turned this little girls life upside down and inside out since we snatched her out of her baby home. She's not that withdrawn little girl we were playing with quietly. She's a dive bombing little amazon who is running around. She used to be quiet and introspective to start. Now she's coming with books and presenting them to Mommy or Daddy to read to her. I don't know if she'd ever seen a book much before we saw her. She didn't know what to do with one other than chew on it or throw it. Now we MUST read or she is not happy.

She clearly knows her name is Alina...but also answers to Munchkin, Munchie, and booboo. Don't ask me how we ended up with these ridiculous nicknames, but we did.

When we first started everything, I was the primary caregiver for almost 12 weeks. Then Andy took over and we introduced Mother's Day Out 2 days per week. (Okay as Andy demands, Father's Day Out). Well this past two weeks we've introduced Nana (Grandma) care for a week and then this week we started Daycare....lots of changes in a little girls life.

Monday we started daycare at our church. We deliberately waited for our church daycare and also tried very hard to make this transition week easier with my Mom's help. She's been getting her out a little earlier than we will starting next week. The first day we went to daycare and all the other children that were there were so tiny and bald. Alina was a head taller and has so much hair.

We thought it was because she is so much bigger. Yesterday I went to class to drop her off with her teacher and I saw all the 5 other children. None of them walk yet. She looked like the Jolly Green Giant with munchkins from the wizard of oz. I asked how old they were and they were 9-12 months. Alina is 16 months now. They had put her in the wrong class. So after 3 days of trying to return her to a morning nap, they've put her into the right class with other 16-18 months kids. She will be with 4 little boys and 1 little girl...we shall see how this change goes...

Sorry I haven't updated the blog in so long, but we've been swamped with work and life. Love to you all. I'll try to be more regular about it.

Updates..

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted. In that time Alina has grown another few inches, is fully walking, and has picked up one more word.

Alina is now about 14.5 months and we're starting to have to pull out 18-24 month clothes. We have a little Amazon on our hands.

She can walk around the house and wherever for a pretty good distance. She actually has gotten used to shoes and is more stable. But overall, she's still a little wobbly.

She now has a 5 word vocabulary: Momma, Dada (Daddy), Bye-bye and the last two are 'Uh-Oh' and 'Woof'. She's been learning vocab from the dog.

We have two more weeks of home time with Alina until she starts Daycare. The routine with Andy and going to Mother's-Day-Out two days a week has worked great. We're sincerely hoping that August will go as smoothly as the transition in June.

Love to all...

Smug Baby...

I have a smug little girl. She's so proud of herself. She leaned up against the couch and then took 6 steps to me. Then she started playing and walking around the living room. She's still trying to cruise a little bit, but she had a definate breakthrough tonight as she was walking around more.

Prior to this is was walk two steps ... FALL...walk two steps...FALL. But she's stopped doing the tippy toes and is doing flat footed.

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July. We're going to visit Andy's Mom.

Love to all.