What a Week!

What a difference a week makes. In some ways it is hard to believe we have already been home over a week, in other ways, it seeems like we have been home forever. We have taken the days very slowly with meeting others and going out. We felt it best to let her continue to bond with us all and not introduce too many to her at once. It is paying off as every day she seems more and more at ease here. When she does meet our friends she is very friendly to them and warms up quickly. She is definitely a people person and wants to know their names and refers to them with their name and "Mama's amiga". It is heart warming!

She has begun venturing off to play on her own in her room and understands when Daddy has to go to work or Becca goes to volleyball or Drake or Luke go to a friend's house. She seems to understand they will come back and we will all be together again. That is a huge step, both in her accepting that and in being able to communicate these things to her! Last week, I couldn't sit for 5 minutes without her wanting me right there with her.

Her fear of Petey, our dog, also is diminishing. She now loves to pet him, and kiss him, and bug him nonstop. We aren't sure what Petey is thinking of all this, but he is taking it all in stride, except for hiding under beds any chance he gets. He is enjoying the fact that she wants to feed him anything she is eating. He has had more crackers and chips this weekend than at any other time in his life.

She doesn't enjoy tv or movies much, but she will watch her Old McDonald video and any episode of Dora she can catch and be entertained for a good 20 minutes. Good for her English and for my sanity. Speaking of English (pun intended) she has begun to repeat words that we say to her. She says them over and over and tries to pronunciate them correctly. We praise her for her attempts and she smiles widely at us. I think she is just as ready to communicate well with us as we are with her. If she wants to tell us something that we aren't understanding, she has begun using hand motions or taking our hand and showing us what she wants. The frustration that used to come and lead to a fit is waning daily!

I still pull out our Spanish dictionary daily and have wowed my friends here (ok, so they act wowed and humor me). They actually think I know Spanish. Little do they know I am butchering it and know it barely at a 4 year old level. It works though! The boys are even speaking more and more in Spanish and I hear them speaking to each other occasionally and we all laugh. We do get crazy looks in Target and Wal Mart (the only places we have ventured out yet) as we piece together conversations with her.

It is hard to remember what our lives were like before her, though it still hasn't all completely sunk in! She brings challenges and joys to our lives everyday! I praise God that the joys far outweigh the challenges! He is so faithful and trustworthy!