Listening to Phebe's language evolve has been crazy cool. I just love how she learns and picks up little things from us all. Last week she put her first two associated words together and I was basically jumping up and down with excitement.
: I asked her if she did a pee-pee in her diaper, she pointed at her diaper and said "Diaper wet".
: A couple of days ago she hit her head on Lilah's cabinet door, pointed at it and said "Bang head".
: And today she pointed at my camera and said "Mama picture".
She can basically repeat all her talking toys now, right down to the 'bonjour' her phone says! And when I talk to her, she always repeats the last word I say. She will sit and repeat all the words Lilah tells her.
Of course I'm the Mama and possibly a little biased - but I think she's such a smartypants!
Here's a few of her words from the past few weeks: away, house, mittens, sure, where is she?, mirror, I dunno?, I see it!, toilet, pocket, diaper, wipes, toe, phone, all done!, watch, up high!, medicine, smile, cry, home, papie & nono (grandparents), na & pa (grandparents), potty, no touch, hot, clean up, potty
And a few movies of our little chatterbox...
The tummy bug arrived in our house today.
And I learned something new about my youngest baby girl. She throws up. Not in a nasty way, nope, in a quiet little way. And then she looks at it as if to say, "Where did that come from?"
I felt bad for her, every time I fed her, it came back up. Hopefully tomorrow she'll feel better.
i just love her little face...
When Lilah was a little girl, I used to sit her up on the countertop with her feet in a sink with warm soapy water - she loved it!
And today I did it for the first time with our little Phebster!
Truly, it's the simple things that make them happy.
Oh, and she kinda likes the idea of splashing her Mama too! This girl has nothing to learn around here!
And I just LOVE her smile of glee!
[ the flickr set is here ]
Definitely in my top five, maybe even my most favourite thing in the world right now, is seeing Phebe and Lilah's relationship with one another.
One of the things that frightened me about adopting again was whether or not my children would be compatible with one another... in fact, we even talked to our Adoption Practicioner about this when he came to meet us for our twelve month Post Placement with Lilah. And his wise answer was, you just never know, sometimes even biological siblings don't get along together! So it was faith and an answer to many of my heartfelt prayers, that these girls of mine are not only sisters... but also friends.
Their personalities are quite different and they'll each have something to learn from the other. Lilah loves to Mommy her little sister and Phebe just loves to copy everything Lilah does. Sure, they have their moments like any siblings, but I'm amazed at the tolerance they have for each other. Sometimes they sit together and read, sometimes they play quietly together, sometimes they play rough and sometimes they torment each other.
But at the end of the day, these girls are sisters. Maybe not by blood. But by love and adoration and togetherness.
We are a family, each chosen and placed together, by God Himself.
My little woman has been all stuffed up and snotty this past few days.
She's just about over it now... I felt so rotten for her, especially when she was coughing and sneezing, while sleeping. Yes, you read that right. I visted her a few times during the night, but she was still sleeping away, even while sneezing and coughing! Have I mentioned how much my girl likes to sleep?!
Anyway, during her little feeling blah period, there was a silver lining... because I got to enjoy a lot of extra snuggles. And I sure loved those snuggles!
She's my little snuggle bunny. She just loves to be held close and hugged and kissed and loved.
We received our first Christmas Card in the mail today.
The Christmas tunes are playing in the stores.
Santa is hanging out at the Shopping Mall.
AND
The girls are wearing their snowsuits.
(Thankfully not because it's snowing... yet. But just because they're cosy!)
I just love kids in snowsuits - they look all chunky and cute.
Especially this little one. I know, I'm pretty biased!
As a side note, I bought these snowsuits in one of my favourite UK stores, called NEXT.
They have an online catalogue and now ship to Canada, for free, within two business days!
We have another girl that loves her food! Yeah!
Phebe basically eats what she's given. Although there are a few things she turns up her nose at for one reason or another... Milk is one of those things. And although I was told few Asian people like milk, I still decided to work on her. She will take milk/cream in her oatmeal every morning, so I knew she didn't have any issues with it. Now she also LOVES yogurts drinks and she will drink milk if I mix it with chocolate milk - I usually mix 3/4 parts homo milk and to 1/4 part chocolate milk. So, she's definitely appreciating milk much better now, in one form or another.
When we got home, I made Phebe lots of yummy congee - which is rice in a soup stock, mixed with chicken, creamed corn, red peppers, mushrooms, spinach, etc... depending what I had in the fridge at the time. Lilah took on a whole new love of congee too, and the two of them would munch it down. But by week three of being home, Phebe was starting to look at our supper plates... she'd point at our food and then point into her mouth. I've said this before, but what Phebe can't say in words, she can definitely get (her message) across to us, in actions! Once she got a taste of some of our creamy saucy pasta dishes, sherperd’s pie, lasagne, pad thai, chicken kiev, sweet and sour chicken, irish stew, thai chicken fried rice ...well, it was obvious that she REALLY liked the new foods coming her way! This girl knows good food!
So now, the congee days are basically over and she's eating what we're eating.
At the start we couldn't fill our little monkey, she would eat and eat and eat, until I thought she might actually pop. I think she knew she had to stuff herself silly, because there were set times for feeding and definitely no snacking in between meals, during her orphanage life. But I feel now, she's realized that food is available whenever she wants it and she only needs to utter the words, "nom-nom" to get it. So the overstuffing has stopped.
She is rather independent and loves to feed herself. But at times she also likes me to feed her. And more recently, she has wants to hold the spoon herself, but she wants us to direct it into her mouth. We generally just go with the flow.
She uses the word 'nom-nom' for food and is able to tell us when she's hungry - which is awesome. She also points out all the food in magazines and books and says "nom-nom!" When she first came home she would get upset when I took her grocery shopping and put the food into the cart, behind her, she couldn't understand what on earth was going on. She would look at me disgruntled, wondering why I wasn't giving her anything to eat, even though the cart was full of food! There is so much for these little ones to learn, so many new things they've never experienced before.
Our girl loves her fruit, just like her big sister - oranges, bananas and apples are among her favourites. And ANY kind of dessert you might offer her, our littlest girl definitely has a sweet tooth!
Also, before meals we say Grace and we all hold hands, together. Well, Phebe is the first to remind us now, she says "Pray!" and says her "AMEN!" just perfect. Right now she also thinks we should say it several times during our meal, as she squeezes her eyes shut and reaches out her arms to hold hands, again and again! It certainly makes us chuckle! We also read a Bible story every night after our supper and again, Phebe now understands this routine. She points to the book on the shelf and says "Bib-el" and then says "Eh A Eh A Eh A" - this is how she 'reads'! Of course, she’s mimicking myself and her big sister, Lilah, although hopefully, our reading is a little more intelligent than that!) She will also put her finger to her lips and say "Shhhhhhhhhh!" - Indeed, she's understands the theory of keeping quiet during story time, we're still working on the practical part of being quiet!
When mealtime and story reading is over, she knows it's her time to get out of her seat and she can surely be heard a few blocks away, shouting: "ALRIIIIIIGHT!" It's almost seems like a "Phew! Get me outta here already!"
She's pretty irresistible. In fact, I could almost eat her myself!
On Monday I was doing a little cleaning and organizing. I have two memory boxes for my girls, filled with different little things that I hang onto, mostly from our trip to China, including the outfits our girls wore on the day we got them, and also special cards and emails, the candle from their first birthday cake, etc, etc. All these little things land in their memory boxes.
So during my little tidy up, I had Phebe's little dress, underwear, socks and also her little sandals all ready to put into the box, when Phebe spotted them... she picked up the dress and actioned for me to put the dress on her. Now, Phebe actioning me to put clothes on her, just doesn't happen around here! Usually I'm wrestling clothes onto a very giggly runaway child! After I put the dress on, she also grabbed the squeaky sandals, sat down and put them on, by herself.
It was a special moment. And seeing that she wanted to wear this dress and sandals, that was special too. I'm sure they brought back all sorts of memories for her. We actually sent this dress and the little sandals in two different care packages, during our wait to bring her home.
The first photo, below, was taken the day we got Phebe. This photo was our first glimpse of her, in reality. We walked into that room, expecting to have to wait for her to arrive, however, she'd already arrived and was sitting all alone on this little bench with (rightfully so) a very scared little face. I distinctly remember a sob catching in my throat, just seeing her there, sitting on that big bench, all alone.
And the second photo, I took on Monday, after putting her dress on - which happened to be over what she was already wearing that day! I love how her expression has changed now, from that scared little girl to a very confident little girl. And I know she will continue to grow and build more confidence over the next year. It is amazing how time, love and trust can change these little ones. As a friend rightfully said, these children come through so much, they are so courageous. And look at her beautiful hair, can you tell I am a teeny bit excited that I can get a barrette into it now?!
How thankful I am that God chose her, for us. How I love her.
First, she presses the music button on her play truck, which plays a cheesy construction tune!
...and then, she likes to move it - move it!
Her dance routine cracks me right up! No idea where she's seen this before.
I love her joy! She is such a happy girl. Always smiling and laughing. And I am a happy Mama.
She's been in our arms two months today... and yet it feels like forever.
We are ridiculously in love with you, Phebe Jayne.
We have a chatterbox on our hands!
Anything we say, Phebe believes she can say too... she chatters all day long and I love that!
She chatters for herself and she chatters for her Tigger - and many of her other favourite stuffed animals too! I love hearing her little voice and I love her quirky ways. She is a real fun loving girl and she makes us grin, a lot!
One of the things that makes me laugh is her ability to pick up expressions: Like some of the ones I must say around the house regularly: "Dear dear!", "Oh dear!", "Oh-Oh", "Alriiiiiight!", "Have fun!", "No touch!" and "Oh boy!".
She has so many words now, here's a few of my favourites: shower, doggie, tights (we Irish call stockings, tights!), pumpkin (sounds more like pun-tin!), chin, bum up and bum down (while changing her diaper), all done, cry, banana (said like nana), hair, night-night, okay, bath, boots, shoes, hat, backpack, sunshine, wet, shower, car, careful (sounds like fulful), tick-tock (for the clock), glasses, bible.
And here are a few of my favourite Phebeisms, so far...
She makes loud grunting noises on the potty, even if she's not doing a thing. And how she screws her face up, it just cracks us up! And when she does something, there is a very VERY loud happy dance ensues.
She will put on a pair of play eye glasses (we seem to have an abundance of them!) and run to the full length mirror to look at herself.
She will listen to her heart with the toy stethoscope a lot, I guess she’s had this done a fair bit, in her lifetime!
When I turn the light on, in her bedroom, first thing in the morning, she says “Oh, sunshine!” and squints her eyes. She basically does this about any light and also outside, when the sun is in her eyes!
When we open the front door in the morning, the cold air comes in and she lets out a shrill “Brrrrrrrrrrrr”.
On our walk up to school to pick Lilah up, she sings in her stroller at the top of her lungs, seriously, she gets us a lot of attention! She will sing: “Li-lahhhhh, where are you?”
When I ask her if she wants chocolate she puts her finger to her lips and quietly says “Shhhhhhhhhh”, and then holds out both her hands! Chocolate is the only thing she holds out two hands for!
When she is very tired and upset over something, she will pout and clap her hands together once, with a cross face! I’ve noticed that she has pretty much stopped doing this now, mostly it was only Lilah that got this reaction!
Anything she hands to you, she says “ta-ta” and she also says the Mandarin word for thank you, "xie xie"… she regularly uses them both together, ta-ta : xie xie.
When she doesn’t know something, or doesn’t know where someone is, she’ll walk around with one hand in the air, her shoulders shrugged and a questioning look on her face.
She is obsessed with anything dirty… whether it be herself (usually her face while eating, we constantly have to clean it!) or a child with a messy face in a book – she gets a wipe and tries her hardest to clean it off! She points and says “dity”. It sounds very posh!
When all the scary Halloween stuff was out - she'd point and say: “Eeks!” She even says “Eeks” over the x-ray (skeleton) picture in her abc book!
When she bumps herself, she will look at and touch the offending object she bumped herself on and say “Bang” and “Ouch!”
She always makes the same expressions as people in books and magazines… or the same hand placement, or stance. It cracks me up!
She has started putting her (pointer) finger up and saying “one minute” to us - this is an expression we say regularly... like if I need to run upstairs for something, I put up my finger and tell her I'll be one minute.
She has no idea about her size yet and the size of her toys. She will try to sit on a tiny car or try to get her foot into the door of a little play bus. Or she will try to fit into her dolls clothes. She finds it rather frustrating to not fit!
She regularly walks around with her stuffies, she makes their arms wave and says “bye-bye” for them. She also makes them cry and then hugs and comforts them.
When she hears music, she automatically dances, bending her knees and bopping her head!
