Two weeks, IncredAble Adventures

I truly can not explain how much this child changes me on a daily basis and how much she is changing! It has now been two weeks since I met my darling bunny girl and walked her out of that orphanage forever. And wow, what a whirlwind of two weeks it has been.
We were pretty busy with meeting and appointments for the first week and a half but have finally had the chance to just relax over the weekend and have no scheduled ‘appointments’ until Friday. Whew. What are we going to do with ourselves!

I must be ‘real’ here for a minute and say that I initially had a little moment of panic when we parted ways with Soraya on Friday with “Okay, we have nothing until next Friday, so have a great week!” My brain paused for a second and I thought, “uhhh, an entire week without anything scheduled, what are we going to do!?!” No meetings, no appointments, no lunches, no planned outings. I’m not tired of being here at all, nor am I bored or in that ‘ready to get home’ stage. (Not that I won’t be happy to be home, I’m just not ‘homesick’ so to say). But it was a little odd not to have that constant person who can answer questions, help get things done and make sure that everything is running smoothly. Not that anything was going to go wrong this week or that I wasn’t going to absolutely enjoy simply getting to be with my daughter. But I still felt (feel) so new to the town (though I am enjoying learning so much about Bogota and Colombia) there is so much I am still unsure of. I know that people are just a phone call away if I need anything at all, and the reality is we will be just fine and we will spend the days exploring and playing! And it will be great!

    We have done some exploring and plan to do more. (A another family arrived on Sunday and they had their encounter day today. The little boy they are adopting lived with J. From what we’ve been told their son and J spent a lot of their day together, so we’re planning on some exploring time together since the kiddos are already friends!) I’ve love to go the La Candelaria region and explore the old buildings and walk around the square. On Sunday we’re heading up to Usaquen to explore the market. I’ll let you know how are adventures end up! (And hopefully have some good ‘tourist’ pictures!)
It really has been so nice to just have a couple of days to just be us. J is getting a little healthier everyday (though we’re still doing regular, multiple times a day/everyday breathing treatments) she does seem to be improving slowly but steadily! And with that, I’m seeing so many more of her funny little antics showing through. She is really quite funny (and I know I’m partial, but even the other adults here crack up at her!). She is so expressive! Faces, gestures, and now, noise! She’s getting more vocal every day! We are actually working on ‘callarse, por favor’ and ‘no gritar, por favor’! (Be quiet, please and no yelling, please!) She babbles A LOT. Her only real word is ‘No’ and she uses it very regularly. She actually says ‘no’ or shakes her head ‘no’ even when she really means ‘yes’. (“Do you want a bath?” “NO!” as she tries to climb in the tub with her clothes on!) She does babble, ‘Mamama’, but I don’t see a real connection to those words being me…YET!
   We are working on some signing. Mostly, ‘Please’ to start off. She points and grunts or yells as her means of communicating (simply because she’s never been taught otherwise!) So, we’re starting off with please as kind of an all encompassing word. “Please, I want more”, “Please, I want up”, “Please, I need help”, “Please, I want to do that again”, “Please, I want that“, etc. She is such a smart little thing and has already used the ‘please’ sign a bit on her own, but we’re still working on it being a constant in her vocabulary!

I’m so proud of how brave she is. She is getting stronger every day, wanting to pull up and climb on things. She reaches up for me to take her hands and wants to stand with everything…me, the couch, toys outside, her chair, her stroller! I’m still on a hunt for shoes that fit correctly as I’m sure that will make even more of a difference in her standing and pulling up (at least while we’re here). I’m pretty sure once we get home and have a PT eval, that she’s going to need at least SMO’s, but correct fitting shoes certainly won’t hurt in the mean time!
She still loves to cuddle and I love that she just loves to be
held. She is such a snuggler and will bury her little head into my shoulder and just lay there completely content. And I am so relieved and overjoyed that she feels so safe with me. I lay down with her at naptime (she goes to bed just fine, but we’ve both missed 3 years worth of ‘snuggling to sleep’ time) and she will scoot her self over so she’s completely squished into my arms and just stare. Sometimes, I can’t look back because it brings tears to my eyes thinking that she’s missed out on so much and she is simply just soaking in every second of love and affection that she can.
Last night while we were out playing with one of the other families, the dad made a comment that they can see such a difference in my girl. He said it’s so amazing how much more active she is and social and (not that she wasn’t happy before) but he said “her happiness is so much more”. It really hits home that someone else can see how much my sweet bunny is growing and changing in just two short weeks of having a Mama. I am so in love with this little bundle of joy and I guess love is just what she needed.