July 13 2006 Forever Family Day First Anniversary

It is so hard to believe it has been a year since we first met Lacie. As I look through photos from a year ago and also our videos from our trip to China I am amazed at how much she has grown and is really no longer our baby but our wild little toddler.

Since our last post, you might imagine a lot has happened. It has. I wish I had kept a better blog because so much goes on and I do not remember everything. Lacie is 21 months old now. Our daughter is a beautiful, intelligent, charming, loving, energetic, humorous, hot tempered, stubborn, strong willed, and fearless climber. If it can be climbed on – she will figure out a way. She will even create “steps” out of her wet wipe containers and/or books, etc to help her get to where she is going – UP!

In her short time in the U.S. she has become quite famous. As I wrote before, she was on the news in October briefly as they filmed children at the Zoo for Halloween trick or treating. This spring, she was on the cover of a churches newspaper for the Easter edition – this is a real newspaper that is circulated all over the city. For mother’s day, we decided to partake in the mother/daughter look a like contest for the same paper. We did not win, but I thought we did well to post a picture. The pic we used was one posted last of us brushing our teeth together.

Lacie had her first real injury in the spring called nursemaids elbow. While getting out of her car seat, and while having one of her tempers and she arched her back and she slid down and got hung up in the arm/chest straps. She began to cry. John got her out, rocked her for a while and then she got better. We fed her, dressed her for bed and put her down. While changing her she cried a little more than usual but I just thought she was tired. The next morning she would not move her left arm – but only cried when we moved it. We both feared she had dislocated her shoulder the day before. John called the doctor and took her in. The doc took one look at her and diagnosed her. He just popped it back in place within seconds and she immediately began using her arm and seemed to be fine. This is apparently a very common thing that happens to kids under four. It technically is a partial elbow dislocation. OUCH!

At her 18 month check up she weighed 25 pounds and was 31.5 inches long. She is 50% height and weight. She still eats like a little pig. We cannot figure out whre she puts it all. Lacie loves fruit Bars. She calls them "Bea que Bar" for "breakfast bar." She also loves "At qua" which is applesause. She calls our standard poodle, Jonah, "NaNah." She recently began saying, "gee down," "ma more" as she hols up one little finger wanting one more, "hup" means help. This we taught her so she won't get too frustrated. She also does the sign for help. She recently began saying "daddy doe?" This means "where did daddy go?" It is so cute. Daddy can leave the room for two seconds and she begins her chant, "daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy doe?" She has many words now and we can't keep track. She still prefers to use her signs though.

As I mentioned above, she is a very loving child. She loves to give hugs and kisses. She loves on the dogs and kisses them. She is a special girl. One day after being out with friends all day without John and me (the first time we left her more than a couple of hours), and after our friends brought her home, she was so so so excited to see us. She ran back and forth between us, “Daaa-dy” and she would go hug John. Then she would run to me, “Mamma” and then she would hug me. She did this over and again. At one point, she squeezed my cheeks in her little hands and she kissed my face about four times. I melted. We so love this child. I just can’t imagine loving something or someone any more. And she completely has John wrapped!

We are still struggling with sleep – she seems to catch a healthy 4 hour nap and gets up somewhere between 12 midnight and 1:30 a.m. Sometimes she will go right back to sleep but others – she is AWAKE! We always stay in her room in the dark. I would never want her to think it is a time to play. On the rare occasion we take her to our bed, she flops and wiggles – getting more energetic so that really does not work either. The other night I went into her room to comfort her a minute. She wanted me to rub her belly. I refused because she needed to just go to sleep. So she took my hand, opened it and put it on her belly and began to lift my hand up and down as if to pat it. She is no dummy. Yes, I gave in – do not tell daddy.

Here are some pics: This is our grown up daughter on her new climbing toy that we got her for our Forever Family Day celebration. She loves it. More pics to come in a few days I promise. Maybe a "year in review."