August 16 ’06 - Daily changes – AMAZING!
For Lacie’s forever-family day, we went to the zoo with another family who traveled with us to China and got their beautiful daughter Annika. That evening, we stayed up late (late nap actually) and watched the video of the day we got Lacie, showed her the outfit she came to us in, and just spent time together as a family. While watching our forever-family day video, Lacie saw mama holding her and loving on her when she was a little 9 month old. When she saw that, my dear toddler could not figure out what baby mommy was holding. She did not like it. For the rest of the video, she would not look at me or sit on my lap or hug me. She went and sat on Daddy's lap for most of the video. We watched a few more clips too of us at the hotel and singing to her and playing with her. By then she thought the “baby” was funny. I asked her, “Where is Lacie?” Lacie patted her own chest. I asked, "where is baby Lacie ManMan" and she pointed to the TV. I think it is funny that she was jealous of herself. How cute! She did let me hug on her and kiss her before she went to bed that night.
She is beginning to try and dress and undress herself. She works on it like she will be tested at school. She will get a T-shirt and practice and practice until she gets it on correctly. She has done the same thing with her shoes. One day a couple of weeks ago, she worked and worked on putting on her shoes. She finally succeeded and oh, my, she was so proud of herself. Her shoes were on the wrong feet, but imagine my delight, and hers when I began to praise her for getting those shoes on. I told her to go show daddy. She was just so excited she could not get to him fast enough to show him she got her shoes on by herself.
Usually when one of gets home and Lacie is already here with the other parent, Lacie will get excited and run around the room and then to us and want us to hold her and hug her tight. Well, about a week ago, when I got home from work, and instead of running around the room and then to me singing MaMa, MaMa, MaMa, she just stood up and began to do summersault after summersault after summersault. I did not know she knew how to do that. She does them pretty well I must add. Future gymnast? Possibly!
A few days ago after we got home from school, she sat on the couch and began to look at a magazine. Every few pages she turned, she would stop and put her little fingers up to her mouth and lick them, and then turn a few more pages. She did this about 10 times as she was viewing the magazine. I was quite amused, of course and most of the time she did not use her moistened fingers to turn the pages. I think Daddy is the finger licking page-turner in the family.
Lacie's language explosion is happening. She is beginning to imitate most everything we say or try to anyway, and she says some words that I did not know she knew. For example, last weekend, Lacie pointed to her elbow and said, “elbow.” It was that clear. She also pointed to an apple about a week ago, and said, “apple.” She had been calling apple sauce, “at-da.” She still tries to use that term, but since she can now say apple, I try and encourage her to say, “apple-da.” She is beginning to put words together too to make short sentences.
This past weekend at my family reunion while a bunch of us were talking, someone obviously said something funny cause we all began to laugh hard. I was holding Lacie on my hip and she began to say, "MaMa, MaMa, MaMa." Then to get my attention, she grabbed my chin, turned my head toward her and said, "MaMa - happy!" It is so cool that she is recognizing happiness in others, and not just herself.
After two nights in a cabin with her cousin Nathan at the family reunion last weekend, Lacie got up on our bed and began to jump on it. I took her hands to balance her so she would not fall. I asked her, "Lacie, who taught you to jump on the bed?" Lacie replied with, "Na-tan." All good and fun things should be credited to your bigger cousin, don’t you think?
Last night after I trimmed her nails, she took the clippers and held my hand real tight and still – and pretended to clip my nails. She even turned and tilted her head like she was trying to get a better look at my nails – like I do with her. But when I am doing her nails I tilt and turn my head to try and focus under my glasses instead of through - since I am about to need bifocals.
Lacie does or says something new every single day. I wish I had time to record it all for her. This is the time in our toddler-hood that we need to capture all the fun, funny and interesting things she says and does. But – it happens every single minute at this time in our lives. I hope I can capture and journal most of the highlights for her too.
BTW - she is sleeping through the night now - Yea God!Check below - a Year in Review of photos - July '05 to July '06.
Love to all our family and friends at home and in China
Vonda and John and Lacie
posted by Vonda and John at Wednesday, August 16, 2006
1 comments
