first christmas together

We are fast approaching our first christmas together as a family, and so we decided to take Netsanet downtown for her first Santa picture. People often ask us after seeing her pictures, "is she always smiling?" The answer is yes, most of the time... but as you can see from her Santa picture, not all the time. This has got to be the saddest Santa picture ever. She couldn't even sit on Santa's lap without almost throwing up from fear and screaming, so I held her for the picture. Even holding her near Santa made her cry her eyes out! My parents said it's just like my first Santa picture ;-)

Aside from Santa terrors, the little bear is happy and active, with bouts of cantankerous behaviour. She is walking and running all over the place and almost never sits still. She's so happy to be walking on her own, and we go for walks around the block on the weekend. It gets dark so early now that it's hard to go for walks after work :( She loves walking outside and insists on grabbing a leaf in each hand to wave like a flag as she runs. We've been learning "stop" when she gets to the curb. I started teaching her by running behind her and putting my hand in front of her stomach and saying "stop!" every time she got to the curb edge. She learned that it's a fun game to pat her stomach at the curb while shouting 'top!' and then run toward the street. Oh well, at least it's a start! She'll stop for a second when I say stop, which gives me a little time to grab her. It's not bad in our neighborhood because there isn't much traffic on our street. But for downtown outings, I see a baby leash (harness, or whatever they call those things) in her future. I never thought I'd use one on my child, but it's a different story when you see her racing toward the street in a busy downtown area.

A couple of weeks ago we had the refinalization hearing for the adoption and all went well....aside from Netsanet releasing a few sounds I like to refer to as "birth control screams" during the hearing (she didn't appreciate being held still and wanted to explore behind the judge's bench). Now we have started the process to get her certificate of American citizenship and passport, so that should take a few months.

Net absolutely loves daycare and I think she gets really bored with us when she doesn't see her daycare buddies for more than a day. Even though she's the baby, she's not shy about making her opinion known and apparently the other kids spend most of the day bringing her things to play with. We're trying not to spoil her, but the kids at daycare may just do it for us! Kidding aside, it's such a relief to know that she's happy and that everyone at daycare is happy she's there.

She's eating like her nickname now (little bear) and really puts it away. She's eating all kinds of solid food, and particularly enjoys vegetables, beans, noodles, prunes, and cheddar cheese. The tummy has become extremely round (I LOVE it!) and I think she's headed for another growth spurt. At her last doctor visit in the end of November, she measured in the 80th percentile for height and the 65th for weight. This means she's taller than 80% of kids her age and heavier than 65% of kids her age. Such a difference from 8 months ago when she was off the bottom of those same growth charts! Her growth curve has been exponential and the doctor gushes with excitement about it every time we come in.

In addition to her physical growth, you can really see her mental processes. She's 'testing' everything which can be a pain (we've had to block electrical outlets with furniture where possible so she doesn't play with electrical plugs and sockets around the house), and she craves new information. We read several books to her every night and lately she's getting obviously sick of the same books. She gets squirmy and slams the pages around, but quiets down if we switch a new book into the mix. I think she's very intelligent, which will be both a blessing and a curse ;-)

Her personality has also become a lot more outspoken. She's very shouty now, and sings as well - she's got the start of the alphabet song down, and ring around the rosy (they do these at daycare apparently). It's pretty funny when I come home after work, because sometimes I can hear her a few houses away if she's hollering. She used to be so quiet that our neighbor commented she could never hear her, compared to her grandson about the same age. I don't think we'll hear those comments anymore!

She likes to play a lot of games now, and loves giving us some wrestling moves if we lay on the floor at her height. She also gives "5" and likes clapping games. It's exhausting to keep up with her after a long work day, but it's rewarding to see that huge bright grin and see her mind processing all this new stuff. It sure keeps life active in these dark winter days!