One month

Claudia has now been home for a full month!  It does not seem like it has been that long, yet it seems like she has been here all along.

She has come so far in the 9 weeks we have known her and continues to progress regularly.  We are excited to get her into therapies so that she can do even better.  We really need to work on strengthening her legs.  She gets soo tired when we make her walk.  She does not like to do it much so we try to make a game out of it.  We make up a lot of games to play.  Claudia still does not quite get how to play with toys.  There are a few she will interact with but mostly she just wants to thrown them.  Including the heavy, hard plastic ones.

Here are some tid-bits on Claudia:

She LOVES eggs, and potatoes (in any form but especially french fries and chips ugh!)  When she eats these she is ravenous!  She also really enjoys rice and grilled cheese.  She will eat almost anything in soup.  We are working on how to use a spoon but there are still many messes to be had in that area (pictures later).  I think her favorite part of the day is meal times.  She loves food.

Claudia thinks our dog Bazooka is a ride-on toy.  She enjoys climbing over him, again and again and again...  He is such a gentle giant and likes to just hang out with her, even if she does occasionally pull on his ears or tail.  We are still working on "be gentle."  We have a long ways to go before she really gets it I think (ideas welcome).  Claudia also likes to pretend to give the dogs food.  I don't think they get it yet that she really does not have anything! 

When we first got her, we had trouble getting Claudia to sleep.  Then she got better and it was little trouble at all.  Now we are somewhere in between.  Some nights she goes down easily and others it takes a while and some effort on our part.  She trys to make herself stay awake by playing with her hands or talking to herself.  Many times I will play with her hair to help her settle down, yesterday she started grabbing my hand and putting it on her head lol!  She can be demanding :)  Her PJ's say it best "Still hanging on."

Don't mind the snotty nose, she still has a little cold.

Here is our messy eater with tomato soup... you would think I enjoy torturing myself...

 

 

Overall Claudia is doing great.  We can't wait to see what the next month holds for her!

A special post

Claudia and I have been a bit under the weather since yesterday.  I will admit it is pretty funny watching Jason deal with yucky boogers though!  In all honesty, Jason has been such a blessing the last couple of days.  He has let me sleep in and has gotten up with Claudia and gotten her ready for the day.  I am so blessed to have him and that he has a job that will let him go in at whatever time he wants... to an extent.  Thankfully Claudia is not very sick, just has a little cold with some gross boogers :-p  She is still as active as ever.

 

Today I had a chance to start going through and translating some of the documents that we got from her foster family.  It sounds like they all loved her very much.  Claudia was with them from the time she was 6 months old up until we got her.  I am so glad that she was in foster care and that she stayed with one family the entire time.  I cannot imaging how she would be if this had not been the case.  Anyway, I wanted to share with you all Claudia's baby pictures.  These are the youngest pictures that we have of our little girl.  At the time the pictures were taken she was very tiny and weak according to her records.

 

I think she still looks much the same, she still has her chubby cheeks too!  My oh my do I love this girl!

 

Next week we have our first post-adoption home visit with our social worker and we also have our evaluation for the school district.  Hopefully this will allow Claudia to enter preschool in April and get the therapies she needs.  Please pray that we will both be super healthy next week :)

Look familiar?

See this dress... does it look familiar to anyone? (don't mind the poor quality photos, Claudia was having fun trying to walk toward/head dive onto me while I was trying to take pictures, and as you can see, she thought it was hilarious!)

 

How about now?

Yep, she came with it!  It is definitely shorter on her now and her belly does not make for a nice seam anymore :)

Day at the Zoo!

This really was a very busy week. 

On Thursday, Claudia had to get blood drawn for some lab work.  Everyone there absolutely adored her.  It took 3 of us to get the blood though, my poor girl had to be poked in both arms :(  The bandaids they used were super stiff and one ended up cutting into her arm in a matter of hours.  Also, one site bruised pretty badly.  Claudia did NOT like having the blood taken and kept tensing up and fighting it.  I do not want to take her again for that any time soon!

On Friday she spent the morning at Jason's moms house and the afternoon shopping/errand running with me.

Today's we had a nice outing with some friends of ours at the zoo and then at Chuck e Cheese.  Claudia was interested in some of the animals and had a good time although she did not pay much attention to most of them.  I think she had a difficult time seeing a lot of the animals unless they moved.  She liked watching the raccoons, wolves and the rhinos though! 

It's not as cold out as it looks, the snow is deceiving!

Just lounging around

Noah and Claudia, on a safari

I think s/he was making fun of us

After the zoo we went to Chuck e Cheese for lunch.  It is not anything like I remember.  There was not a lot for the little ones to do but Claudia did enjoy the rides.

All done!

Whack-a-mole for tots

She was riding a roller coaster simulation thing...

A fun filled day but there were far too many people at both the zoo and Chuck e Cheese, that's what we get for going out on such a beautiful day.  Overall Claudia did very well.  She is progressing every day.  Love my little girl!

Busy week

Claudia has had a busy week!

I have not had a lot of school this week so Claudia has gotten lots of mommy time in.  It is so nice to get to spend time with my girl, not always easy but so worth it.  She has been extra cuddly lately and I love it!

On Tuesday she had her first visit with the pediatrician.  Poor girl needed 3 vaccinations to start getting caught up.  She did not like that one bit!  We had a long wait to see the doc so she was getting pretty antsy and frustrated by the time he came in to see her.  She does not like to sit still!  He asked if she smiled much... Well, she would if she was not so frustrated from waiting around in one room for almost an hour!  YES, she does smile!  She smiles so much more now than probably ever before.  In Colombia, the people are very stoic, so I don't think she saw many people smiling and that was part of the problem.  Anyway...  She has referrals to see 4 specialists and we are getting  LOT of lab work done today.  My girl is getting put through the ringer!

Claudia has great teeth but they want us to see a pediatric dentist soon.  She has to see an endocrinologist in the near future, a cardiologist and an opthamologist!  Thankfully I have spring break coming up, I know what I will be doing...

On Wednesday, Claudia got to play with her new friends Zachary and Benji.  She still is learning how to be gentle while playing with toys and other children, so i always feel bad when she goes for their hair!  Thankfully, my friends are understanding, I just hope we can help her through this stage quickly!!!  Before we wnet to see her new friends, Benji had a therapy session so he was tired for the visit but was enthralled by Claudia and did his best to play alongside her.  I hope these two get to be great friends!  Below are some pics and a video of Claudia and Benji on their play date:

 

Being Silly

Claudia was so full of silliness this morning, I had to capture some of it!  Please don't mind the poor audio quality!

Updates

Life with a toddler sure is busy... 

Claudia keeps us on our toes all of the time.  She is adjusting so well being home.  I wanted to give you a little info on how she is doing , so here it goes:

We are getting more and more cuddles from her!  There are less and less negative behaviors as well.  She still has a ways to go with the hair pulling... her own and everyone else's!  I have a hard time keeping her hair neat, ok it is near impossible!  She still likes to remove and throw glasses. 

Claudia has been sleeping well for the most part although some nights she really does not want to fall asleep and fights it very hard!

She still has not quite figured out how to play with many toys, she likes to throw most of them.  There are a few interactive toys that she does play with for a fair amount of time before throwing them though.  She does not have much of an attention span to speak of.

Claudia eats really well, most of the time.  She will eat almost anything if she is in the mood.  Tonight she has been grumpy and just wanted to throw everything we tried feeding her.  It happens some days...

We are enjoying life being parents and accept the challenges as they come.  The three of us continue to learn together and things will get easier as out communication with each other improves.

I wanted to thank everyone again for their prayers and financial support of this adoption.  Without all of you, this would not even be possible.

Enjoy some photos!

Being a goof!

She loves looking at her reflection.

She loves this toy and likes the air it blows into her face too!

Two hands!

Yes, she is THAT flexible.