This new life is beginning to feel normal... and I like it.

It's been eight weeks since we met our daughter. The past week and a half since I posted last has held some of the best days yet. It was middle of last week actually that I felt like Michella and I were beginning to hit our stride together. It is hard to tell what is the reason for this other than a variety of good things happening all at once.

What do I attribute this recent success and parenting satisfaction to? Let me reflect...

• Prayer - I know many of you having been praying for us and it is no doubt helping. We are grateful. And I am learning to pray and rely on the Lord more in my new role as a mother. I have felt a definite shift recently in the amount of grace and joy I am experiencing.

• We are sleeping at night. Both of us. No need to explain why sleep makes everything better.

• She is consistently napping. Nap times no longer require a fight. She is even napping in her crib and seems to enjoy it!

• Because of the first two points, we are both getting the sleep we need and I am getting a relatively consistent 1-1.5 hours of time in the day to get a few things that require my full attention done. For a detail-oriented, organized person, this is so helpful for me and my sanity.

• Michella is doing AMAZING! She has become quite social and has started interacting and playing with friends and visitors. She is really falling in love with her daddy and is able to spend longer periods of time with him. She even fell asleep on him for the first time last weekend! And then did it again the next day while we were out. She is regularly reaching for him and showing spontaneous affection for him. She has also become more affectionate with me. She daily and often hugs me tight, runs to me with a huge smile on her face after time with daddy (as opposed to "losing it" and suddenly crying out for me in agony like before), kisses me, grabs my arm just to hold it, etc... Her highly emotional tantrums have slowed down to almost never and is just generally more secure and comfortable especially in our home. She dances and sings and laughs throughout the day. Many of you have blessed us in cards and email to have unspeakable joy as a family. I can say we are regularly experiencing that.

• Some reading Ellyn Satter books. Ellyn Satter is a dietitian with tons of experience working with families regarding food and feeding - from infancy to the teenage years. I pulled out her books for a little guidance on feeding Michella and how I could improve. Not only did I find that, I found sections on "Understanding Your Toddler" and "Feeding is Parenting." As I read, things just began to click for me and I was excited to apply what I learned. She says that you'll do fine as long as you don't let your toddler control you and you don't try to control your toddler, i.e. set loving but firm boundaries on things that are really important but give lots of room and space for them to explore and learn. Don't be over-permissive and don't be over-controlling. Bingo!! I love the balance. I love Ellyn Satter's work and as far as feeding goes, I am convinced her way is the way to go. I used to base much of my teaching on infant feeding years ago on Ellyn Satter books but I never read up on anything past age one. Her hallmark is the Division of Responsibility. The more recent of the two books I have is called Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. Highly recommend it.

•  A phone conversation with a dear friend who gave me some great advice. "Be a Yes Mom." Say yes to as many things as possible. (Thanks Jennell!) This really correlated with what I learned from Ellyn Satter. I think this is right on when it comes to the toddler's need to explore her environment and learn to be autonomous by developing new skills. Of course this is not in lieu of setting appropriate boundaries and having some sort of age-appropriate discipline (training) in place for unacceptable behaviors. The point is, narrow down the unacceptable behaviors to those that are truly harmful, disrespectful, damaging, etc.. and no longer try to stop behaviors that are simply annoying or messy just for my own sake and my need for control and order. Things can be cleaned up/put back later. It was an A ha! moment. Now this is how I intend to go about it at least for this stage when Michella's ability to reason is still quite limited. I imagine things will change at some point later one and I'll deal with that then.

I do know that Michella has been steadily progressing and that has not changed. What is new is that I am beginning to understand her better and this is enabling me to parent her in a more successful way. The result? A happier daughter and a happier mommy. The hardest part is definitely behind us. Whew!

Andrey was away for three days last week. Initially I was really worried about being on my own with Michella. In weeks past I was regularly having some very frustrating and tiring days with her and the fact that she was now okay with having short play times with daddy meant that I got a much-needed, short break from Michella-care when Andrey came home from work each evening. Naturally I was worried how I would do without this new, beloved luxury.  But it so happened that the sudden increase in success in my parenting I experienced coincided with Andrey's absence. That, plus the socializing I planned for a few hours each day he was away, made for a surprisingly good few days.

We had our first of three post-placement home studies last Friday. Our social worker was amazed with how well Michella is doing and said that she usually doesn't see this much progress by the first visit but commonly sees it by the second visit 3-4 months in. We are more than pleased. Michella is a bit language-delayed (to be expected in a post-institutionalized child) but other than that, we do not have any other concerns. And actually, as far as language is concerned, we aren't worried. We are confident she will catch up in time. We are already seeing evidence of this in the new words she surprises us with.

Andrey's parents arrived this week! They will be here for a month. What fun to see them meet their granddaughter for the first time. Michella has done beautifully with them - way better than expected. She is truly enjoying getting to know them. She plays and interacts with them easily, even sometimes without Andrey nor I in the room. They have already had many fun times together and it's only been two days since they arrived.

They're arrival was just in time for American Thanksgiving. We kept it simple and enjoyed a lovely dinner together. It's the first year in many that I didn't cook a feast for a crowd. What a special day though - our first Thanksgiving with Michella. It felt really special just because of that. Both Mom and I felt a bit emotional at a few points in the day. What good times.

Lou & Marilyn's visit is timely. Andrey will be traveling for 9 days in early December. It will be especially great to have them around while he's away. Unfortunately he'll be away during his and his mom's birthdays.

We're taking them to the beach tomorrow for two nights, back to the place we were at two weeks ago. I'll post more pics and video of the past week or so at a later time as it's late here and I got to get to bed. (Please forgive any mistakes in this post as I'm not going to edit it.) For now I'll just leave you with one family shot from a wedding we went to last weekend...

Beach Weekend

Okay so I may have gone a little overboard with the pictures here but I know the grandparents will enjoy the large quantity. ;-)

We had a wonderful weekend away. I am so glad we were able to get away for a few days. Andrey is especially busy at work these days so it is really great that he was able to pull himself away for our first family road trip.

We are learning that Michella LOVES to travel! She is so curious and interested in new surroundings. She doesn't seem bothered in the slightest by being in a new place and slept really well while we were away. And she did great on the 3 hour drive. For the first time she didn't want to sit in my lap but chose to sit in between me and Andrey (with a lap belt). She did this because she wanted to be closer to him. This became clear when she would lean her head in his lap or put her arm around his. Of course every time I whipped out the camera to capture this, it was over. Before we sat her between us, she even tried to crawl in his lap and give him a big hug and a kiss while he was driving! So cute but for obvious reasons we couldn't allow it.

A quick side note here as I know you must be asking, "What? She's not in a car seat?" and that is a very valid question. 1) We don't have a car seat (yet). They cost between $400-$500 USD here for the same car seat that costs $150-$200 in the US. 2) Most people don't use car seats here and we rarely drive over 30 kph and 3) This is only temporary. We have a car seat on the way (thanks to a generous donation of some friends from the UK) and should have it this month. Then the transition begins. My goal is to have her totally used to it before we travel to the States in April when she'll have no other choice. We will start by making short trips in the neighborhood with me sitting next to her, then build on that with longer trips, and eventually get to the point where I can drive again. Oh the freedom that will bring - to be able to put her in the car seat and drive somewhere. I am currently doing all our errands and grocery shopping via taxi and get to carry everything AND Michella. Fun. I can not wait till I can drive again!

There have been a few other developments that show progress. She is no longer needing to be physically attached to me to fall asleep anymore. For the past week she has laid next to me and eventually falls asleep. She will say over and over, "Night" or "night night!" and roll over back and forth until she's sufficiently relaxed to rest. When she sits up and gives me a big, playful smile in hopes of more play time, I just calmly tell her to lie back down and she will. Eventually she falls asleep. Oh and she started this. One night last week after she was really drowsy and very close to falling asleep, she just rolled off of me. These days I hold her for a little while to read a book and pray but as soon as that's done she's ready to lie on her own. She says, "higda?" (lie down?) and points to the bed next to me. Okay sure, great, let's lie down!

As for nap times, I have been having her sleep in her room on the floor for the past several days. And at other times she has shown interest in her crib so I let her play in there and we played pretend nighttime. She'd say, "higda" and lie down with a blanket, ask for a pillow and fake sleep for a few seconds before popping up and smiling very pleased with herself. I picked up on this and thus started the sleeping in her room but today I thought I'd give the crib a try. I totally did not expect anything to come of it but to my surprise she was happy to lie down. I got her her doll, pillow and a light blanket and then laid on the floor next to her, told her it was 'night night' and proceeded to avoid eye contact. For about 15 minutes she quietly played with her "baby," continually said, "night," fidgeted with her blanket then fell asleep. This is so fantastic! So that's where she is now as I type this. And because our rooms have an adjoining bathroom, I am able to sit on our bed and have a direct line of sight to her. Could this be the beginning of her sleeping in her own room? I'm not gonna worry with night time for a while but once she's consistently napping in her room in her crib, then we'll think about making the transition at night time. I know she is old enough for the toddler bed (our crib converts) but she is quite the active, mobile sleeper so I feel better about leaving the crib intact for awhile. She doesn't seem to mind it so why not?

Okay, I must move on to other tasks. Enjoy the photos and very cute video of Michella and her dance moves at the end. I think watching her dance is one of my absolute favorite things to do (aside from seeing her kiss and hug her Daddy!)

As far as we know, Michella has not been to the ocean before. It was clearly something unfamiliar to her. She really resisted standing on the sand but did for short periods but only with shoes on. Here I am trying to get her to touch the sand hoping she'd like to play with it. No go. We did try to get her in the salt water but she wouldn't have that either. Maybe next time.

Thank God for this amazing pool! Michella is a natural! She is fearless, which puts a little fear into us as she has no problem immersing her entire head under water for up to three seconds at a time! Each time, she comes up with a big, proud smile on her face. She is great at holding her breath. She will even jump in to us and go under water on her own. We have to watch her like a hawk!

 She had fun playing peek-a-boo with daddy behind these curtains

This is a backpack that the orphanage sent home with her. It's as big as she is but she loves it...

...and wanted to bring it everywhere.

As you can tell from the photos, Michella is increasingly comfortable with longer hangout times with Daddy. There were several times I just gave them space to have some time together. The break was good for me.

After a while she clued into my presence. Here she is saying in a whiny tone, "Meh Meh!!!" Other times, they would just eventually make their way back to me and she'd run to me with a huge smile on her face and give me a huge hug. I love that.

Michella loves to eat from my plate the most. And she loves getting messy with mommy eating one of her favorite foods. I used to cut the noodles up for her but then I learned that part of her enjoyment of spaghetti is getting to eat it like this photo illustrates.

Another thing Michella enjoys. Putting on socks. Any socks. Mommy's socks, Daddy's socks, Ella's socks. Oh my gosh could she be any cuter??? I know, I'm totally biased.

Overlooking the pool and ocean from our veranda. These days Michella is constantly pointing to things and saying what sounds like, "see!" and pointing to any green plant saying, "tee," which we assume means "tree."

She is less grouchy in the mornings these days and is becoming quite cheerful, pointing and smiling to things the moment I pick her up from the bed. Especially if Daddy or one of the cats is around. She will immediately point to one of them and say an enthusiastic "hi!"

Ella's first nap time on the beach. It was quite windy so we wrapped her up. Here I am still picking lice eggs out of her hair! There are only a few and I haven't found a live louse in a while but Ugh! I just want them completely gone! I'll update about the lice situation in another post. I may have found the magic bullet!

Recent Photos and Video

This girl has an obsession with water!

Good 'ole play dough (we have to make sure she doesn't eat it though!)

 We had a few visitors from DC and they came bearing gifts from numerous friends. More great books!

This is what happens when she dresses herself. Shoes and a headband. What more could you need?

Ella with her new favorite toy - a bouncy, spikey ball that lights up when thrown. Very cool.

 Ella loves to put her arm around Daddy's neck

Michella's new friends

Umm, yeah, there's rice in that bowl