Hanging out

Sasha and Brookelyn spend a lot of time together and have a lot of fun. They are only 16 months apart. All three play well together actually. Brayden and Brookelyn play together and Sasha plays around them. They both think Sasha is fun and like to do things to make her smile, laugh or clap her hands. Brookelyn really enjoys sharing Sasha's food (table food or baby food) and likes giving Sasha food from her plate as well (so I always have to be watching closely). Sasha has been pushing herself up on things and letting go for quite a while now. She has pretty good balance, she likes to stand up on her own and clap her hands. Brookelyn has noticed how much attention Sasha gets for it so she has started copying Sasha and standing up next to her and clapping and then falling to the floor after a few seconds. Of course, we clap for her and cheer her on as well. She knows it's funny. She is a funny girl and does a lot of things that make us laugh. She hasn't done anything to show any jealousy toward Sasha at all. I thought she may regress a little, but she hasn't at all. We had waited to take her pacifier away for one reason or another and suddenly I was on my way to Vietnam and she was still using it. So I waited until we had been home for a few months to take it away. I talked about it for a couple of days and then just threw them all away. She asked for it on two different times and then was over it. I thought it would be hard since she sees Sasha with hers a lot, but she knew that that wasn't hers. We were very relieved it was so easy. She started potty training herself a couple of weeks ago. One day she walked up to me without a diaper on. When I asked her where it was she said she peed. I gathered some things to clean the floor and asked her to show me where. She brought me upstairs to the bathroom and pointed into the toilet and said, "I peed in toilet, Mommy." (This is my child who is in speech therapy because she was hardly saying any words several months ago. Now she speaks in full sentences. ) I looked into the toilet and there was pee in it. I asked her to show me how she got up there since there is no step stool next to it and she climbed right up. Very cute!
Anyway, she and Sasha and I have fun together. It's usually pretty mellow when it is just us. It's a whole different thing when Brayden is home. He likes to set up drum sets (out of drums and various other things that resemble drums) and play them. Brookelyn dances and Sasha will sometimes bounce to the music, clap or try to hit the drums as well. Good. loud fun. There is also always a lot of running around and tumbling when he is around so it is not as safe for Sasha unless I sit down right next to her. Which is great with her! She is happy doing anything. If I sit next to her she climbs all over me or pulls herself up on me and smiles and laughs. The whole world is good then. If I get up she gets very upset and crawls after me crying. I wind up holding Sasha and Brookelyn in my arms sometimes, which is fine. How lucky am I that I get to hold them both?
There is a picture of Sasha holding her own bottle, which is a new thing she just learned. I usually hold her and give her a bottle but do want her to learn how so she can hold her own bottle in the car. She will do it but she loses interest pretty easily. The last picture is one where Sasha has pulled herself up against the kitchen cabinets and let go and Brookelyn is pretending like she is just learning to stand too. I was happy to be able to get a picture of it before they sat down.

She says "Mama!"

Sasha started saying mamama a few weeks ago but last week she started saying "Mama." She says it a lot on her own and will repeat me if I say it. So far, it doesn't mean me but I know it will pretty soon. It wasn't the first word for any of my other children and I love that it is hers! She also does this little grunting sound that is her way of communicating to us. She does it when I am holding her and she is at the end of her bottle or when I am holding her before she goes to sleep at night. I have found that I automatically repeat it back to her and then she'll do it again. What is funny is that she has gotten all of us to do it. I will hear both Brookelyn and Brayden doing it to her and her doing it back on our way to and from school. I have also heard my older son and daughter doing it back to her as well. Sometimes Brookelyn makes the sound when Sasha isn't even around. I think she just thinks it's a playful sound, not just a baby sound. My oldest daughter also taught her something that Sasha has turned into a game. On the way home from school one day Dakota squeezed her eyes shut for a couple of seconds while Sasha was watching her. Sasha did it back and they did it back and forth a few times. Ever since Sasha has started playing that with us. She really likes to do it at night when I am holding her in the rocking chair in her room. I actually have to shut my eyes or put her against my shoulder so she will stop tryng to play with me. And she is too cute to not keep doing it back.
We got hit hard with the flu this last week. Brookelyn got it one morning. She threw up twice and then slept all day. She was so sweet and just wanted me to hold her when she was awake. Otherwise she was so easy. Brayden got it the next night and had it much worse. He threw up a lot for about six hours and then layed around the house for the next too days. He was easy too. Poor things. Then I got it. Bad. The kind of flu that makes you want to die. I wanted to die, but I was too busy throwing up. Oh, and we gutted our master bathroom the day after Christmas so I had to run down the hall each time and hope no one else was in there. Nice. Unfortunately, I couldn't lay around recovering because I had to take care of the kids. Sasha was really hard for two days. She had gotten a flu shot so I think she didn't quite get the flu, she just felt badly. She is usually very easy but those two days she cried or whimpered even when I held her. That never happens. We made it through and all feel better except that my husband and Brayden have that ongoing cough a lot of people seem to have.
I thought Sasha was going to take her first step yesterday. She was standing on her own and looking at a toy that was a couple of feet away. She looked like she was going to step towards it and then lowered herself down and crawled to it. She is still very young but I wouldn't be surprised if she was a early walker. She also loves to play with balls. She kind of pushes it away from herself and then crawls to it and pushes it away again. Tonight she and I played a game with a ball where we kept pushing it back and forth to eachother. She was pretty good at getting it to me. She is so much fun to be with!

New things

Sasha has been doing a lot of new things the last few weeks. She learned how to climb up our stairs a couple of weeks ago and we cannot keep her from them if she sees them. She gets up them quickly and with no problem. She stops every step or two to make sure I am right behind her. About two weeks ago I looked over at her while I was getting dinner ready. She was supposed to be sitting in her walker snacking on pieces of cheese. Instead she was precariously balanced across the small, low table we have for Brayden and Brookelyn. Most of her body was on the table and she only had one foot balancing her on the walker. She had grabbed one half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I put her back in the walker hoping to use it for five more minutes before I retired it back into the garage since she was clearly too old for it now. In the amount of time it took me to rinse my hands in the sink and stir whatever was on the stove, she got completely out of the walker and was sitting next to the kid's table. I couldn't believe it! She is very co ordinated.
She has let go of the couch or whatever she is holding onto a few times over the last couple of months and stood on her own. This weekend though, she did it again and again. She did it several times for about 13 seconds before lowering herself down to the ground. She won't do it if we try to get her to stand up though.
We went to the nail salon I used to go to before I went to Vietnam and said hello to some of the ladies who work there. I haven't been there since a couple of weeks before I left. I had brought in some of the referral pictures we had of Sasha over the months and asked advice about airlines, what to bring, what clothes to pack...I had meant to go back and show them Sasha after we got home, but just had never gotten around to it. The women were really excited to see her and spoke Vietnamese to her. Sasha smiled at all of them and even let one woman hold her for a few minutes. I would love to start getting my nails done again but I just don't know when I would find the time. It actually became too stressful before to get my nails done so it was nice to drop it for awhile. I used to really enjoy sitting and reading dumb magazines while I had my nails done...Anyway, one of the women I went to wasn't there so I said we would come back tomorrow to see her. They said they had been wondering when I was going to bring Sasha in. One of them told me about a place where Sasha can take free classes to speak Vietnamese when she gets older. It was nice seeing how much they liked seeing her. Sasha got a lot of attention.

Nine Months Old!!!!

Sasha turned nine months old yesterday! I don't know why it feels like such a big deal to me every month when she turns a month older, but it is. I guess it is because it marks how long she has been away from her birth mother and then how long she has been with us since we adopted her when she was just a few days past five months old. I am so grateful to have her that I am ecstatic and humbled at the same time. I wonder if her birth mother thinks about her more often on the 16th of every month (when she had and then abandoned her) or of she just thinks about her the same every day. If there was a way we could let her know that Sasha is okay I would do it in a second. I don't believe that it was a choice for her, I'm sure she had to give Sasha up for a really good reason. I know Lang Son is a very poor area so that is probably it. Anyway, I was also realizing that if she was thinking about her every month on the 16th, it actually is always going to be a different day than the 16th is here because of the time change. I hope she can sense that Sasha is doing well. I hope so.
I went to a doctor appointment with Sasha today. It was her second appointment at our doctor's office. She really didn't need an appointment with the doctor since she really only needed shots, but I really wanted to see a doctor. Sasha was 26 inches and 13 pounds and 7 ounces at her last appointment about eight weeks ago. That is about 50 percentile for height and in about the 5 percentile for weight. Sasha eats A LOT, but is really slender. I know that she is Vietnamese and shouldn't be judged by a chart used mostly for Caucasian babies, but if she was at the bottom of the chart for both her height and weight I would have felt better than low on weight. The doctor did say she was thin last time and recommended her eating fatty foods like avocados and cheese. I give her a lot of those as well as a lot of other food. She is a pretty active little baby which could account for burning up some of the calories. Well, now she weighs 15 pounds and one ounce and is 27 inches long. That means she is a little above the 50th percentile for her height and UNDER the fifth for her weight. I had to stop myself from not crying for the next few minutes. I know that just may be her body type due to genetics, but I really wanted her to plump up a little. Her arms are so thin! The doctor recommended mixing powdered formula with her food and again the cheese and avocados. She got her immunizations (I made my husband hold her this time because I was feeling a little sad) and then we had to get her blood drawn. Again Ray held her to get her blood drawn. He asked ahead of time for the person who was the most experiences with babies. He said the lady did a good job, but they had to take several vials for all of the tests. It is just things like HIV, HEP B....they had wanted us to have it drawn a couple of months ago but I just couldn't do it when she was so little. Sasha is taking a nap now and I'm sure will take a little longer nap than usual. Poor thing! Her next appointment is six weeks from now. My next thing is to schedule her nine month pictures. I included a picture of portraits we had taken at our local JCPENNEY's store. We had these done for Brayden and Brookelyn as well. Brayden's is in black and white and was done when he was two, Brookelyns was taken when she was eleven days old and is also in black and white. I did Sasha's when she was six months old and had it done in color. I think we'll put hers between the other two on the wall. Right now it is sitting on the mantle over our fireplace. It looks really cute even though she only smiled a tiny bit. I wanted to capture her young since we have so few pictures of her before five months old.

A day with Owen

Sasha, Brookelyn and I drove down and spent a few hours with Owen, his mommy and grandmother yesterday. It was really fun. Owen is so sweet! He has a very calm, sweet disposition and seemed to take everything in stride. Brookelyn loved playing with all of Owen's toys and Sasha had fun as long as Mommy was around. Brookelyn stared at Aunt Kim when she was eating until she was offered some of her food and then proceeded to eat everything she was offered. Sasha has never really liked baby food and usually acted like she was going to gag when I gave her any. I had pretty much stopped giving her baby food and switched her to table food, which she eats very well. She eats small bites of chicken, turkey, cheese, bread, avocado, peas, beans...she has a big appetite. But when Aunt Kim added the secret ingredient of smashed unsalted crackers to the baby food, Sasha couldn't get enough. And Brookelyn stood there and got her share too. It was as if my girls had never eaten before!
Owen is huge next to Sasha. He is only a little smaller than Brookelyn and may be heavier than she is! Sasha has a doctor appointment next week to get immunizations and to see how she is doing. I am very curious to see how much she weighs!

Fun Day

We were invited to attend an Open House for a family who adopted their son from the same orphanage we adopted Sasha. They traveled a month or so before we did. We drove up there at the perfect time since Sasha and Brookelyn both slept all of the way there and Brayden watched High School Musical. We were able to see three families besides us who had adopted from Vietnam. We had spent a lot of time with Lillian and her family in Hanoi, met Sierra and her family when several families got together during the summer, and met Zubin and his family for the first time. Tons of Zubin's relatives came to see him, which was great. It was a fun day and really good to see how well all of the babies are doing. Madelyn, Eden, Jordan, and Julie need to be at the next gathering!
On the couch are Sasha, Zubin, Lillian and Sierra.

Christmas Photos

The first picture is the one we used for Christmas cards. I should say holiday cards since I always seem to get them out between Christmas and New Years. I wish it would have been cuter of each of them and had them in cute outfits, but we waited until a few days before Christmas to get a tree and then just took it one evening when I had a few minutes. Brookelyn didn't want to sit still until we gave her a candy cane, Sasha kept turning around every other second to grab the tree and Brayden was great through all of it. Sasha seems to smile if I am holding her but I can't get her to smile most of the time now for a picture. She doesn't seem to get why I am not holding her and she'll make a nervous sound between a laugh and a cry until I hold her. It's not a big deal since I know she will get over it as she gets older and more confident, but it means we don't have a lot of smilng pictures of her right now. Anyway, it took me, my older daughter and older son to get all three little ones to stay sitting down and look in the right direction. Ray was out of town on a golf trip. It's true. He went up the Saturday before Christmas and came back Sunday evening. It did help his mother since he helped drive her down here to visit, but it was really about the golf. I normally wouldn't mind, but I had done something weird to my back early in the week when I planned to finish shopping and had a really hard time picking up Sasha and Brookelyn for a couple of days. It was weird and scarey. I can't imagine how bad it would be if I couldn't carry them around. I've never had that happen before. It was sore for a couple of days and is fine now.
Right when my back was feeling better Sasha and Brooklyn both got colds so I didn't want to take them out shopping with me. Anyway, it turned out that I wound up doing most of our shopping in one day. We tried to keep it simple this year. After coming back from Vietnam and seeing all of our stuff I didn't want to get more. Also, when we went to grab important things from our house before the fire we realized we only wanted important paperwork, pictures, home videos of the kids and clothes for a few days.
Christmas was fun. My family always comes to my house. We have a lot of little children in the family so it was a fun, loud, chaotic day. We woke up to ashes all over our house (again!)from a really wild and loud windstorm for hours the night before. I think I heard winds between 35-50 miles per hour. I could hardly sleep since I could hear things in our yard blowing around. Anyway, it took us a long time to clean it all up inside and then it was fun.
We are back to our usual routine of school which is good. Bedtimes were getting later and later. Sasha and Brookelyn had runny noses for most of the break though they seemed to feel fine most of the time. Sasha was fine with all of the craziness though she really still is only happy when I hold her. She will go to other people but looks at me the entire time they are holding her. I have to leave the room in order for her to relax with someone else. Ray's mom met her for the first time. We were supposed to visit her up in Northern CA right after Thanksgiving so she could meet her but I wasn't ready to travel with the three little ones yet. I had her give Sasha a bottle which is good for me since I just started letting people besides Ray and I do it. Sasha has obviously bonded, so I am not worried about it anymore.