I am really bad at dates but I took LiLi with me this morning to my haircut and my hairdresser, George, very kindly trimmed her hair(or more importantly cut her mullet off). He then put her hair clippings into an envelope for me and dated it. I would never have thought to do that. LiLi then went off with her Nana as happy as could be barely even saying goodbye.
It was then I realized that it was a year ago when we first got our referral. What a difference one year makes. I cannot remember what our lives were like before she came into it.
When I went to pick her up from Nana and Poppie, I kept thinking how she seemed to change last night into an older toddler. She looked older(it could be the haircut and her outfit but I don’t think so) and she is acting older. Yesterday, she also started trying to have a real conversation with me where she would babble and I would answer and she would babble off again. Before that she has babbled at us but this was different. She is trying out a couple of new words a day now. She learned wall yesterday and we had to stop and run our hand along the to of every stone wall in the neighborhood and it turns out that there are quite a few. Of course, she also stopped at every crack in the sidewalk and put her finger in it and looked up at me. It was a long walk home. But the other amazing thing was how many blocks she walked by herself and most of them without trying to get me to pick her up. Then tonight as I drove into the driveway and we were listening to “Yellow Submarine,” she said submarine(ok, not exactly like it sounds but you can definately differentiate the sub part) and repeated it multiple times.
Here are some pictures to show the difference between then and now:

One of our referral pictures. Who would have guessed that she would tend towards curls in her hair

Here she is with me looking at bird videos at the National Geographic site. LiLi is a bit obsessed with birds

Here she is with food on her face and parts of her new cousin’s quilt to be around her neck.

Here are some pictures of LiLi taking Maggie for a walk or the other way around.

LiLi leading Maggie on a nice walk up the street

Maggie decides to stop and LiLi tries to get her to move

Daddy, LiLi and Maggie on a walk

And one other picture unrelated

Some new pictures. More soon. The back load will take a while

Using a spoon

Family picture

At the Zoo

Maggie and LiLi dressed up for Halloween

More to come….

Ok, it has been a while for a posting and even longer since I have posted. LiLi has been exploding in her personalities and abilities.

She is learning new words both in English and Chinese although I must admit that I only know a few Chinese words and so I am often stuck wondering whether what she said is in Chinese or in babble and of course I can seldom remember the word or phrase to ask her babysitter what it means. Watching her learn 2 languages is very fun. For example, she has decided to say water in English and milk in Chinese.

In terms of words I understand bird remains her favorite and her second seems to be water. LiLi can point out a bird on top of a building or in a tree far away. She knows that water is in her glass, rain, a pond, the ocean, soup, etc and likes to inform me of this. Of course, this also means she likes to touch water whenever she sees it and the other day I discovered her trying to lick it off the car. Animal sounds are the other thing she likes to do and appropriately enough for Thanksgiving, she started saying gobble, gobble for a turkey.

LiLi continues to enjoy music. Thank goodness we agree on some of the music and by mixing things up she has come around to some music I like. Today, she was totally bopping in the back seat to Hong Kong Phooey and she also seems to like Conjunction Junction. A couple of weeks ago I came home and she was really enjoying the Grateful Dead with her father so that made him happy although I can’t say I loved it. I taught her the sign for music and that is now one of the first things she does after being buckled into her car seat. She grabs Lamby(her blanket) then she signs music. Mind you the car is not even on yet.

Her walking is getting better and better. She still tends to make a lot of face plants but since she just picks herself back up and continues on, they don’t seem to be a big deal and they are getting less frequent. She likes it if you make a safe sign after she does a face plant. It is quite amazing to watch because they look quite painful to me but she seems to have a high tolerance and only really cries when she is really tired. Of course, I am fascinated by how many near misses she has and how many places there are to wallop your head on. She also loves to climb the stairs by walking up them not crawling and she does not want help. The problem comes when the stair is too tall for her little legs. She will then allow me to hold her 2 hands and she will do her best to walk up them.

Another big achievement is LiLi’s ability to use silverware. She can now use a spoon pretty well. She does forget to keep her spoon upright a lot of the time but because she also likes to put a napkin on her lap it is not too messy. Maggie also enjoys the spoon learning process.

LiLi also loves to take Maggie for a walk. Maggie seems to be very good about it and walks at a pace that does not pull LiLi. Although when LiLi tries to pull Maggie and she does not want to move, Maggie will just stand still and no matter what LiLi does she cannot budge her.

I have noticed that with walking came true toddlerhood and that is where LiLi is right now. She certainly does not like to be told “no” and has recently taken to bursting into tears whenever it is told to her. Now that does seem to work on her Nana, who stayed at the house to read another book after she burst into tears when Nana said she was leaving. She does throw a pretty good fit but it kind of defeats it when she spend the first 2 minutes gently lowering herself to the ground. I realize that the other problem comes when she is trying to tell us what she wants but we cannot figure it out. I feel bad because a lot of the times, LiLi’s fits come from her not being able to communicate she wants. It is very frustrating to be a toddler and I have never totally understood that.

October, of course, also included Halloween and we got good use out of our Halloween costume. LiLi dressed up in it to go to the zoo the Sunday before Halloween and then for a playgroup party on Tuesday and then for Halloween and then of course, a couple of days after Halloween she insisted on wearing the costume again. We only went trick-or-treating to a couple of houses. I did not know that LiLi knew what a candy bar was but she tried to get me to open it at our neighbors and when I did not she stopped right in front of the house and sat on the sidewalk trying to open it herself.

Well that is all for now. Pictures in the next post and I will try to update more often.