Learning New Things

Pretty much everything that was in Sofie Hongyan's referral file describing her personality has been spot on.  She is super smart, stubborn as heck and talks constantly!  This kiddo wants to do everything we do.  She will watch me do something once and then do it all by herself.  She learned to brush her teeth and wash her hands, both of which she was equally obsessed with for the past few days.  She is speaking many words in English already and imitates us like a little parrot.  So far she has learned: wash, juice, thank you, such a silly girl, shoes, look, come here, stop, let's go and many animals in her book Baba reads to her.  We have also learned what many of the things she has been saying in Chinese means, so we are doing pretty good with communication.

One of the not so fun things she is learning is not to throw and hit, and "no".  Our guide said he was told she was very spoiled by her foster grandparents and we can definitely tell.  She wants everything and wants it immediately.  She was also throwing things around the room and at Brandon and me, and sassing it up when she didn't get her way.  We had lots of crying and tantrums yesterday and part of today, but by the evening she was responding to "no, no baby" and the throwing and hitting has stopped.

Sofie is a tidy little munchkin too.  She picks up after herself and makes sure everything is neat and tidy in the room.  It's very cute.  She falls asleep at naptime and at night pretty easily.  She will fidget for a bit but then crash and is a very sound sleeper.  We've been getting her down around 7pm and then cracking a bottle of wine and watching movies...what can I say.  Mama likes and needs her wine!  And the wine we've had has been pretty good!

Her congestion is mostly gone, but she has been running a fever and still coughing.  I am hoping the antibiotics will knock that out in the next few days.

We just love this little monkey so much and think there could not have been a better match for us.  Sigh.

Now for some photos...

This one is for you Nana Mary - the pink princess slippers were a hit.  She is quite smitten with them



And for you Auntie Jen - this kid can clean a chicken wing like nobody's business!



Reading her favorite animal book with Baba - he makes all the animal noises



Waving to all the people on the street



I did get our for a few hours today to shop, but not the shop shop I thought.  Just to the grocery store for snacks and wine and beer and water.  All the important stuff.  Sofie stayed with Baba and they did fine.  She was napping when I got back.  I snapped a pic of Hohhot while I was out.  It is a pretty decent sized bustling city.  They do not get many westerners visiting here, so we are quite the attraction.  Especially with a Chinese baby girl.  I swear every single employee of the grocery store came over to check me out...staring is perfectly okay in their culture.  I just smile and wave.



Tomorrow is another day to relax and let baby girl get better.  Thursday we will got shopping shopping and Friday to the museum and on to Guangzhou.

Thank you so, so, SO much for all the comment and emails.  It brings tears to my eyes when I read all of your wonderful notes.  I will try to respond to all of you...I have a small window of nap time and night night to use the computer so bear with me!