First few days in her forever home 2/13/11

2/13/11

O has been doing pretty well adjusting to her forever home. She still mentions Mommy-mika a few times, and the first day with Blaine she said that her home was Mommy-Mika's home. He explained that THIS was now her forever home. It was a day of a lot of "no"s on her part, telling daddy 'no' to many things. Yesterday and today have been good. Yesterday we went to the zoo for about an hour and a half (didn't get very far from the entrance - saw giraffes, took the train around the park, and then left). We had lunch at grandfather and grandmother's house. She loved her mini pizzas that grandmother made! She had a blast on the perfectly-sized swings on their porch. Oh, and grandfather decorated her face with green highlighter marker (see photo). It DID come off very easily:)

She got a late nap yesterday and didn't wake up until 5:15, which made it difficult for her to sleep last night. She heard me twice when I tried to close her door thinking that she was asleep. Many panicky tears later, she finally fell asleep around 10pm. Blaine got home from a gig very late, and she woke up for some reason (noise maybe?) around 3am crying, scared, and possibly sad from missing Mika (she can't really verbalize it, but last night was the 3rd night sleeping here, the longest she's been here so far). Blaine brought her into our bed for a few minutes until she calmed down. I took her back, talked to her, lightly tickled her face, and slept on the floor beside her until 5am. Everytime I tried to move or get up, she'd roll over and look at me to make sure I was still in the room. That is a hard floor.

Today we had a girl's outting with my friend Maryellen (who she called "Mary Lemon" and then another time "Mary Onion"). On the way to getting frozen yogurt, she was cracking us up! I'd say "knock knock!" and she'd just start laughing hysterically as if that were the punchline! You feel so funny with 3 year olds! She'd start with a fake laugh, and then it'd turn into a real one, and the 3 of us laughed over nothing the entire way there.

We think the next week or two will probably be the toughest as she starts to realize that she is NOT going back to Mika's. We will see them again for a quick visit somewhere at a park or restaurant maybe after a couple of weeks.

-joni