Year in Review - January

Because of the long blogging absence, I'm going to be doing a series of "Year in Review" posts about what has been going on in our lives over the last year.  As part of our open adoption agreement we send monthly update letters to our adoption agency to be given to Emma's birth parents should they want an update.  In January I started keeping copies of those.  (Why oh why didn't I keep them all along?)  I also keep all of our digital photos of Em divided up by month for easier backing up.  So hopefully the year in review won't be a huge task :)

January - 2010

New Years day brought Emma’s first giggle.  It was so sweet!  We were in a hotel in Boise, I was getting her ready for bed, and kissing on her cheeks and neck and she let out a giggle.  I did it again a couple of times, and she giggled too.  She didn't do it again for several weeks after that. 

She found her thumb.  It's SO sweet!!  She has started realizing she has control of her hands, and is reaching out to grasp things.  She puts her bib in her mouth all the time.  She loves to make spit bubbles.  She can sit up with assistance, and stay up without assistance for a few seconds before falling over.  She hasn’t had much interest in rolling over yet, but when she’s lying on her back, she’ll kick and kick until she’s almost turned herself in a circle.  She doesn’t mind tummy time as much as she used to.  She doesn’t enjoy it at all, but she tolerates it.  She enjoys kisses and snuggles.

I’m guessing she had a growth spurt recently.  It seemed she had a hollow leg, and we couldn’t get enough food down her!  During that time, she tried oatmeal baby cereal for the first time.  She didn’t know what I was doing to her, and she didn’t like it, but within a couple of days she got the hang of it.  She’s now eating it with sweet potatoes mixed in.  I weighed her to have info for our 4 month post placement visit.  She weighed 13.2 pounds, and was 24 inches long.

Silly little girl recognizes the camera now, and doesn't care one bit for it.  I think it's because she knows the flash is coming...  She can have the biggest smile on her face, but when she sees the camera she gets the "deer-in-the-headlights" look.  So many pictures this month she has the same sober expression on her face.