In the 11 days we've been home with Mirabelle, we have observed the following changes:
She knows Randy and I are in charge.
Wait, let me rephrase: she seems to know we are the parents. Let's face it, volatile Gracie is in charge right now.
Mirabelle reaches for Randy and me and crawls over to us when she wants to be picked up. This has helped allay my secret fear that she was thinking all five of us were her parents.
She has abandoned her "orphanage sleep" behavior.
In Ethiopia, and the first few days home, when we laid her in her crib she would start her self-soothing sucking-the-air thing and drop right to sleep. I have to say, it was GREAT, and not like putting our other kids to bed when they were seven months old. It seemed to us like an orphanage behavior - self soothing with no expectation of interaction from a care giver (not that I'm an expert or really have any idea of what I'm talking about). I was kind of hoping this one trait would hang on for awhile, but she is now squirmy when we carry her toward the crib, and when we lay her down she pops right back up again and reaches for us.
Sitting without toppling - mostly.
Obviously she's a prodigy.
She is no longer screaming bloody murder when we change her diaper.
I don't know why, but it's a good thing.
She seems to know her name (Mirabelle) and we think of her as Mirabelle.
In Ethiopia, she was called Tseganesh (which we discovered is pronounced a little differently than what we were saying. It's "SEH-GAHN-esh." We had been saying "Seh-GUY-nesh"). At that time it was hard to think of her as Mirabelle. When she came into our care we called her Mira Tseganesh for a few days. Now it's just Mirabelle or Mira. Tseganesh will her middle name, but we aren't using it regularly.
Enjoying Ethan's mop
1 comment:
Your family is lovely. Just linked to you from the forum. I also have an Ethiopian daughter!
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