Hello there...2 months home

Our Little Valentine

Ok...I've made a mistake...I've let too much time pass since my last post. I am media challenged, and it hinders me from posting because I always seem to have trouble getting the photos or video that I want. So avoidance...that's how I roll.
I was telling Aubrey, that I really don't know what to blog about. When too much time passes, it is hard to recap in one entry what life has been like. So, lesson learned. But here is my attempt to fill in the gap:

Mahaela has been home for over 2 months. Around the 6-7 week mark, we noticed she was speaking very little Bulgarian. Her English has just continued to explode. She says complete sentences in English. She has progressed from...soc (juice), Eskum soc, eskum juice, I want juice, to Can I have juice, please? She uses many phrases and pronounces them as one word, such as "can I have a..." She pronounces it "Kanaveigh." It's so cute. There are a few Bulgarian words like Blagodaria/thank you that she would have been very familiar and fluent with that she now kind of butchers.
She loves to play hide and seek...she calls it "find us." Or "i'mgonnagetcha" and she chases us around, trying to catch us. I heard her trying to sing a few words of "Jesus loves me" the other day. I haven't heard her sing much, so that was neat. She will occasionally cry at bedtime/naptime, but mostly she is just sad about it. I've seen her sleeping with blankets on, which is great progress for the little girl who couldn't even stand to have the blankets in her bed.
Recently, she was pulling out all the stops to delay going to bed..."ashes" which is what she calls "ring around the rosie," "find us," "brush teeth," "read book." Then she finally looks at Bill, holds up a finger, says "just a second" and then just takes off running for all she's worth. In the end, her last ditch effort doesn't work. I tried to read her a book the other night, but she wouldn't let me hold her. She kept trying to sit next to me, so I told her that wasn't an option. I would only read if she was in my lap. After being threatened with just being put in bed without a book, she cooperated by sitting in my lap. I read her a book and then the big pay off came for me...she let me turn her so she was facing me sitting in my lap. I was able to hold her, hug her, rock her, and sing to her. She laid her head on my chest, sucking her thumb, and I sang every song I knew! It was a first and I wanted it to last as long as possible.
We have been going to church since she came home, almost. She initially was very interested in the Sunday School classes where she could hear the kids, but we kept her out of the classes for a while. After we were home about 6 weeks we started to put her in some of the classes. We go to church for Sunday School, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, so that is a lot of opportunities to drop her off. We just played it by ear after sitting out for a while. As we progressed, she started to resist going a little bit more. We took this as a wonderful sign of attachment. One Sunday am, she was not wanting to go to her class, so I told Bill to let me try to drop her off. I thought it would be easier (as it had in the past) for me to leave her because she wasn't as "crazy" about me as she was Bill. But she wanted nothing to do with staying in that classroom. I left and let her sit in a chair with me. I didn't allow her to "visit" everyone in the foyer, or get candy, or drinks from the fountain, or run around...she just got me, and she was happy to sit with ME. I let her teacher know that this was a good thing and that we would try again another day. She actually chose me over the fun of the classroom. It's great to see these signs in Mahaela. They seem small, but really they are big. So the next week she did the same thing for Sunday School, but she did go to her class for church. Last Sunday, she told me "no school" as she usually does, but she went, no tears. She was brave and stayed for the entire time of SS. and church. As I told my agency recently, we are not the poster family for attachment and bonding. This isn't how it is supposed to be done...in many or most cases. But we think Mahaela is a bit different than the typical institutionalized child that we had read about, and we really are just going with our gut in these circumstances. Each child is different. I was mentally prepared to do what needed to be done for her, but everything we are doing, for the most part, just feels right.
We have enjoyed playing hockey out on the ice and sledding a couple times. Mahaela begs to go out if she sees anyone else bundling up! We are looking forward to warm weather and spring, except that it will bring us closer to her surgery date--which is not yet set. We are completely enjoying a little break in the weather this week...after the single digit temps we have had lately, it almost feels like t-shirt weather in this warm sunshine!

Just a few more snapshots:

Mahaela getting her echo while daddy sits with her. She was a great patient!

Her first horsey ride with Uncle John--he's becoming a favorite, which is really his goal!

Daddy with his two Princesses!