Hello Blog, old friend...

It has been a while and I am ASHAMED that I have not updated.

We were having technical difficulties uploading to the blog in China, but I had no (or little) issues facebooking, so we stuck with that.

Then we got home and things got VERY busy with Phoebe.

I am hoping to dedicate at least once a week to come back to blogging: both reading yours and posting on mine. I love it all so.

So...catching up:

China was great.

I still hope that post on packing and travel suggestions that I promised. Here are a few I can type quickly:

• Bring snacks (wish I had peanut butter), 
• Bring a stroller (at least for us I was wishing I had one, I know other people beg to differ), 
• Bring a coffee cone for individual use in your hotel rooms (we used Starbucks at the end, but until then it seemed very difficult to get coffee, and at the Dolton it was hard to communicate that we wanted it, as well as get more than a tiny tea cup sized coffee, or smaller, once a day. Then they over charged us greatly once for tiny cups of it.)

 ON PHOEBE:
(the fun stuff, as well as the information that may prove of help or interest to other adopting families)

Phoebe is the LOVE OF OUR LIVES.
We are yet to get to CHOP, but they are helping us and have been great at the International Adoption clinic.

Phoebe is a diva, a sweetheart, very bright, growing like a weed, has a beaming smile, is strong willed, charming, and she is very strong. She communicates very well.

She has about 14 English words she currently has as well as her own made up signs. Beginning language is great. She still says Thank You in Chinese, which makes us smile.

She was 16 months when we got her in China, she is now 20 months. She went from not sitting up on her own when we met her, to now practically running and she is climbing the couch.

She hid her ABS hand often in China, she now uses it with 110% confidence, and SO much ability!! 

She had many, many sleep issues when she first came home, but is doing incredibly well now. 

While she was slow to warm up to my husband in China, she now adores him. He always had adored her! :) She is inseparable with me. I am completely in love with her.

She does throw tantrums, most often when shopping and while with me. Not so much for my husband. Funny thing is that I am pretty strict about proper behavior publicly, yet she chooses to do the old throw down with me, I guess because I am her main person who spends days with her, feeds her, naps, her dresses and changes her, etc. 

The hardest thing is that she has had several illnesses, she appears to be lactose intolerant which I have since learned is something that many people in the Asian community suffer from (and so does her Irish-German-American mom who can commiserate). She was at the hospital for 5 days with lethargy and spiking fevers, so the Infectious Disease specialist kept her there and thought she had a "China Thing" going on, turned out it was a run of the mill virus. She has had other repeated lower GI issues and also other bouts of fevers.

We opted to do all of her presumed-given vaccines over again, but started with the ones we knew she had not gotten yet so that she would have coverage against those things immediately, such as meningitis and MMR. 

Here are 2 pics of her in China, one at the Dolton play room in Changsha, and one the day of her US CA  in Guangzhou first week of June 2012, and then a few of her from just the other day at home, November 2012 when our town in coastal New Jersey had Halloween (it was late here due to Hurricane Sandy).

My, how she has grown!!

In China, she rolled everywhere. No crawling, no walking. I have some pics of her in the playroom propped up by toys, but she was only "up" for seconds. Holt families can see her on page 19 of the Fall 2012 magazine, I caught that image of her with the toy horse in a split second before she fell. ;)

she did not sit independently, she always was propped with something or hanging on, like holding this chair. 

Now she climbs, balances, practically runs.

Little Red Riding Hood is running to get candy...

This was the very first trick or treat house, at our neighbor's who she adores. She thought mama had dressed her oddly, in this image you can see by her expression that she did not "get it" yet. In a flash, she caught on though!!

Hoping to do {almost} Wordless Wednesday posts, with perhaps only a subject line. Let's see how well that goes. ;)





Blessings, Lynette