It seems that Mila has settled into a better sleep routine now after a few nights of being up all night. She typically wakes up around 8 and then takes a nap from noon to 2 or 3. Then she is usually in bed by 9. She is very clingy to us and usually wants us to be in close contact with her as she is sleeping. Luckily, we started off having her sleep in her bed right away. But we have been taking turns sleeping with her because she usually cries when she wakes up if someone is not there. She is very sweet to sleep with. If she wakes up in the night, she lays quietly in bed and gently moves her hands around including stroking our faces and patting beats on her tummy.
We have found that Mila has 2 distinct personalities. One is when she is in a great mood and gets along with everyone. In this mood, she laughs a lot and wants to play. When she is laughing hard, she will cover her mouth with one hand or even two. She also is very talkative and speaks in Mandarin a lot. One morning when Baba was gone after sleeping with her all night, she woke up and spouted off a long sentence ending with putting her hands in the air and saying "Baba?". We are wondering if she was asking where Baba was. She is also starting to say some English words. She knows "hi" and "bye" and her name. She can also sing the ABC's up to the letter F. She is also getting very attached to our cats and knows that our one cat is named Maggie. She will gently pet Maggie and give her little kisses on her face and body.
The other personality of Mila is when she is a bad mood. In this mood, she is often quiet and wants to be held. If any one else approaches, she will moan a bit and hide her face. We never really know which version we will get and the funny thing is that she will change on a dime.
This week we had her first appointment at AI DuPont Children's Hospital to see her International Pediatrician. We wanted to have her seen there first just to have her looked over and make sure she got tested for anything that the Orphanage may have missed. She was really great at the dr even when they were drawing blood.
We also had our first post placement interview with our local adoption agency, Madison. China requires that several follow up interviews take place to make sure the child is being taken care of properly. Our social worker is very nice and gave us some good advice about what we should be doing with Mila in these first few months to help her bond with us. After having several care givers in her life, we need to make sure she knows that we are her mom and dad and that we aren't going anywhere.
Other than that, Mila is enjoying playing with her toys. She likes stickers the most and likes to peal them off and put them on Mama and Baba. We have a had several good visits this week from people from our church who have stopped by to bring food and gifts. We feel so blessed to have such a great support group to help us along.
