playing with her shadow. guest starring Page.

attachment

Over the past week we've had a good thing happen. We have seen visible signs of Matea attaching to Aaron and me. There have been a few instances over the past week where she was being held by someone else, and when she saw one of us she reached out for us to take her. Yesterday I took Matea in to my work for her to meet my boss - I went to give Matea to her, and she turned and reached for me. (good girl!) We sat and talked for a while, and after Matea got comfortable with the new person she was ok going to my boss for a while. Overall, we're really happy about the progress we've seen!

For those adoptive parents that may be reading and perhaps care what we've done to promote attachment - we did all of the caretaking (diapers, feedings, going to bed, getting up) and no babysitters for 6 weeks. We had a wedding scheduled 6 weeks after we got home, so that was how we came up with the timeframe. Matea went in the church nursery 3 weeks after being home. It was important for us to be in church without her.

Things are going pretty good - Matea cut her first tooth the other day, so we've got lots of drool and a constant runny nose. We're heading to Triple Espresso with some close friends tonight - we're really looking forward to that. The most exciting news is that we are getting drain tile put around our house - there is an excavator and a dump truck in our yard. I'll be posting pictures of that probably early next week when they are all done. This is INSANE. Our yard is going to be quite a mess next spring. Oh well! It's all worth it for a dry basement - at least that's what we keep telling ourselves!

photo shoot

We had a mini photo shoot today. I didn't get too many good ones, but here are 3 that I like, the last one is my favorite. I got the idea to have Matea wear just a fun skirt from Staci L Photography - I've been checking her blog frequently and absolutley LOVE her photography - she inspires me to keep on trying. :)

friends

A few weeks ago Aaron and I were in the kitchen making dinner and we left Matea to play in the living room. I peeked in to check on her and this is what I found!

A

One month home

Well it has been one month that we've been home with Matea. It has FLOWN by unbelievably fast. I did a little photo shoot with Matea which was fun - I still can't believe how many pictures I have to take to get ONE good one. Oh well, we had a good time, and I'm really happy with a couple of the pictures we got.

I am really surprised at how much her hair has grown over the past month. I don't think it will be too much longer until I'm going to have to start learning how to style it.

The transition to parenthood over the past month has been pretty smooth overall. Matea is 8 months old now and is a super laid back baby. We are starting to see her personality more and more everyday. She is laughing more now, which is fun. She does a funny little grunting laugh quite often, and a "real" laugh periodically. For a while it was just the grunts. :) We are noticing that she has started to get scared of things over the last couple days - I yelled at Page while Matea was on my lap and she started crying, and the noise from the food processor brought some tears this afternoon. I told her that we have a loud family and she's going to have to get used to it. :) Her tears didn't last long.

One of my favorite things that has happened over the past month is that we can tell that she knows us now. We'll get huge smiles when we walk in her room, interact with her in any way, talk to her, etc. With stranges she just stares. It wasn't all too long ago that she was just staring at us as well. It has been especially fun to see her start to recognize her aunts and uncles up here. She will start blabbing to Jen as soon as she sees her, so that's fun. She is slowly starting to recognize some of our friends, too, so we are really enjoying that.

I've got a few pictures of her and Page that I'll post soon. They get along great. Matea has just about outgrown her 3-6 month clothes (finally!). I just noticed today that they don't fit so well anymore. Which is fine by me, since I've been dying to put her in the pink top she has on in the pictures. We're going to a wedding this coming weekend, so if you see us and she's wearing that top it is because I love it. We do have other clothes for her. :)

Well I guess that's all for now! Later!

Fungus

I have a fungus on my face. In two places. Yep, I have ringworm. GROSS GROSS GROSS. In case you are wondering, ringworm is the same fungus as athletes foot. We aren't entirely sure where I got it from. Matea had ringworm while in Ethiopia, supposedly she was clear of it when we met her. The doctor that we saw did not find any ringworm on multiple samples from Matea. So it is possible I got it from one of the other kids that I was holding while we were in Ethiopia and it has taken this long to show up, OR Matea has it somewhere and we just can't find it. So, to be on the safe side, we got Matea an oral medicine that we are going to give her for the next six weeks. And I got some stronger cream to put on my fungus. On my face.

I know you were all dying to know that. :)

No new pics to post - our new computer came on Friday (yeah!) and we've got to put all our old computer stuff on here. We'll get some up soon. Matea is now sitting GREAT, so we're really happy about that!!