6 Months Home!

Whoa! I can hardly believe the kids have been home for 6 months already. And yet it feels like they have been with us their entire lives.

Both Michael and Liliana have accomplished a ton in the past 6 months, but here are a few highlights.

MICHAEL -
Michael has grown 5 inches since we first found out about him (from 34 to 36 inches while in the Orphanage and then another 3 inches since he's been home). He went from the 50% for height in May to the 90% in height now. He's also gained about 3 pounds. During our 6-month check-up at the U of M, Michael tested constantly in the 36-41 month range for gross and fine motor skills. However, most of these skills he's been doing for several months even though he won't be 3 until December 21. We decided to keep his age as is, though, since in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if he might be 4-6 months older than his birth certificate says.

Michael has nearly mastered English for his age. He is now using 'me', 'you', and 'I', correctly on a more consistent basis, though he does occasionally refer to himself as Michael. He can hold a conversation really well and speaks in 5-8 word sentences.

He is starting to figure out what he likes and doesn't like. His favorite color right now is pink. He loves to color and do crafts. He enjoys pretend playing with food and absolutely loves reading books. He also enjoys playing with his cars and his train. His new favorite thing, of course, is playing is the snow.

He and Liliana have good brother-sister dynamics. He loves her very much. Recently he has started to take a parental role over her and we are working to correct that (this is common when you adopt 2 at once). With this in mind he absolutely thinks that any toy Liliana is playing with should have to be shared with him. However, whenever he is playing with a toy that Liliana is interested in playing with as well he complains that she won't leave him alone. Figures.

LILIANA:
Our little 18-month old baby has turned into a 2-year old toddler in the past 6 months. She is right on track now for her weight at 26 pounds, however she is not even in the 3% for height at 30-1/2 inches. The U of M is going to be testing her growth hormones to make sure everything looks okay because of her slow growth in height. More to come on this.

Liliana seems like a totally different girl to me from the little teeny-weeny thing we picked up 6 months ago. Her personality has come out full force. She is the "class clown" and is always doing things to make people laugh. In groups of people - even if she knows them - she is extremely shy and will not leave our arms (or my Dad's arms if he is there). But, after a few hours she warms up and positions herself as the center of every one's attention.

She has had a burst of language acquisition over the past several weeks and seems to learn new words everyday. Unfortunately for most, she is very hard to understand because many of her words sound similar. One of the cutest words she says is elephant... which she pronounces as "el-la-la."

She is quite stubborn and knows what she wants and will whine until she gets it. One funny thing she is stubborn on is that she insists on calling Nickel (our cat) Bella, which is the name of my parents dog.

She loves playing with her babies and her new pretend food. She also loves playing with Michael's tool bench... and well, whatever he is playing with is the object of her affection. She also loves reading books. Her absolute favorite book - which she insists on me reading to her 85 million times in a row - is David gets in trouble.

Both kids still enjoy playing with Mommy and Daddy the most. They love climbing all over us, being thrown around, chased, and tickled. This is what we love best too.