Life Six Months In

On April 20th, we celebrated the six-month mark... by not doing much more than acknowledging the date. We appreciated the date, and we spent a little time expressing how grateful we were for how far we had come at that point. It can be seen in the little things. For example, when the family leaves just the two of us alone in the house, she now only cries for 30 of the 90 minutes, which is more than a 50% decrease over past experiences. Last night she even kissed me on the lips, and so what if I normally don't allow that?! Yay for progress! We've come a long way in a short amount of time.

As you can see from her picture, the eye continues to slowly-but-steadily improve with the daily doses of beta blocker. It has progressed to the point where the chief eye specialist deemed her fit for an eyeglass prescription. She will have new glasses in a couple of weeks. (Not to be outdone, Jacob will have his own pair of reading glasses around the same time... handpicked by himself.) The doctor was amazed at how easily Cass took to trying glasses on. Not to brag, but he hasn't been the first completely objective professional to remark about how highly intelligent she is. (Is it bragging when you really have absolutely nothing to do with it?)

With the assertion of genius status, it follows that you might wonder about her general development. Well, she isn't lagging behind in much these days. Speech is still an issue; she can say, "Mama," "Dada," "diaper," "go," and "baby" but almost never when you want her to. She's good at signing, but she still requires a little reminding. She tends to prefer to shake her head "no" to everything at first until she understands that you're talking about something that she likes at the moment. She can understand a great deal. She just prefers to squeak, grunt, and wail. Personally, I think she's just being modest with her overwhelming brain power. In five years, I imagine I'll be asking her for business advice.

While language has lagged a little, the other stuff she's learned is infinitely more important. She has learned to hug, to kiss, to high five, and to fist bump. She has learned to tell the dog to "GO!" and that a well-timed smile and giggle directed at Daddy will get her just about anything she wants- including the last little bit of sugary goodness in his possession. She has learned that her big sister is really cool... and a little rough. She can clumsily run when she initially could barely walk and hardly crawl. She has her own trademarked interpretation of a dog barking and pig oinking, both much better than the real deal. Above all else, she has learned what a family is, and she knows she is a irreplaceable, priceless part of ours. She knows that she is loved.

Sure, her emotions might still turn on a dime. No one goes from laughing to crying faster than her. No one goes from giggling to screaming faster than her. No one goes from total acceptance to complete rejection faster than her. What are you going to do? On top of being adopted into a strange family from a foreign country, she's two! We'll give her some grace on that... and some timeouts probably. (She doesn't like them.)

I think we've all pretty well adjusted to her and all that she entails. It's getting easier and easier to not take the 180-degree turns she throws at us. If she doesn't want to be held, it's okay now. No big deal. Okay, I confess that it's easier now than before. Why? Even when she rejects being held, she'll still take a kiss on the forehead. She'll almost always take the kiss. Sometimes she even comes looking for it.

That's progress.