Emilia - Seven Weeks Home

Emilia has now been home with us for seven weeks. I can hardly believe it. Time is flying by.

The last two weeks have brought major dietary changes for Emilia has I have removed all dairy from her meals. She now eats larger portions and more calories overall. Most days she even hits the target 800-900 calories suggested by the feeding team. Her bowel movements have reduced to 1-2 per day and she does get enough liquid (even if she only drinks about 8 ounces) to have three or four full diapers per day. Her sleeping at night is improved. She is much calmer and quieter now. I imagine it’s because her tummy is not hurting. She’s also taking her prescription iron supplement every night. I can’t wait for her to be weighed which should be on Tuesday. Craig and I do both feel that’s she’s growing, including her hair. I had to cut her bangs this week which she did not like, but it turned out okay. The hair on the back of her head is quite long, but you could never tell because it’s so curly:

Emilia continues to be very reluctant to do any structured learning. She sits on my lap to look at books or flashcards now, but she outright refuses to experiment with crayons, blocks, play dough, etc. Don’t get me wrong, she is a busy little girl and exploring on her own from morning to night. She loves to push her cart through the house, plays her xylophone several times a day, manipulates any small object she can find in her hands, has fun with the bead maze, the tambourine, and the beach ball. She also loves to climb. Any object or person larger than herself is something she attempts to scale. And yes, she’s made it onto the kitchen table via her highchair already. She’s like a little monkey. She’s not too keen on imitating sounds from Craig and me, but she always imitates Rex’s noises, so we know she can do it and is just choosing to ignore her parents. She is keeping up her Bulgarian words and uses them, but hasn’t added any English ones yet.

Bonding has been going very well. Emilia makes wonderful eye contact and looks to us for comfort now when she is hurt or upset. She snuggles her head into our shoulders when we carry her and wraps her arms around us, too. She smiles at us when she sees us and is beginning to respond to her new name.

Rex and Emilia continue to grow more interactive. I don’t know why, but especially in the evenings when it’s bath time and we are all getting ready for bed, those two are having tons of fun. Rex runs around and acts silly and Emilia follows him and laughs at him. She loves to watch him and seems to think he’s the bee’s knees. Rex has gotten much better at sharing my time and attention with his sister, but he’s still very protective of his daddy. Fortunately, Emilia is very forgiving in this department yet. The kids still parallel play, sometimes with the same toy.

All in all, things are going well. I can look back even a month from now and feel so much better about where our family is mentally, physically and emotionally these days and how we are melding together.