One Month

The 18th marked one month since Evie has been in our arms. It's really hard to believe one month has passed already, yet it's hard to imagine life without her.

Our transition home has been mostly smooth. I had heard so many stories about the things that could go wrong. I'll admit, I was a little nervous about how it would go. It's not that everything went perfectly, but it was all very manageable. Yes, she had lots of diarrhea for the first two weeks. Yes, we all had to go through scabies treatment, not because we definitely had it, but because both Evie and I had bites that were suspicious. But it wasn't really that big of a deal.

So here's what's happened with Ms Evangeline in the last month.

• She is recognizing me as the primary caregiver. She gets excited when I walk into the room, reaches for me, and prefers me.
• When we first met Evie, she was friendly to everyone. Now she is exhibiting more "stranger danger" and when others hold her (which we try to minimize) she reaches out for me.
• She's becoming increasingly comfortable with skin contact. Within the last week or so she has started letting me rock her. Prior to this, she would only let me pace with her or rock her while feeding her. Now she is comfortable snuggling up close to me and just rocking.
• She can now sit up by herself for as long as she desires. When we first met her, she could only sit for a second or two before toppling over.
• One month ago she could not bear any weight on her legs. Now her legs are strong and getting stronger each day.
• Last month, Evie didn't have any teeth. Now she has two.
• When we met Evie, she would only drink 2-4 oz of formula at a time. Now she drinks 6-10 oz.
• She's eating more and more solid foods. When she first came home she hardly ate any solids. Now she eats 3-6 oz of baby food at each meal. The food thing is a work-in-progress. She will only eat finely pureed baby food and prefers jarred baby food because the texture is so smooth. She will mostly only eat fruit but we are exposing her to veggies each day. I've been using a baby food grinder (which is sooo much easier in my opinion than getting out my food processor) to get her used to more textures. I can make small batches and that way, if she refuses, not much food is wasted.

We are overjoyed to have our sweet Evangeline home. We feel blessed to have her as a member of our family!

One thing that surprised us was how sweet, kind and helpful that Jude has been with Evie. Since Indigo has been the one who has shown the most interest in babies, we expected her to dote on Evie, but Jude loves playing with and helping out his baby sister. And she's pretty smitten with him, too.

Indigo loves her baby sister, too.