Pre-Christmas Week

Things have been busy around our house as Steve and I both wrap up work projects in anticipation of the upcoming holidays. Lia has had a few rough nights the past week, my best guess is that it is related to teething (2 year molars?) as she is spending a lot of time poking her fingers into her mouth. She has woken up a few nights crying and unconsolable, but teething tablets seem to help. Our county cleft coordinator also believes Lia is on the verge of another growth spurt, since she's kind of plateau'd in recent weeks...and I've heard that kids will often experience sleep problems when they are doing a lot of growing. Our girl continues to get bigger and stronger. She weighs nearly 25 lbs now, and is over 33 inches tall!  Because she is so tall, she is on the low end of the U.S. height/weight growth charts, coming in at the 10th percentile. But for height only, she is in the U.S. 55th percentile (which would probably be the 99th percentile in China!) We continue to have her on whole milk, and spike all her foods with butter, cream cheese, olive oil, and other goodies in an effort to fatten her up.

In the past month her vocabulary has exploded! Thanks to her ear tubes, she now mimics us all the time. She now knows 30-40 different words, and walks into a room waving and saying "Hi". She can look at her books and point out all the words she knows: Star, Heart, Princess, Santa, Frosty, Pooh, Car, House, Tree, Flower, Dog, Kitty, Horse, Frog, Bird, Snow, Sun, Lights, Water, Milk, Ice Cream, Pumpkin, Diaper, Potty, Mama, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandma...and many, many more!  Of course, Steve and I know what she is talking about - other people still might have a hard time understanding her - but she will be starting speech therapy in January to help her catch up on her sounds. We've been attending the weekly Toddler Storytimes at our local library. There she is learning songs like "Wheels on the Bus" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" in-between the stories. She is not too excited about interacting with the other kids at storytime, she is happy to stay on my lap, or in her own little corner of the floor, but she runs right up to the presenter at the end of each session to get her hand stamped like the rest of the kids!

We are looking forward to seeing more of the extended family next week for Christmas. In the meantime, here are some photos from the past week:

"Hello this is Lia, your AT&T Operator, how can I help you?"

The life-sized Dora doll that Grandma W. sent to her - she loves it!

Ready to go Christmas shopping with Mama

Practicing her texting skills on mama's iPhone