Home a Week!

Victoria has been home over a week now and she has melded into our family. It's like she has always been here and we can't imagine life without her.

She adores her "anas" - "brothers" in Telugu. She cries when they leave for school and is so excited when we pick them up. She enjoys pulling Logan's covers off in the morning to wake him up saying loudly, "Ana ana ana ana".

Victoria is all girl and follows me around most of the day imitating what I do. She says, "Mama" and pats the kitchen counter to be picked up and put on it. She hangs her doll's clothes on the drying rack and "organizes" my kitchen drawers.

She chatters in Telugu all day long. We think she understands over half of what we say in English to her. She often obeys commands.

Victoria loves shoes ("slippers") and enjoys running errands in town. She becomes quite shy when others give her attention. She has a couple favorite books. One has a picture of ice cream and she loves to look at that picture. She says "ice cee" for ice cream and "gee" for green. She is starting to point to different objects when I say them and she compares the broccoli in the picture to the trees outside.

She eats anything we give her and ice cream has become a favorite food. She often asks to have "biscuits" (cookies, crackers) throughout the day. We think she would eat all day if we let her.

She sleeps well at night, but wakes up too early (jet lag). This morning she slept past her usual 5:00am until 7:00am which was wonderful!

Her foster family said that she enjoys dancing, but we had not seen this side of her. I had tried to get her to dance with no success. However, last night we played some Telugu nursery rhyme songs from Youtube and the girl broke loose in dance. It was very Indian, very unique, very funny and VERY CUTE!

What a joy she is to get to know and discover. It is fun to learn her quirks and what makes her happy. We continue to marvel at the gift she is to us!