One week later.....

Standing with help from mommy






Eating is so much fun!









And so is tubby time!



Daddy wanna cracker?






Where's my biscuit?



Thank you!






Well it has been one week since we got the best gift ever.....our precious Maya Xiao Jiao. It seems like we have always been a family. I'll admit for the first few days I felt like we were babysitting and at any moment she would be taken away from us. But now we are getting into the groove of parenting and really feel like a family.

Maya has made amazing strides in the last week. She is very talkative and loves to imitate. We can't tell if it is baby babble or if she is saying something in Chinese. We made huge progress in the tubby department. The first couple of days that we tried to bath her she would scream bloody murder. No the water wasn't too hot.....we just think she had never really had a bath. I noticed at the orphanage a small square like shower thing in the corner with a big sprayer. So I think she was used to getting hosed down. When we stayed overnight at her orphanage city the hotel had given us a rubber ducky with 3 baby rubber ducks inside. We had forgotten to pack hers so we were thrilled to get some bath toys. I ended up getting in the tub with Maya and she cried for a few seconds and then realized splashing with the ducks was very fun. Today she required two baths following her fun eating session. I put her in the little tub and she had a blast. Oddly enough she likes to put her head face down in the water and blow bubbles and feel the water with her mouth. She would then sit up and be covered in suds giggling. One time she sat back up and had the perfect beard as you can see from the pictures.

Another great thing is that Maya has started to wave when people say hello or Nihao (chinese hello). It is so cute. Today we took a walk and she was just waving at everyone. People are always astounded because she is so small and she can do all that. She appears much younger so people think we have this brillant baby. Well of course we think so.
She will also shake her head no when she doesn't want something. And she now thinks it is really fun to feed us food. Nothing like a good soggy spit soaked biscuit in the morning! This tells me she is starting to trust us more.

Sleep time is still a bit of a struggle. Now when we put her down to sleep she will pop her head up to see if we are still there. Once reassured she will put her head back down. She hasn't been sleeping through the night lately. Last night she woke up about 4am and after a bottle we put her in bed with us. This morning I felt a little tug at my hair and when I opened my eyes she just looked at me with her big brown eyes. I said "good morning" and she gave me a huge grin. All our troubles are washed away with one smile.

We all have been fighting bad head colds. We decided to stay home from the big tour today. Instead we just hung out in our jammies and played. It was a fun day despite feeling icky.

We have heard from home that our little Skeeter is sick. Our pet sitter has been taking good care of him and taking him back and forth to the vets. Thanks Jenna! It is hard to be miles away worried about our first baby. Keep him in your thoughts.

Just one more full day in Changsha then we will be headed to Guangzhou on Saturday. Looking forward to a change in pace and one step closer to home.