One week today!

I actually wrote this post on Sunday but got distracted and did not hit post:










Our one week anniversary. Wow! I can hardly believe it.









As Sophia says, " This is Mama, Papa, and Mama Blan!"( sweet friend Jill, our escort)

We were showing Sophia her photo album and giving her jewelry at our car at the airport. She immediately calmed down.

There is so much I want to share. It's been a great week in spite of the few rough spots. While Sophia is such a happy little girl most of the time there have been moments of testing. She has not accepted "no" very easily if it's something she really wants.

She has decided that her daddy is pretty cool. She stood next to him the whole time he was carving the Thanksgiving turkey with her hand held out. He fed her piece after piece to which she would eat then say "fini" and show her empty hands. That act of kindness won her little heart. Now she follows him around trying to get his attention.

The language barrier has been somewhat difficult but has also given us much to laugh over. Sophia talks - a lot. If she's not talking, she's singing. We are a family who loves to laugh and tease. Sophia will rattle off something in Creole and S will rattle off some nonsense syllables back to which Sophia will just laugh hilariously. At the table the other evening, this scenario occurred. S's sentence ended in poo poo. Of course, he was trying to sound "french" but I reminded him that poo poo in creole means the same as in english so Sophia probably wondered why he was talking about that at the table.

Sophia has really warmed up to Caleb and Lucas. She can not walk past them without slapping or hitting them in teasing. Of course, they are thrilled she's no longer afraid of them. They tickle her or chase her to her delight. I looked up the phrases "don't touch" and "don't hit" and tried to show her to be gentle. Later that evening we were in the car. I had a bag of chips that I was feeding to Sophia one at a time. She is very polite and says " Mesi, mama!" each time. So cute! I had also looked up "your welcome" that morning and was trying to remember to use it. I said what I thought it was and saw Sophia cock her head to the side and say "Huh?" Oops! I told S I wasn't sure what I said but it must not have been "your welcome". I realized later that I had mistakenly said "pah touche - don't touch!" No wonder she was confused!

Whenever she has to go poop she says "Mama, twla cam bam!" and when she has to go pee she says "Mama, pee pee cam bam!" We are not sure what "cam bam" means so some of you who have kids home please tell me.

S's brother and his wife bought Sophia a sweet princess dress-up dress that she wears constantly. When Catie, my niece, was here playing the other day, they both had on their dresses. Sophia potties quite often and I make her remove her dress first. Catie, of course, caught on to the phraseology. I heard her respond to Sophia in her southern accent - " If you have to cam bam, you'll have to take that dress off!"

She points to pictures of herself and says "mem mem" which I assume means "me". On occasion she responds with a very clear "thank you very much!" She can sing her ABC's in both creole and english. She sings Old Macdonald and some other nursery songs in creole that we recognize. We also have heard her sing some familiar church choruses in english.

I'll share more later, hopefully.