Laila Bear

I just had to take a minute to write all of the cute things down that Laila is doing. I have to admit when we were considering adoption I expected the children to be malnourished and have many delays for their ages. I just thought with their backgrounds of living in a 3rd world country and the 6 months they lived in the orphanage, they would just have some catching up to do. This has not been the case at all. If anything, it has been the exact opposite. Laila is brilliant. She is extremely verbal for her age and understands English like it is the only language she has ever heard. I figure if I don't document these cute little things she is doing they will be forever lost from my memory as the days fly by.



1. The day we took custody of Laila she had 2 teeth. Within the first week of having her, she had 5 more teeth come in. Now, only a few short months later, she has a total of 12 teeth, 4 of which are the first set of molars!!! She can eat with the best of them.



2. Speaking of eating, she has been a little chunker from the start. I will never forget what Cody said in Africa shortly after we got her, "Man, she has a lot of layovers!" I have never heard of the rolls on a baby referred to as layovers. It was hilarious. At one year old she wears 18-24 mos. clothes and weighs 24 lbs.!!



3. Laila was 9 months old when I first met her. I have no idea what she was doing before she joined our family, but from all appearances, she was not very interactive at the orphanage. In those first 3 weeks while we were still in Africa, she began clapping, pat-a-cake with roll 'em up, waving, scrunchy face, clicking her tongue, giving kisses, and "all done" in sign language.



4. She began crawling on May 2 and has been pulling up and cruising the furniture since then. She has yet to take those first steps, but we are expecting them any day.



5. She can now do "all done," "more," "please," and "thank you" in sign language. She blows kisses and does sweet baby(tilts her head and smiles). She says "uh-oh" when something drops. She says, "momma" and "daggy"(daddy) and she says all of the kids names. She loves doggys, and calls every animal by that name. When she is going to touch you, she says,"soft" and rubs her hand on you softly. She will try to say anything we ask her to. She is extremely verbal.



6. We call her Laila Bear because she likes to growl a lot. It is so cute. Rick will say her name in a growling voice and she repeats, "daggy" in that same voice.



7. She began climbing the stairs last week and goes all the way. Our concern is that she doesn't know how to go down yet. So far no falls (fingers crossed).



8. One of her favorite things to do is give high fives, kisses, and hugs. Throughout the day she randomly comes up to me and gives me kisses with a smack sound like a real kiss.



9. One of her least favorite things to do is get her hair fixed. She hates for me to comb or brush it. I expect this is going to complicate my life when she actually has enough hair for me to do something with.



10. One of my favorite things is to see her face light up with excitement when she sees Rick or me. When she has been away from either one of us, she will bounce, wave, her arms, and squeal when we come around. She then proceeds to show us all of her little tricks and abilities. It is so cute. She is the same way with her brothers and sisters. She is in love with all of them.



Those are the top 10 things about Laila right now. Next I will write about Isaiah and his over-the-top personality.