Long Overdue Zoya Update!

Even though I have very little time these days to sit down and write, I promised myself last night I'd write about Zoya because she is just turning into such a big girl lately! It is so cool to watch all the changes that are happening with her lately. I swear she grows overnight every night because each morning she looks more and more grown up to me!

Last night Zoya and I spent some one on one time in her room reading and singing and snuggling and hugging. She kept saying "more hug" and "woo woo too" (love you too). She is able to carry on a conversation with us between words and signs and I just think it's so cool to start hearing what she has to say. She gets her wants/needs across very well and follows directions to a T! She is so literal it cracks me up. I told her to stop touching her glass Elmo ornament and just to look with her eyes. So she got her little head as close to that ornament while sticking her butt out and tried to touch her eyes to the ornament. Then last night I said "Can you watch Mila for Mama?" (I was trying to make Zoya feel helpful and important) and Zoya walked right over to her, bent down hovering over her with her eyes an inch from Mila's and just "watched" her. I laughed so hard! She is such a good girl and has really put up with a lot of changes in the past couple of months.

She has shared us gracefully (except the week from you know where) and she has done fabulous during the times we can't be here with her because we are with Mila in Pittsburgh. Shawn and I are trying to be very intentional with her and giving lots of extra love and attention at every second we can. We are also very aware that we can't take advantage of the fact that she is doing so well on the outside and forget her emotional needs on the inside. It has been so difficult to balance caring for Mila in Pittsburgh and Zoya in Erie, and it's about to get a whole lot more difficult next week. We are blessed to have fantastic family and friends who have been so willing to help us. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa B. and Aunt Jen Jen and Xavier for helping us love on Zoya while we can't be here.

Zoya is still doing fabulous with potty and wearing underwear everywhere (even school) except for naptime and bedtime. She still refuses to poop in the potty but I think she's getting closer because she has been obsessed with putting all her babies and animals on the potty and yelling POOP! haha. Let's hope it's right around the corner for her! Her speech is really coming along and she is saying new words every day. She was on the potty the other day and I heard her yelling SHADOW! SHADOW! SHADOW! And I peeked in and she was making shadow puppets on the wall haha! She loves singing and dancing and playing anything girly! Right now she is sitting on the floor next to me playing with her doll house. I love seeing her play appropriately. She just picked up the mama and said HUG and made her hug the daddy. The other day she was very quiet so I went into the playroom to check on her and she had a burp cloth under Elmo's butt and she had a diaper out and was wiping Elmo with wipes and putting a diaper on him! She must watch pretty closely! The best part was she was being sooo gentl with Elmo and it was just so sweet! I love seeing her act out love like this because I know we must be doing something right here. School is going good and she loves going....I think she wishes she could go every day because she asks just about every day if it's a school day. She has been able to tell me bits and pieces of her day which I just love.

I've been wanting to get a good video of Zoya singing because she just loves to sing and I love hearing her. So here is Mama and Zoya's Twinkle Twinkle duet!

(if you notice her right eye turning in....she'll be getting glasses in a couple of months to fix that! Then she'll really be a fashionista!)

And here is her acting out and singing "The Wheels on the Bus"

And a cute little one of Zoya answering my questions. One of her favorite things to do is name everyone in the room and point...I hear she likes to do that at school too!

I am the luckiest mama ever to spend my days with two sweet girls now! It's not always the easiest job, in fact it's the hardest job I've ever had, but it's the most fun too!