It's been over 5 weeks since Josie came home!

Our little sweetie has been home for 5 weeks and 3 days.  She has changed so much in that short time.  She has become so much more secure with us and her environment and now walks all the time.  She has such a fun personality.  She is very expressive and we see tons of great facial expressions.  Her most famous one is WOW and it comes with anything new.  She doesn't say the word but her face says it all.  When she gets tired she loves to rub her belly with one hand if she has a shirt on that can come up.  Of course she has her fingers in her mouth with her other hand.  She still picks up things off the floor but we are starting to see less of it going in her mouth.  She is still a wonderful sleeper and almost always sleeps all night plus 2 naps each day.  One evening we had company over and she was about a 1/2 hours late for bed.   She started to have a little fit so I made her Sippy cup of milk and went to sit down in a rocking chair in the living room so I could still visit.  She proceeded to have a big fit and say Nigh-Nigh.  She knows we always rock in her bedroom and she was letting me know she was ready for bed.  It took about 5 minutes to rock and she was down.  She talks all the time and we can understand a few things she says.  So far she has Mama, Dada, Hi, woof woof, no no (na na) and nigh  night.  We hear a lot of things that sound similar to what we say so we know she is trying to copy and will have many more words soon.  Today I hear what sounded a lot like "Hi Trixie".  She LOVES the dog and all animals she has seen so far.  She rode on a dog sled ride while we were in CO and loved it but really wanted to be up with the dogs not sitting.  She still loves music and loves to dance.  Her attention span is starting to increase as well.  Today we were able to read 4 books in one setting.  When we first showed her books in the orphanage we were not even able to open them.  Anything we gave her was hers and she didn't want us to touch it.  She still doesn’t like to share (but what 17 month old does) but she lets us turn pages and loves the books that have flaps that open.  She loves to rock and have us hold her and love on her.  When we first picked her up she really didn't want us to touch her much.  She wanted to be held but when we rocked we couldn't touch her head and she didn't snuggle into us.  That is a thing of the past.  She loves to snuggle when she can be still long enough.  She also loves getting a massage after her bath with lotion. She is really a typical sweet little 17 month old girl that loves to keep busy and keep her Mama busy.  She is a wonderful child and we can't imagine our lives without her.