Carrots.

She hates carrots. It's so funny to watch her hate carrots that I want to keep feeding them to her. Is that terrible? She also thinks it's really funny when I eat her food. Then, instead of eating it, she feeds it to me. We do this with her water bottle about ten times--I'm trying to get her to drink more water but she'll have none of it. She also HATES having sticky fingers and gets very distressed about food on her hands. I am not surprised by that...we'll have to work on her tolerance of some of that stuff. No time for sticky fingers at the orphanage. She even prefers to be fed than to pick up food herself. Her fine motor skills are good, but you can tell she doesn't have a lot of practice using her pincer grip with food--she will sometimes miss a cheerio, or try to grab one when there are none left, and then she just looks up at me for more. She is concentrating hard on a lot of developmental tasks--it's no wonder she is so tired! She walked so much yesterday! And she didn't want to stop. She walks and walks and walks--the whole time watching her feet, to make sure they are going in the right place (also we bought her new shoes, which I think are a little less stable than the shoes she came with). The stairs are a riot.

She could also entertain herself for hours with stacking cups...I mean HOURS. She works very, very hard at stacking and knocking down, stacking and knocking down, stacking and knocking down. When she stacks them all (or I help her), she puts her little yellow ball on top and then she looks at me and I say "yay" and clap, and then she looks at John and he does the same and then she smiles and wiggles around and is tickled to death with herself. I am teaching her to clap, which she loves but can't figure out how to do, so she puts the ball on top of the stack and then gives me her hands to help her clap! Do you love it? It's hilarious! And John is positively convinced that this one small skill makes her the smartest child who has ever walked the earth.

The other thing she loves is being chased. She will follow one of us to the bathroom, peak through the door at us, and then run as fast as she can (like a drunken sailor) to the other end of our hotel room SQUEALING with delight.

She follows me EVERYWHERE and watches everything I do with utter amazement. She likes to play with John, but she likes me to hold her. When we're on the bed and she's starting to get tired, she wiggles all over me, trying to find a way to get comfortable. And as soon as I cover her with her blanket, her finger goes in her mouth (right in her cleft) and her other hand grabs one little piece of her blanket and she is out--for hours. She is just like her mother! I fact, I have several hours a day to post to the blog because she's a great sleeper.

We haven't heard her talk yet-she has babbled a little, but not much. Mostly she just giggles.