Full circle

Annikah’s transition into our family has went AMAZINGLY well. It has, by far, been the easiest post-adoption adjustment that our family has ever been through. This little girl has been such a blessing to our family. She is a mama’s girl through and though.

She is my princess and my malko tornado all rolled into one. She is sweet and clever and stubborn to the core. She is all that and then some…and she knows it! I am so very thankful for this little girl.

There is still SO MUCH MORE to Annikah’s story. I have no doubt that my little tornado is going to do BIG things. I’m looking forward to watching her grow.

Since we aren’t dealing with any adoption related issues on a large scale anymore, it’s time to close out this blog one more time. I had no idea when I first started this blog in 2007 that it’d hold FOUR adoption stories by the beginning of 2012. Our family has truly been BLESSED! I hope that all of you will add our family blog to your bookmark, reader or even email (there is a feature in the top right hand corner of our family blog so that you can subscribe to posts and have them emailed to you).

God is not quite finished with our family just yet. There are exciting things in store for 2012 and we'll be sharing that very soon. Make sure you're following along.........

photos from the younger years

We have been BLESSED to get photos of all of our adopted children from their younger years. We have multiple photos of all 3 of our boys, so I was very excited to receive some photos of Annikah from her time in the baby orphanage too! .

This was the photo that was originally in her file when she was registered for international adoption in October 2008:

I received this photo from that same day with her baby photos. She was a tiny little thing back then!

This one is one of my favorites:
I bought one of those red animals in Bulgaria and brought it home. Annikah LOVES that thing! (as do many of my other children)

Here are some more:

This one caused a big ole reaction from my girls:

”Mommy, is she playing with SCISSORS???”
I assured them that someone took them away from her right after the photo was taken (surely they did, right? lol).

There are several more, but those are my favorites. We also received a beautiful tiny cross necklace that was taped to one of the photos. I’m assuming that she was baptized. I honestly don’t know and the director had no idea either since it came from the baby orphanage.

Just in case some of you have forgotten (or joined us mid-journey), this is the updated referral photo from her file AFTER she was transferred to the institution:

Citizenship

Today, Annikah’s certificate of citizenship arrived in the mail:

Though we have the visa and the official stamp in the passport, there is always a collective sigh of relief that comes with the arrival of our child’s certificate of citizenship. This is the last piece of “adoption paper work” that will go in her file. It can now join the files of her brothers in our safety deposit box. I’ll go later this week and apply for her social security number and then there will be nothing else to do until it’s time for the first post placement report!

Our malko tornado

Our malko tornado has begun to swirl!!!!
Her feistiness has been coming out in full force this week.
She does NOT like to be told what to do. Wait, let me correct that. She does not like to be told what she CAN’T do. She and I have had quite a few battle of wills this week. She is now trying to get into EVERYTHING. Being called a little tornado is certainly accurate because there are times when it feels like she’s swirling all over the place!  She’s slowly learning the boundaries that are enforced at our house (physical boundaries…where she’s allowed to go and where she’s not allowed to go). Well, again I suppose I need to clarify that. She KNOWS the boundaries and the rules. She chooses to ignore them. One of the current battles is her desire to climb up on the top bunk (Olivia’s bed). She “escapes” down the hall and gets up there. I can’t even go to the bathroom without making sure she’s “secure” somewhere because she is FAST! Needless to say, her daddy has now built a HIGH gate for the bed room door. It’s a safety issue right now, while we’re going through this power struggle she’s learning the rules of the house. Her other place of obsession is our master bathroom…..you know, where the big tub is.

She’s testing our authority for sure. She thinks that her smile should get her out of trouble and her kisses should get us to give in to her every whim. It’s a cute smile and we love the kisses, but much to her dismay, she’s still being made to mind. She is especially stubborn with her daddy. There are times when she won’t even look at him. She won’t eat if he’s sitting beside her.

So far, she’s gotten a clean bill of health from all the doctors that she’s seen. She went to the cardiologist this week, which is the visit that I was the most concerned about. She had heart surgery in Bulgaria when she was a year old. The cardiologist said that her heart looks GREAT! She laid very still during all the tests and through the examination. All of her blood work has come back great too. The only thing left is her eye appointment. Her eyes are bad, so I’m really anxious to hear what they’re going to do at that appointment.

In regards to her siblings, she’s still holding her own. She plays well with them 99% of the time. There have been a couple of times where she’s hit or pushed one of them that was completely unprovoked. But, that’s typical kid/sibling stuff and it’s only happened a very few times. She is jealous when they get my attention at times. She has tried to push them out of the way to get to me. She’s not very good with the whole “wait” thing in any regard, and that is especially true when it’s wait for mommy’s attention or wait your turn for a hug/to sit in mommy’s lap/etc, so that’s something she’s having to learn too.  Even though she isn’t talking yet, she CAN tattle on her siblings. She has a certain noise that she makes that lets us know when one of her brothers have stolen a toy from her or done something to her that she didn’t like. We always know when we hear that noise that we better go and check out what is going on like the time one of her brothers put her in the dog’s kennel and was trying to lock her in. She is SLOWLY learning that the drama queen routine doesn’t go far around here. The crying over every little thing and the fake cry to try to get her way are showing up less and less. She still has a genuine cry when something is wrong and that’s appropriate and good. But, the drama queen stuff is slowly disappearing now that it just lands the queen’s rear in time out!
The girls are still LOVING the fact that they have a little sister. 
This  is Olivia and Annikah playing “horsey”. Olivia was laughing, I promise! The “all fall down” part didn’t work quite like Olivia planned…LOL:

My 2 newest 6 year olds (Annikah’s birthday post is here).

In other areas, Annikah’s made quite a bit of progress this week. Toilet training is going well. I went out and bought a cheap brand of pull-ups (less padding so that she feels it when she goes) to make her more aware. She’ll now come and tell me 99% of the time when she’s wet. She’s actually told me before she’s wet a few times and I’ve been able to get her to the potty in time. She’s going to the bathroom on the potty when we take her. She’s just still having accidents in between those times too. She’s conquered her fear of sitting on the toilet, so we’re no longer having to use the adaptable toilet seat. Once all the other kids are in school after the holidays, I’ll likely start putting her in underwear for time training. Our goal is to get her completely trained before August (for school). She’s doing much better with eating and drinking too. She still doesn’t chew very well at times. But, she’s doing much better. She’s drinking pretty consistently out of a cup with a lid and there is absolutely no problem at all with her ability to drink from a straw anymore. She’s still a messy eater, so we’re working on that. She has decided that she really likes napkins, so we’re going through a lot of those!

 

She is HIGH ENERGY!
Honestly, she’s a lot like Grifyn was when he first came home. But, that was almost 4 years ago, so I’m out of practice!!! lol
She’s sitting beside me on the bed right now rocking her baby doll. I wish I had the video camera close by to record this. I taught her how to “love the baby” and “rock the baby”. But, I feel sorry for this baby! My malko tornado IS rocking her baby…..but the poor baby probably has whiplash from how fast she’s rocking!!!!

Overall, at 3 weeks home, she really is doing fabulous!
I can’t wait to see what she thinks about CHRISTMAS!

An update on Annikah

Annikah continues to do amazingly well with her transition into our family. I keep waiting on the switch to flip and her to wake up one day with all the “I was an orphan for almost 6 years and now you want me to be a part of your family” type behaviors/transitional issues that we are used to. So far, it hasn’t happened. She is sweet and stubborn and spunky and every day, showing us more and more how smart she is. This week, she decided that if we wouldn’t open the gate into the kitchen to let her in, she’d just climb over it! It took her a while to master the climb(and a few falls), but now she scales the gate like a pro. She is NOT happy when she gets put right back over it into the living room when she climbs it though. That usually causes the very dramatic fake I can’t believe you just did that to me cry. All our kids can open the gate (except her….purposefully haven’t shown her how yet) and it’s just there as a visual reminder of boundaries. So, climbing the gate is certainly NOT allowed. She’s trying to outsmart quite a few of our “not allowed” rules/boundaries!

This week she also mastered drinking out of a straw. She’s also drinking out of a cup with a lid that doesn’t have the no spill valve in it (so that it’s a little more controlled than an open cup….because she always chokes/coughs when she drinks out of an open cup). She was particularly proud of herself for mastering the straw. She now thinks that she should get every drink that she sees that has a straw in it….which presents a problem since all of MY drinks are the ones with straws, usually!

She’s using several signs very consistently now. She’s quite funny with this too. She only knows 2 food signs from memory right now (fruit and cookie). So, anytime she sees any food that she wants, she signs “more” and then if she’s told no, she tries “fruit”, “cookie” and eventually “cup”.  She is not fond of the sign for “wait” and really doesn’t care for the sign for “no”. She’s trying hard to figure out how to make her chubby little fingers form the sign for “I love you”. She can’t quite do it yet, so instead, she takes her index finger and touches inside our hand(on the two fingers that are down when doing the sign) as her response to “I love you”.

She is my snuggle bug and prefers her mama over anyone else. She’ll talk to anyone. Well, she waves and says “hi”. She doesn’t mind the attention. But, if someone tries to pick her up or touch her in any way, 99% of the time she looks for me and will usually run to me to keep the person from touching her/picking her up. I am SO VERY THANKFUL for this! She’s still warming up to her daddy. She likes him and she’ll hang out with him. But, in the moments when she really wants/needs something or when daddy tells her no about something, she comes to find mommy. We’re working on building her trust and understanding of who daddy is in her world by doing things like have daddy tuck her into bed at night. She’s also doing well with her siblings. The boys basically just tolerate her presence and tell on her when she’s doing something she isn’t supposed to do. The girls are LOVING having a little sister. They’re doing well with sharing their room (even when she wakes them up earlier than they want to get up on a Saturday morning). She’s playing really well with them and she loves being right in the middle of everything that they are doing.

I continued to be amazed at how God truly orchestrated everything for our family.
On Monday, I’ll share how He’s revealed it all to us in a way that’s brought a peace I’ve been asking Him to share with Robert and I for years.

Language barrier? I doubt it.

We’re going to pretend that this event happened due to a language barrier.

In reality, I believe that Annikah knew exactly what she was told to do….and told not to do…..and she just chose to do what SHE wanted to do instead.
Here’s what happened………

Xander was in the master bath tub “swimming” (he lays down and goes under the water….it’s a sensory/pressure thing). Annikah heard him in the bathroom, pointed and proceeded to try to go into the bathroom. I told her no and to go play. She poked out her bottom lip, but she turned and walked off toward the play room where the other kids were.

Well, at least I thought she did.

I went into the next room to get something. I returned to my bedroom and heard giggling coming from the bathroom. This is what I found……….

She’d climbed into the bath tub with Xander…….
clothes, diaper and all!!!!! It does appear that she attempted to take her clothes off (the PJs are unzipped). I guess she decided that would take too long!

I DID stop long enough to grab the camera and snap a photo. I tried very hard not to laugh too.

Then, much to Annikah’s dismay, I made her get out of the bath tub. I was not going to reward the disobedience by allowing her to stay and play with Xander. She was screaming mad a little upset that I interrupted her bath time.

This is just one example of the stubborn streak that we’re seeing in our Bulgarian princess. She does not like to be denied whatever it is she wants. She is having to learn that no means no, regardless of how bad she wants whatever it is that she wants in that moment. She has an excellent pout face. She’s mastered the pitiful fake cry too.

Overall, she’s pretty easily redirected and she’s doing very well with following the rules, boundaries and overall routine of our household. But on those occasions when she gets denied her heart’s desire, she is most definitely a drama queen!

More homecoming pictures!

If you haven’t watched the video of Annikah meeting her daddy for the very first time, that is posted here.
While I was filming that, my sister was taking photos.
Here is the moment from her perspective. Yep, they made me tear up all over again!

 

This is one of my other favorite photos from the airport. We taught Annikah to knuckle bump while in Bulgaria. Here she is with Jakob. I look at this and think, “Dude, I’m finally home!” :)