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.