growing

Not much time to post, even though there's no shortage of interesting things happening around here! But here's a draft that I've been wanting to get up for almost two weeks, so maybe I can finish it off and get it live.

So, remember how much Tsvetomira weighed two years ago? (That would be in March, 2015.)

11.2 kg (that's just under 25 pounds).

When we met her in September, we were told by her doctor that she was pretty much done growing, most likely due to the early onset of puberty. Sure enough, by the time we picked her up in January, she weighed 11.5 kg. (That's just a few ounces over 25 pounds.)

Well, when she was discharged from the hospital, which you'll please note is AFTER she moved incredible volumes of matter out of her very impacted bowels, her weight was 12.2 kg. That's almost 27 pounds. I did not post about it at the time, because we had noted over the last day or two of her stay that she looked slightly swollen, so I didn't want to make a big deal out of what might turn out to be just excess water retention. But that next Monday when she had her followup appointment after discharge, so three weeks after picking her up from the orphanage, her weight was up a tad more to 12.3 kg, putting her just over 27 pounds.

Besides the numbers, you can just see it in her face, in her thighs, and in her tummy! She's looking almost kind of pudgy!

 This girl is not done growing.

She's also not done changing in other ways, either. When we first met her, the staff would put tiny cloths (dry wet wipes) into her tight little fists to keep her fingernails from digging into her flesh. We have seen her loosen up so much that she can't hold the thicker softies Leah made for her, and we've seen her arms open up enough that she can hold a medium sized stuffed animal in her arms. Well, this week she's gotten to where she can drop the stuffed animal! Just look at where her left arm is in the photo below!

Last night I dreamed that Mira was crawling. I think what surprised me most about the dream was how little I was surprised by seeing it! Reality does not put "Mira" and "crawling" in the same category, but isn't it interesting how very quickly a scary photo with an even scarier medical file can turn out to be just a sweet little baby girl.

She looks here like she's almost smiling. Not quite as pronounced as what we captured while she was sleeping at Gillette, but that's not a neutral look on her face, either. 🙂