Sabrina is getting ready to take off.  She stood up in the middle of the room today and took 7 steps without any coaxing from me.  She is so darn cute!  Dare I say even cuter than kittens.

Okay, now I turn to the internet for some wisdom.  Debra would like to know 2 things and I can’t necessarily answer either intelligently.

First, what is the different between clothing sizes 24M and 2T?  Good question, we aren’t there yet and I don’t know.  Anyone else?

Second, when filling out paperwork, if Latino isn’t an option, do you check Hispanic?  I find this question quite anxiety provoking myself.  I’m not sure what the right box is for our little Guatemalan beauties.  I believe I’ve been told that neither Latino nor Hispanic is accurate – but I can’t verify the accuracy of these comments.  So what is the “right” box?  I thought I would check Native American for Sabrina because she is Mayan (and Native Central American) but many forms I’ve seen lately have specified Native North American.  So what is most accurate, oh wise internet?

Lastly, I just thought I would give a shout out to my sister who happens to be one of the least computer savvy people I’ve ever encountered.  She is actually chatting with me on yahoo IM right now!  I was shocked today when she said she wanted to download it.  Way to go sis!

I don’t have anything today so I’ll share a link.  I met Fussypants at the blogger coffee I attended a few weeks ago.  She unveiled her new site today with her custom photo jewelry.  Go check it out.

And a picture of kittens because they are cute.  Who doesn’t like kittens?

There.  That is my post for Monday.

No, not Thanksgiving…Andrea suggested a conversation about foods your babies love.  Some of us feel like we stick our kids in food ruts and would like to offer up some new foods but our mommy brains aren’t kicking out any good ideas.  So let’s use the comments to hear some good ideas for feeding our little ones.  I would love to hear Samantha’s ideas – I know her ideas will be healthy.  I have a feeling Mama K might have some interesting things to add too.  (She also has a new online store where she has tracked down non-toxic toys that are safe for our kiddos.  Go check it out!)

Let me start things off.  This is by no means an exhaustive list of things Sabrina eats…but you have to start somewhere.

Breakfast: fresh fruit (banana, peach, kiwi, apple, berries, etc), whole grain toast or whole grain toaster waffle, scrambled egg – sometimes with diced tomato or ham or turkey and cheese in it

Lunch & Dinner are usually vegetables and proteins with a starch thrown in.  Her favorite veggies right now are zucchini, squash, carrots, green beans, peas, and beets.  Proteins are usually whole black beans, garbanzo beans, turkey, ham, or chicken.  Starch is usually whole grain bread but occasionally pasta or rice or sweet potato.

Snacks tend to be fruits and fats.  I’ll give her mandarin oranges, applesauce, or dried fruits (cranberries, blueberries, raisins, apricots, etc) and some cheese or something along those lines.   I’ll throw in some Gerber Puffs (girl loves her some puffs) or some goldfish.

And yes, she loves the occasional treat – a few sips of a milkshake, some ice cream, a little pudding.  But these items are treats and not part of her normal menu.  Man, I should eat as healthy as my child!

In the comments, give us some ideas of different foods your child likes.  Sometimes we forget simple items and other times we don’t look outside our own menus so we forget things that our children might like.

Phoning it in today because I got nothing people.  A couple of quick bullets to fulfill my posting obligation.

*  Miss Sabrina had another tooth break through today.  I didn’t even know it was on its way and poof, there it was this morning.

*  There was much rejoicing on my part when I drove by the new DSW that is being built near us and saw a sign in the window that is opening on Monday.  This new plaza has the power to suck my wallet dry – Target, DSW and a big book store.  And a Best Buy to entertain the hubby.  What more does a girl need?

*  Sabrina is continuing to take a couple of unassisted steps here and there when encouraged but isn’t trying to take off yet.

*  Holly and Julia have announced the winning tickets from the mother of all raffles.  Go check it out if you entered!

I had a better mommy day today.  Perhaps that is because I took a nap while Sabrina napped – I never do that but man it felt good today.  I bought Sabrina’s Christmas dress today and Macy’s had a turkey roasting pan on sale for $5.99 as a promotion for their One Day Sale.  (Strangely the One Day Sale is actually tomorrow but today was the preview day.  Why not call it a 2 day sale?)  It isn’t my dream roasting pan but for a dollar more than I would spend on a throw away aluminum one how could I pass it up?  Wow, next thing you know I’ll be talking about what I had for lunch.  NaBloPoMo needs to be over soon.

Some Sabrina cuteness always saves the day.

Someone had some serious bed head this morning.

Where ever he is, my father is laughing at me right now.  Sabrina’s favorite new food is sauted zucchini.  I detest zucchini and had many battles with my dad when I was a kid over eating zucchini.  I’m sure he would find it quite funny to see me cooking it for my daughter.

Could she look more proud of herself?  Love this photo.

When ever I get on the floor to play with Sabrina, this is what immediately happens.  Think the dog might be a little jealous?

Just when I think she can’t get any cuter, I think she does!

It has started.  Miss Sabrina has taken her first unassisted steps.  In the past couple of days she has started standing up without needing to grab onto something for help and today she took 4 steps to me without help.  She did it several times and was quite pleased with herself.  I am a little scared.

Other than the walking, it wasn’t a great mommy day.  Just one of those days when I feel like all I do is wipe poop and figure out what to feed her.  The whining had the nerve in my eyebrow twitching all afternoon.  She was demanding food every 2 hours today and I was having trouble being creative.  And does anyone else ever have days where they swear they can smell poop all day long?  I kept checking my clothes because I was sure I was wearing some but never found it.

I always feel a little guilty when I have a bad mommy day – I feel like I should be Mary freaking Poppins and always smiling because I have the joy of spending the day with my beautiful daughter.  But some days that mommy flask is dry and I don’t feel very perky.  It was cold and rainy today so I’ll blame the weather.

How long do turkeys take to defrost in the frig?  I haven’t made one in several years and I just realized I might want to go and buy one and stick it in the frig soon.  I LOVE Thanksgiving!

How is that for a creative title?

Project Runway is on tonight!  Woohoo!  Steve rolls his eyes at me but I love it.

A lot of people are resorting to memes to fulfill their NaBloPoMo obligation.  I won’t do a full one but I will add one random thing about me:

I have an irrational hatred for lady bugs.  When I had my log cabin in Ohio, lady bugs would infest it every spring and fall.  I would spend about an hour twice a day vacuuming up the lady bugs.  It got personal.  I loath them.  And they bite.  Little buggers.  Unless you have lived with thousands of them moving into your house, you have no idea what I am talking about.  I don’t mean 20 or 30 – I mean thousands without exaggeration.  This photo is not one I took but I can relate:

They would cover my bathroom window, ceiling fan, living room window, loft wall – it was disgusting.  I would sometimes find a ball of them behind a print on the wall in the winter.  I called exterminators – they said they couldn’t help.  Apparently they were imported from Japan to eat aphids in rose gardens and they have no natural predators in the states.  I saw 3 on our porch today and killed them fast.  I felt like they came all the way from Ohio to mock me.  Hey, I admitted it was irrational.

Lastly, every one but Karena can ignore this paragraph. I just wanted to say congrats – Harry is beautiful! I’ve been checking in on your blog and waiting for you to turn the comments on so that I could say hi and congrats but I’ve finally realized that I needed to find another way to say it. Hopefully you check in and see this. (For the rest of you, Karena sent Sabrina her very first pair of shoes – some darling Robeez – along with good wishes all the way from Belguim right after we got our referral.)

I’ve been so fortunate to meet so many wonderful people through my blog and my adoption. I’m actually surprised by how smoothly most of my meetings have gone with these people who I have little more in common with than adoption or blogging. What are the odds that I would enjoy each of them?

At the blogger coffee I mentioned 2 weeks ago, I met Elizabeth. Elizabeth then facilitated today’s play date with the lovely Julie and Lexi. Our beautiful little Guatemalan tots had fun playing together while the 3 mommies chatted. A couple of photos with faces other than Sabrina’s averted or cropped out (I don’t post photos of others without permission). And I finally got to see what a bonus room is (houses in this area all seem to have them and I had no idea what it meant – basically a large room you can use as you wish but they seem to end up being rec rooms in a lot of homes with kids).

And just a cute one of Sabrina in her jammies the other day.

Sabrina took the dreaded 10 minute nap in the car on the way home so she wants to call that her nap for the day. Mommy respectfully disagrees and is going to try and wear her out and put her down in a bit.

Today is an important milestone – at least in my mind.  As of today, Sabrina has been with me as long as she away from me.  She spent 7 months with her foster family and I picked her up 7 months ago today.  Why have I been waiting to reach this milestone?  It doesn’t make her more my daughter.  It doesn’t make me feel more legitimately her mom.  Guilt over missing so much of her early life?  Maybe.  For whatever reason, this is the milestone I’ve been anticipating most.  Not her being home for 6 months or home for a year or her first Christmas with us or getting her TN birth certificate – just the day that I know she has been with me longer than she wasn’t.

I think of that first week in Antigua often.  As she becomes more attached and bonded with me, I realize how hard that first week was for her.  She was fine the first 2 or 3 days and then she seemed to realize Maria (her foster mom) wasn’t coming back and she was stuck with this tired white woman who spoke a weird language and couldn’t sing worth a damn.  For the next week or so, Sabrina seemed uneasy with me.  She didn’t cry a lot and wasn’t difficult, except when it came to sleeping, but there was a general sense of unease.  We didn’t fit and move together yet.  There was a clumsiness about our interactions.  She slowly started to relax as she realized that while I couldn’t sing, I would get her bottles and change her diapers and avoid dropping her on her head.  At the time, I told people how easy going she was and how the transition was mostly smooth but looking back with the knowledge of how things progressed, it wasn’t as easy as I thought for her.  She didn’t sob and grieve the way other some babies did – but she wasn’t sure what she thought of me or the situation.  She didn’t know me or trust me.  She gazed at me out of curiosity and confusion not out of love or bonding.  But we made it through.  We found our rhythm and most days I feel great about our bond.  (Like any adoptive mom, I have days where I question her behaviors and wonder if we are back pedaling in the attachment department.)

But here we are at the day I have been waiting for and I wonder why I thought it was so important.  Today feels like every other day.  Sabrina woke up smiling and saying “Mama” like every other day.  (Okay, some days she wakes up smiling and saying “Puppy” but let’s just pretend it is always mama.)  We are going to meet up with some moms at Starbuck’s and have some coffee.  Then we will come home and take a nap.  I guess these arbitrary dates on the calendar don’t matter that much after all.

Most of you know Cheri’s story – heck most of you contributed to a fund for her and Erin this summer. Cheri has been in limbo for 11 months. She has been living in Antigua for almost a year. She has been waiting for Eliana’s birth mom’s cedula to be signed (long story – if you aren’t familiar with her predicament, read back through her archives). Friday she was notified that they FINALLY got a signature. I can’t even express how happy I am about this and I can’t imagine how happy she and Gary must be. Go give her some love! There hasn’t been a lot of good news in adoption world lately and this is some of the best news I can imagine (short of her and Erin coming home with their beautiful babies).