two weeks and two days later....

as the adoption came closer to fruition over this last year, i made my plea to the universe. "ok," i said. "you gave me the whip-smart firecracker i asked for last time. this time, could you make it someone sweet and easy?"

it sort of freaks me out. but fuxiang seems to be exactly that.

so far she's a happy-go-lucky kind of gal who is content just to dangle from your hip and look around. she went from screeching in fear of those two black bushy dogs on saturday (which must look like grizzly bears to someone so small) to hugging them on sunday to letting nelson kiss her all over the face on monday ("CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!" i screech.)

she's a bit of a velcro baby, but more because it doesn't seem she has been made to walk very much, rather than out of insecurity. she understands cantonese and mandarin, and responds very well to the mandarin instructions we give her despite our bad chinese (i'm saying "where's the baby?" in that video -- please, native speakers, don't bother to correct my pronunciation; xia is all over that!) 

my fantasies of a modern international von trapp family remain alive... fuxiang really adores music more than most babies i've seen (and i've sat through a LOT of music together classes with munchkins over the years), so i'm eager to indulge that.

i took her with me to vote today. this, i said, is a very important day in america, and in about 16 years, you'll be able to do it too. now, we just have to work on this being-president thing!

very hard to believe that she came into our lives only two weeks and two days ago. it seems like forever -- take that as you will!