Forgive Me

I do hope Melody will someday forgive me for posting this. It's just too funny to keep to myself! She just finished eating a chocolate chip cookie when she sneezed...



It's also been a little while since I gave an update on how Melody is doing. All I can say is that she is one amazing little girl. She constantly surprises me. Tonight, for example, I told her "no" when she bent a card from a game. She looked up at me, got up, walked toward the door and sat down on the carpet where we put Julie for time-out. Melody put herself in time-out! She sat there looking at us, waiting for us to come get her. When we did, she signed "sorry," just like we make Julie. I couldn't believe it! Melody just turned 16 months old. Is this typical? Her understanding of life and language astounds me. She follows basic directions without any problem. I can ask her to go get something in another room and she does it (wow!). She can follow a pointing finger to an object. The other day she picked up her wet diaper, toddled into the hall and dumped it in the trash! I had no idea she knew where old diapers went, and I never asked her to help. She just did! Whenever I say "it's time to clean up," Melody happily starts putting things away. When Julie wants to string little beads on shoelaces, Melody has to do it too. She sometimes needs a little help getting the bead on the lace, but she can do the rest (picking up the pieces, lining them up, pulling the bead down the string). She knows 40 signs in sign language and 25 spoken words (not all intelligible to anyone but me). She loves to laugh, especially at silly noises, and she loves to cuddle. Socially, she is my reserved child, sticking near my side whenever we go someplace new or where there are lots of people. I could really go on and on. Needless to say, we are having a blast living life with this little girl. She gets more precious to me every single day. I can't believe that 7 months ago we hadn't even met. For those of you still waiting for your referrals, hang in there. It's so worth it.