10 Things about Ebba

1. She LOVES being outside - even in the cold. She will bring us her snowsuit, and wails if we try to bring her back inside before she's ready. She loves sliding with her big sister, walking up and down (and up and down and ...) the driveway, and playing in the snow. Yesterday she took her first rolling tumble off the sled with Mei Le, and grazed just under her nose on the crystalline snow - but Ian said that she refused to come back in the house to get it seen to ... far from the heart, thankfully!
2. She LOVES footwear. She will put on whatever shoes, slippers or boots she can find by the door - even if they are my big winter shows (Ladies 10), my husband's poopy barn boots (size 13), or Mei Le's or her own winter boots. Then she clomps around the house in them. And don't even TRY to remove them!
3. She LOVES her bottles. At 14 months I guess we should be thinking about trying to wean her from them, but they seem a source of great comfort, as well as good bonding time. And a bottle seems to be what it takes to get her to sleep at night. So for now, they stay.
4. She LOVES the bath - and will even try to wash herself with the washcloth. She is very brave about having her hair washed, and doesn't seem to mind water running down her face.
5. She is a climber, and can get herself onto the kitchen chairs, the couch, the dining room chairs - and it's only a matter of time before she's using those to get to even higher ground.
6. She LOVES to dance - esp to my belly-dance music, and with Mei Le at her highland dancing class. And she's getting some cool moves!
7. She has recently mastered a high-pitched shriek which truly requires that you cover your ears. Thankfully she doesn't let loose too often with it. I think the inital appeal was our cringing, plus the rather echo-y qualities of our kitchen-dining area (cathedral ceilings). It doesn't seem to be necessarily and angry shriek - more of an excited self-expression kind of thing. Yay.
8. She has almost completely stopped biting - at least in anger. I have been on the receiving end of a couple of more "exploratory" type bites - which have been met with quite resounding bellows of disapproval (me) and a look of total shock on her part. Hopefully they are going the way of the dodo. She does, however, have a remarkably painful pinch!
9. She is adding new words pretty regularly. In addition to those prev reported, she now also uses with good regularity: uh-oh, whee, bat (for bath). Plus her comprehension seems impressive for only having been in an English env for a couple of months. She will reliably "Go and get your boots", for example.
10. She loves to shut doors: bathroom, fridge, pantry. I suspect this is a residual orphanage beh, as I saw the toddlers in the orphanage closing the cupboard doors there - I think they are trained to keep them closed, or simply pick it up from the staff.