More milestones for Sadie

Sadie saw her first Christmas tree today in the World Financial Center. She wasn't too impressed but did say 'bye bye' to the tree when we walked away. Sadie is hitting all of the 16-18 month milestones including major melt downs and tantrums. Last week we took the train up to Tarrytown from the city to visit friends and Sadie had a great time however on the 40 minute train ride home she screamed bloody murder the whole way. It was pretty bad and pissed off a lot of people - including me - but thats how it goes with kids past their bed time on a commuter train.

This month we are taking her to an adoption clinic in Long Island for her 6 month adoption check up and 18 month baby check up. The clinic is great, Sadie and I drove out there a few weeks ago in a rental car and we saw a great doctor who checked her out and shed a lot of light on her development. My advice to anyone adopting from China is do not use a standard pediatrician to catch your child up on vaccines and to do the initial and early follow up exams. You need to be seeing a doctor who specializes in adopted children and if possible infectious diseases.

Sadie has had a bit of a cough since returning from China and its been an ongoing worry of ours. It was very reassuring to have a doctor familiar with girls from China exam her and tell us her cough was nothing infectious and probably just post nasal drip which apparently is common with some kids. Sadie also only has four teeth on the bottom and the doctor told us that often adopted Chinese girls are delayed in tooth development and need dental care sooner than American kids.

Sadie continues to amaze us with her sense of humor and resilience. The doctor also told us to take her off the bottle so without any ceremony we stopped giving her her morning, afternoon and bedtime bottle and she never once freaked out or asked for the bottle. That chapter is effectively over.

Despite the fact that Sadie is more or less a lit fuse ready to blow at any minute she's still an incredibly loving and sweet girl. I started a new job last week and worked late each night getting home about 7:30 or 8, just before her bedtime and each night when I came in the door Sadie would let out ear piercing shrieks of joy and run to me for a hug. Its pretty intense to be met with that much unbridled love and affection and as good as it feels it also hurts that I have to leave her at all. I'm sure its the same for every working parent.

Even though she's only 16 months I think she'll have a good holiday season and get off on all the lights and gift wrapping. She's also about to get her first real dose of cold weather and its not going to go away for several months. I'm wondering how that is going to effect her mood.

Here are a couple of other recent photos of Sadie:

Sadie loves to read with her mom.

Sadie helps keep my guitar in tune.