Ten Fingers; Ten Toes

My sister-in-law sweetly emailed me today and said she loved the blog, but what is Tessa like? 

Well as you can see from the pictures she is a beautiful girl.  She has more hair than the rest of the babies but is probably the smallest.  She has mastered the skill of sitting up. On the first day we got her she was wobbly but after a day she got her sit up muscles toned and can stay seated up easily.  She has excellent fine motor skills.  We put the cheerios and the goldfish in front of her and she grabs and pinches each one and eats it.  This is our  favorite activity.  She loves to hold an object in both hands and do a face plant on the table to get the goldfish or the cheerio.  No crawling or walking, though she can turn over.

She eats everything we put in front of her with much intensity.  We started with rice congee.  At breakfast we tried some cut up watermelon which she loves.  Formula of course, extra sweet. Then Catherine took us to a Chinese restaurant that does hot pot.  Catherine ordered all kinds of things, and we cut up some tofu and some eggplant for her and she polished that off. Then  we gave her a bowlful of fried rice.  She gobbled at that while waving her little chopstick around.  In the evening I gave her a little banana that she held and ate  quite skillfully.  She has no teeth.  (Actually, two of the five babies have teeth.)

There are four children here from the same orphanage.  In an earlier post I wrote that Tessa appeared to have been fostered.  This is not the case.  According to the orphanage director, she was too small to place in foster care.  She needed more care and she would get better care at the orphanage.  I was impressed at how clean and healthy she was.  She does seem to have a small cold but nothing serious.  All the babies, in fact, seem very healthy and happy.  All the families seem to be settling in nicely which I think is a great relief to Catherine who has availed herself to us for any need or problem.  FTIA if you read this, you have picked a gem of coordinator in Catherine. I'll blog more about her later. 

Tessa is a very serious child. She does not cry often, and when she does she stops when you hold her or feed her.  She easily goes to sleep by simply placing her in her crib.  She does laugh, but I have not figured out how to make her laugh.  Grayson can make her laugh by laughing at her, but blowing raspberries on the belly just gets stares.  She is not as vocal as some of the others, but likes to stare and watch everything.  She is intense and has big eyes to take it all in.  She looks at me as if to say, "Okay lady, what's next?"