Playing around...

Karina's personality has started coming out more and more in the past several weeks.  She is a very easy going girl and pretty laid back. Karina is very generous with her cute smiles, to both family and strangers alike.  She likes to wander around the house and get into things, and is communicating more and more.  She knows a few words, like Daddy, Mama, Jie-Jie (big sister in Chinese), bao bao (hold me in Chinese), Go-Go (the neighbor's cat), ball, book, etc.  She also signs a bit, too.  Even though her spoken/signing vocabulary isn't very big yet, she clearly understands a LOT of what we say, and is able to follow lots of directions, as well as figuring out when we are going to the park, or the car, or wherever.  Her favorite thing to do is shadow Eliana, which 50% of the time Ellie enjoys, and 50% of the time she finds rather annoying. 

Karina often adopts an item, whether a pen, spoon, or small toy, for an hour or so, and carries that around everywhere she goes, forcing her to play with other toys with one hand!  So we'll often find kitchen utensils upstairs in our bedroom or a tube of toothpaste downstairs.  In the picture below, she's adopted an apple as her favorite object, and would nibble on it every once in a while.  The apple also left a huge wet mark on her shirt from all the hugging it got.

Karina has recently learned how to shake her head.  She likes doing it, maybe because it feels funny.  We don't think she knows that it means "no", because sometimes we'll ask her, Do you want some food?  She'll shake her head "no" and then reach for the food.  Here she is practicing this new skill...

Karina also likes to invent new variations of old games.  With peekaboo, she recently started playing this version at the dinner table.  With one hand, she'll cover her face and with the other, she'll do the sign for "Where?"

And our poor Karina has had a runny nose or cough for the past several weeks.  But then this past Friday, she took a turn for the worse, crying a LOT and even more congested than she had been, and the doctor at urgent care diagnosed her with a sinus infection.  That explained why she had been so fussy.  She's been on antibiotics ever since.  The only silver lining is that she LOOVES the stuff.  Every time she sees the syringe filled with the pink stuff, she goes bananas!

And here is a picture that big sister took of Karina.  She was eating a post-dinner dessert of frozen Gogurt, which she loves.  As you can see, Karina's hair has really grown.  We've had to trim her bangs several times now and the sides and back are quite long.  She is growing and learning more every day!