Firsts

This was a topic much on mind when we began the adoption process: by adopting a child well after birth, we would miss out on so many firsts -- step, word, tooth, and more. The advice I got from many of you was to relax, that there would be more than enough firsts. True enough, as it turns out. Just four days into our lives as parents, we've already watched a few. Phoebe took her first airplane flight last night, wrote with a crayon for the first time, and had her first McDonald's french fry this afternoon.

Phoebe was great on the plane, especially considering the flight took off at her bedtime (give or take) and was three hours long. We had her on our laps that whole time (she has a seat for the long flights home), and she was just a bundle of energy. silly us, we thought what with it being her bedtime and all, she'd have slept. The flight attendant brought her a coloring book and crayons (or waxy pencils, as they're called in Russian), and a bit to my surprise, Phoebe was able to use the crayons to make a few marks. She wrote with both hands, so it's hard to say whether she'll be blessed with left-handedness. I'm hoping that this early ambidexterity is a positive omen on that front. Most righties' left arms are vestigial organs, while most of us lefties use each of our arms for various tasks. (Phoebe tends to spoon her yogurt with her right hand, but favors the left thumb for pacifying herself).

We missed bottle feeding entirely, which has one major consequence for us: No sippy cups. They don't have them here in Russia (at least not at Phoebe's orphanage), and kids go straight from a bottle to drinking out of a real cup. It dawned on me that the sippy cup really confers no benefit on the child -- it's strictly a way to make life more convenient for the parent by removing the need to superintend drinking. With all that's new for Phoebe, we haven't had the heart or the patience to try to retrain her to drink like a baby, but we'll see what happens once we're both busy again at home!