A few more days under our belts

Things are coming along nicely in the Schimke household. 2 days ago we had a pretty good day with minimal meltdowns. She did run off a bit, but didn't have any big cries and was easily distracted. Yesterday was an amazing day with no meltdowns or battles at all. Well, she had the usual 4-year old kid battles, but nothing extraordinary for a kid that age. I was amazed that we went about 36 hours with mostly peace and fun in our house.

A few more things we've learned about her:

• Her favourite colour (it seems) is yellow. She will often pick out yellow things first, and when we took her to the scarf place in Addis, with the choice of hundreds of scarves, she picked out a pure yellow one.
• She is very funny. Her sense of humour is coming out a lot now. She loves to talk gibberish really loud, and Elizabeth can't stop laughing when she does that. When she asks for something, like water, she'll say "Wuha"...and we'll say "Say 'Wuha, please Mommy". She LOVES to switch up our names and say "Wuha, please Daddy" instead of Mommy, or vice versa and giggles. She also loves to play hide and seek or hide things, and giggles when we find her/it, and she loves to be tickled.
• She loves the playground. She is amazingly agile and I can actually sit and watch her now and not be terrified that she is going to fall off something and hurt herself. We've gone almost every day to the playground, and it has been so nice to sit and enjoy the sun while she runs around.
• She keeps begging to watch Shrek and Elf. I think they watched both of those in the orphanage. She pronounces it like "Shrrrr-ek", like it's too syllables. It's probably not the most ideal activity for a 4 year old, but I think we may watch Shrek tomorrow night as a family just for fun.
• The food has been going down mostly pretty well. Bananas are a favourite treat and good bedtime snacks. She loves blackberries, is OK with strawberries, enjoys cereal or bread for breakfast, and pasta for lunch or supper. She also tolerates cheese quesedillas and loves butter chicken with naan bread. She's mostly just drinking milk and water, but did have a bit of 7Up which she loved.
• It's been so fun doing first activities with her. Yesterday she had her first slurpee (she loved it), and a popsicle today (she loved it, too) and tomorrow I'd like to try an ice cream cone. Don't judge me for the unhealthy food, but the weather is so nice it's so fun to go out and have some icy stuff to cool us down. Plus, it's so fun to see her reaction to things. I can't imagine that she would have ever had anything frozen in her life. She looks at the ice in drinks for quite a long time and is suspect of it.

Anyway, Arvid is home and I'm going to go for a walk...by myself. This will be the first time I've left Mebira for anything longer than a shower in 11 days. I am soooo looking forward to it!