Who is Addise Aster Tarike Diaz?

Addise is FULLY girl. She can go from all-out giggles to dramatic lower lip pouting in alarming speed. She is a little girl of a hundred faces - all of them irresistible. Yesterday she discovered mirrors and has since been found staring at herself in the mirror - giggling, making faces, wondering who that beauty is staring back at her. Squeals are quite common and my eardrums hurt.

Addise is in the 58% of weight and 75% of height. She has 3 big rolls on each thigh that beg to be tickled. Her big brown belly loves to be filled with milk. It's like the Pavlov's dogs experiment: she sees a bottle and she starts convulsing with giggles and whines.

Her daddy is the one who can best put her to sleep. She is the ultimate cuddler. She burrows her head into your chest and snuggles away. She's a fan of her security blanket and the 6 dozen other stuffed animals her admirers have given her. She does this remarkably cute thing with her mouth where she mimicks nursing, yet she doesn't dig a pacifer. She LOVES to give kisses to her momma - slobbering all over her face. Again, she giggles and coos the whole time. Yesterday she found the courage to kiss her daddy and has since done it repeatedly.

She's crawling everywhere, pulling herself up on whatever is her height, and is walking while holding my fingers. My guess is that she'll be walking by her first birthday on February 9th. She's cut 2 teeth in the past 2 weeks, all without any crying or fever. She's a trooper! She has however been slobbering and snotting EVERYWHERE! And whenever we try to wipe her snot away from her gorgeous lips, she whips her head back and forth and cried like we're amputating a limb. Drama.

Addise is eating like a champ. Thigh rolls and weight prove it. She's currently adoring veggie straws, bananas, chicken, rice, and TJs yogurt squishers. She's also a pretty messy eater.

We call her "Toots McGoots" because the amount of gas in her belly warrants a nickname. We laugh a lot at how such a pretty little girl can fart so frequently and smelly! She's also a good pooper. [When she reads this someday, she'll be fully mortified.] She doesn't like getting her diaper changed because it cuts into her play time or being held. Plus, who really likes their butts wiped?!?

Emotionally, she's become quite demanding of mommy time. She's less and less cautious of her daddy, but her mommy is really the one who's attention she longs for. If I walk out of the room without acknowledging my absence, fear sets in and tears immediately fall.

Overall, she is joy personified. She makes us smile and laugh and easily remember "why" we endured a 22 month long adoption process.

Enjoy a few seconds of my daughter laughing. The visual isn't great, but the sound is music to my ears...