Observations after 24 hours!

1. She has a quick smile and a quick giggle. It's adorable!

2. She has lots of energy and the attention span of a toddler much of the time. She flits from thing to thing. But as we've spent more time together, some if this maybe just exploring all the fun new things we brought! Yesterday she did spend 10 minutes playing with a balloon with me. Hitting and kicking a serving it like a volleyball. We may have a volleyball player on our hands, Meredith! (Thanks Madison for educating us well, so we knew to expect that she may be 6 but not act "6" all around!)

3. The girl knows how to wash her hands! She turns on the water full blast and gets the soap and scrubs her hands like a doctor preparing for surgery! (Fine by me! This mom is always asking her kids, "did you wash your hands?"

4. She is independent. She would rather not hold my hand, but since she would run ahead (and maybe away!) she has no choice!

5. She is smart. On the second trip up on the elevator to go to our room, she ran right to our door (well, the door next to ours! Yes, she got away from me that time!) The hotel is a triangular shape and there are many different ways to go, but she knew which path to take! She also hid the remote to the TV from her brother yesterday because he wanted the TV off and she didn't. Later when we were looking for it, she laughed and ran to the hiding spot!

6. She has a healthy appetite and will eat most anything! She seems to know what she likes too. She got several different fruits from the breakfast buffet yesterday and I peeled them for her. (NO idea what they were!) She picked up some tomatoes, but quickly spit them out! Which is what she does when she doesn't like something!

7. She sits great to eat, but only while she's eating. Waiting for food to come and sitting after she's finished is not ok with her! We've gone to putting her in a high chair (yes she fits, but it is a roomy one) to keep her in her seat during meals!

8. She amazes us with her ability to use utensils! She uses the butter knife to scrape food onto her spoon (which is a huge soup spoon) to feed herself. She works until she gets every crumb and promptly sweeps any table crumbs onto the floor! She is, of course, also a pro at chopsticks! She also wields a table knife like a ninja!

9. She's a daredevil. The closest thing we've seen to tears was when she bumped her head after falling off the bed. She let me pick her up and hug her and kiss it and then she popped up and was off again! She was very quiet and maybe sad in the van yesterday when we drove for about 20 minutes to get to the police station as a part of the adoption process. But other than that she has shown no grieving yet.

10. She doesn't like some of her parents' boundaries. Like the seatbelt or the holding hands rule or sitting in the chair for dinner and not running around to everyone at the table. She throws a quick little fit but concedes pretty quickly too. We are trying to establish to her the idea of loving boundaries right away.