Laughing and talking

What a lovely day! We cannot believe how far our Olivia has come in just these few days. Each day, the scared little girl Rikke held in her arms on Friday has shown us a little more of herself. And today she made some really big leaps forward.

We started the day with an Australian rite of passage: her first vegemite toast. She looks a little unsure in this photo but she was pleasantly surprised by how great it tasted... or just too scared of me to spit it out. Time will tell.

All charged up with those B-vitamins from the vegemite she had heaps of energy for our daily excursion to the pool. Today she got the bathing suit on and tentatively got into the water with Mum. On the way back up from the pool both Rikke and I got to hold one hand each up the stairs!

Dad has entered the building!

Then she even let Dad play along with the blocks. We had fun playing the drum on the box game and getting many lovely smiles.

And the moments just kept coming... Rikke and Olivia were sitting on the floor just cuddling and playing and then she started laughing. She has a very infectious laughter that is still echoing in our thoughts. And a great game too with lots of cuddles, trust (throwing herself backwards) and eye contact with Mum.

Try not to laugh along with her...

 The laughs just kept coming out on the balcony...

 And Olivia was also getting interested in what Dad is up to all the time with that camera...  She even let me tickle her while she was safely in Mum's arms.

Then to top everything off, this evening Olivia spoke her first words since screaming "mai!" (no!) at me twenty times when I picked her up at the orphanage that first day. While playing with the blocks she kept saying "Nee!" (that one!) and pointing to the block she wanted. Although we try to speak a little "Thai" with her we assume that it is not our Thai that is improving, but that she is relaxing with us and returning to the way she normally expresses herself.

Then tonight we got a taste of the little terror she might actually be... running around in the lounge room playing with Rikke... wow!