A first smile!

I remember the day Daniel (my oldest son) gave me his first smile.  He was a couple of months old and had an appointment with the pediatrician for a slew of vaccinations.  As a new mom, I was dreading this!  So, to adequately prepare Daniel for this trauma, I laid him down on my lap, looked him in the eyes, and explained to him why its so important to be immunized ~ that it will hurt for a minute, but that I will give him lots of hugs when we are done.  (Yes, I did say he was two MONTHS old, but I'm one of those moms!)  It was supposed to be a very serious discussion, but Daniel apparently thought it was amusing, because when the conversation was over, he showed me the biggest, gummy smile ever!  Then, at my delight over him, he continued to smile for almost a half hour.  How could life be any better than that?
Well, Wu Yi's first smile lasted only a few seconds, but it was just about as great!  I was getting her out of the bathtub yesterday ~ oh, did I forget to mention that I gave her a BATH???  WITH NO TEARS, NO FIGHTING, NO BIG DEAL??? Yes, yesterday I told Wu Yi that it was bathtime.  We had successfully been getting dressed without issues for several days, but no bath since the "prying fingers off the towel rack incident" in Guangzhou.  She was parked in her "usual" spot on the couch and could probably hear the bath water running.  She got up, and walked to the bathroom and started getting herself undressed.  O-M-G!  I lifted her into the tub and frantically started playing with the tub toys to distract her.  Well, she still isn't interested in toys and seemed to be irritated everytime a rubber ducky ran into her, but I played with ducks and boats to my hearts content for a good 20 minutes.  (No I don't have a fascination with tub toys ~ I was just stalling as I tried to figure out what to do next!)  She patiently waited for me to grab the soap and "get to work" (well, how would YOU feel giving a 7 year old a bath when you don't speak her language and have no idea how she usually does it??).  Anyway, we got through it and I breathed a sigh of relief and lifted her out and into a towel.  I decided to be playful with toweling her off (little peek-a-boo, little tickling, little "crazy hair style") and she gave me back a genuine smile!!!  What a great day! 
I've given up on sitting home with her all day.  Don has returned to work, the boys are in school, and the two of us girls are BORED!  We drop Evan off at school and she shows some mild interest watching him cross the busy playground.  We go out for a latte and experiment trying different smoothy flavors for her.  Yesterday we met friends at Carl's Jr for lunch and tried to tempt her to play in the big playland.  (She wouldn't go in to play, but she ate a kids meal and watched the other kids play).  When I tell her we are going somewhere, she finds her coat and boots (still wearing her red snowboots!), gets herself in the car, tries to buckle up, and is ready to go!  She is definitely going to fit in as a Walters!
This morning, I was eating breakfast and didn't know that she had gotten out of bed until she came up behind me and said "Mama" and then headed for cartoons.  Thats all she said.  She didn't follow it up with "I have to go potty" ~ just basically saying good morning to me I guess.  Another first!