5 Years has flown by!

    Yesterday marked 5 years since a judge in Russia granted us the pleasure of being Annika's parents.  She is 6 years old and so much has happened since my last post.  When Annika was 3 years old she had surgery on her legs in several places due to her Cerebral Palsy.  It has taken 2 years for her to regain the strength in her legs to go up the stairs in a crawl position and uses an adapted bike, walker and wheelchair. 
    She attends a French Immersion School for grade 1 and has more friends than she can name.  One day she came home from school to announce "I FINALLY have a boyfriend!  He opens all my ziploc bags at lunch time."  What more could a girl want :)  Most of her school work is done on an ipad as handwriting is very difficult for her as her C.P effects all four limbs. 
    Her activities include swimming and adapted baseball.  She hopes to try adapted dance and downhill skiing this winter.  Therapy horseback riding is also an option if she wasn't terrified of animals.  She is still small for her age weighing only 31 lbs and wearing the same 4T clothes as her 3 yr old sister and only size 8 shoes due to her lack of weight bearing movements her feet don't grow very fast. 
    November being National Adoption Awareness month and learning about "Self" in school her adoption has come up.  She knows that she grew in another woman's belly, she decided to be born 2 months early and stayed in a hospital in Russia till she was big enough to live with a lot of other babies until we found her and became a family forever.  Simple but true.  I know that more questions will come and look forward to her unique view as she surprises me daily with how her mind processes information.