Waiting4Years: The First Month

How appropriate is it to celebrate our one month anniversary as a family (and my almost 2-months of being a new mom) by posting an update here on Mother's Day.

I can't say at this point that I cannot recall life without Zoey in our family (cut me a break-it was only 2 months ago that we were a family of 5), but I can say that life with her is a lot more fun and we do believe this whole thing was meant to be. We have come to discover that we all were missing a piece of us without her. We are a "complete" family now-we have all the parts to this puzzle, and the pieces fit beautifully. (Insert Bryan's cheesy "you complete me" steal from Jerry McGuire here.)

I feel that something has happened in the past week - without really knowing when or how this happened, we have really settled in as a family. We have the preliminary stuff down, and now we are just living life. Every one of the older 3 kids adore her, and they are wonderful with her. They really are so loving and so sweet with her. And she is FINALLY pushing the kids away and wanting her MAMA. Not all the time, but enough that I am noticing. "Mommy" is what she calls me now. Bryan is "ba" or "daddy." I get a ton of hugs, kisses, and I lov-a yous back from her. She is cuddly and very, very sweet. We still have room to grow, but I think she's finally decided that she can deal with me being her mom (and I am not complaining...).

I was thinking of this today-everyone has calmed down a bit and we are all settling into a rhythm. The first days at home weren't difficult, but they dragged. I haven't had a 3 1/2 year old around for 4 years-I had to learn how to entertain her and figure out what she liked to do. The days ticked by slowly, but not because they were bad-just because I felt like every second counted in the beginning, and we really didn't know what to do-we had to keep trying out things to see how she or we would react to them. We just had a lot of transitioning to do-big transitions. Now-we understand each others' habits, our likes and dislikes, and we can communicate much better. (Although, as amazing as this sounds, despite that language barrier, we really have never had an issue with communication.) All in all, we all have just relaxed a bit over the last week or so, and it is all good.

Zoey's English is really coming along-she adds more words to her English bank every day. One of the funnier things this week was with Meghan-Zoey kept repeating a phrase over and over one afternoon, and Meghan, who finally gave up, just wrote the phonetic spelling "chopu segus" on a post it note. When I arrived home she handed me the post it and asked me if I had any clue what it was. Any guesses??

Chopsticks. Meghan nearly choked laughing when we figured it out-she was ready to Google it and try to figure out what mysterious Chinese word it was.

I would like to note that despite the settling in we are all experiencing, she is still the "Rock Star" in the family. Everywhere we go, friends and family are asking about her and they tend to forget the other 3. But there is no animosity, no jealousy. The older 3 are just as excited to provide an update on her, talk about her, focus on her, and to introduce her, show her off and tell her story to whomever might be listening.

She is still a little shy at social gatherings, but this seems to be waning. Bryan and I aren't clingy with our kids, so when we go to new places we let them get their footing and off we send them. This has worked for her-she is shy for very limited time, then off she goes. At a friend's house last weekend, I carried Zoey into the party-there were many, many people in the kitchen when we arrived and it was pretty obvious that she was a little anxious. I held her a couple minutes and then got her something to eat and drink. I set her down at a cocktail table with Jenna and her friends in the family room, out of the way of the busy kitchen, but still near the chaos. I went outside. Within about 10-15 minutes she was off and running and had made several new friends (one a little boy her age named John). She would check on me about every 15 minutes-nothing more than an appearance and maybe a sip of her water which she parked at my spot, but then she'd go back to playing with the other kids. She ran to the park with the kids, played soccer and basketball with a couple older girls who loved playing with her, and let John push her on the swings for quite some time. When I asked her if she was having fun, she replied, "John," then took off to look for him.

Last weekend we also celebrated Sam's communion on his birthday. We had a party, and since we knew so many kids would be there, we rented a bouncy house. We were curious how she'd react-there were a lot of people invited, but this time it would be on her turf. When she woke up and saw the men inflating the castle (the first of 2 bouncy houses-that one had a hole and no bouncing was to be done in it after an hour) in our lawn, she nearly lost an eyeball-she was so excited. Once inflated, she was a beast. For the next 20-30 minutes solid she bounced-and came out of the semi-inflated structure soaking wet with sweat. She took the news that we had to stay out of the busted house fairly well-and when the second one arrived to replace the first, we hardly saw her outside the bouncy house. She was in that bouncy house nearly every second that she could - she loved it. All of the kids who jumped in it were very sweet with her-watching out for her and making sure she didn't fall down the slide. She was a hoot. It was pretty interesting to watch her in our house as the little hostess-no hesitation despite the amount of people who showed up. She just ran around like she owned the place, like she should.

We have had more updates on the foster family - they are having a really hard time adjusting to life without Zoey. I can imagine-this little creature has found a way to invade our hearts so quickly and so intensely, that if she lived with us for 3 years and someone took her away from us, we would be absolutely devastated. One interesting thing we learned last week is that she was so bonded to the family, any time she would encounter a stranger Zoey would cling to the foster mom or dad and would not let any strangers hold or speak to her. So-the fact that she is this budding social butterfly makes her transition even that much more miraculous.

As an update to the daycare situation-she is doing very well. She is very outgoing with her friends and likes to dance and sing. I can't wait to see how this year pans out-I do see a little social being evolving in her. There is less and less hesitation with every gathering.

One last thing before I put all of the pics here-we've spent time going back and forth to swim practice for Megs and Sam. She keeps pointing to herself and making swim motions with her arms-either breaststroke or freestyle movements. I keep telling her that I will get her into swim. I have tried asking her if she has ever swam before, but she just giggles-so I am not sure the Google translate is working all that well any more. Yesterday morning, she refused to get dressed. She would not put on the jeans and the t-shirt that Jenna and Meghan had out for her. She kept pointing to herself and then would move her arms as though she was swimming. We quickly figured out that she had had enough-no clothes until I get her in the pool in a bathing suit. Haha. Hopefully the excitement will continue through the first set of lessons, and she won't freak out and be afraid of the water.

No more narrative-here are the photos of the last couple weeks. Enjoy!

So this time it decided to load the pictures in reverse order-and throw the ones from tonight right smack dab in the middle. Oh well... This was at IKEA with Morgan and Tamy-that bear in the yellow bag is hers. Another stuffed animal... lol. Good thing she has her own room-if she won't sleep in it, at least we can use it to store the stuffed animals.

At cousin Riley's baseball game this past week.

She had that hat on for literally 15 seconds-I snapped so many pictures and got one that is awesome of all 4. They are a TRIP.

Already a natural with the Mac.

At the K after Riley's baseball game. Being 3 and a half years old, I opted for ice cream in a bowl for her, instead of a cone like the others chose. No, no, no. She wouldn't eat it -she just pointed to their cones. So-the nice people behind the counter gave me a cone, and I scooped it in. The little monster ate it all-and proved me wrong. She did fairly well and didn't spill. But Sam did-cup for HIM next time.

Showing off her very sleek panda backpack that Aunt Lana and Uncle Jim gave to her-she wears it all over the house. She LOVES it. It is amazing-the ownership that we all take for granted is such a big deal with her. We make sure to not get her everything she sees, but it is hard not to indulge a little... and she gets such a kick out of it. She also is still very good about no-she doesn't mind it when we don't purchase what she wants.

At the Zoo with Morgan and Tamy-Zoey bolted for the tiger that goes up and down. Morgan bolted for the stationary bench. Hahaha...

HER goggles. That she wears around the house. A lot-like every day.

This was so funny-I debated about keeping it out, but it was hilarious. We were at Quaker Steak & Lube in Beavercreek-they have an old gas pump outside. Zoey was cracking up-but she is still the master of moving away from the camera, so I couldn't get her face. Another sign she is meant to be in our family...lol.

She has been converted to a helmet girl. Taking it to the extreme-the kitchen table bench is not usually very dangerous, but you just never know.

Post-water battle with Sam. Bryan looked much the same-she NAILED him in the garage with a full blast from the water gun. Hehe.

Not the best pic of the 6 of us, but that look on her face is too stinkin' cute.

Sam at his First Communion. (For the record-I am just thankful glad I coaxed him into wearing a button down shirt. A suit was out of the question.)

She blows bubbles in her sleep. :)

These ice cream pics are from tonight-what a hoot. We actually got her to smile AT the camera. A couple times-but that is all it took. I snapped a bunch.