One-Half of a Year.

On November 8, 2011, we received this photo:

 

Six months ago TODAY we met this little cutie: 

                                                  And today, I took this pic:

Hard to believe that 6 months ago today Jenna and I were riding the bus to the Civic Building in Hefei, Anhui, waiting in the room, filling out paperwork and noticing a shy little girl looking at us-looking so scared.  (Okay, and I will confess, in the crazy clothes that she was wearing and with that haircut, I recognized the face but thought she was a little boy when I first saw her...)  We were a little terrified right along with her, but also excited, overjoyed, anxious, concerned and elated, all at the same time. I vaguely recall moments during those first few days where I questioned what to do with a child who is almost 4-what did they like to do?  What did they like to eat?  How much sleep did they need?  Which name are we supposed to call her?  How many layers of clothing do I need to put on her this time??  Will she understand me?  How are we going to live through the plane ride home? Is she going to stay in bed?  Will she need a diaper at night?  Will she suddenly change in terms of personality once the newness wears off? Is she going to cry or scream when we go out?  What happens if I run out of lollipops???

Six months later-so much has changed.  We have a thriving, vivacious, amazing little girl running around taking control of the house.  She likes order, but loves spontaneity.  She enjoys ramen noodles (they are still her favorite food, she claims), but loves fruit snacks, Indian food, black beans, buffalo chicken salad and chocolate milk.  She is a rule follower, a quick learner, and she has the sweetest disposition of any 4 year old child I have ever met.   To be blunt-the transition has gone well and we are so blessed and lucky to have her as part of our family. 

In terms of her age-she is 4.  In terms of our family, she is 6 months. Yes-we did miss out on 3 and a half years of her life, but we've been able to enjoy a different range of "firsts" for her.  First time off the diving board, first Family Fun Day at our local swim club, first day at school, first field trip, first vacation as a family, first Cubs game, first birthday WITH US, first time to a pumpkin patch, first bonfire, first time writing her name on the wall (yes-our bathroom wall), and first time meeting all of her family members and friends.  Lately, we are trying to describe Halloween to her, and why the embroidered spiders on the table runner aren't scarey, why the fake eyeballs in the hurricane are cool, why pumpkins should not be dropped from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and that if she dresses like Elmo at the end of October she'll be able to run around the neighborhood and collect candy from complete strangers.  (In my efforts to describe it to Zoey, it makes me think there is something inherently wrong with this custom, but the kids {and I} love it nonetheless.) 

She is working on beefing up her English vocabulary, learning her letters, mastering her numbers, learning appropriate slang, picking up dances from Meghan and Jenna (I will try and upload "the Bernie" dance - too flippin' cute), going to church, playing with kids of all ages and backgrounds-some who are also adopted from China.  She loves to sing pop songs at the top of her lungs ("but you didn't have to CUT ME OFF...").  She is perfecting her scootering, gearing up to ride her bike without training wheels, playing badminton, shooting hoops and learning how to swim.  She is loving school - last weekend I got the "Mom-why you not tell me how fun school is??"  And, I have to add, Little Miss Chatterbox feels very much at home-she talks back to me, fights with her sisters and brother, yells at us, screams "yuck" and runs the other way when food does not look appetizing to her, and gives the pouty lip/crocodile tear combo when we suggest she should sleep in her room.  This morning, when we left with only her pink Converse shoes, she got increasingly upset as we left the neighborhood.  By the time we arrived at school, I had received a couple "I don't like you mom."  I will admit I was a little upset at first, but as the day went on I realized that not only does she feel comfortable enough to say that, she probably has really now officially made that transition to "one of my own."  (lol)

With this also brings some sadness-she is losing (if not having lost already) her native language (we have a tutor who is not making a whole lot of progress helping her retain her Mandarin), and still she talks a lot about China (or "Made in China" as she refers to it).  She talks daily about her foster family-we have been in contact with the foster family, and they are still  devastated (we try to email them pictures and updates every week or two, and they tell me it is easier this way-keeping in touch and knowing that she is loved by us). 

And, as a little plug here for Love Without Boundaries, we have discovered that her medical care while in China was great.  The kids and I are trying to put together a little fundraiser for LWB to send some money back to continue their wonderful non-profit efforts, and if any of you have any extra money burning a hole in your pocket, they accept donations of any type and size. 

So-to make a long story short, we have learned so much during the last year, especially these last 6 months.  We have learned how brave a little 4-year old girl can be, how amazing the miracle of adoption is, and how quickly and fiercely you can truly love someone who does not share your same genetic traits.   We now know that even if you don't speak the same language, you can communicate-love, hunger, thirst, humor, sadness, irritation, playfulness, happiness and fear (of being alone in your own bedroom at nighttime, apparently) are universal.

Happy 6 months with us, Zoey-you have made our family complete.

Zoey. Is. AWESOME.

I have been meaning to write this entry for a while-sorry for the delay. 

This is a hard one to structure-I have wanted to give an update, but honestly I don't even know where to begin.  It was a little easier in China when I would just write about what happened that day.  Now-that is not so exciting.  Let's see...Bryan and I went to work; older kids are finally in school; Zoey started preschool/daycare (and seems to really like it); I came home; drove someone to some sporting event... blah blah blah.  So-instead it might work better if I just post the pics and fill in with narrative.

But first, a little summary of the last couple months.  In a nutshell-this has gone so much better than we could have every dreamed.  She is so sweet, so charming, so darn adorable.  The kids LOVE her-she is truly the rock star everywhere we go, and they love that-there is no jealousy.  She really makes it so easy to adore her-we love her because she is funny, sweet, loveable, and cute, cute cute.  She has settled in well-the attachment has gone amazingly well (thanks to all for your prayers and good wishes).  I am happy to report that lately, I am actually (dare I say it...) her favorite-hugs, kisses, lots of cuddling; she is really bonded to us all.  She does talk about China-fairly often.  She talks about her China mom and dad, sis and brother.  She seems to really understand what happened and has decided it is okay-maybe even kinda fun here in Ohio with our family...  So have we.  :)

Medically-she is doing well.  She does not have a cleft palate-just a lip with a slit in her gums.  She'll need a bone graft in a couple years, and possibly have her tonsils removed (soon), but besides that she is great.

Her and my dad going down the water slide in the Kings' Island water park.

To answer many questions-yes.  She LOVES the pool.  Thank goodness-not sure what she would have done this summer if she didn't.

Kid-friendly pool at Nemacolin

Infinity pool at Falling Rock, Nemacolin

This is Zoey doing a cannonball off the diving board at our local pool.

Celebrating the 4th of July

Zoey turns 4!

Zoey and Morgan

Yes-she has grown accustomed to skirts and hair accessories.  She is developing quite a little sense of style.  (Must get that from Jenna, lol.)

Nope.  She doesn't sleep in her room.  This is a futon we keep in our room on the floor-she'll sleep there or on Meg's floor.  In fact, she doesn't even like to go near her room when I am around-she must fear I might make her [insert gasp] sleep there.

We aren't pushing the issue-yet.  I know she likely lived in a 500 sq. foot home in China with 4 other people.  This is her own room on the floor above Bryan and me, and is very lonely compared to mom and dad's room.  For now, her room is her playroom and her bed is accumulating dust.  But-we figure at SOME point she'll make her way up there.  Someday...surely she won't be sleeping on Meghan's floor or on the futon in our room forever...  This also provides us with an available guest bed if any friends or family wish to come and visit-it is very, very nicely decorated.

Besides the sleeping issue, she is absolutely perfect.  Yes-I said PERFECT.  It is almost frightening how well she fits in with us.  She is a rule follower, a good-natured, laid-back kid, and has a heart of gold (not to mention a really good sense of humor and loves to sing and dance).  She has adjusted so well-and so quickly. 

How is her English?  Well---after an argument with Sam while they were playing tetherball in the back yard, Zoey comes to me and tells me how mad she is.  "Mom-I hit ball that way (pointing with her finger).  Sam hit. He hit opposite direction, and..."  She honestly used the words "OPPOSITE DIRECTION" - so I am thinking that her English is coming along very well.  She speaks in full sentences, almost no Mandarin at all with us.  In fact, we are desperately trying to find a student or mom around who can meet with her once a week to speak Mandarin just to keep it going with her.  Know anyone???  For now, we let her watch that crazy sheep/goat cartoon in the car everywhere we go, hoping it will buy us some time.  

Funniest moment recently:  Hear a clink, clink, clink in the background.  Hear Sam dive and slide on the ground, stating, "Oooh-this coin is from China!  Now it's mine."  Zoey starts screaming and responds with, "NO SAM, I CHINA!!!"  Sam hands over the coin.

The Olympics were fun with her-everytime she heard an announcer say "China," she'd scream "China" and throw her arms up in the air.  But, we did notice several times when she saw the US flag with the National Anthem playing, she'd put her little hand on her heart and watch as the U.S. Gold Medalist was celebrated.  

Falling Rock, August 2012

Fake glasses from Claire's-being a ham.

I have finally reached the point where I can say that I can't remember what it was like without Zoey in our lives.  I know, I know-I can "remember" but I really cannot imagine what it was like without her.  She has really fell into her role in our family and we love her tons. 


(I promise that I will try and be a little more diligent in my blogging-purchased a new camera, so I will want to share some cute pics.) 

The First Month - A Recap

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. 

The bouncy house (#2).

My personal favorite.

(Back to the bouncy house pics.)  That is sweat pouring down her face.  She took the jumping very, very seriously.

Stinker would put the camera up to her face every time I tried to snap a photo.