Finally, an update!

SO many things to talk about, so little mental capacity to remember what they all are.

Today is our 6th anniversary. It's strange to think it's been six years. Sometimes it seems like we've been together for longer, other times it seems like just yesterday.

Last night was the first night I didn't wake up coughing in nearly a month! Thank goodness I am finally feeling healthy again! Thanks for all the prayers on my behalf, they were very needed.

We have now been a family of three for nearly 4 weeks. 4 weeks seems like a long time and it doesn't feel like we've had Nora for a long time. On the one hand, she still doesn't understand most of what we say unless it's in Mandarin. She still fights sleep every time it comes. We've been working on a routine and that seems to be helping. At the same time she has come so very far in just 4 weeks. She went from quietly clinging to me while avoiding eye contact and being afraid of Kevin to an easy smile, gurgley laugh, and shrieks of "Baba! Baba!" when Kevin gets home from work. She really is an amazing little girl.

She is learning English bit by bit. Her first English word was "bye bye" which we were told the Ayis had been teaching her before we came. Once home, she almost instantly started saying "doggie" which sounds more like doddy. The dogs have been great with her and she took all of about 3 hours to warm up to them. She still gets scared when they have a barking fit, but otherwise she will walk around giving soft pets and occasionally point out their noses (the nose and ear game was one she played long before we got to China).

She is not a picky eater and will stuff down a hard boiled egg in four bites, max. The only thing she has actually spit out was ice cream. I think it's the cold since she generally likes sweet things. She still prefers warm/hot water but will take room temp when she must. Noodles are superior to rice and she will kick her legs in excitement when she sees edamame coming her way. She is amazing at imitating sounds and tone, so we may have a little musician on our hands. She will only play with one thing at a time and if you hand her something new she will quickly decide whether to keep the old toy or trade up. If you have something she wants, she will bring things to trade for them. She is also smart enough to realize that trading a bouncy ball for an Ipod is a rip off. She has very strong ideas about how things are to be done and will shut any open door she walks past. I had to teach her how to safely go down stairs since she had never been around them and would try to walk down them like we did.

She doesn't really "get" tv yet, but that won't take much longer. I did have a little giggle while we sat on the couch together eating cheese nips and watching MST3K (Puma Man, for those who care. It's a good introductory episode, I find). Mostly she prefers to be out and about, though we are still nowhere near being ok with the car seat. Each morning after breakfast she will grab her shoes and start saying "bye bye". Mean mom that I am, I make her wait until we are both dressed before we go on adventures. She is adorable, and cute, and we are slowly getting better at communicating with each other

Now for the nitty gritty since we don't like to sugar coat things. It's easy to look at a few pictures and think that everything is rainbows and unicorns. We get lots of comments on how she is fitting right in and adjusting well and clearly loves us. I don't know if I would use the "L" word yet. I think she is ok with us and figures that since she has spent the last 4 weeks training us on the proper care and nurturing of a Nora, she should stick with us. That said, she still throws wicked tantrums and nights are still very tricky. She goes to bed easily each night, but wakes up several times, often refusing to sleep anywhere else than on top of me, or while being walked around the room, sometimes refusing flat-out to sleep. It's pretty exhausting.

I mentioned in a previous post about how we can't let other people hold her yet. Since we've had questions about it, I will try to explain. Currently, Nora will happily go to whoever puts their arms out to her. We were advised by other adoptive parents, social workers, and our agency that in order to teach her what it means to have parents we must be the only ones to hold, feed, and change her. Some agencies make you sign an agreement, though ours did not. The thing is, Nora has no real concept of what parents are. She went into the orphanage extremely underweight and in need of food and attention. The children learn that if they are cute and charming they are likely to get a bit more food or a bit more care from the Ayis. It's strictly about survival at that point. Other children have other survival methods, but it's pretty obvious that this was Nora's method. Especially in the bigger orphanages, there are so many children and so little staff that the most they can do is feed the kids and change their diapers occasionally. When they cry at night there is no one to comfort them, so they learn not to waste their strength on crying. They learn that the only person they can depend on is themselves and caretakers, while needed, won't stick around.

I had read about children who would start rejecting their parents once they were allowed to be held by other people. I had heard that the kids took it as a signal that they were on their own again and were in charge of picking their new caretaker. It's a totally different story seeing it happen with your own child. In China, Nora started lifting her hands up to be held by the two 12 year old girls in our group. After she had been held by them for only a few minutes, she would refuse to be held by me and her sleep would be sporadic and plagued by night terrors. It was intense. Since then, we've been very strict about the no-holding rule.

It's hard on our families and friends to not be able to hold her. It's hard on us to not be able to hand her off for a few minutes, but it's for the best. It's not that we are trying to instill in her a fear of others, or trying to hoard her affections. We are simply trying to teach her that there are levels of affection and that there is a difference between parents, family, friends, and strangers. It is only temporary and it will allow her to form stronger bonds with people eventually, but man it sucks trying to explain to people that there is a reason behind this and it's not some arbitrary thing that Kevin and I decided would be a laugh to try out.

Anyway, things are generally improving. Nora is generally happy and we are slowly finding our new normal. Tomorrow she has her evaluation with our CL/CP team, so hopefully we will have good things to report. Also, I will do a full list of things we miss/don't miss about China, but oh man am I craving a chocolate steam bun! Someone go to the 7-11 there for me and eat one (Shelah, I am looking at you).