Monday, March 20, 2006
2 WEEKS + 2 DAYS HOME

Everything is still going really well. We meant to write this sooner but the time is flying by and life has been busy. It sure is easier to remember the details when you are writing daily so I hope I don't forget anything important.

The most important thing to say is that WenYan/Faith is a perfect fit for our family. It is amazing to us as we watch her try to adapt to her new life what a remarkable young girl she truly is. Let us say again, that the ease of this transition is because of her, not us. She wants to be a part of our family and that desire has affected the entire process. Language continues to be our only major obstacle. The inability to truly communicate causes stress on both sides but love and laughter seem to smooth out the rough edges at the end of the day.

Family dinner time has quickly become my favorite time of the entire day. We have been so blessed to have received the greatest gift from other families who have adopted from China... they brought meals to us about every other day since we returned which has removed the pressure to cook in the midst of adjusting to jet lag and changing our family structure. Besides the great food, we have been able to sit and talk and laugh as we just enjoy each other's company. Even Michael remarked that dinner is just more fun now with 5 people. It is amazing to me how well Faith can use a fork and knife when just a month ago she had likely never even seen one. Her table manners are very good and she continues to watch us carefully and try to do as we do. I had been prepared to make special meals for her when we first returned and at the very least always have rice and vegetables for her to eat at every meal in case it took her awhile to adjust to American cuisine. The first time I made her rice in the ricecooker and indicated that I could do this for her every day, she was insistent that I should not do that, and she didn't even eat any rice that day but ate everything else that we were eating. Since being home she has tried many new things and likes almost everything she has tried. So far she has liked: pepperoni pizza, cheese bread, pasta, salad with bleu cheese dressing, rocky road ice cream, cupcakes, cinnamon crunch cereal with milk (in China she said she didn't like cold milk), tostadas. Her absolute favorites seem to be pepperoni pizza and the cheese bread that someone brought to us which she loved so much I went out and duplicated it the next night just to see the huge grin on her face. She also loves fresh fruit which works well with us as we usually have that at every meal.

Several people have asked us about school and how Faith is doing and why we decided to put her in right away. Back when we started the process my initial thought was to keep her home with me for a few weeks to let her adjust to the USA by running errands and just being low-key. A few months ago we got a different perspective from a local family who have adopted teens from Ukraine. Their method has been to simply enroll them in school as soon as they return home and this has worked very well for their family. I remember their reasoning as being that the best place to learn is from their peers in that educational setting where there are great programs in place to teach them. The more I thought about that, it just made sense but we decided to make a final decision after we met WenYan. It quickly became apparent to us in China that she is very smart and not one to sit around being inactive. She had one day at home without her younger sisters after we returned and they were in school, and we knew that putting her in school quickly, was definitely the right choice for her and for us. We again have been very blessed to have a great elementary school with a good ESL program and classroom teachers excited to have her in their class and other students that have been so welcoming that Faith looks forward to school every day. I know that school was one of the things she was most nervous about in China but she is up early getting ready and always has a smile on her face when she comes home with Shea. She is called Faith at school so we have mostly starting calling her Faith at home too and she even changed her email address from WenYan to Faith all on her own which she proudly showed me after school one day.

Another important area of adjustment is with her sisters. I am so proud of Shea and Sophie and how much they love Faith and have welcomed her into their hearts and our family. As soon as we got home they both wanted to sleep in Faith's room and at first she let them but within a few days she kicked them out and is enjoying her own room. I was wondering how that would go since she is used to sleeping with several other girls but what a normal teen to want some privacy. She is very good about not going in her room and shutting herself away from the family too often. In fact, she is normally with us downstairs until it is time for bed. Faith has shown great love and care for her sisters too. She is very watchful of Sophie especially and sometimes hovers over her too much when Sophie is slow to eat (which is often). She liked to do Sophie's hair at first, but Sophie seems to wiggle too much for her so that interest has gone away quite quickly. I was concerned about how the relationship between Shea & Faith would develop and if Faith would put most of her attention on Sophie and leave Shea out but that has not happened. Shea is sometimes a little too huggy for her I think but all in all, they are developing a good bond and have lots of fun together. She has shown compassion for Shea when Shea was strugglng with some math homework last week and I watched as she went to Shea and put her arm around her and tried to see if she could figure it out for her and somehow communicate to Shea how to do some difficult problems.