Friday, January 15, 2010
EIGHT MONTHS

Lily has been home now for 8 months. It is getting hard to keep up with the months and I actually had to count them in my head. I can’t believe how close we are to the 1 year anniversary of our Gotcha Day with her. In so many ways it feels like she has been here much longer.

Over the past month Lily had a few big firsts, the main one being her very first Christmas. Although we tried to keep Christmas low key this year there were quite a lot of things to do and to see. She sang in our Church’s Hanging of the Greens, had a school party, went to see a fantastic Christmas light show and had all the usual family get togethers. Some of our family she met for the very first time, including my brother from Arizona. She was a very good sport meeting everyone. Every night for weeks leading up to Christmas she had me read Christmas books to her and she particularly liked ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. She was very excited when going to bed on Christmas Eve but apparently had forgotten it was Christmas by the next morning. When I went to wake her up to see what Santa brought she got mad I woke her up and looked grumpy until I reminded her it was Christmas morning. A huge smile then spread across her face and she jumped out of bed. Her favorite presents this year were her American Girl Doll and potholder making kit. We also all received as a family a trip to Great Wolf Lodge so she was excited about that as well.

We left for Great Wolf Lodge the Monday after Christmas. It was a great escape and we had a wonderful time. Lily got to experience her first water park and loved it all. There was only 1 slide she would not ride called the tornado. Lily also was thrilled she got to sleep with mama on the trip. I had treated her to a sleepover with me for her birthday and knew how hard she was to sleep with so I warned her that if she kept me up I was going to put her in the bathtub to sleep. She laughed but I was serious (well not really). Well of course she was all over the place and talked in her sleep so much I finally picked her up at around 3am and put her on the floor on some blankets. That was much better; she is a very active sleeper. When she woke up I asked her did she dream in Chinese or English and she answered English. I had never thought to ask her that before. Isn’t that amazing that in 8 months time she goes from speaking only Chinese to now speaking very good English and even dreams in English. She said she was dreaming about mama, oh boy, I guess it is a good thing she was dreaming in English.

She is till cheering for Upward Basketball and says she still likes it though I think she looks a little bored at times. She is one of the taller girls so they have her on the back row. During the last game she wanted to be sure I could see her and kept moving up to the first row slightly further out than the other girls. She looked at me constantly to see if I was watching her. She is such a mama’s girl. But who’s complaining, I always wanted a daughter.

Because I had to work Lily spent her first American New Year with her Papa and Granny. They made it real special and she even stayed up til midnight. Now she is counting down the days for the Chinese New Year. We have plans to celebrate it with some other adoptive families we have just “met” online that live nearby. So stay tuned for our next update to see how Lily enjoys her first American Chinese New Year.