Saturday, July 11, 2009

Lily has now been with us for two months. It seems to me ages ago that we were in China anticipating the very day we would meet our daughter. Overall she is still doing remarkably well though this second month has been different.

With the boys home from school we have been able to do a lot of fun things. We took the kids to a drive-in theatre and even though Lily didn’t understand the movie she had fun. We have gone swimming a lot and just this week she has abandoned her swim vest and swims with just her water wings on. This is a big accomplishment for a little girl that would only get in three feet of water in China while being held. She has spent time with her cousins, playing on the slip and slide, cooking out, playing with dolls and having girl’s day out shopping.

Her language development is going well. Because I am with her so much I don’t notice it as much as others, those who don’t see her for a while will comment on how good her English has gotten. We still have a long way to go but there is rarely anything we can’t talk about in some way. She has told me about her friends at the orphanage, about how she broke her arm while in China, we talk a lot about day to day things and she likes to talk about the same things over and over.

Her eating habits have changed a lot. Rarely does she choose the soup or noodles anymore. She is still a huge fan of rice so she eats it almost every day. She is developing a taste for the foods we eat and will try most things at least once. Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day. She doesn’t like any typical American breakfast foods. We usually cook rice in the morning but when school starts there will be no time for that, we will have to cook some in advance. She is so slow going in the morning, we are going to have to work on that or she will never make it to school on time.

Lily had some dental surgery in June and did very well. She healed quickly and followed through on everything the oral surgeon required for her. After the surgery was the first time I had ever seen her cry and she cried hard. It was as if a wall was lowered and she let it all out. I held her for a long time and now it seems as if that experience has allowed her to cry when she needs to and brought us closer together.

Not a day goes by that we don’t feel incredibly blessed to be Lily’s family. She is funny, happy, loving, helpful, and playful and we love to hear her laugh. Attaching is going very well. She is very attached to me and is making slow progress in attachment to John. She gets along well with her brothers and doesn’t like for any of them not to be home. If I believed in luck, I would say we are so lucky to have her.

Things we have learned about Lily:

She has gained 1 to 2 pounds depending on the day, but is still very petite in size. Because of her narrow shoulders, I have started buying 2T dresses as shirts so they will stay on her shoulders.

She is always cold. We carry a jacket or sweater when we go out.

She is obsessed with my calendar; we look at it almost every day so she can keep up with everything going on. She could probably tell you everyone’s birthday in our entire extended family.

She has pleaded and begged to get her ears pierced (the way she pronounces it, it sounds like recipe). We have told her she can have them pierced for her upcoming birthday.

She is very thoughtful. Without me asking she will help others and helps me around the house.

She loves to collect stuff. She reorganized two drawers in her dresser just to put the stuff she has collected since coming home.

She loves the idea of Barbie and dolls and has some but never plays with them unless someone else wants to.

She desperately wants braces, go figure!

In China she wouldn’t eat and didn’t like chocolate chip cookies, now she does, she loves them.

She is great in math and has been studying her ABC’s. We even started teaching her about money which comes in handy considering this girl likes to shop!

Her favorite word is no. Not always used as a response, often used just to express confusion or not understanding.