Tuesday, April 24, 2007
BLESSED

I don’t believe in luck. I do believe in a sovereign God who is in control of everything, including those things which people attribute to luck. When we adopted Grace, they told us that the “Fu” in her name meant “lucky”. I pleaded, “Could it possibly be translated as blessed?” Our guide said yes, I think just to make me happy. But it seems like that word keeps hounding us! So many times people stop us and ask about her and will say, “What a lucky little girl!” I smile in response because I know what they mean, and I remember feeling similarly about adopted children before we began this journey. But now that Gracie is home, I must say I quite disagree, because luck aside, we feel it is just the opposite. We are the ones that feel so blessed by her joining our family, and we are rediscovering this daily.

Grace makes us laugh and laugh and encourages us with her hugs and kisses and snuggles and adds such joy to our days with her enthusiasm for life. Even if I have been home with her all day, when I walk into the room if I have stepped out for a minute, she will look up with her bright smile and yell, “Mama!!!!” It reminds me of when everyone in the bar on the show “Cheers” would yell, “NORM!” when he would arrive. Who doesn’t love that?

Grace finds such happiness in the things I often take for granted. She loves new sensations, especially in the weather…Rain, Wind, Snow, Sunshine…she loves to lift her little face to the sky with a huge smile and just take it in. When the rain is coming down and I’m running to get into the car (struggling to keep my hair covered, of course!), she is smiling with her arms outstretched, saying, “Rain! Rain! Rain!” It has been so nice here lately, and we’ve been able to drive today with the windows down, which is one of her favorite things. She just giggles continuously as the wind blows on her face and whips her hair around. When it was snowing, she would NOT keep on her mittens, as she had to try to catch the snowflakes and feel the cold, icy snow on her hands. Actually, she seems very unaffected by the cold. While the rest of us are huddling under our covers in our old, drafty house, she is always throwing off her blankets and taking off her pajamas! In fact, one of her favorite words is “ai” which we assume means “hot” because she always uses it appropriately to describe hot things. She still says a few phrases in her old dialect, but now she says quite a few English words also. Dog, fall down, eat, want that, bread, juice, drink, night-night, no, more, go, please, feet, mouth, booboo, eye, nose, hand, shoe, candy, diaper, poop, stinky, yellow, draw, bye-bye, hi, hello, phone, bow, all done, yeah and wow and why are the ones we hear the most often. Yesterday, I was in the kitchen with her and noticed a strange odor. I asked her, “Gracie, what’s that weird smell? Do you smell that?” and she replied, “Yeah…I poop.” She also loves it when we ask her how old she is, as she excitedly holds up all five fingers and yells, “I TWO!”

She combines a lot of her signs with her new vocab, which makes it so much easier for us to understand because although she consistently says the same words, they sound sometimes very little like the actual English word. We know it is her “version” of the English word, but it just takes a while to get it. She is still starting off each day with bread and butter and has substituted chocolate milk for juice as her beverage of choice while she watches her music video. Sometimes she will also tolerate the Wiggles or Finding Nemo for a while before she realizes she could be doing something so much more fun, like getting into Mama’s makeup bag or rummaging for snacks in the kitchen. She’s attended a few physical therapy and occupational therapy sessions lately as well, but on the whole, everyone seems to agree that although she is delayed, it is only her lack of exposure that has set her back and so more than therapy, she will just need some time and new experiences under her belt to catch up to her peers. She still loves to eat her noodles and eggs and yogurt, but is trying a lot of other foods as well… her most recent picks being turkey pepperoni, waffles with maple syrup and edamame. She also loves to feast on nuts and peanut butter sandwiches…although she is a bit messy, which the dogs like. She has such a sweet tooth and will even go after my coffee with a vengeance since I love to drown my coffee in sweet flavored cream.