Monday, June 25, 2007

We’ve had Jenna for one full week now, and what a difference we’ve seen in a week! When we got her, she wasn’t rolling over and wasn’t sitting well. We had to force her to bend at her hips because she wanted to keep her body absolutely straight. (According to the assistant director of her orphanage, she spent most of her time in her crib or in a walker.) When she did sit, Kaylee and Madison surrounded her with pillows because she kept toppling over. Now she rolls/flips quickly from her back to her stomach—mostly to avoid those dreaded diaper changes! She is still very wobbly, but has gotten much stronger than she was last week. In the middle of playing on her stomach (which she’s still not all that crazy about), all of a sudden she will just lay her head down on top of her toys, as if it’s just too much work to keep her head up that long.

We absolutely love watching her play. When she’s excited about something, or someone, she’ll bob her head up and down and smile—she looks like one of those bobble-head dolls on dashboards. She also still kicks one leg and moves one arm excitedly when she’s happy about something. And of course, her smiles and squeals are just to die for.

Kaylee and Madison have taught Jenna how to turn on the songs on her Fisher-Price “CD” toy and how to push/hit buttons to make different sounds on her Sesame Street toy. They are her biggest fans, and they clap and cheer excitedly whenever Jenna does something by herself the first time. They are such great big sisters.

Kaylee is disappointed that she hasn’t taught Jenna to crawl yet. It’s the cutest thing to watch. “Here, Jenna. I’m going to show you how to crawl….See?....(Then she crawls across the bed and down on the floor)…..OK….Now it’s your turn….Come on Jenna….Crawl….It’s your turn, Jenna…” Too cute.

We have yet to change a diaper without Madison being there to sprinkle powder, and have yet to feed the baby without our two “little Moms” helping. Jenna is incredibly patient with them, and we are so thankful for that. Madeleine’s little sister was overwhelmed for the first few days, and didn’t want her big sister near her at all. Madeleine was crushed. They’re doing great together now, but I’m so thankful we didn’t have any glitches like that this time around.

This morning, Christin, Nai Nai, and Grandad took Kaylee and Madison to the pool while Jason took our paperwork over to the Consulate. We had to stay in the room, in case he needed to reach us if there was a problem. Luckily, everything went smoothly, and we’re all set to take our oath and pick up Jenna’s visa tomorrow so she can travel home to the US. While they were down swimming, their new friends Lilian, Madeleine, and Samantha came down to swim, too. Of course they had a wonderful time, and got completely wiped out again.

After lunch, we were scheduled to go to the Pearl Market. Jenna and Kaylee were both asleep, and Madison was only minutes away from closing her eyes as she was standing. This time, I stayed back with the girls, and sent John with everyone else. I know he’s thankful that he was the one to go and not me! The Pearl “Market”, located in the center of the city, turned out to be the equivalent of a 6-story Oaks Mall with jewelry store, after jewelry store, after jewelry story—hundreds of pearl shops, stores devoted exclusively to turquoise, others devoted exclusively to amethyst, etc. John said there were bags of stones, ready to be set, from floor to ceiling in the stores. They do a lot of business over the internet, but John said this was enough to supply the world. (How was this the trip I missed out on???)

Apparently everyone in our group ended up buying pearls. Christin and Nai Nai got some MikiMoto pearls, and John bought a strand of pearls to give to Jenna on her wedding day, following the family tradition we established on our previous adoption trips.

Oh—and by the way, the Tooth Fairy flew all the way to China last night! As you know, Kaylee’s big experiment was to bring the tooth she lost to China to put under her pillow (rather than under her pillow at home). She wanted to see if the Tooth Fairy comes to China, and if so, whether she leaves Chinese or American money. Well, Kaylee decided she wanted to wait until the end of the trip to test out her hypothesis, because she knows it takes a looooooong time to get to China, and she figured it would take the Tooth Fairy even longer to fly here herself. So last night, Kaylee put her tooth under her pillow at The White Swan. Sure enough, that Tooth Fairy DID come to China. Her wings must be completely worn out! And sure enough, she brought Chinese yuan rather than American dollars. And as soon as Kaylee found that out, she ran over to the mirror and started frantically working on her top front tooth.