We are Still Here

Ambidextrous?



No Tooth!

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Below I have posted about the travel home and the first week. Writing is not my favorite thing to do so between the burnout from writing so much while in China and being soo busy, keeping up to date on the blog has gone to the bottom of my to do list.

It is now 5 weeks home and things are amazingly great! Sophia is adjusting so well. I could tell form the first week home that living in foster care for most of her life makes such a big difference compared to Micah living in the orphanage for the first 2.5 years of his life. She understands how a family works. She does what I ask her to do and doesn't have any fits if she doesn't get what she wants. When we go to stores she doesn't run around and even though she is very interested in looking at everything, she does not want me to buy everything.

The food situation is getting better. She tries more and more things and after a few days realized that while I can give her things that are similar to China, they won't be quite the same. We have made some trips to the asian market and she does enjoys that but we usually end up coming out with more snacks then anything else. She is trying and starting to like more and more things. Potatoes are are on the do not like list except when they are in the form of French fries. We are finally getting her to drink more water, it can not be cold but she will drink it. She prefers pop and juice but we don't have much of either in the house so I am trying to wean her off them and more on water. A healthy diet is definitly something we are going to need to work on.

She will be starting school this week. We have held off to see how she has been doing and after talking to our social worker for our six week post placement, she agrees that 1/2 day kindergarten would be good for everyone. THere are certain days when I am really busy that she just seems to get bored. We will go through all the list of things she likes to do but she passes and just like to lay around. WHich I think in turn she starts thinking of China and seems to get sad. So off to school. THis week she has actually asked about her going to school so that is encouraging. She can sing her ABCs, writes her numbers to 100 and can count to 13. She can also write her english name. I think that is pretty good for being home for a month.

SHe has lost her front tooth so that was pretty exciting. We have missed so many things with her so a milestone like this was so great to be apart of.

When we hit the three week mark at home, she just really started using more english. Before she would copy us a lot(even when I was punishing one of the other kids - that did not go over very well) but never really respond to us in english. She has started saying "THank you" "Are you ok" and many other phrases. She picks up things so quickly, I know that she will do great in school.

We have had a few tests at the doctors but nothing conclusive yet. We have another test is early December with the urologist that will hopefully give us some direction on treatments.

Things have been so amazing with her adjustment. She has moments of sadness that you can tell she is thinking about China. I ask if she is sad, and we give each others hugs. She is such a brave little girl. She never ceases to amaze me at how strong she is. She is definitely attaching to me and also to Russ. We both had to leave to do a service project for our church. She had stayed with Grammy and Grandfather at our house before and this time she was with Micah too. But she just did not want us to leave so she was upset but she did do ok. But I really try not to do anything in which she doesn't have at least Russ or myself - so attachment is growing.

She will be celebrating her birthday in a couple weeks and she is very excited, she has alresy started the count down. We are looking forward to her first one with her forever family!