Thursday,
June 17, 2010
Leah is officially ours in the eyes of the Chinese government!!!
Up until this point, we only had Leah temporarily. It’s kind of
like a “try before you buy” kind of thing. We would still have
had the option of saying that we didn’t want her. Usually that
time is 24 hours, but because of the holiday and all the offices
being closed for 3 days, we had a longer time. Isn’t that funny?
As if we would say, “Nay, we changed our minds.” It’s so that if
there was a mistake in the paperwork, and she had some major
problem that was not stated, such as blindness or something, we
could decline to take her. But I’m not sure there could be much
of anything that would cause us to get here and say no thank
you. I believe that God created her for our family, and if there
was some missing information in her medical report, He would
equip us to deal with whatever it was. Period.
Since that’s pretty much all we did today, I thought I’d use
today’s update to talk about Leah. Forgive me if this gets sort
of broken up and piecy… and long, but I’m just going to write
things down as they come to me. She is of course beautiful… you
can all see that. She is also very strong. She climbs, and
jumps, and runs. Fearless! I’m a little scared! She has the most
adorable laugh… and her belly laugh is awesome. She falls asleep
faster than anything I’ve ever seen. Now that she’s more
comfortable with us, she takes a bit longer to settle down, but
as soon as she lies still for 30 seconds, she’s out. And she
sleeps long and deep… she is definitely a Martino! And she talks
in her sleep! Too cute. If Daddy or Mommy leaves her sight, she
always asks the other, “Where’s Baba?” or, “Where’s Mama?” She’s
not quite the best at sharing, but if you ask her please, she’s
pretty good. Along that same line, she has a backpack that we
brought her, and she loves to put anything that she has deemed
“mine” into it. She’s a hoarder in training… which I’m sure
comes from not having anything to call her own before. Hopefully
we can help her to feel more comfortable that she doesn’t have
to collect and store everything, and that certain things that
are hers, will be okay and safe. She can sometimes be a bit
rough. She likes to throw things, although she did that more in
the first days, and not as much these last couple. She just
really likes to play hard, and she tends to get a little too
wound up. Her jie jie’s (older sisters) aren’t helping! She is a
very good eater. She of course likes rice, but also yogurt
(drinkable kind here), watermelon, soups, bananas, noodles. We
were told that she didn’t like meat too much, and she may take
awhile to like American food. I’m happy to say that she has
eaten many types of meat since we’ve had her… sausage, bacon,
chicken nuggets, and meatballs. And she has done very well with
the snacks we brought and french fries. I think she’ll be just
fine. She doesn’t like to be touched too much, and she wipes
away our kisses unless she is sleepy. When she first wakes up,
she is fine with me holding her, rubbing her head and hair, and
kissing her face and head. But when she’s more awake, she really
isn’t ready for that yet. I know it’s normal, and that we are
still like strangers to her, so we’re not hurt. She has our
patience as she goes through this huge transition. She’s
extremely independent. She can do most everything by herself,
and does not like you to help, unless she says, “Help you?” She
speaks a good amount of English, and understands almost
everything that we say. You all know that she says no and mine
all the time. If we call her name, she says, “What?” She always
says, “Look!” She likes to ask, “What’s it doing?” or “What are
you doing?” She can say please, thank you, and today after I had
told her thank you, she quickly said, “You’re welcome.” We are
naming lots of things that we see, and she repeats them back to
us. I’m sure not too much of it is new, but it’s good
reinforcement for her. She usually prefers Daddy over Mommy, but
that’s okay. She’s probably going to be his tomboy anyhow! We
know that she is learning that we are the two people she needs
to attach to, and I think she’s doing really well at that. She
smiles at us more often now instead of turning her head quickly
as if to hide like she did at the beginning. She is very good
about holding still for me to wipe her nose, change her, brush
her teeth, and her hair. And one last thing before all of you go
blind from reading… she absolutely adores her jie jie’s!!! Kyra
and Ryann have been so great to her, and she might have been
lost without them! I believe they definitely made her transition
to us easier than it may have been otherwise. Bottom line… we
love her tons and bunches!!!
Tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou. We have truly enjoyed our time in
Xining so much! I had been worried that we wouldn’t, but it has
been a wonderful 5 days!
*I also did want to say thank you so much to everyone for the
wonderful messages left in our Guestbook!!! They honestly mean
so much to us as we are going through all of this. Please keep
them coming! |
She loves brushing her hair
Helping us pack
Officially a family of five!
A mess after dinner
Taking care of her baby
Listening to a story before bed |
