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Friday, May 15, 2009
HOME FOR SIX MONTHS

Six months have passed since Maili Claire came home to her forever family. The past six months have flown by and her transition into our family has been smoother than we ever dared to hope. Our primary concern with adopting an older child was that she would have difficulty making the transition from life in an orphanage to life with our family, and we were prepared for the possibility that the adjustment period would be tremendously hard on us as a family. We were committed to working through it no matter how long it took and how difficult it became.

Maili had other plans, however. From the very first day she seemed to know she was our daughter, for better or for worse. She certainly tested some boundaries, but even in those first few weeks she somehow seemed to sense that we would be there for her even though there were times she didn’t like us very much when we set our expectations for her pretty high. We made her talk instead of pointing or whining for what she wanted, obey when she didn’t yet understand why, and accept affection when she didn’t have any to give. Over the next few months she began to blossom, both developmentally and emotionally, into one of the most joyful and affectionate children I have ever met. This little girl whom we fully expected to disrupt our family in the beginning has instead enhanced it in so many ways.

She has changed so much over the past six months that at this point I can’t even imagine what the next few years will bring. It is so exciting to watch her master new things each and every day. She works so hard at everything she does and I’ve never seen her give up on anything, no matter how difficult the task. She will just keep trying until she finally gets it, no matter how many tries it takes. I watched her at an indoor play area the other day. She continues to receive physical therapy for a slight muscle weakness in her legs and trunk and some balance issues, so she was unable to pull herself up the next level of the play structure in order to get onto the slide. Instead of offering assistance, I watched her from a distance to see what she would do. I counted EIGHT times she tried and failed to pull herself up, falling each time back down to the level below. She never cried or asked for help, she just continued to try over and over to pull herself up. On the ninth try, with both arms shaking, she finally managed to pull up to the next level. The smile of pride on her face was a joy to behold. How many of us would have tried and failed that many times and persevered until we succeeded? I can honestly say I that I probably would not.

She exhibits the same dogged persistence toward learning academic tasks that are difficult for her. She has finally mastered most of the alphabet and can name all but 3 or 4 letters.. Colors continue to be a challenge for her but she is getting more consistent with them every day and never gets upset when we correct her for naming them incorrectly. She can count to twenty but skips a few sometimes. She has mastered writing her name and surprised us recently by writing Holt’s name correctly, a skill which we had no idea she could do. She absolutely LOVES getting on the computer and will literally sit for hours playing learning games on starfall.com. She seems to learn best this way and we are planning to really focus on getting her caught up to her peers this summer before she goes back to school in the fall. She came to us with absolutely no academic skills and very few social skills but she has been making steady gains over the past 6 months in all areas. She had all of the typical orphanage delays we were told to expect and quite a few we didn't- developmentally she was on about a two year old level when she came home. At times we wondered if she would ever be able to catch up, because she was just so far behind where you would expect a four year old to be in so many ways. She has made so many gains in such a short period of time that there is no reason she shouldn't reach her full potential given a lot of patience and persistence.

It seems her sense of humor is coming right along as well. Recently after hearing “Mom...Mom….Mom….Mom… more time than I can count, I finally snapped at her “Can’t you just call Dad…Dad…Dad… for awhile, because you’re really starting to drive mommy crazy!”

Her reply? “COOL!”

Yep, this one was definitely meant to be mine. No doubt my Mom is up in Heaven laughing about that one.

Striking a pose

Best friends

Getting silly

Favorite pastime

Princess Maili

Holt and Maili at the zoo

Being a big brother is hard work sometimes

Wearing her favorite shirt

Visiting Chinatown

Mommy and MeiMei at the Zoo

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