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April/May 2010
HOME FOR 18 MONTHS!

It’s been 18 months since Maili became part of our family, and the time has flown by. It is so hard to believe that it’s been that long, yet in some ways it seems as though she’s always been here. She has continued to blossom in so many ways, and we are so proud of her progress.

As the school year draws to a close, I can’t help but think back to the day she first walked into a classroom, with such incredibly limited knowledge of what lay ahead of her. She had no concept of colors, numbers, or letters, or any of the other skills that we take for granted that most preschoolers would know. She had never seen a pair of scissors, used glue or crayons, or walked in a line. There were just so many things that she simply hadn’t experienced, and her sheer lack of knowledge was a bit overwhelming at times, for us as well as for her teachers, I am certain. Oh, how far she has come since that day.

Now Maili looks forward to school every day and her love for learning is apparent. She can read simple books, her favorites being anything and everything by Dr. Seuss. Night after night she will pick out Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, insisting on reading them by herself to whomever she can convince to listen. Holt is not exactly a captive audience most of the time, but usually he will make a pretty good pretense if he’s in a good mood. She will even read to our pug Lola if no one else has time to listen to her read! She has mastered counting to one hundred by two’s, fives, and tens, and can do simple addition and subtraction.

Maili’s language has continued to improve as well, although she is still difficult for others to understand at times. She has finally begun asking “why” questions, which, although an important developmental milestone, is not always a good thing! She is also beginning to ask questions about things she doesn’t understand, so I hear “What dat mean, Mommy?” many times a day. The neat thing is, once we explain what an unfamiliar word means, she will make a sentence with it and then use it herself in conversation after that. For example, the other day we were reading a book with the word “many” and she asked “What many mean, Mom?” to which I replied that it meant lots and lots. She thought for a moment and said with a smile “ I have MANY clothes and shoes!” And indeed, she does. But not too many, I told her. Because a girl can never have too many clothes and shoes.

Maili is looking forward to being reunited with her foster brother next month when his family comes for a visit. It will be the first time they have seen each other since October of 2008, when she left her foster family to become part of ours. She speaks more and more of her life in China these days, sharing bits and pieces of what life was like there. She tells us about her house there, about her bed and the toys she played with, and most of all about her little brother. She holds her fingers only a fraction of a centimeter apart and tells me with a grin how “China mommy cut Maili’s hair dis big!” (She was sporting quite the crew cut when she first came home).

She wonders aloud whether her foster brother will know that her name is Maili now, or if he will still call her Mei Mei. She draws pictures and smiles for photos, asking me to send them to China Mama and Baba so that they can see that “Maili big girl now.” Her favorite shirt says “Made in China” and she wears it proudly, reading it aloud to anyone who shows an interest. I hope that she will always be as proud of who she is and where she came from as she is right now. Because we will always be grateful to China for allowing her to become one of our family’s greatest blessings.

Checking out the Easter eggs

Mother's Day 2010

Hand in hand

At the kindergarten fairytale ball

Always stop and smell the flowers	Playing outside
But Holt, I didn't mean too . . .	Big brother Holt
CNY celebration Mommy's girl

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