Friday, June 20, 2008

Leah update

So how is Leah adjusting, you ask?

Very, very well, so far.

Other than crying some on Gotcha Day, she's cried very little. She's opened up more and more every day, and she's laughing and playing. She hardly resembles the little girl in the referral photos.

She wants to do everything her big brothers do, which occasionally gets her (and them) into trouble. She wants to hold hands now when we're out, and she usually would rather hold hands with her brothers than us.

Leah shares everything. She loves to give everyone bites of whatever she's eating, and last night she spent quite a bit of time carefully pouring water from a water bottle into the cap, and bringing it to everyone for a drink.

She is very neat and orderly. Today when we were getting settled in our hotel room, Molly had her taking our snacks and putting them in a drawer. On her own she meticulously arranged them in neat, orderly rows. She doesn't like anything out of place, and she is frequently shepherding us around, telling us to come on or sit down. Of course, it's in Chinese, but she has no problem making herself understood.

On Wedesday she started testing us some, and she continues occasionally, but usually once she tests the boundaries she's ok and doesn't repeat her misbehavior. We've been working on safety things first, like "stop" - and "no," of course - and she's doing pretty well.

Today she started calling Molly when she wants her. Leah and I sat behind Molly and the boys on the airplane, and regulary throughout the flight she would call "Momma!" just to say hi to Molly and to make sure all was well in the seats ahead of us. She has sort of an urgent/demanding tone - not in a bad way - when she says it, like she wants an answer right now. It's hilarious.

Yesterday we stopped at a gift-type shop with Wen Ling, and I was carrying Leah around (mainly to keep her from breaking something) and pointing to things and saying what they were. We worked on things like "flower", "fish", and "cat". Today in the airport I pointed to a flower and asked her, "What's this?" and she said, "Flower" - her first English word other than Momma and Poppa. I was very proud.

We know, of course, that she still has a lot of adjusting to do. In fact, our agency warned us that children who are sweet and compliant initially often display their misbehaving a couple months later. We're ready for anything and will take it as it comes.

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