Mine!

Two-year olds are notoriously possessive. Mia is no different. I don't even think anyone taught her to say it, but if you dare touch her space or her stuff, beware! We've gotten quite good at labeling everything for her and speaking in noun/verb sentences. "Go, potty." "Bye-Bye truck"....you know she's catching on very, very quickly. She's even managed to embarrass me in church the other night by announcing and pinching her Mama's "boobies". Now who had to go and label those for her?
We have our 6-month homestudy this Friday. Six-months with her have passed so quickly. Waiting was torturous. Six months waiting was an eternity and we begged for it to pass. Now I want to hold onto the time with her as our baby. We are all loving her funny little mannerism and cuteness.
School begins tommorrow and God has be gracious to answer my prayer. Mike will keep Mia.

Summer's end

Mia is speaking more and more words daily and with such enthusiasm, especially "no"! We think she's the most beautiful baby in the whole world. I'm already planning her 2nd birthday and have just gotten in a shipment of Pu'er tea from her home province for the occasion. I'm thinking a ladybug tea party.

Country Girl

Mia lives in rural Mississippi, perhaps not much different from the rural Kunming, China where she's supposed to have been born. She loves the outdoors, animals and has plenty of family excitement.

Field Work

Today is our 4 month anniversary with Mia in our family. It's hard to believe we've only had her for such a short time. The long two year wait melted the moment we held her in our arms. It seems she's always been ours. There's no questions that she belongs to us. Mia means mine in Spanish and she is "mine". I've had 3 biological children and I was prepared to feel differently about this little girl. I knew that love would come and I was prepared for it to grow with time. What has taken me totally by surprise is that love was instantaneous for both myself and Mike. I absolutely can't tell any difference in my love for her and that of my other children. Her smell, her touch, her manners, even her tantrums tug at my heart strings and speak to me of love. Love is definitely of God and not man and it goes beyond biology. I look at her chinese eyes and celebrate the fact that we are blessed to watch her grow.

This month we've seen Mia grow to love her church family as well. At her dedication service she kissed the preacher and the entire congregation let out a collective "aaaawe". Mia is still partial to the men and it leaves the ladies feeling very left out. But we are working on her people skills. She loves to watch the other children in the nursery and will take part in our Vacation Bible School in a few weeks. She doesn't let me out of her sight much and I'm not pushing it, yet.

Our Elliott is in Spain to "study" for four weeks. Ethan is busy working at our store and stops only long enough to change clothes, jump in the lake and join his friends. I'm enjoying time with our Michaela now that school's out. She's a big help with the Mia. She's been dying to go to the local stock yard and I finally broke down this past Wednesday. It was steamy and soon Mia was dripping. I've never seen a child sweat like she does. Her thin little locks are rivers and it's just ridiculous! The trip was well worth it though as she was enthralled by the animals. Chickens go "bock, bock", pigs go "oink, oink", the rabbits....well you have to scrunch up your nose and go....(I can't even make that noise!) But the best was watching her little mouth purse at the cows go "mooooo".

The textbook lessons don't do it, folks, you have to do the field trip! Today's lesson was at the City Park with lessons on spinning the merry-to-round. I'd forgotten the true meaning of drunk with joy. Everyone needs refresher courses now and again.

If you're looking for "Jesus" in Guangzhou...

I'm constantly amazed at the responses I get from this blog and feel so guilty that I'm not able to update more. But here's a quick response to the person from China that recently left a comment to "Purple Palace".

No, I'm not Chinese. I'm from the South part of the USA, Mississippi. We are delighted to have been given the chance to receive one of China's beautiful little girls, and orphan from Kunming. She is daily brightening our lives. I share our story for friends, family and all who care to read. I'm often floundering for words and embarassed to make so many grammatical errors. I have no time to write much less edit! So please accept my apologies.

We did not meet Jim C., from the Passion of the Christ, while we were in China. He and his wife were there, though, at the same time as we and another couple in our group had the opportunity to speak with him and snap his photo. You can find that photo if you look at my side-bar and click on Nathan and Lisa's web site. Scroll down through their journal and you should see the story titled "Jesus in Guangzhou".

I am honored to meet each and everyone of my faceless readers. Thank you for being so generous with my blunders. I will have more time to update Mia's progress after this week. School's out for the summer!

Purple Palace

For 8 years we've struggled to get Michaela to sleep in her room alone. Even with a room filled with all her lovely things she still begs to go elsewhere. I'm hoping that Mia will learn to love her room. Michaela wants so badly for Mia to sleep with her, but we dare not upset the bedtime routine again. We'll talk maybe of a "sleep over" this summer when routine is out the window.

Born Again

We're celebrating Mia's 3rd month in our family today. On February 5th of this year, the child we'd been holding in our hearts for 2 years was finally in our arms. Looking back on that strange day, I can tell now she was tired, scared and very confused. I can't imagine what stress she was feeling. I know that I probably scared her to death grabbing her and telling her over and over, "I'm your Mama! I'm your Mama!" She was smiley and curious, but was insistent that I not touch her. I could only feed her cheerios and hand her toys. For a few days I was concerned she may be hard of hearing. She would not respond to noises. But now I'm certain that she had just had too much overstimulation and was just zoning out to keep from freaking out. This little girl who is so active now was then almost completely passive. She stayed put where placed. She wouldn't even wiggle when her diaper was changed. At night she never moved either. Gone are those days. Now she is everywhere! I am amazed how choked up I get remembering our little Kunming girl on this gotcha day. How one life can affect so many others. Though Mia is 20 months old, she now has to celebrate two birthdays, the day she was born into this world and the day she was born into our family. My prayer is that she will add another date to her life's calendar and be adopted into yet another family, the family of God.

Sisters

We took a trip north to move a few of Elliott's things home from the dorm. Michaela was most excited over the fact that Mia could sleep with her in the hotel room.

Elliott moves home for the summer today. Yeah! He will baby-sit for a couple of weeks then is spending a month in Spain in a "Study Abroad" program. We are so excited for him.

Bathing Beauty

Mia LOOOOVES bathtime! We get soaked. She's wanting to stand up though and she toys with me and pretends to sit down then laughs and stands up again. It's tough being tough to such a cutie-pie. When I've had enough of the wetting and splashing and trying to sit down, I pull the plug. Unfortunately, she's learned how to re-plug and just claps and claps like she's saying, "I did it! Yeah!" I'm such a party pooper. I've gotta losen up and not care she's shriveling up!

Nesting

Mia's Room. Finally.

Daddy Day-Care & other strange happenings

These past two weeks I’ve gone back to school. Mia is enjoying time hang’in with Dad. It’s been more an adjustment for me, I think, but Mike has had to make some adjustments too. He goes to the store and tries to deal with the paperwork as quickly as possible and then runs his errands. They are home by 10:30 or 11:00 and she’s down for nap till almost I’m home at 4 p.m. She greets me with a squeal and hugs and kisses me. She is so loving. Elliott will be home mid week from MSU and will take his turn bonding with Mia. I’ll be able to take some half-days and finish up my school year in just a couple more weeks. It’s been really nice to know Mia is enjoying time with her Dad and that Elliott, too, will be able to have his time as well. She seems to know who she belongs to and who’s stranger.

We finally finished her room. For many months I would not dare think of a nursery. I claimed it was because I didn’t know her age and couldn’t buy a crib. But actually I think I just was afraid that it never would happen. Well now our arms are full and we have a beautiful baby who needs her space in the household too. Once again the maternal instincts have kicked in and have demanded the nest be fluffed. What fun I’ve had pulling together this niche. We’ve moved Ethan upstairs to share with Elliott, while Michaela has moved over and has and bright purple palace fit for a princess. Our Mia now has pale pink walls adorned with ladybugs and her Chinese calligraphy. We’ve even put in new carpet and it feels wonderful.
At Christmas-time we weren’t sure we would have our baby or not and now our life is complete. She is walking, talking and is so vivacious and alert. Her sleep pattern is beginning to settle down a bit. We attribute much of her nighttime awakenings to her teething. She is 20 months old now and is now cutting eye-teeth. We are so pleased with her progress and you she see how pleased with herself she is too! With every new step forward she seems to be so eager to learn more. We are especially glad that her relationship with Michaela is starting to blossom. They are really loving each other’s attention now.

I've tried twice to load photo's. I HATE DIAL-UP! I'll get them all ready to upload and wait...wait...wait...for an hour then I'm disconnected. UGGHHH! One more try later this evening. Sorry.

Showers of Blessings

He has done great and marvelous things for us and we are rejoicing this Spring season of new birth.
"Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the LORD Most High, the great King over all the earth"....Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praised to our King, sing praises, For God is the King of all the arth; sing to him a psalm of praise. (psalm 47: 1-2, 6-7)

Progress is Good? Right?

For the past three weeks we’ve had a Physical Therapist come as part of an Early Intervention Program to help Mia get caught up in walking and crawling. The first week was almost as painful for me as it was her. She struggled to get up from her belly onto her knees and push up on her arms from her chest. If she did manage to assume the correct crawling position she would soon fall flat and sprattle-legged. Lauren, her therapist, showed me correct ways to help her during the week. The whole crew has been praising her as she stands from a seated position, as she takes a few steps and as she squats to pick things up from the floor. For too long she has been content to let us do things for her. It was apparent that she was not progressing and that she needed to be pushed to do things for herself. During one session, Lauren saw that Mia wanted an object and pushed it further out of her reach, wanting her to go for it. Mia looked to me to help her out, but I was only to cheer her on. She became furious and soon was throwing a tantrum. For ten minutes she raged and I could only sit by and watch. I left the room at one point, frankly to get my composure, and she quieted down. It was obvious a lot of her anger was focused on me. I am her helper, why wasn’t I helping her? Since then I think Mia has begun to see me in a different light and not demand me to do so much for her. I struggle with that. I want to ease her pain, but in so doing I am preventing her from becoming stronger. Therapy is helping me a lot too! We’ve seen Mia progress tremendously in just the past few days even. Lauren came today and was amazed at what she can do. As I was cooking in the kitchen and Mike was watching her, he motioned me into the living room. Mia had cruised around the room and had started climbing the staircase. She was half-way up! This afternoon Michaela wanted to hide Easter eggs (we’d never got around to it yesterday L) and Mia was pulling away from my fingers, which she usually grasps tightly, and walking in the cushy grass long distances. Kitchen cabinets are now of great interest also! Oh my, progress is awesome but are we ever fully prepared for the consequences? I am amazed at the confidence that has come to Mia almost overnight. Maybe, just maybe she’ll want to sleep tonight. Please Mia? Please!

Citizen Mia

The "Not-So-Rosy" Part

During the 16 month wait I discovered a great place on line to keep me in touch with others also waiting. The Rumor Queen blog (chinaadopttalk.com) had its share of controversy, but without it I would have been completely clueless in this complicated and tedious process. The Queen, a fellow adoptive mom, published an article called “The Not-So-Rosy Part”. It was a reminder to all of us that these children who were to be placed into our arms were not just little beautiful bundles of joy, but that they were coming to us with a past, even if it was a brief past.
So many of the articles we see posted only show the positive sides. Isn’t it wonderful that we can share our joys our children bring us? But the point is that many people, prospective adoptive parent in particular, see only the successes we’ve experienced and don't realize the difficulties. I see that in my own blog. Maybe, perhaps, because I’ve had biological children it was an understood part of parenthood that there would be dark days. With children there will always be some hardships, some phases they must pass through, but I am finding out that with an adoptive child I have more areas where I am clueless.
For the most part, Mia has come to us without hesitation and has seems to feel totally at home with us. But still I’ve wondered how much she remembers of her foster family. She is so loving. Someone has shown her much love and laughter before us. Mia is smart and has a good memory. She mimics and remembers the “tricks” we teach her easily. Does she stop and ponder the people she no longer sees and the games she played with them? I see her especially thoughtful with persons who have dark hair and eyes, very solemn in fact. Older people and men get the same deep looks. Did an elderly man live and care for her? I’ll never know.
For almost a month now we’ve been home. Mia has been sleeping, eating, and interacting wonderfully, until the past week. Though her day-time schedule is still going smoothly and she’s eating, napping and eating good, her nights have been disturbing. She’s waking nightly before 1 a.m. and not going back to sleep easily. Sometimes she’s refusing to lay down. Sometimes she’s just tossing and turning and crying out every few minutes. We’ve tried almost every trick we know and have reviewed every possible thing that could be triggering her sleeplessness, but we are clueless. My thoughts go back to the article by the Rumor Queen. Could this be part of the attachment process? Could Mia be working out the changes in her life subconsciously? It’s quiet possible. I look at this happy, funny girl and see her so exuberant and think, “how can anything but joy be in her heart”. But because I don’t know her past, I’ll always wonder what is going on in her brain that she can’t begin to comprehend.

Fun in the sun

Musical Mia

We noticed pretty quickly that Mia was familiar with music. She clapped her hands within a few days of getting her so I knew she'd been exposed in some way. Her love for music is something our family enjoys nurturing. Already she's got quite a repetoir developing. Her favorites, please don't blame her, she's not been able to pick these herself, are "Barbara Ann" from the Beach Boys and "Clap Your Hands All Ye People". We are working on "Put Your Little Foot" and an original composed by me! I love to sing little ditties to her like: "Mia Yunzhu, Mia Yunzhu, I love you, I love you. You're my precious daughter, you're my precious daughter, I love you, I love you" sung to the tune of "Are you Sleeping". Yes, I know, not real original, but she's learning her name and she's especially cute when she drops everything to rock and clap along. Wednesday is children's choir night so we've been going and listening in on Michaela and the others as they learn a new musical called "Praise Rocks". Mia, who's usually napping at this time, decided to wake up, and raised her arms charismatically as she sang along.

Others are helping to cultivate her musical talent too. Her Nana bought her the little toy piano in the above photo. She's hilarious when giving her performances. They get better and better with each practice session. Elliott, too, is in on the lessons. He's home for a week now for spring break. Often they sit at the "big" piano singing and playing away. There's a song in our hearts that has replaced those empty days and silent days of waiting.

Thoughts from Acorn Ridge

How precious her love for us. We knew we would love her no matter what, but to see her return that love and to grow in her trust is so comforting. I write a thousand words everyday in my mind, many thoughts on her past, her birth, what her future may have been. Looking into her eyes everyday is changing us in so many ways. I've got so many journal entries, but don't quite know where to begin. Maybe I'll figure out just how to express my discoveries, or maybe you can give me some suggestions. What would you like to know about this adoption journey? Why did we follow this adoption path? Why China? What was her life like prior? What would have been? I'm sure I'll spend many days asking and reasking myself the same questions. But does anyone else want to hear about it? If you do, then I will.

Michaela loves Mia

The weather here is simply delicious. I just want to drink it in. How wonderful the days are passing with Mia's smiles and alertness making us smile along with her. The house is joyous. Isn't it amazing how children can transform any environment?