Our Journey to Gracie...: Trying to catch up...

Time to catch up…

Sorry again for super late post but we are exhausted!

Am going to start update with info about our little one…

During our wait we read so much about post-institutionalized children and what to expect such as physical and developmental delays. We read about attachment and the importance of regressing childrenlike bottle-feeding toddlers to promote attachment etc. We read about implementing baby sign language to make things less frustrating for children to communicate yadda-yadda …

Well, let me tell you…

Our girl is a little firecracker, she is very independent, actually we have to fight her in order to feed/dress/bathe etc. Oh my goodness keeping up with her is exhausting!

She repeats EVERYTHING we say and she retains the information- it’s crazy she refers to us as Mommy and Daddy, when we say: where’s the pretty girl? She goes to the mirror and says :”there she is”! she asks for milk and water, she knows where her hands, nose, feet and face are.She says to herself "good job" and "good girl" when we ask her to do something like throw diaper in trash! Did I mention she repeats EVERYTHING! She’s like a little parrot.

I know this may sound ridiculous, but we have to admit we were a little freaked out hearing our girl responding to us so quickly, hearing her replace her native language so easily and witnessing her vocabulary expanding by the minute! We asked our guides to talk to her, we wanted to know if she was actually speaking Chinese or just babbling and they all say that she speaks clearly two and three word sentences. How is that possible? She just turned two years old! We were not prepared to deal with such an independent, inquisitive and talkative toddler we were thinking she would act more “baby” so we have been feeling a little overwhelmed. Does that even make any sense? Don’t get us wrong, we are very happy and blessed… we are amazed but definitely have to catch up, she will definitely keep us on our toes.

She loves food! As long as she has something to eat in her mouth she is happy! She can eat large amounts of food without getting sick- I have never seen a young child eat so much!

She is a girly-girl and loves clothes, shoes and accessories yeah! She loves to look at herself in the mirror And of course call herself “pretty girl while she’s at it…Lord, we are in trouble!

September 12, 1213

We went to the park across from our Hotel and I must say it was beautiful! No swings for kiddos but beautiful landscapes, pagodas, boats fishing and lots of people playing cards :0) We were very tired but we are so glad we made it – it was worth it!

September 13, 2013

Once we finally received our girl’s passport around 3:00pm we headed to the airport – our flight was scheduled for 7:30pm, unfortunately it was delayed one hour- our girl was so tired but she did great! She finally fell asleep as the airplane was landing- got my first blow-out diaper yikes! (and survived!)

We are finally in Guangzhou, the last leg of our trip- Unfortunately, as we checked in the hotel my Honey realized he had lost his wallet /credit card!- what a nightmare! Luckily my mother-in-law was able to wire money until we were able to get finances situated but it was crazy- we were in the bank for over two hours trying to get the wired money ( they verified the information like five times and counted the money way too many times, it was frustrating to say the least.

We are all sorted out now thank God and Lisa!