food, drink and toys...

the universal language of belonging!

We are up!  It is 5am here.  I should say, we have been up.  A lot.  For a long time.  Oy.

Emma finally settled into our bed at about 9:30 or 10 to sleep.  Getting there involved bringing her stash of most important new belongings to bed and touching them over and over: sunglasses, soft baby doll, "real" baby doll, baby bottle, language cards, three candies that came with her from the orphanage and a play phone that she loves (and now knows how to say, "Hello!  I love you so much").  

I think her nervous and scared is showing itself in busy. She woke up off and on, and finally was up playing, not wanting to lay down at all by 1am.  That's three hours of sleep people. Michael our guide might rebuke us today!  But it seemed most important to just be with her and let her work through the night.  Going to bed with strangers a mere 5 or 6 hours after meeting them is odd.  There's no other way to say it.  I am sure she will just crash at some point today.  I think the only thing we have to do is complete the adoption and I believe that happens here in the hotel.  I don't know what else we will do.  The boys have a hankering for the bowling alley in the lower level...

I know we will need to venture out, and I'm actually a bit afraid of how that will go!  I've decided to just take those things one at a time, and not worry about what is to come.  Breakfast today is our first.  I'll keep you posted.  The worst thing that could happen is she runs wild, throws stuff around, or pitches a complete fit.  We can deal with that.  Just like when the babies were little and I was worried about going out if they needed to eat or started crying in the middle of an errand...I remember realizing that I could just leave a full cart of things in Target and walk out!  A ha.  Imagine that!  So when I outline it for myself as one thing at a time, and we can always bail, it makes my stomach only do a summersalt, not a cartwheel with a double back flip. 

She has a backpack from us and a backpack from her orphanage.  There's lots of arranging going on between them.  And we are having so much fun engaging around all the items.  She loves to color and stays in the lines.  She loves her glasses and wears them even to try to sleep in.  I was laying next to her watching her and she suddenly put those little glasses on, laid her hands perfectly along each side, patted the bed and tried to go to sleep.  It was the cutest thing.

Our few phrases we have learned are coming in very handy.  And we now can communicate about the bathroom (whew!) and eating.  Many charades. She's just darling and is so good about telling us what she wants or needs.  We've talked on Skype with Anna and Luke, and she was so enthralled.  She can say their names and lights up when looking at pictures of them.  She really likes the photos in her photo book.

We had a bath last night.  She loved that.  I noticed her sweet little feet have one toe that is turning black.  I imagine that might be because one of the amnioti bands is constricting it?  Her other toes clearly look like the skin is over three of them on one foot with complete toes underneath.  They are just darling little feet.  She is quite mobile with them, and only stumbles on occasion when she starts out too suddenly on her left foot, which is missing the big toe. 

She let me kiss her hands!  They are so pretty.  And she is so dexturous with them (my spelling is appalling, and I'm  not even sure how coherent this post is!  I'm so tired!).  She colors in the lines, can easily grasp a crayon, open things, turn pages, etc.  You can tell she has been in school, and she loves it.  

Yesterday she poured her M&Ms out into a bowl that she found in the room.  Next thing you know, she is separating out the blues.  Then the reds, in another dish.  And finally she would eat one, and then pour them all back together. It was a huge moment when she gave one to me, then proceeded to give one to Jim, COoper and Jeb.  

I can only imagine what is going through her mind.   She is very patient with us.  

Last night Jim woke up to let me sleep for a little bit.  He said that while they were playing, she sat in a chair and it fell over and she banged her knee.  He picked her up and kissed her knee and then let him hug her while she buried her face in his neck.  What a great bonding moment.  And a huge step for them.  Jim has purposely stayed a bit in the background and let me do all the care and kind, sweet things.  I've fed, bathroomed, bathed, snuggled, played, etc.  He is here and very present, just a bit behind me.  It is working very well as she readily comes to me for anything she needs.  The boys know they can play with her, but I am to do anything to help her.  It feels a bit rigid, but is very important for her for now.  Establishing that I am Mom is essential.  She has a category for caregiver, and now we get to shift that to categories for family and how the relationships differ.  I think things are going very well so far.  

She is TALL!  And sturdy!  We both burst into laughter after her short bath last night when we tried to put her new underpants on.  They are a bit small, to say the least.  It was such a great moment, though as she looked at me and I mimed "uh-oh" with my face and hands and then smiled and gave a very small giggle (I didn't want her to think I was laughing at her) and she burst out laughing and we had a hug at the end.  She loves her little pajamas which fit really well (think goodness) and chose which ones to wear.  She picked the pink pair, Anna!  ANother girl who loves pink!  That bodes well for liking her bedroom!

I think all the clothes I brought will fit.  She is just one size behind Anna.  So that is great news.  And the snowsuit Anna just outgrew will work well, too.  

It will be really fun to pick out an outfit together today.

In other HUGE news, we were granted permission to visit the orphanage!  We go on Wednesday.  We will take a bullet train an hour down to Jinjiang.  I am so grateful for their yes.  I don't know if this made the difference, but we made an album out of the photos of EMma that we have seen over these months and brought it for her so that she would know we know hwe life and her friends.  And if she was grieving and needed to see photos of her friends, etc we could show her the album.  Well it also came in handy because we were able to look through it with the nannies and they showed us a photo of Emma's best friend, so we have that and not just a picture.  I think I know the family!  Or of them!  How wild is that?!  When we were talking with the nannies, we used the book.  It was a great help.  ANd I think they maybe connected that we know LWB and the special work of the orphanage.  I am hoping we might be able to see our sponsored children there, but don't know.  I brought their photos just in case.  It will be a huge day.  

Time to go!  We are going to introduce Emma to her Nana and Papa on Skype!  Wild.

Jim just said, "She might understand Mandarin, but she doesn't understand Silburn Mandarin".  Ha!  

We are totally in love.  Things are going better than we could have imagined. And the lord has faithfully brought to pass everything He promised!  

With love from room 519 and 520 in Fuzhou, Emma's rooms!,

Emma's mom, Emma's dad, Emma's big brothers and EMMA!!!!!

xoxo