One of the things our agency and other wise people warned us about was the issue of attachment. Sometimes, the child will not adapt well early on to either parent, which creates a high-stress situation for parents and adoptive children that can last for several weeks. The most common scenario however, is that the child attaches to one parent (usually Mom, since many of these children have not had much exposure at all to men in the orphanage) while keeping their distance from the other.
Where our Grace is concerned, it looks like dear ol' Dad drew the short straw. :) She has quickly attached herself to Mom, but continues to be highly suspicious of me.
A couple of days ago Amy jokingly said to Grace "he looks like the abominable, I know." I quickly corrected my wife, reminding her that we are, in fact, on the Asian continent and therefore I cannot be the abominable snow monster. I must be a Yeti.
It stuck.
Now I'm "the Yeti."
Currently, she occassionally lets me play with her; "play" of course being tightly defined as her throwing toys on the floor and me picking them up to hand back to her. Come to think of it maybe I'm not a Yeti after all. Maybe I'm the golden retriever!
For the past several days its been "two steps forward, one step back" where my new relationship with this little girl is concerned. I'm totally OK with it, and thankful that I was warned in advance of this possibility. Plus, it makes the "connective" moments with her all the more rewarding. But I sense that the best reward through this process is what I'm learning from this little one; a highly spiritual lesson she doesn't even realize she is teaching!
Think about it this way. 18 months ago I began, with my wife, planning to adopt this little one whom I had never met, and who had never met me, into my family. Enormous sums of time and money have been invested in this effort. Now that she is legally ours, she bears my name, my provision, my protection (brief warning to emerging young men, I WILL kill for her!), and all the blessings that come with being a part of a nuclear family. God willing, she will never again know what it means to be hungry. She will never legitimately fear for her future. She will never lack anything she needs, and all of this will be due to her father's provision.
Yet as an adopted child, she doesn't yet fully understand all of this, and so her response to me is one of high suspicion and fear. To her, I'm just a strange, scary-looking Yeti who simply doesn't belong in this new picture she has now become a part of.
At the same time, she doesn't mind sleeping in this lush hotel room I'm providing, nor does she object to all the wonderful new food she has at her disposal because of her new Daddy. Additionally, she also doesn't mind using the Yeti if it suits her purposes. This morning at the breakfast table Mom told her "no," to which she responded by looking up at me, hoping she could "divide the house" and get her way. It would seem that Daddy isn't so scary after all if he can be used to accomplish her agenda.
In short, she now enjoys the full range of blessing that is available to her as an adopted child. But currently, she has no real desire to develop a relationship with the one who has provided these blessings to her.
In other words, she is very much like all the rest of us.
Scripture tells us that before the world was created, God chose us to be His own. Before we were even born He developed a master plan that included us belonging in His family. At the right time, He sent Jesus Christ into time and space to die as our substitute, bearing the wrath of God against sin in our place. Furthermore, He drew us to Himself, and literally "adopted" us into His family, making us co-heirs with His only begotten, blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, and providing for us what Paul says in an inheritance so great that our natural eyes, ears and brains can't even fathom what is in store for us.
And how do we respond to such great news? From birth, we seek our own way. We treat the Father with disdain. We don't mind enjoying His blessings, its just the relationship with Him that we aren't that interested in. We are sometimes afraid of Him, sometimes using Him, sometimes caustic toward Him, many times abusive of His gifts.
And what does the Father do in response? He continues to love and pursue until we are truly His. He doesn't give up, and He ALWAYS succeeds!
Yep, this darling little girl is teaching me more than she knows. It is truly an honor to be her Daddy, and such a joy to emulate, as much as any rotten-to-the-core, fallen man can, the actions of my heavenly Father toward my own daughter.
More pics are coming soon, by the way. :) Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers.
-Joel
Showing posts with label Lanzhou. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lanzhou. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
A Bath, A Park, A Zoo, and Famous Noodles
Grace had her first bath. I'm not sure that she enjoyed it, but she accepted it without complaint. She did enjoyed being rubbed down with lotion, though.
We all slept pretty well last night. I am so very thankful for the foam mattress topper that I managed to get into my suitcase. In China, the nicer your hotel~the harder your bed. We are in the nicest hotel in Lanzhou, quite a bit out of our league, frankly. So, we have hard beds and stiff backs.
We visited the city zoo today. They have a Panda, which they are very proud of. We saw several animals we had never heard of before. There was a common housecat in the pen with the pheasants. We couldn't figure out how he got in, but he sure looked like he wanted out. We were the main attraction for much of our time there. Many people, particularly older men and women, want to come and see Grace, ask where we are from, and find out about our other children. They are very sweet and all say kind things to Grace about all of the love that she will have with our family. They have all been very happy to see one of their orphan children find a home. Once when we stopped in the park outside the zoo to listen to a pick-up musical preformance by locals, we drew most of the crowd away from the musicians. I pulled out a photo album with the boys' and our extended family. The people looked through all of the photos and talked about how the boys look like us, and how my mom and I look alike, and how Joel and his brother look alike.
We were at the foot of a rather tall mountain, and kept hearing people calling out to one another. Our guide told us that some of the old people climb the mountain every day for excercise and that the ones at the top were calling out to the ones who were farther down the mountain. I do not know if they were calling out words of encouragement or teasing them for not making it to the top yet :) Excercise is very important to the older people here (60s and above) and they spend a lot of time at it.
We walked through part of the oldest section of this 2,000 year-old city while looking for a taxi. Our guide told us that much of it would soon be demolished for the government to put in new apartment buildings. The people whose homes are demolished will be given a new apartment. She said they were very happy about this.
Our next stop was at one of the more than 300 Lanzhou Noodle restaurants. This city is famous for it's hand-pulled noodles cooked in a special beef broth. *Trisha~I understand why you loved coming home to that smell when you made the recipe. It is wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed that meal. And, I learned how to eat foot-long noodles with chopsticks!
Grace continues to come out of her shell a little at a time. We are seeing more and more of her true personality. She sings often, and loves to play imitating games. She also let Joel get very close to her while making similar sounds back and forth at the zoo. She even reached out and touched his beard. When we got back to the room, he sat down on the end of the bed next to her. He was able to touch her hair for the first time and rub her back a little. This is huge progress. She was still nervous about it, but didn't start crying this time.
Another huge milestone in this process is poop. Really! Every morning the guides ask if the baby has pooped. Some children stress so much that they won't even do that, and they can get sick if that goes on for too long. The saying is that the first poop belongs to the orphanage, and the second one is the family's. In other words, the first one doesn't count after you get the baby. Well...not only is Grace a champion eater, she's a champ in this arena as well. She truly is a Rainey :) (Sorry to those of you who think that is TMI..)
She is sleeping now, I have taken a nap, and Joel is working on one too. When she wakes up we will go out with another family that we ran into from Indiana who just adopted a 2-year old boy, Joshua. We've been hanging out together some and sharing experiences.
We love you all, and enjoy so much getting up in the morning to read your comments. Thank you so much for your prayers. We have certainly felt them. Tomorrow is another day of touring, including the provincial museum. Grace's paperwork will be finished by Thursday and we leave this wonderful city on Friday.
By the way, Trisha, our guide is your guide's wife :) I've heard some great stories about your family, I think you made your mark on Lanzhou!
We all slept pretty well last night. I am so very thankful for the foam mattress topper that I managed to get into my suitcase. In China, the nicer your hotel~the harder your bed. We are in the nicest hotel in Lanzhou, quite a bit out of our league, frankly. So, we have hard beds and stiff backs.
We visited the city zoo today. They have a Panda, which they are very proud of. We saw several animals we had never heard of before. There was a common housecat in the pen with the pheasants. We couldn't figure out how he got in, but he sure looked like he wanted out. We were the main attraction for much of our time there. Many people, particularly older men and women, want to come and see Grace, ask where we are from, and find out about our other children. They are very sweet and all say kind things to Grace about all of the love that she will have with our family. They have all been very happy to see one of their orphan children find a home. Once when we stopped in the park outside the zoo to listen to a pick-up musical preformance by locals, we drew most of the crowd away from the musicians. I pulled out a photo album with the boys' and our extended family. The people looked through all of the photos and talked about how the boys look like us, and how my mom and I look alike, and how Joel and his brother look alike.
We were at the foot of a rather tall mountain, and kept hearing people calling out to one another. Our guide told us that some of the old people climb the mountain every day for excercise and that the ones at the top were calling out to the ones who were farther down the mountain. I do not know if they were calling out words of encouragement or teasing them for not making it to the top yet :) Excercise is very important to the older people here (60s and above) and they spend a lot of time at it.
We walked through part of the oldest section of this 2,000 year-old city while looking for a taxi. Our guide told us that much of it would soon be demolished for the government to put in new apartment buildings. The people whose homes are demolished will be given a new apartment. She said they were very happy about this.
Our next stop was at one of the more than 300 Lanzhou Noodle restaurants. This city is famous for it's hand-pulled noodles cooked in a special beef broth. *Trisha~I understand why you loved coming home to that smell when you made the recipe. It is wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed that meal. And, I learned how to eat foot-long noodles with chopsticks!
Grace continues to come out of her shell a little at a time. We are seeing more and more of her true personality. She sings often, and loves to play imitating games. She also let Joel get very close to her while making similar sounds back and forth at the zoo. She even reached out and touched his beard. When we got back to the room, he sat down on the end of the bed next to her. He was able to touch her hair for the first time and rub her back a little. This is huge progress. She was still nervous about it, but didn't start crying this time.
Another huge milestone in this process is poop. Really! Every morning the guides ask if the baby has pooped. Some children stress so much that they won't even do that, and they can get sick if that goes on for too long. The saying is that the first poop belongs to the orphanage, and the second one is the family's. In other words, the first one doesn't count after you get the baby. Well...not only is Grace a champion eater, she's a champ in this arena as well. She truly is a Rainey :) (Sorry to those of you who think that is TMI..)
She is sleeping now, I have taken a nap, and Joel is working on one too. When she wakes up we will go out with another family that we ran into from Indiana who just adopted a 2-year old boy, Joshua. We've been hanging out together some and sharing experiences.
We love you all, and enjoy so much getting up in the morning to read your comments. Thank you so much for your prayers. We have certainly felt them. Tomorrow is another day of touring, including the provincial museum. Grace's paperwork will be finished by Thursday and we leave this wonderful city on Friday.
By the way, Trisha, our guide is your guide's wife :) I've heard some great stories about your family, I think you made your mark on Lanzhou!
Monday, October 11, 2010
It's Legal!
The daughter of our hearts is now legally our daughter in every way, Praise the Lord! We went to the civil affairs office this morning and processed the necessary documents to make her ours. There is more paperwork, of course, regarding her passport, visa, citizenship, etc. But, in the eyes of both governments, she is officially ours. The photo I'm adding with her footprint being made was the step the finalized the adoption. Also, there is a photo of Joel, Grace, and I with the assistant director of the orphanage.
Her health appears excellent. She will certainly plump up over the next few weeks, but she has been very well cared for. She came to us in the outfit that we sent her in a care package several months ago. It was snowing in her hometown when they left yesterday morning, the ladies showed us pictures on their phones, so she was bundled in multiple layers.
She has done beautifully. She is a shy girl, and buries her face in mama's shoulder when she gets nervous. So far, she is still nervous around Joel. We were told to expect that she would attach to one of us and avoid the other for a while. He has been able to hand her a toy, give her a snack, etc...but then she is ready to turn away from him. We are taking baby steps :)
She reaches for me and clings to me, which are good signs. Some babies need to be taught this. She is eating absolutely anything that we will give her...western or eastern food...it makes no difference! We visited a restaurant this afternoon just down from our hotel that she really enjoyed. (So did we!) As you can see, her lip is repaired, which was a surprise to us. Her palate is still open, but she eats like a champ. We aren't even bothering with the cleft bottles we brought, we picked up regular bottles today like the one from the orphanage. She does not like to leave a table with food still on it, and seems to have no "fullness meter". I've employed a little trick that we learned from our friends, the Turners. We have to put food in her hand to walk away with.
I want to add some information for our sweet friends, the Turners, who recently returned from adopting RuoYi from the same orphanage. Trisha, you won't believe this, but I found out the our girls were in the same room together, and they were playmates. I also found out that the girls went to Beijing last winter together for their surgeries. They were there for two months. Grace's lip repair looks very good, just like RuoYi's.
She can stand, and take steps while holding our fingers. She does not crawl, and does not push up when laying on her belly. We have been playing games to work on upper body strength. She will catch up on those quickly. She has a sweet smile, and giggles when tickled. She also has this little happy dance she does when she sees food that she really likes. She rocks back and forth side to side really fast, it is so funny. She is really good at imitating what we do. When I combed her hair this morning, she reached for the comb and made the same movements. When I clap, she claps, often the same number of times that I did. She is a smart, funny girl. We are so blessed to have been chosen to be her mama and baba.
Her health appears excellent. She will certainly plump up over the next few weeks, but she has been very well cared for. She came to us in the outfit that we sent her in a care package several months ago. It was snowing in her hometown when they left yesterday morning, the ladies showed us pictures on their phones, so she was bundled in multiple layers.
She has done beautifully. She is a shy girl, and buries her face in mama's shoulder when she gets nervous. So far, she is still nervous around Joel. We were told to expect that she would attach to one of us and avoid the other for a while. He has been able to hand her a toy, give her a snack, etc...but then she is ready to turn away from him. We are taking baby steps :)
She reaches for me and clings to me, which are good signs. Some babies need to be taught this. She is eating absolutely anything that we will give her...western or eastern food...it makes no difference! We visited a restaurant this afternoon just down from our hotel that she really enjoyed. (So did we!) As you can see, her lip is repaired, which was a surprise to us. Her palate is still open, but she eats like a champ. We aren't even bothering with the cleft bottles we brought, we picked up regular bottles today like the one from the orphanage. She does not like to leave a table with food still on it, and seems to have no "fullness meter". I've employed a little trick that we learned from our friends, the Turners. We have to put food in her hand to walk away with.
I want to add some information for our sweet friends, the Turners, who recently returned from adopting RuoYi from the same orphanage. Trisha, you won't believe this, but I found out the our girls were in the same room together, and they were playmates. I also found out that the girls went to Beijing last winter together for their surgeries. They were there for two months. Grace's lip repair looks very good, just like RuoYi's.
She can stand, and take steps while holding our fingers. She does not crawl, and does not push up when laying on her belly. We have been playing games to work on upper body strength. She will catch up on those quickly. She has a sweet smile, and giggles when tickled. She also has this little happy dance she does when she sees food that she really likes. She rocks back and forth side to side really fast, it is so funny. She is really good at imitating what we do. When I combed her hair this morning, she reached for the comb and made the same movements. When I clap, she claps, often the same number of times that I did. She is a smart, funny girl. We are so blessed to have been chosen to be her mama and baba.
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