More Thoughts on Gotcha Day

I am still in awe of the confidence that LiYun portrayed when she walked into the room to meet her forever family. I still can't believe how affectionate she is, and how she placed her hand over mine as we sat down. I love how she takes the initiative to play and help with Carter and Grace. David said when we got back to the room that she was still nervous, but you would never have known. I never expected her to call us Mommy and Daddy already. She clearly has waited for this day for a long time. In fact, David said she has several friends her age at the orphanage, so she feels lucky to be adopted and have a family.

Back when Scott and I were praying through whether God was calling us to adopt LiYun, I connected with an amazing mother, Shelley, who also adopted a 12-year-old last year. I remember her telling me about how God cofirmed so many of their steps, even after they brought Avery home. Yesterday, we had two neat incidents that I felt were God's winks at me to confirm that we're right where He wants us. First, I told two of my coworkers a week or two ago that I dreamt I was speaking in Chinese to LiYun on Gotcha Day and that she reponded with "Very good!" And in my dream, I was so pleased that I had spoken correctly and then even received feedback in English. Well, David told LiYun I had been practicing Mandarin, and when I spoke some phrases to her, guess what she said?? "VERY GOOD!"

In Birmingham, we discovered an authentic Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chen's. When we go, we're often the only non-Chinese people. A few months ago, I tried Almond Milk Tea and fell in love with it. I asked David about it here, and he said he had never heard of it! Last night when we went to dinner, LiYun ordered for us all. And she also ordered...almond milk tea. ;) I laughed with incredulity!

LiYun loved going through her new clothes and trying them all on. She even changed before we went to dinner. We also went to Walmart last night to buy her some shoes. David left a little bit after dinner, and I will admit that LiYun and I both got a little nervous without our translator. We used google translate, our dictionary, and our electronic translator, but we didn't always get correct translations. Some of the translations were just confusing. Such as..."America land China exactly." We still have no idea what that meant. She told me through the translator that she likes to stay up late to watch tv and read. Scott and I were trying to figure out how to set boundaries already. We'll probably ask the foster parents what kinds of rules they had. We already had to tell LiYun to switch channels because she had chosen Die Hard 2 in Chinese to watch, and Scott pointed out that there is a lot of vulgar language and cuss words in it.

LiYun wanted me to sleep with her, and there was a moment in the middle of the night when I woke up and felt her tossing and turning. I am sure the initial excitement has worn off a bit and she now feels nervous waking up in a new place. Right now, we are the only two awake. She is reading a book, and I'm typing up this post. I'm not sure whether to try to communicate with her right now or just let her wake up. :) But I know we will figure it all out in due time.

We head back to the office this morning to fill out paperwork. I will post more pics as we upload them. Noelle has done an amazing job of taking the pictures and editing them so I can email them to Emily...who then has to download each one from email and re-upload them to the blog. Thank you dear friends!

Your comments have made me tear up over and over again. I can't get over the amount of support, prayer, and love that you've shown us. I'll continue to keep you updated. And please continue to pray that God would give us wisdom in how we move forward in bonding, setting limits, loving and communicating with LiYun, etc. But despite the learning curve ahead, we feel so overjoyed and grateful for how things are going so far. LiYun is a special girl indeed.