Home One Week

It's hard to believe we've been home for a week already. The major jet lag was not something we had anticipated. I thought I'd be fine after a day or two, but it actually took the whole week.

The past few days with Yue Lu have been great, and I feel that we have become a lot closer. In China, when she was talking to our guides or other Chinese people, she did worse around us. Since we've been here, she's interacted with three different Chinese families, and instead of pulling away from us, she was actually leaning on me and wanting me to hold her hand. I think she felt grateful that we brought her to places where she could communicate with people who can speak her language.

Today was one of those days. We met with a woman who will be tutoring Yue Lu in English over the summer. She is from China and has lived in the US for 22 years. Her children are teenagers and speak Mandarin and English. We met at Barnes and Noble to meet her and so she could talk to Yue Lu. Her teenaged son was there and he was great with Yue Lu. This woman was just hired to teach at Yue Lu's Chinese Immersion school where Yue Lu will be starting kindergarten in the fall. The timing of everything has been wonderful, and everyone we've talked to who are Chinese and knows about the adoption are so eager to help us with the transition. I feel so blessed.

Yue Lu still has bad nights, but last night was actually the second good night we've had. I did wake up a couple of times and she was lying forward banging her head 'gently'. We're usually woken up every night from her kicking, screaming, crying, and banging her head hard. It is so hard to watch, and there is no consoling her. It actually makes it much worse if we try to stop her. She pushes us away and hits or pinches us when we try to soothe her. From everything I've read, the advice is to ignore the head banging, which is so hard to do. Fortunately, she doesn't do it on a wall, but she does it so forceful sometimes, that we can't just sit and watch her since we're afraid she is going to hurt herself. We know she is grieving, and she may be having nightmares as well. There is a lot we don't know about her past. I've read about families learning so much once their children have learned to speak English. I'm very curious to know what Yue Lu has to tell us once she is able to.