Home Two Weeks

The past week went by really fast!

We are overall getting a lot more sleep now. Yue Lu has been sleeping better which means we're all sleeping better. We are still going to bed too late, including Yue Lu. We've tried to get her to sleep before we do, but she just hasn't been able to yet. Some days she takes naps, and other days she doesn't. She usually sleeps better at night when she naps during the day.

Yue Lu is attaching really well to us and I think overall she is doing great for only being home 2 weeks. One thing we were worried about was the dogs. She really likes our smaller dog, Lily, who is not a kid friendly dog at all. Lily has been doing really well around her, and I think Lily actually likes Yue Lu. She has tried to nip a few times only when Yue Lu has snuck up on her quickly, grabbed her tail, or when she makes loud sudden movements. I keep telling Yue Lu she needs to be gentle with her. Unfortunately, Yue Lu is afraid of Baxter, our 50 lb hound who is the sweetest dog. He loves kids but Yue Lu will not let him come close to her. We had someone explain to her in Mandarin that Baxter will not hurt her, but I guess she's not convinced yet. She has pet him when he's lying still, but he can't come up to her quickly.

Yue Lu has had 2 English lessons so far and she is working on 8 new words right now. If I don't keep quizzing her on her colors, she gets them mixed up. She has picked up a lot of words just from us talking, and when we do teach her new words, she says them pretty clearly and with good pronunciation. One word today was 'soy sauce', and she said it so well. Her teacher has also been teaching her manners and patience (something she has a really hard time with!).

Today we went to the beach for a couple of hours. It was Yue Lu's 3rd beach trip but first in the late morning. Yue Lu did great initially, then had a really bad tantrum when she wanted to go home and eat lunch. I had brought snacks that she ate, but I assume that since we were taking too long to leave, she started getting frustrated. She was also gesturing that she wanted something in the beach bag. I offered each thing that was in it 3 times, but she still wasn't satisfied. She started screaming and crying, and we couldn't get her to calm down. Brad had to pick her up and carry her to the van. It was quite a scene! We ate dinner at the Chinese restaurant where Yue Lu had met the owner and owner's young daughter the week before. We had the owner ask her what she was upset about when we were at the beach, but she wouldn't answer the lady. We hate not knowing what Yue Lu gets upset about. I'm sure she was frsutrated because she was trying to tell us something, but we just couldn't figure out what it was.

I brought Yue Lu by my workplace a couple of days ago to meet my coworkers and the pediatric PT she will be seeing soon for treatment. Joanne is great with kids and Yue Lu really opened up and had fun during the visit. I'm really glad it went well and I have a feeling Yue Lu will really enjoy PT with Joanne. I can't wait to get started. Yue Lu initiates using her right hand a lot, and makes sure that we notice. Her abdominals are weak and she shuffles her feet sometimes. When I ask her to pick them up, she does. She is also a "W" sitter, and in China I showed her how to sit with her feet together (less than Indian style). I rarely see her "W" sit anymore, except when she's upset and banging her head on the bed!

We pre-enrolled Yue Lu in kindergarten and she starts on Aug 23. She will be in a new Chinese Immersion program where most classes are taught in English, but several will be taught in Mandarin. The woman teaching her English right now will be one of her teachers at the school. I'm pretty hopeful that Yue Lu will know a lot of English by the end of the summer. There are around 13 other girls adopted from China who will be attending her school in the fall. They all know English right now and will be relearning their native language. I'm really glad Yue Lu will be able to maintain Mandarin as well as continue to learn English.