Ben's Party and a Lily Update!

Lily has almost been home a month and I cannot believe how well things are going. Before we went to China, we read books, watched videos, talked with friends and social workers about what to expect during our first few weeks home. We were told that at first we might not love her like we love our other kids, that it would feel like we are babysitting, that she might reject us at first and a whole lot of not so warm and fuzzy. All of that is normal. Very normal and very expected. We were prepared to work hard to get through these issues and expected that someday things would get easier for all of us.

I almost feel guilty saying this because I know not everyone experiences this, but as it turns out, we fell in love with her immediately. We LOVE this child so much. You know that love you feel when you give birth? That is how we both feel about Lily. There is no faking it. We don't feel like her babysitters, it does not feel like she doesn't belong or that she is "new." She's ours. There is no question about it.

Of course, I cannot speak for her feelings. She has experienced great loss and her world has been turned upside down. I know we have not seen the real Lily Shu Xing (as she refers to herself). I do not claim that she loves us as much as we love her, and that is okay. She has only known us a month. We snuggle and play and tickle and giggle. She comes to us for comfort, looks to us for approval, and really seems to enjoy our company and the company of her siblings. She loves to sing a little song she made up "Mama, Baba, Lily Shu Xing, Benjamin, Madelyn, Nicholas, Kayla"

 I'm terrible about taking photos but I promise to make an effort to use my camera more often.  We did remember to take some photos of Ben's party yesterday at a local park.

HOME!!!

She's HOME! She's HERE!!! After a year of waiting and missing her, she is HERE! Praise God!


While we were in country, I wrote about our experiences and progress on a shutterfly share site. China blocks blogger and facebook, but not shutterfly, so this was a great option for us just in case we had internet troubles.

If you would like to read about it, the link is in the post below.

We've been home for less than 48 hours now and so far things are going well. The kids have been wonderful, though I can tell we will experience some growing pains as everyone adjusts to their new roles and gets used to having a new sister.

Lily (aka Shu Xing) is doing very well. She's having some crying episodes at night, which is to be expected, but she's happy during the day and really enjoying her new siblings- especially Ben.

We really thought that due to the closeness in age, that Ben would have a hard time sharing his mama and his toys with her. We've found that of all the kids, he is the one who seems to get along with her the best. I think that has something to do with the fact that he just wants to play and he doesn't let the language barrier stress him out. He talks to her and she talks to him and they just play and have fun. Nicholas and Maddie are always thinking about the fact that she doesn't yet speak English, so they hesitate to talk to her and feel awkward when they don't understand what she is saying. 

However, even with all of that, they are really happy to have their new sister and are doing very well considering the changes of the past two and a half weeks. I know they missed us very much while we were away.

Mike is going back to work tomorrow and we really need to get back into the swing of things with school. I think we can do it, even if it ends up taking all day long to complete the work we need to do. If we weren't already behind, I would put it off for another week, but we really need to catch up.