Our First month

Tomorrow marks our month anniversary of arriving back in America with Faith FengHua.  A month that feels like a lifetime, so cliche but honestly I feel like she has been with us since her birth, minus the extra stretch marks!! 

Mornings are by far my favorite time, especially on bath day.  I can see why she has warmed to me, I'd like me too if I were her.  Let's see, we cuddle her awake, then we get her breakfast - typically drinkable yogurt and fruit.  She sits on my lap to eat, on my livingroom furniture, hmmm yeah she's spoiled, I don't even like when Kevin does that... well not the lap part, that would be painful.  When its bath day , it is more like Faith's spa day!!  She is bathed in a tempid bath, with lots of bubbles, toys and love.  She gets a massage, a constant stream of water to keep her warm, and lots of fun!  She is cuddled dry - LOVE the ducky and princess towels with the hoods, so cute!   Then she is smathered in baby lotion, poor thing this forced hot air, dry winter air is not kind to her delicate skin... more massaging, and giggles, and bonding!  I love, absolutely LOVE heading to the drawers each day for the cute outfits! The sea of pink and purple just send me to the moon of glee!!  IF there were such a place, that is where I'd live during morning time!!  Off to blow dry, though we are still fighting the pigtails and barretts, we do enjoy a nice styling session , we are working on creating some body over the flat spot.  She needs a hair cut but I am not sure if we are ready to tramatize a hairdresser for that yet :)))

It is amazing how good she is during the boys morning lesson time.  We sit her at the table with us, she gets alternating things to do that seem to really make her happy, and of course, are highly educational !!  She loves coloring, stickers, playdoh, and building blocks.  We also feed her to buy us a little extra time, she is a big fan of goldfish.  I just love watching little kids feed themselves, the little fingers deftly picking up fishes and JAMMING them in there mouths!!  Oh wait, that is every member of this family!!
Faith is doing very well with her signing, and I have to remind myself often that its only been a month, when I get a little frustrated that she doesn't know more (that is how well things are going I really forgot the small amount of time we've had her).  Her receptive vocabulary is amazing - she understands (and is even starting to sign most of these words in addition to potty and kiss):  sorry, please, thank you, poop (yes poop I gotta know what she is or needs to do right!), sleep, bed, slippers, shoes, clothes, doll...well you get the picture, all of our signing vocabulary is exploding!!  Now to learn how to string them together -- in all due time!!

She has been so gracious with all the guests, we are excepting visitors now, please feel free to call or email if you would like to meet her majesty.  We especially like guests who bring dinner ... hee hee Just kidding (though we won't turn away pizza carrying visitors!!).  She has warmed to all our friends and family, going to most who put out their hands to her, especially if they are near a light switch or any object she'd like to play with (of particular interest anything she ISN'T suppose to have!!)  Faith is learning how to play with other children, still choosing to hoard whatever toys are placed for them to share, but then completely blowing us away by offering the toy to the other child so gently and sweetly.  She does a little tilt of her head, looks them in the face, and pokes the toy at them.  OH we've also learned how to sign cute and funny, as we've needed those 2 words with her a great deal!! 

The Advent season has been extra special with her in our lives.   The lights thrill her, the decorations amuse her, and we pray somehow we are helping her start to discover the true meaning of the season with a child's play nativity.  Concrete thoughts we can teach - we point and sign, but this one, this love of God, this needs to come from His Holy Spirit, and we do trust He has already put it in her heart, and continue to pray for it to take hold and blossom in the days and years ahead.  We look forward to her Christening on Feb 21st, we are so blessed that our Pastor has agreed to do a Mass, and for it to be just a celebration of her initiation into our Catholic Christian faith.   It was a hard decision to wait until after the holidays, but when we saw that the best date was Feb. 21st, and realized it is the 2 year anniversary of our first meeting at the Adoption Agency it seemed the perfect fit (just another awesome Godcidence) in this journey of Faith!!

I am going to start blogging the back story  -  of how we got to this point.  The story is so amazing, that I am still in awe that God allowed me to be a part ... IF I didn't believe in God before we started our adoption story, I certainly would be now!!  We pray it blesses all who read it ... as much as it has blessed us!!

Audiologist

We took Faith to the audiologist in Boston yesterday.  Woke up at 6:00am, drove in 50 minutes (since I forgot to get in the HOV lane, oops), sat for 20 minutes to go to a 15 minute appointment where they resolved nothing.  Yes, she's deaf, we kind of knew that.

Hopefully we will get some good leads and we did setup another appointment for January where they will put her to sleep and do a real test of her hearing testing all tones/frequencies or whatever else they do.

Then we took Ian on his birthday journey to Jordan's Furniture for a new mattress/tv deal.  We also went to the Enchanted Village.  It was packed for a weekday but worth the wait.  I loved it when the fake snow kicked in, Faith thought that was cool, her reaction to it was cool, so excited she didn't know how to deal with it!