When my eyes opened at 6:30am I immediately looked over at K and was amused to see that she was quietly in her sofa bed reading a book! I watched her for a few moments as she looked through the pages and then I went over and quietly said good morning to her. On my way to her bedside I noticed on the floor a pocket angel that my dear friend Jen had given me in New York City. It had fallen out of where I had put it and it was a great reminder of how God had protected us and blessed us through our first day and night together. As I sat by her bedside she looked very concerned and serious. I am sure it felt strange to her waking up in a quiet hotel room away from her friends and the familiarity of Hannah’s Hope. I stroked her head and spoke sweet words to her but her demeanor did not change. I then lay down next to her and a couple of minutes later she fell asleep again. She slept for about 45 more minutes and when she awoke again I pulled her into the bed with us and we snuggled her for a little while. After a few minutes she began to feel comfortable and was her happy silly self.
I actually find the trial and error at mealtime kind of interesting so when we went down to eat breakfast I showed her what was available and let her pick. She chose oranges, jelly filled pancakes, noodles, and bread. We also ordered her yogurt and porridge but in the end she only ate the oranges and bread. We sat with our new friends and had a great time visiting with them and sharing stories. After breakfast we headed back up to the room and played with some of the toys and activities we brought. (By the way, she LOVES taking the elevator. She giggles every time it begins to go up or down.) We are discovering that she knows more English than we thought she did. Every once in awhile she would point to something and say the English word. We also practiced some of the Amharic words we looked up. She seemed to be pleased when we would speak something in Amharic. The greatest surprise was when we said to her, “Eh-wed-eh-SHAH-lehu” which is how you pronounce “I love you” in Amharic. She responded back with an “I love you” in English!! It was awesome!!
We also discovered that this girl loves to dance! We played music from our Ipod for her and she started busting out the moves. Brooke will be thrilled! Another shock to us was when the Newsboys song, “Something Beautiful, “ came on she sang the first line in English!!! We stood there dumbfounded with our mouths open! We had played that song for her on our first trip and I can’t imagine that she has heard it since then so we are guessing she remembers it??!! Quite the shocker. Trying to adhere to her schedule at HH, we then went outside to play. On our way out we saw, Danny, one of the drivers for HH. He was there to pick up the other family and when he saw K he gave her a big hug and asked her in Amharic if she wanted to go back to Hannah’s Hope today. We watched her shake her head no and then he told us what he had asked her. We felt victorious that she would rather be with us! We then went outside with the jump rope and did that for a few minutes. Then, out of nowhere she began to do her withdrawing behavior and stiffened up and became non responsive to us. Next thing we know she is trying to run away from us and wouldn’t let me pick her up. Maybe she was reconsidering her decision of wanting to go back to HH. We decided to go back inside and took out the play-doh and then she became playful again. I would love to know what is going through her mind as she shows those sudden withdrawing behaviors. We are guessing that something triggers an emotion and it is her way of grieving it. I am sure we will see much more of this. She was a voracious eater at lunch again and Matt could hardly stand watching her eat several fried fish fillets. I could eat fish every night of the week, but I have to agree with Matt, that the fish here is disgusting! She also ate her weight in pineapple and rolls. After she finished eating she pointed to the upstairs and motioned for her to sleep. Ok then! I guess this girl wants a nap! On her schedule it says she naps occasionally. We took her up and placed her in the bed and sure enough she was out in one minute. After an hour I joined her. Matt went and worked out and did some work. She ended up sleeping 2 ½ hours! When she woke up we were able to Skype with the kids before they went to school. She sat there very shy as she listened to their voices but she got a smile on her face when they spoke her name. We got her to say, “Ciao, Luke” and “Ciao Brooke.” (Andrew had already left). They got a kick out of that and so did we. We decided to brave another trip outside to play hoping it would go better than the first one. Luckily it did and she really let loose and had fun. I can tell she is annoyed with my jump roping ability which makes me laugh. After having a successful playtime outside we met up with our friends and headed to dinner. It was another successful night of eating and then she turned into a typical child and decided she did not want to sit still any longer! She kept trying to escape from the table and Matt finally had to get stern with her and she spent the rest of the time in his lap. Our last shocker of the day was when we noticed a picture of the twin towers in NYC on the wall next to our table. I told her that I had just been in NYC and she pointed at the picture and said, “America.” All four of us were so startled by this. Now I couldn’t wait to show her the picture book I bought of NYC just two days ago. Luckily it is in my suitcase. We had another successful night of going to sleep. She was even out faster tonight. We can’t wait for our Embassy appointment tomorrow when we will officially be finished with this long, laborious, soul searching, faith requiring, spirit yielding, unpredictable, life changing process.
Hope all went well at the Embassy today! Yeah, she is yours and we can't wait to see pictures of yall together. You two are amazing parents and K is so blessed to join your family, but you two will be the ones most blessed because of her. Keep enjoying your time in seeing her birth country.
ReplyDeleteLove to yall!