The girls love Dasher

We first met Dasher on December 6th, 2010.   The girls L~O~V~E Dasher!!   So much that they are seeing who can get up the earliest to find him each morning.   Kendalan and Tessa have started setting their alarm for 5:30AM to come upstairs and look for our Elf.

So Dasher has been found hanging out on the floor lamp.   From this area he can watch the Christmas tree and see if anyone is peeking in packages.

Dasher hid in Daddy's stocking one day.   I am not sure why, but the girls really had a hard time finding him there.   I mean, he was right at face level...maybe it was just too obvious.

Then Dasher decided to get a real birds eye view of the lving room from the clock.   He also thought he would blend in with the red of the China flag and be missed....but not by my eagle eye girls!!

Then one night Dasher decided to hang out in the kitchen.   I think he wanted to watch them do homework and go back to Santa and report what they are getting grade wise.

I think that Dasher needed a nice easy night of watching the girls.   How better than to be really close to the Christmas tree and right in the living room where the girls are talking, and fighting all night!!   I bet that Santa got an ear full that next morning!!

Then Dasher wanted to hang with the girls!  

Then Dasher found himself another woman!!   He was in her arms all night long!!

Tonight Dasher is doing a little undercover work.   He is at an advantage point in the room.   It will be pretty interesting to see what he reports to Santa from this site!!

The truth is hard.

Just to update where things are:

We had Linzi to the pediatric infectious disease doctor yesterday. We
took Tessa to this physician after she first came home too. Dr. Harris
will run her vaccination titers to see if she actually did receive the
immunizations in China as we were told. While we were in the office
Dr. Harris also had Dr. Crouch a pediatrician see Linzi. Linzi does not
like doctors very well. She started screaming and crying when they first
called her name and tried to weigh her. She continued to cry, kick and
wave them off. When Dr. Crouch was visiting with me we both tried to
turn our backs to her so she would think we weren't talking about her and
to try to get her to be quiet. Dr. Harris finally found Dr. Zhao who is
a neurologist and had him come in. Dr. Zhao is from Taiwan and speaks
Chinese. Linzi did kind of talk to him. Since Dr. Zhao had not been in
the room he did not know what was going on. Once Linzi responded to his
Chinese questions he looked at all of us and said "There is something wrong
with her." He says that her responses were not really correct and that
her Chinese is not very good, her speech is kind of slurred. We explained
to him that she had just been adopted from China and that she was in an
orphanage with many Down Syndrome and severely delayed/handicapped
kids. He again tried to talk to her. He asked her something and she told

him no. He said that he had to kind of guess what she was saying to him.

That her responses were just words that didn't totally make sense.
He then again said "Something is wrong" and he mentioned

autism or autistic? The other two doctors said they don't think she is

autistic and that they see hope that she may become able to be a productive individual.
They did see the "self stimulating" behavior I have seen from the get-go.

She is in constant motion...if she is standing she will rock from foot to
foot, if she is sitting down she will rock back and forth. She also will roll
her hands together and in a circle while repeating the same thing over and
over and over and over...to the extent that it drives me crazy, especially
as I have no idea what she is saying!

She is adorable.   She is Loud.  Has she bonded?  I don't know.  She calls
me "Ma" and will hug some of us and pat us on the back.   She will also
go to strangers and hug them.   She loves to "talk" to anyone and everyone.
Well. except for the doctors at first.   After she realized that they were not
going to do anything to her she was fine with them.   When I drop her off
at school she happily waves to me and says "Bye bye."   She did not get
upset when we left the orphanage staff either, just happily waved.


We did start her in Kindergarten for 1/2 days. The teacher says that she
follows around the other kids and kind of does what they do. The teacher
is pleased how she is doing at this point. We plan on
moving her to full days after the first of the year. We are fully planning

on her repeating Kindergarten again next year if she needs too.

She is constantly on the move. She can sit still in the car and occasionally
on the couch, but she does not have the attention span to watch TV,  play
video games or DSi games. The girls are all very disappointed that she can not
play with them and they feel like we are just babysitting her. I have heard
them call her "stupid and crazy" and ask "What are we going to do with her?"
We have reminded them that Tessa and Jordis didn't speak English when they

first came home either. It is frustrating for all of us.

She is really rough on everything. I am sure that this is from being in the
orphanage and not learning the proper behavior. She does know when she is
doing something she shouldn't. I have gone to the bedroom and as I come back
into the living room she is shutting the laptop...she knows she is not supposed
to be on it. She went from being scared of the cats and dogs to chasing them
around and being rough with them. We keep working on "Gentle" I was told that

Ching Ching Da means Gentle?

She is very happy most of the time. She will eat anything that we put in front
of her. We do have to be careful that she does not overeat. The orphanage
warned us of that. She is definitely spoiled and gets mad if she doesn't get
her way. She is a total clutz. She can fall over her shadow at times. So
her legs are covered in bruises.


It has been tough, tough, tough. I feel like I brought this on the family as
I was the first one who wanted to adopt again. I also feel like I jinxed the
adoption because I had Linzi tattooed on my arm before we got her....I know
crazy but that is what I think sometimes. Zora has told me that the adoption
was stupid and lame. Honestly we have talked about disrupting her but again
then we feel like we have failed. But, this is not what we were expecting.
We feel that it is possible that we are not meant to be her family, that it was
just our job to get her here so we could help her find the family she was destined

to be in.. A "pay it forward" from our getting Kendalan through a disruption.

It is rough. I feel like we are plodding along, pretending that everything will

be okay and knowing that it will never be the same.

To the mean, negative posters who think they are authorities who have left comments about this...if you REALLY knew what you were talking about you would post with your REAL names!   We have NOT said we are going to disrupt..just that we have thought about it.   I would have left her in China if we were going to disrupt.   This isn't our first adoption.  DUH!
This is why people do not post the truth to their blogs because nasty people are very
quick to judge those they do not know.   If you want to give helpful suggestions great!
If you want to cuss at someone go find someone else!! 

New photos

Had a chance to have some family photos taken last weekend.   Belinda has taken photos of the girls for the last 4 years and we like how they turn out.   For those of you on our Christmas list, you will be seeing more of them!   This is kind of a sneak peek!!

Linzi had a hard time sitting still.

Tin grin

RaeAnne had braces put on Thursday afternoon.

I remember when she had to have her molars capped because they were so weak.   We were living in Texas and the pediatric dentist tried to sedate her in his office.   Unfortunately the "cocktail" they gave her to drink actually wired her up instead of making her sleepy.   We had to resort to having her put under for the procedure.   She has been a white knuckle dentist patient ever since.  

So I was really proud of her when we found out that she needed braces.    She did a great job...well, we did have one little catch.   The assistant was busy getting her teeth ready for the brackets and she was going to put some cleaner on Rae's teeth.   The tool that had the cleanser in it did kind of resemble a syringe....RaeAnne just about climbed off the end of the chair!!!

Now to pay for them for the next 30 months.   And Tessa has an appointment in February to see if she needs braces too!   Yikes!!

Things are looking up.

I think I am finally getting over the shock.   It could be because we are really seeing an improvement in her behavior and balance.   She still has the institutional rock, but we have seen a decrease in this.   She can sit and concentrate for 10 to 15 minutes at a time now before jumping up and running through the house.    She is still doing the repetitious things like saying the same thing over and over and over and over.  

Yes...I am really tired of that.

She still grinds her teeth   really L~O~U~D!!

She has gotten over being scared of the dog and cats...now she chases them and pulls their tails.   For the first time we have seen our laid back dog actually look like he would snap at her.   The one cat has bit her and the other has scratched her...she is still learning.

The pediatrician ran all kinds of lab tests on her...we are still waiting for the results and I am curious.

She still talks L~O~U~D!!    She will tone it down when I tell her Shhhhh!!

She will eat anything and everything we put in front of her.   As quickly as possible.  She doesn't complain about the vegetables!   And she has stopped going to the cabinet and whining for more food.

She still falls a few times a day.   We had her evaluated by the school district yesterday.   They think she has good potential.   She will start Kindergarten next week going 1/2 days and ride the bus home with her sisters.    If she is doing good by the end of the year, she will start all day Kindergarten after the first of the year.    We are all prepared but praying that she will not have to repeat Kindergarten.

She is ornery!   She knows the things she is not supposed to get into...but if you leave the room for a few minutes...she is on the laptop...until you come back into the room and she will slam the lid down.  She gets into the markers and writes all over her arms and legs!   She runs around and shuts all the doors!

She loves KC Wolf.   She found him in a toy box and carries him all over the house.   She hugs him and lays him on pillows.   Tonight she was covering him with a blanket.

She really likes her Daddy.   She runs over to him and lays her chin on his chest.   The other night he kissed her forehead....she turned around, grabbed his face between both her hands and turned it to hers and gave him a kiss on the lips!   Tonight she watched Kendalan and then Tessa give me hugs and kisses goodnight...then she threw her arms up in the air and ran over to me, gave me a big hug and a kiss on the lips and said  "Bye Bye!"    First kisses!



I think we will make it.  

Home

We walked out of the security area to a wonderful Welcome Home sign!   We have been trying to get into a groove at home.  The night after we arrived home, four of the girls had their awards ceremony to receive their camo belts!   They had the ceremony at Sk8away and then the kids could skate afterwards.   I used to love to skate, but now that I am old and my bones are probably more brittle, I don't think I will be doing that!   Tessa, Kendalan and Jordis decided to give it a try and they all did pretty good.   They did spend some time on their bottoms on the floor!!

Linzi had an appointment at our pediatrician's office on the 20th.   Dr. Conroy does not think that the way she walks and her balance issues are related to cerebral palsy.   She recommends that we enroll her in martial arts to help her with her balance.   Our Taekwondo instructor really got a kick out of that recommendation!

Linzi definitely has more going on than we thought.   Exactly what will take sometime to figure out.   We are not sure if she is a product of her environment or if it has anything to do with the initial diagonsis she was given in China.   She does have delays and we will be having our school district try and evaluate her and see what their recommendations are.   We are hoping that we can get her enrolled in Kindergarten or Pre-school and start helping her learn.   The more she is able to learn will be encouraging to us.   At this point we are concerned that she may have learning deficits.   However, we are praying that she does not.    It is going to be a work in progress for sometime.   She is cute as can be and has gotten over her fear of the cats and dog.   She seems to love following her sisters around, but her attention span is very short.   She has enough energy to wear us all out and fortunately she is ready to go to sleep very soon after she gets in bed.  

Almost home!

It has been an adventure...sometimes not one for the faint of heart.   Linzi shocked me when we first met her.   Her reports were off..so much so that I would say they were completely wrong!   She was/is much more delayed than what we had even expected.   They said that she was basically independant.   That was a stretch of the truth.   They said she could go up and down the stairs by herself, that is true IF you have a long time to wait for her to do so.   She has very poor balance.   I can now see why she had bruises in her updated referral photos...she falls a LOT!   I have developed much stronger arms from holding her hand and keeping her from falling most of the time.   When she runs around in our room..she falls many times a day.   She can almost fall over her own shadow!  No joke!   She is very head strong and wants to do things herself.   She did not know how to use silverware or chopsticks.   She has learned to use a spoon to shovel food in her mouth, she is working on the fork.   She can not eat without making a total mess...kind of like a toddler.   When she plays, she does things over and over again...in a repetition pattern.   She says the same things over and over again.   She does remember doing things and will repeat those to our guides.   She has no where to go but up from here.   She is very loving and quite the tease.   She is super cute and was super spoiled by her nannies.

 

First day with us....

 

Yesterday...the difference a few days makes!

We are in Hong Kong at the airport Marriott.  Tomorrow morning very early we will board the first of several planes which will finally bring us home to Kansas.  

Looking forward to the rest of her sisters meeting her and ready to get unpacked and things put away!!