Six Months Home

It is incredible to think that six months have already passed since Maya Lanlan Josephine has joined our family. For the most part she has settled in and everyone has accepted her as she has accepted us. It's not always easy. There are still some days when I feel we're going backward but then things get better again and everything are great.

The period of adjustment could be up to two years or more. You can't just take a child, especially an older child from everything she has ever known and thrust her into a complete new environment and expect her to immediately accept it. The progress may seem slow at times but it is steady. Maya has learned so much English that we do not use the translator anymore ever. She is learning to read and write and make some friends at school. It has been incredibly cold last month so we did not get a chance to get out for long and do a lot of things but she has started swimming lessons and she seems to enjoy it very much and at the same time we want to prepare her for summer and the beach.

I think there are times when she misses China too. Sometimes I almost feel like she thinks her old life with her family will come back to her, the time before her mother passed away and then she realizes it will not happen and she is here with her new family, in a new country, leading a new life and it becomes hard again to accept the new reality. She has learned to protect herself from further injury and so nothing much matters to her but what she wants and needs. I realize we have surrounded her with too much too soon and had to scale back.

We are working on making her feel safe enough to care about other's feelings too and letting her know that materialistic things are not as important as it is to have family and friends who love you. She is quick to brush off any anger or sadness and get on with it, sometimes too quickly that leaves much more to resolve. It will certainly take a lot of time, patience and lots of love to do that but we are here for her every step of the way. We love you Maya and are so proud of you how far you've come in so little time.

Welcome home party for Maya in August.

Starting Canadian school in September. 

Enjoying Thanksgiving in October. 

First Canadian snow in November and lots more to come. 

First Christmas with her Forever Family in December. 

Some play, swim lessons and snow angels in January.

Love these sweet Snow Angels. 

Sister, Sister

My little sister is starting to catch up to me I always say. Happy birthday Susie and have a great day tomorrow. Wishing you lots of luck in the years to come. We've both certainly come a long way, with families now and grandkids on the way. I wish we lived closer so we could see each other more often but we keep in close contact via the modern way, texts and Facebook. This photo was taken back in the old country just before we came to Canada many, many moons ago. It's a photo to keep and cherish forever.