Gotcha Day Anniversary

One year... I find that nearly unbelievable that it was one year ago today that I walked into that room at the Welfare Lottery Hotel in Nanning and saw that cute little sweet pea for the first time. She has changed so much in the last year and in many ways is still the same spunky, opinionated, bright girl that I met that day. I am awed by her perseverance. In one year she's been yanked from a family she adored and was adored by, stuck on a train to meet her kooky single mama who whisked her away from all she'd ever known and brought her to a world where every sight and smell and sound was new. After two weeks home and when things were just starting to seem okay, she was placed in a preschool which had to have seemed just like an orphanage where she has to worry every day if mama was going to come back for her. Then came surgeries, two of them, and speech therapy. And she's fine, well adjusted and damn smart. No one every believes she's only been home a year. She is such a talker. While her speech is still not as clear as it needs to be, her vocabulary is at least a couple of years ahead of her age. I don't have this word for word, because it went on forever, but here's an example from yesterday (she'd come up with some fanciful story about something she had done at school, which I knew for sure she couldn't have done, so I asked her how she came up with it):

Lulu: I know why, it because I have a very big imagination inside my head, in my brain, in the bones inside the skeleton in my head. My brain is big, it working hard on my imagination so I can be thinking of things that are everywhere. (I'm cracking up at this point) Now listen to me, mama, that is rude to be laughing when I be telling you about my brain inside. You have to have patience! Now, sit down - cross your legs - put your hands in your lap and be quiet, okay. Now listen me better this time. (I comply) There, you a very good girl. That's good listening.

Me: Okay, go on with the story about the dinosaur that came to school.

Lulu: Yes. Miss Chris was sitting on the chair like this and then the dinosaur came and ate Jevon.

Me: Really? Poor boy. How did you feel?

Lulu: I was a little bit worried and a little bit sad. Why? Because the dinosaur ate Jevon, all of him.

Me: All of him?

Lulu: (waving her arms) All of him! Everything! His hands, his toes, his chin, his elbows all of Jevon was gone.

Me: Where was Jevon?

Lulu: Inside the dinosaur. In his mouth, then his troat, then his stomach! After that, then he poop it out.

(Mom's still laughing)

Lulu: Mama, it not funny. Jevon came out all dirty. Oooooh. Yucky. Poop all over his body.

Me: Was he okay?

Lulu: Yeah, he was all right. He took a bath to take all the poop off. Then it was all better. He learn his lesson.

Me: What lesson was that?

Lulu: Don't go inside a dinosaur!

Me: And all this really happened?

Lulu: Yes, at my school.

Me: And what happened to the dinosaur?

Lulu: Oh, it not a dinosaur. It was a mask. Inside the dinosaur, underneath, it was a panda. A purple panda. Inside. So, everything is okay now. Don't worry. It not a real dinosaur.

Me: But I thought it ate Jevon.

Lulu: Yeah. You not listening mama. I told you it inside my imagination! My imagination inside my skeleton in my head, in my brain...

And on, and on, and on...

So, we had a little party to celebrate the day. Nothing big. She wanted a strawberry cake (yeah, try to write happy gotcha day on a bunch of bumpy, glazed, strawberries!) So grandma and grandpa came over. We had some balloons, looked at pictures of gotcha day and looked at the clothes she came in (hey mom, no panties for me in China!) It was a fun day. Fun year. I'm so looking forward to the next year.

Here are some pics of the day: