Gotcha Day!

This is Gotcha Day number SEVEN for us!  Wow, the years have flown.  Gotcha Day is what many call the day they met their adopted children.  I usually say "Family Day" instead, because "Gotcha Day" puts the emphasis on the parents' meeting their child instead of the child being enfolded into a family.  Family Day sort of spreads around the love, the feeling of "it's about all of us" and is not entirely from the parents' point of view.  Important to some.

Right now, "Family" Day is not important to Luci.  She wanted to call it "Gotcha" Day.  So we did.

We met Luci when she was just 9 1/2 months old.  Tiny, skinny, beautiful baby.  She did not cry much; now that I know her personality so well, I think she was taking it all in and waiting to see if she should cry about her new situation.  She's a quiet studier until she feels comfortable, and then--oh, then!  Then she talks non-stop!

If you look closely, you can see that her eyebrows are sort of in an "I'm not too sure yet" position.  That photo was taken in the Howard Johnson Hotel in Guiyang, Guizhou, China on August 14, 2005.  Don't laugh about us being in a Ho-Jo's; in China they are deluxe hotels!  JT was nine and missing his two front teeth.  Bryan was thirteen! 

So.  It is "Gotcha Day" at our house.  Luci had a lot of things that we "must do, Mommy!  It's my day!"  I think part of her frenzy over her day had something to do with the fact that every single one of us, except her, had birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day and wedding anniversary since mid-May.  She truly felt left out.

Things got so busy that I dubbed the day "Luci-Palooza Day."

First, we had to have a cake.  Rectangle, Mommy.  And 'nilla.  With pink icing. 

The cake must have 7 candles--but don't sing "Happy Gotcha Day to You!"  Just say, One, Two, Three! and I'll blow them out.

Lots of good food to eat with her new chopsticks!  We got the chopsticks while we were in China, so that made them more special.  What made them even special-er?  They are pink!  We had sweet and sour chicken over rice (don't be jealous of my super-fancy way to serve rice--straight out of the rice cooker with a plastic measuring cup so I won't scratch the cooker) and jiaozi!    They turned out so well that all fifty (yes, I said fifty!) were gone when supper was over.  Here's a recipe for jiaozi.  I cheated and bought the wrappers from the produce department of our grocery store.

Bryan made a special card for Luci, and JT wrote a cute story about her for her presents.  John and I gave her the chopsticks, plus the kids' names written in hanzi, the Chinese characters.  One of the boys, and I can't remember which one (that is a good thing because then I can't embarrass him too much!) asked how I got those.  Did you find them in China, with our names already on them, all packaged like that?  If you've been to China, you already know, but I'll inform the rest of y'all:  There are people everywhere with booths, and in stores, who will do calligraphy for you.  I had a man do these for us and he packaged them up so we could bring them home safely.  We'll get them framed and they will go in our "Hall of Fame" here at home.  (The man did not understand "J.T." so he wrote out "Jonathan" instead.)

After supper (dinner to you if you are not from the South), Luci had a list of things for us to do:

She dictated the first four; then decided she wanted to write them herself.  So I spelled for her as she wrote, until she got tired of that and sped things up by writing numbers 7 and 8 in her own phonetically fine writing.  (7. Watch Luci Videos and 8. Origami)

She told the boys they must stay with us and do all the things on her list.  I checked them off as we went.  I LOVE number 5!  LAUGH.   Luci taught us how to make a doggy face with Number 8, origami folding.  Number 2, "Kiss the baby," was a game we played in China.  I'd say, "Kiss the baby!" and we'd all lean in to kiss Luci on the noggin.  It was to get her used to us touching her, and getting up close and personal.  When we played this last night, she let the boys kiss her on the cheek!  She never does that on any normal day.

Number 7, "watch Luci videos," was sweet.  We'd watched all but one during the day, so video #1 (of us meeting her) was the only one left.  One of the girls in our adoption group was distraught and cried the whole time.  It was heartbreaking to hear and watch on the video, but honestly?  When we were there in the midst of getting our princess, I didn't hear her at all.  My focus was on Luci!

Luci's comment last night about that day and the one crying:  "It was a very commotional day."

So, what does a girl do when confronted with too much commotion (emotion)?

"I'm going to get some cake."

And she did.

Six Years Ago

Six years ago today, we met Luci face to face.   For better or worse, our lives all changed that day.  All adoptions begin with a loss.  Luci may never get to meet her birth parents or know what happened that had her end up in an orphanage.  Since this is the anniversary of her adoption, there are lots of mixed emotions running through her mind.  Happiness that we went out to eat in honor of HER, and sorrow that she is not with her original parents.  Joy that Mommy played video games with her "in celebration, Mama," and consternation that I would not play Disney Princess Wii for more than two hours.

Here are some photos from that trip six years ago.  They are not in any particular order.


Here is a photo that was taken at the orphanage before they traveled to Guiyang to meet us.  Pictured:  Hannah, Luci and Annaleah.  We sent a disposable camera (along with other goodies for the staff, ordered from here) and were thrilled when it was returned to us when Luci was put into our arms.  The shots were all from the morning they came to meet us, probably all taken in about fifteen minutes, but they are the only glimpse we have of Luci's life before we met her.

Bryan and JT with all three Bearden girls.

JT and Bryan with some cigars that John bought at the White Swan.  That bed was supposed to sleep two.  TWO.  It didn't.  But at least it was more cushy than the bed in Guizhou.

JT with Jophy, our guide.

Bryan and JT climbed up a temple.  This was about seven flights up.

Eating with chopsticks!

The boys with their "I'm the big brother" and "I'm the bigger brother" t-shirts on (Bryan's actually says, "biggest."  But it should say, "bigger." The editor in me comes out!) .  Luci has on an "I'm the little sister" shirt.

Happy baby at Lucy's Bar in Guangdong.

On the way to LuiZhi, the city where Luci's orphanage is.

LuiZhi

The back of Luci's SWI (Social Welfare Institute--different than an orphanage, in that senior citizens also live there, and probably infirm adults as well).  I think those folks in the red are exercising.

The first photo we ever saw of our precious Luci.

Merry Christmas Song from Third Day

This song has a hanky alert.



Luci and I have been watching her China videos over and over again for months now. The "China Videos" are videos of her meeting us in China and several days of that journey. We've seen them so many times that we have every movement memorized. Luci loves to have "Mommy pretend you are me and say what I'm thinking!"

So I do--mostly things like, "I love that kid (JT) with the orange hair and no teeth! He has as many teeth as I do!" (JT was missing his two front teeth on that trip.)

and

"Why does that man with the toothbrush on his lip (mustache) keep kissing me? He's nice, but wow, he tickles!"

I noticed things from these videos that I was too busy or too enamored of this little girl to notice while it was going on 5-and-a-half years ago, when Luci was 9 1/2 months old. Like, Luci's eyebrows all knitted up during our first meeting. How those eyebrows relaxed over the next two days.

How we were supposed to go in alphabetical order (we are "W" so we would be last) but the Willinghams just pressed on and got to the babies first (sorry, Lanes and Beardens! I can mean my apology now, but I sure didn't mind being first that day.).

How upset one of the other girls was at the hand-over, and how the third girl didn't look at her parents (at least not on the video that we have) during that first meeting.

How Luci looked me in the eyes as we talked to her in the lobby of the hotel that first few minutes. How she looked at each of us, in the eyes and how she continued to do that as the days went on. Even when I fed Luci her first bottle, she looked at me, eye-to-eye. Very unusual for these babies, according to the International Adoption Clinic.

How calm Luci seemed in our first meeting, but those eyebrows--she knew something was going on. How she was so silent in the lobby but once we got her up to the room, she babbled. (Oh how I love hearing that baby voice!)

How she really did not cry there in China, and how even-tempered she was (she still is, but she will let us know when she's upset!).

How lovely she was (still is), and her happy nature shows through.

How excited the boys were to see her, and how they jockeyed for attention with her. (Bryan had all sorts of comments on the video--he was our designated camera man; and JT showed off some gymnastics tricks that he'd practiced for his new little sister.)

How selfish I was in not wanting anyone else to hold her--the boys and John just had to wait. :)

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Here are some photos from the first dvd. These have never been shown on the blog before. I can't get the videos to transfer to my computer; once I get Bryan to figure it out, I'll post one or two.

Family Day!!

Today was the fourth anniversary of Luci joining our family! It was a great day full of good memories. One thing that struck me as unusual was this: Last night I gave Luci a Barbie "Chinese New Year" doll--dressed in a red dress, holding a red good luck envelope, and with gorgeous black hair. We had not talked about Luci's China mama much in the past few months. Luci looked at that doll and said, "She looks like my China mama." She also picked up the chopsticks at the restaurant today and said, "Chinese girls eat with chapsticks." Cute. She ate about half her meal quite nicely with the "chapsticks" before switching to a fork.

Make a Smilebox slideshow