Something she said to our Mandarin teacher and friend is leading us to think that she quite possibly thinks that her birthparents are her foster parents. The truth is though that she didn't go live with them until she was about a year and a half old. I guess that they could have some connection but they are have a college age son so chances are they are too old to have her as a child but we will just have to get to the bottom of that as Joy learns English and opens up to us... we are choosing not to go through a translator to try to learn more at this point.
The other thing that she said to our friend from China is that she will learn English and then go back to China in about 5 months. She has showed no other signs that she wants to go back just this comment so we are going to use a person we know that lives in China, shares our faith in Jesus, and knows Joy from Guilin to help us find out what she believes about her new family and possibly what she was told about us in China.
Other than these things she has for the most part continued to be happy. Even saying these things she was pretty matter of fact... not sad. She is starting to shut down/ pout/ silent mourning a little more. We realized that this was her coping mechanism in China but it has become more frequent thus making me think the honeymoon is getting over. It happens when she is told no for something and we learned early on that saying no gently is really all she needs but she still will shut down, cry silent tears (not always but sometimes), and even close her eyes and pretend she is asleep. The positive thing is that she will allow us to hold her, talk to her, and love on her through it. I'm hoping that as time and language move forward she realize she can tell us her dislike at our answer instead of just shutting down. Any advice from those that have dealt with the shut down/ silent tears please give us some.... Overall she is still doing amazingly well. This is just starting to happen more and more (about once a day or every other day)! We keep holding her and trying to reassure her that she is our daughter forever even though at this point she doesn't understand those words. She doesn't seem to be pushing us away but reaching out for attention and love so that makes it easy to give it.
We went camping this week to help us gel as a family. We needed some time with just us and so the kids could kind of start to find their places again and we had a wonderful time. Joy loves riding her bike so we did a lot of that and even decided she really likes s'mores! We also swam quite a bit of which they all can enjoy together. Here are some photos of our camping trip.
We are going to enjoy a few relaxing days at home... after getting home Grace had to get two teeth extracted unexpectantly so that made for quite a Friday yesterday! She got $20 from the tooth fairy though (yes that is alot but after watching it happen I thought it was so worth it!!)
Joy will have all 14 of her baby teeth removed on June 16th because they are all rotten and infected. The blessing is that all of her adult teeth look good and alot of them are in just behind the baby teeth. Never a dull moment!
1 comment:
Hi Angie, thanks for sharing and for encouraging me! I am still trying to catch up on blog reading LOL! I know you understand.
We went camping this weekend. I can so relate to what you're saying about the shutting down. Our J did this even in China and does it some here. I wouldn't say we're in a honeymoon, but he doesn't test as much as he did in China. He still does though each day in one way or another. I wonder about his English and Chinese. We want to keep his Chinese and we try to learn it. What are you using to learn it?
He gives us lessons and we do try to remember, but we fail most of the time! I think too that his dialect is so different and since he wasn't in school much lately … he has gotten rusty on his Mandarin. Our guides in China said it wasn't great and here he hasn't been able to understand a couple of Chinese friends (or so he says).
Again, thanks for sharing.
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