Gotcha Day

We picked up Lydia this morning. It was pretty rough, very emotional. Neither Rob nor I got much sleep last night, therefore, we are very tired. Lydia's foster mom was present as well, and this made it hard on Lydia - she would have nothing to do with us. I know that this is very hard on her foster mom, too for it is very apparent she loves Lydia very much and has done such a wonderful job with her – we included her in our prayers this morning to start the day. Lydia counted to 100 in Chinese for our guide, Grace. She seems happy now, loves to laugh and talk, and is very expressive. We know that there are many rough days ahead and are curious as to how she will react tonight. She told our guide that she wanted to go home. Grace told her that she was going home and she replied, "No, I want to go to my China home." Our guide says that she speaks like an adult – very fluent in Mandarin for her age. When asked if she likes to dance, she replies, "yes, but it's hard to dance in my red boots." (She came to us in very fashionable red boots – with rhinestones). It’s hilarious; she thinks that we understand her! We just shake our heads in agreement. It is very apparent that she has hydrocephalus (even more so than we’d expected) and her little eyes are crossed. When she colors, she holds her book very close to her face, and we are anticipating a significant vision problem due to her strabismus. Even so, she is very precise and stays within the lines when she colors. The boys have been simply awesome with her. They are being very attentive and she loves the attention from all of us. Thank you for your prayers, for God has been gracious!!
The weather here has been awful today – rain and wind this morning, followed by even higher winds this afternoon with a Chinese dust storm outside. The high today was in the lower 50’s, but we were instructed to stay in the room today, anyway, to bond. The rooms are uncomfortably cool, but when the family accompanying us had the hotel manager contacted, they were told it’s “out of season” to have the heat on! We get a chuckle, too, each time we walk into the bathroom and see the “Be Careful of Landslide” signage which depicts a man slipping on a wet floor. We’re having the experience of a lifetime in so many ways!
We're hopefully going to bed early tonight and sleeping more than 3 hrs. I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow.
Love,
Detra