Socks and night terrors

First, a disclaimer: life with Lulu has been pretty fabulous. She has now been here for over a week, and she owns this place. She started out terrified of the cat, running away from him, and refusing to walk for fear that she might round a corner and run into him. Now she calls him "Hao mao" - good cat. She pets him and follows him around.

For the first few days, she was overwhelmed with the toys, clothes, spaces, etc. Now, she picks out her clothes in the evening, has favorite dolls (that she kisses each night), and plays with the big boys' toys too.

She's cautious around strangers (a good thing), makes jokes (a great thing), and with us and the boys, she is open with her affection and love (the best thing). She also rats them out if they are being naughty or sneaking something - "Baba! Ni kan Quinlan! (Daddy! Look at Quinlan!)".

Still, it's not without its rough patches. The hardest thing is that she is by nature so incredibly verbal. Later, that's going to be great, but right now for her, she can't communicate the way she wants to. She will tell me something, and some of the time, I understand enough to answer her. But honestly, she's had to scale her language use back to communicate with a virtual 2 year old. You need to go potty? Do you like this? Are you hungry? I love you! Not exactly scintillating banter for a smart 3.5 year old. And there are times when even that falls apart. We were headed to the club to swim the other day and she wanted something, but we didn't know what it was. A towel? A toy? What is wazi ("wadzuh")? She cried and cried mostly because we didn't understand and there was nothing we could do. After 15 minutes of working on the spelling and trying to look it up on the iPhone Karin found the answer: socks. We went in flip flops, and she wanted socks.

She doesn't like the dark (because she can't see well) so going to sleep is hard on her. She compensates by whispering to herself, which keeps the boys amused and awake. While we were in China, she slept in our room and she slept through the night. But with the jet lag and the newness of her environment, sleep has been rough. Last night, she had night terrors, which if you have experienced them in a child, you know is no party. The kid tosses and turns and cries, but is asleep. If you wake them up, it's far far worse. Well, I woke her up and she screamed. Banshee style. Karin was able to ask her if she would go to sleep and she said yes and eventually it worked. But Karin was up 5 times last night. No fun.

The fact is, there is so much going on in her brain that we can't know, and the fact that she wants to communicate so much to us is a great sign. She could turn into a lump of clay like some orphaned and then adopted kids. That's one coping mechanism. But she runs to our arms, calls out "where's Daddy?" and spontaneously tells us she loves us. At the end of the day, you can't ask for more.


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