Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Greg, Lisa, Sarah and Baylee!
Home Update - August 24, 2011
Well, its been a couple of months since we landed in the United States as a family. Baylee's adjustment has been progressing steadily. She is terrified of doctors, scales, and measuring tapes for some reason. She has received several immunizations and handled them very well with no resistance and little tears but the measuring tapes and weight scales scare her. She's been evaluated by a team for surgery to repair her cleft lip & palate and has been enrolled in a developmental and speech therapy program to help catch her up. Developmentally she has improved by great lengths and in just these short couple of months, has caught up to her age group in everything except speech, which is understandable. Since her cleft lip repair, her speech has greatly improved and she is trying much harder to say words. Cognitively, she understands simple directions and is learning / understanding English at a very fast steady pace. What a huge barrier to overcome!
At home, we are always following her around because she gets into everything! She is such a curious little girl and we only thought our house was "baby proofed" until we follow her around and see that we were so wrong! Our dog Rizzo follows her around more than we do because, being a weiner dog, his head is at the same height as her hands when she walks around which is usually holding food that he can snatch. She doesn't get upset as we've caught her several times being kind enough to sharing her snack with him!
What can we say about China? Wow - there are not enough words to express the differences in culture. We are so appreciative of this opportunity to have traveled to a country so different than ours and experience what we have experienced and see a culture that is thousands of years older than our own. It has made us appreciate the USA so much more.
As our "Journey to Baylee" comes to a close and our forever family with Baylee takes on new chapters in life, we never want to forget this memorable time in our lives. As we tell our travel story to family and friends, we can only conclude that this entire event from start to finish has been such a "God thing". How did He know that she was the perfect fit for us? Why were we blessed to be her parents? She is such a special little girl who could have gone to any of the families waiting to adopt or not been placed for adoption at all but she came to our family. The world seems so big until you experience a spiritual connection of this magnitude. As Greg and I celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary this summer we have reflected back on our first few years of marriage and it amazes us how God knew all along the precious gift he had planned for our 20th year together. We have 2 beautiful daughters - both created just for us and we could not be more thankful.
