Minsy's Month of Merriment

One month ago our sweet Eliza Ruth QingMin Blau entered our life.  If I had to dream about how this month would have gone when I thought of it in the months before we met Minsy, I would have never imagined that our first month together would have gone as it has.  It hasn't been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it has been close to it.  She has seemlessly entered our family as if she was always meant to be there.  I haven't really taken any time to update the blog on exactly what type of little girl Minsy has turned out to be so far and how she has adjusted to life in our big, boisterous family.  Today we had a social worker come by for our first post-adoption home study visit, and we had lots of opportunities to reflect on the past month as we spoke with her about our experiences.  I want to make sure that those same thoughts are documented in this forum so that my extremely faulty memory can always remember them. So here goes . . .

My first thought when I saw Minsy on Gotcha Day was, "Holy Cow!  She is sooooo tiny!"  That is the truth.  She is super, super tiny.  It has been a difficult thing to wrap my mind around at times.  I knew that her measurements seemed small when we got her referral several months ago, but I never really understood quite how small she was until I saw her up close.  All of the pictures we had received of her before the adoption were deceiving because we were unable to judge her height with any sort of perspective.  If she had been standing next to a car or another adult or something like that we could have seen just how small she was.  As it was, we were shocked at her size.  I went to China knowing that the Chinese people were naturally smaller than Americans, so we weren't going to find a child the same size as our kids were when they were four.  I also knew that many children who are adopted from China from orphanages can be delayed in size and development by quite a bit.  So I thought that I would be prepared to see a smaller child.  But when I thought smaller, I was thinking maybe a child the size of a three year old.  What I found was a child more the size of a small two year old.  I looked right over her when we arrived because I thought I would be looking for a taller child.

So with Minsy being so small I have had to work through several things in my head.  The biggest thing is that my head tells me that I am dealing with a small toddler.  I feel like I am working with a two year old, so I often find myself babying her a bit more than she needs me to.  I start feeding her or carrying her everywhere or changing all of her clothes for her.  It's hard not to do this because my head keeps telling me that this is something that she requires me to do.  But if she is really four, or even if she is closer to three, then developmentally she should be able to do a lot of this.  When I do it for her I am not doing her any favors.  I'm not ready to get hard core and force her to do everything herself.  After all, she is still transitioning to our family, and she needs a little adjustment time.  Plus, I am sure that her foster family in China has probably been doing a lot for her as well because she seems to expect us to be doing all of this stuff for her. 

As I work to give her a little bit more responsibility to do things for herself I see that she is capable of doing some things.  And yet she seems to be very delayed in doing what a child of even three years old should be doing.  I'm not too worried about it right now.  I will give it several months and see what happens as she gets more accustomed to life in the US.  The reason that I am thinking about it now is that we are seriously questioning whether or not Minsy's age is correct.  Because she was abandoned at an older age the orphanage estimated when her birthday would be.  They thought because of her teeth development and her ability to say "mama" that she was fourteen months old.  For that reason they gave her the arbitrary birthday of September 1st, 2007.  We just can't believe that that is the right age.  We are thinking that we need to have her be three years old instead.  It would still make her extremely small for a three year old, but it would make her developmental delays more realistic.  It would give her an extra year before she would need to enter school, and that could only help her in the long run to have that extra time with me at home as she catches up developmentally.  But this is a major decision to make, and we will not make it lightly.  Currently we are waiting to get Minsy on our insurance, and then we will consult with our doctor to see what he recommends.  If it ends up that Minsy is going to stay four, then she will be working with some seriously delayed developmental issues that will need to be quickly addressed.  For now we're just working with what we've got, and we'll press forward, helping her to do the best that she can.

As far as intelligence goes, it seems that Minsy is doing quite well.  Of course, she has the obvious developmental delays, and that can often show mental delays in children.  However, I get the feeling that Minsy's delays are because of a lack of exposure and assistance.  With loving guidance and support from us and our community of support that surrounds us I have no doubt that Minsy will catch up quickly to get to be where she needs to be.  She has figured out our system of living fairly quickly.  It helps that there are so many other children to follow around, so she just joins right in.  I did notice when we were in China that she was very attentive to those around her and answered the questions they posed to her when she was asked.  It seems as if her language, even the Mandarin, is pretty choppy for a four year old.  I am not sure if she always has had issues with language or if the latest problem is simply a result of being uprooted and dropped into our world with only English being spoken.  I wonder if she knows that Mandarin is obviously not being spoken, but she also knows that she doesn't know English, so she is simply just speaking a choppy version of the Mandarin she knows as she tries to transition herself into our language.  I don't know.  I'll feel a lot more confident in what her spoken language abilities are as she learns English more and more.  For now it is difficult to assess just how well or poorly spoken she is since I do not understand any of the Mandarin that she is speaking.  I just know what Chinese sounded like to me as we were there last month, and Minsy's Chinese seems to be only single words or occasionally two words, and if she is four she should be using more than two word sentences, even in Mandarin.  So we'll keep watching this and see where she ends up.

Other than her size I have also been concerned about the thin hair she has on the top of her head.  I have had children who have had slow growing hair.  Laney hardly grew any hair at all until she was five years old.  So I wasn't exactly really concerned at all about her hair growth at first.  However, Minsy has a hair growth pattern that is a bit odd.  Besides her hair being generally thin all over, she is able to grow hair on the back of her head.  But on the top it is extremely thin.  It makes it seem as if she has a bit of a mullet going on.  I wasn't sure quite what to think about this.  Was this something to worry about or not?  Well, last night I decided to do a bit of research on the subject.  I found that many of the things I have noticed about Minsy are a huge sign of malnutrition.  I'm certainly not ready to make that call.  Malnutrition can happen for a variety of reasons, not only neglect.  But still, I wish I had a better understanding of what Minsy's life was like in foster care in Wuhan.  I had my own idea of what her foster family was like, but what if I was completely mistaken?  It is just as possible that her problems are a result of what happened in those first months of her life before she was abandoned.  Or she might have some sort of medical condition that is preventing her from obtaining necessary nutrients from her diet.  Here again, I'll need to check in with our doctor to get his expert opinion.  For now I'm just going to have to do my best to give her the best food I can.  Hopefully we can see an improvement of her size and thin hair fairly soon.

 Minsy's personality is absolutely amazing.  She has been smiling since the day we met her.  She is able to find joy is some of the simplest things of life.  Her absolute favorite thing in the world is bubbles.  She laughs and laughs whenever we get them out.  She also loves to see her picture or videos of her that we have taken.  They fascinate her and are a quick way to bring a smile to her face if she is sad.  She has gotten along really well with her brothers and sisters.  She absolutely loves JoJo, and other than Mama, JoJo is her favorite thing to say.  It isn't so much that she plays with JoJo.  It is more that she needs to know that he is near.  She is not happy when he leaves for school each day.  We wonder if she is concerned that he won't return because when he gets home from school it is a literal party atmosphere here.  She screams for joy and jumps up and down as she greets him.  Today she pretended to call him on the phone.  She also gets along very well with Laney.  It has taken her a bit longer to attach to the others.  She does love to sit with Savannah while she plays the piano, and she thinks that Spencer can be very funny.  Those relationships will come, though, as she spends more and more time with us.  She does do a very good job of letting us know what she needs.  She has no problem letting us know her feelings in strong ways.  I was expecting a shy, reserved child, but I have found Minsy to be strong and very opinionated when it matters to her.  She fits into our family very well.

I was a bit worried that Minsy would not really attach to us very deeply.  It seemed for a bit as if she was content to simply head off with anyone in the area.  That's a bit scary to think that we are interchangeable with any other couple out there.  So I've been paying a lot of attention to how she reacts to others in public.  It is true that she does seem to go with others a bit more readily than our other children ever did at that age.  But that is happening less and less as she gets to know us more.  Last Saturday Herman and I had to head to Lebanon for meetings and left all the kids at home, and it was the first time that she really freaked out about me leaving her.  I had originally thought that this was something that I didn't want to see, but after having her for a month I recognize the positive sign that it is when she is unhappy for me to leave.  It shows that I am not just another person hanging in her vacinity.  I am her mama, and she wants to be near me.  Yesterday we headed to East to see a music program by Hyrum's class, and while we were waiting Minsy wandered around the gym while we watched her.  She was confident enough to walk throughout the area, but she would constantly return to where we were sitting to check in and make sure we were still there.  That was a healthy development to see that she understood that we were people who she needed to return to, even as she had the confidence to walk a little away from us.  We still have work to do to develop the sort of lasting bonding relationships that will be healthy for Minsy into the future, but we are well on our way to developing those bonds.

So Minsy has been a Blau for a month now, and the experience has been a smooth one.  We are still keeping ourselves alert, recognizing that issues may arise in the future as Minsy becomes more comfortable with us and better able to express her feelings about different topics relating to her adoption.  I am happy to have found that I was able to really bond with Minsy almost immediately.  I'm not just talking about her feeling comfortable with me as the primary care giver.  I mean that Minsy has found a place in my heart that seems to have been reserved for her from the very beginning.  I don't look at my children and think that there are my six children and then Minsy, my adopted child.  I look at my children and see seven children.  They are all mine in my heart, and I don't see any difference in my love for any of them.  This experience has been the most magical of any that I have found myself in my entire life.  I feel as if we have been given such a wonderful gift with the addition of Minsy into our family.  It is as if she fills a hole in our existence that we never even knew was there.  Things are not perfect, but they have never been perfect with any of our children.  We all just plug along, doing the best we can, finding joy in each other's company as we walk this world together.  So . . . one month down, eternity to go!  She's a true joy in my life!