Happy Gotcha Day Anniversary!

Today marks two years since the first day that we met our sweet Eliza. I can't believe it has been so long. It seems like it was just yesterday. For a look back at that amazingly wonderful day, check out our blog post HERE. 

A lot has happened in two years. A lot. She was four when we got her, and thanks to American legal magic, she is four now. Minsy's language skills are way better than they were even a year ago, and yet she really, really lags behind where she should be. The school district is giving her some pretty intensive therapy, but she still seems to talk like your average one and a half year old. We are seriously concerned about this, worried that she is going to have significant intellectual delays or at least lots of communication difficulties. Lately I have been wondering if there is some sort of block in her mind, preventing her from strong verbal communication. Her receptive language is great. In other words, she can understand almost everything that is said to her. It is when she tries to say things back that things get wonky. I have wondered if maybe we could bypass whatever block might be there by using sign language instead of relying on verbal communication. That is just something that popped in my head this week, so I'm still doing some research, but it seems as if that might be a direction we will be headed as a family. That seems daunting to me, but I think we can figure it out. It's just like learning another language, right? And that's what we do. We are reasonably good at learning new languages as a family, I think.

Even by changing her age to four she is extremely small for her age. She is on a high calorie diet to try and make up some height, but so far it hasn't really shown much of a difference. She may be that girl who graduates high school less than four feet tall. It'll be fine, no matter what, but I sure hope that I can do whatever is necessary to give her as much help with her growth as I can. It sure would help if she liked milk products at all. All the high calorie diets love to use milk products, and she hates most of them. Shopping for this diet is a nightmare. Have you ever gone grocery shopping looking for high calorie items? Sure, they are out there, but today's push is for lower calorie items. It feels weird to look on boxes, hoping to find the product that is the least heart healthy for us. 

When we first got Minsy she was very compliant ... almost too compliant. She never really expressed her opinions about anything, and she would wait until we gave her permission for her to do anything. That has changed a lot, thank goodness. She has no problem letting us know what she wants. Her favorite thing to do these days is to let out an exaggerated sigh or say, "Oh, man!" whenever things don't go her way. It is super cute now. I'm sure it won't be when she becomes a teenager, though. 

When she came to our house two years ago she had the world's worst balance. She couldn't stay upright at all. I think she spent the first two months of her time here with giant bruises and scrapes all over her head because she was constantly doing head plants all over the place. To make things worse, she never tried to catch herself when she fell, so she would just ram her head right into the ground. It was so sad. Thanks to great physical therapy she has gotten much stronger with good balance skills, keeping her pretty little face unmarred. 

One of my favorite changes in these two years is seeing Minsy smile in pictures. I didn't notice a lot of Chinese people smiling for pictures when we were in China. We got to go to a lot of popular tourist places in China and see tons of people posing for pictures. Hardly any would smile. The common pose was a straight face with fingers held up in the victory sign. I'm not sure why this was, but Minsy seemed to be used to that custom. All of her pictures were very serious for awhile. In fact, last year for her preschool pictures the company actually sent us two packets because they couldn't get her to look happy for any of the shots. I actually like those pictures a lot, especially when I have them to compare to her pictures this year. Now she is a super smiling girl in all her pictures, and it is super cute.

I feel like I have grown a bit in the last two years as well. Minsy has added new dynamics to our family, causing me to have to adapt a bit. I still have so much more to learn. I can tell that we will be dedicating a lot of time in our lives to helping her overcome the delays she has. There are times when I feel like I am the worst person in the world for this responsibility. Other times I feel as if I have unique qualifications that make this exactly the job for me. I guess it depends on the day. All I know is that this was exactly what our family was supposed to do. It has been such a blessing for all of us. These past two years have been a wild ride at times, but they have been so worth it. I love my little Minsy Moo!

Just for kicks ... here is a cute video from Minsy's Gotcha Day in China (but beware, the camera work is super shaky)  ...

And here is one of her today ...