On Friday June 5th Isabella will be 2 years old. She is growing up far to quickly and now insists on dressing herself all the time! She does struggle with buckles on shoes! And clothes like vests, knickers and shoes often get put on the wrong way round! Additionally her language in both English and Cantonese is exploding. In reality she can probably speak between 100-150 words, and most of these are so clear. She also now knows her colours and is beginning to count!
She has been potty trained since December, and is dry all day. She does wear pull ups at night, but is dry for normally 3 or 4 nights per week. There is no rush, and hopefully within the next few months she will be dry every night so that we can get rid of the pull ups all together!
We are having a family orientated weekend. Tomorrow we are taking Isabella out for the day to the London Aquarium, and then meeting his family for dinner in China town. On Saturday my family are descending on us for a BBQ! and are staying over until Sunday.
Last Saturday we met with the other UK family who adopted a girl ( 7 days apart in age) from Isabella's orphanage. We do have pictures of them together in China so it was nice to finally see the two girls together. Isabella seemed to recognise her crib mate, and was so at ease sitting down playing with her. It was lovely to watch. They touched and held hands a lot. They also share some common traits like their stubbornness and screaming when unable to do things in frustration! That night however, Isabella was very unsettled and only wanted Ma Ma to put her to bed. She woke up several times calling for me, and has reverted to being quite clingy for most of the week. Some nights are better than others! And things are slowly returning to normal. We will never know what memories this meeting stirred and resurfaced. Its so hard being a parent not being able to take away your child's pain, but I am glad we met them and that we can keep the girls in touch so that they can support each other as they get older, as they shared the first 13 months of their lives together.
4 comments:
Happy Birthday Isabella!
2 is a magnificent age, I know that you will all enjoy it.
K x
Happy Birthday to your sweet girl! Wow! The time has gone fast hasn't it? She's 2!
Hi Suzanne:
It's been such a long while since I've caught up with your blog and Isabella! She's growing up so beautifully and we hope that you all enjoyed a lovely 'first birthday celebration' together as a family. Such a precious time.
I can really appreciate your experience with meeting the other family. We adopted our daughter with two other UK families and we've all been really committed to regular playdates and reunions. As a result, we've all grown very close and consider each other family. It's tricky to maintain the relationships as one family lives an hour away (but we see them every 2 weeks or so) and the other family is a few hours away - but at a minimum we have 4 reunions a year with the girls, and we always celebrate together around 'adoption day'. This may change in the future, but at least we want to build the foundation now and then let the girls take it in whatever direction they want to in the future.
And for the past two years, we've been on holiday together, all of us, a tradition we're keen to uphold.
I think that while it's sometimes a big effort to maintain these relationships for the girls, we can definitely see a multitude of benefits for all of them. And it's the closest thing they will all have to having 'sisters' in their everyday lives.
As you've mentioned, it's so difficult as a parent to not be able to take away your child's trauma and and hurts from past experiences. But I suppose all this love that we fill them with is a huge step in that direction.
Lovely to hear how Isabella is thriving!
All the best,
Ellen (& Mike & Annaliesa) xx
OMgoodness...I can't believe Isabella is already 2... and potty trained!! (And, I can't believe it has almost been a year since referral?!) They are growing up so fast! Isabella is such a cutie pie! If you ever travel to CA, we have to get the girls together.
Beth
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