I barely have time on my computer these days, so what little time I do have I am usually reading and responding to e-mails and the few message boards that have become my community of support these days. I barely have time to read blogs much less write for my own. But I continue to desire to keep up with it, so if you guys keep on with the gentle encouragements (thanks Mary and Tulipgirl!) I’ll keep doing what I can.
Steve and I realized last night that we met Adelina exactly 8 months ago and marveled that so little - and so much - time had passed since that Providential day. We brought her home around 6 months ago, and it is when we remember this that we realize how far she has come and what an amazing child she is. At the same time, how can you love someone so much and yet still feel like you barely know them!? She is fully our daughter and yet at times a complete mystery to us. We look at each other and ask, “what do you suppose she is thinking?”
As I mentioned recently, we are now trying to find a new church, and this change in routine has been very difficult for Adelina. She usually expresses her displeasure with whining, defiance and tantrums (so much fun), but yesterday it was just with sadness and tears. We still aren’t sure what was/is going on with her but all we knew to do was to pray and offer all the love and support we could. Really God, what is she thinking and feeling? It is hard because she can maybe tell us she is sad but she doesn’t know how to tell us WHY she is sad. We play guessing games and sometimes she nods, but there is a lack of consistency in her responses that leads us to doubt that she comprehends her own emotions. I look forward to the day when she can respond to simple “why” questions. It is so hard to have a child with a five year old mind and a lot of life experiences, but the language of an 18-24 month old.
Adelina is now attending two schools - one in the morning for preschool and another in the afternoon specifically for speech help. This schedule is intensive, but it is working out really well. She loves both schools and teachers. The afternoon school requires a 40 minute drive each way, which with gas prices what they are is going to be costly. But it is worth it. Her speech is continuing to improve both in terms of production (how many words she can speak) and pronunciation.
She continues to show a strong motivation towards speaking and she is also at a stage where she will do a lot of echoing (whatever I say, she’ll try to say). This is great in terms of giving her practice speaking longer phrases and sentences, but when you are trying to ask her a question, it is most aggravating! “Adelina, who gave you the sucker?” and she replies “who, who?” and nods excitedly. I then repeat the question in sign and sometimes will get a response, which I then feed back to her in spoken English. “Oh, the bus driver gave you the sucker” to which she will respond, “yes!!!” which is really “yaaaaahhh” no matter how many times we say “yessss”. I’ve never parented a 2-year old, but I’m guessing this is a pretty standard exchange. Anyone???
Adelina now has favorites, which of course change periodically. Her favorite colors are yellow and purple (and occasionally pink, but not often). Her favorite meat is sandwich turkey. Her favorite activity is swimming (or trying to swim) at the pool. She continues to show strong social tendencies and enjoys visiting with the neighbors and making new friends. She made a new friend at her afternoon school the other day just by boldly walking up to a little girl and putting her hand in the other girls hand and guiding her up onto the play equipment. Anyone who has ever thought this girl is shy is wrong - she is so not shy! She now loves to climb trees, she can swing so high she makes the swingset shake, she makes beautiful watercolor paintings (see also Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI - links are in the site), knows most of her alphabet, is trying to count objects to ten, but still has trouble with this. She has recently mastered the “wh- question” facial expression and uses it whenever she doesn’t want to answer a question and sometimes just at random. She is incredibly goofy a LOT of the time!
It is funny how everyone always comments about how much Adelina looks like Steve and I. The truth will be revealed in the summer, though, because this girl tans so easily and naturally. She is a lovely, smooth, brown already, and Steve and I will remain a pale, freckled white. Oh well, we’ll just call her our gypsy girl in the summers. 
BTW, sorry for the lack of photos. Our camera actually died, and we are waiting for a new one we finally got around to ordering. We will try to get up some recent photos very soon!
