one year!!!!!!

Wow, time sure flies when you’re having fun (well most of the time!) for sure. So hard to believe one year has gone by already! Let me start by saying Sarah has blossomed into a happy, silly and smart eleven year old over the past twelve months. The majority of her progress and adjustment has really come in the past 4-5 months. I think the trust factor just took longer for her since she was older and had such a tough first ten years. . We really had to earn her trust with our patience (extra amounts at times), consistent parenting ( we are tired!) and plain old love…BUT I am happy to report I really see her trust and grow in our family.
Sarah and Manon have settled into their roles as sisters and really seem to love each other. I will be honest and say it has taken a long time for Sarah to STOP saying “not fair”, where’s mine” and get mad at just about anything Manon did. That being said, they now LOVE to play together, enjoy being sisters and are general partners in crime! Manon tells me on a regular basis how happy she is to have Sarah as a sister. Sarah has voiced how unfair it was that Manon came home first (Sarah was still with her China family when we were in China adopting Manon), Ron and Manon did not travel to China to get her (something we wish we did differently now but we did what we thought was best for all at the time…) and will say we love Manon more (not more, just longer..). Manon has been SUPER about sharing just about anything with Sarah including us. She has had and continues to have lots of patience with Sarah but they do get on each other’s nerves a bit still (a sign they really are sisters!). They still share a room and this has worked well for them both. Sarah has kept Manon on the straight and narrow when it comes to playing games together. Manon likes to play “the rules according to Manon” and Sarah has put an end to that for us! This is something Manon has done since day one and it took a sibling to fix it because did I mentionmthat Sarah does NOT LIKE anything to not be fair…
Sarah really loves seeing her brothers! Both girls get super excited when Nick, Alex or Nate comes home. Sarah LOVES her niece Kelsey and cannot wait until Kelsey’s new sibling arrives in the spring (me either!). The boys are great with their sisters for sure. Melts this mamma’s heart to see.
Sarah is in the fourth grade again this year. I finally gave in to the idea to keep her back (it took me a while but was for the best…). She has the same awesome teacher Ms. Cooper again which is the main reason I changed my mind. There are only two fourth grades in their school so we made sure they were in different classes. I am sure it would be torture for a teacher if these two were in one class! Sarah continues to receive ESL for one hour a day and gets extra help with reading and math. The math extra help is really for the reading part of math otherwise she is on target for math. The teachers that help her only take her out of the class for a little bit and help her in her class the rest of the time. She has made HUGE progress in school since September. She just had her got her report card and has a 93.7 average so she made the honor roll. She was less than 2 points behind Manon’s 95. Not bad for her first year home and learning English. She really has gained a lot of ground in learning English in the past six months. her English is a little choppy at times but her vocabulary has taken a HUGE jump recently. Her comprehension is really improving too. She is not shy about asking you to explain something to her. She is making friends and seems to fit in well now. She was very shy at first but is coming out of her shell nicely now. Both girls played basketball last winter, soft ball in the spring and soccer, field hockey this fall. They just started basketball again. It took Sarah a bit to get the hang of sports but she has done very well and now enjoys playing. Her endurance has improved a ton since she first came home! They attended a science and arts day camp for the first part of the summer and a church day camp for the second half. They enjoyed both for sure. Sarah loves our boat and is making great progress in learning to swim. I am sure she had never been swimming in China. We are going to get her in swimming lessons soon so I will be more comfortable with her in the water! She is so upset with me for making her wear her life jacket at all times near the water but a mom’s got to do what a mom’s got to do….Both girls learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels together. Manon could never get the hang of it before Sarah but once she had a little competition she was able to ride it just fine. Sarah fell a lot at first but is now riding a bike well. It was obvious Sarah had never ridden a bike in China either. Ron bought the girls a mini bike (dirt bike) in the fall but has promised me NOT to teach them to ride it until they are older. Right now we get to laugh at him when he rides it! Manon is a super tomboy and is turning Sarah into one too….sigh…..makes their daddy happy though!
Thanksgiving was the last of the first holidays for Sarah. I think she is really looking forward to the holidays now that she understands them! It has been a year of learning everything the rest of us take for granted here. She is super excited to celebrate her Gotcha Day on Monday! We dipped fortune cookies in chocolate and sprinkles. She picked out chopsticks for the boys in her class and Chinese fans for the girls. She picked out cute Chinese bracelets for both. She will bring all of these to school on Monday to celebrate with her class. We bought her a Princess add a pearl necklace like we did for Manon and she will get that on Monday. We will buy her a pearl for each holiday so when she is grown up she will have a pearl necklace to remember how much we love her. We will have Chinese for dinner on Monday too. Gotcha Days are bigger then birthdays in our house! I cannot tell you how much Manon enjoys doing these special things on her Gotcha Day. I think the kids in her class enjoy it too! Because of where we live, it is hard to keep them connected to their culture but we try to let them know how important China is in their life and to be proud of where they are from. Sarah is super proud of China and being Chinese so it is so important to her. She is just starting to admit she likes it here in the US…..now that she feels more secure here. It is tough with all the changes in her short life to admit she like it someplace because she never know how long it will last….. This time is FOREVER my little one…..FOREVER. We keep telling her she is stuck with us but who knows how long it will take for her to believe it.
Sarah continues to miss her foster mother BUT the times of sadness and anger over losing her are so much less. She really is bonding well with Ron now which is huge for him! She has struggled over this past year with having parents tell her what to do BUT we are on the up side of that too now.
Health wise she is doing very well. She has gained 14 pounds and grown 4 ½ inches in one year! Eating is going much better but she continues to hate the milk. We have tried everything we can think of and are now using strawberry syrup. She did well with Hershey’s syrup for a while but tired of that too….. Her favorites to eat are baked ziti, pizza, sausage, rice, fresh fruit especially fresh pineapple. Baked Brie is the only cheese she will eat (except for pizza) She has a sweet tooth but does not overdo it.
Sarah loves our church. She is learning about God and his love for her. Tough to get at first but she is really starting to understand it now. She is also learning it is good to help others!
On the brother front Nate and Kirsten were married in July! Kelsey, Sarah and Manon were the flower girls. Kelsey stayed with us while they were on their honeymoon. Very sweet! Nate and Kristen are expecting another baby in the spring and we are all super excited! Nate and Kristen are WONDERFUL parents!
Alex graduated from Law School in May and passed the NY State Bar in November! We are super proud of him! He and Pitsa are doing very well.
Nick and Cintya are living in the city and enjoying the craziness of it all. So not for me but they like it. I would love to see them move our way but we will see. We were able to go see them for Thanksgiving which made us all so happy! Nick is working super hard and we are so proud of him too!
So, as you can see she has come so far in 12 short months and we are all so glad this first year is behind us. Has this last year been easy? No way but it has been so worth it! Adopting an older child is a HUGE leap of faith and they are so deserving of someone taking the leap!