Hannah YaLing

Well, the reason we are here of course is not to see the sights of China, but to adopt our little girl, and I definitely want to write about her, as she is surely the most interesting part of this trip!

Most of the first day with her she was very quiet. She had a very judicious look about her, as if she was assessing everything and reserving judgment for a future time. She did play some little games – waving and even initiating a little tongue movement game. She was very interested in everything that was going on around her and whenever we have been on a bus or plane she has wanted to look out the windows and see what is going on. By the end of the first day, she was warming up a little bit and was smiling and even laughing a little. I mentioned previously that we were a little concerned about her smile and wondered about some facial paralysis.

By day two, we noticed that her smile was not quite so down-turned and she was even beginning to form a dimple on one of her cheeks when she would smile or laugh. Our conclusion at this point is that her facial muscles have not gotten a lot of use in terms of smiling and laughing, and she may just not have learned how to do these things. This is very sad, of course, but encouraging that it is starting to look a little better. We also discovered on day 1, to our great joy, that she has ear canals coming to the outside, and she hears very well. I shook some cheerios in a cup and she heard them. Yesterday I unwrapped a snack behind her back and she knew what I was doing without seeing and reached back to grab for it. This is extremely encouraging. The positioning of the ear canals is a bit low, and we are wondering if there is some internal construction that is contributing the the somewhat odd appearance of her smile and appearance when she laughs. It will be very good to have this assessed when we get home to the States.

The evidences of institutionalization that have been the most obvious for her relate to food. She seems to want to eat ALL THE TIME. This is fine, and we are trying to make it obvious to her that food is there for her in abundance, and she can have it whenever she needs it. I mentioned on the first day how fast she drank her bottle. That has already slowed down, and she seems to be willing to take breaks while drinking now, which is so good. She has also already rejected some of the food that she had regularly in the orphanage. She has tasted some variety, and she likes it! So, we are letting her try a lot of things, which she seems very eager to do. Sometimes she spits them out, but she seems very eager in this area, so that is great. She is still drinking from a bottle, and having formula and rice cereal in the formula as her primary source of nutrition. At almost 17 months, this is not great, but she will make strides quickly in this area, we are sure.

The saddest evidence of change that she has demonstrated is quiet crying early in the morning right after she wakes up. She clearly knows that her world has changed, and for the most part she is handling it amazingly well, but she has had these early morning crying times, sometimes with no noise, just tears rolling down her cheeks. This is heartbreaking. The first morning this happened David saw it first and held her and just cried with her.

She has proven to be quite the little performer and socialite. Based on the information and photos we had gotten from the orphanage I would NEVER have predicted that she has the personality that she does, but she is hilarious and she loves being hilarious! She seems to accept us and already gravitate to us as her Mama and Baba (as they call Daddies in China), but she may also bond easily with many people, which is something we need to watch out for. This is often the case with institutionalized children, and some of her entertainment may be an effort to keep our approval and affection. We will see in time.

She is quite territorial, which is also very common for the children from an orphanage. They have learned to be independent and to get by, so she has been quite unwilling to relinquish toys and she pushes Daniel away quite freely. Daniel does seem to love her and asks immediately when he wakes up if she is awake yet, because he wants to play with her. I asked him early the other morning if he liked having a little sister, and he said, “Me a big brother!” I think he is demonstrating all very typical signs of having a younger sibling introduced to the family. He has asked to have a bottle, to be carried in the carrier, to sleep in her crib, and several other similar things. Honestly I think this trip has been very hard on him, but he is handling it as well as can be expected. He has harder and faster emotional meltdowns when things don’t go his way, but the rest of us would to if it were socially acceptable! This has been a hard trip. It is exhausting and while it has been good to see and experience things in China that we can later share with our adopted children about their heritage, there have been times when I have just wanted to say, “Look, we’re beat. Let us just stay in the hotel and rest!” But it is our only chance to see and experience these things, so we have participated at each level. But it is very wearing.

Neither child has had their normal schedule of naps and eating. A lot has been asked of Daniel and we are struggling to give both children the attention they need and deserve. Our worlds have all changed, but Hannah’s has been turned completely upside down. She has nothing of the life she had just a few days ago. We think she is doing incredibly well, but the trauma of it all has certainly had its impact.

A little more in regard to Hannah. She seems to be extremely smart – scary smart. She also seems to approach each new thing as if she’s been there and done that before. I can’t explain it, but she just seems to understand a lot of what is going on and it seems she has had exposure to things that surprise us. She picked up my cell phone on the second day and held it to her ear and babbled a little bit. She knew about swiping her finger across the screen. She has been very quick to pick things up by imitation. She learned on day one or two to slap her knee when something was really funny, and now if you say “that was a knee-slapper!” she will slap her knees. I think she is picking up on English very quickly and beginning to understand us at least at some level.

Her physical condition is so good – so much better than what I had expected or hoped. She is very small, but her motor skills are extremely good and she is crawling well and doing little acrobatics which are hilarious. We basically have no concerns about her at all, aside from the ear deformity, which at this point seems to be largely superficial. She is super cute, and we are definitely growing to love her!