Lily's prayer

It has been a while since I have posted an actual adjustment update about Lily. Actually, to talk about how Lily is adjusting is a misnomer. The first weeks, the focus of adjustment was about her, but by this point, the family is adjusting as a unit to life as it comes to us, or at us, depending on the week. She is just one piece of the larger unit. That is how it should feel, I think.

With Lily, we have our good times, and our not-so-good times... more of the good, though. As a rule, she is cooperative and eager to please; bright and cheery; happy and smiley. But, there is an exception to every rule, and for her it is whiny! Maybe it's just being three, but it can sure be annoying. I don't mean to be disrespectful to her culture, but just being honest... I sometimes call her "Whinese". (Disclaimer: I used this term when Dylan and Zachary were younger, long before we ever crossed paths with the Chinese culture, whose people I have great respect for).

Although she still has a long way to go with the English language, it is improving. The big change that I have noticed in the past week, or so, is that the language has transitioned from being mostly used to communicate needs, to communicating gratitude. She had learned the words, "thank-you", but mostly parroted them when told to do so. However, this seemed to "click" during trick-or-treat.

Every year, I always give my kids a "remember to say thank-you" lecture as we leave the house. And, yet, it seems that at nearly every house, I'm still saying, "what do you say"? But, this year was a little different. At the first few houses, I told Lily, "say thank-you", and she repeated it. But, it only took a few houses. After that, at nearly every house, she said "tang-choo" without prompt. Trick-or-treat was a bit of a "wow" experience for Lily. I don't think she had ever experienced generosity on this magnitude. So many strangers, smiling, and pushing candy in her bucket for doing nothing but looking like a darn cute ladybug, I think was a little overwhelming (in a positive way) for her. She didn't get very excited, but the neat thing was, while my biological kids had to still sometimes be prompted to express gratitude (artificial?), my adopted kid, at least for that evening, got it... hers was from the heart and required little prompting.

I have also been the beneficiary of this Daddy-melting gratitude in the past week, as well. Several times when I have done something for her, she has said, "tang-choo baba/dada-y" (she recently started switching back and forth between calling me baba or dada-y) . She will sometimes initiate a kiss and say, "Xiao Xiao love baba/dada-y". She doesn't have the concept of "I" yet, so sometimes she drops the "Xiao Xiao" and just says, "love baba/dada-y". Its at moments like those, I forget all about the "Whinese" and love being that little girl's dada-y!

Finally, one more neat Lily story: Just this week, she started praying. It's so cute! I'm pretty sure she doesn't have much understanding of what she's doing, but she has learned that it is something we often do and that is has some importance, so she wants to participate. Her prayers are partly English, partly Chinese, and partly nonsense. They go something like this:

"mmm baba. mmm mama. mmm Xiao Xiao. mmm gugu (brother). mmm gugu. mmm baby. mmm gampa. mmm gamma. mmm baba. mmm mama. mmm 'MEN!"

Lily Xiao Xiao, I love you, and my prayer for you is that you will someday come to know our Heavenly "Dada-y".