When we received Olivia’s referral, included was a standardized form with little boxes marked regarding height, weight, medical information, etc. There was also a section about her schedule, eating, sleeping, motor development, language, sociality, etc. I thought some of you might be interested in hearing more about her. (Disclaimer: this information was recorded in October, so when we get her, it will be almost 6 months later. I’m anticipating that some of this will change by the time we get there, but this is probably all the information we will get.)
Amazingly enough, she is about the same size as Ansley was at this age. Based on American growth charts, she is in about the 5th percentile for height and weight. I have been trying to estimate what size clothes/shoes she will be in by the time we travel. My estimate is 18-24 month clothes and who knows about the shoes.
She is definitely on a schedule, which is not surprising to me considering the circumstances. She eats and sleeps at the same time every day. It says that she is a deep sleeper, so let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one! They definitely feed her some interesting things at the age of 2, so the food transition may be challenging. For breakfast, she has noodles or congee (similar to rice pudding), steamed bread, and milk. (We aren’t sure if she is still taking a bottle; some of the adoption blogs I have read for children this age are still taking bottles.) For lunch, she has rice, egg custard, and fish. For dinner, she has rice, minced meat, and vegetable juice. For “supplemental food,” (I’m assuming snacks or other foods.) she has milk, biscuits, and fruit juice. It says that apple juice is her favorite, and I’m pretty sure that their biscuits are not like Southern biscuits. :)
For motor development, it says that she can crawl on hands and knees, picks up a pill with her thumb/index finger, holds a pen with full hand and scribbles, and walks alone steadily. The boxes about going up and down stairs are not marked, so Ansley will get to teach her how to do that.
For adaptability, it says that she can take a block in/out of a cup, bang two blocks together, build a tower of 4 blocks, and turn over pages of a book twice or more. The boxes for recognizing colors are not marked.
In the language/sociality section, it says that she imitates words, produces 3-5 words, knows what “no” means (This is funny to me.), responds to others asking for her objects, and is cooperative when putting on clothes. The box related to potty training is not checked. Most of you would probably not expect this to be checked when talking about a 2 year old, but in China, a lot of the orphanages start potty training VERY early.
The personality traits that she demonstrates (my favorite part) include being timid, shy, quiet, active, restless, fond of listening to music (yay), fond of playing with toys (Ansley likes this one.), energetic, and obstinate at times (also known as stubborn – she’ll fit right in). She is closest with her caretaker; her favorite activity is playing outdoors; and her favorite toys are ones with "fresh color and sound."
Many of you might be concerned about the language piece, but we are blessed in this area. Not only do we have two of the world’s best speech therapists in the family, but we are also fortunate to have a teacher at the girls’ day care who is from China and is bilingual. She has already helped us so much, and I know that she will prove to be invaluable to us through this transition. She has friends in the area of China where we will be and is going to give us their phone number in case we need anything! She is also going to teach us a few Chinese words before we go and is going to translate some questions that I have for the nannies at the orphanage. My hope is that Olivia will be bilingual and can learn Chinese from her and English from everyone else.
I am happy to report that our home projects are almost complete! Philip has been working hard and painted Olivia’s room earlier this week. The crib will go up this weekend. Wow - it is becoming a little more real each and every day.
While it has been hard to see God’s plan over the past 7 years, I now know that He has put everything into place just as it should be. Being the planner that I am, you all know that it is difficult for me not knowing a travel date at this point, but my estimate until last night was still mid-April. I am a member of all sorts of Face Book groups related to China adoption, and one member posted last night that her Article 5 was just picked up (same timing as ours), so she thought she would be traveling in mid-April as well. Unfortunately, she learned that her agency is not going to plan any trips to China in the month of April due to a large trade fair/convention happening in Guangzhou during April. Evidently, it is very difficult to find hotel rooms (I know all about that.) and transportation during that time. So…..it may be May for us, too. Our China rep should pick up our Article 5 next week, and we will be on our way to Travel Approval! Once we have our Travel Approval, we will apply for our Visas and should begin planning our trip.
As always, thanks for the prayers. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!
Jill
No comments:
Post a Comment