Mother's Day

I can’t believe I celebrated my first Mother's Day. Each and every day with Alisha is amazing.... but Mother’s Day was extra special. I am so very blessed to have such a special little one to call me Mama. Alisha is my BIGGEST BLESSING and I am so lucky to be her Mom!!

Jerry and Alisha really made the day very special for me. They gave me a bouquet of beautiful flowers, a new necklace (with the Chinese symbols for Mother and Daughter) and Alisha was wearing a special shirt (GO YANKS!!). Thanks Jerry for being such a wonderful husband and father. Alisha and I are two very lucky ladies!!

I think of Alisha's birth mother and foster mom often but I felt especially thoughtful of them on Mother’s Day. Alisha is very blessed that both of these women loved her so much...her birth mother for making the hardest decision of her life not to be her parent and her wonderful foster mother who took such amazing care of her for a year. I am truly grateful for all these women did for our little girl. My wish is that they should know how much we love Alisha and that she has found her forever family.

I found this poem several months ago when I was still waiting for Alisha. I thought this would be a good occasion to share it with everyone.

Legacy of An Adopted Child
Author unknown

Once there were two women who never knew each other.
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother.

Two different lives shaped to make you one.
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.

The first one gave you life and the second taught you to live it.
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality; the other gave you a name.
One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim.

One gave you emotion; the other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried your tears.

One made an adoption plan that was all that she could do.
The other prayed for a child, and God led her straight to you.

Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?

Both my darling, BOTH
Just two different types of LOVE.

March Update

I guess the blog is going to be monthly since as most of you have guessed, I am a horrible blogger. Here's an update on our little sweety:

Day Care

I am back at work! It was a very hard transition for Alisha and I. Alisha is in a home day and we feel very lucky to have found Melanie. Alisha is one of six children (going down to 4 in June) and I think she is learning alot from them. We are not completely sure how much she likes daycare, but thankfully, she no longer is crying when she is dropped off. It makes going to work much easier. Melanie's house is full of kids, dogs and happiness. We are hoping Alisha thrives in this happy environment.

15 month Check-Up

Dr. DiSanto is very happy with Alisha's progress. She weights 19.4 lbs and is 30 inches tall. That lands her just under the 10 percentile for weight and 45 percentile for height. She is finally all caught up on her vaccinations and we will not need to go back until June. He was real happy to see that she has bonded to me in such a short period of time. He said they watch this very closely with adoptive children. Now if she would only start calling me Mommy.

Walking

Alisha still will not walk by herself. She likes to walk holding one hand (or finger) or on her walker but will only take a step or two on her own. We have tried letting go of her hand, but she stops in mid step and put her hands down on the ground and starts crawling. Everyone says they do it in their own time and not to push, so we keep waiting.

Talking

Alisha's favorite word is "Max" and says it over and over and over and over! It's funny that she likes to say it so much because she doesn't really like being too close to him which we know makes Max happy. She will say Mama and Dada when prompted. She did surprise us yesterday and said Bye- Bye to Nancy as she was leaving the house. What a happy surprise. Maybe there are more words to come.

She may not be saying too many words but she babbles constantly. Sometimes we think she is singing other times she is definately telling us something. If only we could understand babble as much as she is starting to understand what we are saying.

She is also catching on to some of the hand motions in nursery rhymns. She pinches her fingers together when she hears Itsy Bitsy Spider and loves Patty Cake.

Although there may not be alot of words in her vocubulary,,,, she is using a few baby signs. "more" seems to be her favorite especially, when she wants more to eat. Since, she is such a skinny little one, we have no problem to let her keep eating.

Easter

Alisha celebrated her first Easter. We decides that this year, we would skip the visit to the Easter Bunny or do an Easter Egg Hunt, but we did give her an Easter basket and filled all of her Easter eggs with CHEERIOS. I know you think I am a mean Mommy.... but she LOVES Cheerios. She was so cute and surprised when we opened the egg to find them in there. Ofcourse, we also put on her first Easter dress and she wore her pretty pink hat that Daddy bought her in China. She looked especially cute!

I think that's it for now.... Will update again soon.

Time Flying By

Time is just flying by. Its hard to believe we've been home for 2 months. We started the month by celebrating Jerry's birthday. Alisha loved helping Jerry with the wrapping paper and especially liked his birthday cake. Alisha than celebrated her first Valentine's Day. Daddy surprised her with flowers and a cute pink dragon that sings to her. Then today, was especially fun with Alisha enjoying her first sled ride. We are not sure if she really liked the snow but loved the sleigh ride.

Although Alisha is not yet walking, we have been working on it and she stands on her own for a few seconds. She is crawling and climbing all over and especially loves to climb up the stairs. I am still trying to get her to come back down, but I bet that will happen soon.

We are still waiting for Alisha to start talking but she is understanding more and more of what we are saying to her. In fact, any time you ask her a question, she responds with a yea and shakes her head yes. There is no "NO" in her vocabulary yet. (Aren't we lucky!)

Unfortunately, February has been a rough month for me. I hurt my back and was having a hard time getting better and still taking care of our little girl all day. So Grandma Joan came to our rescue and spent a week with us. Grandma and Alisha had a great time together. They played all day long, took a walk around the neighborhood and went to Gymboree. Thanks Mom for helping out. We love ya!

Other January Events

After reading last months update, I realized I left out a few important events.

Alisha celebrated her first Hanukkah in early January. We went to Uncle Mitchell and Aunt Cathy's house. There was potato latkes, brisket and tons of presents. Alisha had so much fun playing with her cousins and can't wait to see them again. There was also a ton of presents and as usual Alisha enjoyed tearing the paper.. Thanks for the great day!

The following week, we visited Grandma Joan for her first overnight away from home. Alisha had a ton of fun playing with her Grandma and then Uncle Mitchell, Aunt Cathy and Cousin Tara came for dinner. Dinner was yummy and Alisha ate and giggled the whole time.

The next day, we came home early to go to Grandma Pat's birthday lunch. Alisha had a great time hanging out with my Aunt, Uncles and Cousins. Unfortunately, we got news that Josh hurt himself on the ski slope in the Poconos. Thankfully, he is doing much better now. Feel good JOSH!

A busy month

It's amazing how much Alisha has changed in the past 7 weeks. I was looking at the picture of our first day and looked at her today. She still is a little peanut but her hair has grown a bit, her face has filled out. But it is so nice to see that the scared look in her eyes is gone. She knows she is home and loved very very much!


We are having so much fun learning new things with Alisha. Here are a few:

• Alisha is so active. She is crawling and climbing constantly. She really wants to walk but we are just not there yet. I think we have a few more weeks before that happens.


• She loves playing with all her blocks. She's not really putting them together but loves dumping them out and banging them together.


• She has the ear for music. She loves all of her musical toys. In the restaurant yesterday, she started shaking to the music. Too cute!


• Alisha loves the swing in the playground. She just swings and giggles. The sandbox was pretty good too until she started eating it.
  

We went to our first pediatrician visit and the doctor thought Alisha was doing great. However, since we are not sure about her vaccinations, we have to redo them all here. Poor girl had 4 shots. Unfortunately, the next day was hard on her. I hope the next visit (4 more shots next month) she does better.

Alisha and I are keeping ourselves busy.... we've been to the playground (during the nice weather last week), shopping at the mall, having lunch dates, going to Music Class and looking at day cares. Good news, we finally found a day care we loved. Miss Melanie is really nice and all the kids seemed really happy. I think Alisha will have lots of fun and be happy there when I return to work.

Meet Alisha Li

One Month a Family

We have been a family for one amazing month. Its hard to remember a life before Alisha. She has adapted so well to her new life. Each day she is making great strides and enjoying all the new things she is seeing and doing.

Alisha is flourishing. She is doing a ton better using her legs. I think she may have crawled a step or two and even pulled herself up from a sitting position. I am so proud of our little girl.

Unfortunately, she has really started teething today and was not a happy girl. We are doing our best to keep her comfortable, but there is not much we can do. Let's hope this goes by quickly.

Alisha went to her first New Years Eve party and had a great time. Thanks so much to Rob & Melanie for throwing another great party. Since we had to get our little one home to bed, Jerry and I then celebrated the New Year with Dick Clark.

2007 will always be a very special year for our family. We are so thankful that she is with us and we can't wait to see what the next year brings for our family.

Wishing all of our friends and family a great 2008!