A year ago today, we saw Leah's face for the first time. We were so not expecting a referral. Referrals at the time had a LID of January 12, 2006, and we were LID October 19, 2006. Who would have guessed that a simple phone call to Stephanie at
GWCA simply to inquire about the special needs program would turn into our referral two days later. Only the hand of God could have led to the gift that is our Leah. The only special need this child had was a desperate need for a family, our family. There aren't words to express the emotion and love I felt for my daughter when I opened Stephanie's email to retrieve Leah's file ( at the time Chen
Xiao Xiao) and see her pictures. What an amazing sight she was, and is. People always tell us she is so lucky, but in reality, I feel we are the lucky ones. Of all the children in China, God chose this one to be our daughter, and we could not have chosen a better fit for our family. Every parent thinks their child is special, but Leah is a walking miracle everyday. She was not expected to walk, talk, or develop normally. But I guess love has cured all of her ills. She not only walks, runs, and says more words everyday, she is a "normal", active toddler who keeps us busy and makes us laugh everyday. She is developing within normal range and seems a little advanced in some areas. We have been home for 9 months and she understands both
English and
Spanish and says words in both languages. The other day, in
Spanish, I asked her to say "
gracias" to someone who gave her something at the grocery store, well
apparently she knew
gracias meant thank you because she replied "thanks" in
English.
The Sunday before Mother's Day we finally got around to getting Leah's first professional pictures done. This was the third attempt. The first had to be canceled due to a hurricane warning, for the second Leah was very sick and nothing was going to get in the way this time. It was 91 degrees, she was cranky, and a sinus infection was lurking its ugly head, but we got through it and the results were great. There were too many to choose for this post, my favorite ones were her serious expressions where you can capture her stunning features. Am I bias? But isn't this one beautiful child?
ke, homemade devices. My favorite has to be the simple ribbon we have to tie in knots to keep her out of the kitchen cabinets. Here is our Houdini, first a cookie theft where she hid behind her sister's bed where I snagged her, then she got into the watermelon I was preparing to cut up for her.
