Wow, how quickly a year passes! We just celebrated Gianna's 9th birthday (her second birthday as a Harrington). A LOT has happened in the past year...here we go!
We relocated to another state back in April 2014 due to a job opportunity...spent a few months in a tiny apartment trying to find a house. Adjusting to the new job, a new state, trying to make friends, finding a church, getting school set up again, finding homeschool activities has consumed us and I literally haven't been on my computer for a year! **One good thing about moving was that now we ALL have a new start, in a new place where we don't know anyone. I actually think that was a good thing for Gianna, where before we were all in our comfort zone and she was the only one in unfamiliar territory. Now we're all in the same boat and can start over together.
Gianna and Avery are still best of friends, it is so cute watching our biological son and adopted daughter (age 9, a Harrington since 2013) get along so well all the time. They are constantly together, and he is always showing her new things and teaching her how to do things.
The fun thing is that she has integrated into our family so well, no one can tell she is adopted. Everyone tells us she looks so much like my husband. And his personality has rubbed off on her so she's cracking jokes like him now too. Too cute.
Christmas 2014 was a mix of loneliness for all our old friends, and a special treat with my parents visiting us (a very rare treat!) for the week. They love both kids so much, and we had a great time playing board games, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, and eating...and eating...we like to eat!
Christmas morning was fun, it was our second Christmas with Gianna, and this year she understood more and we could teach her more about our traditions (singing Christmas carols, reading our Christmas books together, watching classic movies, decorating the tree and talking about memories for each ornament, hiding the pickle in the tree, the advent calendar...) And she could tell us more this year about what she remembered from her first 7 Christmases in Hungary (getting lots of toys for presents, eating Turo-Rudi candy a lot). She tells us she likes all the fun traditions she is learning.
Teaching his sister chess...although she isn't quite to the point where she understands and remembers each move, she catches on to the simple ones just fine. We still are helping her through some developmental delays, but she is making fantastic progress.
Her first time on a large animal of any kind, Texas longhorn! Took a little coaxing, but she was brave and got on as long as I stood beside her.
Silly girl...she thinks she loves coffee and asks for it all the time. But it's actually hot chocolate, and sometimes I sneak just a tiny bit of coffee in it. One day I actually let her sip my black coffee, and she realized it really wasn't coffee she liked. :)
It took about a year, but she is finally finding her creative side. She gets ideas from big brother, and then makes her own fishing poles, satchels from boxes, and calls gramma on her play phone that she made out of cardboard. She is always so proud of what she makes, always bringing stuff to us to show us what she did. She loves the praise!
New glasses! Her eyesight was very bad when we adopted her, so we got her glasses right away. When we moved to Texas and saw a new Dr. he adjusted her prescription even more and she says she can see "way better! I can read the letters on the wall!" Wow. Seeing for the first time really, that's cool. We have to have her wear a patch over one eye for about an hour a day to help correct a lazy eye... I crocheted a purple one with a flower for her to wear.
Daddy is teaching her how to play the bass guitar. Dexterity is another thing that she struggled with a lot, so we deliberately work on tiny motor skills and she is making great progress.
Her other gramma and grampa came to town too, and the trip to Sam's was fun too. She loves helping at the grocery store.
School is in session 5 days a week at home. She is learning to read finally, and we are getting to addition and subtraction, money, time, and fractions. The learning curve is starting to go up...although we always struggle with memory and have to go over things many many times before they stick.
A rare snow day in TX. They sure do love the snow, and begged me to cover them with snow. "It's warm in here!" they said. Sure, warm in the snow...ok. She tells us about how she used to play in the snow in Hungary, so she really likes it.
Another deliberate plan to help her overcome fears. With limited experience, we took for granted that every kid likes to play around and be adventurous...but she was very timid. We have been helping her be brave, going up escalators, asking people for things, jumping from rock to rock, and now...AT LAST! This is her first brave task that she did all by herself. She crawled up and said "look daddy! I can do it!"
Homeschool art class, learning pastel painting for the first time. We fell in love with it, and bought the video series and now we do weekly art projects as a family at home. We do acrylic painting, pastels, pencil drawings, sculptures, etc. We all love it!
Field trip to the wildlife park. Another practice at bravery, petting unusual animals. We saw lemurs, monkeys, and all sorts of fun things.
I share these "struggles" with you in case you are in your own adoption journey, reading this blog. I believe there are always struggles you will deal with when you adopt, whether it is a baby, or an older child as in our case (at age 7). It's harder raising her than it is to raise our biological child. It takes extra patience, extra time, extra money for medical purposes...but it's nothing that we can't handle and are sort of just getting used to. It's an honor to be useful in her life, to enrich her mind, and to be her parents. When we see her reach new milestones, and hear her tell us how proud she is of herself, and see how much progress she is making...it's all worth it. And now, a year and a half later, she actually initiates hugs. Happy day.
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