Six Months

It was six months ago yesterday, in a city on the China Sea, on the other side of the world, in a room with a bust of Ho Chi Minh's head, two officials of the People's Committee of the Province of DaNang released Lana to us. Husband and I each spoke for a few minutes, promising that we would love and care for Lana as our own, and that we would teach her about Vietnam and make certain she would be proud of where she came from.

Lana solemnly peeled and ate a tangerine through the whole ceremony.

After the ceremony, we walked back to the hotel, and the three of us sat looking at eachother and looked at eachother like, "Well, now what?"

We took Lana down to the hotel lobby, and the concierge called us a taxi, and we went to a market, and we bought Lana clothes and shoes and coloring books and crayons and boxes of strawberry and vanilla milk, and shampoo. And I realize, now, with six months of knowledge of Lana, that she was probably in a state of shock.

We went to eat at a restaurant in DaNang called "Bread of Life", and the Vietnamese girl who waited on us tried to coax Lana to eat some bread, and she made her milk with sugar in it...but, Lana drank and ate very little.

Later, we ordered her squid and rice at the hotel restaurant, and she cried when the waiter spoke to her in a soothing voice and tried to sneak rings of squid and spoonfuls of rice in her mouth.

She fell asleep watching a Strawberry Shortcake DVD, and we woke her up the next morning (six months ago today) to take her on her first airplane ride, and she vomited the whole way from DaNang to Hanoi.

Yesterday, Lana put on her pink bathing suit, and ran out the sliding glass doors of our kitchen, and flung herself, joyfully, into the pool. She splashed her brother and her cousin Taylor and her new friends Alison and Adam, and later sat on the front porch, perched on her beach towel, and voraciously ate two hotdogs (no bun) and a plate full of cantalope. She laughed, a lot, yesterday.

It's still not easy. It's not perfect. We are not melded together with 100% accuracy, but, we are a family. She and Gabriel fight. A lot. Like cats and dogs, even. But, sometimes they snuggle up next to eachother, to watch a video, or share a bowl of popcorn, or build a tower of legos, and it's pretty darn adorable.

Last night, just before she fell asleep, she said, "Mommy. Hold my hand. Sing a song." And I said, "what song, baby girl?" and she answered, "Sing 'small world' mommy." So, I held her hand in my hand, and I sat on the side of her bed, and I sang a Disney song, about the world being small.

And I cannot decide, really, considering the last six months, if I'm finding the world to truly be small, or really, really big.

LM