Six Weeks - A letter to Lana

Dear Lana,

In the six weeks since you became our daughter, you have gone from a sad and quiet child, into a little girl who laughs. A LOT. You giggle. You are FUNNY. (Restricted by language as you are right now, you love to make a joke. The last several days that joke has been, to point to Gabriel and say, "Lana!" Then you point to Daddy and say, "Mama!" You point to me and say, "Ba!" Then you point to yourself and say, "Gabriel". Then you laugh like a lunatic, and we laugh with you. Sometimes you point to Batsu and Nolan (our cats) and say, "Con vuoy!" And you laugh some more. (We believe that Con Vuoy means Elephant in Vietnamese.)

You are LOUD. Wow. You can make some serious noise when you want to.

You are starting to like your school. In the mornings, in the car, you ask me, "Apple Tree mo? Apple Tree mo?" (Where is Apple Tree?). When I take you into your class in the morning, you look around for Shelley, your teacher. You are disappointed when she is not there yet, but, you let me kiss you goodbye, and you are brave and do not cry. Shelley and Sena tell me that are starting to sing songs with the other children. Which brings me to the next thing -

You love to SING. Six weeks ago, your foster mother told us that "this child would sing while she eats if she could." She was not exaggerating. You love to sing, but, sadly (this breaks my heart), at this point, you seem to be forgetting the words to your Vietnamese songs, and haven't yet learned all the words to new English songs. So...you sing the first few lines of "Happy Birthday", over and over again.

You sleep. You fall asleep by yourself after cuddling with me and singing three songs. You sleep almost 12 hours at night. All the books say this is the exact amount of sleep that you need. I thought the books were lying when they said four-year-olds need 12 hours of sleep a day. But, you do. It's incredible to me. Friday night you actually PUT YOURSELF TO BED. Evidently your were tired.

You love love love your daddy and your brother. You regularly throw your arms around them and give them big kisses and say, "I huv you." This is more adorable than you can possibly imagine. Sometimes, but not as often, you wrap yourself around me, and say, "I huv you Mommy." This makes my heart melt like an icicle in July.

You are a GUM ADDICT. You love GUM. You ask for gum 12,000 times a day. Your optimism on this front is astonishing.

You love shrimp. And pizza. And noodles. And toast with Nutella. But, you hate peanut butter. And yet you love peanuts?

I think we still have a lot to learn about eachother, little one.

Love,
Mommy