"Gotcha" Day!

For whatever reason, it has been hard for me to sleep through the night here in Taiwan.  I keep waking up around 3 or 4 a.m., and that's all the sleep I can get.  Maybe God's preparing me for a lack of sleep with our little Sophia, whose current sleep schedule leaves little to be desired!  Right now it is almost 5:30 p.m. and she has been--FINALLY!--napping for about an hour or so.  She fights sleep just like her brother Nathaniel.  We will be working on a schedule for her ASAP when we get home!

Dave and I had a leisurely morning this morning.  We knew that our social worker would be bringing Sophia to us around 11 a.m. or so.  We went to breakfast and I organized all of our stuff to make it more manageable.  I also haven't been feeling well with a cough, sore throat, and congestion, so it was nice to have a little calm before the storm!

Sophia arrived all dressed up around 11 or so with not only our social worker, but also the foster family's social worker.  Apparently it was a teary goodbye, and while she went to Dave right away, she was very quiet and pensive.  She seemed sad.  We were told that the foster mother had said that it felt as though she was giving her daughter away in marriage, so that's why she was all dressed up.  I tried to take a photo, but she was walking around by this time and didn't want to comply.  I'll post the best I could get!

Along with Sophia came more clothes and photos and an umbrella stroller that the foster family insisted on buying for us.  We decided that our plans for today would include a trip to a local mall to buy another suitcase for all of Miss Sophia's things!  The social workers didn't stay long, and we were finally alone with our little girl.  I think the emotions of the last few days got to me, and poor Dave had to deal with a blubbering wife and antsy little girl all at the same time!  He's my rock!

We changed Sophia into something much more comfortable and cool, fed her a bottle, and took a cab to one of the local malls.  The malls in Taiwan are vertical, not horizontal, and this particular one had three 15+ story buildings to it, which were attached via catwalks on most floors.  We found an English map and guessed at the floor where they might have suitcases.  We guessed right.  Now we were pushing a little girl in a stroller, who didn't always want to be in a stroller, and pulling a suitcase.  Two big Americans with a strong-willed little Taiwanese girl...you get the picture.  We went down to the food court, walked all the way around, and decided on Dunkin Donuts--which tasted nothing like Dunkin Donuts.  That was lunch.

We went back to the hotel and have since been playing with Sophia while watching television and resting.  She seems to finally be warming up to me a little more.  She loves music, and I had seen the foster mother doing some hand motions to music with Sophia, so I did the same and she really liked it.  We have no idea what goes through her little mind, but if she wants something, she will figure out how to communicate it.  For example, when I stopped humming, she moved closer and touched my mouth.  She's no dummy!

I'm not sure how tonight is going to go.  I think we will have to wake her up soon, but even so, she may not go back to sleep until really late.  Pray for us in that regard, as we are both very tired.  We leave Taichung tomorrow around 1 p.m. our time.  We will have a day on Thursday to just bum around, and then our AIT appointment is Friday.  I'm a little concerned about what we are going to do each day with Sophia.  She won't eat anything solid for us yet--just her bottle--so it's hard to gauge meal times and such with her, and our hotels here and in Taipei do not have restaurants in them for quick and easy meals.  We have to go somewhere to eat, and nothing is really close.  We have also been told that she doesn't do well in restaurants, which I can imagine, especially if there isn't a high chair to restrain her.  So, we are in a conundrum there, but we'll figure it out, or lose a lot of weight!

On a side note, I'm really missing my kids right about now.  I didn't realize how much I would miss them, and now that we have Sophia, we are really ready to get her home and get on with life with all five of our kids.  Pray for strength and resolve as we continue to adapt to our daughter, and she adapts to us.  It's a delicate balancing act!  Enjoy the new photos!

With our daughter Sophia at long last in our arms...