Jumbo Puzzle

(I don't know what happened to the spacing with this post. Sorry, it won't let me fix it?)

It's weird to be thrown into life together with a 2 year old. Jeb was a baby when we adopted him. At six months old, he was fairly flexible in his routines. As long as you met his basic needs, he was ok. But with Collins being 2 1/2, she has come into this family with certain expectations from life lived in the orphanage...some good, some bad. Here are a few of the things that we are learning about Collins more and more everyday.

The shoe obsession is more than just a love of shoes. She has a total melt down if we try to walk out of the bedroom without them on. Apparently, in the orphanage, she always had to wear shoes. The floors were concrete so that's probably the reason.

Yesterday she had to get 4 immunization shots. She woke up in the middle of the night and had a fever. She was restless all night and one point she woke up crying yelling what sounded like "gaga." My head went to a million places of what that word meant but in the morning she said "gaga" and pointed to her forehead. Somewhere a sticker on her forehead has become a really important, I guess fun, thing to her. Always a sticker on her head. Everyone in China thinks we are weird Americans that are doing awful things to her like making her wear Hello Kitty stickers on her head.

The girl will not put on a skirt or dress. Pants only. All I brought were skirts and dresses! She's never worn one and I'm thinking she feels like she's in a 1980's taffata bridesmaid's dress in it. She's ok with bows though...most of the time.

When we were flying here the other night, I sat her in her seat and started to buckle her up. She lost it. Tears streaming and arms reaching for me. The video we got of her in February showed her straped into a potty seat....basically a chair that has a pan underneath it. I'm sure she would have to stay strapped in for long periods of time and the airplane seatbelt reminded her of that. We had the same problem with the stroller yesterday. Heartbreaking.

She loves to be clean. Always telling me to wipe her mouth and hands and she will take a baby wipe and clean her whole body. The clean, neat, follow-the-rules kids are the favorites in the orphanage.

Getting to know her is like working a 1000 piece puzzle. One piece in the right spot can make you see clearly where everything else goes. Everyday we are just trying to figure out more and more who little Collins is. I guess it's going to be a life-long puzzle, but it's so worth it.