Happy One Month Gotcha Anniversary

I know. My post is late by two days. Sorry! Hard to believe that Sydney has been with us for a month now. PJ & I were talking about how the time from referral to travel seriously felt like 5years! But the last month felt like 7 days!!
The "big" kids & I watched parts of the Gotcha day video today. In the video, Sydney just sat in my lap barely moving for a really long time. She is practically running through every room in the house now and very rarely sits still. Love how she is changing! Her favorite show is "Kai Lan" but she calls it "Ni Hao". She will only watch that show & a little bit of Fresh Beat Band. Sydney loves Chris Tomlin's song Sing, Sing, Sing. She raises her arms up & jumps around. Too cute! Sydney loves to wear Ashlyn's school backpack & a bright pink headband down in front of her eyes & walk around the house. She is pretending to be Ashlyn! Ashlyn wears her glasses to school & her backpack. Too cute! Ashlyn & Sydney are doing a little better with their adjustment. It will just take time.
The big question (& honestly the MOST ANNOYING question for me) is--does Sydney know any English yet? Yes she does. But she knows A LOT of Cantonese because that is still her native language and ALL she ever heard til 5 weeks ago. We would love for Sydney to be fluent in English but that is just not possible. Wonder how much Cantonese I would know if the situations were reversed??? Probably not much. I'm sure you can tell that I'm tired of this question. I wish people would focus on something else--adjustment, sleeping, eating, health, schedule, anything.
Sydney is sleeping about 7pm to 7am and takes about an hour nap after lunch. We still have little problems getting her to sleep but they have improved since last 3 weeks home. She is still eating almost everything. Loves anything yogurt related. We feed her noodles almost every day because she loves them! And corn. Sydney can put away the corn.
That brings us to Sydney's health stuff. Our stool sample came back normal (yeah--no parasites.) The pedi did mention to us during our visit that we might redo the stool samples a couple more times to just make sure. I posted on the previous entry that Sydney's blood work did not come back as expected. Stool sample did not reveal anymore information. So Sydney & I went back for more blood work on Friday. It was really sad. She cried big ole tears. PJ & I are trying to not jump to conclusions or stress about all of this. God already knows "our plan". I think we just expected everything (health related) to be normal. Sydney looks very healthy and even a little chubby in her tummy (which we love!). So not hearing that has been a little difficult to grasp. Hopefully, the results will come back this week.
Our eye appointment went great. The doctor (who was wonderful with Sydney & very calm) said he could not see any damage from the orphanage/foster eye injury. Sydney did fantastic during the exams and drops but we had this awesome tech in there with us (Thanks Aunt Melissa). Another checkup in 6 months. We start physical therapy this week. And then Sydney is watching Ashlyn getting her teeth cleaned this week also & then she goes in next month.

Now for updated pictures!!!

Philip & Sydney playing the Wii. She really just loves the control thing. Philip is wonderful with her! The adjustment has been very easy for them. But Philip is a pro when it comes to sisters and Sydney had a foster brother who is 10 years old. I love that they have this cute little bond.
Look at the mess behind her! She loves playing in the "other closet". The girls have two walk-in closets. So we converted one to a little kitchen thing.

Love this picture! Have you guys heard the new Steven Curtis Chapman song? Heaven is the Face? He mentions in that song how Maria had dark brown eyes that disappear when she smiled. Thats our Sydney. We think very highly of the Chapman family.

Can you tell this girl loves her noodles? She even gets out the pot & noodles to cook them at lunchtime. What a great helper!!

My beautiful girls!