Everybody's home!

Wow, I've been so lame keeping up on my blog. Sorry! Lydia Sissay came home last Thursday, the 14th. My mother-in-law, Lydia Grace, and I traveled to Chicago early in the morning and hung out until we met her about 2:30 p.m. - then we traveled home that night at about 10:30.

So, she's been home almost a week! Things are going really well. She isn't much of an eater (now we know why she's so thin). In fact, she's rather a picky eater. So that's my only complaint. She is a sweet girl and we already can't imagine life without her. And yes, the names are still confusing. We still haven't decided what to do yet about the names, but we are tentatively calling her "Sissy" after her last name in Ethiopia "Sissay" pronounced "Siss-eye". She is willing to change her name, but we don't have a name that has leapt out to us yet.

When I visited her in Ethiopia in December and asked her about her birthday, She told me April 26th, and then I asked her how old she would be, and she answered, "13." Oh, my. We thought she was 9, and although the agency warned us about the ages possibly being incorrect we just didn't think much about it.

Now, it's no big deal - but we've been able to confirm with a dentist appointment and our pediatrician's take on it this week that she probably is, in fact, 12. We didn't really feel she had lied about her age to us and it seems like it fits the pattern of some adoptions at least in Ethiopia. Since many families don't want to adopt older children, especially teeenagers, the extended family members who put the child into orphanage care, often say they are younger than they actually are, with hopes that a younger child will be adopted. This makes a lot of sense and again, we knew she was meant to be in our family. And possibly if she had been 12 on paper, we might not even have considered adopting her in the beginning. Adopting an older child was a stretch for us, but a teenager - yeah, we probably wouldn't have made that leap of faith. Anyway, that's the big surprise.

She will start school Monday - I decided to put her in 5th grade because of her "real age". Lydia G. was disappointed that they wouldn't be in 4th grade together, but I was scared of 6th grade and with needing to ramp up on the language, I think this will work really well. And the four older kids will be at the same elementary school, which will also be really great!

Thanks for all your prayers, everybody, as we went through this process. God's grace has been really strong for us. The day I felt I couldn't stay in Ethiopia one more minute, we got Sammy's paperwork approved and could leave. This thing about the age. The names. Getting Lydia home in mid-January when we were worried it would take long. So many times where God just demonstrated Himself strong in our behalf. That's the only thing I can say.

Ironically, as I was paying my last bill to the adoption agency to have her escorted to the United States, I looked at the receipt and our first payment was January 5, 2009. Our last payment was January 5, 2010. We were so blessed to have such a short time frame for the entire adoption - well, it seems short now! :)

Tomorrow night ( Friday, January 22), we are having an open house at my in-laws house if you're interested in meeting the kids. Send me a message on my email account and I'll send you directions. Sorry for the late notice. I posted it on Facebook, etc. but I'm not sure everybody heard.