Fall 2010

Well, Mikenna is growing and growing. She finally has gained some weight. She eats non-stop but she is SOOOO active that she burns it all off. Mikenna moved into Meriah and Madissen's room on June 5th. She protested this very loudly. I planned this specifically to happen over the summer so that if we didn't get a lot of sleep, it wouldn't matter since none of us really needed to be up early. She would take naps in the bed with no problem but staying in bed at night was not happening. She would wake up around 4 times a night or more. I was exhausted from not having a solid night's sleep. Finally around July, she started to sleep more but still woke up about 2 times a night. I resorted to reading books on sleeping disorders and one book gave me some helpful hints. Most nights, Mikenna can sleep about 8 hours and then she manages to make her way into our room around 5 or 6 am. At that point, I just let her crawl into our bed. She will sleep until I get out of bed. She has a keen radar on me and the moment I am gone, she can sense it. Mikenna is gaining trust with people at church. She no longer goes to nursery and she is slowly adjusting to Sunday school. She really likes Mr. Allen and talks about him all week but yet when Sunday comes around she is usually in tears saying she doesn't want to stay alone in S.S. We are working on me leaving part way thru the service. Mikenna loves the daycare kids. Especially the older kids. She misses all her friends from last year that didn't come back because most of them attend all day kindergarten so their parents don't need me any longer. We have a few play dates with those girls and Mikenna just loved it. Mikenna continues to show us how smart she is. On Easter, she told us that Easter was the day that Jesus rose from the dead after he was killed on the cross for us. WOW! A three year old gets it! She can now spell her name and she can count about to 40. She still loves being outside and playing with the daycare kids or our neighbor, Caroline. Mikenna has slept over night at my parents house twice (with a few sisters) but has done well without mom. I am still the only one to put her to sleep at night. Paul and Mikenna still need prayer. She will go with Paul, but most of the time will put up a fuss. Her mind tells her that it'll be ok but her heart has not come to that realization. We are still working on this and her 'whining'. As an adopted child, she will always have some issues about being adopted but we are praying for her to fully attach to all family members and friends so that she will be able to have lasting relationships with others as she grows up. God is in control and I need to rely on Him for His time to be perfect. We were able to get together again this summer with some of our 'China families' in Ohio. One of the families has added another child from China. We got to meet Noah and he is very sweet. Mikenna enjoyed being with Emmett, Mariah and Noah. We have plans on going out to Va. after Christmas to visit our 'China families' again. We are so excited! God is good and faithful to us. God bless- Lori

An adoption poem !

This poem was written by our Meriah this year in her language arts class:

ADOPTING FROM CHINA

EW! The smell of 'snack lane' in the streets of China.
The smell is like dirty socks your brother wears.
Scorpion, snake, kidneys, all different in taste and smell.
You take a bite of something you thought was chicken.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH!
All the food is the hard work from the people.
Finally the day comes...
Everyone crying,
Holding someone they've been waiting years for.
The tears trickling down their faces.
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP!
'WA, WA, WA'
Little Mikenna's cry
Seeing them cry...
Your crying even more!
Getting the adoption finalized.
FEW! What took so long?
Even the final signatures of my mom and dad say, 'FEW!'
TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK,
My sisters and I waiting anxiously!
TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK.
The tires rolling on the driveway...
It sounds like I have just won something valuable.
Finally, we get to meet our little sister!
We all wake up the second we hear her little cries.
Her cries are as loud as 100 elephants going up and down our stairs!
But... her cries are the hard work that pays off!
Maybe, just maybe we will experience the world of adoption again!

written by Meriah Kruit (2010)

April 3, 2010 - We've been home a year!

We can hardly believe a year has passed since we landed on US soil with Mikenna. It has been quite a journey over these last 12 months. Mikenna has made great strides but still has some big steps to conquer. She loves McDonald's, singing and being sung to, playing with bubbles, reading books, going to nursery at church, and eating just about anything that is put in front of her. She continues to amaze us at how smart she is. I took her to be tested thru the school district, and she tested within normal limits for a child that was born here in the US. So, she will not need any early intervention for speech or hearing. She loves being with her big sisters and demanding their attention. (Most of the time they give it to her.) She keeps us laughing at her little comments that clearly shows she has 4 older sisters and her mannerisms are really cute. The 4 older girls give her so much love and attention. We are still the 'novelty' at most places like restaurants or soccer games for 2 reasons: we have 5 beautiful girls and the youngest is Chinese. We get a lot of people either starring at us or actually asking if Mikenna is ours. (One person even asked me if Mikenna was Chinese-UM, I didn't quite know how to answer her with out making her feel stupid!) Mikenna, Paul and I went to counseling to help her bond more with Paul. We went for about 4 months and it helped a lot. She now will let Paul hold her, get things for her and even cuddle with him but she still does not allow him to put her to sleep or she does not like being left with him alone. We are still working on the trust factor with men in her life. We are also working on getting her to sleep in her own room with Meriah and Madissen. She sleeps in that bed for nap but not at night time. It has been a long year with a little person sleeping right next to us. We know it wont last forever but we both thought she would of been in her room by now. Mikenna still goes to a lot of soccer games and she loves it because she is outside- her favorite place! Mikenna has made a lot of friends with either the daycare kids or 2 other kids that have been adopted, one from Nanning, China (where Mikenna came from) and Haiti. Adoption is a wonderful gift and we have been so blessed by having Mikenna in our lives. At times, it has been stressful and then other times she makes it all worth while. Adoption has changed our lives forever- what a gift it has been to our family. Our girls have begged us to adopt again- we have responded that our family is complete. I have no doubt that one of our girls or maybe all of them, will adopt a child once they are married. I could go on and on about how adoption was a wonderful choice for our family but I'll spare you all of that. Please keep praying for Mikenna and her trust in Paul and other men and that she will grow into a beautiful young lady that loves the Lord. What more could Paul and I want for her life? This has been our first year with Mikenna and what a wonderful journey! Praise God!

March 24th, 2010 - Gotcha Day

This is Mikenna's Gotcha Day. One year ago, Paul and I laid eyes on our 5th daughter for the first time. Wow! Time has flown bye! We thought it would be fun to celebrate Mikenna's Gotcha Day with friends and family. We had an open house for her and 45 friends and family showed up to help celebrate Mikenna's special day. For those of you that are wondering what a Gotcha Day is and why we would celebrate it, let me explain. For kids that are adopted(either domestically or internationally), often times the families do not receive their children on the day they were born. So, Gotcha Day is the day that the child is joined with their forever family. Mikenna was a bit overwhelmed at first by all the people and I'm not sure she understood why everyone was here but she warmed up after awhile and had fun with all the kids that came. I had our dining room table covered with her clothes and shoes that she came to us wearing that first day, of course the green soccer ball that she carried throughout China, all the things we bought in China, her pictures while in China and since being home, and a lot of books about China or adoption. We also had all our pictures scrolling on the T.V. for people to see our pictures of the beautiful country where Mikenna was born. It was quite an evening of sharing our journey with friends and family. Happy Gotcha Day to all our adoptive family that traveled with us to China!

Happy New Year

It is the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the tiger. Mikenna, Brienna, Meriah, Madissen, Mom, Mrs. Luedtke, Jordan, Shelby and Lexi all went to Chinatown in Chicago for lunch and the New Year's parade. The lunch was wonderful and the parade was VERY crowded. At times it was hard to see some of the parade because people kept moving and getting in the way. Mikenna liked seeing the dragons. In the mass of all the people, we actually ran into Matt(my nephew) and his wife and then Mrs. LaGrassa, a teacher from the middle school in St. Charles.
Paul and Melia could not be with us this year because they are on their way to FL. to look at a college in Palm Beach (rough huh?)
We are ending the evening watching Mulan 2. Mikenna loves watching Mulan.
Well, this was a fun day for all of us and we look forward to many more celebrations!

Mikenna is 3 !!!

I can not believe that our little Mikenna that we went over to get in China in March is now 3! She has definitely lost the baby look and is well into the toddler stage. We looked at baby pictures of her(that the orphanage gave to us) and Mikenna would laugh at how her hair would stand straight up when she was a baby. I cherish those few pictures that I have.
It also has been an emotional time for me(Lori). I again thought of her birth mom and wondered if she was thinking about Mikenna and wondered what happened to her daughter. As Paul said a few days ago, if they (her birth parents) had been able to see her now, they would never had given her up. She is such a bundle of joy and I know in the bottom of my heart that God has great plans for Mikenna and she was meant to be in our family. The joy we have is her birth parents saddness of not knowing what happened to their precious daughter.
Then I also think of her foster mom, a year ago she celebrated Mikenna's 2nd birthday with her knowing that would be her last one. I know that she is missing Mikenna because of Jane our rep in China keeps us informed. I do send pictures to Jane so pass on to her foster mom. Being a foster mom takes a lot of love and courage because a foster parent gives all their love and knows that that child will eventually leave their home for the child's forever family. I don't have enough words for the gratitude I now have for Mikenna's foster mom. She loved her so much. We know this because Mikenna loves us so much and that is a reflection of what she was shown in China before she came to our family.
I will post pictures of our birthday girl so everyone can see how big and beautiful she is! Keep praying for our little one!

A lot has happened since Halloween

My girls have been telling me that it is time for me to update the blog. So, here it goes... Thanksgiving: we celebrated Thanksgiving up in MN with Paul's sister, husband and 3 daughters. Mikenna had fun meeting Veronica who is just a few weeks younger than herself and then the twins who were 6 months old. We all had fun just hanging out with one another. Two weeks later, our niece got married and Mikenna loved the dance floor. Veronica and Mikenna entertained some of us through dinner as they danced the night away. They were very cute! Mikenna, in her very pretty dress was trying to do the "worm" for everyone. After the wedding we set up our Christmas tree... I'm sure she was trying to figure out why we had a tree in the house. Anyway, Christmas was a bit mellow this year since she had never experienced Christmas in China. She was happy to get the presents but not as excited as I had thought because she had no reference point to gear her experience on. We went to the zoo on Christmas Day as a family. Mikenna had never been to a zoo so she was very interested in all the animals that we saw. I had told her that her birthday was after Jesus' birthday so after Christmas, she thought her birthday would be coming. Little did she understand that she needed to wait until the end of January.
Mikenna's speech is coming along great. I think she has been immursed in the language so much that she really should not have any problems. We are having her tested thru the school district in March to see if she qualifies for early intervention for speech and hearing(just to make sure). So, we'll see what comes from that.
In January, Mikenna and Lori had the wonderful opportunity to meet another little girl(Anna) and her mom. Anna was adopted from the same town as Mikenna. Anna is 2 years old and Mikenna would say,"My new friend, Anna" whenever she would talk about our visit. We hope to continue to get the girls together for play dates. We now know 2 little girls from Nanning, China. The other little girl is a relative of mine that adopted Ella about 7 months before we got Mikenna. We plan on visiting Ella and her family in June out in CO. We are SO excited!
Mikenna also made another new friend, Dave. Dave's family has been in the adoption process a long time and they were waiting for Haiti to give them court dates. Well, the earthquake hit and God allowed many miracles to happen last week and Dave and his family were united. It was SO amazing to see God's hand in every step of the way. All 26 orphans were not hurt in the earthquake and all 26 were able to get their visas approved to come to the US. So, we went over on Sunday and spent some time with Dave and his family. It was a very emotional week for the Malley family but God is faithful. All our children are wonderful blessings!