Dear Mia,
It's been 9 months. 9 months ago today your mommy and I held you for the very first time, and we celebrated this milestone at Scottish Rite for tests and evaluation. The good news is we got great news, because you are doing so well, really making some major strides developmentally. And while I carried you around the hospital, it took me back to that day 9 months ago when mommy and I were in the Hubei Child Welfare Center in Wuhan, China wondering what you would be like. The weight of the silence was broken with the "ding" of an elevator, alerting us that someone arrived. That wasn't just any ole someone, it was you, carried by your favorite nanny, Lei! Ever since that moment, all of our lives are radically different. It hasn't always been easy, but it's definitely worth it.
It's been quite a while since a longer update, but things are really changing for you in the time since you arrived home, and there are quite a few important things to share. For starters, things really began to shift in February when we realized you had an abscessed tooth, seemingly causing the systemic infection your doctors couldn't quite isolate. After the surgery to remove that wretched thing, it seemed like someone turned the key to a lock in your brain. The very next day you started speaking and using the words we believed were in that noggin of yours all along. After that experience, though, you still battled some confounding illnesses that defied treatment.
During the trial and error treatment period, we (finally!) learned you are allergic to the dairy protein, casein, which goes a long way in explaining some of the health issues you experienced. You were initially diagnosed with one ailment, and the doctors told us to give you lots of yogurt to help your digestion improve after being torn up due to months of antibiotics, but that turned out to be a bad idea. A very bad idea. All the protein in the yogurt — not to mention the milk you drank, enjoyed on your cereal, and loved in your ice cream — just kept making you sicker and sicker. Thankfully, you have a pediatrician who was relentless in finding out what was wrong, and blood work revealed the allergy. Since cutting out milk, it's like you are a different person. Learning that a casein allergy can mimic and exacerbate symptoms of more troubling diagnoses seemed to be the ingredient in a recipe you should have been missing all along. Learning of that allergy and making changes to your diet is putting you on a path to wellness you have never before experienced. And you know what? It's fun to see, and the more you learn, it's fun to hear.
One of the most common questions we field regarding your development revolves around how well you're leaning English. Mommy and I can emphatically say that your language is much improved. You are beginning to put words together to better communicate with us, which at times requires some deciphering, but is always encouraging. It's adorable hearing your little toddler mouth shape sounds in an attempt to communicate in a new language. Yes, we still get a whine and a grunt every now and then, but even when we tell you to "use your words," you reply with an emphatic, "words," to let us now you're at least trying. For example, the other day after I got home from the office, you were in your room playing after a nap. I went up to get you, and when I entered your room, I noticed you changed out of out of your clothes into your...ahem..."birthday suit." When I asked you where your clothes were, you answered, "Hiding!" I laughed then as I laugh now, recording that memory. You seem to have a knack for comedy, and as you get the linguistic skills to accompany your well-timed instincts, it makes for a rather entertaining combination.
It's sweet to hear you attempt to use your words, but there is one dialect that became comfortable for you well before English, and that is what Henry Wadsworth Longfellow referred to as the universal language: music. You, without a doubt, are one of the most musically inclined children I have ever seen. Music has a way of penetrating some of those recessed areas in your brain that were asleep due to sensory deprivation, and awakening them to aid in your learning and understanding. For example, just a few minutes ago, I said the name, Mickey Mouse referring to a puzzle you were playing with, and you started singing the "Hot Dog" song from the tv show, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." The association you made is really impressive, and points to the high-level intelligence we were told you have by your caregivers in China. From your musicality, to your cheerful disposition, to your tenacity in dealing with the layered health issues you've battled, you amaze us every day.
You do indeed amaze us, and through that, we ourselves are changed. There is no doubt your life is transformed, and it is a blessing to behold. It's fairly common for people who interact with us out in the community to say what a blessing we've been for you. I hope you do indeed feel that way, though we know this will ebb and flow over the years. But something I want you to know is the blessing is ours because of how you've changed your whole family. Your presence in our home and in our lives has helped us find a capacity for patience and purpose I don't think we even knew existed. Seriously. The huge love for living that you exude in your tiny body has helped your mommy and me experience an inspiring joy quite unlike anything else. From the time I felt a deepening call to "defend the cause of the fatherless" as Isaiah 1:17 puts it, to when you reclined on me during lunch today as though to ask for a comforting closeness following a scary morning at the hospital, I am learning in all new ways what it means to not only be a dad, but your dad. But that's not all.
When I see you and your Náh-na (your name for Ethan) together, it fills me with a love and pride I never knew I could feel. Seriously. You might know he was a little standoffish at first, trying to figure out how your addition would change our family dynamic. In the 9 months since you've been home, though, you won his heart. When you see him first thing in the morning or right after he gets home from school, and you yell out Náh-na with some crazy exuberance, he emits a smile that originated in his precious heart. You love to sit with him on the couch and watch cartoons, go to the neighborhood park with him to play on the jungle gym, roll around with him on the floor, and I seriously think your favorite times of all (and yes, even more so than mealtimes) are when the four of us snuggle together on our big bed.
You embrace the togetherness of family, even though it's only been yours for less than a year. It reminds me of leaving the Taco Bell in Cartersville after a day of house-hunting a couple weeks ago when you just glowed with a radiant smile and let out a big belly laugh. I said to you, "There's nothing quite like family, and we are yours." I guess the look on your face could have been a gassy side effect from your supper, but, no, I'm pretty sure you had a moment in your daddy's arms, flanked by your mama and Náh-na, when you knew you were right where you belonged. And you know what? You are.
On our way home that night, we had the radio blaring, because again, you love music. A certain song came on that you really seem to enjoy, and you immediately broke out into your awesome groovy dance moves where you flap your arms like a bird, then punch your arms straight out in front of you, followed by pumping your fists into the air with a deft wrist turn, before placing the backs of your hands together and pointing your fingers downward in an up-and-down thrusting movement. You just danced and danced along to that song in perfect rhythm, and I realized we were all dancing with you as though it were a planned flash mob...all four of us dancing your moves, in our van, cruising down the interstate, while communicating with each other in the universal language of music. It was in that moment, your family dancing together with you in perfect rhythmic synchronization, that it was obvious how you have changed our lives. A simple sublime moment that declared to the cosmos that even though you were born in a place some 8,000 miles away and 3+ years before coming home, you ended up right where you belong. In your place. In "Mia's Place."
We love you, Dear Mia. You are a sweet, silly, and smart little girl who keeps us in stitches with your antics and amazed with your potential. Things will change some as we make our move to a new home in Cartersville, saying goodbye to old friends and making many new ones, which will undoubtedly be easier with your charming assistance. There will be more times where we will travel the road together between Bartow and Coweta counties until our house in Newnan sells, and I am sure that passers by will see our van rocking back and forth and up and down with four people doing some sweet toddler-inspired moves. In those times — here in Newnan, there in Cartersville, and everywhere in between — I hope and pray people will crack a little smile as they realize that it is just you and your crew, the Jordan family, doing what families do. Serving, sharing, and shining for Jesus. Together.
Love,
Dad
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