Our First Few Days...




























Our first few days with Meryn have been wonderful!  She seems to be doing really well and has fallen into a natural and easy routine with us.  A bath every day, four to five bottles a day, rice cereal at every meal… she is very happy and playful.  She rarely fusses unless she’s overly tired, or hungry.  We’ve been running around all over town, shopping, visiting people, and she hasn’t once seemed overwhelmed or like she minded.

She is full of personality!  She makes a lot of noise, and says “dadada” a lot.  She’s easy to get a laugh out of.  Kiryn has become the expert at getting her to giggle.  Meryn just wants to be with Kiryn all.the.time.  It is so sweet to watch them together. 


Meryn loves to chew on and tear up paper.  Any kind.  Toilet. Tissue. Receipt. Writing. Napkin.  You name it, if it can be ripped into tiny pieces and stuffed in her mouth, she loves it. She also loves mirrors. I’m wondering if that’s because there wasn’t one at the care center?  As soon as I step in front of a mirror, a wide, open grin spreads across her face slowly, and she begins to slowly wave at herself.  It is the most adorable thing!  

Just tonight, she started playing a game with me.  I was feeding her, and she was looking across the room so I called her name, and for the first time, she responded!  (We’ve changed her name from what they called her in the care center.  The name she was given by an orphanage worker is Helen.  We chose Meryn, because it’s an Ethiopian name (Meron) which means “gift from God”, and is also the name of a special anointing oil used in the Ethiopian Orthodox church).  Anyway.  So for the first time, she responded to “Meryn.” And she knew she’d done it.  Because we met eyes, and then she decidedly looked away again, and waited for me to call her name again.  And when I did, she promptly turned her head back, grinned, and then turned away again!  We did this several times before she took her next bite!  So so so sweet!  She knows her name!




I admit, those first few days, I’d find myself looking at her as she slept and thinking, "I don’t even know who you are, where you come from, anything.”  And she’d feel like a stranger to me.  I’ve been staring at her picture for months.  But she is a real little person, already, who knows her mind, and shakes her head vehemently “no” if she doesn’t want something.  : )  I’ve had to keep speaking truth into myself, in those moments, when I look at her and feel disconnected… I just say to myself, ‘You are a Preedy.  You’re a Preedy girl.  That’s who you are. A daughter of the Most High King!”  This has helped me a lot, and today, I feel like we took big strides.  We just had some really sweet moments together, and she fussed quite a bit every time I would leave her sight.  Tonight, she fussed getting to bed a little, acted like she didn’t want to, even though I knew she was super tired.  I sat by her crib and helped her drink her bottle, and as I looked at her, I didn’t at all feel like I didn’t know who she is.  As those moments of “knowing” when I look in her eyes, knowing what she’s thinking, her knowing what I’m about, as those increase, all the uncertainty is fading away.  She is ours.  We are hers.  She is a Preedy.  Officially. For keeps. : ) 

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