A Glimpse Into Lili's First 4 Years........

The following is an excerpt of an email I received from a fellow Wuchuan adoptive mom.
All I can say is that I'm so glad that Lili is home, but my heart breaks for all those left behind.

"We were able to visit the Wuchuan SWI on 9/6/07, three days after receiving our daughter.
We were told that there are approximately 100 children that reside there and that there are 36 total nannies that work different shifts. When we were there, we saw only two.

The drive to Wuchuan was all modern highways, much like the U.S. Interstate system. When we approached the orphanage, we turned off on a bumpy dirt road, lined with shacks. We turned on a similar road by the river. There were trash heaps alongside the road. As we drove through the gate, I was struck by the overall appearance of the place. The pictures I had seen made it look very grand and almost majestic. This is definitely not the case. It looks much shabbier and the grounds more unkempt than what appears in the photos. All in all, though, the orphanage was very clean. That's really the only positive thing I can say about it.

When we got out of our van, they walked us into the "playroom." All the toddlers and preschoolers were sitting in 2 long rows of little desks. There was a nanny standing at the front of the "class" in front of a board with the numbers on it. There was no paper or pencils/crayons on the children's desks. The other items in the room that I noted were a couple of small balls, a small plastic rocking horse, a slide, a ball pit, and some sort of carousel ride (that did not look very used).

We then went upstairs to the bedrooms. There were two: one for the toddlers/preschoolers and one for the infants. There were about 30 cribs per room, and the cribs were the same size and type in each. They were plain metal cribs with wood bottoms. There were no pillows, blankets, or mattress. There was absolutely nothing else in these rooms except for the cribs. We were told it was naptime for the infants and that the other children were about to go down for their naps. We walked into the infant room. Most of them were awake. Same crib situation. Someone posted recently about the lack of hair on the backs of head and flattened skulls from sleeping on these boards. There were several of the babies with large sores on the backs of their heads. It was all I could do to keep from crying.

We then walked outside. There are two merry-go-round structures, but they don't look like they've had much use. I've seen some pictures of children sitting in them. There was a swing set, but it was behind a large hedge and the foliage and weeds were overgrown around it. It obviously has not been used in quite some time.

We also were led into a large conference room. There are a couple of bulletin boards with pictures of the children. The first one is devoted to different officials who have visited the orphanage. Our daughter was in a photo with the mayor of Wuchuan. The other bulletin board was of photos that have been sent by the families of the adopted children.

Oh, and another thing... We asked what sort of discipline was used. They told us that they just "talked" to her. She was told that if she was a good girl then her mommy and daddy would come for her. "

This brings to mind some things Lili does.
Even when she doesn't like her food, she'll eat it. She looks at us and if we tell her to eat, she will, no complaints. She looks at us like we're going to hate her or leave her if she doesn't obey. When I use a stern voice with her, she gives me the same look.

On a side note, yesterday I bought her some pom-poms (to cheer on those UNDEFEATED DALLAS COWBOYS!!!). Well, she has been sweeping our floors with them for the last 2 days. She's on her hands and knees lecturing herself in Chinese and sweeping. (I think she's probably telling herself it's not clean enough and she better do a better job-------or her mom and dad won't love her!-----yikes!)

Pictures of her halloween costume coming soon!
Like the stupid thing is going to even last till halloween, we had to pry it off of her at bedtime last night and she woke up and went right for it again! She's even been eating in it (!) with a garbage bag wrapped around her for good luck! My Mother of the Year award is in the mail, I'm sure!