LookingforLuna: Update (!), with a Slice of OCD on the Side

Exactly three months after our last update, on July 29, 2015, look what came in email: "You have an update!"

According to the answers to questions that we asked, Luna has a best friend in the orphanage and that best friend has just been matched by my agency with a family in the US. So, wrap your head around this: IF the family gets in touch with me, then Luna should be able to see and visit with her best friend from her Chinese orphanage, in the US. Two little girls from the same orphanage in China who will get to continue their friendship once they arrive in the states with their forever families. It really is too much to ask for. Here's hoping that the little girl's family is open to contacting us. I can, at the very least, assure Luna that her friend has been adopted and is home with her mommy and daddy. This is so much better than leaving a dear friend behind, in a tough situation, never to know how her life turned out. (We heard from them, they live within driving distance of our house! I mean really, it boggles the mind, you can't make this stuff up.)

There were not any pictures included in the update but there were two videos and we managed to take screen shots of them so that you can see. Where as before I had one minute and nine seconds of video of Luna, I now have about seven minutes total. <happy dance>

In the first video, Luna is sitting on the floor discussing "snowflake pieces" with an orphanage worker and mainly it seems that they are discussing the colors of them. It is obviously one that was taken just recently, her hair has been cut, and she's wearing shorts. At one point they put down the tiles and Luna is attempting to answer questions, including discussion about a "wa-wa" which is Mandarin for "baby doll." I really need to get my Chinese teacher to watch this so that I can get a better handle on what they are saying. (According to my teacher, Luna is asked what toys she likes to play with and she answers, "cars and Barbie dolls." She's gonna love it at our house.)

Honestly, this video kinda makes me sad. It's hard for me to watch. Just like in the video from our previous update where she talks to the kindergarten teacher, she really seems uncomfortable. It's as though she does not like to be questioned, as if she dislikes being the center of attention, as if the intensity of the whole encounter is too much for her. The person taking the video also, just like in the other video, is taking it near a window - in the video you can see where the light is bouncing off her nose and the opposite side of her face. I assume that they did this for quality of video but Luna should probably have been sitting with her back to the window. She's focusing so hard on the tiles that her eyes dance back and forth because of her nystagmus. That, added to the light from the window and I wonder if she can even see the tiles. In fact, other than the color "white," she didn't seem very confident at all in answering the lady's questions. During the whole encounter she seems very nervous and shut down, to me.

(My sweet husband: “Her haircut hurts my feelings.”

“Mine, too.”
“I mean it wouldn’t if the other kids had one to match but they don’t. Why don’t they?”
“I don’t know, Babe.”

Hair should be the least of our worries but we can’t seem to help it, we are OCDing about every little detail and we’re swiftly approaching OCD melt down.)

The next video is the kind that makes a momma and daddy's heart happy. We've watched this video dozens of times and we just sit and giggle at her laughing. Because, she does, she laughs. She laughs.

She laughs.

This video more than makes up for all of the angst of the other videos. The second video, videoed early this past winter (the kids are bundled up and her hair is shorter than it was in her referral photo which was taken in January) is nearly four minutes long. Here, is where she finds her confidence, where she is comfortable, and where she shines. You can hear her little voice as she sings along. She is having fun, she smiles, and then, laughs out loud!

Y'all, my baby’s got some moves. The video is four whole minutes of her dancing to a rockin' little tune and she’s good at it. The video captures make it look like very ad hock. It wasn't. She's precise in her movements, she has good timing, she KNOWS this routine and she is working it. The rest of the kids are just sort of blooping around but not Luna, she is doing something that she is good at and she knows it. She is free.

(Apparently, it's known as "The Apple Song" and, originally from a movie, it's a popular love song in China. The hand motions that she does in front of her face go along with the words, "Come here..." and then she makes the round shape of "...my little apple," with her arms. My Chinese teacher showed me a video where she'd come up with a dance to the same song for a recent local Vacation Bible School.)

So, here's to another few months of waiting on a new update.

(We just found out that we probably won't be getting another update before Luna comes home - China has changed its timelines for updates from "every three months" to "every nine months."
I'm very thankful for the dancing video and I suspect we'll have it memorized before she gets here.)