Our littlest fairy princess has made it from 28lbs. to 30 lbs!! She also
has grown 2 1/2 inches. So the weight she gained isn't really very
noticeable. She is still tiny for a little girl who will be 6 yrs. in
less then 2 months. Our doctor didn't believe she just turned 5
(June 17th 3 wks. after coming home) She ordered up a bone
scan that was done in July and it showed her age to be
2 1/2 yrs. old. At the time we were told it wasn't necessarily her
true age. It could be from malnutrition.
So at our last visit with our pediatrician I shared how she is doing
better with her small motor skills and she is starting to trace dotted
lines for some of her letters and shapes. Loves to color her bible verse
picture and any of the papers her sisters color for school. (she was
very weak at first and it was very obvious she never used crayons or
pencils) She still isn't the greatest with scissors. We have been
working on ways to help strengthen her small and large motor skills.
The doctor's comment was "Why would they (the orphanage) teach
a 2 1/2 yr. old to write, color and use scissors?"
She then said, "For being 3 yrs. old now that wasn't bad." What!?!
I know our littlest princess was malnourished, it was clearly stated
in her paperwork. She was also very anemic which is common for
children who have suffered from malnutrition. Our first dentist
visit was before we saw our pediatrician and he showed me x-rays
of her teeth and informed me she wouldn't be loosing any for at least
3 yrs. Hmmmm...... (trying to wrap my mind around all this
for awhile now)
We have a copy of her finding ad with her picture and the
date of the newspaper is the year of 2006. (gift from the orphanage)
I noticed the last number for her finding date has a 6 written over it.
I had Brian Stuy send us another copy and the year is 2005.
That would make her even older. (sigh)
Physically she seems more like a 3 yr. old. I know from adopting
our other daughters they can be behind for a while.
She still wears pull ups at night and has accidents every once
in awhile during the day. Yet in so many ways intellectually she
seems so much older than 3. I slowed down with home schooling
and decided to just let her go with what ever she wanted to do
because she didn't seem to retain much. Yet she was learning
English very well for someone who could barely hear us. When she
had the tubes put in her ears we were amazed at how she just
started repeating everything and enjoying music. We were told her
ears were plugged so bad that everything she was hearing was very
muffled. She was struggling to hear and even so she was learning a
new language and trying to understand us. It absolutely amazes us
how well she was learning and understanding English! We were told
she had just started talking a month before we adopted her. I
thought it was because of her c/p. Hmmm........ could it possibly be
from her ears being plugged up so badly. Know she is always helping
me give her sisters their spelling test. I love hearing her repeat all
the words! Also she will have me look up the scriptures in her bible
we are going to read. Then she will take her turn and pretend she
is reading her bible to us. We have recently started working on
saying her ABC's and counting again and we will see if she starts to
remember them. I am so blessed to be able to homeschool her.
Her speech therapist is very surprised at how much and how well she
talks. Yes, we have another little talker on our hands. Her sissy Jaden
rarely stops talking even while she is asleep!
This summer the doctor will do another bone scan to try and
determine her age. We will just continue the way we have been
just going with what works best for her as she grows and learns.
We are so blessed God has given us the gift of our precious daughter
Chloe Joy and she is an absolute JOY!!!
She wanted to share some of what she learned. (forgot the bridge maybe next time) 
Jaden who couldn't quit giggling through the rehearsal last week, did an awesome job at the recital! (She had the biggest smile the whole time!)
