Dan's last week

Dan goes back to work next week, so we've been trying to transition Gianna over to me and figure out what we are going to do for long-term child care. She has been interacting with me a lot more lately. I hear her calling Mẹ about 25% of the time instead of Bố. Yesterday she let me take her to the potty and feed her lunch as Dan was outside wrangling leaves. But with my shoulder out of commission, its very difficult to hold her and carry her as much as she desires. Usually when she begs to be held, I sit down on the floor and offer to let her in my lap and have me hold her that way. But that's usually not what she wants! So, as the docs suggested, next week my mom will be here to provide assistance. I start physical therapy tomorrow, and have another session scheduled for Friday. So that's another reason we'll need a second set of hands for a while, PT appointments.

On Monday we went to see the local pediatrician and visited a prospective daycare today. The pediatrician was disappointing. Gianna has a few health problems that they discovered at CHoP, but he did not really address them as comprehensively as CHoP suggested. The daycare was refreshingly diverse--only one white kid in the bunch! They have a lot of kids that do not speak English and seemed to be sensitive to the fact that Gianna is from an orphanage and may have special behavioral needs. In the next few weeks we plan to stop by often to get her comfortable with the teachers and other kids. Then starting in December, we'll see if she will stay there a whole day without mom and dad.

So far we've had three visitors: Ba and Ong Landis, Priscilla and her son, and our friends Georgie and Val. Gianna is still very shy around strangers. But she needs to start meeting people, so please come visit! A big thanks to the visitors we've already had and to those that have sent cards and gifts. Gianna loves getting mail, and we are all very grateful.

Thursday we meet with our social worker for the first post-placement visit. I think there is also a 4 and 6 month visit, then 1 year and that's it. We'll have to send a report with photos to her orphanage in Vietnam to let them know how she is doing at every visit and every year until her 18th birthday. Its quite a commitment to that orphanage! So here is the family pic we took today to be sent to Vietnam (sans Bruno) and a series of pics when Gianna is doing one of her song and dance routines. This one was a counting song, as she was playing with her bilingual domino puzzle.