H..E..R..E..'S TENLEY!

Here's our beautiful Tenley.  She is a sweetheart!  We were picked up a 9 a.m. this morning and taken to a government building for our meeting.  Tom and I had hoped we would arrive before she did, but when we got to the door of the room, there she was sitting at the table, and our first glimpse was perfect.  When she saw us, the recognition went immediately to a smile.  Oh, what a sweet smile.  In Chinese I said to her, "I am your mama," and her smile grew.  If she were an infant, she would have been smiling and kicking her feet.  She had that kind of body language.  Tom received the same response when he told her he was her dad.  Her first look at Maryn was one of curiosity and disbelief that Maryn was the girl she had known before, but then she said the nickname everyone called Maryn, and a smile came to her face.  I had Maryn remove her glasses, and Tenley nodded.  Mr. Zhou told us Tenley found out right after spring festival that she had a family, and she was very happy.  I asked him when she found out Maryn was her sister, and he said about a month ago.  Without a doubt, that fact had removed a small amount of her fear, as we had hoped, and we are so thankful for that.  While we completed today's paperwork, Maryn would get close and then retreat.  Without a doubt, Maryn had gained a small amount of fear, but going through Tenley's backpack with her allowed some of that to dissipate.  We came back to our room, where Tenley changed into something cooler while we finished with our guide, and then we walked to get something to eat.  She is eager to hold our hands, as both Tom and I discovered, but she's not needy about it.  As we walked back I encouraged Maryn to hold her hand, but before she could agree to it, Tenley took her hand.  Maryn looked back at me with that 10 year old, shrug of the shoulder, knowing glance thing, and it was priceless.  We went into Wal*Mart so she could pick out some treats for our visit tomorrow and walked back hand in hand with hands changing among the players.

When our day was done and showers were taken, I dried Maryn's hair.  Tenley appeared at the door watching us.  When I finished, I gave her a nonverbal, "do you want me to dry your hair?"   She nodded, and we shared a great couple of minutes together.  I told her in Chinese that she's beautiful, and she said, "Xie xie (thank you) mommy."  I'll go to bed reliving the day's events smiling and kicking my feet.