Day 5

Hi, everyone.  It's Nicole this time.  I haven't heard from Dale yet today.  As we start our day here, Dale and Camellia should be settled in for the evening.  We had a chance to Skype for a little while last night, with the typical glitchy problems we've experienced every time.

Our agency had counseled us on multiple occasions that this wouldn't be smooth sailing.  An orphan has a plethora of issues to work through, one of the hugest ones being grief.  She may grieve over the loss of the only life she has even know.  Whether it was ideal or not, that is the only life she has known.  She may grieve over the loss of her caregivers, her friends at the orphanage, even the loss of biological parents.  Orphans have so many feelings of loss that people from healthy homes can never begin to understand.

Well, yesterday the tantrums started...

Dale said that there was one tantrum after another.  Camellia would want something that wouldn't be appropriate for her.  He would tell her no, so she would scream until she forgot why she was screaming.  They would be okay, and then something else would set her off, and the cycle would start all over.

I could tell that even though it was only noon in China, it had already been a rough day for Dale, and it didn't look like things were going to be on the up-swing.  We even witnessed a tantrum while Skyping.

We've been told this is normal, but the thought of months of this is somewhat daunting.

Shopping at Shamian Island was on the agenda again yesterday afternoon.  I have no idea whether they made it there or not.  I do know that the tantrums persisted.  I was receiving texts at 1:00-2:00 a.m. asking what the appropriate response would be to the behavior.  I felt helpless for my husband and daughter.

Here's a little story about how neat God works.  After Dale's post yesterday, a friend of ours, Scott Berens, asked what Mr. Warner's first name was (first picture on yesterday's post - a family from Circleville, OH).  Of course I didn't know but indicated that if he looked familiar and the last name would be the same, it was probably the guy he was thinking it was.  After some conversation back and forth, we finally deduced that this was, in fact, the guy Scott Berens was thinking it was.  It turns out that Scott and his brother Steve were college roommates with Mr. Warner, and he was the best man in our friends' wedding (Steve and Traci Berens).  I had a chance to tell Dale last night, and he thought it was so ironic and neat.  Thank you, Scott, for your keen observation!

Sorry I'm not as eloquent of a writer as my husband.  Hopefully his blog update will come through so you can all enjoy his humor and sensitivity again.  What a wonderful man my husband is!