Happy Gotcha Day Number 3!!

It's hard to believe another anniversary of Gotcha Day is upon us. It seems like no time ago when we were so impatient to hear any bit of news about our little Amelie and now she's getting so grown up and in school already!


A few days ago, I brought up the idea of Gotcha Day to her and what happened on Gotcha Day in China. I told her more about how she lived in the orphanage and the nannies took care of her until we were able to get her. I told her how, on Gotcha Day, she and the nannies got on the bus to come to see Mama and Baba. She completely focused on everything I told her and asked a lot of questions about each bit of news. I told her that Gotcha Day was the happiest day of mine and Baba's lives and I asked her if she knew why. She said, "because you got to get me?" and I nodded. I may have mentioned this to her before...


We started off the day with Amelie getting us to the point of tears laughing so hard (so much so that Allen laughed his breakfast eggs right out of his nose). Amelie said, "Mama, does a rooster lay eggs?" and I said, "No, chickens lay eggs". She followed by telling us a joke, "Why did the rooster lay eggs?" and we said, "Why?" to which she said, "to be nice to the chicken". At which point we laughed (it's all in the delivery in case it doesn't translate well in text) and then eggs shot out of Allen's nose and we never quite recovered after that.


Today, we celebrated the 3rd celebration of Gotcha Day by all taking the day off work and school. We went to Weeki Wachee Springs knowing how fascinated she is by mermaids and wanted to surprise her by showing her 'real live' mermaids. Amelie was thrilled to see a show with live mermaids where they re-enacted the story of The Little Mermaid which she knows very well. She started off by waving frantically at the mermaids who swam close by the window and watched the rest of the show intently while Allen and I were laughing hysterically at the turtles in the Springs that followed the mermaids' every move in the attempt to eat their hair. After the show, Amelie said "See! I told you mermaids were real!"


The rest of the park was pretty dead and the water park was closed so we made our way to nearby Tarpon Springs and had a wonderful time walking around the sponge docs and going in and out of shops and eating at a local Greek restaurant. I went into a spice store and the owner commented on how he admired people like us for taking children in and raising them. Then, continued on to tell me about how he was given up by his birth mother when he was 18 months and it was the best thing that ever happened to him because he went to a great, loving family. I told him we were out and about celebrating Amelie's 3rd anniversary of Gotcha Day and he gave her a stuffed animal puppy from his shop which she loved!


Amelie, who loves frosting on cake exponentially more than the cake itself, had me in tears laughing again today when Allen looked away from his dessert and Amelie, very nonchalantly, and with the precision of a surgeon, used her fork to remove the frosting from Allen's eclair and ate it before he ever turned around. Allen then turned around, not having a clue as to what transpired and Amelie, quite nonchalantly again said "this cake is only mine". At which point I lost it and had tears coming out of my eyes.


Amelie, over the past 3 years, has made us laugh and smile, pained when she is hurt and feel immeasurably proud of what a wonderful child she is. How lucky are we?