By Peggy O'Farrell
Enquirer staff writer

Pei Pei snuggles on her mother's lap, studying a photo album.

"Jie, Jie," she asserts, and taps her big sister's picture. Then she taps the next photo. "Mama."

Heidi Johnson hugs her youngest daughter close and points to another photo. "Who's this?" she asks.

Heidi Johnson and her two daughters, Eve, 7, and Pei Pei, 4. (Steven M. Herppich photo)

But a toy bus and its passengers have captured the 4-year-old's interest for the moment. She glances at the photo, then takes a longer look and shouts, "Pei Pei!"

Johnson, a 44-year-old music teacher who lives in College Hill, adopted Pei Pei from China, and brought her home June 9. Pei Pei's older sister, 7-year-old Eve, was adopted from China as an infant.

We told you their story in May in honor of Mother's Day. At that time, Johnson was still waiting to find out if the adoption would be approved. She applied to adopt Pei Pei in March, less than two weeks after seeing the little girl's photo. The process should have taken several months, maybe close to a year.

But shortly after Mother's Day, she learned the adoption had been approved.

Pei Pei's room wasn't ready. The forms Johnson needed to file with the State Department and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services weren't ready.

But her heart was more than ready to welcome another child, and Johnson and Eve arrived in Shanxi Province on May 30.

She had tried to prepare Pei Pei by sending her a photo and a letter, translated by a Chinese friend, introducing herself.

The first meeting was a little rocky. When the two were introduced, Pei Pei ran out of the room.

Eve and another child who had accompanied the Johnsons followed her with balloons.

"Within about five or 10 minutes, Pei Pei was sitting on my lap and coloring," Johnson says.

Pei Pei - whose American name will be Gillian - was born with a hole in her heart. She didn't have surgery to repair it until she was 3, and the condition slowed her development somewhat. She's small for her age. Even in Chinese, she speaks in single-word sentences, possibly a consequence of spending years in a crowded orphanage where staff didn't have time to interact and play with her.

"But she's always so happy to be here," Johnson says, watching Pei Pei run after her big sister.

Eve seems amazed by her little sister's appetite. "She sees food and it's gone," she says.---

E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com