Two Month Gotcha Anniversary & Final Post

Two months ago today we drove from The Central Hotel in Nanjing to the Civil Affairs office. We waited while two families with kids from other orphanages met their children. We did a little paperwork and waited some more. Just writing this gives me knots in my stomach and tears come to my eyes. Two families watched out a big window hoping for a glimpse of Ming-Jie and Ming-Wa and suddenly there they were making their way along the parking lot in the arms of their nanny and the orphanage director.

Without the video mom took, I wouldn't be able to tell you who was carrying Jie-Jie. For me, it's like he floated into that building and into that room on a cloud of mist. I saw only him. His clothes, his hair, his expression. Was he scared? Would he cry? Would he come to us? Would he welcome or reject us at this first meeting. Ming-Jie. Who was he? What was he like? Was he wild and undisciplined? Was he aggressive and hyper? Did we dare hope for a well adjusted, happy child. Ming-Jie. Finally, in the flesh, as if he magically stepped out of the pictures we had been studying over the five months we had waited for him. Was he real?

And he accepted us! And we began to fall in love with our bright, joyous, affectionate, caring, little Jie-Jie. Our ideas of who he might be vanished as we learned who he was. He fell into absolute and complete love with his Baba during those first few hours. Watching him, reaching for him, playing with him. Building a bond of trust that has only grown over the past 2 months.

And now Jie-Jie is all ours. He is our son. Not because some papers say so, but because he trusts and loves us and we trust and love him. He has become Eva's brother. Last night as she kissed him good night she told him, 'I love you.' She looks for him when he's in a different room, she talks and laughs and jumps off the stairs with him. We have neatly folded into Jie-Jie's world and he has neatly folded into our lives. There are so many people who helped bring Jie-Jie into our family. We want to thank Colette, our tenacious, ever positive sponsor who worked so hard to get Jie-Jie home. We want to thank our agency and especially Mireille who didn't give up when things looked bad. We want to thank Jennifer and her parents for giving me transport and shelter during that stormy week we left for China. Thanks to Juliette our patient, resourceful guide who got us out of Nanjing as the storms of the century moved in. Finally, we want to thank my mom for shlepping our stuff around China, for being a good sport and, in the process, for becoming Jie-Jie's one and only 'LAO-LAO'.

And for our darling Jie-Jie.... if one day, when you read the pages of this journal, you feel even 10% of the love and joy we've felt over these past two months, keeping it will have been truly worthwhile.

With Eva we became parents. With Jie-Jie we become a family.

More Toys, Glasses & Patches, Oh My

O.K., here's what I found them playing with over the past few days. The hats are from Grandma (Lao-Lao). The basket is from the laundry room. The 'Lucky Rabbits' Feet' (around Jie-Jie's writst) and the 'Sugar Packet' (in Eva's hand and in her mouth) are from the cupboard under the sink in the ensuite in our bedroom. Yep. Those toys don't leave the house no matter how hard the kids scream to take them with them. So, I ask, why bother to buy them toys when they seem to prefer to play with 'things' they find around the house.

As the picture below demonstrates, we have resorted to nerdish techniques to get Jie-Jie's glasses to sit in the right place when he has his eye patch on. He was constantly looking over the top of the lenses rather then through them. It might look funny, but it works and he doesn't mind one bit. What a kid!

He has added a ton of new phrases to both his English and French vocabulary this week. We're just completely amazed at how fast he's learning. Yesterday he handed me his cup and said, 'Open this please Mama'. It was as clear as day.

Toys?

Happy St-Patrick's Day to you all.

You can't pinch my kiddies, they have their green.

The other day Jean-Pierre and I were saying that we really should buy some toys for our kiddies. Since I really didn't know what to get them, I starting paying particular attention to what they played with during the day. Here's what I found:

They play with card board boxes and screwdrivers; my sister's Guitar Heros guitar; the coffee table and plastic bags full of stuff from around the house (old cupboard door handles, pudding boxes, plasitc cookie cutters, old boxes); cars attached to strings and watch TV (Broccoli, Dora, Kai-Lan, Thomas the Train, Backyardigans). Oh yeah, they also LOVE to jump off the stairs. Eva jumps from the fourth step now and Jie-Jie is up to the second step!

Jie-Jie's words

Here are the utterances that Jie-Jie is using on a consistent basis these days:

Mandarin Words

• tang - hot - he pronounces it as 'kong'
• tiwa - telephone - he pronounces it as 'chiwa'
• xie-xie - thank-you
• chichow - truck - I totally don't know the correct pronouncation or spelling for this
• chocola - open - don't know correct Mandarin pronouncation or spelling
• yue - fish
• ma - horse
• aya - negation (e.g.'aya mama' - 'no mama' - usually uses this when I ask if I should put him to bed)
• Baba - daddy
• Mei-Mei - little sister
• Mama - Mommy
• de - possessive marker
• Jie-Jie
• Lao-Lao - maternal grandma
• Gong-Gong - maternal grandfather
• niu-nia - milk
• ni hao - hello
• hao shi ma/ya - does that taste good?
• hao shi yo/da - it tastes good
• gugugai - the sound a chicken makes. Uses this for eggs, chickens & Baba's nose (guessing he's thinking of a chicken's beak....)
• bu-yao - pronunced 'boo-yao' - I don't want - He combines that one a lot with Mei-Mei ('Bu-yao Mei-Mei) - I don't want you to do/take/touch/look at.....Mei-Mei.
  

English Words

• train
• booootza - boots
• shooza - shoes
• sooooupa - soup
• spoona - spoon
• sleepa - sleep (a song says, 'and sleep and sleep'. he hears 'nd sleepa nd' sleepa)
• buza - bus
• go Jie-Jie
• patch
• bye-bye
• jooza - juice
• apple
• mine
• this
• look at this
• whatz that

French Words

• pee-pee
• ka-ka - he says a cross between 'ta-ta' and 'da-da'
• dodo - sleep
• fait dodo - go to sleep
• manger - you, we, I eat - we tell him, 'on va manger' (we're going to eat) and he yells, 'manger!'
• du lait - some milk, but he thinks it's one word
• non
• bo-bo - owie
• camion - truck
• Papa
• chocolat - chocolate
• Allo - hello
• cereal
• banane
• yogourt
• fini - finished/all done
• ballon - balloons and flags
• ou est-tu? - where are you. While techniqually a phase, he seems to see it as one word.
• bin-bin (a family inveted word for 'cracker')
• Broccoli - in reference to a woman who sings children's songs
• yoga - he says 'Yoda' - this cracks me up every time he sings it cause...well... I kind of think that Jie-Jie looks a little like....well.... Yoda.

It's truly amazing the range of things he can express with these 58 vocabulary items individually and when he combines them into two and three word utterances.

May the Force Be with You!

Transitions

Transition #1:

Well, here he is with his new glasses. Jie-Jie had his glasses for less then 15 minutes when this picture was taken. He walked into the house, Baba gave him some chocolate chips (as you can see in his teeth) and took his picture. I think he looks a little older and a little Tweety-Birdish (in a very cute way) with his specs. He left them on all day long and he didn't touch or fuss with them at all. We have adjusted them so that he actually looks out the lenses rather then looking over them.

Transition #2:

Jie-Jie came to Mom's Morning Out with Eva and I today. Eva held his hand and made sure he knew where to go. I was proud of the way she looked out for him. He spent the majority of the session time in the room with the other kiddies, only coming to see me near the last 15 minutes of the group. Bravo little man.

Transition #3:

Jie-Jie is now sleeping in his own room. We transitioned him for his nap on Sunday and then asked him where he wanted to spend the night that night (beside our bed or in his own room). He chose his own room and has been sleeping there ever since. For naps we just put him in his room, give him a kiss and he goes to sleep. At night, he still asks for Jean-Pierre to stay with him until he falls asleep (Yes, Jean-Pierre has fallen asleep too, but the idea is that he stays until Jie-Jie falls asleep). Jie-Jie is very definate that he wants Baba in his room. Tonight at supper we told him that Mama would help Jie-Jie 'faire dodo' tonight. Jie-Jie said, 'No, Mama fait dodo.' Jean-Pierre asked him who he wanted to help him sleep tonight and he said straight away, 'Baba fait dodo Jie-Jie. No Mama fait dodo'. You're breaking my heart kid. Mama writes on the blog while Baba fait dodo avec Jie-Jie!

So, all this means that Jie-Jie's initial transition into this next part of his life is pretty much complete. He has flown through everything will little to no effort and continues to be a happy, funny little guy. May he face all future life challenges with the same grace, humour and confidence he has shown over the past month.

Going Out With Two Part Two

The kiddies and I don't only go out to the grocery store together. We also spend time hanging around outside. While being outside prevents boredom induced fighting, it comes with it's own share of troubles. Take today for example.

Since the snow is melting like gangbusters these days, we dress the kiddes up in the most waterproof gear they have. The rubber boots from a previous post come out again (each actually wearing the matching pair this time without a single comment) and out we go. Eva grabs her 'doll' stroller (has never had a single doll in it). The toy has now become basically a pink stroller frame since the material which once formed the seat disappeared long, long ago. She thows her orange rubber ball into it because that's the only thing that doesn't fall though the holes of the frame, and off she heads down the driveway. Jie-Jie in the meantime has mounted his intrepid mint green and pink, plastic car and is heading out with her.

A large iceberg is jamming water and creating a huge puddle at the end of our driveway. This backlog is indeed the destination of our little ones. Eva wades in right away, pushing her stroller frame with it's grotesque, orange, rubber baby in front of her. Jie-Jie, who is much better trained then Eva, stops before the puddle making whining type wondering sounds. I tell him to get off his car and push it by it's large handle through the puddle. He can't believe his luck and tentatively takes a step into this new wonderland. They walk back and forth through the puddle for a while as I vainly try to break up enough of the iceberg to get the water flowing away from our drvieway. I finally give up and decided to go get the mail around the corner at the end of the street.

How does one get two almost-three-year-olds away from a watery wonderland? One promises the possiblity of discovering even bigger puddles if we go for a walk. This works everytime (so far) and away we go. Of course we do not all go at the same speed. Now I have to decide...do I stay at the back behind the slowest kiddie (Jie-Jie in this case); do I rush to the front to be sure that the first kiddie is safe (in this case Eva) or do I stay in the middle where I can see each child, but will have to run like hell to be of timely help to either of them? I chose the running like hell option. I get lucky. Eva, who has gone ahead, waits paitently for us at the mailbox. Why you may ask.....come on, there's a puddle in front of it. Jie-Jie finally makes his way to us, I get the mail and we continue on to the paved trail that runs behind our house.

The trail entrance makes an honest woman of me. Yes, there is an absolutely, startlingly huge puddle for them to walk through. Jie-Jie just pushes his car through it and continues on, but Eva needs to make several passes before she can be convinced to move along. By this time her brother is quite a way down the trail. We catch up and Mama remembers a wonderful game she used to play with Eva called 'The Car Ride'. I sit Jie-Jie on the little car and he races down the little slope of the trail. As he's about half way along - and picking up speed - I wonder if this is really a good idea. As he rushing toward the snowbank at the end of the course - and not slowing down even a bit - I start thinking that I may have made a little mistake. He comes to a full stop absolutely laughing his head off and I decide 'The Car Ride' is terrific and we decide to do it again.

Jie-Jie does it a couple of more times before Mei-Mei decides that it's her turn. She however doesn't want to give up the car once she gets to the bottom. There is some crying (no, not me). First Jie-Jie when he realizes his given up his car to someone who is just learning how to share and then Eva as Mama helps her do the right thing. As she sits crying in the sandy spring run off of water, Jie-Jie goes for another ride down the hill.

Mei-Mei gets over her sadness and we head back home, but we couldn't possibly stay on the paved trail. No, no, we must take the two snow trails that lead to our backyard. This route involves Mama taking one child's 'equipment' through the snow trail, over the gravel (well more like mud) road and leaving the piece of said equipment on the next snow trail in order to head back and get the child to whom the above equipment belongs. Repeat with child number two who has in fact been yelling, 'Mama, Mama' during the whole of the previous manoeuvre. Now Mama takes both pieces of equipment up to our back patio and then returns for each child (separately of course - trail's not big enough for two kiddies and a Mama). Repeat the Mama incantation throughout the entire episode this time since I now have a child at each end waiting for me. Jie-Jie is calling me as he rides his little car towards the edge of the patio, about to fall head first from it into a couple of feet of snow. Eva is calling me as she sits in the snow at the end of the trail waiting for me to come and pick her up (she couldn't possibly get up on her own-what a kid).

Anyway, we finally make it back to the front driveway and the kids spend another hour playing in the huge puddle at the end of it. Ah (sigh), going out with two. Who'd have thunk it could be so terribly entertaining.

Quickie

Don't have much time, but wanted to post.
We had such a fantastic time with Jean-Pierre's sister and her family over the past week. Jie-Jie fell in love with his mon oncle Denis during this visit, but I don't have a single picture of them together. Eva deepened her love for her cousin Sophie.
Ahh, I hated to see them go and so did the kids. I can't really say how Jean-Pierre feels about it. He's sick in bed today. Poor baby, company sure wears him out.

Going Out With Two

People have a tendancy to look at us when we are out. Who can blame them. Frankly, we are a good looking family and the kids are, well....gorgeous (boggery noses and all). They're also funny and, now that there are two of them, things get a little louder than they did before.

This morning I took the kiddies grocery shopping at Superstore. Daddy stayed home to get ready for our company that's coming tomorrow (His sister and her family are coming. Yeah. Love them). Anyway, I digress. Picture this: Two little kids sitting side-by-side in the front of the grocery cart wearing the same kind of ski coat (just different colours). They have on rubber boots. Each of them has one pink rubber boot and one red rubber boot. Why? Because before they left the house they had a big fight about who would wear the red ones (the favorite pair) and who would wear the pink ones (the less favored pair). Now, while Eva's coat is in fact red and the boots would in fact look much better with her coat.....Babba is not having his son shopping in Superstore wearing pink boots. So, the kiddies came up with a compromise solution-yep, one colour each. Was Babba thrilled? Not so much. Yet since it was the kids who had decided and he was about to get a whole hour + to himself while we got groceries so he let the matter drop....

Now, imagine those two, little, lovely, well behaved, matching clothes and funny boot wearing kids who don't look much like their mother, pointing at and exclaiming loudly over everything they see.

-'Oh, boots Mama', says Eva.

-'Boo, boo, bootas Mama', exclaims Jie-Jie.

-'Mama, Mama look at dat. Cinderella. Look atit, look atit' (from Eva). 'Look atit, look atit', actually means, 'get your butt over there Mama so I can touch whatever it is'.

-(From Jie-Jie) 'Xia-Xia (thank-you), Mama. Mei-Mei dit (says) Xia-Xia Mama' (if I bought her a certain sweater that he is now grabbing at and about to pull off the hanger).

We then leave the clothing department and move into the food section. I pick up a package of cheese. Of course Jie-Jie NEEDS to hold it. If Jie-Jie is holding cheese....well....(they both agree) then Mei-Mei NEEDS to hold some cheese too. She waits patiently while Mama moves down the aisle and finds another type of cheese to buy. As we move through the store Jie-Jie begins to 'eat' the cheese he is holding. This involves chewing a hole in the plastic wrapping. Hmm...yum. Shopping now involves constant reminders to Jie-Jie not to eat the cheese just yet. Why constant reminders rather than just taking the cheese away from him? Hmmm....Is Mei-Mei not still holding cheese? Yes. Refer to the NEEDS section of the paragraph.

We finally meander our way all the way through and out of the grocery store, get our groceries into the car and are on our way back home when I start to laugh. Why? Because I think about a bizarre little conversation we all had as I was loading the groceries into the trunk. It was the type of conversation we're used to having these days, but at that moment, sitting in the car I really asked myself what the hell we were doing. You see, I had bought a container of strawberries and they were sitting at the top of the basket that we use to transport groceries home (yes, very environmentally friendly). Anyway, Jie-Jie sees them and

he says, 'Cao-Mei, Mama.'

I say, 'Yes that's right, cao-mei, Jie-Jie.'

Eva pipes in with, 'Strawberries Mom?'

and I say, 'Yes, baby, those are strawberries. Papa dit, 'les fraises'.

The two kids make a kind of 'hmm' sound, I load up the groceries, put my babies in their carseats and away we go. I'm not sure if we know what we're doing to these kids, but there is one thing I do know for sure, we're slowly developing a family language all our own.

ARRRR Matey!

As of yesterday our son has become a 'Half-Day Pirate'. The most amazing thing about it though is that he still looks absolutely gorgeous even when he's in his new pirate dud (can't says 'duds' because he only has to wear one part of the pirate outfit). Have you guessed what is going on yet? Here's another clue:

Yesterday we went to see an opthomologist. Get it yet?

We have started 'Vision Therapy' with Jie-Jie. Although it sounds like we are now forcing him to watch religious programing, that's not in fact what it's all about. The eye without the cyst (the left) now has to be patched for half of his waking hours everyday to make sure that his brain doesn't turn off the slightly blurred vision that is produced by his right eye (cyst eye). We tried a patch out yesterday and he is totally (I'm talking t.o.t.a.l.l.y) into it! Yeah!!! Jean-Pierre laughs at me, but I think they were patching Jie-Jie's eye at the orphanage. Come on: we pull out an eye patch box, the kid takes the eye patch, peels off the back layer to expose the sticky part and then helps me stick it onto his eye (of course I put it on totally upside down - didn't have time to read the directions as the kid was already at work as soon as the patch came out of the box). Anyway, once we got the right size on the right way, he wore it all evening without comment. This morning at breakfast he asked why we weren't putting it on. O.K., he didn't really 'ask' why we weren't putting it on. He pointed to his left eye and went, 'ahh, ahh'. We took that to mean he wanted the patch. We had to apologetically tell him that he'd have to wait until after his nap to get it on. In his usual Jie-Jie style, he was fine with that.

Eva kept asking if Jie-Jie had a 'bo-bo' on his eye. She still doesn't really get it. A little friend was over yesterday and she asked Jean-Pierre the same thing. Jean-Pierre just said, 'Jie-Jie's a pirate' and left it at that.

Jie-Jie was so incredibly co-operative at the doctor appointment yesterday. He sat on Babba's knee (where else) in the big chair and was game to try anything asked of him. He really didn't like it at the very beginning of the appointment when the doc. put drops in his eyes. We figured that after that Jie-Jie wouldn't want to have anything to do with the doctor, but when we told him that there wouldn't be anymore drops ('Jie-Jie, c'est fini, fini' - with wild hand guestures), he got it and let the doctor do his thing.

Diagnosis - can't spell it, but non-cancerous cyst on the cornea makes the cornea irregularily shaped and therefore makes Jie-Jie nearsighted with astigmatism (is that one word or two?) in that eye. The doctor said that Jie-Jie's vision is extremely good for a child with this congenital type growth, but that we would need to do some intervention to keep it that way. Since the brain forms most of it's important connections between birth and 7 years old, the 'danger' is that Jie-Jie's brain will discount input coming into the 'bad' eye and, eventually, 'turn that eye off'. Patching the good eye will force the brain to use the stimuli coming into the other eye to create neuropathways for it. While we assumed that some kind of surgery would definately be in the cards, Dr. Drummond advised against that until Jie-Jie is older. He said that some people opt for surgery after 7 years old for cosmetic reasons, but that surgery does not improve vision. In fact the surgery can make the vision worse because it plays around with the shape of the cornea.

There is a second part to the vision therapy as well. We need to improve the vision in the eye with the cyst. That means.....you guessed it.....glasses. As a former wearer of glasses, I was disappointed for Jie-Jie on this point. I hated wearing glasses even though I was totally blind without them. The challenge for us here will be that Jie-Jie's glasses will not make a huge difference to his vision because his eyes are not too bad. That may make it harder for us to get him to keep them on. If he was 'totally blind' without the glasses, the ability to see would be enough incentive to get him to wear them, but this is not his case. Anyway, we'll see what happens when we get the glasses next week. We chose the trendiest pair we could find that suited his face and were functional. I think he looks adorable in them and he sure enjoyed trying them on.

So, there you go Samuel Jie-Jie. When you're twelve or twenty or fifty and you want to know why you wore an eye patch as a kid or how you ended up with glasses, you can just go back and read this post. Oh, by the way, we love, love, love you.

Being Siblings, Becoming Friends

Jie-Jie came to our family knowing how to play, share and love other children. I'm not talking just about a child who would tolerate having another child share his space and his things. Watching him interact with the little girl (the child in her mother's arms) on our trip who came from the same orphanage as him was a beautiful thing. I'd never seen a three year old child be so gentle, so caring and so loving towards another child. Whenever they saw each other they would run together, hug and give each other whatever they had. He'd give her his last piece of watermelon, she'd give him a toy she was playing with..... They'd give spontaneously, happily, without feeling that they were losing something by giving it up. How did the orphanage do that? Seeing how Jie-Jie interacted with people totally changed the expectations I have for my children. I went to China thinking that we would label things in the house as 'his', 'hers' and 'ours', but I came back from China with only one of those labels - 'ours'.

So, because Jie-Jie was used to living full time with other children, he was (in a way) used to having siblings. His adaptation has been one of learning to live with Eva. Eva's learning curve has been much steeper and her progress has been interesting to watch.

For the first week in China, Eva was either jealous of or indifferent to Jie-Jie. If I held or helped him, she cried (sometimes screamed). Sometimes she would try to hit him to get him away from me. He would be playing with things and she would rip them out of his hands. Since she is bigger, there wasn't much he could do and he was very confused about why she was acting like this.

By the second week in China, she was much, much better about Mama doing things with Jie-Jie. Jie-Jie and Mama could sit together on the bus while she sat with Daddy, I could hold him, push his stroller a bit and even play with him without Eva having a total cow. Since Jie-Jie was so into Babba we were actually transitioning both kids over to the opposite parent at the same time. So, when Eva did make a fuss about sitting with me it was usually just as well that they switch because chances are that Jie-Jie was wanting to go to Babba anyway. Eva had a few full scale, full out tantrums in Beijing the first few days we were there, in large part because Mama and Babba were so done with the copious amounts of whining and crying that had been going on and because we were forcing her to treat her brother fairly.

By the third week that Jie-Jie was with us (our first week home) Eva was completely fine with Mama doing anything with Jie-Jie. I saw her focussing coming off of us and on to him. Things started to get intense and physical. We literally could not let them out of our sight. The second (even nanosecond) that they were alone, she was at him. You see, Eva discovered that being 10 pounds heavier than the person holding something you consider yours is a slight advantage, so she began to use it. At first we tried to be kind and gentle about it, but when she accidently pushed him down the stairs our attitude changed. Three time-outs later (Eva had never had a time-out in her life before that) the pushing stopped (his biting her may have helped stop the pushing too....you think?). Poor Jie-Jie was at his witts end, just slightly stressed out, but we were so tired that it was all we could do to get the daily things done and keep some peace between them.

The next week our 'normal' routine started. Eva and I went to Mom's Morning Out and the kids got a little break from each other. It was like a turning point. For the rest of that week, we made sure that they were apart for a little bit each day. Dad took Eva to a different playgroup or swimming while Jie-Jie and mom played or went for a quiet walk. You could see Jie-Jie's stress level drop and Eva's willingness to interact with him (in a positive manner) increase. They still didn't interact that much and they certainly weren't playing together, but the constant negativity began to decrease.

So how is it now? When I think back to how their relationship was a month ago - two stangers thrown together - I can see strong, positive progress. It's not just that the fighting has diminished. Each day they have more positive than negative interactions, Eva is earning back Jie-Jie's trust, they have begun to have jokes that only they think are funny (putting cheese in your soup and then waving it around is apparently hysterical to almost-three year olds) and they are starting to copy what the other is saying (Eva says 'yoopee' when she drops things and Jie-Jie said, 'lait' today rather than 'nioo-nie' because Eva had just said it). They do 'play' together a little and sometimes, just sometimes, they'll kiss each other goodnight.

I see that one day soon they will be more than just siblings. The potential is there. They are both kind, loving people and I think they have made some very small steps to becoming friends. What surprises me the most though is the way my heart swells and tears come to my eyes when I witness those tiny sparks of possible love pass between them.

Some Clarification

Nicki's questions in the comments section of the last post have been echoed by people in the 'real world', so I thought I'd do a clarification post.

We're calling Samuel by his Chinese name Jie-Jie. We pronounce it as 'Jay-Jay' even though the correct pronounciation is more like 'Jeeay-Jeeay'. We're not sure if and/or when we're going to switch over to calling him Samuel. We decided that his offical name will be 'Samuel Jay-Jay Lesperance' rather than our original thought of 'Samuel Liu Lesperance'. That gives us the option of calling him by his middle name, leaving 'Samuel' as his 'offical' name. In a few months, when he understands about both names, he can choose which name he wants other people to use. A few people suggested that we just register his name as 'Jay-Jay'. I like it as a kiddie name or a nickname, but I think it's too childish once he is an adult. If he works in pediatrics, 'Dr. Jay-Jay' would be great, but I'm not sure I'd take a heart surgeon or a lawyer very seriously if they had that name..... :-)

We called Eva by her Canadian name right from the very beginning mostly because she didn't respond to her Chinese name (we got the guide to try it too, so it wasn't due just to our terrible Chinese pronounciation). My guess is that her foster parents didn't address her as 'YiLin' very often. On Gotcha day we asked about Eva's nickname and the orphanage directress said that she was called 'Lin-Lin', but she didn't respond to that either. Since she wasn't living at the orphanage, I imagine that the directress wouldn't have really known what Eva's foster mom called her on a daily basis. On a more philosophical note, I think that because Eva was our first child we felt more of a need to claim her by giving her 'our' name. It hasn't seemed important with Jie-Jie. He's ours and we are entitled to raise him no matter what his name is.

Thanks for the questions. Keep 'em coming.

And by the way.....LURKERS! I know you're out there. I've spoken with some of you recently. 'I don't know how to post a comment' isn't flying with me!

Our Little Man - Part II

Many people who have adopted from China say that the child you travel with in the country is not the same child you have once you are home for a little while. Jie-Jie seems to be an exception to this rule. I think I’ve been expecting him to change as he settles to his new life, but he just hasn’t. So, (people have been asking me) who is he?

Jie-Jie is a bright, joyous little man who loves a good laugh. He loves to make jokes and he has a wicked little twinkle in his eye when he does it. Some of his favourite jokes at the moment are
1. to say, ‘This is Mama’ (while pointing at Baba) and then ‘This is Baba’ (while pointing at Mama). That totally cracks him up. Another one he likes on the same theme is to say, ‘Jie-Jie de’ (Jie-Jie’s thing) while pointing to something that belongs to someone else. Then the person it really belongs to needs to get all upset and say that the thing is theirs. He loves that.

2. to say, ‘Mama/Baba dit, ‘non, non, non’ (Mama says, ‘no, no, no’). Then Mama/Baba is supposed to say, ‘Jie-Jie dit, ‘non, non, no’. Cracks him up to. He has other variations of this too: ‘Jie-Jie dit, boa-yao’ (Jie-Jie says, ‘no want’). Then we say, ‘No, no. Mama/Baba/Mei-Mei dit ‘boa-yao’. Gets him every time.

3. saying that his cup of milk is a cup of water. He says, ‘nioo-nia’ (milk) when it’s actually ‘sway’ water. Cracks him up every time.

Jie-Jie is loving and affectionate. He often takes our faces in his hands, looks into our eyes and then gives us a double cheek kiss (like a French greeting) or a kiss on the lips. He’s very ticklish, likes to cuddle and he loves to be carried especially by Baba (we may have encouraged that one). He’s so good to his sister that it makes my heart ache sometimes. He'll go all the way upstairs to bring her her milk or her toy phone, but he’s no push over. She’s learning to respect him.

There have been very few really negative behaviours. I have to say that I had braced myself for a whole lot of discipline issues. A three year old, from an orphanage…..I had all kinds of assumptions about how things were going to be and not one of them has been a reality. While Jie-Jie does love to ‘investigate’ the world around him and is especially curious about how things work, he usually understand that no means no. Now that we've got a good routine going so he's getting enough sleep and isn't pushed beyond his limits, the most discipline we’ve had to do so far is to remove him from a situation and most inappropriate behaviour ends. I mean the kid took to the stroller, the car seat and his booster seat at the table without batting an eye. He’s had 3 nights of nasty tantrums concerning falling asleep and there has been some sibling violence (not instigated by him) and that has really been it. Can we all say a Hallelujah?! Hallelujah.

O.K., what else? The kid loves to eat (very common in the first few months). He is definitely a carnivore with a very, very slight leaning toward omnivorism. Jie-Jie’s dream meal at this point would be a plate packed with: meat (the kid would eat just meat for each and every meal. Any kind of meat. Roast beef, chicken, deli turkey meat, you name it); bananas (we have to limit him to one or two a day or he would eat one at every meal and or snack) and he loves cherry tomatoes. He’ll eat spinach if it comes from my plate (I was getting desperate to get some kind of vegetable into him so I tried it and he ate it), but not a lot of other vegetables. He loves yogurt, yogurt covered raisons and yogurt covered pretzels as well as candy of all kinds. He also loves milk, which he calls ‘niu-nia’ (usually at the top of his lungs).

Jie-Jie loves music and he loves to dance. He makes a punching motion in the air as he dances and he sure can shake his bootie. He is game to try anything, but he's not foolhearty. For example he saw Eva jumping off the third step of our stairs, but he wasn't too sure about that height so he jumped off the second step and he made sure one of us was there to hold his hand. He loves the waterslide at the pool (maybe because we hold him all the way down), but he doesn't want to go down the slides at the park.

Jie-Jie says, 'Yipee' when he drops or spills something. We're assuming he means 'whoopsie', but he's got Eva saying it now too.

So, the truth is, the kid's adorable, he's great fun and he's easy to be with. Incredible.

The Snowy Day

We all have fantasies about things we want to do with our children when we finally get them home. One of Jean-Pierre’s fantasies was having the entire family joyfully romping outside in the snow. Not just any romping however. Oh no. Sliding down hills kind of romping. So, on Tuesday, away we went. Ever done this with two almost-three year olds and a wife who is a little afraid of sliding down hills? …..

First of all, we decide to do this late in the afternoon. We must have started around 3:00. It takes us at least 20 minutes to get the kids and ourselves all bundled up. 20 minutes that is if we have put all the mittens, toques and boots away in the right place. If not, then we spend even more time searching for one or the other of these things. Oh yeah, and 20 minutes is a vast improvement over the first couple of times we got ready.

So we're out the door and have made it as far as the garage. Jean-Pierre shoves the sled into the trunk of the car, but realizes that we can't get it all the way in because we can no longer lay one side of the back seat down (uhmmm, second car seat). Hmm. He hunts around for a bungee cord. Good luck. We still have 7 bags of recycling from Christmas time stuffed at the front of the garage because we missed recycling pick up before we left for China. Anyway, he finds a telephone cord, ties the trunk down and away we go!

Eva wants to be carried before we even get out of the parking lot. Sam is in a little purple sled and seems O.K. with it (not thrilled, but O.K.). Jean-Pierre somehow convinces Eva to walk to the top of the hill and they go for the first slide. She loves sliding, but hates walking, never mind walking in deep snow. Did I mention that this is just a hill in the middle of our town. Not groomed or anything.....Yep.

Jie-Jie and I still haven't made it up to the top of the hill yet as Eva comes walking up behind us. Somehow (I really don't remember how because I was so loving the freezing cold and lots of climbing), I end up with trying to get both kids and two sleds up the hill while Jean-Pierre stands at the top taking pictures. Yeah.... Jie-Jie looses his mitt and starts screaming his head off. Eva is in the other sled, which I drop as I try to put Jie-Jie's mitt on, and it starts sliding back down the hill. At this point the whole event is so *#& romantic that I can hardly stand it and I haven't even gone down the hill yet. You'll notice there's no picture of Eva heading backwards down the hill in the sled...

Alright, so we all make it up and pile onto the sled. Jean-Pierre pushes us off and I, being the excellent role model for my children that I am, yell all the way down, 'I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this'. Yep, I'm pretty sure I had the chance to say it at least three times before we came to a stop at the bottom. We haul, beg and plead with Eva to get her back to the top and we all go down two more times. Finally, Jean-Pierre takes matters into his own hands and I wait at the bottom (much less screaming that way). This is how it went:

By this time it's started to snow and the 'kids' 'indicate' that they'd rather just play on the path and in the trees beside the hill. I'm into that and we go for a walk on the path. As we turn around to go back to the car, Jie-Jie starts screaming again. Why? Because the falling snow is blowing in his face and he can't handle it.

All in all, although the outing likely didn't fulfill Jean-Pierre's fantasy sliding day......We did actually have a good time and the kids fell asleep beautifully that night! Can you say, 'Bonus'!