Nai Nai and Pop Pop

Well for the past two weeks we have been easing Jun Jun into daycare (he calls daycare "work"). We started with us being by his side for about an hour then the next day we would leave for 15 minutes. This week besides going to the doctor three times to get updated medical records and shoots, I have got him in daycare for 6 hours. He is very smart and we would tell him that I would pick him up after lunch, nap, circle time,... whatever they were doing. This started for an hour then I worked up an hour every day. So he knew when to expect me. The daycare teachers laughed that he started crying 10 minutes before I arrived. He now has friends at "work" including two girls that say "Hi Jun" in unison when he arrives. When he leaves the whole class says "goodbye". This has been a big change for him and when we started he would cry the rest of the night. Now he is happy to go to work and happy to be picked up.

Nai Nai and Pop Pop came up to visit this past weekend. This is the second time they have seen him besides Skype and they were shocked at all the vocabulary he has picked up. They picked us up at the airport when we arrived from China and within 40 days or so they could not beleive that they could have a conversation with Jun. They heard all about every animal with a "looong neck" and also were privilaged to see the ducky collection. They went to Billings Farm and Jun got head butted by a cow. I'm glad that my parents got to spend time with Jun before we all go forward with our normal life.

Today Jun got another shot in the arm so we went to see Kim at work and we had lunch with her and Jun got to eat more rice, yeah. I took him to a local science museum and we saw all kinds of cool things.
-Todd-

Today was Jun's second time visitng daycare (he calls it work) on his own. We only left him there for about 25 minutes, but when we returned he was sitting at one of the tables playing with some cars. -We were told he didn't cry at all after we left! I'd call that success. -And I just have to say that I'm once again amazed by my little boy... I know he won't love everyday of daycare, but I'm just so impressed that he would go in on his second day and handle it the way he did.

The pictures above are of Jun playing with "slime". We made it one day when it was too hot to go to the beach. It's good for hours of fun so we'll make it again this winter I'm sure.

I have to go back to work next week. Todd is taking off 2 weeks but we are still within just a couple of weeks of having Jun in daycare full time. I know he'll love daycare someday, but in the near future he is likely to be scared that we will not be back to pick him up. -Jun and I have been visiting his day care, but today Todd and I left him there for the first time on his own. -For a total of 15 minutes- All things considered I think it went well, but that is not to say it was a good time for him. He was very scared and had to be pulled out of my arms as we were leaving. He was truly afraid when we left. Todd and ran out of the daycare because I had tears in my eyes and did not want him to see them. -So, after leaving the daycare we drove around town for 15 minutes and watched the clock... we just waited for the time when we could return to pick him up. When we retured the teacher told us that he had actually stopped crying after about 10 minutes. I took that as good news, but dread doing the whole thing over again tomorrow.

Earlier this week we took our first trip to the ocean! Jun Jun got hit pretty hard by a wave within the first few minutes of arrival, but other than that the trip was a big success! Jun Jun loved the sea shells and feathers that Dahju found for him so I think we'll be headed back there again soon. -Oh, and I also think he enjoyed the rocking horse, little rocking chair, hotdogs, chips, and fish snack crackers we ate at Nona and Dahju's house. I was worried that 5 hours in the car in one day would bother him, but I think he even enjoyed the car ride.

I did it, I broke down in the frozen food aisle of the grocery store and bought Jun Jun the ridiculous giant stuffed dog that he had grabbed, hugged, and kissed before I could stop it… and he loves it so much I can’t believe it. For the past 5 weeks Todd and I have been very careful NOT to buy him things he likes in the store. We just don’t want him to expect that we will buy him every little thing he likes when we’re in a store, but this time I just couldn’t say no, he just loved the dog too much. Now the dog has turned into “Jun Jun’s baby”, a riding toy, a doggie, and even a blanket.

In other news, we are working on daycare for Jun. It will not be long before he's in daycare full time. I know he'll eventually love it since he's such a social person, but for now he is not interested in meeting other kids, playing with other kids, or leaving our house for more than a few hours at a time. The first time Jun saw his daycare he loved it because of all the toys, the nice classroom, and big playground, but that visist the other kids were not there. Yesterday we went to the playground to meet the other kids. This visit did not go so well, Jun did not want to meet the other kids and did not want to play on any equipment with other kids. I told him we're going back this morning and he's not impressed... Hopefully it gets a little better each day.

More Ducks!

Last weekend Uncle Keith and Aunt Esther came up to visit us and see Jun for the first time. It was a beautiful summer day in NH so we sat outside and had a cookout. Keith brought some local corn which was awesome. We had kebobs, rice and corn. Esther’s parents were nice and gave Jun a present. He got his favorite, more ducks! He was so happy with the ducks that he wanted us to put the ducks in a “river” which was a large cooking pot. He played with these ducks all day, night, and the next day. When he went to bed he wanted the ducks to go with him. Kim had to put the ducks to sleep in the tub with a hand towel blanket on them to keep them warm. Of course when he woke up the first word was duckies.
Jun is increasing his vocabulary every day. He is starting to link three words together now and grunts less, which is good. His general attitude is happy but is still insecure. Yesterday he noticed a picture of me with one of my nephews. He was not happy to see me with another kid. He was so upset that he cried himself to sleep. Kim and I can’t imagine what must be going thru his mind but all things considered he is doing very well.

It's late in the summer, but I've been looking for crocs for Jun Jun and haven't been able to find them. Yesterday I was going to the grocery store with Jun (our first solo trip since Todd is now back at work) and we passed by a Walmart so I thought we could run in quickly to see if they had any crocs. I made a couple of big mistakes: I thought I could quickly run into a huge store like Walmart with a 3 year old. I also didn't know that I should grab a cart to put him in even if we were only going to buy one item. When we first got to the store Jun Jun ran around with delight! He seemed to be playing a game of tag with me and screamed with joy each time I ALMOST caught him, then he wanted to look at every item that has an animal on it (you wouldn't believe the number of items in Walmart that have animals on them), then when I finally grabbed him and carried him around the store he pouted and screamed, "No" about a million times. He thought it was a great trip to the store while I tried to sprint to the exit as quickly as I could.

We weren't successful in finding crocs, but we did find a great new umbrella for Jun. He loves it! Once we got home we took a walk and I let him carry it with him on our walk despite the fact that it was a perfect sunny blue sky day. He's so proud of his umbrella I just couldn't try to make him put it away. Anyway, he's so cute people just look at him and smile when they see this little boy with the huge smile stomping down the street proudly carrying his umbrella.

Oh, we did accomplish one important thing yesterday: we went to the Farmer's Market and Jun enjoyed his first whoopie pie. I know a whoopie pie is far from a proper dinner and we shouldn't have allowed him to eat it only about 1/2 hour before dinner, but we thought we would allow it this one time... also, Todd and I wanted one too :) Just as we had hoped, Jun Jun just loved his whoopie pie. He looked at it from all angles, took a bite, said, "ummm", smiled, then repeated this process 'til it was gone. I think I enjoyed watching him eat it as much as he enjoyed eating it!

A Visit from the Cousins

My sister and her 2 boys and my parents came for a visit over the past couple of days. We were a bit worried about how Jun Jun would handle meeting the boys, but he a great time! The cousins are ages 2 and 4 so Jun Jun fits right in the middle, I think they’ll all be good friends.
For the first few hours no one played together, but we saw some good potential when Jackson (the older cousin) gave Jun Jun his airplane to look at. Jun Jun reciprocated by letting Jackson use his Play-Doh. After that the kids played pretty well together for 2 days.
The only thing that made Jun Jun a little unhappy was when one of the cousins would dare to touch us… this was a bit difficult also for the cousins because we have always been very affectionate with them. If Jackson or Gabe touched even our hands Jun Jun would give them a dirty look, grab onto us, and say, “Jun Jun’s Mama/Baba”. He’s still very worried that we’ll leave him, but that seems to lessen a little each day.
For me this visit was a little strange because I felt like I never even got to talk to my sister. –It was the first time we’ve been together with both of us having children. I loved to hear Jun Jun call her Aunt Nicole and I loved to see her play with all the boys, but I still sort of missed sitting with her and a cup of coffee and having a long conversation about all that’s going on… a little selfish sounding considering how lucky I am, but… well, I wouldn’t trade my new life for anything, but I can miss some aspects of my old life too.