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-
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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.
Friday, August 27, 2010
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.
Monday, August 23, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, August 20, 2010
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!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Much better day
Yesterday was a much better day. We stayed around the house, read books, listened to music, ate lots of food, and watched a baseball game. Everyone had a much better day!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Not all days are good days...
We got up early yesterday with the plans of visiting a local farm. The farm is open to the public and sounded like the perfect place for our little boy who loves all things animals. We looked at pictures of the farm early in the morning and he was very excited to be going.
The visit started off well and Jun Jun was excited to see the horses, cows, sheep, and chickens. He looks at pictures of all these animals in books all the time, but seeing them live seemed to scare him a little. He didn't want to let go of our hands and didn't want to be put down to walk on his own. For the first couple of hours we indulged him and carried every step of the way. -But then we thought it would be a good idea if he walked a bit on his own... this is where things started to fall apart.
By the time we got to the icecream stand Jun Jun was in a bad mood and was screaming about little things that we couldn't even begin to understand. We went ahead and ordered icecream and sat down to eat it... we didn't get very far before Jun Jun was having an all-out tantrum -complete with foot stomping, red face, screaming, arm flailing, and tears. We tried to let it go for a few minutes, but it was soon obvious we just had to admit defeat, throw out the icecream and hit the road.
We decided to stop at the grocery store and pick up food for a "real lunch". We sort of felt guilty for trying to turn a bowl of icecream and animal crackers into lunch. (We thought we'd have real food for lunch after Jun's nap). We stopped to have a picnic lunch and Jun seemed to be in a better mood so we thought the rest of the day would go well. I felt terrible for trying to teach Jun my bad eating habits. -But then when we were leaving the picnic area another tantrum began. I'm not even sure what started this one, but it was much worse than the previous one so we just got in the car and started the trip home. It didn't take long for Jun to fall asleep and we hoped he'd sleep for a couple of hours and mabye wake up in a better mood.
When we got home we took him into the house, but that was a big mistake because he woke up and started screaming again. After about 1/2 hour he fell asleep laying on me. -I had things to do, but for the sake of a little peace I decided sitting in one place for a while would be fine. This was working out just fine until Jun Jun peed on me! -He's potty trained, but when he sleeps we usually put a diaper on him because he has "accidents". I tried to wake him up calmly, but before I knew it he was once again screaming, crying, kicking his legs, flailing his arms...
The day pretty much continued like this and finally ended with a monumental meltdown that took about 1 1/2 hour to come to an end.
We've done some thinking and realize that all 3 year old children have off days and all 3 year old children have lots of tantrums, but we also want to make sure we are sensitive to the fact that it was only about a month ago that he was removed from his orphanage and only about 2 weeks ago that we arrived home so we're going to slow down a bit and we're going to try to tighten up our daily schedule a bit, we're also going to be a bit more sensitive to the fact that our having to carry him usually only happens in new places now, so if he's feeling a little uncomfortable and wants us to carry him in new places we'll just have to do that. We've been taking a lot of little day trips and he's probably just as happy to sit at home with his new parents. Maybe this won't make a bit of difference and maybe he was just having a bad day, but he doesn't seem to need or want a big adventure on a daily basis.
So far today is a much better day. We started the day off with a nice breakfast, skipped church, and had a great little Etta James dance party! Not all days are good days and Todd and I won't always make the right choices. -Realizing that is not all that easy, we want to give Jun the best life we can give him.
Friday, August 13, 2010
We've been home for about 1 1/2 weeks and life with Jun Jun is starting to feel normal.
He still has a great fear of our leaving him, but other than that, things are going very well.
We have learned that we have to take him for a walk in the stoller immediately following lunch if we want him to take a nap, we have learned that if he doesn't get a nap he is no fun to be with at around 6PM, we have learned NOT to take him for a walk in his stroller after 6PM if he hasn't had a nap, we have learned that he doesn't like his vegatables, we have learned that he won't eat dinner if he thinks we're eating different foods than he is, we have learned to ignore him when he does certain naughty things and he corrects his behavior on his own... we're first time parents so obvious things to many are not so obvious to us.
Most of our days are filled with joy and I am amazed at how he's teaching me to slow down and enjoy the little things in life. The other day he was sitting in his stroller yelling at me when we passed a patch of yellow flowers. I stopped to pick one for him and was surprised that he was still screaming. As it turned out, he was looking at a dandelion that had passed. I picked it and gave it to him and watched his face light up when I blew on it. He screamed and laughed at seeing the flower blow away. I'm not really sure why we all think dandelions are so ugly, maybe we should enjoy them a bit more.
We have learned to communicate with one another pretty well, but I know he sometimes gets frustrated when he's trying to tell Todd and I something and we just don't understand. We see his little face get red and scrunched up as he stomps his feet. It usually passes, but I feel horrible that we can't respond to what may be a very simple question or statement. -Jun Jun's new favorite word is "beautiful". When we see the mountains or the lake he tells us it's beutiful, when we see the river he tells us it's beautiful, and when he sees an especially pretty flower he tells us it's beautiful. I love to hear him say the word and he uses it at just the right times.
Right now he's telling me he wants to go to the river so I've got to run!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Back Home
We left our hotel in Guangzhou, China at 6:30AM (China time) and we arrived at our door step at 1:00AM (EST). That means our journey took us over 30 hours to complete! We took a plane from Guangzhou to Beijing, then another plane from Beijing to Newark then it was a 6 hour drive home from there. -Jun handled the entire trip amazingly well except he wasn't happy about the seat belt in the plane and when he hit the car seat he freaked out. -I would bet he's never before had to deal with such things -no one in China wears a seat belt and the kids don't know anything about car seats.
I didn't sleep more than a couple of hours throughout the trip home so when we got here last night I couldn't even see straight. -Jun slept for over half the trip and his body is still on China time so when we got home at 1AM he was ready to play. He went crazy over the few toys we left out for the arrival. It was about 4AM before any of us got to sleep.
Todd and I were very worried about bringing Jun into our home since he was so upset when we arrived at the White Swan. Before we arrived in Inner Mongolia we sent Jun a picture book. We included lots of pictures of our house and cats in the book. When he arrived he had the book with him and it was obvious he had spent time looking at in preparation for joining our family. -He even recognized a shirt I wore in China from the picture book. He told me that by pointing at my shirt and then going to his picture book, finding the picture, and pointing at my shirt. Anyway, when we had free time throughout our trip we would look through the book. When we arrived here last night it was obvious he recognized the house, the rooms, and the cats. -He's a little afraid of the cats, but he was willing to pat the little girl cat today as long as Todd stood right next to him while doing it.
We picked 3 toys to leave out for him for our arrival home. We picked an elephant stuffed animal, a Tonka truck, and a Fisher Price farm set. The farm set was in the living room so we had to stop in the living room for about 20 minutes last night before heading upstairs. When we got to his room he stood there for a moment and said, "Jun Jun's" with a big smile on his face. When we walked into the room he went straight over to the Tonka truck and pointed. We laughed because we've been thinking he would just love the big truck. -But when we pulled the truck out he continued pointing as if we hadn't given him what he wanted. Finally we realized what he wanted was the umbrella that was hanging on the hook. He opened that umbrella and giggled while walking around the room with it. The other toys were just ignored for the rest of the night, he was happy with something as simple as a little umbrella! -Things we think are just functional as adults are great entertainment for kids. Then it rained a little today so we were able to take the umbrella outside and let him actually use it... He was the happiest I've seen him yet when he realized his umbrella was actually keeping him dry in addition to being fun to carry around.
For the most part today has gone pretty well. We've had a couple of tense moments and a couple of crying moments, but for the most part he's been pretty happy. Aunt Esther and Uncle Keith stocked the house with some good noodles and dumplings so, except for the missing the sausage, breakfast was exactly what Jun was used to eating!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Balloon explosion
Yesterday in an attempt to get Jun to walk more we bought him some balloons and guess what he did walk more. We went down the elevator and thru the hallway out the front door and outside, this is awesome we thought. Jun had the balloon between his teeth and was loving every minute of it. We had to get some currency from the bank next door so I walked up to the teller and started my transaction. A fellow adopting parent was there form NY and we started talking. Kim and Jun Jun were sitting quietly in the seats in back of us. Exchanging money takes a long time for some reason and I was talking to the NY guy when I felt a little taping on my butt. I turned around and Jun Jun was hitting me with the balloon. After having that bit of fun he went to sit with Kim again. We were ready to leave and their were steps going out of the bank so Jun wanted to be carried again. Ma Ma picked him up high and Jun held the balloon high to the low ceiling. All of a sudden we here this loud pop. The security guard almost drew his gun or hit the deck, he didn't know what to do but he was scared to death (and not impressed). Jun started laughing, and all us americans started to have a chuckle.
I have to tell you about all the amazing families here. We are actually a minority in the fact that we only have one child or one adopted child. We see families with two three kids all day long. I mentioned before that the White Swan hotel is where 90% of all american based adoptions end up. There is this guy from CO that has one deaf child which was adopted from the USA; he is now adopting a younger child (about 4) and and older kid who is 13 both of which are deaf. The 13 year old is so happy to have a family as he is at the age that he would be a life long orphan if he didn't get adopted this year. The Chinese adoptions are not like they used to be, from what we hear and see. A couple of years ago you could have a beautiful baby girl in good health in a short time period. Now families are waiting about 4 years average and most all the children have some sort of medical care issue. Mostly it seems that children have clef lips, heart problems or deformed limbs. Parents are also going solo and leaving the other parent at home. This is unbelievable to me but they are doing it. We have meet a lot of truly great people here and they are making a lot of kids very good homes.
Jun hales from Inner Mongolia, their are not many adoptions from this area. Our agency in NYC said that we are the first to have a child placed by them from there. In talking to a local street vendor that makes a living selling stuff to adopted families; he said that he would guess that we are about the 150th family to get a child from Inner Mongolia. Jun Jun is a real treat and he sure is a fighter. When we tell him no he will throw a fit, but he know better, but still cries. He is still testing us and for now we are giving him the benefit of the dout on most things. He is going through a rough time in his life. So we will pick flowers for him every once in a while. I mean, come on, flower was his first English word.
-Todd-
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I have to tell you about all the amazing families here. We are actually a minority in the fact that we only have one child or one adopted child. We see families with two three kids all day long. I mentioned before that the White Swan hotel is where 90% of all american based adoptions end up. There is this guy from CO that has one deaf child which was adopted from the USA; he is now adopting a younger child (about 4) and and older kid who is 13 both of which are deaf. The 13 year old is so happy to have a family as he is at the age that he would be a life long orphan if he didn't get adopted this year. The Chinese adoptions are not like they used to be, from what we hear and see. A couple of years ago you could have a beautiful baby girl in good health in a short time period. Now families are waiting about 4 years average and most all the children have some sort of medical care issue. Mostly it seems that children have clef lips, heart problems or deformed limbs. Parents are also going solo and leaving the other parent at home. This is unbelievable to me but they are doing it. We have meet a lot of truly great people here and they are making a lot of kids very good homes.
Jun hales from Inner Mongolia, their are not many adoptions from this area. Our agency in NYC said that we are the first to have a child placed by them from there. In talking to a local street vendor that makes a living selling stuff to adopted families; he said that he would guess that we are about the 150th family to get a child from Inner Mongolia. Jun Jun is a real treat and he sure is a fighter. When we tell him no he will throw a fit, but he know better, but still cries. He is still testing us and for now we are giving him the benefit of the dout on most things. He is going through a rough time in his life. So we will pick flowers for him every once in a while. I mean, come on, flower was his first English word.
-Todd-
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
July 30
Yesterday we went to the Consulate office for the swearing in. -After all the paperwork and years of working on the adoption it was a bit of a let down because the entire process only took about 10 minutes to complete and was very UN ceremonious. -Jun was a little nervous once we got there, I wonder what he thought was going on because he seemed very relieved once we left. It was sort of an official looking place with lots of parents and children so it would make sense that he was nervous.
The Swearing In meant that Jun did not get his nap yesterday and that meant that he was very grumpy by the time we hit dinner. He started the dinner off by insisting he sit on my lap then he dumped his apple juice all over the 2 of us. It startled me so I jumped up, that scared him and eventually lead to lots of tears. We finally got him settled down and got the mess cleaned up when dinner came. The dinner we ordered for him must not have been what he wanted because he just pushed it around on his plate and screamed whle Todd and I tried to eat. Family dinners aren't allway fun, right? -Once we walked out of the restaurant Jun became his happy self and screamed with joy when the pouring rain started hitting us on the head.
I think I've mentioned that Jun Jun won't walk around town on his own 2 feet, he always want either Todd or I to carry him. -Last night he decided he would walk on his own, but he actually wanted to run on his own. Todd and I thought that was a good idea and smiled behind him thinking our arms would soon be free... but then Jun ran directly for the road and we couldn't make him understand that he has to stay OUT of the road. When the words of explanation failed we had to just pick him up and run out of the road so the car coming toward us wouldn't hit him. Our fear scared him and now he won't think about walking. -Oh well, we'll try again soon.
We have our down moments, but for the most part we're all doing well. We've only been together as a family for a little less than 2 weeks and the entire time we've spent in hotel rooms and eating in restaurants. In just a few days we'll be home. Todd and I are very excited to get back, but Jun Jun really doesn't understand what home means at this point. I suppose he probably thinks our hotel room is home. I hope he isn't too scared once we get there. He loves flowers and with any luck my flower garden will still have a couple flowers. Surprisingly, a lot of the flowers we see down here are the same flowers we have at home. Everytime we walk by a new batch of flowers he screams with joy so maybe on Monday morning when he sees our flowers he will scream with joy. I know I'll be screaming with joy on Monday morning when I see my flowers and then make my way to see Linda at the coffee shop!
The Swearing In meant that Jun did not get his nap yesterday and that meant that he was very grumpy by the time we hit dinner. He started the dinner off by insisting he sit on my lap then he dumped his apple juice all over the 2 of us. It startled me so I jumped up, that scared him and eventually lead to lots of tears. We finally got him settled down and got the mess cleaned up when dinner came. The dinner we ordered for him must not have been what he wanted because he just pushed it around on his plate and screamed whle Todd and I tried to eat. Family dinners aren't allway fun, right? -Once we walked out of the restaurant Jun became his happy self and screamed with joy when the pouring rain started hitting us on the head.
I think I've mentioned that Jun Jun won't walk around town on his own 2 feet, he always want either Todd or I to carry him. -Last night he decided he would walk on his own, but he actually wanted to run on his own. Todd and I thought that was a good idea and smiled behind him thinking our arms would soon be free... but then Jun ran directly for the road and we couldn't make him understand that he has to stay OUT of the road. When the words of explanation failed we had to just pick him up and run out of the road so the car coming toward us wouldn't hit him. Our fear scared him and now he won't think about walking. -Oh well, we'll try again soon.
We have our down moments, but for the most part we're all doing well. We've only been together as a family for a little less than 2 weeks and the entire time we've spent in hotel rooms and eating in restaurants. In just a few days we'll be home. Todd and I are very excited to get back, but Jun Jun really doesn't understand what home means at this point. I suppose he probably thinks our hotel room is home. I hope he isn't too scared once we get there. He loves flowers and with any luck my flower garden will still have a couple flowers. Surprisingly, a lot of the flowers we see down here are the same flowers we have at home. Everytime we walk by a new batch of flowers he screams with joy so maybe on Monday morning when he sees our flowers he will scream with joy. I know I'll be screaming with joy on Monday morning when I see my flowers and then make my way to see Linda at the coffee shop!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
July 28
We just got the call that our Consulate appointment is over and everything went well. We didn't expect there would be any problems, but it's nice to hear it's all over. Now we just have to wait 'til Friday to get Jun's passport. -Then we are free to go. Unfortunately, we have to wait 'til Sunday to leave. The TA who booked everything for us told us we couldn't get a flight 'til then... 2 days doesn't sound like a lot, but I'd pay a lot of $$$ now to get a flight out on Friday night. I can't wait to be at home starting our "real life".
We just feel so lucky to have been blessed with such a wonderful little boy. I wish I could once again thank his caretakers. It's obvious they raised him with lots of love and care. I sometimes wonder if we're at all a dissapointment to him. I hope we can live up to his expectations of what a Mama and Baba should be. We try to give him lots of love because he can't really understand much of what we say. He seems to get frustrated with our inability to understand him at times, but for the most part we just do a lot of pointing and he does a lot grunting and things get worked out.
He is constantly concerned with food and he's eating a lot more than Todd and I are here. You should see him eat breakfast. He goes crazy for the sausage and dumplings! I'm afraid he's not going to be thrilled with our cereal and bagels once we get home. Yesterday I tried to give him a plate of fruit and a yogurt -he looked at me like I was crazy. Finally Todd gave in and brought him what he wanted. -I suppose we'll slowly have to encourage slightly better eating habits as time goes on.
This morning we had a minor meltdown when we were out walking. He had to go to the bathroom and doesn't understand that he can't just pull his pants down at any storm drain we pass. We try to let him know that we're heading back to a bathroom, but he doesn't understand why he has to wait. Some of that is language and some of that is what he's been used to doing when he's out and about. As Todd tells me, we're doing pretty well if that's the worst part of our day.
Now Mama and Baba need a trip to Starbucks for some coffee and a muffin. With any luck we'll make it through the trip without a muffin ending up in the coffee :)
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We just feel so lucky to have been blessed with such a wonderful little boy. I wish I could once again thank his caretakers. It's obvious they raised him with lots of love and care. I sometimes wonder if we're at all a dissapointment to him. I hope we can live up to his expectations of what a Mama and Baba should be. We try to give him lots of love because he can't really understand much of what we say. He seems to get frustrated with our inability to understand him at times, but for the most part we just do a lot of pointing and he does a lot grunting and things get worked out.
He is constantly concerned with food and he's eating a lot more than Todd and I are here. You should see him eat breakfast. He goes crazy for the sausage and dumplings! I'm afraid he's not going to be thrilled with our cereal and bagels once we get home. Yesterday I tried to give him a plate of fruit and a yogurt -he looked at me like I was crazy. Finally Todd gave in and brought him what he wanted. -I suppose we'll slowly have to encourage slightly better eating habits as time goes on.
This morning we had a minor meltdown when we were out walking. He had to go to the bathroom and doesn't understand that he can't just pull his pants down at any storm drain we pass. We try to let him know that we're heading back to a bathroom, but he doesn't understand why he has to wait. Some of that is language and some of that is what he's been used to doing when he's out and about. As Todd tells me, we're doing pretty well if that's the worst part of our day.
Now Mama and Baba need a trip to Starbucks for some coffee and a muffin. With any luck we'll make it through the trip without a muffin ending up in the coffee :)
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Worn out kid
Well we got our Papa John's pizza and it was awsome, Jun was so happy. He is starting to point to his mouth and gesture that he is eating when he gets hungry. This happens often. We all ate our pizza in the room where we have a small glass dinning table. We had to pick up the pizza in the lobby so we took Jun down there and he did not know what was going on but when he figured it out, boy was he happy. The last post I mentioned that we went to Jordon's gift shop and we bought Jun a hard plastic plane so he will be exceited to fly. While we were waiting for our pizza we were playing with the plane and he accidently flew the pointy end into my chin. It started to bleed a little and he felt so sorry for me that he held a napkin on my chin to stop the bleeding. He even kissed it to make it better. We can tell that his caregivers really loved him. Kim was looking thru the picture book that we sent to the orphanage for him and inside was a note to us from yet another caregiver asking us to send updated pictures of him in the furture.
After dinner we went for a walk around town as it was actually a nice night outside, this means that we didn't sweat until about a half hour of walking. We were walking around and we past our nightly eating spot called Lucy's, Jun started pointing to Lucy's then his mouth. Here we go again. We walked further and it was forgotten. I mentioned that he allways wants to be held, his new thing now is that when I switch arms he looks at the arm he was just in and if it is red and has sit marks on it he kisses it to make it feel better and switches to Kim to easy our load. But still doesn't want to walk. He fell asleep in my arms as we walked back to the hotel.
=Todd-
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After dinner we went for a walk around town as it was actually a nice night outside, this means that we didn't sweat until about a half hour of walking. We were walking around and we past our nightly eating spot called Lucy's, Jun started pointing to Lucy's then his mouth. Here we go again. We walked further and it was forgotten. I mentioned that he allways wants to be held, his new thing now is that when I switch arms he looks at the arm he was just in and if it is red and has sit marks on it he kisses it to make it feel better and switches to Kim to easy our load. But still doesn't want to walk. He fell asleep in my arms as we walked back to the hotel.
=Todd-
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Emperor Jun Jun
Our little boy eats like crazy. His normal day is breakfast at around 8:00 snak at 10:30, then mid lunch, then lunch, then snak then dinner. We can not beleive it. Today he had a breafast bigger than ours had some fried rice leftover, more fried rice leftover. While I was cleaning out a bag I put some mints on the table. After he was done with the second round of lunch he wanted a mint. Gave him one while we were coloring. He wanted another one and we said no. We stuck to our guns and had a crying baby with fake tears. We went for a walk with a screaming child and drew many stares. We went into a shop that we visited in the morning and he stoped crying as soon as we went in. We dropped our laundry to this guy named Jordan; he owns a store and his son's name is Jun, he was so exceited. He said Jun stands for handsome, we agree. We walked out with smiling singing baby, we did buy him a little plan so he will like flying again. We deceided to go out for dinner and tried to remember how to get to this one section of town. Jun was singing the whole way at the top of his lungs. Everyone was smileing at us. We never found a restraunt that suited us so we ordered Papa John's pizza, we don't even have that in Claremont.
We have heard that adopted chirldren want to eat all the time because they don't know when the next meal will arrive. This is sad and we don't want to starve him (we don't so don't worry) but we don't want to gorge him at the same time. Growing pains for us all.
He still wants to be held all the time and he is getting heavier. Good thing though is that he wants Mommy to join in the carring of the Emperor.
-Todd-
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We have heard that adopted chirldren want to eat all the time because they don't know when the next meal will arrive. This is sad and we don't want to starve him (we don't so don't worry) but we don't want to gorge him at the same time. Growing pains for us all.
He still wants to be held all the time and he is getting heavier. Good thing though is that he wants Mommy to join in the carring of the Emperor.
-Todd-
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Monday, July 26, 2010
Chinese medicine marker
Today we went to a local shopping area. Needless to say it's still hot but our tour guide and fellow adopting couple acted like it was nothing. The family we went with have allready adopted two childern and are here for their third girl. They are from AZ and the two older girls are reliving the past with a tour of what they went thru years ago. The shopping market had trendy little shops selling shoes, clothes, and toys in one section an animal section with many vendors selling goldfish, hampsters, cats, cute dogs. and tutrles and still another section selling Chinese medicine, the smells here ranged form plesant to awful. Bags full of spices, teas, snake skins, dried turtles, and things our guide didn't even know. Here the vendors let us take pictures knowing that we wouldn't buy much except the tea and spice vendors jumped with calculators in hand to type out the prices of the goods for sale. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the local Starbucks and it felt just like being in the USA. I was telling Kim how perfect Jun Jun is and all of a sudden he dunked half of a muffin into my coffee. He laughed out loud and we tried to keep from laughing.
-Todd-
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-Todd-
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Sunday, July 25, 2010
Tweenier
Jun Jun is little enough to want a crib but too big for most baby cribs. He perfers to sleep in a big crib. When we arrived at the White Swan hotel they only had a little crib and we got the no head shake. So Jun has been sleeping between Kim and I. He tosses and turns until he gets comfy, this may take up to an hour. One position is to lay on top of our chests. Once asleep we wake up and try to write on the blog for everyone so please excuse any typos, as it's hard for me to see the keys in the dark. Jun Jun is a wonderful little boy, he has so much personality and everyone here wants to look at him, locals and the many American couples alike. We have only seen one kid to rival his cuteness. Note to my Mom-he can give eyes with the best of them.
Guangzhou reminds us of a little beach town with no beach or a summer resort town like Key West. It has plenty of palm trees and everyone is planting flowers, which Jun likes to pick. Where we are is actually on an island but it looks more like two rivers to me. It is so hot and muggy outside that Jun Jun goes from walking and clowning around to stopping right in front of us for him to be held. Once on board his head starts to bob and fall asleep. We go for short walks and head back to theh hotel to wake up. There is a park next to the hotel which has a nice view of the river and all the game playing and more dancing. Tomorrow we are going to a market to shop so we hope it's not too hot. Most retailers here know English and make us feel at home. Actually the White Swan hotel is where most of the USA familys end up because the U.S. consulate is here. There is plenty of markets and shopping cartered to Americans like Lucy's, there was a Maine licence plate on the wall that Kim sat next to. You can get a hamburger, grilled cheese, PB&J or any other food your used to.
-Todd-
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Guangzhou reminds us of a little beach town with no beach or a summer resort town like Key West. It has plenty of palm trees and everyone is planting flowers, which Jun likes to pick. Where we are is actually on an island but it looks more like two rivers to me. It is so hot and muggy outside that Jun Jun goes from walking and clowning around to stopping right in front of us for him to be held. Once on board his head starts to bob and fall asleep. We go for short walks and head back to theh hotel to wake up. There is a park next to the hotel which has a nice view of the river and all the game playing and more dancing. Tomorrow we are going to a market to shop so we hope it's not too hot. Most retailers here know English and make us feel at home. Actually the White Swan hotel is where most of the USA familys end up because the U.S. consulate is here. There is plenty of markets and shopping cartered to Americans like Lucy's, there was a Maine licence plate on the wall that Kim sat next to. You can get a hamburger, grilled cheese, PB&J or any other food your used to.
-Todd-
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Saturday, July 24, 2010
July 25
It is HOT in Guangzhou! It's hot and humid here, I think it may even be worse than summer in Baltimore!
Yesterday we had to take a short walk to get Jun Jun's picture taken for his Visa and then walked a little further to get his medical exam done. He was very tentative once we walked into the medical clinic, but he held tightly to his Winnie the Pooh snuggie (thanks Becky and Eme) and that seemed to help him help get through. -The only time he really cried was when we got to the room where they do the TB test. -Once he saw that siringe come out he was history. He took off running before we even saw what was going on. It took both Todd and I holding him before they could get the needle in safely. Once it was all over he insisted on having them wipe the little drop of blood him arm and then he was good to go. Todd and I are so impressed with his ability to handle all the things that are going on. He seems to recover quickly from things.
We walked around town a bit after that and then stumbled upon the Starbucks! -The coffee was wonderful! Todd and I each got a little pastry treat and Jun Jun ate a sausage filled pastry. -The kid cannot get enough sausage! I suppose once we get home we'll have to tame his sausage habit, but for now it's easy and he enjoys it so we're just going with the flow. For dinner we went to the famous Lucy's where Jun Jun ate every bit of his plate of food that consisted of chicken nuggets and french fries... after dinner he even ate a bit of icecream. He seems a little less impressed with icecream than sausage, he didn't even finish the bowl he had. He was more interested in feeding the icecream to Todd and I than to himself. At first we thought feeding us was a really sweet habit, but now we've come to realize that it's something he does when he doesn't really want the food that's in front of him.
Each day Jun Jun seems more and more comfortable with us. He's even learned a few English words: flower, tractor, and bye bye. His sense of humor is incredible and his smile is worth every bit of time and effort it has taken to get to this point.
Right now Jun's handing my shoes so I think he's finished resting and ready to head back out to the heat.
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Yesterday we had to take a short walk to get Jun Jun's picture taken for his Visa and then walked a little further to get his medical exam done. He was very tentative once we walked into the medical clinic, but he held tightly to his Winnie the Pooh snuggie (thanks Becky and Eme) and that seemed to help him help get through. -The only time he really cried was when we got to the room where they do the TB test. -Once he saw that siringe come out he was history. He took off running before we even saw what was going on. It took both Todd and I holding him before they could get the needle in safely. Once it was all over he insisted on having them wipe the little drop of blood him arm and then he was good to go. Todd and I are so impressed with his ability to handle all the things that are going on. He seems to recover quickly from things.
We walked around town a bit after that and then stumbled upon the Starbucks! -The coffee was wonderful! Todd and I each got a little pastry treat and Jun Jun ate a sausage filled pastry. -The kid cannot get enough sausage! I suppose once we get home we'll have to tame his sausage habit, but for now it's easy and he enjoys it so we're just going with the flow. For dinner we went to the famous Lucy's where Jun Jun ate every bit of his plate of food that consisted of chicken nuggets and french fries... after dinner he even ate a bit of icecream. He seems a little less impressed with icecream than sausage, he didn't even finish the bowl he had. He was more interested in feeding the icecream to Todd and I than to himself. At first we thought feeding us was a really sweet habit, but now we've come to realize that it's something he does when he doesn't really want the food that's in front of him.
Each day Jun Jun seems more and more comfortable with us. He's even learned a few English words: flower, tractor, and bye bye. His sense of humor is incredible and his smile is worth every bit of time and effort it has taken to get to this point.
Right now Jun's handing my shoes so I think he's finished resting and ready to head back out to the heat.
The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started.
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