Coming home from Chicago
I arrived home from Chicago about 8 last night. It was very sweet. I came in, put all my stuff down, and went into the living room where Julia and David were cuddling on the sofa. Julia’s eyes lit up and she said "Hi mommy." I joined them on the sofa and we cuddled together until it was time to put her to bed. Julia went upstairs with me and we read three books.
Being gone for three days I notice everything!
We read The Seven Jewels, a Chinese fairy tale that we found in China. When I’ve read this before I’ve had to leave out a lot of the story because Julia was not patient about listening. I figure that she couldn’t understand much of what I read. Yesterday, however, I really read the entire book and she was very focused on what I was reading.
Julia also seems a lot calmer. As if something has clicked, the switch turned on, the light brightened. I don’t mean that she did not have moments of calm before – the moment have been growing, but last night and this morning, she seemed so much calmer and collected. She seemed very present and without the defensiveness that I usually feel. Like a fog has lifted, like she is seeing clearly for the first time.
She is still talking non-stop but more and more of it can be understood. She is very exact in her pronunciation and although words can come out strangely, like Mat-te-hew, she is working what she hears. I noticed her being more careful about Mommy and Daddy as well – no more confusion who goes by which name. And she refers to herself as a Mei-Mei (little sister), as well as Bye-Bye, and Julia. Last night she said, pointing to herself, "name Julia." She is claiming ground.
I notice her getting gentler (such a relief!). She reminds herself and us to "Be gentle," as we have reminded her many times and I seen her restraining herself when she starts to hit or move in the quick aggressive way that characterized her movement the last three months.
She did have a meltdown on Monday with David. He promise to take her to the kids museum and when they got there, he discovered it was closed. But he said that it reminded him that she had not had one of these in a long time.
I kow that there are more challenges ahead, but I have the feeling that boot camp is over.
Julia is as wonderful as we imagined that she would be -- and she has not been here for three months!
Thanksgiving
Our first major holiday with Julia went so much better than we could have imagined. We talked to Julia about our holiday and told her about all of our visitors for the weekend. She and I had a great time making the welcome sign and although it was our only real decoration (not counting a relatively clean house which is decoration enough for me), it set the mood of our home.
We were visited by Robin and her two kids who are close to Julia in age. Both Alison and Nathaniel were wonderful with Julia, playing with her and forgiving her for not always sharing or seeing the world as they see it. It was wonderful to watch the three of them play side by side and with each other. Julia’s lack of language was hardly at issue, although it is clear from her listening and her responses that she understands so much of what we say. (Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the three kids! Both Robin and I thought they’d make it over to our house again during the weekend. Darn!)
On Wednesday, Marcia picked Julia up from school, and she, Julia, and Matthew went to the kids museum. Marcia said that Julia did well, even though she had to be scooped up from the carousel and taken away. Julia came home saying both of their names. She gives Matthew’s name three syllables (Matt-te-yew) which is very cute (Later I realized that this pronunciation is a real attempt to pronounce the "th" in Matthew’s name). When Marcia left our house, Julia needed to watch the car leave the driveway and street, and stood by the door for awhile asking for Marcia.
Then on Wednesday late afternoon, Lisa and familia arrived. They had sent a short video, saying hello to Julia, the day before. Julia loved it and we watched the 30 second video over and over as Lisa, Nick, Sarah Grace, and Michael said hello to Julia over and over. By the time they arrived, I could tell that their faces were familiar, and we all settled into spending the weekend together very quickly. (Of course, this does make me think that if Julia had gotten our picture book before we arrived, our meeting might have been easier. Oh, well.)
Julia learned the kids’ names first, and was calling for Michael and Sarah throughout the house. It was Wednesday evening when Robin also came over. The five kids spread out over the living room, watching a movie, putting trains tracks together, and changing doll clothes. There was a nice symmetry to their play and the level of noise was not bad at all. I do understand now why it would have been somewhat easier to bring Julia into a big family. She definitely wanted to copy the behavior that she saw, and she had so many good examples to follow. She blended in with the scene and watching her no one would be able to tell that she had not been home 3 months yet.
Thursday, we cooked and ate and talked and played. Marcia and Matthew joined us for Thanksgiving, and Matthew and Michael hit it off. Before dinner, David and Nick took the kids to Holiday Park and they all enjoyed the playground and walking to the river. Julia especially enjoyed riding on Nick’s shoulders and now tells us to turn around when she wants to be picked up. Julia had no trouble with our Thanksgiving food. She still does not enjoy white potatoes, but she indulged liberally in everything else.
Julia likes to say grace. She loves holding hands around the table, and prompts us to do it a number of times during a meal. We say the grace from Madeleine, and at the end Julia repeats "each other" which is the last word. Lisa commented that "each other" makes a fine Amen. Who knows, we may enter religious life yet. I have to think that Julia is understanding something about being together. She says together many times, and so much and each other. I don’t think she understands complete meanings of these words and phrases but she does sense the community and the family of these words.
Julia is behaving like a very wise three-year-old these days. She acts immature for her 5.75 years, but her stubbornness or anger is tempered some with a knowledge or perspective that the normal 3 year old does not have. Her language continues to bloom – sometimes we don’t understand what she is say even though she is trying to speak English. It is interesting at times when she uses both Chinese and English to express her desires or demands. She says "Neow," her Chinese for bathroom, "pee," what we say at home, and now "potty" which is what they say in school. Amazing this triple attempt at communication.
She was pretty good going to sleep each night that company was with us. Generally, she stayed up later than usual but each time she went to bed before the others and did not complain. I did an abbreviated read with her the nights that I put her to bed and then just laid while she fell asleep. On Friday night, I was so tired that I probably popped off to sleep before she did. David woke me later to tell me to get to bed.
I did hate to see Lisa and family leave. I vow to find at least another time during the year to spend a long weekend together. Maybe we have to start taking a week during the summer together, maybe just another long weekend. I want Julia to grow up with Sarah and Michael as close cousins, and having more time with Lisa wouldn’t disappoint me either.
I am back in Chicago now and missing my girl and her Dad once again. I’ve been talking to Julia about twice a day. She seems eager at times, and willing the rest of the time to get on the phone. She has no more to say than the normal 5 year old and loves to play with the phone buttons.
I’ve started thinking about Christmas. What we want to do for it. A tree – of course, but I want so little this year in the way of gifts. I have so much already. 
Family!
This is the silliest picture that I've taken of my two darlings. Cheshire, Get home and stand in the middle!!!
weeknd after mommy is back to work
Another week has gone by and Julia now sounds like she is speaking some kind of English. What I mean is that even though we cannot understand most of what she says, and even if it still is Chinese words, the inflections and intonations sound like English. I didn’t notice this until I spoke with her on the phone this last week while I was away at work. She is not speak baby talk but it is very much like when kids pretend talk before they are actually saying words. I think that Julia is saying some kinds of words – some mix of English and Chinese, but it no longer sounds Chinese.
She is also using more and more words. She is interested in colors and counting and singing her ABCs. Julia has learned to ask for "help" and says she is hungry. Please and thank you are also coming along. There are time when I feel like Annie Sullivan! Tonight, David took the baked potatoes out of the oven. Julia touched one quickly with her finger and said "hot." I reached over to the Word Wammer on the frig and got the letters H -O-T and showed them to her and pronounced them for her and touched the potato again. Sometimes every thing is a teaching time.
She is learning to spell her name at school and can say the letters out loud and not quite write them. Today, I bought a big wooden J at Michaels, and she traced it on newspaper with crayons and then painted it. Julia loves tracing anything, especially her body parts. This started at the chiropractors when they had rolls of paper that they let Julia play with. Julia's painting is very young – she layered on the colors one after another, trying to cover the letter again and again. She was able to do some texturing with the brush and she seems to like that but she doesn't seem to have a sense of putting a color on and then decorating over it.
I started back to work this week – spending Wednesday through Friday up in Chicago. I was hoping that I could go two days a week in Chicago and three at home, but for the time being it will be the three days. It was good to get back to work – I haven’t enjoyed organizing cases and writing memos so much in years, but I did so miss Julia and David. It has been hard for David and I to be apart part of each week, Julia puts a new wrinkle into the mix.
We worried about how Julia would do without me. David is starting his family leave – he will be at home three days a week when I am in Chicago. Julia was fine the first day, but her behavior deteriorated during the second and third days. She also did a lot of testing of me when I got home, although she was happy to see me. We had a very hard weekend and getting her off to school this morning was a challenge. We will have to work at this and figure out new ways to deal with our being apart.
We started a "star chart" in the beginning of the week – a way to modify Julia’s behavior. We need to work on hitting. Julia does far too much of it and no form of discipline seems to be working. We started too ambitiously – telling her that she had to get 10 stars to get a prize – the prize being pretty hair clips. Between my starting back to work and David being a bit overwhelmed with Julia’s care, we could not be consistent enough for her to understand what was going on. I re-grouped today – making the prize smaller and the starts fewer. Now, she only needs three stars to win some ribbon for her dolls. She can’t wait to get her hands on the ribbon and hopefully she will tomorrow!
An annoying habit that Julia has is to ignore us when we call to her. She never answers to any name. There was a time when I thought it was her hearing, and we will have that checked, but I think she is just used to not answering. I have to try extra hard to be patient about this. We will work it out when we have more language between us.
We also found someone to help us with Julia. Dottie is a retired teacher who was Julia’s aid when she started school. She will be giving us two afternoons a week, and during the course of each afternoon, she will tutor Julia for about an hour. Dottie likes Julia and brings lots of materials for them to work with. Julia likes the work time, and I am trying to mirror some of that when Julia and I have long stretches of time together. She has so much to learn, but I don’t want to make every minute into school. Julia also needs time to play, to dress and undress her dolls, to put together her train tracks and see how many cars her battery driven engines can pull. I don’t know if we are hitting the right balance, and sometimes we are too tired to even think about balances. We do one day at a time.
I still worry some about Julia’s behavior. She has an aggressive streak and a demanding nature that make caring for her difficult. I hope she can mellow out in time – loosen up and let her guard down. I hope that it comes with time and our patience and love. We are getting to three months together and I can see how far we have come, but she is still a full time challenge every day. At times it does feel like too much. We love her so much but I had not counted on her being such a challenge for so long. I also cannot shake the fear that she has lived through too much to overcome. This is not a declaration of giving in or up, but a note.
Julia’s new love is dinosaurs which she calls "bones." There is a great bones exhibit at our kids’ museum and now every time we leave the house, we hear "bones, bones." David took her twice last week and I am sure she'll get there twice more this week. I am very willing to indulge this interest -- she is enjoying dinosaur books as well -- but her behavior at the museum is not always good. If it is over-stimulation, I don't know how to balance her interest with her reactions to the museum.
Another challenge this week will be the Thanksgiving holiday. Julia will be meeting a lot of new people this week. Robin and her kids will be out for the week, and we hope to see some of them. And on Wednesday, Lisa and family come out. I can’t wait for them all to meet Julia. I have been showing Julia pictures of who is she going to meet and trying to explain a bit about Thanksgiving. I hope that some of it is sinking in. I am sure this too will mean behavior changes. I have read and heard about the best thing for a new child in the family is a stable and almost boring home. I've always thought of our lives as stable and pretty boring -- I mean, no to us, but generally one could set their watch by our salad, broiled fish, or Indian take-out nights. Suddenly, I see so much variation, such lack of everyday same-ness. It is almost baffling. I can understand Julia's need for a regular day-to-day live, but how does a family provide it?
Saturday night movies
Two of mommy's favorite people, only one has a dirty face from ice cream for dessert. Daddy and his most recent movie watching campanion. The other one is far away but we are still thinking about her and missing her a lot!
Our little anniversary
It has been two months since Julia arrived home. TWO months. Just thinking about it is mind boggling. Julia has taken in so many new things and experienced so much in this short time. She has adapted and learned -- about us, our language, our customs, our house, our pets, school, phone calls with grandma, new friends, food, toys, books, books, books, the alphabet, numbers, animals, singing, dancing, the kids museum, the zoo, talking to her sister using a computer and camera, taking pictures, doctors, dentists, movies, pigtails, dress up clothes, our pond, fall, play dough, crayons, leaves falling off trees, wearing more and more cloths, cold, being told what to do and when to do it, freedom (in small doses), her own room, mommy and daddy's bed, western toilets and loud flushing, bubble baths, car seats, supermarkets and riding in the carriage, doll clothes, bubbles, and dresses. Have I scratched the surface? How is she taking it all in and making sense of it? And she is our baby, our mei-mei, and such a big girl.
More changes
I am normally in the grip of such optimism, but the weekend was not easy. Julia had a pretty good week. Halloween, as well as Wednesday and Thursday off from school, were all very fine. She had a stellar report from school on Friday, and her behavior at home was loving and calm. But her behavior on the weekend was a challenge. She was unable to be in the language class of Saturday's Chinese class without whining and crying. I took her out to another room and she had a mini-tantrum. She did manage to get back inside for the last 15 minutes. I was wondering if being with a group of Chinese kids reminds her of being in the orphanage, and the orphanage behaviors blossom. She was better for dance class although not as good as the last week. I think however that she is starting to be aware of when her behavior displeases me. She is very lovey and even says sorry after bad behavior. I do offer her lots of affection when she does this, and even when she is behaving badly, I tell her that I love her and want her to behave well.
Julia is fond of pointing to herself and saying "good girl," and she doesn’t try to do that when she is behaving badly. This changed yesterday when we were leaving the kids museum. She had trouble listening to our directions and I finally have her an ultimatum of listening or going home. She did not want to listen and so we started on our way out. She was not cooperative and sat on the ground just outside the museum. She did not want to go and cried -- no, yelled -- to go back in. She did this for a few minutes before giving in and following us up the parking ramp. As she was going up the ramp, she said over and over, "good girl." I said that she was not a good girl in the museum, but I honestly don't know if it was right to say that or to agree with her because was was walking up the ramp with us. So much I don't know.
Once again, I fell like I need to re-tool. When her energy is defiant and angry, I cannot add to it. Right now, it is my frustration that is getting the best of me. I can be calm when we are at home, or doing nothing inparticular, but when we are out or when I've planned something that I am just sure she will like, I do get frustrated that she will not follow my lead.
Julia is repeating sounds as she searches for the end of a words. It sounds somewhat like pre-stuttering, but I remember Cheshire doing somewhat the same thing when she was beginning to speak. Sadly, she is also doing this for the Chinese words that she has used so freely since we've been together. She is losing her Chinese. I cannot imagine the frustration for her. She is a very verbal child and here her words are disappearing. I know this is a necessary phase -- lose the first language before acquiring the second -- but how tough on this little one who cannot read the book that explains it all. It must be very scary for her.
My folks sent Julia a wrapped gift. We took off the brown paper and she just looked at the wrapped package. She liked the paper and the ribbon but didn’t seem to know that the paper had to come off. Daddy helped Julia take off the paper. Again, she had no idea of what to do, and Daddy helped her open the box. Once she saw the winter jacket, she was gleeful. We put it on her and she hugged herself in the coat. Later, when the coat was hung on the back of a chair, Julia went over and hugged it again.
A gentle reader of the blog has cautioned me not to take everything that Julia does so seriously. Ah, this is one of my real faults. It is something I’ve always done – making mountains out of mole hills and floods out of drizzles. Well, I can giggle sometimes and sometimes full out laugh at myself.
Julia’s behavior has not approve in the beginning of this week. She had a spotty day at school on Monday and Tuesday’s report was not at all good. On Tuesday it was warm enough not to wear tights under her dress, however, when DAvid picked her up after school, Julia’s teacher told him that she was picking up her dress a lot and not to send her in again without pants or tights. I think that they tried to put pants on her which I expect was awful! She has refused to put on pants for me since we met her. They told David that it was hard to get back on track after that. Well, I had told them she didn’t wear pants.
The day got no better as it went on. The kids museum was a mistake. I think we have to go back to spending more time at home doing small things – play dough, building, trains, painting, and writing. We also have the feeling that we are over stimulating Julia with too much stuff. She didn’t start out with too much stuff, but she’s gotten some gifts since she’s been home and there is not taking gifts away. Julia has also discovered little stores of Cheshire’s old toys, many meant for donation or a garage sale and has taken them on. And so, there may be far too many dolls, stuffed toys, play jewelry around. I am not sure how much stuff is too much, but maybe we are there. I will try sorting through stuff in the next few days and putting some of it away.
David has two days off this week and we are trying to transition her to care by both of us. David brought her to school today and will do so on Friday. I go back to work next week, and will spend three days in Chicago. I am hoping to go to working two days a week in Chicago, and I hope that Julia can deal with my traveling.
Okay, yes, I feel pretty guilty about going back to work. There is no question of whether I should go back to work, but that does not ease my guilt. I see her need, and I love this little girl. We will be forcing her to go through one more transition and I hope she is up for it.
Our Rose Princess' first Halloween
Julia had a very successful Halloween and I am over the doll thing. Well, almost. She wore her costume on Saturday to Chinese school and has been wanting to put it on every day since then. We almost had trouble getting her dressed for school yesterday but Julia gave in and put in a regular dress and tights with just a ballerina skirt underneath the dress.
Around dinner time, we picked up ShaDiamon who wanted to trick or treat with us and had some pizza for dinner. Then, we went upstairs to get dressed! Such joy you have never, ever seen. Julia wore her Rose Princess dress and ShaDiamon put on the medieval dress I made for Cheshire a long time ago. The night was warm enough that the girls could wear long sleeve shirts an longjohns under their costumes and still not wear coats. David and I took turns walking with the girls and staying home to service our own Halloween visitors.
Having ShaDiamon go with us was incredibly useful! And also fun. She modeled very fine Halloween behavior and Julia followed right along, She tried saying Trick or Treat, she picked out the appropriate number of candy pieces, or opened her bag to let the grownup put candy in it, she also said thank you, and also said bye-bye many times to each person. Julia also loved commenting on the costumes she saw with "beautiful" and "wonderful" being her most frequent comments.
And the candy! Julia had a little candy last night and we put her bag on top of the frig. I’ve told her she can have a piece as a dessert tody. We’ll see if she is able to pick out just a piece at a time to eat. And if she is willing to share with her parents.
We let Julia sleep in her costume. She wanted to so much and there was no real reason to take it off. So the kid who prefers to wear underwear to bed work the rose princess dress, long slever shirt, long johns, and socks. She is still in those things today and I am happy that we have no school today. She will need a bath tonight – and I insist that she takes baths totally naked.
