Waiting for Hari

New Blog!!!

2007-05-01T22:21:00.000-04:00

It is time to move on. We are no longer waiting for our Hari, not waiting at all. We are moving fast and furious. I want a new place that is more like what I am feeling. So, come and check out Spicy Dragons and Dinosaurs at http://spicydragon-sb.blogspot.com/.

We're goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo

2007-04-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

At the Indy Zoo today with hords of other people. Julia took her first ride of the year on the merry-go-round on the biggest butterfly she's ever seen. We also went to the White River Garden's butterfly exhibit and Julia ran after on butterfly after another.

A new hat for Julia. A cap! Just like mommy and daddy wear.

Julia could not ignore all the pretty flowers that are blooming at the zoo and the gardens.

Friday afternoon in the pond

2007-04-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

School is out for the week; the sun is shining; the water in the pond is getting warm.
Let's get wet!

Kicking is so much fun.

Why aren't the fish more friendly?

Wet from head to toe but not ready to go inside.

Balance & Birthday

2007-04-18T13:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I broke up with my Madison Realtor and found out that we will probably not get the cohousing house. My list of house fixes for our Indy home is still not short. Generally, not real good. But Julia said in the car as we were straping in to go to school, "Mommy, okay, I go Madison. I go Daddy." And the day ended with a long walk with Julia and the dog. So, there is some balance.

Today is Cheshire's 22nd birthday. How she got this old, I have no idea! My first baby. I love you so much, boo. I can't wait until you are in the states again!

two new favorite pictures

2007-04-12T23:38:00.000-04:00

I cropped this picture because I like it and because it is such a good view of Julia's missing teeth. Yes, that is three spaces and we can see the new teeth coming in.

Julia loves, just adores rocking in this chair that we brought back from Costa Rica. About two weeks ago when the weather was warmer and Julia didn't have to wear tights and heavy clothes, she couldn't have been happier.

Hunting for eggs

2007-04-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

On Easter, we went to Marcia's house for a brunch and an egg hunt. The hunting would have been outside except for some really nasty weather. No matter, Julia got into looking for the hidden eggs with her trusty helper.

Julia found more than a dozen eggs with a few hints along the way.

If the hunt was fun, the basket was even better. The bunny brought Julia her own pair of ears, a copy of the movie, Spirited Away, a new truck, her first pez dispenser and of course, some candy.

2007-04-12T23:18:00.000-04:00

I haven't be able to post pictures for a few weeks because I lost the cable that connects the camera to the computer. It probably got packed in one of those 92 boxes that left the house a week ago.

So, just before Easter Julia received a package from Bobja.

Julia now understands that packages that are addressed to her need to be opened.

Something silver surrounded by tissue. Cool!

Julia's very own babka. She has enjoyed it all week with butter, jelly, or peanut butter.

Moving 1

2007-04-06T12:38:00.000-04:00

92 boxes and three pieces of furniture left the house today. The futon couch and David’s drum set have been sold. Great Nana’s livingroom set will be put on craig’s list tonight. We are decluttering. I have the kitchen, dining room, and back room to clean and prepare and lots of mulching to do in the gardens. The shingles for the new roof arrived yesterday and will fly to cover the roof next week some time. I am hoping for an open house on April 22.

The sadness of leaving this house and the upheaval of the move hit hard on Wednesday and I was dumped into heaviness that I did not expect. Today, I see how much I have done and that we are really on this journey to Madison. Now, all I have to do it sell this house, buy the new house (where ever it is), pack up, and unpack. It is going to be a good summer.

Hugs and Kisses

2007-04-05T14:52:00.000-04:00

Julia is now volunteering to give hugs and kisses. She has received many, many from us and watches our behavior carefully. What is better than feeling little arms sneak around your neck and two little lips plant a kiss on a cheek. Almost seven months home and what a joy!

Madison -- 3

2007-04-02T10:03:00.000-04:00

April 1, 2007

I am not sure whether we have found our house or not, but for the first time in this house hunt, we saw a house that could be our home. Funny how that is. We have looked at a dozen properties – some awful, some perfectly fine, but none that fit. None that we would not have to squeeze our lives into, expanding where we usually like small and cozy, and shrinking where we usually like to throw our arms out to dance.

Looking at a house is like trying on party dresses, something that I do not often do. Does the dress fit? Does it pass the ‘I can’t believe she is wearing that’ test? Will I recognize myself in the mirror with this on? Will I feel lovely with this on?

The fact that this house is part of a co-housing community is another very interesting part of the hunt. I have researched co-housing years ago but with no community in Indy, there was nothing to consider. This is an established community and seems to be run along almost family lines. People eat together twice a week, cooking in teams, ownership is along condominium terms with common space on one floor of a new building and all outside space. I have been thinking that I wanted a smaller garden space with this next house in order to move more into the community. With the house, we looked at today, we might have a small garden plot for vegies but no other exclusive space. I am sure I could weed and work on the common grounds, but there would be no private garden and I chafe just a little with that thought.

We met two members of the community, and liked both of them. There seems to be a good range of ages in the 18 households and a number of kids, but if any age dominates, it is an older one. Decisions are made by consensus which has the ring of challenge. Interestingly, there is a membership process that David will have to go through mostly without Julia and I. David has been skeptical of my desire to live in a community like this, but he is the one who will be living in Madison almost full time and the one who will have to get to know the members to see if we could fit in.

I don’t say this is a done deal, only that it is a real possibility.

The house is from the 20's and brick. It has a four-by-four feel - very sturdy and square – but there are three not four big rooms on each floor. The ceilings are tall and there is an expansiveness to the rooms, the Chi flows well in this space. There is a front porch that has been converted to three season space, a front hall, a living room with fireplace, a dining room divided from the living room by wood shelves and short fat columns (like in the Kawensky’s old house), and a kitchen which needs redoing on the first floor. The second floor has three bedrooms, all of good size and all with one closet – David and I will have to get another closet unit for our room. The bathroom is usable but really needs to be done over – I imagine I could be tiling by year’s end! The bathroom is large enough to do a separate tub and shower if we wanted that. There is also a walk up attic that was used for an office/bedroom space. It needs work as well, but it is a good space. It feels right, as if we entered and asked ‘are you my home?’ and it sang back a ‘yes’.

The community is built in a U-shape with the inside of the U a common garden space. There are two older houses – the one we looked at is a single family dwelling, another older and much larger home is divided into two dwellings, and three new buildings which contain 16 units of single floor or townhouse dwellings. Each family owns its own living space and a ‘share’ of the common space. In the curve of the U sits the building where the common house is located. That is a ground floor space with a great kitchen, a dining space, a small lounge, 2 kid spaces ( one with toys that reflect that the kids that use it are boys or non-frilly girls. Also, that the toys provided are not all plastic and television inspired which I like a lot), and two guest rooms.

We see a few more houses tomorrow in this whirlwind weekend trip before heading back to Indy at noon. My feeling of dread of never finding a new home has lifted some. This is not a dune deal by any means. David must feel comfortable with this kind of living arrangement, we have to meet the people and see if we want to share the large space with them and if they want to share it with us, and we have to see the parents here and how all of the people treat the kids of the community. Intellectually, I am sure that this type of living arrangement that we would thrive in, but we must now decide whether we want to be here and whether committing ourselves to a community of people is something that is right for the family right now.

Place just right?

Julia had a pretty good day, by the way. There was the five hours driving up; the short unpacking of stuff into David’s apartment, and the house hunt. She endured all. On our way up, she played with her dinos and people and very confidently told us that we were going to Madison. She ran around each house we saw, and really enjoyed the kids’ play room in the common house. She had gumbo for lunch and great Korean food for dinner. We will not run out of new restaurants to try for a long time in Madison. She hugged some of the people she met and ignored others. And way after her bedtime, she snuggled down in the middle of our bed and went to sleep.

the morning report

2007-03-27T09:36:00.000-04:00

Gosh, it is so hard to keep the faith. No wonder Thomas insisted on feeling the holes in Christ's hands and feet before he believed in the resurrection! I am just needing to believe that I will finish taking care of this house and selling it, that we will find the house in Madison that whispers to us to come live there, and that by mis-summer we will be happily settled in the new home. Could I have ever believed in resurrections? Right now, my concerns seem as fantastical an the apostles. No blasphemy meant here, just wonder at what we humans are capable of believing.

Crocus are fading, daffodils are singing, and forsythia is shouting. We are reveling in the unseasonably warm weather. Julia seems so much happier in lighter clothing and now she can wear some of the clothes we bought in China and she is beside herself with joy. She sings her first song as she gets dressed. She also loves this funky spring jacket which looks like it is made of an old bedspread with ruffles. She also also lost another tooth -- front and center on the top. I wondered if she could still eat apples and corn -- two very favorites -- and she demonstrated last night that corn on the cob is no problem at all.

10 years ago

2007-03-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

This morning I pulled a black tee shirt out of my drawer and pulled it over my head all before I realized that it was the souvenier shirt from Cheshire's Carnegie Hall debut. Ten years ago almost to the day, the Sycamore School Band, with Cheshire playing the trumpet (3rd chair, I think) played in a National Invitational High School Band competition. Our band was only in middle school but they played their hearts out with Paula Faire conducting. The band sounded better than it ever had -- the acoustics and the ghosts of that hall? As the kids walked off the stage the parents and friends stood and clapped until each kid was off the stage. Paula left the stage as well but forgot her music on the music stand. She came back to retrieve her music and we stood and clapped for her again.

Good times, as Cheshire would say, good times.

Julia lost another bottom tooth two days ago. Now she has spaces on both sides of her two adult teeth on the bottom. Today, one of her top front teeth is very lose. It almost hangs and when she smiles she can have quite a snaggle tooth look.

We cleaned inside yesterday and outside today. Julia pulled out all of her toys and played. We took breaks and played with her, but she occupied herself most of both days. And we needed this to get the house ready for sale.

playing!

2007-03-23T22:02:00.000-04:00

Julia and I went to the Holiday Park Nature Center with Toby and her Elana, and Nicole and her Ava and Sarah. We were supposed to to play in the park but it was raining. Still, we all needed to get out to so something. The Nature Center is greatly improved since I was there last. In the courtyard, there is a fountain with a very large stone ball which revolves as the water comes up from beneath it. Julia loved this and tried to stop the ball.

Inside, there is a good sized kids' room. There are tanks with frogs, snakes, lizards, fish, and bugs in them. Julia could name most of the animals and she was very proud of herself. There is also a large fake cave, a puppet theater space, and a table and chairs with books and puzzles around it. I brought apple and raisons, Nicole brought packs of cookies.

Most exciting though was that Julia was able to play with Elana. They ran in and out of the cave, screaming to hear their own echos, carrying the stuffed animals to and fro to make a display for us to see. This was the first time that I have seen Julia really connect with another child. It was not careful conversation but joyful play and I was so very happy to see it.

She was also willing to take some direction from Ava who is as old a Julia but much more mature. Ava wanted to play school and although school did not keep Julia's attention for very long, Julia was listening.

Thoughts of moving on

2007-03-23T10:19:00.000-04:00

I am thinking of stopping this blog and moving on to another. My thoughts and our stories are re-focusing to the entire family instead of consentrating on Julia. Also, our adventures with this move and our new home town seem far removed to waiting for our Hari. And maybe waiting for anyone else is just over. My friend, Candace, asked me that a while ago, and I think I answered that I would change the blog when I knew that our family was complete or that we thought our wait was over. Right now, we are not really waiting for anyone, we are feeling pretty complete. So it might be just time to move on.

Where might be a question as I want to try something new. Anyone with ideas of where to host a new blog could comment, please.

Julia has had a rocky week after our trip to Madison -- bed time has been difficult, she is hitting and pushing some in school, and now she has an awful rash on her back. She seems out of sync with her whole world. No question but that she is reacting to all the transition here. Still, she is loving -- giving more and more kisses and hugs to us, generous -- sharing her food and toys with us, and smart -- beginning to us prepositions (although she really gets them mixed up -- so cute, I have to say). Her swimming is getting better and she is responding to her teacher more and more. I still have her in private lessons but I am thinking of move her to group lessons this summer. I am also thinking of sending her to soccer camp once we move to Madison.

Just another ordinary day

2007-03-21T22:01:00.000-04:00

Today, I turned a magical, secret hiding place into an ordinary closet. The lovely sprite who made and used what is now a closet is so far away that only dribs and drags of her magic lingers. Then I washed walls, dusted furniture, cleaned windows, washed a carpet, and moved a small bookshelf.

Day by day, a little more gets done. The goal is to be done in less than a month and then the market.

We came back from our Madison weekend ready to make an offer on a sweet house in Monona, but the offer was not in the Seller's hands for less than 24 when it was rejected flat out. It was overly optimistic to believe that we could do it in two weekends, especially with our parameters -- a certain list of schools and an old house and within our budget. Too much to ask? I hope not.

Madison the second

2007-03-18T23:03:00.000-04:00

We spent another long weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. It is colder there -- the day before we left Indy it was 75 degrees. Yes, freaky indeed, but we were quickly sobered by the small piles of snow still remaining in Wisconsin. Although cold, the days were beautiful. Great skys! Julia wore her new spring shoes, her first which were bought after measuring her feet and trying on a few pairs. This was our first successful foray into a mall. There was an ice cream stand right outside the shoe store and I promised her a cone if all went well. We bought two lovely pairs of shoes that have lots of support for my little girls flat feet.

David and Julia posed on the steps of the Wisconsin State Capital. David's new office is across the street but he says he has a great view of the capital building.

And what a sky!

Julia is holding a small plastic box that contains the Littlest Kitty Shop. I bought this as her traveling present and she loves it. It is so tiny and there are three very, very tiny kitties with a place for them to eat, shower, sleep and show off. It has diverted her attention for long talks and slow looks at different houses.

On Sunday, Julia, David, and I went to the Olbrick Gardens Spring flower show with Robert and Mary. The days warmed up nicely and it felt good to be outside.

Here is Julia trying to figure out this sculpture. I wonder if she is thinking about getting enough clay together to do a big project like this one.

This was trying to get the three of us together. Not so easy when you have a squirmy worm to deal with.

We think we may be making an offer on a house in Monona on Tuesday. We need a few prayer and good wishes our way to make this decision.

Househunting and questions

2007-03-16T06:03:00.000-04:00

Julia is asking questions. I think her first question was "How?" when she couldn't turn on the diningroom light. Her favorites seem to be "Are you okay, mommy?" And when she meets a new person, "My name Julia. Your name Julia?" Cute beyond measure. Language continues to explode exponentially. It is both logical and amazing. She points out everything she knows -- she is like a language lesson gone right! She comments on fast cars, on green lights, on colors of buses and trucks, on what is hanging on the wall, on what people are wearing. She is doing instinctively what language lessons try to make students do.

We are up in Wisconsin, househunting. The great ones are too expensive; the awful ones . . . We did see what may be a diamond inthe rough today, but we are not sure we want to go that way again. Another day of looking tomorrow and a few very good possibilities to see! We are hoping for a decision this weekend.

My spicy dragon was incredibly patient throughout the day; however, at one very nice house (that is just not our style and so no chance of making an offer there) she picked an orchid from its plant. This was late in the day and she had been so good the whole day that I wasn't watching her as closely as usual. She brought the orchid to me and told me how beautiful it was. I felt awful. The owner is obviously a plant person and will be plenty upset, I am sure. Of course, thiswas a house that asked us to remove our shoes just inside the front door. But there was nothing to be done.

So sometimes . . . .

Day 2 at the beach - in control!

2007-03-08T08:43:00.000-05:00

Teaching Daddy just what you need for proper sand work

Always in charge of the operations

Don't let the cut bucket fool you, she is building a masterpiece.

Is the sand from here the same as the sand from there?

Grandpa's birthday

2007-03-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

And here is the picture worth at least 2,000 words!

Day 1 at the Beach for the Spicy Dragon

2007-03-06T22:04:00.000-05:00

The sand was an immediate hit but . . .

The moving water was something.

So she spent some time working the sand and . . .

Before lunch she was learning to jump the waves.

On th town in Florida

2007-03-06T21:51:00.000-05:00

Daddy and his little girl ready to go out on the town in Florida.

Nothing like a new hat!

Daddy's hat

2007-03-04T15:11:00.000-05:00

Winning the grandparents

2007-03-03T04:49:00.000-05:00

"She is such a hand full."
"Does she ever sit down?"
"Why is she so curious?"
"Where do you find the energy?"
"Where do you find the patience?"
"I couldn't stand it."
"Why did you go and have another child when you were done already?"

My inlaws managed to get past preliminary greetings and onto the jucier topic of our Julia within 5 minutes of our arrival. And Julia was being incredibly well behaved!! She was exploring the house, but she had also greeted her grandpa (for the first time) with a hello and a big hug, and had gone searching for her grandma who was in another room. Julia, not daunted in the least by their reaction, found the candy dish and brought pieces back for all of us, and then snuggled between grandma and grandpa on the couch. No matter what her behavior on any day, there is no question about whether our 6 month home daughter wants a family and will make herself part of ours.

There is no way to explain 'another child' sometimes, especially a child who is not a cuddly little bundle wrapped in soft pastel but a spicy dragon girl whose enthusiasm overflows.

They were still dubious when they took us all to dinner at a Florida Deli. Julia prounced the chicken soup "so good" and thanked everyone who had anything to do with her dinner. She dutifully tasted Daddy's fish, Grandma's chicken, and ate all of the grapes out of Mommy's salad. She inhaled two black and white cookies after the meal and managed not to clutch the second one while she ate the first. It was a late meal for her and after a day of traveling she was tired and antsy, but Julia sat pretty quietly through most of the meal, coloring on the kids' menu and ocasionally climbing into her mom or dad's lap. The waiter decided he wanted to adopt from China.

"I guess you missed the love of a little girl."

Okay, this is not unconditional grandparental love being declared but compared to the negative feedback we have received from these grandparents, we are definitely making progress. She has a way, our Julia, of asking for and getting what she wants. She has a fountain of love inside of her (and we have so little idea of where it comes from or who fed it before we arrived in her life) that she is so so very willing to share with those she wants in her circle. And I am very proud and happy that she decides each day to share it with us. Now, just wait until she sings Happy Birthay, Grandpa tomorrow night.

A bit of a late posting

2007-03-03T04:43:00.000-05:00

February 27, 2007

Julia plays in the bath tub with what must be thousands of little figures and some stacking cups. The tiny dinosaurs fight or dance or talk to one another. Beauty and her Beast join in the dancing and one or the other of them slips into the water and needs rescuing. The fishy bath toys swim and talk, sometimes get strung together and usually serve double duty as squirters. Sometimes the floor gets very wet and most of the time Julia gets clean, her hair gets washed, and the toys get put away in her big green bucket.

We have been doing 15 minute swimming lessons at our JCC. Julia is not very willing to work with her teacher, Sally, but she is learning to paddle and kick. Like Cheshire, Julia is very willing to take direction and tries whatever her teacher or I tell her to do. She likes to swim. When she has a noodle tied around her, she can move pretty quickly and she loves to chase and be chased. I hope that we are close to a good pool anywhere we end up this summer.

School is moving along. I don’t think that Julia really gets any ESL training as part of her short school day but her understanding and use of language in school is improving. I watched one day as her teacher called out from across the room that Julia should not put a pencil in a doll house. Without missing a beat, Julia took the pencil out and put it away. She does not bring home the quantity of art work and work papers that most kindergarteners do, but last week she was very proud that she pasted cherios in two big circles on her "O" page. In the last week, Julia has shown a bit of separation anxiety when I leave her off at school. When I walk her to the classroom she will stand at the door and watch me walk back down the hall, calling out to me a few times to turn around and wave and throw kisses. Does she now realize that I go somewhere else when she is in school? She is always very happy to see me when I pick her up, and picking her up at 2 gives us some time to do something – swimming, kids museum, or visiting – or to go home and cuddle on the couch and watch a movie.

Julia has been watching some of the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese film maker. The films are whimsical and not Disney-fied. The world is still very pretty but not flashy. There is magic and lots of flying things, some fighting as well, and good endings. She has two favorites right now – Porco Roso and Tortoro. The first about Italian air pirates between the wars and the second about a family settling into a new house and getting to know the local deities.

This afternoon, Julia went into the refrig and was rummaging around making a lot of noise. I called out to her and she shut the door quickly and came into the living room looking guilty. She was chewing a giant wad of something and was unable to answer when I asked her what it was. So much was in her mouth that she could not really close it completely and I could see that she has prunes in her mouth. I asked her how many she had taken and she held up four fingers. So, yes, prunes are a favorite treat but much more importantly, she answered with a number. This is a first. Yeah, numbers!

Julia is using more and more sentences that she makes up. They are short and to the point and usually missing some words but she uses her sentences instead of single words. At times, she stutters when she speaks. As a stutterer, I am probably over-sensitive to her speech and worry more than any fluent person. We do nothing to stop her from speaking and let her take all the time she needs to get words out. She doesn’t do it all the time and although I think that she elongates her syllables when she is using new words, words she cannot quite pronounce, or when she is tired. I do hope it works itself out of her, but if not, we’ll investigate therapy before she gets too set in her way. She did not elongate sounds in Chinese.

We have moved from play dough to modeling clay. It is harder to work with but the colors don't blend as easily into that brown muck that she usually manages to makes, and Julia seems to like the texture of the real clay better than play dough. The way she rolls and kneads the clay, shape it into odd characters or very believable dinosaurs suggests experience that we know she does not have. It is as if the clay awakens something much more mature in her hands. Sooner or later we will begin firing some pieces if we can.

Julia used the word magic this morning. She was playing with her bubbles (which she is not supposed to do outside the bathroom) in my room. After blowing one she said, "Look, it magic." Her second, non-physical word – the first was idea.

Oh my girl!

Valentine's Day

2007-02-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

Yup, we were snowed in and the snow quickly turned to ice. It was too cold to make snow balls or snow men, but Julia managed to find some pieces of ice to build a baby dinosaur house -- Have I said the everything is dinosaurs?

And the girl who hated to put on socks, tights, and real shoes, doesn't fight the heavy coat, boots, scarf, or gloves.

After as "played" in the snow -- I was digging out my car -- we went inside and baked a cake for Daddy. We made devil's food cake with pink icing, and according to the expert below, the uncooked batter wasn't bad. Later, there was lots of sprinkles on the pink icing and a very happy Daddy.

Lost tooth & Madison, WI

2007-02-15T19:56:00.000-05:00

So week 3 of this new SAHM stuff. With our snow this week and school cancelled, I feel like I've taken a few steps backwards in my goal of getting the house ready for sale. If I was at work, I'd put in a few more hours and finish what I set out to do, but at home -- well, there are only 24 hours in a day and shoveling snow and running after a 6 year old are exhausting -- there is no move time or energy to expend.

On the upside, I have no trouble falling to sleep at night. On the downside, I don't feel flexible enough to re-set priorities on a day to day basis.

But truth be known, spending house time with Julia, just doing little things -- cutting, playing with play dough, chasing the pets -- is doing good things for her and that is half of why I am home. Watching her day to day, I see her shoulders dropping more and more, I see her playing more and more with her little people and dolls, and I even see her getting more comfortable with the pets. We are seeing less reason to sit her in her naughty chair, and a bit more patience to sit down to listen to a story or color.

So I am not winning mother of the year but maybe I will get the hang of this full time mothering.

Julia has lost a tooth. It was loose for a long time and she stopped eating apples and other crunch food to keep it in her mouth. Finally, finally, it popped out last week. She was confused a bit by the tooth coming out although she lost at least two teeth before coming home.

Our first trip to Madison was successful -- we explored neighborhoods, Julia and I visited a school and were so-o-o happy and excited about public school in Madison, David spent his Thursday and Friday getting to know his office and the court, we had brunch on Saturday with a bunch of co-housers and met some very nice people, and on Saturday night we had dinner with a couple of Indy friends who had moved to Madison a bit more than a year ago. We came back a bit depressed that the houses in the school district that I visited are too expensive for us; but there are other great schools, we expanded our search, and re-set our priorities in terms of the dream house search. I didn't expect to find our house anyway this time.

We spent time in the Madison kids museum. Nothing like the grand affair that we have in Indy, but a nice place for young kids. Julia enjoyed the cow exhibit -- two life-sized plastic cows showing how cows are milked. Julia liked petting the cows and liked getting very close. Then of course, we found the dinosaur exhibit. She put on a tail and had a great time digging up bones. I'm not sure if this means she will be a scientist or just will like diging in the garden with me. Either is fine.

Julia has discovered adjectives! She is also putting more words together, making semi-sentences more often than not. She is pointing out similarities between things because of shape, color, or purpose. I think when she starts telling stories, she will be very good at it.

At our brunch with the co-housers in Madison, Julia met a little boy named John. John is an only child who is also an "alfa-dog" like our Julia. The two of them recognized their need to be top dog and were at each other immediately. They competed for toys and attention, and who would sit where at the brunch table. Julia has not met anyone like this before (at least since she has been home). I hope that she can make friends with John or someone like him. They need each other.

Sailing to Seville, Spain on Sunday

2007-01-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

Jei-Jei was flying not sailing but just a bit of poetic license on that one. So on Sunday, Ches left for her next away adventure in Seville, Spain where she will attend the University with a group of students from her American college. She was very excited and we are for her, but her visit was all too short. She fit right back into our daily lives and leaves a hole when she leaves. We love her so much! She is such a great person to live with and such an excellent big sister for Julia
Cheshire was home during an important time. There are going to be some major changes around here and she was here for the decisionmaking. David will become Clerk of the Court for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April. This means we will be moving to Madison, Wisconsin, a city that we have loved for a long time. It means selling our dear Indianapolis house and pulling up roots once again. During this transition time, I will be a SAHM! Yes, me, who would have believed it? We are going to need some stabilizing force over the next few months and I am it. Also, I am going to be cleaning, packing, selling the house, finding a new house, unpacking, and getting us all settled in lovely Madison.
Because the news is so new, we've only started telling friends and relatives. Madison or Indy make littly difference to family on the east coast but we are going to be leaving so many loving and supportive friends. It's hard to believe -- I don't think I've processed much of this yet.

Maybe airport pictures are perfect for this post. Endings and beginnings.

The Main Event

2007-01-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to you . . .

Happy Birthday, dear Julia . . .

Happy Birthday to you!

Now blow out those candles!

Let them eat . . .

2007-01-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today we had a lovely party to celebrate a Christmas with Marcia and Matthew and three birthdays! Julia and Marcia share January 16 as their birthday, and mine is next Tuesday. And so, Cheshire baked us a cake and decorated it. It was her second cake of the day, the first not quite a success. She graciously allowed us to make fun of her and produced a very tasty second.

How perfect that Julia's first birthday cake at home was made by Cheshire.

Cheshire and Julia with our dear friend, Linde, who is just home from India and getting ready to finish up her last college year.

And here are our girls with Matthew who helped us celebrate and who is beloved by both Cheshire and Julia.

Jei-Jei and Mei-Mei

2007-01-21T21:21:00.000-05:00

My two girls! It seems like so very long since we've all be together. All of us are enjoying our brief days before Cheshire heads back to school. This time in Seville, Spain. We are hoping that we can visit her sometime in the Spring.

On Saturday we had a lovely time walking around the Indy Zoo. Many of the animals are inside in the cold weather but the elephants and lions were very social -- not with each other -- and we had some rare close-up views.

Julia was clearly happy to have us all together. A few times she made sure that we were all holding hands. David on one side of her, myself on the other, and Cheshire holding on to David or I.

Mommy's little Julia is 6 years old

2007-01-21T21:05:00.000-05:00

January 16, 2007

Julia is 6 today. I am not home today and so cannot report her doings but she received the best present ever because Cheshire came home today. Cheshire told me that she has never been greeted with joyful screams and so the reunion must have been a good one. We had a lovely weekend of visits.

Last Friday, Julia and I went to Toby’s house and Julia played with Toby’s younger daughter. We visited for almost 2 hours and apart from a very few times when Julia grabbed the toy that Elana was playing with, Julia did pretty well. I was able to intercept the toy grabbing at least twice and Julia did not get upset when I took the toy from her and gave it back to Elana. There were times during that visit when Julia played beside Elana, or in the same room, rather than with her. They ate their snacks together and hugged each other before we left.

Julia found a hobbyhorse in Toby’s playroom. She had no idea of how to use it but loved the horse head. By the end of the visit, Toby and the girls offered the hobbyhorse to Julia since the girls don’t play with it anymore. Julia was so pleased and is enjoying "riding" around the house since then.

On Saturday, Robin came and spent part of the day with us. Julia was in heaven with Alison and Nathaniel. It took the kids a little while to get in sync but once they did, they dragged out all of the toys and played. At times it was hard to tell that one of them was not totally understandable or understood. We had shared birthday cupcakes for Alison and Julia. We sang and they each blew out 3 candles. Alison did it in one blow; Julia took awhile to focus her blowing and then blew each candle out individually.

Then on Sunday, Julia and I went to Lisa’s house – a house with two boys who really have lots of dinosaurs! Julia had a good time. She went downstairs to the playroom/basement and was not heard from for hours on end. Lisa’s kids played with her and I think they were very patient. They are all older than she is and that is easier on her. It was amazing that although she had a great time with the kids and the toys, she was not at all adverse to leaving without any of those toys. My girl is learning.

It is still hard for Julia to have me away for three days. This week we had a rocky start when I first came home, but she warmed to me pretty quickly. She is her Daddy’s girl and she just loves to insist on his doing stuff for her. One evening, we were going to watch television and I gave her the choice between watching a certain movie and going up to bed. She chose going up to bed by just taking David’s hand and telling him to get up and go upstairs.

She is wearing pajamas now – not all the time, mind you, but often. Prior to this, she has put nightgowns on during the day but only went to bed in a shirt and panties. David said it happened for the first time last week when she volunteered to put on pj’s with pants! So first pj’s and first pants since we’ve brought her home. On Saturday night, she wore a sleeveless night gown with a short sleeved shirt underneath an a pair of pajama bottoms. I wonder if we will ever get to pj pieces that are meant to go together or just plain nightgowns. Julia’s fashion choices are so very interesting. We watched the movie Pocahantus and the rest of the weekend, Julia was Poke-thomas. Well, that is when she wasn’t a Ceretops or a Longneck – there is frequently a roaring dinosaur around the house.

4 months home

2007-01-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

January 4-11, 2007

Wow. Hard time getting back to the blog There never seems to be time and when I find some time, I want to veg out and sleep. Still, so much is happening with Julia that I must continue but I have to go back to Christmas.

David and Julia came home after my father’s funeral and I stayed in Jersey for a few days more. We were finally all together the Thursday before Christmas, and I was able to work from home for the end of the week which was good for us all. We prepared Christmas – bought a small tree, decorated it with unbreakable figures and all the things that Julia has been making with us, at school, and with her tutor, Dottie. She enjoyed the decorating, she enjoyed having a tree in the house – toy dinosaurs have lived inside the tree and the decorations have been rearranged many times. I am very happy that I took the advice of others to make the tree totally accessible to Julia. It has worked well and no one worried about the more precious decorations that we own. I also didn’t worry about whether she pulled the tree over.

Because of our stay in Jersey, we could not do so many of the things we had planned to get Julia ready for the holidays. The question is would she have understood or appreciated any more for the preparation and I have no idea. She did not expect presents, in fact, it was hard to get her to come downstairs after we made our coffee and readied the camera for her entrance on Christmas morning. She seemed amazed by the boxes and gifts but did not attempt to open anything until we started it.

We gave her a play kitchen and a slinky. Jan, who was staying with us, gave her dinosaur books. These were plenty for her to receive and she was very grateful. Julia has not used the kitchen as much as I expected but it might take time to get use to it being in the house. She can be seen regularly sitting by herself and paging through books and the dino books are a favorite. Sometime she lines up her toy dinosaurs and they "read" the books with her. She also like to mix her horses (3 from my childhood and the new one my sister gave her) with the dinosaurs. She does not really play as if the animals (or dolls for that matter) talk to one another (like Cheshire did), but lines them up, dresses them in doll clothes, and moves them out and about in the house. Generally her play with dolls is to dress them, do their hair, and have them dance or parade about. It reminds me more of boy play than what Cheshire did. While she is playing, Julia is always singing – today it is a few lines from a song in the musical Beauty and the Beast.

We went to see a performance of Beauty and the Beast right before Christmas. Julia knows the story and music from watching the movie, but this was a first live performance. She loved it. She spent a lot time on one of our laps, she also spoke out in the beginning quite loudly, but her behavior was no worse than other kids her age or the woman beside me who sang all of the songs just loud enough for me to hear. I was very happy with Julia’s attention to the play.

We have attempted to do two violin lessons with Julia but she is much too busy investigating the room, writing on the erasable board, and acting very silly. Her teacher, Ginny, started with the traditional foot chart. Julia saw no reason at all to do it at the lesson or to practice it at home. She did listen to what was said and she can do the foot positions because she did it once. Julia did sit quietly on a lap when Ginny played her violin but it was the only time that Ginny had Julia’s full attention. I don’t think the traditional pre-Twinkle Suzuki exercises are going to work for us. Maybe Ginny can modify the system, maybe we need to find a kindermusik.

In the pool, Julia continues doing better and better. She now goes underwater and blows bubbles. She had a great time one day when the guards put a divider in the lane were played in and she went under it over and over. She is not quite kicking enough or using her hands in the right way to move herself but we are in the JCC pool a few times a week and I’m sure it will all come soon. Another two months and the JCC will allow her to take lessons. By then, will she need them?

ShaDiamon and I took Julia to get a hair cut. We went to a kids’ salon with all sorts of toys and movies at each chair, and cars instead of chairs. In truth, Julia needed none of that. Once the woman starting combing and then cutting Julia’s hair, she was all eyes in the mirror. She wanted to see what was being done.

Julia can be very intensely interested in her reflection in the mirror. She watches herself dressed and naked. She checks out when she makes faces and when she poses. She likes to watch as we interact. I have no known any child like this. I know there were large mirrors at the orphanage – we have two pictures of her in a room that looks like a dance studio. I wonder what she is looking to see.

Julia doesn’t like my traveling for work. She ignores when I leave and tries to push me away when I come home. It’s just few hours on each end, but I don’t like it. I wonder if it is delay her development somehow – too much energy spent too negatively.

Right now, Julia is Daddy’s girl. She hates to see him go to work and loves to see him come home. David does spoil her a bit, picking her up whenever she wants it and buying her treats. It does melt my heart when she calls, Daddy at the top of her voice.

Lost post

2007-01-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

This is an update from December 9, a few days before we found out my father died. I forgot to post it but I don't want to forget what was going on. And so, from December 9, 2006:

Julia has been home with us for three months now, and we are almost to the point where it is hard to imagine life without her. She is still pretty demanding but she had learned a level of trust that I did not expect, certainly not so soon. Today, Julia was playing with her trains. Actually, she had just set an oval track up with David’s help, when I was ready to leave the house. I told her that I wanted to leave and got out our coats. Julia was willing to leave her toys and come with me. She would not have been willing to do that last month. I think she is beginning to believe that this is her home to stay.

She is really beginning to enjoy kid movies. A few days ago it was Beauty and the Beast and today, it was Cinderella – both Disney adventures. Of course she loves Mulan and the Little Mermaid, and has seen them both a number of times now, but she watched these two new movies with much more understanding the very first time. She repeated words, and commented at times. During Beauty and the Beast, she really loved the scene when Beauty is playing in the snow with the Beast, and they feed the birds together. She also loved the dancing scene and made David get up and dance with her when the movie ended.

Julia was funny in Trader Joe’s today. She notices everything and has so much that she likes. She always wants to buy cut flowers. She pointed out the miso soup box for me to put in our cart, and the chocolate covered peanuts. She also had caught on that they give kids balloons at the check out. She confuses the words balloon and bubbles, but the concepts and sounds are so close. She loves tasting the samples as we shop. Here she is all her Daddy’s girl!

Julia’s favorite toys these days are her dolls, her trains, and her dinosaurs! She has a bunch of doll clothes for various sizes of dolls, but to her every piece of clothing fits on EVERY doll and dinosaur. We use elastics, ribbons, and plastic ties to keep clothes on because there is no use trying to explain that some piece of clothing doesn’t fit the big baby doll or the Barbie or the ballerina without arms. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tyrannosaurus rex in tulle and fake fur.

Dinosaurs are a passion! Last week, we made out weekly pilgrimage to the kids museum to go to an art class and visit the dianosphere. It is becoming a Thursday afternoon ritual. I let Julia spend as long as she wants there and she plays with all the computers that have information, she watches the displays and the lighting changes from days to night and back to day. She digs and scrapes in the bones pit.

This week although we had a little trouble getting into the museum, she was relatively willing to leave at the end of our visit which is a big change from a few weeks ago. Again, I feel like she is understanding that places we go and things we do are not a one time only affair. I value this trust she puts in us and know that it is the beginning of a parent-child relationship with is more than supplying her with the necessities of life.

We had a little trouble getting into the museum. I told Julia that we had to check our coats, have lunch, go to our class, and then go visit the dinosaurs. She wanted to have lunch immediately. It was just a pure power struggle – who was going to set the agenda of the day, and unfortunately for Julia, I felt like it was a good lesson to learn. Julia must learn that Mommy and Daddy are the bosses of herq1 . So we had a bit of a back and forth, even made it outside again, in the freezing cold, because if she would not do what I wanted, we were going home. I was not crazy about doing this. I do believe in fighting only about the most important issues, but now that she is not having tantrums often and understands much of what I say, I felt the time was right. It took awhile and we had an audience of the older volunteers who work the front desk and the admittance stations, but Julia eventually gave in and did it my way.

These days Julia moves more normally. She shoulders are not poised for flight, and her knees are not locked when she stands. Julia’s hair is growing. We’ve trimmed her bangs twice now and soon she will need some kind of a hair cut to shape what is growing in.

1 January 2007

2007-01-01T23:39:00.000-05:00

A new year, a new hair do.

and more and more and more

2006-12-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

My favorite picture of Julia decorating the tree. This is the face I see so often during our days together.

Here is a pipecleaner star that Julia made at a workshop she went to at the kids museum.

There is nothing like a girl and her dino.

Okay, mom, enough is enough!

More Christmas preparations

2006-12-27T22:54:00.000-05:00

Julia doesn't wear her pigtails all the time anymore. Sometimes it is barretts, sometimes a head band, and sometimes she goes naturale. I love this shy little face. It is so rare that we see it but it is precious.

Another face!

Such a perfect Christmas girl -- looking as if she is really peeking to see what Santa is leaving beneath the tree.

dinosaurs in the trees

2006-12-27T22:27:00.000-05:00

Julia liked the decorations on the tree but once she discovered that she could put her dinsaurs on the tree, she really started having fun.

Some dinosaurs liked nibbling on the tree.

And some like sleeping inside the tree.

Oh me, oh my, how pretty this little girl is. The red frog decoration that is in front of Julia is from China, part of a set of Chinese animals that Grandma and Grandpa brought back from China almost 20 years ago. How that red thread stretches.

Julia takes Jersey

2006-12-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

I am so sorry that my father could not meet Julia, but he is responsible for getting her to Jersey.

David and Julia joined me in Jersey with my family on Thursday night. They were supposed to come in on Wednesday, but after hours in the airport with one delay after another, they went home again on Wednesday and then returned to the airport on Thursday only to be delayed throughout the day once again. From what I hear, Julia flew absolutely fine. She was interested in looking out the window and sitting in her seat with her seat belt on. However, her behavior in the airport was a challenge. At one point, Julia was running through the Indianapolis airplane singing The Sun will come out Tomorrow. David says that some people thought her charming and some . . .

David was incredible actually getting the two of them out east.

Julia met her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins at her Jagi's funeral. She was herself -- wanting to meet every person and interact with them. Although we had not thought that travel was best for her at this time, Julia made the best of it. At times she was overstimulated but she was friendly and interested and very cheerful.

Julia was very interested as we entered St John's Church -- the dark entry to main body of the church lit with the stained glass windows and candles, the choir singing above us, and the priest swinging the insence burner making the very air sweet. She did not make it through the entire mass -- well, she did not make it though a quarter of the mass. Lisa, blessed Lisa who came up to be with us, took Julia into the church hall and entertained her. Lisa told me that the funeral workers came into the hall to have their breakfast which Julia shared.

The day went on -- funeral mass, entomement (when Julia came into the very quiet chapel with a loud hello), repast, and evening at home with the family. A long sad day but with a little light of life.

Jagi

2006-12-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

My dad died on Monday morning after a long illness. He died in his sleep which was very blessed although hard on my mother. I am very sorry that he did not get to meet Julia because he was so happy about our adoption from the first time that I told him. We had weighed coming out east during my family leave and then during the holidays and felt that she was not ready to travel yet. It is ashame that Julia will come out to New Jersey for the funeral and not to meet her Jagi (Ukrainian, not Chinese for grandpa).

I left for Jersey on Monday evening after driving home from Chicago during the day. David has been on kid duty for the week. They were supposed to fly in yesterday but the plane was delayed over and over until at around 8 last night, he opted to be re-scheduled to fly today. From what I hear, Julia's behavior in the airport was more than a challenge. Actually, just what we imagined. I wonder if the airlines people was only too happy to re-schedule them.

I hope that they will get to Jersey today without difficulty.

I spoke to Julia this morning on the phone and she told me: "Time to go to see bones. Okay. Bye. Later." Yes, David will take her to the kids museum this morning and then fly out at 2.

Coming home from Chicago

2006-11-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

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!

Just where she belongs!

2006-11-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

Cooking in Santa's workshop & Saturday outside

2006-11-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

Fun visiting the "bones"

2006-11-30T09:48:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving day in Holiday Park

2006-11-30T09:41:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving

2006-11-30T09:18:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-11-23T12:45:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-20T08:57:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-11T20:03:00.000-05:00

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!

Holiday Baking

2006-11-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

Julia and Mommy are baking lots of treats for our Thanksgiving feast. Julia is good at sifting flour, breaking eggs, stirring ingredients, and at testing the batter!

Julia needs more testing.
Who cares about the oven, let 'em eat batter!

Watch out Isadora Duncan

2006-11-11T19:53:00.000-05:00

Julia fixed one of her ballet skirts as a hat and together with her long ballet skirt, she dances all over the house.
Sometimes she is a friendly little girl . . .
. . . and sometimes she is a great, dramatic dancer!

A Present!

2006-11-11T19:46:00.000-05:00

Jullia loved the box, but had no idea what to do with it.
She was very careful as Daddy started to take the paper off the box.
I don't think the Julia has ever had any clothing that is as heavy as this coat. She loves the color and looks at it often in the closet. But it is not cold enough yet to wear it outside.

Just wait!

Busy day

2006-11-11T19:42:00.000-05:00

Another busy day at the Kids' Museum. Is this our future research scientist?

Or an operator of heavy machinery?

Our little anniversary

2006-11-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-01T21:59:00.000-05:00

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.

Steps and the good cutting hand

2006-10-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, ummm. One step forward; how many in reverse? Julia had a splendid day in school – followed directions, lined up, did well in the playground, did a good job at cutting a drawing of a school bus, and she was well praised for the cutting work. Mrs. Levine said that apart from her language skills, she is no more behind than kids who were never exposed to learning before they attended school. This is no great compliment but it is no great insult either. She did throw her shoes once but it was just once. There is no more talk about putting her in pre-K, and Mrs. Levine and Julia's teachers seem pretty sure that she will do fine in kindergarten.

Then we went to Marcia’s house (Matthew had the day off and Marcia decided to stay home). We had fun being stay at home moms for the day – having lunch together and making carmel apples. Julia played with Matthew and by her self with a set of tinker toys and ate lunch well. It was delightful. (She did get knocked down by Sarah, the dog, when we first came in but she recovered quickly from that.)

When we returned home, I had wanted to do some gardening or baking but felt this cold pressing down on me and I really didn’t want to do anything. I was puttering in the kitchen when Julia went upstairs by herself. She has been doing this – going to her own room at times alone – and as long as I can hear her, I don’t worry. I could hear her banging around for a little while and then heard her coming down the stairs. She came to me to show me what she had done and I saw her Bitty Baby doll all cut up. Julia had cut up the soft body and it was empty of stuffing. I tried not to react but I was pretty horrified. We went upstairs to see what she had done. On the hall floor was scraps of cotton used to stuff the doll. Most of the cotton was in the bathroom trash can. She seemed to be perplexed as to my reaction and I was scared to react in any real way. Truthfully, I was appalled. So okay, this was the only expensive toy that we have bought and I am still cheap enough to feel very badly that she had mangled our gift to her. But more than economics, I am a doll girl. I loved dolls as a kid and I still have such a fondness for them. AND my Julia, who appears to also love her doll, cut up a doll! It kind of scared me. No, it did scare me. What next? How could I allow her to be alone for even an instant? What else would she do? I needed a deep breath and a clear head. I needed someone else to be there and judge what had gone on. I was able to tell her, rather calmly, I think, that this was not good behavior and she was not a good girl when she did this. (She knows what a good girl is, and is very proud when we tell her she is a good girl. We use to make the distinction for Cheshire between good girl and good behavior, but right now that distinction is a bit too much for Julia.) She was not a good girl when she cut up her doll. I gathered up the cotton and tried to stuff it back into the body. Silly that, the body is too cut up to sew together, and when I have the doll fixed, they will re-stuff it I am sure. But it was something to do. Then we went into my room and put the doll on a high shelf.

Julia did not cut the doll’s body out of anger or in defiance – at least it doesn’t seem so. To me, destroying a doll is such a major thing, but what is it to her? I had to think about that for awhile. I called and talked to David. How different was it from examining a clock, taking apart of machine? I did not punish Julia for this because I was not sure that there was anything to punish her for. Yes, destroying property, but what does she know of property. I was upset that she was not upset; did not seem to realize that she did anything wrong. Umm, we have so much work.

Yes, one step forward and another some other way.

7 weeks home

2006-10-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

_
We are now 7 weeks home and this has been in pretty eventful week. Julia has been eating words! For a little more than an week, Julia has exploded with vocabulary. She is using more English words every day and looks for the names of things. She uses mostly nouns but there are a few verbs and adjectives thrown in. She is also looking to me to supply words to her when we are doing are flash cards and also during our daily round. She is also counting to 10 all by herself and makes some connection between the numbers and what they mean. Julia is singing the alphabet song although she is missing many of the letters. She plays with her alphabet toy very often although she is far too interested in the letters, W, Q, X, and Z. It’s funny that she picks the letter least used in our words.

Julia had a good report from school when they went to see the play last week and another good report on Wednesday. I saw a vast improvement in her behavior on Saturday when we went to Chinese school. She sat at the table she was supposed to, she tried to do the craft, and went to the carpet when it was time to sing together. She was much calmer and more willing to be quiet. Actually, at Chinese school, Julia is in a class with 3-4 year old kids. Lots of the kids had trouble on Saturday and I got to see many of the behaviors that we see in Julia. Her participation in Chinese dance class was almost incredible. Okay, she did not do everything she was told, but she also did not run around the room and scream like a banshee! Really, she made an attempt to listen and follow directions. And hugged the teacher at the end of class.

We finally found the show Sagwa on PBS. It is based on the Amy Tan book of the same name and is about a family of cats during ancient times in China. In the show, they include a few Chinese words, actually very few and very easy ones, but Julia seemed to be enchanted. We will tape a few episodes to play for her from time to time.

We visited the federal court in Indy last Thursday. It was a very successful visit. Julia met lots of people, mostly a few at a time, and was her charming self. She is a social being, and although I am not ready to have a house party to introduce her to lots of friends yet, she is ready for a little more socializing. She does need some extra holding and cuddling when we do new things but in this regard she is not so different from other 5 year olds.

We did shopping for Thanksgiving baking supplies yesterday and most of it went well. Julia loves to get the plastic bags in the produce department and open them to put the vegies and fruits inside. She does love to help. I wonder if she is trying to insure her place with us, or whether helping is just in her nature coming from her training at the orphanage. She did have a small (but loud) tantrum at Krogers when I refused to buy a Halloween cake. She wailed and screamed through a few aisles, but I was determined not to leave, not to let her hit or kick me, and to move through the situation. I kept talking to her, asking for her help, and ignoring the sympathetic or less-than-friendly looks from my fellow shoppers. It worked. It was a short tantrum, and Julia returned to her cheery mood quickly when it was over.

We had another longer tantrum on Saturday. She had worn her Halloween costume to Chinese school during the morning but needed to take it off to go outside in the afternoon. I expected the reaction, and so prepared lunch, set up clothes, and set up rewards for Julia. She cried when we took the princess dress off, and was very angry. I took her on the couch and held her like a baby, making sure that she could not hurt me with her hands or feet. Then crying and resisting went on for awhile – I think about 20 minutes but it is hard to estimate time when she is like this – but I kept talking to her – telling her that I loved her, that it was hard to give up such a pretty dress for the day, that she would wear it again on Tuesday, and that she was a great kid. She stopped resisting and just cried for some time, and then was ready to be put down. She went to her room for a few minutes, picked out some clothes, and brought them downstairs to put on.

Today, she was very willing to go to school. Putting on tights is still not her favorite but I find that if I bring them downstairs and only put them on after breakfast, she does better. We got to school, she wanted to take off her sweater, I said no, we walked to the door, and some of the kids from her class were getting off the bus. They greeted her, as did Mrs. Levine, and Julia skipped into school with no look back. I am looking forward to a good week.

LEAVES!

2006-10-27T19:03:00.000-04:00

Are there falling leaves in Jiangxi Province? Is there autumn? And do little girls play in leaf piles?

Well, she does now!

Saturday's Treasures

2006-10-27T18:41:00.000-04:00

Julia followed David into the garage and found a box of old toys that was meant for a garage sale or the garbage. However, in this box were the most exciting toys and accessories that Julia has ever seen. The perfect sun glasses, a compass, toy-doctor stuff, and a slide whistle.
The glasses are cool, but the nose is just a little too small for such glamour.
Okay, can I bring this stuff inside to play with?

Testing vocations at the Kids' Museum

2006-10-27T18:30:00.000-04:00

An October day at the Kids' Museum.

Julia was very interested in building with the super-sized tinker toys. Her structure was wacky and fell over when it was totally unbalanced.

What can you say about a girl and her heavy machinery! Is truckdriving in Julia's future?
Then again, there is always working in the coal mine.

more and more and more

2006-10-24T09:43:00.000-04:00

What a rough day yesterday. I am not sure why having a teacher tell me that Julia might not belong in kindergarten right now was so upsetting. It threw me into a funk for the entire day. All I can figure is that I felt that my carefully crafted plan – 3 months off from work to settle Julia into our lives, a good school, full day kindergarten after the new year, and a happy family visiting Cheshire for Christmas – was dissolving before my eyes. All I could think of was that I had less than a month to get this right and how was I going to do that if Julia was not settled!

Actually Julia did not have a terrible day. Yes, school was tough yesterday. She is more comfortable there and so she wants to take charge, and anyone standing in the way of that will feel her rage. We went home after school and just stayed inside and worked and played. She loves going to our dirty basement and uncovering old stuff that is much more interesting than her clean toys. I did wash and ironed napkins. Julia discovered the spray bottle that I use to spray the cotton linens that I iron. I showed her how to spray the napkins before I ironed them and she had a good time helping. She also sprayed herself by mistake in the face and then had even a better time helping and getting wet. And we had a chance to talk about wet and dry.

We sorted her toys, putting all the doll clothes of any size in one box, putting games in another box, and putting some very simple board books in each room of the house. Julia loves order and loved deciding which book belongs in which room. We also played with the magnetic dolls and clothes that Claudia brought over on Sunday (Thank you Claudia, for the shower of gifts! She loves the Mexican dolls too, although she wants to take off their clothes. Confusing to have some dolls whose clothes come off and some that don’t). We changed the clothes of the two flat magnetic dolls over and over and over and by the end even my old paperdoll-loving self was satisfied.

When I was cooking, I cut the acorn squash in half and wanted to see if she could clean out the seeds, etc from the center. I put the compost container on the floor and gave Julia a tablespoon. She set to work, squatting down, cleaning the squash, picking up any seeds that fell on the floor and getting a towel to clean up any mess that she made. We have not discovered the range of her skills and competence.

But back to my own problems of the day. I wrote of what happened in school on my yahoo message boards and received three great answers. The messages forced me to think about all the changes that keep on coming – a winter coat that someone is always telling her to keep on or take off no matter if she is hot or cold, leaves falling off trees and the shape of our backyard changing with the seasons, days off from school and weekends when schedules are completely different, to name three current changes. They are also expecting her to act as if she had always been at school after only two weeks doing the full 2.5 hour session.

Yes, they are expecting too much too soon. They either need more patience or we need to find a better situation for Julia. The idea drove me nuts yesterday.

I woke up this morning with lots of thoughts. First, that Julia is doing really great. She is practicing her English constantly, even going out of her way to tell us that things she sees look like words she is learning about, she has skills (like cleaning the squash) that she cannot tell us about yet, and her tantrums and rages are getting a lot less at home. Second, that I am not going to change her out of kindergarten until the term break. I have to have a place for her to go and have worked on transitioning her to that place if that is the appropriate thing to do. Three, there is the Park View Preschool the Matthew went to just around our corner and loved. It is a small program with lots of personal attention. I will check them out.

Julia’s class went to a play today – talk about lack of regular activity. The note that went home said to prepare the children to have good performance manners. Well, we did talk about it. What she understood is another story. I said I would pick her up at any time if her behavior deteriorated. It’s 9:45, and so far no call. I do think that the kindergarten Julia is going to is a good place, and I believe that the teachers and administrators are saying what they say out of concern for my child. We may all just need to re-tool.

A new favorite picture

2006-10-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

This is so much my girl -- climbing, looking to the next thing, giving such blinding bright smiles to the world, determined to be herself.

Today, this morning was tough. Julia is home 6 weeks and I’ve heard from other parents that the 6-8 week time period is very frustrating. What I see is that Julia is fitting into our lives and has become pretty comfortable in our home. She is coming to us for help and working hard at communication, although so many times, she does not succeed in tell us what she wants to. She looks to us for guidance – as we go over flashcard words, she now looks at me when she doesn’t remember a word. And she cuddles with us, she wants us to pick her up for hugs, she runs to us when we’ve been gone for any amount of time, and during meals she takes both our hands or wants to hug both of us at the same time. Julia is trusting us more – when I mentioned that her hair needed washing the other night, she willingly took out her pigtail elastics sure that I will put them back in the next day. For all this, she tests us to the limit – grabbing things off tables that she has been told not to touch, pushing buttons she has repeatedly been told not to, threatening to turn on the stove., being mean to her dolls or the dog This morning after talking about school and acting excited about going back to school, she repeatedly sat on the ground refusing to move as we made our way from the car to the school door. We did our regular drill of her pulling, my allowing her to go to the ground and waiting for her to be ready to move, until Mrs. Levin came up to her and put her on her feet and said it was time to go in. Julia resisted, but Mrs. Levin was insistent. She told me to say good-by and they went in. I often feel like the dotting mother who others feel is coddling my little girl but of course, it is more complicated than that. The school has my cell phone number and can call if they can’t deal with her. Only once have they used it. I feel so badly that Julia has the need to test and re-test. I wish there was a way for her to know that we are forever and no matter what. She needs more language and more experience with us and in the short run nothing but time will bring that.

Sunday, 21 October 2006

2006-10-23T09:05:00.000-04:00

These days, I am so thankful that Cheshire was such a stubborn, opinionated child. If she wasn’t, I’d have no idea what to do with this stubborn, opinionated kid! Julia can be so picky and difficult about clothes and her hair and where she goes and how she gets there. Also about her toys. She is really so much like Cheshire that it almost makes me believe that we did get the kid that was perfect for our family. She hasn’t told me to stop singing when she is singing (like Ches used to do when she was about 5) but I am waiting for that.

Julia loves sneaking into Cheshire’s room and admiring herself in the big mirror. She wants to investigate all the little things in drawers and on the top of the vanity. I try to keep the room off limits to her, but she is a good sneak. We were at the zoo on Friday ( I had planned an excursion to the art museum but when we pulled into the parking lot of the museum, she started naming animals and I decided that she thought we were at the zoo – plantings out front are similar. So, we went to the zoo.). Once there we found out they were having a Halloween festival and giving out candy in the Plains area. The zoo was crowded with kids in costumes and Julia was very interested. At times Julia called out "Beautiful" to those in costumes. She collected her candy and I let her eat one piece. Then she managed to sneak another three or four pieces.

On Tuesday, I finally gave Julia the Bitty Baby that traveled to China and back with us, and she loves it. The moving eyes no longer scare her. She changed clothes over and over and didn’t treat it as badly as she had in China. She also received a smaller baby doll from Toby. And now she has a Mei-Mei and a Jei-Jei of dolls. She decided this and when she did she went to our picture place and had me take down a picture of Cheshire for her to kiss. Actually, she has done this before. We have kissed many of Cheshire’s pictures, and has heard the names of her extended family and friends.

On Wednesday, we had a challenging time putting beads away. Julia had spilled a rather large tray of beads on the living room floor (this kid can string beads!) while I was in the next room vacuuming. When I saw what she had done, I got down ready to help her pick up the beads and put them into the tray again. She refused to help, and kept on refusing when I took away her necklaces, her hair clips, and her pigtail holders (taking away important things usually work with her). She was willing to lay on the floor and cry but not to pick up a single bead. I decided to stop asking her to do anything. I finished my vacuuming, and took out a paint can to paint. Julia and I are working on painting skills. I have an old mirror that I am re-doing for her room. Julia is working on a wooden bird house. I would not let her paint and put her back in the living room to do her cleaning up. I did not respond to her calls or cries for at least 5 minutes (felt like hours!), and eventually she became very quiet and I could hear her working. In a little while she came to where I was painting and said, "All Done!" And she was! She had put all the beads away and closed the tray. The kid is really competent. Julia was then extremely compliant for at least an hour or so (thank god!). I praised her accordingly. Oh, and also gave back her clips, elastics and jewelry.

We also had a brief "conversation" yesterday. She called "Mommy" (big improvement over a scream or "Hello"), and pointed to the kitchen closet where we keep the cups. She said "please" and I opened the cabinet. I pointed to a glass and she shook her head no; I pointed to a cup and she shook her head yes. I took out the cup, and she pulled me to the frig and tried to open the door. I opened it with her and she pointed to the milk and tried to say it. It came out like mush or meel, but I knew what she wanted. I took out the milk, poured some in the cup and gave it to her. She said "Che-che" and had a good drink. Communication!!!

During the week, I went to Panera’s (bread store and cafe), which is about 5 minutes from Julia’s school and has free internet, to catch up on email and phone calls. Three days, last week, she finished the kindergarten session without my intervention.

Big news from Thursday -- Julia has a favorite book!!! It is "Oh Dear" and about a boy looking all over a farm to find eggs for his breakfast. Very simple, but she picked it out to read and was very happy as we read each page. Oh Dear today, Shakespear. tomorrow!

And although the week in school (with an aide, not me) was spotty with her behavior very challenging, Julia was attentive and obedient during music class! She sat in her spot, listened, and tried to do everything (EVERYTHING!) the music teach asked for.

David and I have given into exhaustion and we are now going upstairs to bed almost as soon as Julia settles down for the night. We’ve taken a tv up to our room and we try to watch a little before succumbing to sleep. It is going to be awhile before I finish a book club book on time. These posts are also getting to sound pretty cobbled together – no flow at all! Well, at times now they are pieces of emails I’ve sent or the short paragraphs are all I’m capable of getting out. Who reads stuff over and parents a spicy dragon? But, most importantly, I am still getting something down.

Sunday, 15 October 2005

2006-10-22T22:06:00.000-04:00

I have had trouble keeping up with this journal this week. Julia has done so many more things than I have written, and has been so much more frustrating! We have had a quiet weekend, staying close to home and seeing no one in particular. David and I are tired, there never seems to be enough hours to sleep. Julia is testing us in every way she can, and sometimes we are frustrated with our uphill battle.

Julia and I went to Chinese class on Saturday. Her behavior was not good. She would not sit in the class or do what was asked – singing together, sitting to do an exercise, or repeating words. I tried to keep her sitting in her chair and she slapped me roundly in the face. The room went silent for a moment and other parents gasped. I took her out of the room and she cried and then fussed in another room. We tried going back to the classroom each time Julia calmed down but it took four or five attempts before we made it back in. We only had about 15 minutes of the class left but we stayed for it. I asked the teacher, also named Julia, if she minded Julia’s behavior and told her that I understood if she didn’t want to have her in the class, but she assured me that Julia was welcomed and that this would pass. The other parents have been very welcoming and have not complained about Julia’s behavior. Julia liked the dance lesson, and although she did not follow all of the teacher’s instructions she responded to the music and had a good time.

After the lesson, the teacher tried speaking to Julia in Chinese. She used both Mandarin and Cantonese, and a few dialects. Julia answered her questions and talked to her some. The teacher told me that Julia used words in both Mandarin and Cantonese and had a strong accent. No wonder no one speaking a single language understands her!

This afternoon we went to the JCC to swim – finally, they finished the refurbishment of the indoor pool. We have not been there with Julia in about two weeks, and Julia was overjoyed to be there. She kept saying thank you, thank you, in Chinese. She loved the water and splashed about in water over her head. She went underwater several times, sometimes by mistake when she was squirming about and sometimes on purpose. JCC had swimming lessons starting next weekend. I think we will enroll her. One disturbing thing. When we were in the pool, Julia tried to get the attention of any grownup around including a lifeguard teaching another child. She yelled, called out, and splashed. I wonder if this behavior will rear its head in school.

Julia is using more and more words – "so happy," "oh, dear," baby, car, bus, truck, food, chicken, lots of animal names and what the animals say. She is learning the songs on one of the Chinese DVDs. She tries to sing them throughout the day. She is also learning Jingle Bells because it is one of the songs that her bear plays. She sings, "Jee-angle Bials" which is cute and funny, and she also sings "Babi Shalooma" (Baby Baluga!). We figure that her pronunciation is filtered through Chinese ears. Most words have added syllables – usually adding that schwa sound after a hard consonant. So Tiger becomes ti-ge-ger and friend becomes frien-de.

We painted some today – I doing a mirror frame for her room and Julia painting a bird house. She is reckless and unthinking – not careful or hesitant at all. I tell her to put on the tip of her brush in the paint, and she plunges the entire brush into the can of paint. She puts paint on the house and also on her leg and her nails.

Although Julia will say that she is Julia or Bye-Bye or A-Bye, she does not answer to her name when she is called. I usually have to call her many times to get her attention. I am not sure why this is. I am pretty sure that her hearing is fine. I don’t know if anyone ever called her individually, or if she doesn’t want to give into me direction when I call.

Julia put toys away tonight that go in the kitchen basket without an tantrum. She needed some prodding and coaxing but she gathered up the toys she had spread around the room. She understood what was said to her as well.

October 12, 2006

2006-10-15T20:41:00.000-04:00

Tonight, before getting into the bath Julia A-Bye took out the elastics in her four little pig tails and motioned to me that she wanted her hair washed. This is the first time she has voluntarily taken down her pig tails which have been the subject of many, many screams, tears, and tantrums. Hair has been a challenge since we met Julia. The first thing she did with stickers and elastics was to put them in her hair and in the hair of her stuffed toys. She wanted to be decorated and each time a clip, sticker, or elastic fell out of her hair or whenever she felt that the pig tails were not in her hair properly, she insisted they be redone. My take on this is not that she is finished with pig tails but that she trusts that I will put her elastics back into her hair. Let’s hope that is what she is perceiving and thinking.

After her bath, she left her hair alone while Lisa T visited us. Julia’s hair looked great! David later took her to bed and had to put two pig tails in. Well, maybe she does trust us.

Today, her volunteer aid told me that Julia hit and pinched her. I told her that we are dealing with this as well and we agreed that we should both do time-ins (not leaving the child alone in a space) and both complain about the pain of the "injury." Julia resorts to hitting, pinching, trying to bite, and scratching a lot. Frustration and anger and whenever she doesn’t get her way. This behavior ebbs and flows from day to day and from hour to hour. Right now I see no other pattern except that Julia rages when she does not get what she wants and during transitions. But there are times when she transitions without anger. I am not sure if there is any other reasons, hints, or clues.

Interesting for me – when Cheshire was this age, any criticism of her behavior felt like a direct condemnation of my parenting skills. Okay, just a little exaggeration, but I would feel the censure. With Julia, I am so much calmer. Maybe it is age, maybe it is because I had nothing to do with her rearing up to this time. I know there will be a point when Julia is a reflection of the life we are living with her, but right now she is so much herself.

Note: I erased two pictures of Julia in the bath on the advice of a prosecutor friend of mine. Thank you, Robin. However, I was very sad to do that.

Changes, mostly as in clothes

2006-10-15T20:28:00.000-04:00

October 10, 2006

Yesterday, Julia took two very big steps! First, she was willing to put on a dress that was not with us in China! She did not do this in the morning but before we went out to dinner around super time. We gave her lots of praise and complements and hopefully she will be willing to wear her fall and winter dresses as the weather gets colder.

Second, we visited with one of David’s work colleagues in her home. It was a celebration of Sukkot with an outside meal and later singing. There are three kids in the family with a 10 year old daughter who was willing to play and spend lots of time with Julia. They had a wonderful time with Barbie dolls and many, many changes of clothes. Julia ate a good dinner, mostly from the laps of our hosts and was very charming to everyone.

It was cold this morning and Julia needed warmer clothes. She and David dressed her and when I woke up I found her in a summer skirt, short sleeved shirt, socks and sneakers. After David went to work I tried to tempt Julia into changing into something heavier. She refused and I was not sure how we were going to get to school that morning. Then I left her and got ready to leave. I brought a change of clothes to the first floor and called Julia to come downstairs. Then we went and stood out on the front porch. It was a beautiful day, but it was cold. She started doing a cold "dance" and I suggested that we go in and put something on her legs. She put on heavy tights, and went out again. We repeated the same with a long sleeve shirt. She even put on her jeans jacket but would not change her skirt. So she went to school with a summer skirt but warm on the top and bottom.

The next day, the 11th, Julia picked out a new dress to wear. Ya-hoo! She is still picky about clothes, but we are beyond the summer dresses of China.

And what good is a new dress with puddles to splash in. It is amazing to watch her do anything new. Julia is impressed and delighted by very simple things, including splashing in driveway puddles. What joy!

Julia Bye-Bye is home a month tomorrow!

2006-10-08T22:39:00.000-04:00

My sweet girl.

Pumpkin Patch

2006-10-08T22:28:00.000-04:00

We went to a Noblesville pumpkin patch and had a good time finding pumpkins to carve this year. Julia did not want to walk in and among the dried vines but she loved the hay ride. She also liked driving her own tractor.
Julia's first attempt at ridin' and ropin' those cows.
Julia and ShaDiamon looking very fine. Julia loves being with ShaDiamon; and ShaDiamon is so very kind to Julia.

The make believe box

2006-10-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

Two days ago, Julia discovered the make believe box that the Manns gave to us at the shower. The box has been sitting in plain view in Julia's closet since she has been home, but she never saw it. She had not noticed it. She is loving the feathers and magic wand and pretty ballerina skirts.
This is a girl ready for ballet class.
Our only problem right now is that Julia wants to wear the skirts all the time -- to bed, to eat, and of course to play and to go to school. The rule is that she can wear these clothes inside all day if she wants to. She cannot wear it to bed, to play in the backyard (in the dirt and pond), and she cannot go out to school or anywhere else with it. We had a major meltdown today trying to go to a pumpkin patch. It resolved after awhile, but it was a tough start of a Sunday afternoon.

Children's Museum -- Oct. 3, 2006

2006-10-08T22:06:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of the week Julia and I visited the Children's Museum for the second time. We played in a section of the museum for our entire visit. Julia loved the big doll house. We have a dollhouse in her room but have not gotten furniture yet. Maybe it will be a good Christmas present. I love the sturdy wooden stuff and it will be able to withstand my girl's rough play.
The sand table vacinated Julia. She poured from one vessel to the next watching wheels turn and sand disappear through sieves. She used different shovels and cups and funnels. I think she packed a year's worth of sand play into one afternoon.
A girl who is having fun!

School & words

2006-10-03T21:43:00.000-04:00

Conversations overheard at kindergarten:

Blond Girl: "Julia doesn't talk English."
Boy: "What does she talk?"
Blond Girl: "Chinese."
Boy: "Oh. Ola!"

Steven: "Where is she from?"
Kenna: "China."
Steven: "Where is that?"
Kenna: "Somewhere in Hawaii."

We will be visiting Julia's school each day this week and next. The teachers say that Julia is improving. She knows no procedure -- doesn't know about lines, or sitting in reading circle, or taking turns, or going to the bathroom at a particular time, or waiting, or listening. But she is willing and wants to be with the kids in her class.

More words today -- table, bug, frog, alligator, hosta. Tonight, we watched a few scenes of the movie Babe and Julia became very excited when she heard words that she knew. She repeated the words she heard. She also comments freely during the movie. Oh, I wish I knew what she was saying.

Two more pictures from the Gardens

2006-10-02T23:10:00.000-04:00

October 2, 2006 School, blood, & sleep

2006-10-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

Today, Monday, brings more challenges. Julia and I went to her school for the morning session minus about 45 minutes. We went to the classroom where she will be placed. She sat in the back with me for a few minutes but very soon went to join the other kids at the front of the room. The children were doing different things in small groups waiting for the teacher to call them together for a morning meeting. Julia tried to get the attention of a few kids, although there were two girls who tried to get hers. I wonder if Julia was trying to gain the attention of the teacher, or if she wanted the attention of one of the children.

Julia went to the floor a few times, crying or just laying down. I went to her twice but she was fine. I let the teacher deal with it after that. Julia sat with the kids and said "Hi" and "Hello" a number of times. She also listened at times.

We went to the bathroom with the other kids and then went outside. It was then that the administrator of the school joined us and took Julia by the hand and directed her some. Julia responded to Mrs. Levine, and I think Julia tried to do as she was directed. We will go back to the school tomorrow, and try another day.

After lunch, we went to Methodist Hospital and had Julia’s blood drawn. The whole process of registering, waiting, and having the blood drawn and a TB test took only an hour, but that was long enough. The very calm and efficient nurses or techs drew 7 vials of blood, but Julia did not protest until the blood draw was finished and the needle for the TB test came out. Then she howled and I couldn’t blame her.

Julia’s diet is slowly becoming more varied. She loves sweet potatoes and broiled salmon. I made bok choi with garlic and onions which she liked and she can put away a grownup sized salad without trouble. We had tuna fish salad for lunch today. Our only problem is drinks. Julia is not quite drinking enough unless the day is hot and she drinks water. She drinks a little milk and sips of juice.

Tonight, we had a tough time putting Julia to bed. This is two tough nights in a row. It seems that whenever Julia moves forward a step or two, she has a hard night. She did not get to sleep until 9:30 tonight and that only after she cried herself to sleep.

September 30, 2006 – Update for last week in September

2006-10-02T22:13:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, Julia was home for three weeks, and Friday was our one month anniversary of her adoption.

We made another visit to Julia’s school on Friday. We played in the playground when the pre-K kids were out. Julia mostly watched from the swings, but tried talking to some of the kids and ran around before we went in for lunch. At the lunch room, Julia wanted a tray like the other children and we had one. The meal was nothing that great but if it will help her feel more at home, we’ll let her eat the cafeteria food. A little boy who had been on the swings next to Julia came and sat with us for lunch. It was very cute.

When the K kids lined up to leave the lunch room, Julia got up and hugged a number of the kids. I think she is very excited about the possibility of going to school. We will go three times next week and hopefully, the school will arrange some testing and then language classes for her.
We spent time in the botanical garden. Julia enjoyed the shapes of gardens and the plants. She posed for many, many pictures. We had some mini-meltdowns, especially when she wanted something from the gift store and I said no. That kid can scream, and the voice echos!

On Thursday, Julia Bye-Bye started repeating words. On Saturday, she was very interested in repeating the names of animals. She even took out our flash cards and we found the animals to go over. She says "monkey" and "tiger" and "cat" and "dog". Her favorite is "lion" which she repeated over and over together with making the sound of a lion’s roar. She has added "how are you" to "hello." She also identifies triangles, squares, and circles all the time now – there are a lot of round tires on the road. We followed this up on Sunday with another visit to the zoo where a lion came very close to us and Julia greeted her and made roaring sounds as well as saying "lion." She also really enjoyed the monkeys (who are really baboons, but we are not picky).

On Friday, we went to the International Adoption Clinic at Riley Hospital and saw two lovely doctors who poked and prodded at Julia and made her laugh and have a good time. Julia will have additional tests and vaccinations, and the doctors will come up with recommendations for additional care. The docs thought that she was generally on target developmentally and suggested we hold off on any intelligence testing until she has some English. We that figured that would be what we would do – as we watch her in school and at home, we may not even feel the need to test. Also, her dialect makes it hard for her to understand good Mandarin, so testing now would not necessarily prove much.

After the doctor’s visit, we headed up to Chicago to clean out my apartment. We stayed overnight and packed up this morning. Julia was pretty good about the whole process although I imagine she had no idea of what was going on. She demanded to be held during some of the packing up in the van, and we tried to comply. She is so much more comfortable with us than she was just two weeks ago. I feel her relaxing into my body when I pick her up. Too bad she is 40 pounds.

Another thing we worked on this weekend was a kid’s scissor. Julia cut construction paper and drew with colors pencils on the pieces. I glued some of the pieces onto another piece of paper but she was not into doing that but she loved cutting.
I did not think she had ever done this before. She was tentative at first; she watched me very carefully when I showed her how to cut; and gained confidence was she practiced.

End of September at the Gardens

2006-10-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

Julia making faces at the White River Botanical Garden. She had a lot of fun at the Garden and loved posing at the different gardens.

Julia goes everywhere with a backpack on her back. She calls it her "Sheeba." I have to find out if that means anything in Chinese.

What a ham! Julia is still wearing the dresses that we bought her when she was in China. This is her favorite dress and the first one that we found for her. We are getting her to wear shirts under her sleeveless dresses as the weather gets colder, but I hope that we get some other things on her when the weather really turns.

Kids Museum & Viet Bistro

2006-09-26T23:01:00.000-04:00

Today, Julia and I made it to the Children's Museum and it was the best!

No question that the carousel is the favorite. She rode the tiger and then a horse; however, we did have some trouble getting off. Transitions continue to be difficult. This one particularly so, even when she found something else to do. Even while she was in the hall of mirrors the music of the carousel would send her back to moans and groans.
Finally, I scooped her up, put her under my arm, and moved her to another floor. Then, she was fine.

We had lunch at the museum. The only food that I thought that Julia would eat was veggies. I ordered a piece of pizza for myself. I didn' t think that Julia would eat the pizza because she didn't eat pizza last week but today, Julia Bye-Bye likes pizza. She did eat most of her veggies but also a good portion of my slice. That girl! She has tasted and preferred a number of things, including my ice cream, a number of times now. I am not sure whether she just wants what I have, or that she is willing to taste things that I prefer.

After lunch, we visited the dinosaurs and Julia practiced digging for ancient bones. While she was digging, a Chinese mother and son came into the digging pit. We started talking. She has been in the US for 6 years and has 3 kids. She was able to speak to Julia, and Julia seemed to understand some of what she said. It looked like Julia felt very good about seeing an Asian face and hearing Manderin. The woman and I traded names and phone numbers. We will try to get together for a playdate.

It is humbling to have another adult understand my daughter when I cannot understand her. It is humbling to have another woman say that Julia might still have a bit of fear of us because we look so different from what she is used to.

Tonight, we took Julia out to eat at the Viet Bistro. It is a quiet and quick restaurant, and it was both tonight. Its the first time we've been out to eat since we've been home and we had no idea if she would sit for the whole meal.

Even just coming into the restaurant put Julia in a good mood. She definitely liked or recognized the smells when we walked in, and she loved the food -- soft springs rolls, rice noodles with tofu, and chicken and broccoli. She inhaled it all. The food was very flavorful tonight and we enjoyed it just a bit less than she did. Julia has been very, very good about eating almost whatever I put in front of her. I've tried to give her some of what she might like but I know I am not spicing things in a real Chinese way. I will try to do some more authentic cooking, and we will take her out now and again.

Finally for today, there is nothing like walking to the car and having your little girl make sure she is holding one of mom's hands and one of dad's hands.

Movies, School, and Order

2006-09-25T23:14:00.000-04:00

Here is Cheshire and Julia laying in bed together in Hong Kong just a little more than 2 weeks ago. I do miss Chesh, and Julia misses her as well.

Yesterday, David's birthday, we went to Marcia's for a late brunch and then to the movies. Julia's first visit to another home. She was pretty good -- playing outside on the swing set, and inside on the electric piano. She ate waffles and fruit and loved Marcia's tapioca pudding. Julia almost sat through the entire movie -- we took a short walk about 2/3 of the way through. She watched pretty intensely.

Julia and I visited her school today, and we will visit again on Wednesday and Thursday. Today, we visited at lunch time and I packed lunch for Julia to eat there. We ate at a table away from the kids eating but Julia watched and said hello to lots of people. Then we went to a play area in a great indoor space. Julia had fun playing in the playhouse with kitchen and fake food things. We also visited the playground and Julia sampled all the swings and the climbing equipment.

The administrator of the school may set up some developmental tests to figure out what Julia needs at school. She is not sure whether Julia can be tested without English. I expect that if she starts school soon, I will be in the classroom with her until she learns some social skills and feels comfortable.

After the school visit, we went to the Mall to return pants to Children's Place. I expected that this would be a bit of a challenge but I wanted to get credit for the pants that Julia will never wear. We had to walk through Von Maur and Julia had a number of mini-meltdowns when I wouldn't let her touch things she shouldn't, whining and going to the floor, and me waiting until she was ready to get up and move on. The store, and mall in general, were pretty empty -- thank goodness -- and a very nice sales lady kept me company, talked to Julia, and told me about a friend of hers who had adopted 3 kids. We spoke while Julia calmed down and the woman asked how I was holding up and I had to answer that I was really okay about everything. And I am. We did get through von Maur and into the kids store. There Julia found these groovey girl-like dolls. I thought she wanted one and I would have been willing to buy one for her, but she only wanted to put them in order. She sorted the four different dolls into separate piles and put the sorted piles on the display.

Then we went to Marsh where she got to ride in her favorite cart with a car on the front while I shopped for dinner supplies.

All this and I was able to make dinner, and Julia was pretty pleasant during our after dinner walk and play in the church playground. I think we will be somewhat quieter tomorrow, and let Julia digest what we did today.

Another very cool hair do

2006-09-24T00:24:00.000-04:00

23 Sept -- 2 weeks home!

2006-09-24T00:19:00.000-04:00

Gosh, I noticed that the last two postings were rather down. Julia has been surviving in an institution for 5 and a half years, and although the behaviors she used to thrive in the orphanage do not work particularly well at home, I respect her strength, her spirit, her intelligence, and her soul. We are getting to know each other and very slowly learning to be a family.

Between those two rather down posts were two pretty good days – Thursday especially was very sweet because we moved at Julia’s pace. We played the piano twice and Julia was very interested in using her single finger to play twinkle and are you sleeping. We played with the trains and worked on a very simple puzzle. We also snuggled on the couch for a long time. When we left the house it was already the middle of the afternoon. We went to the little playground at the corner church and Julia went from one swing to the other as I pushed her higher and higher. She now says “higher!”

Today, we had a fine morning. Julia and I cuddled in bed. She is very shyly exploring my body in the morning. She rubs my arms and back and touches my breasts every so often. It is the kind of activity that Cheshire did as an infant. I hope that I am becoming Julia’s mother.

Julia and I had breakfast so that David could sleep in a little. Then we played with play dough. She is getting better about making impressions, using the cookie cutters, and taking the cut shapes away from the rolled out dough. I’m still rolling.

After lunch, we went to an arts festival in Carmel (Indiana) and saw Amber and Chris and the twins from our travel group. We spoke very briefly – the dancers and later the rain kept us from much conversation but it is good to see folks from our group. We also met an actor who stared in one of David's plays about a year and a half ago, AND he had a Chinese daughter as well! His daughter, Anna, has been home almost a year now.

We were in Carmel to see a very nice Chinese dance troupe perform. The dancers are all local women and they did a wonderful job. Lovely costumes and very interesting music and choreography. The only problem was that a storm was blowing up, and it sprinkled, drizzled, and then rained. We all wound up under the performance tent until the storm threatened to blow the tent away and the electricity went out. Then we ducked into a cafe for soup and hot cocoa before heading home.

Of course, no festival is complete without a balloon animal made by a clown. And so, here is Julia with her first balloon animal -- a bunny -- personally made just for her. It took at least 45 minutes before she popped the balloon.

We visited the library where Julia found another five year old to be too noisy with. Maybe she is on target for a five year old???!

At home, we planned to watch a movie together and then have left overs for dinner. Julia and I were waiting for Daddy to bring home a movie. Julia has started to use a Barbie water bottle and she was laying across my legs like a baby drinking the bottle as if it was a baby bottle. Okay, so this is one of the moments you read about in adoption books when the child actually is asking the parent to baby them. Pretty cool, I thought. We’ve reached some new high. BUT after a little singing and cuddling, Julia took a big sip of the water, pulled out the bottle and squirted me in the face. A move that would be great for the movie, but really was the pits in person. I told her no and she laughed at me. She then started hitting and pinching me and I again told her no and put her on the floor. She took another sip of water and stood up and went over to my lap top and squirted that. David was home by this time and after we cleaned up my machine and me, and told Julia not to do those things we felt rather at a loss for how to change this behavior. This was all unacceptable and she wasn’t taking our scolding or our “time in” very seriously. David took out the many, many hair clips from Julia’s hair and told her that he was angry. She freaked out because of losing the hair clips and I had an idea. I took all the hair clips and told her to sit in front of me, to be quiet, to stroke nicely my face, etc. Each time she did what I said (and demonstrated), she got one clip put back in her hair. We backslided a few times and she lost the clips again, but by the time dinner was ready, Julia had all her clips in her hair, and was feeling pretty good about herself. And I was feeling like I was in the Miracle Worker. I have been looking for a consequence that she would respond to when she is misbehaving or testing. For now, hairclips are pretty precious to her, and perfect for the short run to work with.

Oh, a tough day

2006-09-22T22:48:00.000-04:00

Very tough day today. Cheshire left for Cambridge and the beginning of her very exciting year abroad. We neither followed our routine nor did we provide a good substitute for Julia Bye-Bye. And so, we had meltdowns -- one before it was time to go to the airport and another in the car as we were heading home. I am sure that Julia sensed that great changes were going on today. Especially because this child has no language with us and must depend on what she sees and perceives, and maybe what she felt was similar to what she experienced when she left the orphanage -- well, it made for a tough day.

We had Indian take out for dinner and Julia loved the spinach and rice. Then we watched a very silly movie (RV) and it was just after nine when we put Julia Bye-Bye to bed. She fell asleep quickly and just before she dropped off to sleep, she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Last ice pop of summer

2006-09-20T23:48:00.000-04:00

19-20 Sept

2006-09-20T23:39:00.000-04:00

Tuesday was hard for Julia. We had her first doctor’s appointment. We were kept waiting too long for Julia and the appointment ended with her receiving 4 injections to start her catching up on her vaccinations. She also was testing limits incredibly – hitting the dog, throwing grass into the pond, daring to turn on the stove – things that I could not let go. When I took her up to take a bath and wash her hair, she threw a fit when I took the little pigtails out of her hair. Julia hasn’t had a bad melt down for a few days and this was a big one.

After awhile she settled down and I put her to bed. She went sleep easily probably because she was totally exhausted by that time. And I wondered if I was really up to dealing with this little dear one.

Wednesday morning, Julia woke up feeling warm to the touch. I gave her some medicine and she wanted to curl up on my bedroom floor. I picked her up and we sat in my comfy chair with the quilt over both of us. We stayed that way for more than an hour. Then we had breakfast, watched tv and snuggled more. We had lunch and went shopping at Once upon a Child. We found all sorts of good stuff there including a Elmo cell phone that she loves.

Cheshire and I went shopping after dinner and David and Julia played outside and played on the piano and had a hard time getting to sleep.

But it was a better day.

I am learning, slowly, but learning.

Sunday Fun

2006-09-19T21:47:00.000-04:00

We picked up ShaDiamon on Sunday afternoon and went to the JCC pool for some swimming. It was pretty cool but the water felt warm and as long as we were moving, we enjoyed it. I haven't seen ShaDiamon for a month and she looked so grown up to me. She was very sweet to Julia and willing to share her time with me.

After swimming we went to Holiday Park and found a great playground with lots of stuff to climb and great slides. Julia show that she was much more agile and stronger than she has shown us up to this point. She climbed and pulled herself up to reach platforms she wanted to get to.

I think that Julia had a great time with ShaDiamon and I hope that they can become friends.

Day 10

2006-09-19T21:44:00.000-04:00

September 18, 2006

Day 10. Julia is learning to take comfort from us. She will go to David or I (or Cheshire when she is home) when she is scared or hurt. She complains loudly (whining to be more specific) when she has minor boo-boos, but we make a big fuss and kiss the hurt place.

Julia is not learning lots of new words yet. She works on counting, and also on three shapes – triangle, circle, and square. She still tries communicating in Chinese and chatters at us all the time. She sings in Chinese. She is picking up a few of the words of Oh Susannah which I have been singing to her since we’ve met, as well as the words to a few of the Chinese songs from our Chinese kids CDs.

Her imagination is incredible and much of it concerns music. Long legos are the keys of a piano, a lego stack becomes a flute or something blown into straight on. We have a game of putting her stacking cups in a tower and making a piano on each side and playing them together and singing nya-nya-nya. She is also very interested in plucking the guitar and David’s bass. The sound of the bass was astounding to her. Music at its most basic is organized sound. It makes perfect sense to me that a child without language or other means of communication would gravitate to music. And of course, we will encourage this interest.

On another hand, we went to the JCC the other day, and into one of the basketball courts. Julia carefully stood on the foul line and tried to make a basket. Where she saw any of these things, we will never know, but she may have converted from Jiangxian to Hoosier with that move.

On Saturday, we went to the Indy Zoo with Marcia and Matthew. We went again today, Monday, in the rain. She loved the dolphin show each time – I guess jumping fish are cool no matter where you come from. She loved the polar bear today and didn’t want to leave. She says the English word for bear but I am pretty sure she doesn’t know the Chinese, so it is not a translation but a new animal to her. Horse is still Ma; and Monkey is something I cannot write or pronounce.

Cheshire was in Florida for the weekend and this morning Julia was very happy to see her. Julia called her Jei Jei and a funny pronunciation of Cheshire and hugged her many times.

Last night, Julia looked at some of her books with more patience and interest than she has shown before. The books were all pop up books and the three dimensional pictures thrilled her. Still, she was looking at books.

Saturday at the zoo

2006-09-17T11:07:00.000-04:00

Julia has been home one week today -- tonight really -- an so we went to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Marcia and Matthew joined us and Julia had a wonderful time.

Julia and her wonderful godmother Julia enjoying the horses.
Julia and Baba (Daddy) ride the horses -- sea horses that is! Julia loved the carosel in Nanchang and I have the feeling this will be a regular stop during our zoo visits.
Julia and Daddy looks at the elephants. Julia was very excited about seeing the animals. She recognized many of them -- lions, monkeys, tigers, horses, pigs, goats, and the elephants.

And she connected the words cards we have for her. These are flashcards that have pictures on one side and words in Chinese and English on the other side. I brought along the animal cards to the zoo, and she was very excited about connecting the cards with the animals. She knows the Chinese names of many animals.

This week is pictures -- Our treasures from China

2006-09-17T10:40:00.000-04:00

These pictures were taking last Monday, September 11.

After unpacking, we put all our China loot on the dining room table. I am not sure how all of this stuff fit in our bags but we came home with the same 4 bags that we left with -- oh, and three carry on boxes of china.
Julia loves the lego and playschool people. They climg lego towers, ride lego cars and trucks, and talk to eachother in Chinese.
The girls working together. Julia wants to be where ever Cheshire is, and is happy to be doing her work beside Cheshire.

14 September -- Record speed!

2006-09-14T09:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a big day for us. Julia is changing at record speed and I feel like we are just along for the ride. First, there are things that are the same. She is still wearing the 5 dresses that we had for her in China. We have two more dresses in her closet that I offer her but she goes for what she’s worn before. It dawned on me today that she is only choosing from what she is sure she can wear. She has been like this with toys. Up until today, she only played with the purple, red and blue play dough leaving another 6 colors alone. Maybe more was too much regarding both clothes and play dough, or maybe she did not necessarily think they were hers to have. Today she showed me the other playdough colors and "asked" if she could use them. She was very happy to find out that they were all for her and is very busy making a ginger-dough community. A rainbow coalition? My job is to roll out the colors.

Julia continues to love and lavish affection on her stuffed toys and she has added her groovy girl doll to her affections. The doll was on her reachable shelf but she did not play with it until I gave it to her. She immediately took off the clothes and put them on again. I also opened the other clothes set we have for the doll and she loved the top, but discarded the pants for her doll. I had been wondering about dolls because she cannot deal with the Bitty Baby I carried to China. The moving eyes freak Julia out. So Groovy Girl was rule and Bitty will go in the closet for a few months. (Way to go, Robin and Alyson!).

Julia still sports innovative hair styles. Yesterday and today, she preferred six tiny pigtails on top of her head. I never saw anything in China like it so I don’t believe she is coping something. We’ll see if her taste changes when she gets to school.

Yesterday, we went to the playground of the JCC (Jewish Community Center) and she was in the playground when the pre-school and kindergarten had their outdoor time. She didn’t really play with the kids but she made sure that anyone doing the same activity that she was doing had the necessary tools – she found shovels for others playing in the sand and found a second truck for a little boy who wanted to play with the one she was playing with. Her interests – water and sand play, riding a trike, and filling and dumping a truck – are closer to the activities that the kindergartners are doing than to the pre-school kids. This was good for me to see, as I wasn’t sure whether to ask her school to place her in pre-school.

We also shopped in a supermarket and used a cart that had a little car on the front. No need for an amusement park when the supermarket provides such rides. She was in heaven – steering, waving to strangers, and chattering to me.

Julia is kissing! She practiced the night before last when she laid awake in our bed. She was making a kissing sound and screwing up her mouth in all sorts of ways. I tried not to laugh since we were both supposed to be sleeping. Just before she went to sleep, she have me a quick kiss on the arm. It was almost a sneaked kiss and she seemed embarrassed by it.

Yesterday morning, when she was sitting with Cheshire and I, Julia went to shake hands with Cheshire (she did this a lot in China, less at home), they shook and then Julia kissed Cheshire’s hand. Cheshire was, of course, delighted and made a big deal of it. Julia seemed very proud of what she had done. She then did the same to me. Then after dinner last night, Julia went around the table and kissed each of us (including David this time) on the cheek and hugged us.

After we spent so much time out of the house yesterday, Julia was exhausted, but we tried with all our might to keep her up until a good bed time. She had a bath at around 7 and then agreed to wear underpants and a pj top. She was cranky because she was so tired and got close to a tantrum. Then, she led me into her bedroom and we pulled down her covers and she climbed into bed. We looked at a few books and then she put the blanket over her head (her falling asleep position) and went to sleep. She stayed in her bed until about 3 am when she climbed out of bed herself and came into our room and climbed into our bed. It was like she had been doing this all her life.

12 September -- 3rd day home

2006-09-14T08:03:00.000-04:00

Julia Bye-Bye and I are sitting on the floor in the living room listening to a Chinese CD of kids music and playing with duplo and playmobil people. Julia is playing very quietly and very seriously. She handles the little people, putting the hot dog cart together and giving the vendor the umbrella and a pitcher to hold. Every so often she joins in with the music for a few words. When something doesn’t fit correctly, she gives it to me to figure out.

She spent a good part of the morning playing with play dough, and now this afternoon with her duplo. We also drew triangles, circles, and squares together. She is interested in doing all of these things although it’s pretty clear that she has not done these things before .

Day 3 and we are not quite over jet lag. Our nights are a bit rocky. I am still exhausted because I haven’t had a full night’s sleep. David is back to work today lacking the same night’s sleep. Julia slept through the night in China but hasn’t managed it here yet. Last night was the worst; she was up from 2 to almost 5.

Marcia stopped over this morning to drop off something and came in for a few minutes. Julia came to greet her but seemed to close up when she saw it was not David, Cheshire, or I. I had been wondering whether it really matter that we were keeping ourselves cloistered, but her reaction to Marcia who Julia met when we came home. We will try next week for some visits but not before then.

Julia is very interested to watch us do household things. She watches me in the kitchen and tries to help at times. Yesterday evening, I brought a bowl of snap beans onto the floor so I could take the ends off while Julia played with legos. However, Julia started taking the beans out of the bowl and snapped off the ends of the beans and broke them in half for me.

Even though it was raining most of the day, Julia and I, and Julia and Cheshire walked from our house to 46th street and back again three times. She was very interested in the houses and cars. It kept her head turning. Yesterday, David put Julia’s car seat in the car and Julia was interested in sitting in it; however, she was not interested in going anywhere.

And the amazing Schanker girls!

2006-09-12T11:02:00.000-04:00

And more!

2006-09-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

More of us!

2006-09-12T10:52:00.000-04:00

Best group ever!

2006-09-12T10:48:00.000-04:00

David and his new girl in Guangzhou

2006-09-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

Day 1 at home

2006-09-11T01:19:00.000-04:00

Julia had a great first day at home -- melted down only three times and only once was intense and that was at bed time. Transitions between activities were the trigger point each time. We kept her busy today and she kept us busy. I swear that every so often she looked to us to see if we were going to be moving, traveling, or relocating her. She offered a few hugs. Cried when David went to do food shopping and later when he went to fill her bike tires with air. She was overjoyed when he came back.

I am a little concerned about food. She does not communicate that she is hungry – and she is capable of telling us of her needs, bathroom needs for example. I offered her food 5 times during the day. I really needs to do some work and research about what to feed her. Today, she ate two hard boiled eggs, a cup of noodles, popcorn, a few corn chips, an apple, two bananas, tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, egg noodles. She drank apple juice and milk. She rejected oatmeal and chicken.

Julia is carrying around her stuffed dog (thank you, Debbie and the Chicago pro se crew!), and knows the difference between her stuffed toys – bear, dog, and dog. And she played quietly with duplo (thank you, Marcia and Matthew) which feels pretty amazing because she has not done much quietly. Julia and I went outside and pulled weeds for about an hour. She was very interested in weeding – okay, pulling plants out of the ground, but I have lots of weeds right now – and digging.

Julia is still trying valiantly to get us to understand her. We were able to connect the Chinese and English for dog, apple, airplane, and go. She continues to make believe – giving me a ball and telling me to take a taste of the "apple," using duplo pieces put together in an "L" shape to give us and her stuffed dog "shots" and also used the same duplo shape as a gun, I think. When she gave the dog shots, she had me hold the dog, pet it, put a finger on the shot place, and also pat its back and say "don’t cry" in Chinese.

She met our Latkah and Latkah’s favorite person, Jeannette, when Jet brought our last family member home. Julia needs to learn how to be gentle with the real dog. She was slightly joyfully manic which I think is her reaction to fearful new things. It was just a pale reflection of her gotcha day reaction, but I see similarities. Julia was friendly to Jeannette, sharing her toy dog and being charming.

Now to bed for me.

Pictures, pictures, pictures – I will post them soon.

Indianapolis -- Home, Sweet, Home

2006-09-10T03:42:00.000-04:00

It is about 3:30 am, but my internal clock, and my predilection for coming alive for a little while during the night, fight against more sleep.

Julia woke up about an hour ago after getting to sleep about 9 last night. I gave her some benydryl and sang to her for an hour. She is now asleep and I hope she stays in bed until first light. We need to get her on Indy time asap. I feel her yearning for some regularity in her life.

I realized on the plane ride that did not end ( 15 hours? 75? 132?) that since she had been with us (13 days give or take the time lost and/or gained at the international date line), Julia Bye has not been in just one place (even a hotel room) for a straight 15 hours. How tough is that on her? On anyone?

On the plane, she played with her bear and two of those little pillow cases for over an hour. Dressing and wrapping the bear, singing to him, telling him not to cry and sharing him with me.
Her room is perfect -- just enough stuff, not too much to overwhelm. Everyone who gave Julia a stuffed animal is wonderful! You have never, ever seen a little girl so happy, as Julia was when she went into her room and found her stuffed dog, cat, polar bear, bunny, And the black dog from the Mann girls! And the two dresses hanging in the closet got a hug when she saw them.

Marcia met us at the airport – hours early. We are so grateful that she could pick us up, could drop what she was doing and come to get us early, and that we could get an earlier flight from Newark. The woman at the Continental counter waived the change of flight fee because we were adopting. How nice is that! How many times during this journey have we been blessed with generosity from those we love and from strangers. At times, I do feel like we have sun shine beaming directly down on us.

Current questions which are keeping my eyes open:

Why didn’t I really believe that Julia would regress this much? And why didn’t I baby proof our house for a 2 year old? Two is probably not being fair to her – 3 maybe. But with the brains, guile, wisdom, and incredible strength and stubbornness of a full 5.5 year old.

Is she normal? Bright? Clever? Is she really speaking Chinese? These are normal mom questions. Yes, I am worried some, and even feel a bit resentful of the orphanage director who could have given us more on Julia. But deep down, I know all is fine.

Should I find a stroller? And thank you to, M3, whose link to stroller rating made my night just now! Yes, there are strollers what carry more than 40 pounds!

How many more tantrums? I want to thank each person on the China-Newark leg of our trip for not making snide comments out loud or wiggling fingers as they passed our seats during Julia’s 45 minute melt down before she went to sleep for 2 hours. Of course, there was that little old Chinese man who stood and watch her wail and flail for a good 10 minutes. I have no idea what he was thinking. I’d also like to thank the baby who cried at least as long, if not longer, than Julia. And I did not mind one bit.

Will she hate us? Oh, the look in that kid’s eyes when she is angry at me. It is very pure. If looks could kill, I’d be charcoal! I take comfort in her smiles and hugs, but when this kid is angry . . . remember that story of Jesus in the temple with the money changers? I don’t know why I just thought of that, but the comparison is apt. Righteous anger – Julia has lots right now.

What am I going to do with her tomorrow, and then next day, and the next, and the . . .

Okay, I’m going back to bed. I’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.

Just one more thing -- People have said we are special, very good, generous, etc., for adopting an older child. I have to admit that these last two weeks, I've looked at the babies in our group with envy. Babies cry and fret and spit up and have messy diapers and get teeth and don't sleep, but they are small, and prone to love pretty quickly. I could go for that, but from the beginning we felt sure that an older kid was for us, and although it has made the China journey harder, and although I have no idea what comes next, I do not doubt the wisdom of our decision. There are no words to describe how right it was.

Hong Kong -- Last travel post!

2006-09-08T07:09:00.000-04:00

We are going home!!! In less than 12 hours, we will be boarding our Continental jet. It is a long ride and considering our spicy dragon's behavior the last few days, the ride home will be a challenge. Please, say prayers, chant, burn insense, and offer sacrifices to the travel gods that the other passengers will not kill us before we land at Newark.

Barb, Steve, Chris, Squeaker -- we'll give you a call when we land in Newark.

So on the up side today -- We took a bus tour of Hong Kong and the difference between mainland China and HK is incredible. Only S. Calif. culture can compete with the flashy wealth and the stark poverty that we see here. But like S.C., H.K. is a beautiful place. A city built on lush hills and a reclaimed bay. The people too are a different sort -- New Yorkers or Parisians. Very interesting and it would be great fun to visit with lots of time and money and a personal guide to take us about.

More up stuff -- Julia said I love you to me in Chinese -- I don't think she really understands but I've said it so many times to her that she may be just coping. That's okay. I'll take that for now. She gives hugs as well (no kisses yet). She sang another new song today and is trying to copy my Ol' Susanna.

Her behavior continues to deteriorate and I am just waiting to get her home. She went through a few days of refusing to walk, and in H.K. without a stroller, it is tough. Today, she did more walking and we were extremely happy. She is still laying on the ground when she is angry -- she had laid all over China and Hong Kong, and nice Chinese ladies have clucked at her. She is, however, eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom well and with great regularity.

I will post when we get home and try to get more pictures up. Thanks to everyone who has written or thought of us during this journey. All of it really helps keep us connected.

Hong Kong -- 7 Sept -- Beware Spicy Dragon!

2006-09-07T07:59:00.000-04:00

I am in an internet cafe and not sitting cosy with my laptop, but I am too cheap to pay for the hotel internet. I have a theory that the more expensive the hotel the more they charge for stuff like internet service. Shouldn't it be free when the room are primuim rate? And most everything in Hong Kong is primium.

Yesterday, we cleaned up our stuff in Guangzhou -- last minute shopping, packing, red couch pictures, and checking under beds to make sure nothing was left in the room. We left home with loose bags; now they are stuffed with China chochkas!

Our red couch pictures and our group pictures were chaotic and I probably didn't get everyone. But here we are -- a very happy and glorious group that I am missing already!

In the afternoon, we did the last American part of the adoption. Our guide and agency representative, Catherine (a wonderful person doing our agency proud), did the leg work of getting all our papers to the American counsulet so all that was left for us to do was to prove we were us, pick up Julia's Chinese passport with an American visa, and take an oath that all the forms we filled out were true to the best of our knowledge. The American official in charge was an officious little man who spoke about the difference between the IR-3 and IR-4 to a room full of parents jiggling cranky babies and a few wild children like ours running about the place. If you didn't know the difference before his talk, his speech was not enlightening. He did not seem to be aware of his surroundings and continued talking amidst screams, tears, etc. I was rather embarassed for him. I've seen our judges swear in new immigrants and they do it with such graciousness and pride. I'd like to see the same tone set for the adoption oath. Handing out little American flags would help and a sincere welcome to the newest Americans would be a nice touch.

When we finished with the government process, we bade a very quick good bye to our group of Jiangxi families, who we are alreadying missing, and boarded a bus for the train to Hong Kong. We reached our hotel room at about 10 last night -- a bit frazzeled but none the worse for wear.

Today we saw a little bit of Hong Kong -- a very little bit. Traveling with a 5 year old who has decided to see if we really mean it when we say we are her forever family doesn't promote much tourism. Julia is pretty impossible right now. She insists on being carried everywhere and scratches, pinches and pulls hair whenever she doesn't like the direction we go, the weather, or the noise level. She has spilled water, juice, soda, and David's coffee on every available surface that should not be wet. Does this mean that she trusts us?

We limit ourselves to some outing in the morning after breakfast, followed by lunch, followed by time in the pool, a little bit of "quiet" time, dinner, a bath, a book, and bed. This plus numerous mini-tantrums makes up our day. Our Julia goes to the ground and lays flat when she is angry at us, and I've let her do it time after time anywhere she wants to unless it is unsafe. Needless to say, we get lots of looks and comments (but most in Chinese so I have no idea what they are saying), but I think it is working somewhat. The laying down will continue I am sure, but it is shorter than it was a few days ago. Poor kid is so very angry at all this change and we are the only ones she can take it out on.

When she is not laying on the ground, or screaming in our arms, Julia Bye-Bye is incredibly charming and lovable! She sings all the time and does these funny dances with fancy arm movements. And when this kid throws her arms around any one of us and says Mama, Baba (Daddy), or JeiJei (big sister) we all melt.

Her new word today is "Okay." She is counting to 4 in English and I think to at least 10 in Chinese. She has also enjoyed snuggling in bedwith us the last two mornings, and she loved the big king sized bed we have in our Hong Kong hotel. Last night, after her bath, she laid in the very middle with two pillows at her head and a soft white coverlet over her body. What perfection!

We hope that all is well at home. We miss home and can't wait to see familiar faces. One more day and then we get on the plane for the USA!

Guangzhou -- 5 Sept 2006

2006-09-05T08:26:00.000-04:00

Julia discovers Duplo . . . .

And Elmo!

Guangzhou -- 4 September 2006

2006-09-05T08:23:00.000-04:00

Julia in yellow.

4 Sept 2006 -- One step closer to home

2006-09-04T22:32:00.000-04:00

I have read other blogs and at about this point in the China trip people feel like they are ready to go home and begin real life. Julia needs a schedule, routine, and a real home. Hotel life is not for kids. We are managing but I don’t think we are making much progress at family building or learning each other. However, today for the first time Julia Bye-Bye greeted me with Mama when I met Cheshire and Julia at the playground. I am also pretty sure she is referring to David as Ba at times and has used the Chinese word for love with Cheshire. She remembered another song to sing to us, and tonight Catherine brought us 2 CDs of Chinese music and Julia seemed to recognize three of the songs. She also wants to be fed at times, usually after the first flush of hunger. Sometimes it is just to spoon juice into her mouth. She especially likes to sit in a lap when she is being fed, and we are happy to do it. Sometimes she lets me take her in my arms and rock her like a baby.

She is having more frequent melt downs but at least today she is coming out of them sooner. She is having a harder time leaving places like restaurants, and the playroom, and the pool. I feel like she is looking for a place to nest. Another reason to be home. She had to cry herself to sleep tonight. I went to her a few times and Cheshire went once to calm her down and lay her down to sleep. I hate doing it, but she was exhausted and will not lay down with us or in a bed. She cried for about 15 or 20 minutes. Now she is asleep and David has come with ice cream for the rest of us.

We went through the medical examination today. Whata zoo at that place. It is a clinic on Shaimian Island and was jammed with locals receiving exams and treatment and babies, babies, babies. I don't think there is such a thing as an appointment and waiting is pure hell. Luckily, Julia had to go to the bathroom at one point in our wait and somehow we became "next" to be weighed and measured. There were three rooms -- one for measurement, another for internal medicine (a doc listened to her hard and felt her belly), a third for hearing in which the doc surrendered her squeeky potato to Julia. Julia refused to do the eye test. Still, she passed with flying colors. I haven't figured out the coversion of her height and weight but carrying her around we know that she is solid and able.

Julia woke up on Wednesday morning happy to see us. David took her out of the crib (She could climb out without troup but she waits to be taken out) and she jumped into my bed and snuggled and played peek-a-boo. When she was done with me she went to Cheshire. What a kid!