Over the river and through the woods...

On Saturday, we piled in the car for Kate’s orientation to country living: her first trip to Dawn’s parents’ house. They live on a mini-farm outside of Athens, complete with a scenic lake view, plenty of land to explore, waterfront dining at the grilling hut, and a nice variety of toddler-friendly animals. After lunch, Sam and Kate strapped on their boots and joined their granddad, “Pop”, on the feeding tour: first the ducks, then the fish, then some more fish, then the goats, and finally the horses. Sam showed Kate the basics with the ducks, and then she took off like a seasoned veteran. Kate didn’t seem too scared at all by the goats, and even the horse’s carrot-munching only backed her up a couple of feet.

Sam’s confidence with the whole scene certainly helped her, and it’s also great to see his masculine boy side. He got excited by chasing a baby frog, and then later on he explained to us why he was pounding the doghouse with a stick: “this is Jack’s doghouse. I like to bang on it.” Well, bang away, son, because your man card is not on full display when you’re filling in the blanks as we read your most-requested book, Cinderella. The tandem wagon ride was another hit with the kids, along with the hot tub. Kate continued her reckless streak: she rocked herself on her doughnut float until she flipped over backwards, plunging underwater. I scooped her up and tried to “sell” the flip as fun with a hearty laugh, and she cackled with delight. I thought later she might just jump off the dock to snag a fish, but I guess she saved that for the next trip.

Dawn’s parents finally got their first hug from Kate. She has been mysteriously and painfully shy around the six family members who came to meet her at the airport when we arrived. Our good friends Garrett & Rebekah [who speak Chinese] came to the mini-farm for a visit, and explained to Kate that Dawn’s mom Laura was not Kate’s mom, just Dawn’s mom. It seemed to work, because Kate promptly forgot her inhibition and gave Laura a sweet hug. Garrett & Rebekah also sang the kids’ song “Frere Jacques” in Chinese, and Kate kept singing it after they stopped. It was really cool to see her interact with them a bit.

 

Then on Sunday, the grandparent fun continued at my parents’ house. Kate showed off a solid fastball in their living room and she hauled in a few of my tosses as well [she even throws well with both hands!] My dad and sister broke through the affection barrier, but Kate still left my poor Mom out in the cold. Hang in there, Mom – it won’t be long. I just hope she lets Mom hug her before she bulks up on Grandma’s tasty cooking and rivals her “little” brother in creating back pain.

 

Sam and Kate have been playing better together lately, though it still deteriorates into shoving & tears on a regular basis. Sam seems to have entered a new phase: he started with unbridled joy, then moved to anger & bitterness, and now he’s in more of a sad, jealous mode. It’s much more pitiful than the previous stage, and at least he proposes a better solution than sending Kate back to China: “Mommy, I NEED you.” Dawn has done a phenomenal job of balancing two toddlers who test her patience by the minute, and who have different but simultaneous needs. They’ll let me meet a lot of their needs [when I’m here at night], but when the blues hit, only Mommy will do. It makes me feel kinda like the Krystal down the street. I kindly offer my little square hamburger, but there’s a Chick-fil-A right next door, and the kids know their chicken sandwich is the real deal and the customer service wins by a mile. So I go off to blog about how pitiful I am [where does Sam get that?] while Dawn does all the work, running from room to room to soothe the sorrowful.

One Month In

It was one month ago today that we met Kate. Just today I was re-telling the story of our “gotcha day” to a co-worker, who leaves for China tomorrow to bring home his daughter. What a wild day that was for us, and I’m sure it was 100 times wilder for Kate. [You can check out post from that day if you want to get a sense for the noise, joy, and tears that were abundant in the crowded adoption office.] It seems like Kate has been part of our family for much more than a month. And she’s made some great progress since we returned home 3 weeks ago today.

A lot of people ask us about her language: Is she speaking English yet? Does she understand you? How do you communicate? And I’ve learned that you can do a lot more than you’d think with very little communication. Kate says very few English words – maybe 5. Her repertoire includes bye-bye, night-night, ball, and maybe a couple others. But she’s really picked up the sign language that we’ve used pretty quickly. She understands when we sign many things to her, and she will initiate signs to express her needs or things she sees: eat, drink, cat, go to sleep, and her personal favorite – shoes. One morning she’d been awake for only about 12 seconds before she signed “shoes.” And she’s quite the little princess, with her strong opinions about footwear. She “parrots” a lot of words we’ll say, like thank you, hello, and I love you, and she’s become pretty affectionate too. She seems to understand a decent amount of what we say – maybe 15 or 20%. We’ve tried to encourage Sam to take pride in his role as language tutor, but he still needs a lot of support with his curriculum. Tonight he was talking on his phone to his buddy Bob the Builder. He was kind enough to share the phone with Kate, and it sounds like Bob is a hit in China, because she started throwing down some rapid-fire Mandarin with no shortage of volume. Speaking of Sam’s sharing, he has been much better the past few days, earning praise & stickers. We hope the sweet Sam we know and love is here to stay!

Dawn had a birthday on Tuesday, so we celebrated by having a family lunch at The Varsity. If you’re not from Atlanta or familiar with The V, it is a bona fide institution, a veritable mecca for onion ring lovers and chili dog connoisseurs. It’s worth your time to check out http://www.thevarsity.com/ so you can impress your Atlanta friends with trivia. “Oh, yeah, The Varsity – that place that serves 2 miles of hot dogs every day!” [That’s legit, by the way.] I guess Sam and Kate were pretty caught up in all the history there, because they needed my help to polish off their dogs and “FO’s.” One note for Varsity newbies: I’d recommend scaling down your normal quantity of food by about 25%. I learned the hard way at Georgia Tech when some buddies and I devoured like 4 cheeseburgers each.

We’ve mentioned before that Kate likes to have a good time. You know, “crank up the music and show off your moves” good time. Sam likes to groove too, but Kate dances like a drunk gymnast at a pearl jam show: so flexible it’s scary, and in need of a crash helmet. We love it. Tonight we put on some Akon and Young Jeezy, so the kids strapped on their rain boots and started bouncing. I thought Kate might have broken an ankle at one point, but no grimace, no tears, and no stopping. And somehow they learned the classic conga line / choo choo train with no real instructions. It was a sweet and hilarious moment, until of course one of them realized it wasn’t cool anymore. One kid starts shoving, the other is still feeling the rhythm, cue the tears.

Firsts

Every day, Kate experiences lots of stuff for the first time in her life. And it’s fun because she can experience a lot of stuff that a newborn can’t. Some things are big events, and lots are seemingly trivial, everyday things. Yesterday, Kate met her 92 year old great-grandmother for the first time. Today, she experienced her first downpour of rain while riding in the car. It didn’t go so well. She can be pretty dramatic, like her little brother. But unlike Sam, she can hit a decibel level when she cries that we’ve never experienced. Today we were driving to a store, and out of nowhere, she started screaming. We took the first exit and she calmed down once I got her out of the car. But we wanted to give her a break from the car, and our detour turned serendipitous when we spotted a Waffle House across the parking lot. Another first – kind of a big deal. And with that pit stop, her first grits and hashbrowns.

Last week, she had her first trip to the eye doctor. Because of her albinism, it may be the first of many, but she took it in stride. The exam didn’t lead to any huge discoveries, but I’m glad we went. It did officially confirm that she has albinism, and the doc said that the nystagmus [rocking of the eyes from side to side] will affect her distance vision. But no glasses now, and we’ll return in 12 months to get another read. Kate also joined Dawn and Sam on her first trip to Coca-Cola headquarters, for a baby shower for us and 2 other co-workers. Even though Coke has a strong presence in China, Kate didn’t seem too impressed. I guess next time I’ll have to take her to the free Slushee machine.

We also took Kate on her first trip to my parents’ house. Sam and Kate both loved the chocolate birthday cake for Dawn and my dad, and their first piano duet showed some partridge family potential.

Kate continues to adjust well to her new world & home. Sam’s been doing a bit better the past few days, with a decline in frequency of his “send her to china” requests. One interesting change is that he seems to have abandoned the afternoon nap. Today when he came out of his room, he confessed that he was “just in his room playing the whole time.” His re-decorated room was clear evidence.

The favorite activity of the week for her and Sam seems to be playing dress-up. Even though Halloween is over 2 months away, we’ve checked the box on the monkey, pirate, tiger, bunny, and princess costume in just the past few days. I think Sam wants me to be the “man with the yellow hat” for Halloween. So if you have any blinding yellow pants, or a yellow safari hat, you know where to send ‘em.

Just a Phase

Well, the honeymoon is over. For Sam, that is. Our tenderhearted son who was dancing for joy at the airport less than a fortnight ago has vanished, and in his place we’re working with a different, more challenging character. To be fair, on occasion the clouds will part and his giddy laugh shines through. But it’s been a challenging week on the home front, and Dawn’s referee patience is being stretched. [Mine is too, of course, but she has to deal with most of it.] Kate continues to adjust extremely well, which is a big blessing. And she doesn’t shun Sam [yet] when he bullies or barks at her. Today he was watching Diego for a bit, still wearing his frown, and Kate brought him his Diego doll, totally unprompted. He took the doll and threw it across the room. Fortunately, so far the rejection doesn’t seem to bother her much. The other day we went to the mall with Dawn’s parents, and Sam recommended to her Mom that “we should leave Kate at the mall.” A lot of folks have laughed when I tell them that, and hopefully we’ll join you in that laughter someday soon. But until then, we’ll recite the motto of parents of teenagers, after they lose control and their kids start selling crack out of their basement: “it’s just a phase.” Perhaps coincidentally, on Sunday our pastor Pete was talking about how parents have a lot of the same challenges as our kids, like selfishness, but we’re just a little better at masking it. Maybe he was talking about me.

Speaking of church, Kate did great on her first visit to this strange new environment. We’ve noticed a trend with her at the pool, at church, at a busy playground in the mall: she’s super shy for the first 20 minutes or so, sitting in Dawn’s lap, scoping out the scene. Then she gradually moves her way from the lap to the floor, first standing nearby and then venturing out. And within 30 minutes, she’s doing her thing, having a great time [especially at the pool]. It’s been really interesting to watch her in these situations, interacting with other kids a bit, venturing into new territory. I mean, she’s never been to a mall before, or to a rock-n-roll church, or even a pool. Pretty much everywhere we take her is a “first” for her, and I keep wondering “man, what is she thinking?” One of the families in our China travel group adopted a 10 year old boy, and that must be really wild for them to experience so many firsts. We realize that storms may come with Kate as she goes through other stages of the transition, but so far, she’s embracing all of this newness and showing us how sweet she can be.

And we know that at some point, Sam’s sweet side will return, because he was a super kid before last week. But his world has been rocked more than he can comprehend. Today he told Dawn “let’s go to our other house, just me and you.” We don’t have another house, but after some interrogation, Dawn figured out that he was referring to a beach house we stayed in on vacation in June. And he routinely turns on his angry voice and tells Kate ‘my no like my sister. She go back to China!” Thankfully she doesn’t understand his words yet, but his tone comes across clear enough. But pretty soon, he’ll realize she’s here to stay, and maybe he’ll accept the Diego peace offering and join her as she dives into the pool for another adventure.

Sushi & Swimming

Before Kate arrived, Sam woke up fairly early every day by my standards – around 7 – but sometimes on Saturdays, Dawn would entertain him for a while and graciously let me sleep an hour more. This morning, both kids were up at 6:30, and Dawn needed some more shut-eye after another night of jet-lag-induced tossing & turning. It was fine, because I’m not sure I’ve made it to 10pm once this week, which is definitely not the norm. So Kate & I played together while Sam took in a brain-building Curious George video. Kate is more comfortable with me every day, and played with me for about an hour while Dawn was upstairs [this is a big step and a welcome break for dawn]. After being home for about 9 days, she is adjusting really well – better than we had expected.

But our precious Sam has been more challenging than we expected. Sam had learned to play independently before Kate’s arrival, but now a full-time referee is needed to keep the peace. I’ve gotta think it’s pretty normal for a kid in Sam’s position to be struggling a bit: he didn’t grow up with his new ‘virtual twin’, and he didn’t have the gradual process of learning to share with a new baby sibling. Of course we’re trying lots of different tactics & tricks, and working hard to ensure that he gets equal attention & affection, but your prayers are appreciated.

They got an awesome gift last week from several members of Dawn’s Mom’s family. You’d think that this new kitchen would be easy to share, or at least peacefully parallel play, because it has like 37 different stations. And they have their good moments, but there are plenty of tears, and Sam’s trips to the naughty mat are on the rise.

Last night we took Kate out to her first restaurant in the U.S. and it was a blast. We ate out a ton in China, so we expected her to do well. But I didn’t expect her to have an instant love for sushi! We had to cap her after several pieces, but I’m curious just how many California rolls she would have polished off if we’d let go of the reins. For breakfast, she had 2 whole bananas, a hard-boiled egg, some sausage, and other stuff I lost track of. A lot of you know that I can put away some serious grub, so it’s a bit odd to be ridiculed by my 30lb toddler.

This afternoon we took Kate back to the pool. The first trip in China was far from successful, but she has started to really enjoy her baths here, and she freaked in china when we tried to bathe her. So we met our friends Blake & Chrissy, whom Sam adores, and re-tested the waters. We started slow, with Kate sitting in Dawn’s lap on the edge of the kiddie pool. Over the next hour, we saw the party-girl that we know and love, and even more. She was fearlessly jumping and flailing all over the kiddie pool, probably drinking in way too much chlorine. She even went up to another man – a stranger to her – with no coaxing and started playing with him. It was our friend Matt, who apparently has the midas touch with post-institutionalized Chinese girls.

Kate and Sam were both having a blast! Kate even seemed to enjoy the application of the 60 SPF sunscreen, which is another blessing, just like her affinity for shades.

It’s interesting how Kate seems to do much better with new friends when we’re not in our house. She still gets super shy when anyone comes to our house, but at the pool, grocery store, library, she acts pretty cool & confident. Tomorrow we’re going to roll the dice and take her to church – hopefully that won’t be too overwhelming. [how nice to use a gambling analogy for church…] It should help that her new pool-pal Chrissy will be her teacher, and dawn will probably stay with her too. Speaking of church, Dawn told Sam tonight at dinner that “God gave us Kate as a special gift.” Then Sam looked at me with a totally straight face and said “Daddy is Jesus.” Well, I’m flattered, son, but it looks like we may need a theology refresher course.

Shades & Sharing

It seems that Hollywood has an oversized influence on perceptions of America in other countries. So it makes sense that Kate is embracing her new status as a US citizen with a cue from Hollywood: the indoor shades. First, she was chillin in the 'brary with the shades, and then little bro joined the fun to cruise the grocery store, similarly disguised from the paparazzi.

But seriously, it's actually a great thing that Kate likes her shades, because they'll play a prominent role in her future since she has albinism. Folks with albinism have less melanin than most people, so they have lighter skin & hair and often have low vision, since their eyes can't process light as well as others. And this also explains why our Chinese-born daughter has blonde hair. I read that 1 out of 17,000 people in the U.S. have albinism, and I think it's even more rare among Chinese.

This morning Sam was playing happily on his bed, when Kate picks up the plastic elephant.

Sam: "Mommy, I NEED the elephant."

"Sam, you don't need the elephant. Here, have a jaguar or a giraffe."

Sam: [quickly starting to fall apart, with unbearable pain evident in his facial expression] "No, I need the EL-EPH-ANT!" [each syllable is punctuated by a sob]

Obviously Sam was completely content and blissfully unaware of his dire need for the elephant, until Kate decided to play with it. The lessons of Eden are still true today: the most desirable object is the forbidden fruit. I gave Sam a little man-to-man talk about the wonderful variety of other toys in the house that he could play with, while he shared the elephant with Kate. But he wasn't really listening, because by then he was lusting over the blue microphone that Kate was playing with. "No, that's MY microphone!"

One hour later. Same song, second verse, different toy.
Dawn: "Sam, you are her brother, not her boss." "No, I AM her boss!"

So today was a challenging day, but we’ve had plenty of happy moments to balance it out.

Kate has been a champ at meal time. For the past few nights, she's devoured her first bowl of food and then made the sign for "more", with a huge grin. Sam finds it all very amusing, but continues his role as the carb king, focusing mostly on bread at dinner.

When I got back from my first day of work, I opened my arms to Kate to invite her for a hug. She stood there for a second or two, contemplating the offer, and then ran over and welcomed me home with a quick hug. What a moment!

Brother and Sister

We got back to Atlanta on Thursday night and introduced Kate to the rest of the family. We were a bit travel weary but super excited to see Sam and to watch him meet his new sister. It was an awesome moment – one of those moments that you carry with you forever, and that exceeds all the hype I had burdened it with in my mind. Our entourage had been waiting a while in the airport because it took us a long time to get through Immigration, though the Homeland Security folks were congratulatory as they bestowed Kate with U.S. citizenship and welcomed us home. We made our way through customs and finally to the elevator that would take us up to the terminal to meet our parents, my sister, dawn’s aunt and Kate’s little bro. Sam was so sweet to her and was literally dancing with excitement. I think all of us cried when he leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Kate was nervous and stoic through the whole process, as I expected. She was exhausted from the travel & jet-lag, and had to be overwhelmed by the airport frenzy. It’s hard to know what was going through her mind, but I’m certain she understood that Sam and her new extended family were thrilled to meet her and welcome her into the fold.

We got home that night to our house that had been decorated by friends, and a kitchen that was stocked by other friends. We’ve been really humbled by all the support we’ve received online and at home, and we’re so grateful for the prayers of our friends & family. So many of those prayers are already being answered. Kate is adjusting well to life in her new home, and she and Sam are quickly becoming buddies. It’s not without plenty of tears, bumps & bruises along the way, though. I literally just had to step away from the computer to bring ice for Sam’s arm where Kate bit him. Now five minutes later, after we got her to hug him and they both had a good cry, they’re back to playing & laughing. It’s tough to discipline her when she doesn’t speak English or really even know us yet. But Sam is doing great and we give him little speeches about how she’s still scared and adjusting to her new family. Yesterday Kate gave me her first hug. We told Sam to “show Kate how to give Dad a hug”, and then when it became a fun little hugging game, she joined in. Today she let me pick her up and fly her down the stairs. She still needs Dawn to be close by but I’m excited we’re making progress. Sam has said so many sweet things to her, calling her everything from Kate to Mao-Mao to his old favorite Hui Kate [which sounds like wee cake]. But my favorite quote of the week was his ecstatic declaration of their new roles: “I am a brother and you are a sister!!!”