Feeding birds and funny words

About 3 months ago, Kate was kicking it with her buddies at the orphanage, feasting on cake and celebrating her 3rd birthday. We sent her that cake, a couple of gifts, and maybe another picture of the 3 of us, hoping she would have a great birthday and also would think that we’re nice. It’s hard for me to fathom how much has changed in her life since then, and how far she’s come in the 2 months that she’s been with us. We feel so fortunate to have her in our family, and we’re impressed by how quickly she overcomes her obstacles. She used to be afraid of grass. I guess she had not interacted much with grass at the orphanage, and at first she would make us carry her because she refused to touch her feet to the friendly green blades. Now she rolls around with Sam at the park without a care in the world.  Well, at least not due to the grass...

During our time in China, she couldn’t stand taking a bath. She quickly got over that, and now loves it so much that she’s even convinced her skeptical brother that it really is fun to dump a bucket of water on your own head.

We used to be worried about her transition to western food, and we anticipated a 600% increase in our household rice consumption as we adjusted the menu accordingly. We didn’t force her to the darkside of American grub, but she just rolled with it. Even bigger changes, like sleeping alone in her own room – it was a gradual transition, but now she’ll even let me put her down while Dawn tucks Sam in. And she’s been doing great at preschool, too, despite the obvious language barrier. The class played a game where one student pulls a picture of another student out of a hat and tries to name the student. The teachers said Kate was able to name all 12 of her classmates on just the 3rd or 4th day of class. I think the longest adjustment has been with her grandmothers and some extended family, but she’s slowly making progress there, too. She still won’t give my mom a fist bump, but she did have fun playing puzzles with her.

And her attention span has grown too. At first, it seemed she would bounce from one toy to another every 10 seconds. Now, she’ll sit with me for 15 minutes or more to read stories at night. And I’m not even half as good as Dawn in dramatizing the story and bringing the characters to life with cool voices.

Sam and Kate are still getting along pretty well and making each other laugh a lot. Recently in the same day, Sam told Kate he wanted to her to go back to China, and then a few hours later, as he was laughing hysterically, told Dawn “Kate is the best sister.”

Sometimes they’re able to communicate things to each other in ways we don’t understand. One day Kate decided to climb in the laundry basket. Somehow she and Sam thought it would be fun to put another basket on her head. Pretty standard kid stuff so far. But then apparently they both realized she looked like a bird in a cage, because as Kate leaned her head back slightly and opened her mouth, Sam mimicked feeding her like a mama bird. Obviously toddlers can learn a lot from their parents, but in case you’re wondering, the “laundry-basket bird feeder” is not one of my hobbies.

Sam has been pretty sick this week, which seems to make both of the kids a bit sweeter. His temperature was like an Atlanta radio dial: first it was V103 at 103.3, and then it spiked to The Fish at 104.7. I love it that right after his fever calmed down with some Motrin, Sam jumped on the elliptical to get in a morning workout. It’s actually amazing how well he can do it, demonstrating proper technique at 39 inches tall, even with a passenger in tow.

When he was sick, Kate embraced her big sister role by reading books to her little “baby” brother. She and I went to church without Dawn and Sam last week, and she kept whimpering “Didi?” [little brother] in such a sweet, pitiful voice. Thankfully he’s feeling better now, which also means that the slight increase in sweetness has faded. Oh well. I’m still convinced they’re both above average on the sweetness scale. And yes, of course I’m biased.

We used to think that they would develop their own unique language; a twin code that we couldn’t crack. So far, that’s not really the case, except for Sam’s favorite new word “ga-gag”. Which is really annoying since it sounds like something a 12 month old would say, and he’ll turn 3 in a few weeks.

“Sam, who did you play with at school today?” “Ga-gag.”

“Sam, what book do you want to read?” “Ga-gag.”

Kate continues to mimic our words more and more, and her comprehension seems to have grown a ton in the past 2 weeks. Sam also has hit a new level with more complete, adult sentences [in between ga-gags]. And we can teach him to say long sentences that sound funny coming from a kid his age, even when he doesn’t understand them. You know, kinda like the Olsen twins’ character from Full House. [Admit it, you too were a huge fan]. Kate has picked up some of Sam’s lingo, of course, including his excessive use of “um” on the phone. He usually talks really well but sometimes when he hits a cerebral roadblock, he stutters “um” 17 times in a row. So now Kate gets on the phone and immediately after saying “how are you”, she launches in to the rapid fire um.

But he has also taught Kate some of her favorite words. She has nearly perfected the pronunciation of the ever-vital “apple juice.” And I recently wrote about one of Sam’s bread-and-butter phrases: “not yet.” Well, it didn’t take long for Kate to pick this up and drive it into the ground too. And just like Sam, at least half of the times that she says it, it’s just not a valid response.

“Kate, hold my hand.” [as a car is quickly approaching us on our evening walk]. “Not yet.”

But it does fit her personality. She’s definitely got some swagger to her. On those same evening walks, even when she’s holding my hand, the other arm is just swinging wildly, as if to announce to any onlooker “yo, I run this town!”

S'mores, oars, & snores

Kate checked off two rites of passage this week: her first day of pre-school, and her first s’more. Technically I guess it wasn’t a true s’more, but really just a roasted marshmallow sans chocolate and graham cracker. We’ve mentioned before that she’s pretty fearless and physically reckless, so I was a little on edge when she was bouncing around right next to the fire. But she and Sam both thoroughly enjoyed several marshmallows and no children were injured or burned in the process.

We had a good trip to Dawn’s parents’ house last weekend [the mini-farm], and Kate slept away from home for the first time. She’s slowly warming up to Dawn’s mom; no major breakthroughs last weekend, but good steps of progress. She and Sam had a blast in the canoe with us on their lake. Each kid had an oar and demonstrated pretty solid control of it, somehow managing not to drop it in the water the whole time. I was grateful for the trolling motor, though, because despite their good intentions, their rowing wasn’t quite efficient enough to create any actual motion. Sam enjoyed pulling Kate around in the wagon, and Kate seemed to like the princess treatment too. Just to make sure that Dawn’s dad was impressed with Sam’s promotion from passenger to puller, Sam told him “Pop, I am you, and Kate is me!” It’s fun to see how he sometimes proudly declares “I am a big boy”, while at other times he’ll say “When I grow up a little bit, I can drive the car like Daddy.”

Kate and Sam both had a great first week at pre-school. They’re in a 2 year old class that meets 2 days a week. Kate just turned 3 in late June, but we decided to keep her in the 2 yr class since she’s obviously behind on language and just overall development. Our original plan was to keep her out of the class for several weeks so she would have more time to adjust to us and life in the states. But she’s done so well at church and with other kids & care-givers, we thought it would only put her at a disadvantage to make her start late and miss the get-to-know-you phase. At our pre-school, the teachers come and take the kids right out of the car. We were a bit worried that Kate might freak out when her teacher, whom she had only met once at the meet & greet, came to take her away from Mommy. But it was Sam, not Kate, who got a little misty on Tuesday morning. It’s such a huge blessing to see Kate adjusting so well to her new environment! We had really prepared ourselves for a long road of tough transitions, but we’re really encouraged that she’s jumping in to new environments. And it’s not like she’s bonding with anyone as if they’re her family; she also seems to clearly understand that this is her home and we are her mom & dad.

Sam and Kate have been playing better together recently, despite a few episodes of fairly brutal sibling abuse. Tonight Sam begged to go into Kate’s room when Dawn was tucking her in so he could read her a story. So sweet! And Sam is starting to explore some of his views on cultural differences: they were teaming up to tackle a puzzle of jungle animals the other day, and Dawn told Sam that “Kate has never played with a jungle puzzle before.”
“They don’t have jungle puzzles in China,” he says.
“Not where Kate lived, buddy.”
“They just have Ni hao Kai Lan puzzles in China?”

So either Sam thinks that this cartoon, “Ni Hao Kai Lan”, is an accurate portrayal of all things Chinese, or perhaps he read somewhere that all kids in the communist regime only play with one standard-issue game.

In addition to shoes, soup, and sushi, Kate also loves sleep. She sleeps about 2-3 hours per day more than her little bro, including naps. So our original plan was for them to share a room, but then we decided that it wasn’t fair to rob Kate of so much precious sleep just because Sam gets up so much earlier. Not to mention that he snores sometimes too...  So we converted the study into Kate’s room, and she is adapting very well to having her own room. Now we just need to help Sam remember that when he wakes up early and comes looking for Mom and Dad, we’re probably not hiding out in Kate’s room, so it’s a much better move to come in our room before barging into hers.

One last editor’s note: I have done a very poor job of following up on the comments that many of you have left on the blog. But don’t take my silence as a lack of appreciation. It’s great to hear from you, and we’ll try to do a better job of continuing the dialogue with follow-up comments. Thanks for reading!

Photo Shoot

Our amazing babysitters have an amazing camera, and some mad photography skills.  Very convenient for us!  An added bonus is that we also have a couple of pretty cute kids!  Last night was the first night we had a date night and utilized these awesome babysitters, and as you can see, the kids had a great time.

Thanks Blake and Chrissy!

Affection selection

Kate really loves shoes. And she’s 110% girl. Dawn presented about 5 different outfits the other day, each with pants, and she did her quick nod to signal “no way.” She wasn’t satisfied until a dress was presented. So when Dawn showed me the pic with her trying on my work shoes, I thought “oh, how sweet! It represents how she’s become more attached to Daddy.” But then Dawn and I agreed that, no, her motives were probably just driven by her shoe fetish, not some deeper emotional connection. That said, Kate is now comfortable and affectionate with me in almost every situation. It’s been a steady build, but for several weeks, she’s let me hold her, pick her up, and hug her. This week she & I went on several walks without Dawn, and she had no issues. She’s totally cool with me giving her a bath [with and without Sam along for the ride]. It seems that the final frontier is bed-time. By now, she does fine with Dawn even when she tucks her in and leaves the room immediately, but it’s still gotta be Mom. Overall, she’s doing much better than we had expected, and I know it’s a longer process for many other adoptive kids to warm up to Dads.

Sam has also had a really good week on the sibling scorecard. Today Kate got pretty upset and it really bothered Sam, in a compassionate way. When she cries, she really gets into it. Today she wanted to wear his new Chuck Taylors [shoes! Imagine that!], so Dawn politely told her that they’re his, and that she’ll be alright. After about 2 minutes of crying, Sam told Dawn “Mommy, I go check on her now.” Earlier in the week, they were playing in an open trunk / chest, and Dawn walked in to see Sam’s head on Kate’s lap, as she was pretending to take care of her little baby Sam. She still doesn’t speak English of course, but I guess somehow she had communicated to him “hey, why don’t we climb in the trunk, and you can be the baby and sleep in my lap.” It’s the little moments like those when I wish I could be here more to see them. I’m not about to say that all of the jealousy is behind us. I mean, they’re still toddlers. But it’s been great for us to see more smiles and hear more giggles instead of feeling like a boxing referee, constantly separating the sluggers.

So as great as Kate is doing with both Dawn and I, and as well as the near-twins have been getting along, it’s still a mystery to us why Kate discriminates against her grandmothers. By now, she does pretty well with most folks – a normal level of shyness when someone new comes on the scene, but that’s quickly forgotten. But our poor Moms just aren’t getting the love. She does pretty well with our dads now, and she warmed up pretty well to Dawn’s extended family on a visit last Saturday. But she won’t let her grandmas pick her up, hug her, or usually even touch her. You can visibly see her get tense when they sit down at the table, and it’s really sad for them. So I’m curious: have any other adoptive families experienced this type of behavior, specifically discriminating against the grandmothers? I posted recently how Dawn’s mom got a hug when our friends Garrett & Rebekah gave Kate a quick pep talk in Mandarin, but we apparently can’t re-create that magic. We keep hoping she’ll turn the corner permanently, and at least Kate is comfortable now with most of the family. She had a great time playing with Sam in Dawn’s aunt Kathy’s over-sized tub. And Sam had so much fun riding a horse with dawn’s uncles that I think Kate was almost convinced to saddle up herself.

Sam’s favorite phrase these days is “not yet.” I can imagine that he learned it from us, buying time before we give in to his relentless requests to watch The Little Mermaid or take him somewhere cool like the zoo. So in the morning when I leave for work, I’ve almost come to expect his response to my hug request: “not yet.” “But Sam, I’m leaving. It’s now or never, buddy.” “Not yet.” Poor guy just doesn’t know what he’s missing in this “too-cool” phase. Today he & Kate went to play with his friends’ Grayson and Harrison, and their pal Nate was there too. Apparently they had some sweet costumes, so a costume mash-up party ensued. I don’t know that he actually used the “not yet” line, but his stubbornness left him on the sidelines, missing all the action. Kate & the boys certainly made up for any missing creativity, though, with her cowgirl / cat-ear / construction goggles vibe. And I can almost hear her buddy Nate the pirate-fireman: “Quick! There’s a firrrrrrre!”