the new demographic

Thanks to Chuck at TanoBlog for this piece. This is very true here in Boulder.

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday
September 23, 2006
A Heritage Revealed

SCOTT SIMON, host: Our daughter's Chinese class is cancelled tomorrow because of the Jewish holiday. Only in America. That may sound odd, but Jewish families with Chinese children, like ours, are one of the new demographic groups in the United States. An old childhood friend who's a rabbi says that in just a few years there'll be a tide of little girls who were born in Nanjing and Guangzhou getting bat mitzvahed in New York and Chicago. They already sit around the Seder table saying, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

When you read the Seder story of Moses, the baby cast by his crying mother into the bulrushes, and look at those faces of those children brought home from China or Kazakhstan or Ethiopia, the story has never seemed so beautiful or real.

Ellen here. I am sometimes asked why we chose to adopt, when we have biological kids already. There are many reasons, the main ones being that we wanted another child, we wanted a girl, and we didn't want to go through another difficult pregnancy. But why China? Besides the relative 'ease' and reliability of adoption from China, there was also the truth in Scott's piece. There are many Chinese girls in our community, in our temple, at our preschool and in our neighborhood. This 'new demographic' brings me hope that our daughter won't be 'the only one' in her position. And there is safety in numbers, for sure. Thanks for that, Chuck!

80* and sunny

It is amazing to me. This little creature has taken all of us, one by one, and wrapped us around each of her tiny perfect fingers. Yesterday at Shabbat Sing, Mae was dancing with Ted and his friend Jacob. She was OVERJOYED at their attention and they were beyond thrilled to be able to make her happy. What a cutie.

Temper, temper

I have a 5+ minute video of our darling daughter. I began filming when she started racing around the kitchen island (avec walker). She would have a mini fit every time she came to the end of a straight line (ie, cabinets, table, fridge etc) but I would fix the walker's direction with my foot and she was off again. For some reason, she had had enough of the banging into furniture and with no warning whatsoever, threw herself on the floor, screaming, kicking and rolling around. I kept filming to actually document this child's remarkable temper, since she is so cute and that is all anyone usually sees! I know from experience that if I try to console/cuddle her while she is having a temper tantrum I will get injured (I've been bit, hit and scratched, not to mention the inevitable head butts to the nose). And if I try to distract her with a toy, food etc it will just get chucked across the room. A counseler at CCAI recommended that I simply "be" with her while she rages, as that is pretty much all she will tolerate. That girl has some anger! Anyway, this tantrum today went on for quite a while...long enough that poor Sam had enough and let himself out into the garage to ride his bike to avoid the noise. I will put some of the footage on our end-of-the-year tape. I think she actually tops Sam for length of temper tantrum. Amazing.

Oh, and for the record, a Cheetoh eventually calmed the storm, many MANY minutes later.

I love you, sweet girl, but I'm not looking forward to the terrible twos if this is only 13 months...oy veh!!

Play Therapy

So far, so good. Ted had his first appt on Tuesday afternoon and I was able to 'go to the bathroom' about 5 minutes into the session and he was fine the rest of the time without me. When I left, he was busy scaring the therapist's stuffed elephant with the fierce roars of his stuffed tiger (she has a jungle soft animals thing on the floor). Umm...yikes! But when he came out he was smiling and we had to read a book before we could leave the waiting room. And he wants to go back next week. So, I say it's going well. He was very mean to Sam after he got home-perhaps a result of 'some stuff' coming up that neither of us are really aware of. He thinks he's playing, after all, but with her leading and constantly talking to him, they must have (hopefully?) figured out an empathy plan for the poor elephant?

Just got off the phone with the doc. I am a little disappointed and I'm going to consciously wait a week or two before making a decision on her. While she was able to play with him (and she commented on his amazing attention span) she is hoping that, as he warms up to her, they will be able to 'talk' more. Hmm. He's not even 5...I thought play therapy at this age was 'working things out' by PLAYING, not talking. Hmm again. She is a PhD with loads of experience with young children, so I am going to play along for a while and see what happens. I guess I thought they would be play-acting his 'issues' out...that is what was happening when I left them. Maybe he is capable of talking about how he is feeling. In the meantime, I was happy that she is supportive of our decision to have him sleep in our room. Not a separation issue, by any means (he's slept alone in his room since he was a day old with no problems) but because he and Sam play too much which leads to Ted being OH SO CRANKY and unreasonable. Considering the impulsiveness he has (climbing out on the roof, running out of preschool and into the parking lot, to name just the recent ones), she agrees that at the very least he NEEDS to be well-rested. I was feeling a little pressured to 'just deal' with the reality of two little boys sleeping together, but no. We are doing the right thing, at least in her eyes. He is so dead asleep that he doesn't really get much out of it anyway. So, that is the current state of affairs!

Mae had her very first Kindermusik class today with Elsa, our one and only music teacher. Both boys went through her program and we all just love her to pieces. Her daughter is 12 months, so she has been out of the teaching routine for a while, but is back in with a few classes and Mae was the right age for this one. Hooray! She LOVED it, although she did throw quite a few fits if she had to sit down (all she wants to do it 'walk' now...) but otherwise I think she is going to have a blast. It's my favorite curriculum (Milk and Cookies) of all the ones we've taken, so I really enjoyed singing all my old favorites. My time in her class with Ted at 2.5 holds firm as one of my favorite "Ted and me" times thus far. We both loved her class, Ted was still in a pretty sweet stage, and it was wonderful Mommy & Ted time for us. I am happy Mae gets to have this experience too.

N-600

The LAST bit of paperwork is delivered safely to the USCIS office in Denver. The N-600 is a Citizenship form. Once she has this form, we are DONE DONE DONE with paperwork. She will be an official US Citizen...something ALL the other babies had automatically ONLY BECAUSE both parents traveled. Argh. Hooray!!!

This is the face I see much of the day...giggles and smiles and the occasional belly laugh. She was actually pretty fussy today but all it took was some tickling to get a laugh out of her. What a cutie.

the dress #2

This was the very first dress I bought for Mae, when we were DTC. She wore it once in the late summer when it was cool, but yesterday she was able to wear it all day. So cute!! She is really into taking 5-6 steps at a time now. How fun.

Sam was able to go with Ted to the PreK programming at the Rosh Hashanah service, so that was nice for both of them. Ariella was their teacher and she said she had never seen Ted the way he was yesterday-perfect and well-behaved. Ha! Oh well. Our brunch was lots of fun and the kids played themselves into a frenzy. All 3 kids slept past 7am this morning-I can't even remember the last time that happened. It is such bliss to wake up on my own rather than be jolted awake. Ahhh.

L'shana tova

Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends! May you have a sweet and happy New Year!

(This picture was taken when Sam was just a few days old. Ted was 18 months. He is REALLY good at blowing the shofar! The rest of us can't get a sound out of it at all.)

Shutterfly rocks!

Mae's book arrived today and it is beautiful! A little slimmer than I had thought, but still perfect in every way. This is awesome! And so easy to do, I might get back into scrapbooking again...the Shutterfly way! Woo hoo!!

In other news, Mae's attitude is taking a wonderful turn for the better. Now that she has totally kicked her ear infection, she is a bundle of giggles and kisses. She's taken quite a few independant steps but still prefers to crawl for speed. I am really enjoying her!

Sam is working on night training now, his decision, not mine. The only problem is that he sleeps on the floor-has never liked his bed. With Ted we had the waterproof mattress pad but with Sam...well, maybe we should buy stock in RugDoctor. He is determined though so I'm sure he'll work it out soon enough.

Ted is easing into the school routine happily this week. I met with his psychologist Wednesday and she seems great. He'll go on Tuesday afternoon for the first time. He's abandoned the heavy backpack in favor of Ziplock School Bags (thanks, Mom!). What a nut!

It's cold and rainy today. We spent the morning at the library and everyone is down for rest time now. Since Sam was up at 5am, I'm going to try to sneak in a few Zzz's too.

Happy Birthday to my dad today!

Mae's First Year Album

A Lifebook is a huge undertaking for an adoptive parent. It is, essentially, every scrap of information about life BEFORE the child joined her new family. Mae's Lifebook will take time, but I am lucky to have loads of pictures from the city of Huaihua. I have a few of the orphanage and I will leave some pages blank...waiting for our Heritage trip back. Hopefully they will allow us to visit the SWI then. In the meantime, I have her finding ad, 6 pictures of Mae and information about Huaihua City, Hunan Province and China. Explanations of the 'one child policy' and a brief history of the country will all be included in her Lifebook. A Lifebook is a unique, personal account of an adopted child's history.

What I've created for Mae is not her Lifebook at all, but simply a First Year Album, similar to what the boys have. Ted's is a true scrapbook, made of paper and all the trappings of scrapping. Sam's was done with a scrapbook program on the computer and then printed on photo paper and put in a scrapbook album. Mae's is all digital! We will be mailed the hardcopy, in the album, in a few weeks. Click on the picture above to view Mae's book.

Sam and his guitar

I took Sam to (finally) get his pictures done. He was so good. There was about an hour wait, which we spent wandering around and playing in Hanna Anderssen (no more train table! be warned...) He was very agreeable with an overenthusiastic photographer. He really wanted his guitar (I know it's a ukelele, really I do, but it was more his size) so it's in every shot. This is the one we chose. He stuck his tongue out just before laughing, but I still like it. What a handsome kid.

Here are his stats from his well-check:

Ht: 38.5" (70%)
Wt: 35# (80%)

He is taller and heavier than Ted was at 3...wonder if he will be bigger in the end? What sweet revenge for him!

Chinese School Week 2

Week 2 went well. We got there early and had a snack with Piper, another little girl in Mae's class, as well as some other girls we had met last week who were a bit older. Our class today was about animals and colors. JuanJuan is so sweet-at the end of the class she goes around to each girl and picks them up and talks to them. Most of them aren't quite sure if they like it, but I think it's nice. Her mother was there again and this time Mae didn't flip out if she spoke to her, which was nice. There is another little girl there (can't remember her name) and her mother is SO nice. Paul will take her next week while I am at services so the following week I MUST chat her up and get together. Paul laughs at me because I always get the worst camera angles. This next pic is of Jason, the only boy in our class. There are a few boys in the program but of course the majority are girls. Jason's parents are Chinese so he knows exactly what is going on. Cutie! I am getting sick...the nagging sore throat, stuffy nose, mild headache symptoms. Waaa.

Words

I have lost count of the number of signs Mae has. When she wants something, she lets us know and we seldom have to guess. Here are the ones I can remember. The ones in italics are actual spoken words; the rest are signs.

More
All done
Shleffy (sleepy, time for bed)
Milk/bottle
Bath
Dog
Kitty
No
Yes
Music (I hear music)
Fish
Water
Diaper (change diaper)
Bye-bye
Eat
Shoe
Choo-choo (train)
Airplane

Horse (makes a neighing sound)
Mooooo (Cow)
Uh oh!
Buh-Buh (Bubbles)
Bah-oon (Balloon)
Mama
Ish (fish)
Bapple (Apple)

I'm sure there are more...I'll add to them when I think of them but wow! she is good at communicating.

For those of you that have been in contact with me this week, thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. My dad is home and doing well! Phew!

she told a joke!

This morning Mae and I were playing with her old-fashioned plastic rings, the kind you stack on a stick. She carefully stuck the blue ring on one foot, matching the green one that had happened to get stuck on her other foot. She looked up at me, laughed out loud, and signed "shoes" with glee. What a funny kid!

She also had her very first haircut today. The hairstylist trimmed the 'new hair fringe' which is as bangs as I'm going to go, and then trimmed up the sides and back and styled it SO CUTE. So cute, in fact, that I signed up for a "Styling Your Daughter's Hair" class in October! I mean seriously, she's got to have cute hair to match the rest of her adorable-ness, don't you think? Having a girl is F-U-N! Oh, but back to reality-she screamed blue murder and arched her back the whole time. *sigh* She threw all of the toys offered her on the floor with fury and only calmed down when allowed to suck on the top of a gel bottle. ?!?

Birthday cupcakes at preschool

This pic is from last Wednesday when Sam brought cupcakes to school for his birthday. It is a no-nut school and also no eggs in his class, but I've found lots of ways around it and these were YUMMY.

Mae had her first Tiny Tumblers class today. She was pretty grouchy (probably from lack 'o nap) but I think she's going to enjoy it, especially when they have some swinging action. A Chinese woman with an adorable little girl named Angela approached me and asked if I had adopted her through CCAI. When I said yes she said she had adopted Angela (16 months) too. She speaks Cantonese to her. How cool! There was another Asian woman there with a little boy. Whenever either of these women would speak to Mae she would scream and throw herself down on the floor. Hmm. She and Angela also screamed blue murder at each other for possesion of the slide. Crazy!! She napped for Karin and had a nice morning with Henry.

I've found a child psychologist for Ted-woo hoo! She sounds really really nice. I'll meet her next Wednesday and 'interview' her, but I like her already. The boys had preschool and then music enrichment so I didn't get a report on Ted today, but he seemed cheerful. Both boys napped today (!) and played beautifully all evening. Ahh...

Yee haw!

We survived another birthday party! Whew! It was really fun. When we got there to meet the jumpy castle guy at 9am, it was FREEZING, cloudy and threatening rain. It wasn't in the forecast, so we just hoped it would blow over. The party started at 10 and by 10:30 it was beautiful. Sometimes the sun can be too much in that park, so the clouds kept it at a perfect temperature. Everyone seemed to enjoy the jumpy castle and no one got hurt (or stung by a bee!) The cake was fun and the pinata much easier to break than last year. All in all, a fabulous day, perfect for a 3 year old and all his buddies!

Our Cricket

This morning was our first day of Chinese School. Mae is in the Crickets (Koorogi) class. There are 4 other girls, all adopted, and one boy with Chinese parents. Mae's teacher JuanJuan is incredibly sweet and energetic. Her mother was visiting and she was so nice. She cooed and cooed over Mae, calling her "piao" (pretty) over and over and patting her cheeks. She wanted to take her from me but Mae would have none of that. It was so nice to see this sweet woman cooing over my daughter, calling her beautiful. Reminded me a lot of China, actually. JuanJuan spoke almost entirely in Mandarin and Mae was completely transfixed the entire time. We learned the numbers 1-10 and a little song that uses them. Very cute.

This afternoon, she amazed us all with her newfound skill. Sam noticed it first and brought it to my attention. Here are the "prep" and "go" pics:

He's OK!

Well, hooray for Prednisone, in spite of the crazy side effects (and I thought he was wild BEFORE! ha!) We went back for Ted's re-check and his O2 levels are at 94. Woo hoo! She said to keep him on the Prednisone just through Saturday, continue the other nebs through the winter, and that his ear was on the mend. Apparently the weird antibiotic white bitter stuff is actually the best for lungs, so Dr. Mead was killing 2 birds with one stone there, which I appreciate. But, it is NASTY stuff. Funny thing, we go back on Tuesday for Sam's 3 year Well Check.

I am going to be honored on Rosh HaShanah with my very first aliyah! I am nervous and excited...and scared! I found a buyer for my Thomas tickets and we will try and go the week before. Today was a very hard day with Ted, due to the meds I'm sure. I took a long walk tonight and was able to get a grip. Tomorrow we'll be preparing for the big party on Sunday!!

Oh, and the pic...just another reminder that Mae is turning into a toddler. Poor Ole-another year of being fed after bedtime! She also took 2 steps today in the kitchen.

oops

Well, we goofed. On Tuesday, Ted was clearly coming down with either a cold or an asthma-like allergy. Mild cold symptoms, that was all. He ran around all morning with his friends, but did nap that afternoon. We nebbed him that night with his Albuteral/Pulmicort cocktail and put him to bed. All night long he coughed and wheezed, his breathing tight, shallow and fast. We nebbed him once and used his inhaler once. In hindsight, we should have nebbed him every hour or so. This morning I got him in to Dr. Mead, not our primary care doc, but in the same practice. She's seen everyone before, most recently Sam for his head. She was VERY concerned. His O2 levels were ok at 82 (below 80 and they will admit you...we've spent many visits re-nebbing him to get it above 80) but she pointed out that he was sitting completely still and had been for about 10 minutes. It should be higher, she said. After listening to his chest, she got even more concerned. She said we should have taken him in to the ER last night and we should tonight if he gets any worse than he was right then in her office, O2 levels not withstanding! She affirmed our doc's strict regime of Pulmicort one to two times a day as a preventative and Albuteral 4x a day when sick, although she said I should neb him as often as necessary right now. "He has to breathe," she said firmly. She also noticed an ear infection in one ear. So, we have 2 neb meds and 2 oral meds, prednisone (a pretty hefty steroid which also really weakens the immune system) and an antibiotic for the ear. She wants him to lie on the couch and not run around (hmmm). "No trips to the market," she even said. Geesh!! No library tomorrow? Hmm. We did stop at Blockbuster and got a few movies and that made for a quiet afternoon for him, but it's close to impossible to keep an Albuteral-dosed 4yo from running around. I just hope he is well enough for Sam's party on Sunday. How sad would it be if he isn't allowed to jump on the jumpy castle? I sure hope he outgrows this...it sure kicks him right in the keister, time and time again.

says it all, doesn't it?

Mini-tramp

Yesterday we spent Sam's official birthday at the zoo, after opening presents in the morning. What a fun day. We love the zoo. After naps, Erin and Henry came over (with cake!) for dinner. The camera was on the fritz so we video-ed the cake event...it was pretty funny. Sam didn't appreciate the sparking candles so he winced and whimpered throughout the singing of Happy Birthday. Hee.

Found it! I have always loved Target, now I really am grateful to them for their nice products and reasonable prices!! I am feeling good about the Heavy Work portion of Ted's new plan. Hopefully I'll get some news on the Play Therapy this week so we can get started. We had a nice time this morning, just reading books and talking about mothers and babies and why I decided to become a mommy, etc. etc.

Chinese School

Mission accomplished! We have found a local Chinese school for Mae. It is called Little Treasures Chinese School and the classes are held on Saturdays at the JCC! Although I think CCAI's school, the Joyous Chinese Children's Center, is probably one of the best Chinese schools out there, it's also 45+ minutes away. Hardly the place to meet friends you can play with during the week, you know? I'm not sure I will stay with Little Treasures...2 of my good friends who have guided me through this process liked it for their young children, but once their girls were 4ish, they needed a REAL school that would truly give them a deep sense of Chinese identity. LTCS does snack, some songs and a craft (for the little ones, anyway), not really enough for the older ones, but plenty for the under 3 age group I think. We are excited. It is so inexpensive that we feel confident we can commit to a Saturday at 11am class-rather inconvienent timing, really. We will have to miss for High Holy Days and probably for a chavurah event that gets scheduled for the morning, but in general we should be fine. I am really looking forward to hooking up with other families with young Chinese children in the Boulder area. While I adore our travel group, all but one has returned to work, making playdates impossible. We are trying to work in a potluck once a month but even that is hard. Hopefully we can make some good friends this way and how perfect for it to be at the J! Next Saturday the 9th is Orientation and the first class. Mae will be in the Crickets class, for babies up to 24 months old.

Backpacks

One of the 'therapies' for SID is carrying heavy things. Ted has been doing this for a few weeks now anyway and we are just now learning to encourage it. Here he is with 2 heavy backpacks on!
I've asked the Boulder Bookstore to order "Taming Your Dragons" for me...a book that has relaxation techniques for kids. I think he'll like the drawings and be more willing to do the 'games.' I'd also like to invest in a mini-tramp so I'm stalking Craig's List for one. Those come highly recommended for "Heavy Work Therapy." I'm happy that he had a good report on Friday. His old teacher Jeanne came in for about 2 hours and kind of helped his new teachers with what works with Ted and what sets him off. I apologized to her for having such a 'high maintenance kid' and she was so sweet. She said the high maintenance ones are always the brightest and for that reason, the most fun to teach. That cheered me up some.
Today we hosted our chavurah (since it was raining and that blew the park plan.) Sure hope it's not raining next week for Sam's crazy blow-out party in the park! He finally chose his cake (Nemo) and it is really hard to find Nemo toys anymore! His cake will be really big (since we need cake for about 70 people!) and the baker at Safeway suggested adding some little toys to the final result or it might look a little weak! hee. Tomorrow Paul is going to take Ted to a soccer game-he loves doing that with Ted-so cute!
I love the knowledge that it is a 3-day weekend. Ahhh...