The Best Birthday Present Ever

My youngest two....

could it be.....

yes, I believe it is....

the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And it's not just a birthday truce in honor of their mother. For the past week, they've been caught reading stories in Cholita's bed when they're supposed to be going to sleep, riding bikes together, playing school, sharing toys, and giggling at each other's jokes.

Cholita finally, after a lifetime of searching, has found someone who shares her appreciation for Barbie: The Island Princess. These people do not just grow on trees. XiXi not only watches it with her, he takes the part of the prince and Cholita, who goes through numerous costume changes during the show, curtsies to him in her ball gown and XiXi bows deeply. When asked if her brother is a good dancer, Cholita said, "Well, he doesn't step on my feet," which I think means he's acceptable......and also that beggars can't be choosers.

We could not have found a more perfect match for our Cholita. Both kids are sweet, smart, strong-willed survivors. Our international adoption doctor once used the term, "resilient rascals" and it fits. Some days heavier on the "rascal" than others, but always resilient. We love our rascal duo and we're so thankful they're starting to love each other.

Wow! Shand Box!

XiXi tends to make all "S" sounds into "Sh" and today, upon seeing a beach for the first time, he exclaimed, "Wow! Shand box!" Yes, all for you my dear, the world's largest shand box!

In the great Northwest, bathing suits are often worn in combination with coats. As a matter of fact, we pretty much had the whole beach/shand box to ourselves because it doesn't really get warm here until July, maybe August, and even then, the water's frigid.

But this nut of a girl decided that she wanted to take off all clothing down to her swimsuit and risk hypothermia by taking a dip. I told her that she'd be miserable. I told her that she'd regret it. But there was no stopping her.

I hate to say I told ya' so, but seriously, Cholita.

The must-have item of the day, the fought-over item was the funnel. No matter how many beach toys we bring, there's always one that everyone wants. Or at least the two youngest want.

Lyle was on a hike with Lucy and Bruder was at a district track meet, scoring his best time of the season in the half mile (2:07), so Rose was the big kid today. Seeing her out and about in nature just makes me smile. She revels in wind and rain and snow and sunshine. She does The Sound of Music spin with arms thrown back and head turned up to the sky. She reminds me that the world is truly a fantastic place.

And she's a pretty fantastic kid.

We went home sandy and tired.

Some still chilly in a damp bathing suit.

And some with a kink in the neck.

It was a good Saturday.

Our Boy's Name

The most commonly asked question that I get after, "How's he doing?" is "How do you pronounce that name that starts with the X?"

XiXi is pronounced "She-She",  just like the female pronoun.   Well, technically it's "She-She"with a subtle hint of "See-See" thrown into the mix.  (And if you can easily accomplish that bit of verbal gymnastics, you should sign up for Mandarin classes right now because you'd be awesome.)  "She-She" doesn't sound terribly masculine and even in Kunming, our guide said that XiXi is usually a girl's name in China as well.  So no matter which country he's in, the poor kid's a boy named Sue.

Naming is hard for me.  Re-naming is especially hard for me.  With Cholita, we had to make a conscious effort to call her by her American name.  She just didn't seem like anything but QiuJu.  However, I knew that Americans would never pronounce her name correctly and frankly, a Mandarin speaker would tell you that I don't even pronounce her name correctly, and I'm her mother.   So, we slowly made the switch to her American name, but still frequently call her QiuJu and horrible derivations of Qiu (pronounced Cho)--such as Cholita.

With XiXi, it's a more difficult situation.  Cholita was only 11 months old and didn't seem terribly attached to her name anyway.  XiXi is almost four years old and he absolutely knows his name.  In China, I tried adding his American name to his Chinese name and almost instantly, he added that name to all of our names--Simon Mama, Simon Baba, etc.  It was like he figured it was a precursor to a name and wasn't necessarily referring to him.  For the rest of our time in China, we only called him XiXi.  He was dealing with so many new things, I didn't want to add one more.

On the blog, his name will remain XiXi.  At home, he's still XiXi (She-She).  That's all we call him right now, with some horrid derivations creeping in.  I think my favorite is Lyle's nickname for him-- Sheesh.  Or Sheesherton or Sheeshinator.  All pretty awful.   I'd originally thought that we'd ask his opinion on naming, but I've changed my mind.  I feel quite confident that he'd only want to go by his Chinese name, which is fine, but I think he needs to understand the English language a little bit more before he can make that decision.  A couple of years from now, when he fully realizes that a "She" is a girl, and has answered the "How do you pronounce your name?" question about 100 times, if he still wants to be called XiXi, I completely support it.   He does know now that both names refer to him and he answers to both.  I think when he starts school in the Fall,  the tide will turn in favor of his American name.  Either way, we sure love our disco-dancing, ukulele-playing, purple heel-wearing What's-His-Name.

Adore him, actually.

Next Post:

Calling all hairdressers!

What to do with hair that puts one in the mind of....

well......

to be honest.....

a hedgehog?

This Much I Know

One evening, Lucy yelled, "eagle!" and excitedly pointed to the sky. We live in the Pacific Northwest and eagle sightings aren't rare but also aren't common enough to make them ho-hum. XiXi shielded his eyes and looked up shouting, "eagle!", scanning the sky for whatever it was that might be an eagle. For all he knew it was the clouds. When he saw it, he jumped up and down. "Eagle!! Eagle!!" It was the highlight of his day.

The next morning, some a generic, tiny brown bird landed on our lawn. "Eagle!" XiXi shouted. "No," I told him. "Just bird. Not eagle." He furrowed his brow, pointed at me and sternly said, "eagle." End of discussion.

He knows the names of at least two colors in English--red and green. He knows these because he loves all things automotive and I've pointed out the red and green traffic lights. Red means stop. Green means go. And woe unto the person in front of Mama's minivan who does not immediately gun the engine when a light turns green. "Go, Mama! GO!" he screams from the backseat, almost in a panic. Green means go, dang it. But as much as green can get his dander up, red has him very, very upset. Red means stop, but when Mama turns right on a red light, he's beside himself. "Boo Shur, Mama! No!" Either his Mama is a chronic lawbreaker or something that he "knows" is not absolute. Whichever the case, it upsets him.

This past month it's come to my attention that our language is rife with rule-breakers. And not just rule-breakers, because things like tense and pluralization and spelling are beyond him, but how on any given day one particular thing can be called by many different names and still mean the same thing, or roughly the same thing. I was reading him, "Caps for Sale," last week and on page 2, I made a quick substitution. "Hats! Hats for Sale! Fifty cents a hat!" He'd just learned "hat", why muddy the water with cap? I've never chosen my words more carefully.

He's learning who does what in the family and has us pegged as: the one who rides a bus and plays the cello, the one who drives a red stick shift and plays the guitar, the one who drives a truck and goes to work, the one who drives a minivan and mostly stays home, the one who rides a bus and plays the piano, and the one who rides a bike and owns all of the things he wants to have. If someone besides Rose touches the cello, well, just don't do it. If Mama leaves the house and Baba stays, he's often very put-out. Yesterday, he was cradling something gingerly in his hands. I wondered if it was a bug. He carefully opened his chubby fists, and there inside, were two plastic guitar pics. "Gu Gu" (brother), he whispered, almost reverently.

We had a visit from our Mandarin-speaking friend the other day. On our computer screen, I'd pulled up some photos of the foster village. There were well over a hundred photos in the album and we clicked through them quickly. At one point, he excitedly pointed and motioned that I needed to go back. We scrolled back through and he found the picture he wanted. It was just a street scene in a countryside village, with a few buildings nestled beside green mountains. He told our friend, "I lived there." He looked at it for a long time. He said that he missed it. He missed it a lot sometimes. There, he knew the people. He knew the routine. He knew his place in the routine. Here, he's relearning all of that and if in the process a chickadee gets promoted to an eagle, I doubt the chickadee would mind.

Bruder

Just days after returning home from China, our oldest turned seventeen. He was born right before we started dental school, a six pound eleven ounce blue-faced limp baby. When the doctor laid him on my stomach, I thought we'd lost him. His heart rate had dropped so quickly and it was an urgent and scary delivery. As he lay there, lifeless, the doctor rubbed him and said, "Come on, little guy. Come on." Our baby let out a scream, turned pink, and the rest of us could finally breathe as well.

I shouldn't have been surprised that he turned into a runner. He actually ran before he walked. He was 15 months old and couldn't even stand without holding onto something. Then one day, without warning, he let go of the couch and high-tailed it over to a chair, which he grabbed like a swimmer snagging a life buoy. He could only remain upright if he sprinted and he had checkpoints all over the house. He could make it from fridge to table, table to love seat, love seat to TV, sprinting all the way. It was days before he could slow to a jog, and then a walk, and finally he could stand.

This past weekend, his distance medley team won at a large invitational. He runs the half mile and his PR this season is 2:09, qualifying him for the district tournament. Lyle picked him up from the meet and hurried him home to shower and clean up for......

PROM!

I love that his date's mom sent me these photos.

I love that my son allowed me to contact his date's mom to ask for said photos.

Not all teenaged boys would be so willing.

Bruder, nicknamed when Cholita mispronounced "brother", is truly the ultimate big Bruder for his siblings. He's such a great example to them. The morning after prom, he gave a wonderful talk in church. He gets up early every morning to drive himself to seminary. He asks what he can do to help. He even cleans his room for goodness sake.

I was at a park near a high school a couple of weeks ago and when the bell rang, several young men Bruder's age wandered over to the swings. This was XiXi's first trip to a local park and when these high schoolers began talking, I could not believe the constant stream of profanity leaving their mouths. Leaving their mouths with full knowledge that little children were right next to them. I almost said something but I knew from their behavior that they would respond with something ugly and I didn't want my kids to see that either. But as I walked away, I thought with such gratitude, "My son would never do that."

If I could go back through time and give my young mother self some advice it would be, "Just enjoy him." All the worries I had for my first-born were totally unfounded. He's a wonderful young man and we're so blessed to be his parents.

One Month Ago Today....

We met our Yi Man in the Civil Affairs Office in Kunming. He was not at all pleased. To say the least.

I actually had to look at the calendar to make sure my dates were right because I cannot believe we met him only one month ago. He's come so far so quickly.

*He gives love and affection very readily. As a matter of fact, some days he wants to be hugged all day long. Today he came to me and held up three fingers and then put his arms out for a hug. He hugged me three times and then ran off to play, totally satisfied. If his love tank can be filled with only three hugs as opposed to hours on the porch swing, this is major progress.

*He wants to "help" with everything. Like EVERYTHING. This is great and this is tiring. He carries in groceries, he loads and unloads the dishwasher, he sets the table, he vacuums, he cooks..... whatever I'm doing (or Lyle's doing), he wants in on the action. In a photo I have of him in the orphanage, when he was two years old, he appears to be helping in the baby room.

I get the impression that he earned his keep in the past. Having a child who knows how to work is a wonderful thing, but I hope he understands that he doesn't have to work......or at least he doesn't have to work all day long.

*The tantrums are still with us, but as his English is improving, the tantrums are subsiding. I feel like he understands us more often than not and he's spitting out English words faster than I can keep track. In China, I bought two seasons of "Dora". You thought she spoke Spanish, right? Not in China she doesn't. Our guide saw me at the checkout counter and said, "He doesn't need that. In three months you'll be e-mailing me and telling me he understands perfectly. You will see that I am right." I can already tell, she's right. And besides, Dora's English stinks.

*Food is mercifully not a big issue. It certainly was in China, but he's mellowed significantly since coming home. It's interesting that almost all of the newly adopted kids I saw in China were literally clinging to food and water. It's like they were thinking, "I don't know who these people are. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what anyone's saying. But I do know water, so I'll hold onto that."

*He's healthy as a horse. He had his first doctor appointment in Seattle and the doctor said to a resident who was observing, "I know I'm supposed to be showing you what a child raised in an orphanage looks like, but this is definitely not it!" He's in the 75th percentile in weight and just under the 50th percentile in height. His labs look great and there were no unwelcome surprises, which is a huge relief.

*He loves the dogs and they love him right back.

*The relationship with Cholita is evolving. Honestly, I'm more worried about her right now than him. We picked her up from school today and XiXi enthusiastically said, "How are you doing?" Nothing. He asked again, this time louder, "How are you doing?" And again, nothing. Finally, I asked Cholita to please respond. She made a face and said she didn't want to talk to him. She's really struggling with not being the baby anymore and it's sad to see. I know she'll come around and I do see moments that lead me to believe they'll be great friends. Yesterday they wanted to open a Gatoraide bottle that had just a little bit left in it. Cholita was trying without success to open the lid. XiXi pointed to himself and said in Mandarin, "Help?" Cholita relented and XiXi grunted and groaned trying to open that lid. Cholita cheered him on and he was so obviously determined to get it done. When his hands weren't doing the trick, he held it in his teeth and then Cholita tried turning it. Their dentist father would not have been pleased, but it was teamwork and I was thrilled. Eventually though, they said uncle and I opened it. There was so little left in the bottle and I told them they'd need to share. I first gave it to Cholita, having faith in her that she wouldn't gulp it all down in one swig. She didn't and she handed him the rest to finish. What he did next was so sweet. He took the lid, poured half of what was left into the lid for himself and then gave the rest to Cholita. She told him thank you and gave him a hug. I wished I'd videotaped it. I could play it back when their interactions are not so ideal.

It's late and bed is calling.

Next post....Bruder. Prom, track, a birthday, being awesome. So much to say.

Wooo-ahhhh!

XiXi and Cholita were standing on the window sill in our hotel, looking down at the traffic. XiXi enthusiastically responded to each and every passing car--until he noticed the purple sunglasses Cholita was holding--a source of contention throughout the China trip. Looking at the video, I think Cholita wanted him to notice she had the sunglasses. That little stinker.

I'm so glad the Wooo-Ahhh noise was captured. He doesn't do it anymore. Sad.

Chinglish

It's a unique language, that's for sure. Today at church XiXi said, "Wo yaow go see Lucy," a half Chinese/ half English sentence. He rarely chatters in Mandarin anymore, which is sad but expected. Most of his communication is made up of the few Mandarin words that we all know or a mix of Mandarin and English, or Charades, which he's great at. The other day one of the kids came to me and said, "XiXi told me that Cholita fell on her bike and got hurt?" I asked them how XiXi "told" them that. Well, he pantomimed riding a bike, then a crash, then crying. He threw in his sister's name and suddenly he had a story that made sense to the whole family. If you're ever picking teams for a game of Charades, pick XiXi. He rocks.

And I was there when Cholita fell and he ran to her saying in English, "Are you O.K.? Are you O.K?" He rarely adds single English words to his vocabulary; usually it's whole phrases and sentences. He opened the door yesterday morning, clicked his tongue at our big dog and said, "Out you go, Olaf!" Other phrases include:

*I need a' go potty.
*help please
*thank you Xie Xie, Ni. (with this one, he almost always says both the English and the Mandarin)
*Oh wow. Look a' dat! (usually the "dat" is a truck, which he also can say.)

*I love you.

He uses "Baba" less now and generally favors the word "Dad". Water is no longer "shway" and when he wants to eat he says he wants to eat, he doesn't "yaow chur". Still, even though I realize he is grasping the language at an amazing rate, I also know he's had to completely regress in his ability to communicate and it's so very frustrating for him. All research shows that the first language is lost much faster than the new language is gained. What he's left with is a frightening gap where he doesn't really have a language at all. Right now, he can muddle through both languages, but he won't be able to for long.

So, while we have it, we'll cherish the Lao Hu song:

And cheer on the emerging "I love you's":

I'm Rocking My Baby and Babies Don't Keep

I once read an adoption book that said you need to calculate your newly adopted child's age not so much by their actual birthdate, but by how much time they've been home. By that estimation, I have a two week old, and two weeks olds need a whole lot of attention. He's had days that I would call easy and days that are tiring and taxing. On Wednesday he wanted me to hold him on the porch swing all day long. He wasn't interested in riding bikes with the kids. He didn't want to play in the sandbox. He didn't want to do anything but sit on Mom's lap with his legs and arms wrapped around her and his head on her chest. Two week olds need that sometimes. I tried to ignore the weeds that are crying out to be pulled and the sticky, messy kitchen floor that needs washing. In my head, I repeated the last lines of a poem I saw in my sister's nursery when I was a little girl:

So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

I've got to put the time in now because he needs it now. The problem with this age calculation though is that most two week olds are not nearly as big as XiXi. My legs fall asleep and my arms get tired. And our former baby-of-the-family, our Cholita, is not very happy to see her mom's lap so frequently occupied. Today, she wanted me to look through her drawing notebook and pick out my favorite picture. I picked one that she'd drawn a couple of months ago, of her and her little brother standing in the grass with flowers all around and a bright sun in the sky. Between the fluffy clouds she'd written, "I love XiXi". I told her that picture was my favorite. She frowned and said, "I drew that before I met him." No, she's not entirely pleased with this big sister gig, but don't believe her that it's all drudgery. I catch her enjoying herself many times a day.

Riding the ferry boat with XiXi,

or getting a friendly arm to lean on while roller skating.

O.K., on closer inspection, he is wearing her purple heels again.

Those dang heels.

But he does manage to get stuff done, despite the impractical footwear.

Anyhow, moving on, XiXi has had so many "firsts" this past week that must be documented.

*His first gift for Mom. He sprinted out of his church Primary class waving a pink paper heart that he'd colored, yelling in Mandarin, "Gay ni duh! Gay ni duh, Mama!" (It's for you!) He was so very proud. I put the heart in my coat pocket and he's checked for it everyday. When Cholita dared touch the pink heart, he told her in no uncertain terms that HE gave me the heart, not HER and that it's for MOM! As I said, this relationship will be a work in progress.

*His first prayer. I should have taped it. Would that be sacrilegious?

*His first pizza. He gave it a big thumbs down. "Boo how chur." He did entertain us though by picking it up with his chopsticks, something that takes skill I think.

*His first cookout.

*And along with the cookout came his first hot dog. He wasn't so sure about that either. It feels wrong to tell a child, "Please, just try the pizza." or "Put down that carrot and eat your hot dog."

Despite not being too keen on it, he does like a good photo opportunity. And now that I look more closely at the picture below, maybe it was just bratwurst that he found objectionable.

I'd say he ate a good half of that hot dog....

assuming hot dogs have a good half.

*He spent his first night out in the tent, along with Dad and all of the siblings and the mammoth dog. Mom and the old, tired dog sought out more comfortable accommodations inside.

Although XiXi looked pretty comfy with Rose.

As much as his smile gets me every time, this look also does me in.

I call it the smolder.

At his first check-up since coming home, he was giving the doctor the smile-smolder one two punch

and she said, "Gee, it's too bad he's such a homely child."

We gave one of Lucy's friends a ride home this week and he said in Mandarin,

"She's pretty."

His affinity for the ladies, paired with the smolder, troubles me slightly.

But not as much as this.

I think it's the feathers.

Hopefully more tomorrow on XiXi's first Easter.

Playing Catch Up--Funny China

It's been several years since I've had a child home all day long and I'd forgotten how tiring that can be.  The laundry's piling up, the garden desperately needs weeding and I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to get to my book club selection for the month.  But I do have several posts in my head that will quickly be forgotten if they're not written.

*My oldest turned 17 right after we got home from China.  This is big and worthy of commemoration.  He's a wonderful young man and we're so proud of him and I'll write about him soon.

*China is amazing.    There's so much I didn't get a chance to say during our trip.

*Our little boy is a marvel.  There are "firsts" that I've got to share.

*China is funny.  I think I'll focus on that one today.

In the United States, we only have one aspiration for our kid's meals.  Happy. They're happy meals.  In China, they want a little more than just happiness for their children, hence the "Cute Smart Children Set", available for 48 RMB.   It's pretty heavy on the meat if you ask me and I can't imagine many American children would be satisfied with their dessert of ice cream and red bean in sweet water, but when they see the adult alternative above, stewed veal knucklebone in wine sauce, the red bean in sweet water sounds pretty good.

I heard a saying in China that, "We'll eat anything with wings but an airplane and anything with legs but a table."  I think I'd include anything that slithers, swims, buzzes or hops.   One night in a buffet line with XiXi, I saw the chicken feet up ahead and silently chanted, "Please don't pick that.  Please don't pick that."  Mercifully he only had eyes for lotus root.

I'm sure you're all familiar with the "claw" machines available at most supermarkets and arcades, where a child with a gambler's heart and quarters to burn will attempt to nab a toy.  Well, in China, they take it a step further.  The "claw" is actually a scooper and instead of nabbing a stuffed animal, you're nabbing a live fish.

Would anyone really want to win?  I suppose based on the quote above concerning food in China, your prize might be a tasty snack.

But don't think for a minute that this would be a one-stop meal.  You need to get your liquid refreshment elsewhere.  The fact that this is written in English tells me that they assume only foreigners would be dim enough to drink the fish water.

And only foreigners would think of dressing their children in only 2 layers of clothing on a mildly brisk March day.  The kids in China are so bundled they look like Ralphie from the Christmas Story.  If they fell, I doubt they could get up.  This little one next to XiXi reminded me of a hobbit.  If you lifted that brown blanket, you'd find a naked hiney.  The split pants were something that Cholita just could not get over.  If she'd only lived a few more months in China, she would have been a split-pants wearer herself, something that she just cannot accept on any level.

But I can see the utility of split pants and the freedom to go when and where you please, especially since using a bathroom in China might set you back a bit (no pun intended, really).  You can see on the sign above Lyle and XiXi that the toilet charge for these particular potties was free.  Not so with others.  At Green Lake Park, XiXi was doing a major potty dance while the bathroom attendant tried to explain to Lyle that it was not a free ride.  Leaving the bathroom, Lyle said it was the best 5 cents he'd ever spent.

More to say, but I must break up a scuffle over purple plastic dress-up heels.  Does my Yi Man really want to wear those?  Hopefully that's not a topic for another post.

I'm back.  XiXi's in the purple heels. Cholita's in the pink.  Don't even try to tell me that your family doesn't have issues.  Anyway, another funny moment in China came due to my laptop's demise in Guangzhou.  I was complaining to our guide one morning about the exorbitant price of internet usage in the business office when she said, "Oh, Eileen, I know what you should do.  There's a family in our group in an Executive Suite.  With the Executive Suite, you get to use Executive Lounge with free computer.  You go 30th floor and be fine."  She sat back and calmly drank her orange juice, satisfied that she'd solved my problem.  "But," I said, "Since that family actually uses the Executive Lounge, won't they realize I'm not the same person?"  She looked at me like I was crazy.  "They will have no idea.  All Americans look alike."  

And you know what?  She was right.  And just to soothe my conscience on the matter, I spoke with our Executive Suite travel mate and told her I was hanging on her Executive coat tails and using her computer privileges.  She didn't mind at all and said she was happy to help.  Then one day, someone from the Executive Lounge brought her a jacket that "she'd" left while using the computer.    I was thankful I'd had that little chat with her so she didn't say, "What?  This is not my jacket and I've never used the Executive Lounge  computer and you've obviously got an impostor on your hands who must be handled with all swiftness of Chinese law."  Thankfully she just took the jacket and apologized for leaving it in the first place.  Well, that would have all been fine and well except it wasn't my jacket either!  Oh, what a tangled web we weave!  The moral of this story is that honesty is the best policy.....................after free internet usage which is a policy that has its merits as well.