Hey, Kids! Daddy's on the phone!

Okay...one of my kids doesn't speak English and the other one doesn't really speak, but everyone wants to talk to Daddy on the phone!! Unless you are family or dear friends, these will bore you silly.

First up...Ethan! You can hear him say, Ni Hao (sp?) at he beginning.


Next up...Zoe!

On being home for awhile...

I can't emphasis enough how incredibly lucky I feel to have adopted THIS boy. There are tons of risks in adopting an older child. Even with 5 years of history in the orphange's care, we were provided with precious little information about our son. His medical reports were over a year old and older adoptions are riskier in general with regards to attachment, bonding, etc. We have no idea (and most likely never will) what the conditions of his first years were like.

But given all that, we felt a child a little older than Zoe would be the best fit in our family, and now that we've been home for awhile, I'm pretty sure we were right. Giving everything Ethan has been through, he is doing amazingly well. There are challenges, of course, but for the most part things are going so well, that when he presents challenging behavior, we have to remind ourselves that we have only been together for one month. Yesterday, in fact, was our one month family anniversary. That's all it has been!

Now, Ethan is in school and doing so well. We put him in Pre-K to help him adjust, and as a gentler way to start school, since he had never been before, but now I'm thinking we should have started him in Kindergarden with kids his own age. His teacher and I will reevaluate in a few weeks. If he keeps picking up things like he has been, and we don't feel like its too much disruption, we may move him to Kindergarten at the end of Christmas break. We'll see. He isn't learning English as quickly as he did in the beginning, but he understand so much of what we say, or has at least picked up on the rhythms of family life and understands what is going on.

The adjustment to a family of four has been harder on Zoe, I think. She adores him and wants to be close to him, but then in the next minute will reach out and scratch him for no obvious reason. I think its a "I love you, but hate that you're taking up Daddy's attention" sort of situation. And without the means to verbalize any of this...well...I imagine she is frustrated.

Another serious plus to having Ethan is that Zoe will do things for him that she won't do for me. If I need her to come and she won't, and I know that ME encouraging her will cause a tantrum, I can say, "Ethan, go get Mei Mei." Then he will take her hand and she will ALWAYS go with him willingly. Sweet.

About food....He doesn't care for rice. We were told he comes from a noodle province, and it must be true. We try to limit noodles (Ramen), but sometime you just want him to EAT!! And everyone should have something they like. Fortunately, he prefers vegetables over sweets. He requests broccoli for breakfast and snacks. He eats Honey nut Cheerios nearly every day and the quantity he can put away is impressive. The other night I offered spinach salad with tomatoes and that is what he had for dinner (followed by Cheerios) The rest of us had pizza, which he does not like. Also, he only drinks water. He doesn't like milk or juice, but I remember him drinking a cold herbal tea in China, so I may see what I can work up in that direction.

We're ready for friends and visitors if anyone would like to meet the newest member of our family!