Hallelujah!

On Monday Gus said to me in the morning, "I don't have to cry when I go to preschool." He repeated it to himself several times, last right near the door--and HE DIDN'T! He had a great transition in all week, and we celebrated with brownie sundaes tonight. It took a whole month, but he is now comfortable at preschool. Whew!

But the drama is not over. Jed starts daycare with Lois on Tuesday. Dun-DUN.

Language acquisition is fun. Jed wants to say "Bus!" He started with "Bu!" Then it went to, "Butt, Mommy, Butt!" That took a minute to figure out. Now it's "Buck! Buck!" I think that's progress.

We were invited to the lab for lunch this week so that everyone who liked could come meet Jed. He had an absolute blast being the complete center of attention, and was ridiculously cute. Thanks for making me look good, little man.

Weekly Wrapup

Any day is better when you're not dealing with a chloral hydrated two-year-old, I can tell you that.

The past couple of weeks we've been chasing squirrels in the park. The first time Jed saw one he hollered something at it that wasn't "doggie" or "squirrel", which he didn't yet know. But he sure knew the Mandarin word for squirrel! We've since been working on the principle of conservation of squirrels: you can chase them and they will go somewhere else, but they do not disappear. He tracks them in the trees and continues to yell at them. But one today just paid him no mind and shelled his acorn onto Jed's head.

Language is coming along beautifully. He has around 30 words now, 2 of which are "Dinosaur Train". He babbles almost constantly. And he's starting to pick up Gus-isms: Gus's magic words to play with other children (well, to everyone, but it works best on other children) is "Can't catch me!" followed by a dash. As soon as he finished his last swallow of dinner tonight he was right over by Jed's chair: "Can't catch me, Jed Junwei!" So at the park today I was chasing Jed around and he turned and said something, then took off. It took me a few times to nail it down. Yep, "Can't catch me!"

He's also getting very good with "No". Today he hollered "No" at a girl who wanted to play with a toy he was no longer playing with at the park, "No" at a squirrel who was in the park, and "No" at the automatic door at the grocery store which was closing. Jim says that he hasn't yet learned the limits of its application. He really does seem to take the presence of squirrels in the park very personally.

We had some old friends over to dinner this week, and one of the families included a 7-year-old girl. The result was extensive use of playsilks and a night walk through the park. Gus woke up the next day talking about her, and I now have toga-wearing pirate superheroes racing through the house and jumping on the sofa (one sofa is designated as the jump sofa, at least until someone falls off). Jed was ridiculously comfortable with the guests, only two of which he'd met before. He does not usually give the time of day to other adults, but he ducked through legs and played peekaboo and even let one of them hold him for a few minutes with me nearby. I guess he assumed that since they were in our house, they were good people. I'm encouraged that he's trusting our judgment, and have invited Lois and her husband over for dinner so that he can see she's "our people" too. He starts daycare with her next Tuesday. We've been hanging out with her crew at the park whenever possible, and he's starting to warm up to her a bit.

Got our family photos taken last weekend. Jed was pretty weirded out and would NOT smile, except when we had Gus play peekaboo with him through the backdrop. Hence the cute smiles on individual shots only. And Gus is clearly preparing for a gubernatorial run with the wattage of that smile. As one of his aunts says, "He needs to use it for good."

And we got the pictures developed that were taken by Jed's nannies in Shenyang. It seems very well equipped with different kinds of toys, so I can see why he doesn't have sensory issues. They sent back a couple hats and toys (which I didn't expect), but I can see from the pictures that various kids were enjoying the rest, and that one of his nannies was explaining his photo book to him, so I feel very happy about the pictures. It's funny that the playroom in the orphanage has the same rubber tile flooring as we have in the boys' room, so that must have seemed very familiar to him.

Cardiology

Last Thursday Rebekah took Jed to his appointment at the cardiologist. We had scheduled an echocardiogram because we needed a clearer picture of what condition his heart was in. We knew that he had been born with an atrial septal defect, that it had been operated on last year, and that's about it. We had a stack of medical reports in Mandarin, but in none of them does it ever say what exactly his procedure was or what they did.

So we needed an echo, and for that to happen, Jed needed to be able to lie still for about an hour during the test. I'll pause for the laughter to die down.

Clearly that wasn't going to happen, so the doctors would need to knock him out for the test. And that meant that we had to wake him up at 4am to feed him breakfast so that his stomach could be nice and empty by the time his appointment happened.

Rebekah and Jed went to the appointment, where they slipped Jed some chloral hydrate (the same stuff that's in a Mickey Finn, I've been told) and did the test. That's some powerful stuff. I came home to find Jed completely stoned out of his gourd. He wasn't able to walk until about 7 that night. Even his baby babbling seemed slurred.

The echo gave us some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the surgeons in China did a fine job repairing his defect. They also put in some stitches near his mitral valve.

The bad news is that there's still a bit of a hole in his atrial septum, so blood's still able to pass between the two atria. Apparently this is in a place in the heart that's really hard to see, which explains why the surgeons missed it. It means that Jed's going to need another procedure to take care of that. The doctor told Rebekah that it's not an urgent thing; it would be good to take care of it before Jed turns 5 because he'll heal faster when he's younger. They'll need to perform a cardiac catheterization to scope the place out first and then operate to plug the leak.

All told, this is good news. He'll need about a week in the hospital, and then he'll be free to do as he likes for the rest of his life. We have a follow-up appointment in 6 months and then we'll decide when to do the surgery. We'll wait till after Disney World.

Test Trip

We have a developing tradition of a leafing trip in autumn, so this weekend we took a quick day up to New Hampshire. We drove out Friday night and stayed in a hotel. Crossed fingers here how Jed would react to a hotel. Fine! We put up Gus's tent, and he bounced around in it, so we set up his and put him in it. He played for a while and went to sleep, no problem. Hooray, the boy is portable!

On Saturday we went for a hike to a waterfall in Crawford's Notch (thank you, Seema!). It was a real hike, for 0.6 miles, and Gus hiked the whole way in. He was portaged out. We've discovered the keys to a good hike are 1) have something interesting at the end and 2) have really good snacks once you get there. Then we went to a farm for apple picking and fresh cider donuts. Jed was sitting on the wagon behind the tractor with the "What's coming next? What could be better than THIS?" look on his face. He did think that he was at an apple bar, though--he would eat half of one apple and then throw it away and grab another. Put a stop to that and have made two vats of applesauce today.

We went to another farm with friends on Sunday and discovered the successor to the moonbounce, a big jumping pillow. Lots of fun with the boys. More cider donuts.

Today we went to parts of the Open Our Doors festival around the Fenway. We made kits and flew them in the gym at the Y, played with different instruments and watched glassblowing in the morning, and then went for music, face painting, chalk drawing, and more kite flying in the park.

Some of our dreams are coming true. The boys played together on the playground today, and on the way home they laughed the whole way. Yeah, they were making fun of Jim's sneeze, but they were laughing!

Two great quotes from the weekend: 1) There was a lot of car time, and during one of them Jed was pretty crabby. Gus said to him, "What are you gritching about?" Now my 3-year-old sounds like my mother. 2) At breakfast on Saturday we talked about what we were thankful for before we gave thanks for our pancakes. Gus said, "I'm STILL thankful for my brother!"

Awwww.


A postscript for those of you who will not be surprised: maternity leave has got me completely addicted to the PBS kids show "Dinosaur Train." Enjoy.

Slow week

The most eventful thing that happened this week was shots on Monday. The bloodwork came back and a couple titers weren't there that should have been, so it was 4 shots. He was NOT happy, but then we were home having lunch and it was all okay.

We're also potty training, which is coming along slowly but okay. Not perfect progress, but increased progress over a number of days, which I suppose is what I should expect. I think with Gus we took a long weekend and then handed him to Lois (thank you, Lois!), so I haven't done as much of this part before.

The combination of learning to use the potty and learning a new language means that some things are not completely clear. Yesterday Jed fastened the buckle on his carseat by himself and said "Yay, peepee!"

Next Thursday is the cardiologist's appointment that we've all been waiting for. I got a call from his nurse saying that they would need to sedate him for the Echo unless he could sit still for 45 minutes. Um, try 10 seconds. So he can't eat any real food after 4:30 a.m. and only Jello and apple juice after that. Not looking forward to that day with my very food-conscious kiddo. Guess we'll go out to the park early that day and hope he's too distracted to be hungry.

Jim was home yesterday while I went into work. Jed gave Jim a very odd look when they dropped me off and I didn't get back in the car, but he was okay. Those two are bonding well now.

Mom called me today to ask for new pictures of the children. Oops. We'll try to get some from our scenic trip this weekend.

Weekend Update

This week's appointments were International Adoption Specialist and Audiology. The IA doctor thinks Jed is doing fantastic (as do we). We have a follow-up in 6 months, got a bunch of extra blood (poor pumpkin), and then booked the audiologist (b/c if you wait to test the hearing b/c the language is affected, then the language will be even more affected). Audiologist appointment today and he was brilliant, super-mellow and "a pleasure" to work with. The doctor had worked in China and said that his doctors must have been good, b/c they avoided the super-high doses of antibiotics during surgery/recovery that can damage the upper registers of hearing (I did not know that). He has perfect hearing and beautiful eardrums.

After the IA appointment we stopped by the lab to say hello and introduce Jed to the crew at work. We walked into a party! I should have known. Thanks, everyone! He loves the airplane and is working hard to destroy the balloon.

Requisite cute story: last night Jed came into our bedroom. This happens about every night between 1 and 4 a.m., both kids wake up and come into our bed, b/c it's easier for me to open the door and holler "come in" than to actually get up and go soothe them. I've slept much better since Gus has learned to snuggle in without even waking me up, but Jed can't climb that well yet. Gus has also learned that while mommy is happy to share her space, she is not happy to share her pillow, so he brings his pillow in with him. Last night Jed brought in his pillow, held out in front of him like a present for me. The kid doesn't use the pillow. He doesn't even use the covers. Usually I wake up to find him curled up on top of the covers in the general vicinity of my feet (he's a wiggler). But apparently bringing in pillows is how we do it around here, so Jed brought in his pillow.

He is really sweet. One thing his nanny must have taught him is to grab both sides of my face while I'm holding him and line me up for a smooch. Hilarious. And his mischievous side is starting to come out. He likes to let you strip him naked at bedtime and then race out the door, stopping to make sure you can see him grinning above his little bum. I'm hoping this will be less fun since he's been running around naked for the past couple of days anyhow (potty training; he's starting to get it).

Now that we've had the blood drawn, next week's appointments consist of two shots. Booooooring. But if he's got the potty mostly figured out by the end of next week, I will not complain about boredom.

We've been home for almost three weeks! It's not the new normal yet, but I think I can see it from here if I squint.