Last Post on this Blog....come follow me

Considering we are a family of 4 and Faith's Journey is complete, I will no longer be posting on this blog.

I've started "MORIN - Party of 4" (click the link) to (hopefully) continue blogging about what goes on in our family - interesting or not!!

Hope you come visit once in a while!

Words

Ta-ta (please) - I know, I know you shouldn't use baby talk and I don't usually but this ONE I do!
Ball (like as in a Christmas ball)
Bow
Toast
Sink
Bed
Thank you
Na-na (night night - time for bed or nap)
Yogurt (sounds more like yo-goo)
ALL gone (with the cutest hand motions - arms up in air)
UP (sounds more like Bup)
Here's a little list:
Love you - It sounds more like 'laow woo' - but a Mama's heart can translate those 3 little words from ANY language!
Mama
Baba
O-ah (Noah)
Fai (Faith)
Boots
Shoes
Tree - sounds nothing like tree
Please - sounds nothing like please, but it's the same sound every time I ask her
Sink
Night, Night - sounds more like 'na-na'
Tub
Num-a-num - time to eat!
Pillow - sounds more like 'lello'
Bum
Boobies
Coat
Car

Hospital ER Visit

We had a trip to the ER on Sunday night.  Poor girl had to see the stethoscope again and a thermometer - that she was NOT impressed with (you can imagine why)...poor girl.

She had a rash that quickly spread over most of her torso and back, then to her legs and came down her arms....

Apparently, it was an allergic reaction - but being SO new to Canada, we do not know what the reaction was to.  I've journalled what she ate, wore, etc. that day.  The doctor (who was so sweet) said that IF she reacts again to something, then we may be able to link the common factor or we many never know.

She was so great at the hospital....she fell asleep and snuggled with me for the last 30-45 minutes of our wait...oh, it was SO hard to do this!!!  NOT!!!

First Doctor Apt

This is how she looked on the drive TO the doctors...so sweet!

When we arrived at the office, the receptionist, MaryAnn was SO excited to see Faith.  It showed!  So sweet....

We went to the waiting room, and waited....

Dr. Allie came down to take a peek at Faith and said to everyone in the waiting room, 'we've all been waiting so long to see this girl' (or something like that, can't remember).

When it was our turn, MaryAnn, weighed and measured Faith's height.  She's back to 11.8 kg or 26 lbs (which she was when we got her, but had dropped to 25.4 lbs) and she measured 86 cm.

Dr. Allie came in and Faith was ALL smiles and giggles for her....

UNTIL....

....she saw the stethoscope and she freaked out, crying and trying to get away from it.

THEN....

Dr. Allie took a break and found some bubbles.  Faith was all smiles and happy again with the sight of bubbles.

UNTIL.....

.....she saw the 'thingy' that the doctor uses to look in her ears and she freaked out again, crying and trying to get away.  Jacques had to hold her steady for Dr. Allie to get a look.

IN THE END....

Dr. Allie things that Faith looks really healthy and has no concerns!

She wants to see her every 3 months....just to see her growth.

Home Safe & Sound

Tired, but safe and sound.

Most of our 12 hr flight from Beijing to Toronto, Faith slept.  Not me…almost every 20 minutes, she would be uncomfortable, let out a little moan, I would find a spot that would work for her then she’d sleep for another 20 minutes or so.  When we arrived in Toronto, my cousin, hubby and 4 boys were there to greet us with a new pair of sparkly slippers – Faith was instantly in love with them!!!

The nights since we’ve arrived in Canada have been many sleepless nights, and no real routine.  We get 4 hours here, 3 hours there, but no consistent sleep.  It’s really draining on all of us, except for poor Noah.  He is all rested and ready to go and not quite understanding why Mom & Dad are so tired and not in the mood to play games or stay up and watch movies.  Poor guy….

Arriving home, Faith was so sweet checking out all of her things.  As soon as we came in, the house looked FANTASTIC…our house sitter did a TERRIFIC job (a BIG thank you for Caroline)!!!  Mimi, our dog, was VERY excited and wanted to jump up and lick but Faith was really unsure and a little scared.  We walked her down the hall and pointed out each room by saying: ‘Faith’s Room’, ‘Noah’s Room’, ‘Mama, Baba’s Room’, etc….she got it quickly and knew where her room was at.  We didn’t have very many toys out, thought it may overwhelm her.  She played (mostly with) her shoes and a little with her shopping cart and plastic play cutlery. 

We decided for Jacques to go to bed and I’d stay up with Faith (considering how much sleep she had on the flight and drive).  So I unpacked while Faith familiarized herself with home.  Every so often, she will stop what she’s doing, hold her hands up in the air with little fists, start to vibrate while screaming and laughing all at once.  MY Goodness, she’s probably so overwhelmed with all there is in our house (even though it’s not that big) thinking to herself, ‘what kind of princess castle am I in?’!!!

So for the past 3 nights, we’ve had very broken sleep and a child who is really trying to test the limits.  One morning she was really content, then this morning not at all.  She is NOT the same personality she was in China…wonder if this is normal?  I assume so….still sweet, but just testing more. I feel like I am in a fog, not knowing how to do this, on the verge of tears.  I KNOW it will pass…and hopefully it won’t take too long. 

Some things to remember since arriving in Canada:

Meeting extended family:  Wow, I guess I wasn’t really prepared for her to be SO open to go to my family when they came.  During the visit, I thought it was really sweet and was so happy for my family.  After we got to the airport, we soon realized that Faith wanted little to nothing to do with me.  When we got off the plane in Fredericton, I carried Faith and ran across the tarmac into the building where Jacques sister was there to greet us.  Faith VERY easily went to Linda’s arms…at this point; I kinda thought this was odd – considering the events of earlier that day.  Hmmm???  On the drive home, Jacques and I spoke and soon realized that maybe we had allowed Faith to go to other’s peoples’ arms a little too quickly and my heart was broken.  She NEEDS to know that WE (Jacques and I) are her ‘GO TO’ people (for a period of time) BEFORE others do this.  How could I have done her wrong like this, when I had read SO much about what TO DO and what NOT TO DO???  OK…don’t beat yourself up Tara….just make it better.  So we decided that if we had visitors, we would keep it to a single person at a time.  As well, if Faith was to motion to be picked up, or have something done for her, to the visiting person that they would direct her to Mama or Baba’s direction. 

Getting home:  She came in, walked around and is clearly scared of this 4 legged animal that keeps trying to jump on her and lick her.  She ate supper and explored.  Within 1 hour, she was found jumping on her bed while playing with her flower light, found ON the kitchen table, tried to squeeze through the baby gate, then carried a step stool over to the gate and tried to climb over it….oh boy, I have my hands full with this little peanut! 

 Canadian Food:  So far, she is still stuck on yogurt (which she pronounces VERY well now) & mandarin oranges.  Some new foods she loves are apple sauce & cheese.  She seems to want to start every meal with a yogurt…so I happily comply.  As for Mama’s homemade spaghetti, she wanted NOTHING to do with (until she had her fair share of yogurt and oranges) – then she gobbled it all up.

Words:  Her vocabulary is growing rapidly, it’s quite unbelievable.  She tries to imitate so many words but her pronunciation is not very good (will be asking the doctor about this for sure to get services lined up in the event we need them).  The most used words are Baba, Mama, Noah, shoes, NO, bu-bu (bye-bye accompanied by blowing kisses), ogr (yogurt), o alee (more please). 

So now we are home safe and sound and real life begins.  I will be starting a new family blog for our family of 4 to keep documenting progress, etc. (when time permits)!!!

For now….thank you for all your prayers, encouragement and ‘faith’ that our family would grow.  Here we are – WE MADE IT!!!

Much love,

Tara (Jacques, Noah and Faith, too)!!!

xox

Mumbo/Jumbo...just getting it out there

So many thoughts to get down so I won't forget. I keep jotting them down on a piece of paper....until I have the time to document.

Words/Signs...


So far, Faith's language is coming right along. She certainly understands SO much more than she can speak, but she is trying so hard to make the sounds by repeating us. That said, I think she may be tongue tied (where the skin under your tongue comes up too far, preventing her from making proper sounds by forming her tongue in the way it needs to be). Some of the words we've heard her say, repeat or use on her own:
MaMa
BaBa
Noah (sounds more like 'O-ah')
Faith (sounds more like 'F-AI')
No, no, no, no
Gao (dog in Chinese, we saw a little dog on the way to the restaurant last night, she went CRAZY running towards this little dog, with screams and giggles of delight. She was very gentle, but the dog still didn't know what to do. OH MIMI, you are in for a treat with Faith)
Thank you (sounds more like 'Ank-Ou')
A,
B,
C, - while singing the ABC's...but she can't do 'D'
One
Two (sounds more like 'Oooo')
Three (sounds more like 'R-eeee')
Four (sounds more like 'Oooor')
Some words that are very understood by Faith now are:
Garbage - when I ask her to take anything to the garbage, she happily complies with much gusto and umpph in her attitude!!!
More - when I ask her if she wants 'more' she excitingly does the sign language for 'more' and nods her head and dances while doing the sign...whether it's for more food, more ticking or more playing)
Airplane - when we tell her we are going on an airplane tonight, she does the sign language for airplane with a big smile (hopefully going through security this time will be less traumatic on her).
NO....we've started using a FIRM 'no' with Faith to start correcting some of the behaviours. Along with our firm 'NO', we give her a straight, very serious face and she is starting to 'get it'. A few times now, when saying no I keep looking at her with a very serious STERN look on my face...her sweet little, drooling smile quickly turns into a serious look back at me now.
High Pain Threshold - something I've learned is normal over this trip, is our children having a VERY high pain threshold...for example, they do not show emotion when hurting themselves (because they've had to learn to 'suck it up' for so much or soothe themselves when hurt or sad). In the first week, Faith bumped her head twice or fell and hurt herself (not badly, but enough that most kids would cry). We noticed that she would just laugh it off or 'bump her head with her hand and make a joke of it'. After talking to some other parents and finding out this was normal....I took their advice and 'over-did-it' the next few times she was hurt, so she would hopefully learn that crying is an 'ok and safe' reaction when hurt or sad. Low and behold in the past 2 days a few times when she fell, or bumped her leg on the pull out bed....I would go over and 'kiss her boo-boo's' and tell her over and over that it was 'okay'....I over reacted and dramatized the whole event (for what it really was)....and IT WORKED!!! The first time I noticed it worked, she banged her leg and elbows (which I didn't notice) on the pull out bed....I went over, swooped her up and started kissing her knees, telling her over and over (in an ever so caring and empathetic tone) - 'it's okay, Mama's here, Mama's going to kiss your boo-boos'....sure enough, she didn't laugh it off, or 'snuff it off' but held out her elbows and wanted me to kiss them too!!! I was brought to tears at just how smart these little peanuts are and how quickly they learn where the love is!!! Then the next time, she slipped when running down the hall in our suite and bumped her head (not THAT hard, but hard enough that Mama needed to kiss it all better). I went over to her, picked her up and she leaned her head towards my lips for me to 'kiss her boo-boo all better'. She was serious, rubbing her head and allowing me to kiss it better. Then she got down and played with a little less 'gusto' as when she bumped her head! I LOVE seeing progress!!!

Fun shopping adventure without our guide....

Another family, with 2 children and Noah & I decided to take another shopping trip to the Pearl Market by TAXI. We all met, went to the taxi (small car) all piled in...then we looked at the driver, realized he didn't speak a word of English AND that we didn't have an address or know how to say 'Pearl Market' in Chinese.....OMGoodness...we were laughing SO hard.

The driver, hollered for one of the Bell Boys....then another....finally, after 4 different hotel staff...we realized that none of them knew where we were talking about....so out of the cab we got....continued to giggle and laugh.

Tim realized that he forgot the stroller, so he had to go back upstairs too....laughing with tears.

So we are trying to explain to anyone that spoke a little bit of English what the Pearl Market was...we spelled it, I tried to draw a photo of the big pearl in the shell in the front of the mall....etc. Nothing was working.....still laughing.

I called Jacques in our room, to get Yulin's cell number for them to call so she could explain to them where we want to go. So one of the staff called her, then handed the phone to me. She asked, 'where are you going and how are you getting there'...I told her where and by Taxi....so she got back on the phone with the staff and explained to her....laughing with tears at this point!

The staff member guided us to another taxi (even smaller car)....we all piled into this one, then the driver started speaking to us in Chinese...yikes, so another staff came over to the car and explained we couldn't ALL go in one taxi. So Tim got out with Jackson, climbed into another taxi and we all stayed in this one....off we went....with Tim's taxi following behind us....all giggling so much.

We got there (all in one piece and still giggling) and Tim's taxi showed up a few minutes behind us...both of us spending 30 Yuan each (total of 60 yuan).

We went shopping, I got some more shoes for me and my girl. Noah haggled by himself for a set of really cool earphones...got what he wanted. I was SO proud of him and what he had learned the day before!!!

Time went by so quickly....I could have spent another 3 hours there for sure...but we had to get back.

Off we go to try and find another Taxi.....this time, the driver said we could all squeeze in one car. THEN, we saw a VAN....it was one mishap after another. We start to climb in the one car, then saw the van, so we get out. Start to climb in the van when he tells us it will be 250 yuan to get us back to the hotel (on a piece of paper we got from the hotel, it basically said 'if lost, please return me to the Presidential Hotel'...laugh in itself)....then we said 'WOOOOAH....no way, too high...so we climb BACK out and start to get back in the car....then we haggle with the van driver and got him down to 150 yuan...so we said, 'whatever, it'll be much more comfortable in the van...worth the extra money' so we finally get in the van....continuing to giggle the whole way home.

All in all...it was quite the experience, but I'd do it all over again for the deals I got and all the laughs I had with our new friends, Tim and Sandy. Too bad, they live in BC....hope we can connect again one day...they are so awesome and fun to hang around! Well...that could be because he is originally a Maritimer too!!!

When we got back to the hotel room, she came running to me yelling 'mamamamama over and over'...I swooped her up and was so happy that she missed me....

I had to go meet our Agency Director a few minutes after I got back to pick up Faith's passport/VISA. I left quietly (like when we went shopping)....and was gone for about 10 minutes. I had to come back to the room to get something to take back to her. When i got back in the room, Faith's eyes were all red and puffy....I guess she was crying the whole time I was gone. For those of you NOT having experiencing adoption, or really thinking about attachment or bonding...you may think this is silly....BUT IN FACT....this is HUGE!!! This is MAJOR progress and shows that she is attaching and bonding well!!!

Naturally, I took her with me when I went back!!!

So this morning, we are relaxing and doing our final packing, checking out and meeting at the bus at 2:00pm to be on our way to the airport for our trek home! Looking forward to being home, having our family and friends meet Faith and seeing just how awesome Noah is at his BIG BROTHER role.

Zoo and Acrobat Show

Went to the zoo, zoo, zoo, how about you, you, you....is the Raffi song we've been singing all morning. Amazing how you automatically know all these kiddie songs after 11 years to please or make your child smile. I was scared I wouldn't know what to do with a toddler after so many years, but to be honest, the first few days (packing diaper bag for outings, remember important payments in your hotel room safe, packing an extra diaper, etc) we felt a little peanut ate crackers, yogurt covered raises, craisans and some baby cookies for lunch) but it's all coming back to us!!!

Parenting 'on the go' is very different...one of the things I most look forward to about coming home. Every morning, it's get up, get ready, get to breakfast buffet and off we go for a day of events. Sometimes we have 1hour or so back at the hotel room, but then we have to find something to eat quickly, or give lil' Miss a quick power nap, or wash some laundry...but then off we go. We were talking to some of the other parents and i think this is one of the things we most look for is ROUTINE.

Monday we went to the Beijing Zoo. It was good....it was a ZOO. Don't get me wrong, we loved the Panda's and the other animals but we had just spent almost 3 hours at the Zoo in Chongqing, so we were all a little 'zoo'ed out'! We just took our time walking and exploring.

Faith LOVES to walk on any type of curb or retaining wall....anything that is like a balance beam. It's like she gravitates towards them....is so proud of herself when she's walking on them. Looks like we are going to have to get her into gymnastics.

Monday evening we went to an Acrobat show. Wasn't really sure what to expect of 1. the show and 2. how Faith would sit still after not having a nap all day. Well, sitting still before the show was quite interesting...nothing a cookie wouldn't fix!!! As a pre-show, there was a clown that came into the audience making balloons. She didn't know what to think...became very 'straight faced' and didn't move a muscle...very stiff, just staring at this clown. As the show began, well Faith became MY show. She was SOOOO into it, wiggling back and forth to the music, clapping her hands, yelling 'Yay, Yay, Yay', swaying her arms back and forth, moving her hands in the motion of a conductor, etc. Many of the families that sat near us commented on HOW INTO THE SHOW she was....it was SO cute. I only wished I would have took my camera out to video her. This is just more proof that we need to get her into some sort of dance or gymnastics...wonder how old they are when they start???

Today is a big shopping day....YAY!! The Silk Factory and the Pearl Market (which is not just pearls) - lots of CHEAP shopping. That said, I had to go withdraw more money - yikes - to make sure we had enough to play with!! Looking forward to this today, though I am sure Jacques is NOT....lol Jacques and Faith may even stay back at the hotel and hopefully Noah will want to come with me today!!!

Tonight is a 'Goodbye China' Party for all the families....looking forward to this. As homesick as I am and as much as I want to come home, I'm feeling kinda sad about leaving Faith's country....ANOTHER BIG change for her to have to go through, temperature, smells, food, surroundings, etc. I know she will do just fine, just a momma's heart breaking for her little peanut!