Potty Trained

Oh, I hesitate to write this, here goes...Jia is potty trained! She made the decision herself on a four day weekend for me so it was perfect. We stayed home for two days and on day one she went to the potty a lot, I took her every half hour and keep her well hydrated. She ate a lot of little chocolates that day :) Day two we went every hour. Day three we stopped pushing all the liquid and let her direct herself to the potty. Day four we went out into the world and she refused to go on any other toilet. They had black seats, were too loud and too yucky. I had great fear that we'd be having accidents everywhere. It turns out that our wee girl can really hold it, for a long time. In the first week we were driving home between events for her to use the potty. I'm happy to report three weeks in, she will use the potties available. She has had a few accidents, mostly not getting her pants down fast enough once she is at the potty. She is already starting to have a few dry diapers in the morning. It's gone much better than I anticipated. She has already forgotten about chocolates. I'm fairly certain she won't regress. She was asking and asking for a potty party and a potty cake. I had no idea where she was getting this idea but we decided on report card day for the big girls to make a cake and celebrate all three kids. Jia was delighted and we sang 'happy pee pee party to you'. Cute. When I told Nicole about it she let me know she did tell Jia about Potty Parties just before Jia decided it was time. Now, a kid that will potty train to get a party is a serious party girl! She's already moved on to talking about her 3rd Birthday party.

Mom bought Jia a gown for the Christmas season, she was absolutely delighted and she was told that it was for 'wearing out' and now every time we're leaving she wants to change into her new dress.  Bowling on Sunday was 'going out' and when I told her she was fine in what she was wearing (pink monkey pants and pink shirt) she looked down at herself in disgust and said "I can't wear this out!!".  Our upstairs landing is really dim, I had no idea the full mirror had so many hand prints on it until I saw this picture.  Too funny.

Fei is always trying to do Lili's hair, all that long thick hair is enough to make her offer up deals that Lili might go for.  L hates having her hair done but likes her back tickled so Fei offers up half hour back scratches if she can do her hair and then we have to listen while they barter about how long Lili has to keep the hair doo in.  It's quite hilarious.  Jia's hair is finally long enough for Fei to do and Jia is finally happy to sit long enough.  Of course we can't get the hair to stay nice for more than a few minutes but it's a start.

All three girls had their eyes tested yesterday and Lili got quite a shock, her previously perfect vision isn't anymore and she needs glasses.  Fei and Jia are still good.  Lili says she doens't mind wearing glasses she was just so shocked.  She wasn't keen on looking at frames.  This is a kid that rejects almost all shopping, except video games and groceries.  She doesn't care for girly things including jewelry and hair pretties so glasses fall into that same bling category for her.  She was horrified at the selection available for girls.   This is not going to be easy.  In her mind, she is running free in the forest with her wolf pack.  Blingy glasses with gemstones just don't fit her image. 

Almost the end of November and still no word on Little Guy.  Thank goodness we're into Christmas and the girls keep me busy enough to keep the insanity at bay.

Books and more books

The girls and I tackled a huge project yesterday, we moved the kids book shelf from the basement to the top floor.  It took hours to sort and cull.  So, we got rid of three big boxes stuffed with books, everything came out of the shelf and then we had a hard time fitting the ones we kept back in.  Why wasn't there some space left from the books we culled out?  It was perplexing to say the least.  So, the shelf is once again upstairs for little kids to pick out bedtime stories.  We moved it down when Lili and Fei outgrew picture books and now Jia has outgrown baby books and is ready for paper pages, I hope.  She isn't exactly gentle. 



Next we're moving the kitchen center down to the basement.  Not sure how thrilled Lili and Fei are about the toys coming to their big kid space.   We've told them if it really doesn't work out we'll look for another solution. 

Eric bought Jia a 35gallon fish tank for her Birthday, shhhh, don't tell her.  Beyond crazy for her one little tiny Tia goldfish.  We have been overfeeding Tia and it's caused her ammonia burn on her back fin.  Poor wee thing.  So, it's been a crash course in fish care and Eric is still moving forward.  Now he's busy painting a skookum cabinet to move up to the kitchen for the tank to sit on because with water it will 380 lbs.  Seriously.  I am totally mystified about how we'll clean that?!  I should say, how Eric will clean that.  It's always fun to have a project.  I think it will be hilarious to release Tia into that huge tank all by herself. 

Emily and Asia came to play on Sat. night.  It was a surprise visit.  Jia was thrilled to see Emily.  They are so cute together.  After they left Jia was singing a song about her friend Emily.  Awww.



OK, so Little Guy updates.  I always forget that there are folks reading this blog other than my Mom and I've been getting e-mails and condolences.  Adoption is a huge leap of faith at the best of times.  Eric and I knew going into this one that it was a bit of a long shot.  We're not shocked by this turn of events and we have no idea how it will end up.  We have heard back from China in an e-mail and the powers that be have demanded that Little Guy be made paper ready.  So, we are not without hope and for now we're waiting.  We are going to continue finishing up the home study and dossier and concentrate on getting logged in with China.  We'll be ready the moment our son is ready for us.  Clearly this is going to take longer than we had hoped.  I still feel strongly that we're doing what we're meant to be doing.  Of course we can use our dossier once it's logged in for a match with a different child but we're not putting any energy into those thoughts.  We want our Little Guy home.

Pox2

Spreading fast.

Pox

The dreaded telus sticker pox.

Unpleasant post

I don't like writing this update on Little Guy.

Seems the Director of Changting has changed his mind about letting Little Guy be adopted internationally, he will only let him be adopted domestically.

Not sure of any details.  Waiting for more clarification but it's not looking very promising right now. 

There was some talk of him being moved to another social welfare institute that does do international files.  Not sure how likely this is.  No clue how long it could take if we can go forward from there.

Lili and I did meet the Director of this other SWI and his Vice Director and Secretary, not sure if that helps at all.  Clearly the Director of Changting isn't a fan of international adoption and Lili and I visiting obviously didn't change his opinion.  I don't think he knows that it's my family interested in Little Guy, I don't think he knows there was interest in him other than the Provincial Director wanting the special needs kids made paper ready in general. 

My heart breaks for him that he isn't being made paper ready for us or for anyone else and that he might have to move which is always stressful for any child.

I was fairly comfortable with thinking we might not get his file but he'd still at least get adopted.  Today, he's stuck in a horrible situation with no future.  No surgery.  Not enough food.  No education.  To say my heart is broken today is a major understatement.

Fei with Norman Foote

Fei and her classmates got to perform as the choir for Norman Foote!  Big fun.  I think they did 23 songs.  Show was hillarious.  Fei had a great time.  She is 3rd from the left in the front.  Great job Fei Fei!

Insanely excited

It's really insane how excited I am to have bought Little Guys bedding!  A plan.  All blue.  Flannel sheets with airplanes on them!  Thanks Costco.  I do know it's too early.  We all know things might not go as planned or hoped for.  Not doing the actual big room switch until we have his referral in hand.

Our social worker is coming tomorrow in the afternoon.  The official start. 

Halloween2012

These moster faces are WAY easier than gutting and carving!

Trick or Treating in town.

The 1st annual egg throw.

Investigating the aftermath.

Jia getting help from Dad, funny to catch the egg in the air in the photo.

I totally dropped the ball on pictures this year.  There was a lot of rain, and I don't like getting my camera wet...but still...I didn't even get pictures of the kids in their full costumes without rain gear. 

We travelled in a group of 8 Chinese girls last night from three fcc families.  That sure got some raised eyebrows :)  The rain cleared for the evening too so that worked out fabulously.

Before we headed out last night we let the girls throw eggs at Eric's boat.  Too funny.  They loved it.  They've declared it a new annual event.  Even Jia got in on the fun.  She was nervous to throw and insisted on help.  I suggested this morning we could try smashing our pumpkins tonight and they were all over that idea too.