It is December 27th. Exactly four months ago, we met a scared
little two year old boy in the Taiyuan Social Welfare Institute. Today, there is a two and a half year old
wild man running around our house in England who is happy, well adjusted,
secure with both parents, and babbling in English. Keep in mind no one spoke English to this
child until we showed up 4 months ago.
He’s held on to a couple of Chinese words, but he’s got a good library
of nouns and is starting to speak in simple sentences. He’s a little difficult to understand for an
outsider, but I think most two year olds are.
Zack has gained 3-4 pounds since we’ve brought him home (this
has been going up and down since he’s been sick) and has grown about an
inch. He’s outgrown some of his clothes
and shoes already. He’s survived his
first visit to the barber shop, his first ear infection, and has celebrated
Thanksgiving and Christmas with his new family.
He loves Turkey, pie and butter cookies, and he’s really digging all of
the candy we have around the house. He
was pretty impressed by the spoils on Christmas morning although I don’t think
he really understood the whole Santa thing.
He was willing enough to sit on Santa’s lap for some pictures, although
he seemed a little bit suspicious, but the whole “better watch out” concept and
Santa bringing presents are things that he’ll probably have a better grasp of
next year. He enjoyed a month of “Sam”,
our elf on the shelf. I don’t think he
really understood the whole “flying back to the North Pole every night to
report back to Santa” but he did have fun looking for his elf every
morning. I did a few creative things
with Sam, but Zack was pretty easily amused by any spot he found Sam in every
morning.
And since this is my blog and I
can say what I want…what is up with people “not doing” Santa? When I was a little girl, all of the kids
believed until a certain age when they figured it out on their own or an older
sibling let the cat out of the bag.
Folks who didn’t include some sort of Santa Claus tradition in their
Christmas celebration were really in the minority…now it seems about an even
split with a great many parents not introducing their kids to Santa stuff at
all. So sad. I saw a lot of people doing a lot of fun and
crazy things with their elves on their shelves all over Facebook and
Pintrest. There are some really creative
(and twisted) people out there. Lots of
people trying to “out-elf” their friends and neighbors, but all in fun. But of course then we get the naysayers who
slam the elfish fun by tsk-tsk-ing how terrible it is that we tell our children
that the elves are watching and reporting their naughty and nice behavior to
Santa. Are we trying to give them a
complex? Make them paranoid? Scare them with the creepy little elf
watching them while they sleep (OK, I will admit, there is some truth to the
creepy factor of the little guy). I grew
up being threatened with switches and coal in my stocking if I wasn’t a good
girl. What happened to taking the words “you
better not pout, you better not cry because Santa Claus is coming to town” just
a little bit seriously? I turned out all
right. When did this pseudo political
correctness invade Christmas…er…I mean the Winter Holidays. Ugh. OK, I am leaping off the soapbox for
now. Honest.
So, back to Zack. He is
great. He and the cat have some sort of
uneasy truce. The cat isn’t crazy about
Zack and appears to be majorly annoyed when Zack “pets” him but Henry tolerates
quite a bit and is willing to put himself in the path of Zack much more than I
ever thought. And Zack has really come a
long way toward petting the cat gently…at least he starts out gentle. It usually escalates to tail-pulling and
attempting to pick Henry up. But, Henry
has never bit or swatted at him (cat has no claws). He’s done quite a bit of hissing, which Zack
thinks is very funny.
He is an outgoing and generally good humored child. He’s got his stubborn “terrible two” moments,
but overall, he’s exceptionally well-behaved and well-adjusted, all things
considered. We’ve got some different
rules in our house than he was used to during his first two years and
transitioning to that has been a little bit difficult. The lesson that throwing toys across the room
(or at your mother) for fun or in anger is not tolerated is still being
learned. He’s learned a couple of neat
tricks at nursery that don’t necessarily go over well at home – throwing himself
down on the floor face-first when something doesn’t go as he wishes – is one. But really, we can’t complain. And we don’t.
His sleep still isn’t great and I think that is just Zack. We have a pretty tight bedtime routine and he’s
pretty easy to put to sleep…but he seldom sleeps through the night. If he gets up only once during a night, I call
that a success. He’s normally pretty
easy to put back to bed once he’s up, but the hard part for us is that
sometimes, the up and down dance can occur multiple times. About once a week, he will randomly get up
about every hour between say…one AM and when it’s time to get up. That is rough. It would be rough on younger parents who don’t
have to get up at 5:30…it is really hard on us.
Good thing we are in good shape – that has helped me a lot with the
sleep deprivation.
Zack continues to do well at full-time nursery school. He likes to play with toys that are
relatively simple – wooden blocks, large Leggos, his wooden train set, stacking
cups/blocks, etc. He enjoys being read
to and will occasionally quietly look at books on his own. He likes to run and play outside and does
really well on the playground equipment.
We recently took him to an indoor play place and he did really well with
that. Lee made him a video library of
Disney movies, Thomas the Tank Engine, Nie How Kai Lan and Barney. The Barney was a throwback from when Laura
was little – I remember how an episode of Barney would allow me to wash the
dishes, paint my nails or just read a book without being climbed on. He’s still just as annoying and 2 year olds
still love him just as much.
We’re having moderate success with potty training. Thomas the Tank Engine underpants seemed to
have caused things to turn a corner. He’s
very concerned about having an accident on Thomas. Hey, it works. So do Skittles and stickers as potty
rewards.
I think he’s pretty well attached to both Lee and I. He plays favorites throughout the day either randomly
or because the other parent has done something he dislikes. He is on the outgoing side and will sit
with/climb on most people that we introduce him to. We keep him pretty close to us/contained when
we’re out and about and we have a fairly tight circle of people he interacts
with. He seems to prefer the women to
the men but he does not seem afraid of men.
He’s only reacted negatively to one person we’ve introduced him to – an Asian
man in his late 40’s that works with my husband. Zack was very clear with his body language
that he did not want this wonderful and friendly man anywhere near him – must have
sparked some kind of negative memory.
Zack gives spontaneous hugs and kisses to both Lee and I and we feel
very fortunate the bonding process seems to have gone so well for us so
far.
This post has been a little longer and more rambly than I’d
intended, but as we go in to 2013 and as I look toward an overhaul of my blog –
you should see it looking much more slick within the coming months – I wanted
to put a little something up about this branch of our family tree. Happy New Year to everyone. 2012 has definitely been a great year in this house and we have many, many blessings to be thankful for.
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