Today a friend and I went into the city to go to the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. At first I was kind of hesitant to go...oh it is so far (a whopping 40-ish miles), oh it will disrupt her schedule, oh I don't know if she's up for it but then I came to my senses and realized we had treked across China with her and surely we could make it downtown and back! So glad we went, the parade was fun and we had a super yummy noodle lunch, can't remember the name of the restaurant but I do remember the massive tanks of crabs in the hallway to the bathrooms!
All bundled up and ready for the parade to begin, it was a wee bit chilly but we found a spot on the sunny side of the street so we were nice and toasty.
The China Consulate General's float...thank you for issuing our visas so we could go to China :)
And because no Chicago parade is complete without kilts and bagpipes...
I was afraid some of the loud music and fireworks might scare Frances but she took it all in stride...at the end of the day she had a pocket full of fortune cookies and she was a happy camper as we made our way home through the remnants of the fireworks that opened the parade...
Frances loooooooves a bubble bath, but hates when it is over. The solution to that problem was a plastic jar from my craft room with a bit of water, some bubble bath and food coloring so she now has her own jar of pink bubbles she can take everywhere. The first thing she said this morning when she woke up was "bubble jar" :)
B is for boo-boo. We got the results of her blood work back and it appears that even though we were given vaccination records from the orphanage she was never actually given vaccinations or was given saline or highly diluted ones. Yesterday she had her first round of 4 shots so she had 4 boo-boos on her legs that required lots & lots of love an attention and band-aids, 2 boxes of band-aids so far!
B is for Brobee's boo-boos, because her friend needed band-aids too :)
B is for the bear that provided comfort to the little girl with 4 boo-boos..
And B is for bumblebee, because that's what she looked like in this outfit zooming around the house.
It's the Year of The Dragon 4710 and our first Chinese New Year with Frances. She reluctantly put on a traditional jacket that I bought for her on Shamian Island, I bought some dresses too but the smallest one is still too big. I had to coax her with some Dum Dums and promise it would be quick to get a couple of pictures...
She could not get out of that jacket fast enough! A millisecond after I took her picture she peeled it off and put on something more comfy.
We don't have any big plans...we are going out for Chinese tonight since we have finally detoxed from all the Chinese food we had in China. There is a parade in Chinatown in Chicago on Saturday that I would love to go to but I don't know if I have the strength to wrangle a toddler downtown by myself! We got our video of her in the orphanage today so we will watch that once she goes to bed, that's a pretty great CNY gift :)
But I love the internet!! Through an adoption message board I "met" someone who is also with our agency and is adopting a 12 yo girl that is in the same orphanage Frances was in. She made a connection on-line with someone who had traveled to the orphanage in early December and they sent her a video of her daughter. She thought she spied Frances in the video so she had her friend contact us and he sent us pictures of Frances with her friends in the orphanage from early December just a couple of weeks before we met her plus he is sending us a video!!! What a gift!! We made what might have been a mistake by showing the pictures to Frances. She was happy looking at them and was able to name all of the kids in the pictures, but that night she was up crying, and wailing several times during the night (she never does that). It was so sad because this is the first time she has shown any grief and I am convinced it was triggered by the pictures. I am hoping maybe it brought some closure as the next day she seemed to have moved on although we did notice her saying some of the kid's names as she was riding in the car while we were running errands. I am only posting 1 of the pictures with just her in it to maintain the privacy of the other children...here she is as stylish as ever ;)
While we were waiting to travel we would have paid a gazillion dollars for just 1 picture of her in the orphanage so we would have known she was o.k.!! We will print all of the pictures and add them to the album the orphanage gave us.
Here are some random pics from the last few days...I can't keep socks or slippers on her, but she will run around in my slippers all day!
Mmmmmmm....warm Gain-fresh towels!
She went up and kissed Mugsy this morning! She grabbed the tutu she is wearing out of the closet this morning and put it on over her jeans. She has recently discovered that behind the locked door in her room lies a plethora of clothing options and if I am not ninja-like when I grab something out of there, she will climb in and grab the first thing she sees!!
30 days ago we met Frances in Xi'an...looking back at those first pictures of her we realize how strong she really was. At the time we were amazed at how well she did when we met, but knowing how much she has blossomed in the past month we realize she was overwhelmed and a little scared that day but yet did not shed a single tear...we look at her in those first pictures and she hardly looks like the same little girl.
The past 4 weeks have flown by!! Ack! I want the time to slow down...we missed the first 3.5 years of her life so we want to make the most of every day we have with her going forward. It is so much fun to see her pick up a new skill or use a new word daily...today it was noodle which should have been her first word as she is still quite the noodle girl, I think she always will be :) Here are a few of her favorite things from over the last 30 days...
Cheerios
Unlimited bottled water
Yo Gabba Gabba
Bears
The word baby
Long daily baths with lots of toys
Mugsy & Pixie...yay!
Cuties
Her own bed in her own room with no bunkmates (except mama sometimes)
I posted this picture of Frances on Facebook yesterday after we got home from getting more blood work done...this was taken before we left. Frances usually likes to look at pictures of herself on the computer, but when I showed her this one she got really sad, pulled up her sleeve, showed me the bruise where she had blood drawn and said "owie" :( She somehow connected this picture with going to the lab yesterday. I think this hoodie will be hanging in the closet for quite a while. She has such a strong reaction when she sees doctors, it makes my heart break to think of what she went through in China as far as her medical care. I hope someone was there to comfort her and take care of her but her reactions make me think not. This is when the language barrier becomes difficult as I want to be able to tell her what is happening and help prepare her, her receptive language skills seem to be excellent so I hope she knows that we are doing this for her and not to her. Even though she seems to bounce back quickly, it was moments like this one looking at the picture that let me know that some of that fear lingers.
Today we were Dr. free but were trapped in the house due to a winter weather advisory...we made the best of it by playing with some scrapping supplies...
She embellished one of her dolls :)
Notice her squeaky shoes are on the doll, it makes it much easier to take it on walks...
She was all about petting Mugsy today...yay! 1 pug down, 1 to go.
Late in the afternoon complete stir-craziness had taken over so I bundled her up and took her out in the snow...she loved it until she got some on her hands, then she was over it. Kid, I feel the same way!
Last night Frances went to bed a little after 8 and didn't wake up until 7 this morning....hoooray!!! The first night in her room she woke up a couple of times but last night was she slept through the night which means that I got some sweet, sweet sleeeeeeep :) I have been taking her out the last few mornings to keep ourselves busy but today we decided to just stick around the house and have a lazy Sunday...we started it off with some not so lazy jumping
and a few rounds of our favorite game "touch the pug tail"
Then it was time to eat breakfast and get dressed. She has slowly been revolting against any traditional breakfast foods so she had some steamed dumplings for breakfast. She enjoys savory much more than sweet. She looooooved sausage and eggs when we were in China but now not so much. I figure breakfast is a success if I get something in her and follow it up with her vitamin. After breakfast I went through the last suitcase I haven't unpacked yet from China (don't judge, i've been busy!) and found a doll that I dragged halfway around the world that she absolutely hated when were in China. I packed it at the last minute because the last update we got from her orphanage said she liked dolls, but I think it was just a cruel joke because she definitely hated it with a passion. I think her current fascination with babies may have helped her warm up to it too.
Bob was cleaning up the kitchen and unearthed a stash of fortune cookies, she then decided that they would be her obsession of the day and filled her pockets full.
Yesterday I had a cut on my finger and went to the bathroom to get a Band-aid, I told her I had an owie and let her see what I was doing, she looked interested but moved on quickly. Well today she kept saying "owie, owie" and would go to the bathroom and point at the box of bandages so we spent quite a while taking care of all of her owies :)
Bob was off for part of today and I can definitely tell a difference in her level of neediness vs. when he isn't home...yesterday by ourselves she did great with potty training she didn't have any accidents all day, would entertain herself and didn't whine. Today she had several accidents, was constantly calling "mama, mama" and would start muttering and get whiny if I was paying Bob attention instead of her. She will physically come over and grab me by the hand/arm etc. and try to pull me to another space with her. This week will be tricky too because we have to go for more blood work tomorrow since it looks like her vaccination records from China may not be correct or the vaccinations she did receive were diluted and she has another Dr. appointment on Wednesday....she gets so upset I hate doing this her twice in 1 week so wish us luck, we will need it!
As I type this, our kid is currently sound asleep in her bed in her room...granted I am here lurking in the dark ensuring that she is still breathing and not tumbling out of bed, but we are quite proud of her (and ourselves!)
Before we left for China, we bought a toddler bed for her and put it in our room...upon returning she wasn't a fan and she ended up in our bed which meant none of us were getting a good night's sleep due to her Mary Lou Retton moves during her sleep. We had a couple of rough nights at first, but it was mainly us trying to figure out what she needed and as soon as we established a solid routine and came to grips with the fact she wanted nothing to do with cuddling at bedtime we were golden. She wanted a bed, her bear, her sippy cup of water and her twilight ladybug and she was good to go. Today we made an effort to get her more comfortable with her room...we spent most of the day in there hanging out and making it somewhere she wanted to be. I think we spent 90% of today in there...it started with some post-breakfast laziness...
Then some friends were invited...
Totally off topic but did you see The Big Bang Theory last night...Frances' tiara reminds me of this scene which cracks...me...up!!
She even sat down with a book and carefully looked through it for the first time! You are going to see several wardrobe changes as we go through today's pictures...we are still working on some potty training and there were a couple of accidents today...being the perfectionist that she is when you change 1 article of clothing they all must change!
She was fascinated with this picture of a baby...2 of her favorite words are baby and bear.
Relaxing in her Ikea chair...
As we saw she was getting more comfortable we moved her toddler bed in, even Miss Pixie was invited in!
Tonight after her bath she went into our room for about 10 seconds, looked at me and said "no" and shook her head and went into her room and crawled into bed! I do need to do some removing of accessories and books tomorrow...there is too much for her to distract herself with as she falls asleep as she tried to pull about 50 books into bed tonight. I hope she doesn't wake up in the morning scared. Tonight I will sleep in the other bed in her room to make sure she is o.k., but the plan is for me to be able to move out in the next few days. I will stay as long as she needs me to though!
Totally random but yesterday she hated guacamole and today she loved it...usually she hates anything green, even the smallest green bit will get picked out of her noodles but she was going to town on the guac!
She likes carrots too but only if they are shredded...
She doesn't look comfortable at all here does she :)
So yesterday it was almost 60 degrees here and we took Frances on her first trip to the park....she loved it!!!
Her favorite was the slide with the swings being a close second, plus it wore her out and she took a nap...the down side of that was she woke up at about 3:45 this morning...ugh! This morning also signaled the end of our beautiful weather as this is what happened...
Snow...double ugh! I didn't know how she would react to the snow but she took it in stride, I know it gets cooler in Ankang so maybe she has seen snow before. She was more interested in the sound her boots made in the snow. I knew it was going to be a long day since we would be stuck inside so we bundled up and headed out to Target for a few things....it was my first solo trip with her and we both did great :) I noticed this morning that I am now part of a new demographic...moms who go to Target to entertain themselves and their kids, I think everyone in there had a kid about Frances' age in their cart.
We got creative in the afternoon and things went really well despite her not taking a nap. There were a couple of meltdowns but she got over them pretty quickly. We played with fingerpaint in zip-loc bags and that kept her entertained for a whle
The ever popular paper towel tube was all kinds of fun...as was the tutu that she removed from a doll and decided to wear herself...
I finally found some things to mix into the meal and snack rotation that she loves to eat since this picture leads me to believe she was not feeling what I was cooking...well not so much cooking but putting in plastic bowls.
We made a trip to Trader Joe's yesterday and she loves their potstickers and wonton soup, like really loves them! Shredded carrots were also a hit...sweet potato fries not so much. She is on the downside of her Cuties addiction and I am finally learning that if I keep everything concealed behind closed doors she doesn't go overboard on 1 particular item...that is proving to be a challenge in our small kitchen so I am tripping over Cuties and water bottles as I make my way down to the basement. It's not that we are keeping things from her, she has snacks at her disposal all day, but just trying to work around some melt-downs over control.
I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post...so many great ideas and input. Bob and I read and re-read every one of them and got some great ideas and are feeling way less stressed...you all are the best!!! xoxo
Bob went back to work on Monday which means it has just been Frances & I during the day for the last 2 days. I was worried that when he returned to work she would take a few steps backward but she is still doing great. We both got showered and dressed & the house is still in one piece which I think was a huge accomplishment :) Said house may be knee deep in Cheerios and toys but it didn't burn down!
One thing we are still struggling with is getting an afternoon nap in. Yesterday she fought it and fought it hard & it didn't happen and boy was yesterday afternoon bumpy. There are some control issues at play and yesterday it was all about Cuties...the little oranges, I think she ate just about a whole box of them. Every 5 minutes she would come looking for another one, I figure they can't hurt her and it wasn't a battle I wanted to fight. Then it was all about putting things into water. Water has been another thing she has to have control over and needs at her disposal at all times. I am sure in the orphanage that plentiful clean bottled water was not always at their disposal so we let her have as much as she wants. Sometimes she has to have it from a bottle, sometimes a sippy cup and yesterday it was a glass.
Last night she fell asleep early and slept hard through the night and got up at her regular time 6 this morning (and I thought I was an early riser!) When she gets up you have to get up. We are co-sleeping with her and she pulls the covers off you and pulls back your eyelids and there is no 5 more minutes at that point 'cause you are up for the day! I learned the day before that I need to have something planned for us to do so I called a friend and we went out shopping. Before going out she went outside since the weather was so nice today and played with her new favorite toy. Yes parts of the toy are still adhered on as I didn't want to get any teeth knocked out as she was swinging it around.
Frances did great when we went out, there was a brief meltdown when we first left but she got over it when Sarah got into the car...she was a happy camper in her stroller when we were out in stores and even nodded off to sleep in her car-seat on the way home. I was hoping I could get her into the house quietly to finish her nap, but as soon as I unlocked the door Mugsy and Pixie started screaming and woke her up and it was over. I think her cat-nap did her good as she was much calmer this afternoon. And look who she let into her playroom!
Both pugs were out and about all afternoon with her and she was fine, the only time she raised a fuss is when she knew I was around and she would yell"Maaaamaaaaa!" loudly but only for show as she wasn't scared at all. I don't know that she will be snuggled up with them any time soon, but she was fine with them brushing up against her and being in the same space.
So here is a question for anyone who wants to leave a comment or emil me...what is your daily routine with your 3 yo like? I don't know if I am over thinking things, giving too much to do, too little to do. I prepared for all of the medical and adoption related stuff but missed the boat on some of the basic stuff. Even though she is 3.5 and smart as a whip, she is a little behind in some areas. For example right now I cannot sit down and read to her as her attention span doesn't allow for it and in an orphanage setting one on one story time just doesn't exist so books to her are something to tear apart, we are working on it as well as other things like coloring, I don't know that she had ever seen a crayon before so we are working on some basic skills. Any ideas or example schedules of your day would be greatly appreciated!
