Three month anniversary!

Wow, can you believe it?  We've had the little guy three months now!!!  It's amazing to think how far we've come!  I have a real difficult time trying to comprehend how different his life (and our lives) was just three months ago.  I often wonder what's going on in that little noggin of his ... other than how to get in trouble next!  Noah doesn't say much in Chinese now and his English is really coming along.  Look at the difference from these pictures from China when we got him in March and the later ones.

He's also gotten used to preschool and really enjoys his time there!  Of course he doesn't get the concept of sharing and thinks the teacher and everything belongs to him!  Even though he started just three weeks ago in preschool, he got to participate in the graduation.  It was kind of strange sitting there watching all these little kids and realizing that he's probably one of the better ones (even if we say say ourselves) since he's standing on his spot behaving and not crying or running away.

We've discovered that Noah is very inquisitive.  He really gets in the middle of things to see what's happening and learns things after seeing it once.  I can't leave anything out as he'll get into it and start doing stuff.  Nancy's cousin Crystal brought up a take apart plane this weekend.  After using the toy drill to dismantle and reassemble the plane, he began doing over and over again.  It was amazing that he knew how to change the drill bits for the different screws and bolts and to reverse the bit direction as needed for clockwise or counterclockwise!

Anyway, here are some update pictures!

Noah the painter!

Got his cool helmet on and ready to tear down the street on his bike!

Exploring in the yard and trying to figure out why there's a snail on his hand!

Now there's two puppies in the house!

Hard at work on some craft!

Noah teaching Jason how to scroll through the photo album on Jason's phone.

Doing what he does best ... eating!

Noah got tired of waiting one day so he decided to help mom bake blueberry bars!

Taking mom for a walk at Pier 39.

On his donut break...

Crystal!

Rudeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Silly people in the hat store!

Noah getting his caterpillar ready for graduation!

Plane assembly...

First day of preschool!

Ok, the other entry was getting long so I decided to break up the posting into two sets.  Here are the school pics!

This is Noah checking out the toys to make sure things are going to be acceptable to his standards!

Here he is practicing his note taking!

He must take after Nancy!  He does not travel light!  He's loaded up with all his gear for the first day!

He does pretty well with snack time!

At least he sits still for music time!

More posts finally!

Sorry for the long delay since the last posts!  Lots have happened since then.  I'm going to put up some pictures and let Nancy actually write text. :)  In a nutshell, Nancy's parents came to visit and help out for a few weeks.  They've gone home now.  We decided to start Noah in preschool now.  Got our fingers crossed he'll adjust easily.  Today was his first day of school.  Of course I didn't listen to the instructions, which resulted in many tears for Noah.  Here are some pics from the recent adventures of Noah!

Several weeks ago, Tyler was so generous in bringing over some chocolate chip cookies he made!     This picture's kind of blurry, but it's of Noah having his first chocolate chip cookie and dancing (which explains the blurriness).

Noah making sure he got every last crumb off his hand!

Looks like I'm going to have some real competition for cookies around the house!  So we also found out what happens after he gets that much sugar!  Noah decided to put on Tyler's giant running shoes and play Godzilla!

Noah is starting to learn how to swim.  This was his first outing.  Note that he's decked out in all his swim gear!  I think there's a froggy missing somewhere...

He decided to ditch it all after a couple of swims as he got more comfortable with water.

We've confirmed that he's a meat eater.  Here he is with his first yummy chipotle tri tip.  Note that he's strategically left the broccoli in his bowl...

We went to Emi's caterpillar birthday party at the park a couple of weekends ago.  Noah really likes going to the playground.  Here's Noah riding a duck!

Of course the best part of a picnic is the food!  Noah has discovered hot dogs and determined that they're yummy!  Why should we be surprised that the bun doesn't get devoured?

Noah's also been working with his medical play kit.  The vet's going to have some competition soon!  Hopefully, the vet bills will go down with the family discount!  This is Noah giving Katie an exam!

Finally, a lazy Saturday just enjoying the sun on the patio during a break from bike riding!

The Reinforcements Have Arrived!

This new life of ours sure is busy. I realized this morning that it's been a good long time since we've posted anything here and people may be wondering what has happened to us over the last several weeks....

I am now back to work full-time and loving it. It really has helped my sanity to go back to work and be around kids who I can talk to in full sentences and reason with. Yes that's right, I said "reason with", and yes I teach middle school. :) Oddly enough, a 2.5 year old and a 14 year old are quite similarin their behavior, but the fact that 8th graders have language makes communication a whole lot easier. Comparing the two has certainly reinforced that I have found my calling by teaching middle school, and that going down to a lower grade level is not in my future.

This last week my parents arrived to meet their first grandchild and to offer support. They plan to stay through the end of the school year to help with childcare during the day and it is a huge blessing. Noah has come to school with me several times already and needless to say, it's a bit difficult to get work done with a little one running around your classroom, so I am grateful they are here. It was love at first sight for Noah and my dad for sure! They spend everyday, all day running around playing. Peter and I come home to a very tired and happy kid and that is great! :) I'm not sure what we will do when they go back home in June.

This last Saturday, Noah and I spent the day planting our annual vegetable garden. We had a great time pulling weeds and turning over the soil to prepare it for planting. We saw earthworms and all sorts of bugs. I even got Noah to pet the worms, although he wouldn't hold them no matter how much I tried to convince him that it was okay. He was very concerned about getting dirty and every time he got dirt in his shoe, he would say "uh-oh", take off his shoe and stand on my foot until I cleaned out his shoe for him. He also wanted to wear gloves just like mommy and daddy. I didn't have any kid sized gloves so I just gave him a pair of mine which were obviously too big. He spent half the day wearing them, until finally, he gave up and just put his hands in the dirt. I was ecstatic to see him finally getting dirty! Once he got his hands in the dirt, we had a great time planting and laying out the drip hose. We also picked and ate strawberries and lemons from the garden and that was a fabulously exciting treat :) I'm excited to watch the garden grow this summer and to go out every morning with Noah to pick our vegetables and then cook them up and eat them. There is nothing like freshly picked fruits and vegetables!

Gold Stars All Around!

We had our first social worker follow-up visit this week and we got a gold star for effort. She said that our adjustment has definetely been more difficult than most, but that she thinks we are doing a good job. She also said that Noah appears to be bonding well and is overall a happy kid. However, she said that he is smarter than the average bear and that could be one of the reasons he is having a harder transition than most because he is so much more aware of what is going on than most kids his age. I guess the good news is that he is smart :) We are certainly noticing that he picks up on words and just about everything else really quickly. If he sees us do something once he remembers and then tries to do it himself at a later time. One day last week he saw me filling the dishwasher and now helps me put the forks and spoons and plates in it everytime I do the dishes. I showed him once where each utensil goes and which direction to put them in and now he does it correctly everytime. He even corrects me if I do it "wrong". I know people always say that kids catch on quick, but I never thought it was that quick! Especially since I teach middle school and I have to say and show everything one hundred times before they do it right.

This week Noah also had his visit with the specialists at Stanford to determine what to do about his cystic kidney. He had lots of testing done and they said that overall things look pretty good, but that they want to do more testing to see if his bladder is functioning correctly. Apparently he is considered the same as someone with only one kidney since the right one doesn't work due to the cysts. They want to make sure to protect the one that still works at all costs. At some point he may need a transplant, but that will most likely happen 20 or 30 years in the future and that is the worst case scenario. Noah is scheduled to go in for more testing on May 7 and they will inject dye into his bladder to see if everything is working well. It doesn't sound like much fun especially since he needs to be awake for the procedure. We are praying that the results will be positive so that we won't have to repeat the ordeal. If all looks good, the doctors say he will only need to come in once a year for a check up to make sure everything is still working.

Noah also went swimming for the first time ever this week! After his initial hesitation, he caught on quickly to the idea of kicking and had a great time. He floated around with his fishy floaty ring and his froggy life vest and really enjoyed chasing mommy around the pool (with daddy pushing him around of course). Hopefully he will learn to love to swim... who knows... those big feet of his may make him the next Micheal Phelps :)

Speed racer!

Here's Noah on the set of wheels he received from the Cisco IP team!  (Thanks you guys!)  He's been trying to get into the garage every day so he can ride it.  Hope he isn't going to be like that when he's old enough to drive...

On the first day he had it, I was allowed to push on the handle for about ten minutes.  Then he turned around and told me to let go!  Every so often after that he would turn around to make sure I wasn't close to touching the handle bar.  If I was, he'd tell me to back off.  He hasn't quite figured out the whole peddling thing yet so he's going the Fred Flintstone route!

Sleep at last! Well, kind of...

We've been home now over 2 weeks and our little guy is still waking up at all hours whining and crying. We met with the pediatrician last week and she gave us a bunch of articles on sleep training and reminded us that we need to train him, not the other way around. She cautioned us against creating a habit that we don't want to stick with. She also reassured us that all kids have sleep issues at some point in thier lives, so we are not alone. She suggested trying to let Noah "cry it out" to see if he can settle himself down, so last night we gave it a try and boy oh boy does that little guy have persistence! He went to sleep at 9:30pm like usual and happily tucked into his own bed with his books, stuffed mouse and sippy cup of water. He also has a picture of us on the wall right next to his bed so he can look at it if he gets scared (a clever suggestion from an adoption counselor). Right on schedule he woke up at 11:30pm and started crying and whining. Peter went to check on him and took him to the bathroom since that is the normal routine. He then put him back to bed, sat with him a while and then told him that it was "time to sleep", showed him that we would be right outside the door on the couch, and shut the door. Well, the screaming commenced and continued to get louder and more irrate as time went on. We have a camera monitor in his room, so we turned it on to watch his shenanigans and to make sure he was really okay. After 10 minutes of screaming he got out of his bed and stood by the door screaming and banging on the door. It was really hard to watch, but we thought we'd try really hard to be patient and wait it out. Every once in a while he would stop and listen to make sure we were still there and listen to see if we would relent and come over. After 30 minutes without ceasing, we went in to tell him again that it was "time for bed" and that he needed to lay down and go to sleep and that mommy and daddy are right outside and that everything is "okay". We put him back in his bed and he cozied in again... looking rather perterbed, but okay and not scared. Peter sat with him for a few minutes and then walked out and shut the door with the light slightly on. Well, after about 5 minutes, Noah got back out of bed, turned the light all the way on in his room and proceeded to scream at the door again. Again, he would scream and then stop to listen and then start again.... The funny thing was that by looking at the monitor we could see that he wasn't actually crying, just screaming and then stopping and very calmly waiting and listening. At some point he got his books from his bed and brought them all to the door... then he got his water and carried that to the door too. I don't know if he was packing up to leave or what?! By about 12:50am he finally went back to his bed got under his covers, rearranged all of his "stuff" and laid down to go to sleep. By 1:15am he was out and slept the whole night as far as we could tell, without waking or crying. We had the monitor by our bed (which Peter finally slept in for the first time since we've been home) and checked it every once in a while and he was sound asleep. :)
Writing a whole post about Noah's night adventures might seem silly, but for us this was a major victory! We are so sleep deprived we can hardly see straight and Peter has been falling asleep every time he sits down, so we have been desperately waiting for something to change.... We are hoping that after this little experience Noah will have "gotten the picture" and realize that he needs to sleep in his own bed and that he doesn't need to wake up at all hours to whine. The last few nights that Peter was sleeping on the floor, he would wake up, look at Peter and then if he saw any movement start whining. If Peter sat totally still he would just go back to sleep.... Hopefully tonight won't be worse as a result of our experiment and things will continue to get better instead. This little guy is much more clever than we first thought! We are hoping that all his stubborn persistence will mean some sort of greatness when he gets older :)

Another day, another adventure!

Ah, Wednesday.  Soon we'll be home from China for two weeks.  It seems like we are starting to get into a loose routine.  Hopefully, the adjustments will pick up the pace and life with Noah will be easier.   Noah had an appointment at Stanford today for blood work and an ultrasound.  I tell you, I don't like it when I have my own blood drawn.  It sure was way worse holding a two year old toddler to fill a bunch of vials.  Lucky for me, he didn't squirm too much but I really felt sorry for Noah.  The lab technician had a really hard time trying to find a vein to draw from and it took almost an hour of poking the kid in a bunch of different places and coming up empty.  You figure a lab that works on kids every day would have the procedure down pat.  So the guy finally managed to draw blood with a syringe instead from Noah's wrist.  I had a hard time with my cookies as I really don't like to see blood...  Here's Noah checking himself out.

Good for us, the ultrasound went much more smoothly and he only screamed through part of it.  Not sure what the deal was since he was just lying on a bed watching Sesame Street...

Now for the best part of my day.  So Noah needs to submit stool samples from three days to the lab.  I thought making faces at him while holding him over the potty was the worse it could get.  Oh no, when Nancy and I are both using every excuse in the book and making up new ones to each other it's bad!  I lost and I had to hold a tray under Noah as he did his business for today's sample collection.  At least I made Nancy bottle it.  Poor Noah was sitting there wondering afterwards why the two of us were gagging and dying.  I'm sure this is going to traumatize him and set us back in his training.  I better work hard on my excuses for days two and three...

[Nancy is standing over me right now correcting all my typos.  I must be really tired...  Oh she just went to bed but said I better reread what I write since every one of my posts have a bunch of typos.]

Oh yeah, Nancy took Noah for a haircut yesterday.  Looks like he had a fun and didn't put up a fuss.  Go figure.  I like how he's pretty tame during the day...until I get home from work.

Looks like I'm sleeping on cushions on the floor in his room for a few more nights at least.  Noah's still waking up screaming and it's been harder to get him to go back to bed.  On Sunday night he woke up and wouldn't stop crying so he ended up sleeping with us.  Last night he woke up at some point and I opened my eyes to find him standing over me.  Good thing he wasn't holding anything except for his sippy cup!  He tried to share my cushion but I pointed back at his bed and fell back asleep.  Apparently he gave up at some point cause when I woke up a few hours later he was snoring away in his own bed!

Wow, I just realized that this post is all over the place.  No wonder why I don't keep a journal!  One more tidbit.  We've found that Noah really likes playing at the playground, especially on the slides and swings.  We had an opportunity to meet up with the other family that traveled to Jiangxi with us for a play date this weekend.  Noah was totally thrilled to see them since he played so much with their kids in China.  Surprisingly, Noah seems to play well with new people after he warms up a little.

I've been a bit delinquent in posting, but wanted to say that we've really appreciated all the kind messages of support from all of you.  We are especially grateful for the generous and yummy meals we've received from the Hammers, Bengstons, McCormicks and Eastons.  The three of us have totally enjoyed the nourishment and visits!

A much belated thank you also to Nancy's cousin Gustavo for coming to pick us up at the airport with Donna, Nick and Amanda!  It was so wonderful to see such warm friendly faces after such a long journey home.

Noah really enjoyed the welcome home decorations Becki put up at our house.  It was such a great surprise to find the groceries from the Bengtons on our kitchen counter so we didn't have to go food shopping right away!

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, all our animals survived our absence.  I'm pretty sure they've gotten over the novelty of Noah at this point.  With all his screaming, they're probably wondering why he hasn't gone home yet like all our other visitors.  Boy, are they in for a surprise!  Our neighbor Frank did a great job watching the cats.  We can't thank the Hendersons enough for watching Katie during our trip!  She had an awesome time at your house and I'm sure she was a real handful!

Happy Easter :)

Happy Easter Everyone! We celebrated the day with a wonderful feast provided by our dear friends Jason and Tram. It was so great to eat American holiday food after all the craziness of chinese delicacies. I can't tell you how much I missed home cooking after 16 days of sketchy cuisine. Scorpians and mystery animal parts on a stick just isn't my idea of delicious morsels.

Noah spent the day eating tasty treats given to him by the Easter Bunny (Jason and Tram) and playing with 2 big kids named Cary and Jason who spent hours entertaining him with all sorts of grown-up kid shenanigans. I'm pretty sure he would've gone home with either one of them if we had let him :) It was wonderful to take a bit of a break from our new reality and spend some time with friends. It was especially fun to see Noah have such a good time with other folks besides us. I think it is a sign that he is making progress...slow and steady....

Noah is also slowly getting more comfortable with the zoo that he lives in and is less afraid of the cats and Katie the bassett hound. In fact the other day I saw him give Katie a hug and a kiss on the nose. It was pretty darn cute and gave me hope that someday they will be great friends. He still isn't 100% sure about the cats and feels the need to tattle on them everytime he thinks they are doing something "wrong". I'm not sure yet why he feels this is necessary, but he is pretty insistant about it and doesn't stop bothering me until I reassure him that the kitties are "okay". The cats have decided that he really isn't that interesting and pretty much ignore him now unless he is screaming and then they just look at us like "get him out of here please."

Nightime is still really difficult for Noah and we aren't getting much sleep. We've made some minor progress in the sense that he doesn't get out of bed to find Peter anymore, but will just cry until one of us comes to reassure him and rub his back until he falls back asleep. This happens every few hours and ends when he finally decides its time to get up in the morning. He seems to be pretty stressed out when he is sleeping still and Peter has noticed him grinding his teeth and thrashing around alot, so that's not great.... We really hope he settles in soon so we can all get some much needed rest and he can be a happier little boy.

Aaaaah Sleep....

Horray Horray! We both finally got some sleep last night. Well, sort of.... Instead of screaming last night, Noah decided to get up and look around for Peter all night until Peter got his couch cushions and finally laid down on the floor with him in his room around 1am. Good grief! At least the screaming stopped, but you would think the kid would be exhausted from the lack of sleep and just conk out at some point!
The good news is that days are getting better and he seems pretty happy and content playing all day with his new toys as long as I am next to him. He isn't so sure about playing by himself yet. Noah is also learning to scream less when he wants something, as I have taught him that he gets nothing at all unless he says "please" first. We are still working on "thank you" which he doesn't understand and refuses to say.
This morning we went to the park up the street to play with Mrs. Wendy, my dear friend, and 2 little boys she was watching. Noah was shy at first, but after a while, he warmed up and started to play on the jungle gym without me, which is a good sign that he is getting more secure. Hopefully things will continue to improve as the days go by....

Our little monkey

Thanks to Harris for the picture!  Noah apparently loved to be swung between us like a monkey when we walked around China.