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.