handsful

So, Dylan YuHai has been with us for exactly one month, as of today! Here are a few things we’ve learned about him so far…

He loves french fries. I mean LOVES. And, most fruits, hot dogs, fish sticks, yogurt, milk, and muffins.

His expression after his tower fell down!  He says “oh no!” 

He likes having a bedtime routine. Brush teeth, turn on the air filter, TV on FoodNetwork (okay, maybe that’s for me), and, read “Ted in a Red Bed”. Then, he usually crawls around on me until I make him settle down beside me where he eventually nods off. After he’s asleep, he does NOT wake up until morning. Ever. I probably shouldn’t type that outloud.

Busted his lip a little while he was playing….he rarely ever cries when he gets hurt.  Lainey was the same way – never expecting attention means there’s no need to make a fuss.  We’re working hard to love on him so he realizes we’re there for him always. 

He loves to stack things.  I was surprised to see that he can easily connect and stack the Duplo blocks.  The higher the better! 

His meaningful words (at least the ones we understand) are Mama, Baba, all done, hello, bye bye, nyow nyow or nala (what he uses to indicate he needs to go potty), and he knows each siblings name and usually calls them by it.  He’s understanding more and more each day, too.  He still says “where’d it go” – a game we started playing in China when we were looking for a toy or something. 

Loves to rough house with his Baba!

He doesn’t like things hot or cold.  Ice cream?  Hates it.  And, if food is even a little bit hot, he’ll spit it out.  He likes to talk about things being hot (like mama’s tea mug) or cold (like the ice pack I used on his cut lip today). 

He loves to give kisses, both on his own and when we ask.  But, he’s not big into hugging yet – we’re trying to show him :)

First haircut at home!

Favorite toys right now are anything that stacks (did I mention that already?), food/dishes, and trucks.  He enjoys playdough, scribbling, and sticking stickers, too. 

I started using lotions on him, since his skin is dry.  His favorite thing is for me to use them on his knees.  Since they function really as his feet, they take a beating, even under pants.  They’re calloused and very dry, so he loves the special treatment. 

Did he like the snow we had recently?  Uh, NO.  He wouldn’t even touch it on his own!  Not sure we’ll have him on a sled this year, I guess we’ll see. 

Someone thinks he’s handsome!

We think he’s right!  Happy 1 month, Dylan!

Finally able to get some of our Christmas pics up (yahoo!)

Later that evening…

And, here’s what we woke up to.

Our backyard.

No, we haven’t thrown our pumpkins away yet.

Yes, Ethan is trying to sled on a skim board. We have some winter shopping to do.

The artistic photos are credited to Abbey. She’d want you to know :)

Our neighbor came over with a sled – guess she felt sorry for us! Here Lainey and I are headed down. Did you know sleds are incredibly hard to steer?? We almost hit a tree, and then slammed into the bushes. Fun.

Waiting ever so patiently for us to give the go-ahead to run into the living room on Christmas morning. Yes, we’re those parents who have to have the camera set up and ready to capture their faces as they see the things set out for them. We wrap most everything, but leave out a big thing for each kid.

More pics of our Christmas coming later…I’m having issues with my photo upload account, but a very nice friend is helping me get it worked out (thanks, Alan!). Sorry the pic above is so small, it’s either that size or one that fills the entire page! Grrr…

He takes her toy. She grabs it back. And, takes his. It’s all a process.

But, I think they’re beginning to grow on each other.

We’re speeding through the last few days!

Going out for my birthday. We went downtown where, on each Friday in December, they open all the stores, have cider and cookies, lights up everywhere, Santa, and a favorite restaurant of mine.

Okay, I’m fuzzy on what day this was. We saw the snow starting to come down and headed outside to enjoy it – since we knew it wouldn’t last.

We heard that the kids saw snow when we were in China, but they said this was a LOT more. And, the flakes were huge!

Dylan approved :)

That night, we headed to a Christmas tree lot to find the perfect tree.

Checking out the freshness factor. Everytime Dylan has a new experience, I wonder what’s going on in his little head.

The winner!

Super Dad!

Lots of table crafts and activities lately. Dylan loves being in his chair and will sit a long time working on something. Here, he’s sticking cut-outs of stickyback foam pieces to paper.

It was big sisters idea.

This was actually on my birthday, I think. He’s enjoying his first lollipop from the pediatrician.

We made it through the first week home. I’m so glad to be back in our (new) routine and looking forward to Christmas (which we’re still feverishly trying to get ready for – I’m one of those ladies with the overflowing carts at Target days before Christmas). Am I missing anything from China? Room service, maid service, the water pressure at the White Swan (gracious!), doormen who are always happy to open the door for you, and friends that we met. Oh, and….

Okay, okay. I’ll stop talking about the french toast, already. Sheesh…

Seems to be a nickname that’s sticking…

Dylan went to the pediatrician yesterday and did wonderfully – very cooperative, no tears. Course, there’s been no ouchies yet.

He weighs 26.15 pounds (2nd percentile) and is 36 inches tall (3rd percentile). Yep, he’s small, but proportionate, so all is good. He’s wearing 24mo/2T shirts and 24mo pants. 18mo pants fit better, except they’re usually too short. Thank goodness for pants with the elastic/button things on the inside of the waist!

We discussed shots, and I expressed my interest in getting as many titers as possible, to avoid unnecessary shots. She contacted the disease control center and got specifics on how this can best be accomplished. Next Monday, he’ll have those titers run, have a repeat TB test, and I’ll bring in the stool for cultures. So, there may be tears on Monday!

I’ve been keeping a list on Dylan since China, so I thought I’d share a few things here that we’ve learned so far.

Despite his leg difference, NOTHING stops him. He climbs anywhere and everywhere and scoots across the floor faster than I can keep up. He loves his little leg, and delights in showing it to anyone. Makes me sad to think he has to lose it – praying we can explain it to him somehow.

He began giving us unsolicited kisses and calling us mama/baba on day 2.  He loves to kiss! 

He understood “ball” by day 4.  He says “nyow nyow” to ask to go potty, and is beginning to understand some English already.  He understands “more” and “all done”.  As of today, he’s responding to the name Dylan most of the time (we’re calling him Dylan YuHai and will drop YuHai eventually). He says “didden oo di” for Dylan YuHai.

Dylan seems very mature for his age…he eats neatly with a spoon or fork (in fact, he hates picking up food with his hands – doesn’t like his hands dirty).  Today, we were playing with play dough and I handed him the plastic scissors.  He held them just right and began cutting…I wonder if he’d used scissors before?  He plays creatively (trying all sorts of arrangements with his stacking cups) and has a long attention span for activities. 

His favorite food was bread in China; he’s not as fond of it anymore.  Like I’ve said, he will hold food in his mouth and takes forever to swallow sometimes.  But, it’s decreased a lot in the last few days, he has needed less encouragement to eat,  and he seems  more willing to try new foods. 

Bedtime has gotten easier lately, now that we have more of a routine that slowly gets him used to the idea.  And, once he’s asleep, he’s a deep – though very restless – sleeper.  He kicks, spins, turns sideways (his favorite way to sleep) all night long.  Once he’s in his own bed, it’s a good thing his bed has rails all the way around! 

Dylan loves to throw things away and will point out trash he finds.  Likes to shut doors, too.  Hoping these traits rub off on the big kids! 

He doesn’t like to go barefoot or even sockfoot.  Shoe on at all times.  And, even though he has 4 shoes, he always chooses the squeaky shoe we got him in China. 

 

I feel like I’m so behind in the blog! Today is my birthday – I’m officially smack in the middle of my 40’s. I’d prefer to avoid typing the actual number. Ouch. And, we finally got a Christmas tree in the house as of last night. We’ll decorate this weekend. We’re ridiculously behind in Christmas shopping and we have 6 children hoping we catch up quickly. Well, at least 5 children – Dylan is happily oblivious to it all. Randy suggested we just postpone Christmas for a week, but none of the kids liked the idea. Weird, huh? I promise to try to post more pics soon!!

Me and my kids, on the night we arrived home.

We’ve been home 3 days as of tonight. All in all, Dylan is doing great. He adores his siblings to pieces, goes to both Randy and me equally, gives kisses, makes eye contact, and has given me 1 unsolicted hug so far :) But, like all adoptions, there are areas of struggle and since I feel it’s important to give other adoptive families a true picture of this journey, I plan on “keeping it real” here.

We completely expected Dylan to react to food like Lainey did…eat voraciously, never seem full, want to eat all the time. Boy, were we wrong. Dylan eats very little, and usually only with encouragement. He will chew a mouthful of food FOREVER and when we try to give him another bite, he opens his mouth wide to say “still chewing, mama”. I’ll try and give him a sip of drink to help him swallow. It works sometimes. There are times that he refuses to swallow and he gets upset. He usually refuses bites of food that he’s not familiar with. I’m planning on calling our agency’s support line to check on this…definitely not how we thought he’d react to eating.

Then, there are times when he sort of spaces out. It happens after we do something that shakes him – maybe told him no, or asked him to eat another bite of food, etc. He freezes, his forehead crinkles and his eyes look anxious and fearful. He won’t respond to our words, won’t take anything we try to hand him, nothing. It’s hard to see him do this, but we realize that his world has been totally rocked and turned upside down. His little 3 year old brain just can’t handle it all sometimes and this is his response…his way to shut it all down. We’re praying that this happens less and less as we show him our love is real and forever.

His other struggle is bedtime. He slept in his crib at the hotel the 1st night – we laid him down, he stayed completely still, and fell asleep. That was the last time he was in the crib, because the next night he screamed in fear when we tried to put him down. He’s been sleeping with us. Our routine is kind of the same as in the hotel. We get him in his PJ’s and brush his teeth (which causes him to start to cry because he knows what’s coming), then sit up with him in our bed with the TV on. He cries – a sort of over and over humming cry – as we rub his back and tell him it’s okay. About 5-10 minutes into it, he begins to nod off. We lie him down, and he’s usually out in about 2 minutes. He always wakes up happy.

Oh, and did I mention he hates the dog?

It’s been a rough few days, with all of us trying to find our new places in the family…

Lainey isn’t the baby anymore and is definitely feeling some jealousy and wanting tons of mama/dada time. We expected her to react this way, but she’s also showing signs of being a fantastic big sister. Whenever we include her in taking care of Dylan, she jumps right in with big sister authority. Dylan accepts her most of the time :)

I’m learning to be a mother to six children. If you would have told me this would be my life even 10 years ago, I would have laughed. Me? 6 kids? Yea, right. It feels daunting at times, especially in these early days (and jet lag still working on me!), but I know that God will equip me to be the mom He knows I can be. What a privilege. I’m extremely thankful for my family and can’t imagine my life any other way.

First breakfast at home.

So, that’s where we are right now. I’m confident that we’ll all find our place and new rhythm. I know that Dylan will settle in and feel comfortable and safe with us. I know he’ll eventually drive the dog crazy with attention. For now, I’m trusting God to walk us through this time. That’s what faith is, right…even when you’re not feeling it, you believe it’s there. I believe.