December 15, 2011
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Week One....
Well we've been home a week. We've been through more bananas, eggs, and tomatos in this week then this household has been in 5 years. We went to our first dinner together as a family of five (IHOP was the victim of this adventure) and we've only had a couple of giant meltdowns from YiLin and not a single incident of jealousy from Shaeleigh and Chance.
YiLin loves to go out. He just likes to go. Highlight of his day is picking up Shaeleigh and Chance from school. All of Chance's classmates greet him each day, "YiLin! YiLin!" and he jumps up and down waving goodbye to everyone. Hopefully once he starts school, he'll enjoy his own class as much as he enjoys visiting Chance's.
We have spent much of the week going to various doctor's appointments - dentist, pediatrician, optomotrist. He was great at the dentist. Okay at the pediatrician. A bit of a nightmare at the optomistrist. I think he's a good gauge for the quality of doctor's waiting rooms and how well they keep to their appointment times.
The dentist visit was very postive. His teeth cleaned right up and the scraggly/cracked one in the front turns out to be an extra front tooth. He will need to have it extracted to make room for the real tooth but beyond that, his teeth were in good condition.
The Eye Doctor determined that he is far sighted. This is what it causing his eyes to cross and maybe be why he struggles to write and understand things such as mazes and tracing letters and numbers. It may also impact his speech as kids apparently learn language from watching people's lips. Glasses are on order.
The Pediatrician noted his ears were full of debris and impacting his hearing. And so we have an ENT appointment the week after Christmas. Although we are making some headway with behavior and learning, I think having all these other things normalized will definitely help as well.
A few photos from China:
This was a nice little path/walkway that was part of the hotel. YiLin is a big fan of fish so he enjoyed going out and looking at the big fish (da yu).
That's YiLin in the middle of the photo. He kept dropping leaves in the water and the fish thought it was food so he attracted a crowd.
Silly fish kept falling for it. They would take the leaves in their mouths but then spit it out.
This is at the zoo. They had a goldfish area where you could try to catch your own goldfish with buckets. Look closely and you can see that most of the fishing was being done by the moms.
YiLin did his own fishing.
When not feeding the fish.... At least the giraffe's LIKED eating plants.
We went to the safari in Guangzhou which was the best day for YiLin by far. He loved the animals. The safari was great too and our guide, Elsie, got us to every show 2 minutes before it started. She rocked. Here the elephants were sucking up trunkfuls of water and spraying them on anyone who would stand by to watch. YiLin and another little girl in our travel group did not budge from the fence.
Elsie helped keep the wildman under control with the flag again. He did fairly well. And being out all day (we left at 9:00 and did not get back until after 4:00) is probably the best reason it was the best day. He was fully engaged for the majority of the day.
He had no fear of the costume characters. Just enjoyed pretty much every minute.
Ha. That's just funny.
And that's a real panda. It looks fake. The background is painted but the panda is real. Really.
Back at the zoo (which is not nearly as nice as the safari but still a fun distraction).
So at the Washington Zoo they will sell you a hot dog for $5.00 and a drink for $3.00. In Guangzhou they will sell you a giant vat of noodles for only $1.20. But thank goodness for the zoo. All week he told me he wanted noodles from the hotel buffet in the morning and then he never ate them. These he ate. Apparently he likes cheap, salty ramen noodles.
And so now we're home we picked up a few different flavors at the fish ones the best so far (yes, our house stinks with all the fish noodles and eggs). Yesterday the ones we made were really spicey. But he kept on eating them. He was waving his hand in front of his mouth, face all scrunched up - two fists his water cup and chugs it down - says, "la, la, la" which means "hot, hot, hot" and "bu hao chi" which means "bad food" - but the poor kid keeps eating. It's going to take a little time to get him to understand that he doesn't have to eat everything in sight.
Ah... Christmas in Guangzhou.
This was our view from the Garden Hotel (14th floor).
It was directly across the street from a shopping mall/friendship store. We wandered over one day to see what we could find. YiLin was facinated by the parking garage. Stood quite awhile watching the cars go down. I wish I knew what he was thinking.
This is a backflash to the day YiLin drank the ketchup soup.
This is YiLin standing by the sign for his school. He had only been going to school since September so not too long but this was the only time he really looked proud to me. He ran right up to the sign and asked that I take a photo. So cute.
And finally, here are the boys at play. Loud, shirts off, at ease. Chance is very funny. On one hand, he seems to be looking out for YiLin - when he hears him calling for me from their bedroom, he either helps him call or he comes out to tell me that YiLin needs him. He also has been tutoring him on counting from 1-10. On the other hand, when YiLin fell out of bed the first night, Kenn discovered him on the floor (still asleep) and asked Chance, "did you know he fell out of bed?" Chance just looks down at his poor brother, nd says, "Yeah," and then goes back to playing Gameboy in the top bunk.
And now, I'm falling asleep again. Either days with YiLin are wearing me out, or I am still jetlagged and can't keep to my old schedule yet. 9 days to Christmas! Yikes!
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