chinese caboose

Well it's a lot harder to blog at home!  In the hotel, there was nothing else to do at night (except sleep of course), so it became the nightly routine to just recap that day and share with everyone back home what we'd been up to.  But at home there is a whole house of things to do - and that need to be done - and I'm fully back to my mommy routine.  After kids are in bed there are still chores waiting, and of course there is limited brain power, so I don't end up back at the blog nearly as often as I might plan on it!  And then the problem is, a week or more goes by and then when I finally sit down to write a little, I stare blankly and think, where do I begin!?

Everyone's first question is always, "How's she doing?" or "How is she adjusting at home?"  The short answer is really very well.  We've been home about two and a half weeks, and we've had Lydia with us for one month and two days.  When you consider how short of a time she has been home and how big of a life change she has had to maneuver, I would say she is handling it as well as I could imagine a three year old being capable of - or better.  She is very patient.  I don't know if that is a personality trait or a learned behavior, but it does play a large part in her smooth sailing.  She goes along with us and does what we do, and you've gotta figure, most of the time she doesn't have a clue what we are doing and certainly no clue what might be coming next.  But she goes along with us, most of the time happily, showing her "I'm not sure about this but I'll do it because I know you want me to" face from time to time.  We talk a lot, and she absorbs what she can.  We name things everywhere we go, and she parrots back what she can.  We go about at least most of the daily activites that we had in our routine, and she observes what she can.  I can't even imagine the amount of new stimuli and information her brain is processing everyday, and yet she goes through most of it happily and willingly.  Don't miss the all important word - most - in that last sentence.  I'd be lying if I made that "most" an "all". 

The biggest struggle that we've had flying around, which has yet to find a happy landing place, is bedtime.  It's a common struggle for three year olds anyway, and frankly a lot of what we are seeing looks an awful lot like common three year old bedtime struggle.  But it is complicated by a lack of clear communication and also somewhat a lack of negative consequences.  In other words, we can't clearly communicate verbally exactly what is expected, and we don't have a great way to provide negative consequences for not following the expectations.  So bedtime has been a confusing swirl of different attempted solutions, none of which have gone as well as bedtime the whole time we were in China.  There is a bed in Lydia's own room - she used that fine at bedtime for a while.  Then we added a toddler bed in our room to solve the middle of the night problem when she would wake up and not want to be in her own room anymore.  Then she boycotted her own bedroom altogether and we started putting her to bed at the beginning of the night in the toddler bed.  That worked beautifully for about two nights, and then the same boycotting pattern began and now each night seems to be an increased protest against bedtime even in the toddler bed.  Hmmmm.....stand by.  We'll have to see what the next couple of nights bring.  The pattern so far looks to me an awful lot like a typicl three year old "how much can I control at bedtime" game.  But it's so hard to know without clear language communication.  And this language translater that I downloaded on my phone has been helpful, but only to a certain extent.  For example, when we use it at bedtime to say "please stay in your bed" or "you are being a bad girl, please don't get up again", those phrases only carry so much weight when they are read in the same monotone electronic expression that is also used when we play "we are so glad this is your home" or "you are so cute"!  Poor kid - imagine trying to decipher what someone wanted you to do from an imperfect language machine that always says everything in the same monotone expression!  Makes it especially hard to use for things that would normally carry a lot of verbal and facial expression!

So besides bedtime, she likes mostly everything else about life here.  Even that cat has moved off of her most hated list!  She now will pet the cat, attempt to play with the cat, and even chase the cat just a little!

She eats well and willingly tries most everything if she knows we want her to.  Restaurants are about the most tricky eating environment because at home we usually all have the same thing, or even if we have choices she can see the choices and point to indicate which things she wants or doesn't want.  But at a restaurant, we have to take our best guess at what she would want, and then we all end up with different meals.  That situation will frequently get us that face that we are learning means, "I'll do this because I know I have to but I'm not happy about it."  And we have to do our best to communicate that she needs to eat some of what is on her plate before we give her some of what other people have on theirs.  The hardest part of that in my opinion is that she gets the look on her face that indicates she thinks she is in trouble or has been bad.  It's hard to differentiate a "no" that means you are in trouble and have done something bad from a "no" that simply means you can't have that or do that right now.  There are a lot of forms of "no", but she only seems to register one - "you've been bad" or "you've done something wrong."  So in a situation like a restaurant, I just wish I had a better way to explain that she simply needs to eat some of the food on her plate first and then she can try some other things too.  I hate the fact that she looks like she has gotten in trouble jsut becasue we are trying to say, "not right now" or "eat this first."  That's usually when we will pull out the phone translater and hope that it accurately says, "eat this first" and not something totally incorrect or confusing. 

So besides the few bumps and kinks along the way to her life in America, she likes and enjoys many many things.  I think maybe a list is in order....(can anyone tell from this blog that I am an avid list-maker?).....

Things that Lydia likes...

1.  the trampoline
2.  the cat (most of the time)
3.  her toddler bed (most of the time)
4.  her sisters - this is really more of an ecstatic favorite!
5.  iphones, ipods, and ipads
6.  Ni-Hao Ki Lan (Nick Jr. show like Dora only Chinese)
7.  puzzles
8.  this blog - especially the Gotha day video
9.  pattern blocks
10.  actually, shaped blocks and puzzles of ANY kind
11.  hair things - ponytail holders, barrettes, clips, etc
12.  the grocery store - especially the produce section
13.  McDonald's playland
14.  family family family - she loves to call them by name - NeeNa!  PaPa!  Unco Bee!  Eent Nell!  Eent Joo-lee!  Law-yen!  (Lauren)  Eent Sa-yah!  Unco Andy!  Unco Daev! 
15.   repeating words....and repeating and repeating and repeating....did I mention repeating?
16.  Zoodles (kids website)
17.  overnight guests
18.  Kix
19.  "practicing" her toy violin while her sisters practice their real violins
20.  hunting Easter eggs!
21.  The Easter bunny
22.  dress up (really...what little girl doesn't?)
23.  candy (again, what little kid doesn't...)
24.  Macaroni and Cheese
25.  grocery carts

Now for some pictures to recap the last bit of time...

Pettern blocks with Mary Emma.  Showing off her super spacial reasoning skills

Fancy dress up girls!  Making friends with her cousin Lauren!

Macaroni and cheese - this was the first time since the very early days home that we saw the plate to the mouth trick.  A sure sign that she loves macoroni and cheese on a level all it's own!

Cousin/Sister dance party!!!  Wow Lydia....way to take center stage!

Sharing popcorn with her cousin Lauren.  Not every moment with these two has been full of love, but this one was!

This is funny too - the tradition used with Chinese children of posing for pictures with two fingers up - we haven't seen her do this really at all since we got her.  Not even in China.  Now all the sudden it has resurfaced and we can hardly get her to take a picture without doing it!  And clearly....modeling it for Lauren too.....



Dress up clothes....new white purse....pretty things in her hair....and a TWO handed Chinese picture pose!  Gotta love it!

This was the night of the open house and she opened the remaining gifts that were brought that she didn't get opened during the chaos.  Thank you everyone for the fun and thoughtful welcome gifts!

These are actually two round rings that go to a particular toy.  She randomly decided that they were earrings!

Violin virtuosos!!

Snuggling with Grace.  It is so so so much fun to have an 11 year old to welcome a 3 year old.  What a fun sister relationship is already growing!

There's a large bunny at the mall!  Why?  She doesn't have a clue!  But that's ok!  There's a large bunny at the mall!!!

The two favorite finds from the Easter basket - markers and potato chips.  We used our tanslater app to ask her which things she liked the best.  These were the two she showed us.  Then she proceeded to pick up the rest and think that she couldn't have all of it, only the two things she chose as her favorite!  There are definately limitations to this translator app.  Like explaining that we didn't mean she had to choose only two things....just that we wondered which she liked the best!

A big smile for a big amount of fun!

For the first year ever Grace decided she didn't need to have her own bucket to hunt eggs, but just to be a helper for Lydia.  How super cute and grown up.

(Ok....like I said at the top of the post - blogging is MUCH harder since getting home.  I started this post on Monday the 25th.  It's now FRIDAY the 29th.  I could choose to blame it on having super fun overnight guests this week, but that wouldn't really be fair since it probably would've taken me that long anyway!  Time to start the next post and maybe in a couple of weeks you'll see it here...)

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