Jaden's first Pumpkin and another step toward Katie!

We took Jaden to his first Halloween event ever.  He was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing.  He wasn't quite sure why all the kids and grown-ups were dressed up.  Lots of kids running around hyped up on sugar...just a little too much of a good thing.  It probably didn't help that he has a cold.  In fact, he told me both yesterday and today that, "Jaden is very sick.  I need to see a doctor."  Hmm, what is the verse about a prophet getting no respect in his own home?  :)  Kidding aside, he has been pretty puny.  He is fortunately more like his sister and daddy than his mother and brother.  He can give back his dinner and then go back to happily barking a few seconds later.  (We are currently in a puppy phase.  I guess this is a step up ... last week he was a cricket most of the week.) 

We did get him a pumpkin to decorate.  He drew the hair and a giant snake around the top (umm, it looked a lot like a long wiggly line but he SAID it was a snake).  Then he wanted to carve a face on it.  We compromised;  Daddy carved eyes and nose, Mama carved the smile and Jay cheered us on.

Jaden has also been working on joining Sanford Family Medicine.  Dr. Jaden was very busy the other day, tending to all of my sick staff.  He is a natural.  He asked each person what was wrong and was very empathetic.  With comments like, "Oh, no!" or "That must hurt!"  or "You should have listened to your Mama!"  he showed he was really listening.  I found out after the fact that he didn't change tongue depressors between patients and that he tried to use a nail file as a tongue depressor once, but I guess we all have to learn somehow.  He has even picked up on the fact that being a doctor means doing a lot of "work" and works diligently on his paperwork after seeing his patients.

We also recently made it back to the zoo.  At the Tulsa Zoo Run a few weeks ago, we actually ran on the road that is the back entrance to the zoo and saw only the giraffes (and only saw them at a distance because they are tall).  It was raining and we (well, Laura and I) were tired from the run, so we left pretty quickly with a promise to return.  We had a perfect fall day for it last week, though, and we and spent all Sunday afternoon enjoying the animals.

Today, Tim and I had a conference all day and had to leave the house by 6:30 am.  Jay's NaiNai came down and fed him breakfast and took him to school.  When we told him at bedtime last night what the plan was, his emphatic response was, "Nice!"  He loves his NaiNai.

On the "Katie news" front:  While we were driving home from our conference today we got Fed Ex notification that our dossier had been delivered to our agency.  Yeah!  One big hurdle down.  If our China agent (who normally lives in California) didn't happen to be in China right now, we would have been able to have our dossier to China on Friday.  Even though it will delay our travel to China by a week, I won't complain that she happens to be in China and away from work as long as she is able to bring us back an updated picture of Katie.  She told us before she left that she was definitely going to Katie's orphanage on this trip and would try (no promises) to get us pics or a video.  Praying!  It does a Mama's heart good to see her child.

I am amazed daily by the little man that God has blessed us with.  As we come up to Orphan Sunday, I can't help but be humbled by the thought that God chose us to raise this little guy and pray that somehow Katie will know in her little heart that we are coming. 

First Parent Teacher Conference and Jaden Learns he has a Mei Mei.

Today was a big day!  Jaden had his first Parent/Teacher Conference today.  I will admit to being apprehensive about this.  Jaden LOVES going to school and LOVES his teacher and so I wasn't worried about parts of the conference.  It makes me very happy to see how securely Jay is attached to us; he's happy when we drop him at school and equally happy to come home.  Back when we first discussed letting him start Pre-K such a short time after joining the family, we worried that he would feel abandoned or like we were putting him in a daytime orphanage.  That hasn't materialized at all.  In this respect it probably has been a good thing that his orphanage is barren; Stonebridge is completely different. 

As it turns out, the part we most wanted Jaden to get out of Pre-K, the social skills of interacting and communicating, has been his most successful area.  He is such a sweet-natured kid at home, we were very glad to hear that he is that way at school too.  Ms. Wann gave us several examples of his please and thank-yous.  The three things we ask of all of our kiddos is to be responsible, respectful and fun to be around.  It sounded like he was doing a pretty good job on those things.  :) 

In the orphanage, he had never been exposed to books or crayons and had no idea how to even color.  I know it is silly but it used to make me so sad to watch him with crayons or pens/pencils because it just seems such a basic skill to lack.  I hate knowing that he missed out on the baby scribbles and chewing his crayons and, well you get the point.  When he first started trying, you could tell he was mature enough to realize that others knew how to do it and he didn't.  He preferred to have us color for him.  We've gotten around that by offering chalk and markers.  His best efforts on coloring sheets has been timid pale scribbles, which progressed to bold almost aggressive scribbles, which progressed to snakes.  The only thing I have ever seen him try to shape at all was circles and snakes.  Tonight, at the school, Ms Wann showed us the family he drew.  It was beautiful.  We all had nice round heads, big round eyes (they were even inside the heads :) ) and smiles.  Next she showed us a paper he did today.  For the first time ever, Jay didn't call her over with  "Help, please!" when he finished his work sheet.  When Ms Wann looked through the papers, she could read "Jaden" on his paper!  She said she got teary eyed when she saw it because it was so unexpected.  We all thought that it would be months before he could do this.  It was obvious that he worked hard trying to do it.  It is nowhere near perfectly written, but it is clearly "JADEN" and so is perfect to us.  :)  He has so much ground to make up.  He still doesn't know the alphabet (they don't have one in China and even if they did, he wouldn't have been taught) and he still likes to skip the number 6 on the way to 10 but he gets good marks for enthusiasm.  He makes me think of a butterfly, laboring slowly to come out of its chrysalis.  I see those beautiful wings peaking out; I can't wait to see what's next.

As the news has been  trickling out about  our next (and last) adoption, several people have mentioned it in front of him.  He is always listening.  Even when he seems engrossed in play, he listens.  (Like the time in church that Brian mentioned a snake during his sermon and Jay proceeded to draw a giant, wandering circle all over the bulletin.  He then announced, very loudly, BIG SNAKE!  Sorry, Brian.)  This week someone said in front of Jay, "I hear you're getting another one!  Are you getting a boy or  a girl?" Jay got a little quiet and was in a strange mood afterward and I worried that he may have heard and wondered if he was being replaced.   That pretty much decided for us that we needed to discuss this with him.  Our only hesitation had been that it is such a long time away.  So tonight, Tim told Jaden that there is a little girl named Katie who lives a long way away and doesn't have a mama or baba.  His response was precious.  He put his hands on his cheeks and said, "Oh, no.  Oh, no."  and shook his head.  When he was told that she didn't have a Gege or Jie Jie or Nie Nie either, he just looked incredibly sad for her.  When Tim said that we were going to go get her and bring her here so she could share his, Jaden just lit up!  He was so excited for her.  I wish we had it on video.  It was incredible to watch him be so thrilled for her.  He saw her picture and kept repeating, "This is my Mei Mei!  That's good."  

 

I'm  Gege?! (He thought that was pretty cool.)

We know he won't always be thrilled about this but the idea that his first thought was for her and what a good thing this will be for her...amazing.  Have I said before how much we love this little guy?