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?