My sister Kathy used to call kids pumpkin sometimes.  I never used that endearment until grandson #3 came along and then it just came out of my mouth without any thought--his brother is honey and his cousin is sweetheart.  Today our little pumpkin turns three.  Here he is at his birthday party this weekend, decorating his pumpkin plate.
 
Eva loves pumpkins, and not as decorations.
Eva started school this week-half days.  I had to think about this quite a bit because we still do not have a real bond but she definitely wants to be in school.  She loves school work and she loves the company of other children.  So I stayed with her Monday, and she needed me (Sunday night she was very excited about going, but the very first thing she did on Monday morning was point to her backpack and adamantly say no! even before getting out of bed).  Tuesday I sat back in the corner and tried to make sure I was not "doing" things for her that the teacher or teachers could do.  By the end of the morning she gestured for me to take my things and sit away from her at my own table.  Today she went by herself.  The teacher and aide were amazed at her math ability.  She's not dumb or in need of special education; she just doesn't know English yet.  I think they're in for a surprise in a good way because the fear of not being able to communicate with her will soon be replaced by amazement that they can understand pretty much anything she wants to get across.  She can also go down the hall and get her brother when necessary-he loves to hold her hand and show her where to go, etc., and she loves to have him nearby.
 
Eva spoke to Wu Yi through Skype earlier this week.  She wanted to pack right afterwards to go and visit.  I managed to get her back to bed instead, but in the morning she stuffed her backpack with all of her new worldly possessions (not her clothes) and used three other small bags for those things that wouldn't fit.  This is not the first time she has done this.
She doesn't haul them to the door or to the car, but it's pretty obvious that she thinks she should be embarking on a trip somewhere.  I wonder just how temporary she views her stay with us as being.  I think she came to America with a vague understanding of adoption but with the more exciting promise that she would be in the same land as her friend. 

There are other times when she is very disturbed by the idea of any of us being left while the rest of the family goes someplace.

Today her father had a couple of "oscopies" which turned out fine, but when we were waiting in the hospital room for him, she clearly motioned that he should change into a johnnie (and she thought that was funny), lie down on the bed, have an i.v. inserted into his inner elbow, and scream from the pain.  So she obviously remembers having surgery.  She was having quite a few laughs about it, but I've found that she can "wind up" quickly when she's being silly and that it's very hard for her to come back down without her feeling scolded or viewing me as a party-pooper. 

Today was no different and yet very different.  When I told her that we had to leave, she instantly began crying.  Like her brother, she cries silently.  Her whole body goes limp and her eyes fill with tears and she makes not a single sound.  She cried the whole 20-30 minute drive to our next appointment.  Eventually she believed me that we were not leave her father there, and when we returned to get him later, she was giddy with relief and excitement.

Adopted children just give leaving home a whole new meaning.
 
It has been gorgeous this week, though it is raining now and is expected to continue for a while.  Here are some of the things we have been up to:
Today was not a beautiful day.  We started out with the best of intentions.  Took Eva to the pediatric orthopaedist for her appointment that was originally scheduled for 8:20, then changed to  1:20, then just this morning changed to 11:00.  Anyway, we got there despite her saying she didn't want to go (she hates riding in cars and it's almost an hour drive).  We got seen about an hour after our appointment time.  Her club feet are too complex for the Ponseti method and the doctor recommended waiting until summer so that she could get acclimated to life here and because she will be wheelchair bound and pretty much lose her mobility when the time comes with hip to toe casts.  Okay.  Of course I agreed with that.  Then he said he wanted a cat scan of her feet and ankles before we see one another again in a couple of weeks.  They managed to get an appointment for 1:00 so we went over to the hospital at 12:30.  We waited about an hour while that receptionist tried to determine if our insurance company had agreed to the pre-cert or if one had been done.  They hadn't been contacted and approval takes 24 hours after the visit so we could not be seen and sure that the cat scan was paid for if we went today.  Took the kids to lunch.  Went to probate court.  Eva's visa says IH-3 instead of IR-3 so they can't process the application to have her foreign adoption validated.  We have to wait for her proof of citizenship to come in the mail for that.  So we came home!

Tonight should be better.  It is storytelling and pajama night at the elementary school and we're sure to have a good time at it.
 
Eva has been with us for a week now.  We have had our first social worker visit, had a well child check-up, made several trips to the store, gone to a family cookout, run in the hayfield, visited the playground....the list just goes on...it has been very busy.  We are sleeping on our time now and have been since maybe
Wednesday night, so it didn't take long.
We have learned that the personality description in her referral is seriously wrong or she has changed a lot in the last couple of years.  This girl is not shy, or reserved, at all!  She loves to hit her father-don't know what that is about, but Aidan did the same thing, and we know that it means they love him, so he takes the hits.
She loves to spend time with her brother.  He is enjoying re-learning some Chinese and he is the soul of patience with her.  He takes her hand and walks with her when we go out, voluntarily pushes her on the swing, is much more eager to sleep in his own bed now that he has a roommate (that was a great decision on our part!)  They jabber away in the back seat of the car, which is good since she gets carsick and he gets bored :)
She can be content playing by herself, which is awesome.  She loves to help cook.  She is a very picky eater despite what they said when I asked-the girl would live on fruit, vegetables, eggs, and nuts if I let her pick all of her own food.  Those are all great foods, of course, but within an hour of a meal she tells me she is hungry again.  That happened a lot with Aidan but I believe that food was fulfilling an emotional need with him and now we are trying to correct the wrong that did, so I don't want to go down that road again.
She is good with all of the other kids and the animals, but especially with our (almost) three year old grandson and with the youngest dog, Mangus.
I was so happy to see all three grandsons and the little granddaughter again and share my treasures with them.  It turns out that our daughter in-law knows of and just loves squeaky shoes, so I won't be hated for bringing home the adorable red silk pair!
And I have to say that I just love having two seven year olds!
 
These lyrics sum up the relationship between Aidan and Eva at this point better than I could ever do it on my own:

When you're the best of friends
Having so much fun together
You're not even aware, you're such a funny pair
You're the best of friends

It's like they are best friends who had just never met.  He is eager to show her everything and she is eager to communicate with him.  He loves having someone with "black hair and black eyes" like him, and she loves company.  He pushes her on the swing, she takes his hand and leads him around the house.  They sit together to eat their chicken noodle soup with crackers and pineapple.  They share a bedroom.  Both love the dog.  I have ten siblings and three older children, so I'm under no illusion that they will clash and fight at times, but right now this is everything that I hoped it could be.

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9/30/2011

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Very quick recap:
Delay leaving Hong Kong due to typhoon.  Couldn't land in Newark after an hour or so of circling, so we spent the afternoon on the tarmac in Syracuse.  Finally made it to Newark and it took about three hours to go from disembarking to finding our gate to board a plane that was delayed three hours, only to have them make a boarding call minutes before the original flight time-every cell phone was out on the concourse as people called their rides and told them they were unexpectedly arriving on time.  My husband had already left to do some running around, so we couldn't reach him until our arrival and the airport is an hour and a half away.  But we made it.  Safely.

Eva slept a good deal of time on the plane, played some video games, watched a few cartoons.  Was sick once.  Sick again on the ride home from the airport.  Not uncommon for her when traveling.  She slept until about 2:30 this afternoon and is up now while her brother has crashed for the night.

Eva is thrilled to have a father and wasted no time getting to know him.  Would love to share pictures but in my sleep-deprived state I've managed to misplace the camera somewhere between afternoon and evening (I've had about 36 hours sleep in the past two weeks, so the sleep-deprived comment is no joke!)

She took to Aidan immediately.  Don't know how much of that is her being used to have "brothers" and "sisters" at the orphanage-her class here made a picture book for her of all of the members and the adults, and as Aidan pointed to each person and named them, she renamed them goger (I don't know how to spell it, but that's what brother sounds like), jie jie, or mei mei (I don't know how she decided that some girls were big sisters and others were little sisters). 

Eva is thrilled to find that she has a swingset right outside the door and she's already madly in love with Mangus, our youngest dog (who all of the kids love).  She tries to boss him around and make him sit on the courch with her.

Aidan asked when we were going to teach Eva to speak English, and I said every time we talk, so here are the two of them playing together earlier-he identified every letter and every number on the blocks and she repeated the words to him.
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The difference in size between the two is extreme.  Remember, he is eight weeks younger than she is.  I took them to the grocery store this afternoon and they sat on a bench waiting for me to check out.  They looked to be about three years apart in age.  Aidan is expected to be between 6'3" and 6'4" when grown and she is...not :)
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Today we packed our bags.  Somehow I lost the gift to our first daughter between Guiyang and here so I'm off to shop for her again. 

Before going out, I let Eva call Wu Yi.  They spoke for a few minutes, had a hard time communicating across their new language barrier, but Eva's smile could have lit up the room.  Now she is furiously packing her stuff-wonder if she thinks we're on our way to Idaho?  Yes, she does; she just grabbed my hand and told me to come with her to see Wu Yi.  Then she started pounding my leg, insisting that we go and see her now.  I tried to explain the whole plane/fei ji thing and that Wu Yi was going to bed where she was, but she doesn't understand (or want to).  Here are some pictures of the big event. 
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The phone is a China Mobile phone that I rented from Panda Phone, so I'll be turning it in at the desk today; it doesn't work in Hong Kong.  We check out in the afternoon and then have about an hour to kill before our guide returns with our brown envelope.  Then it's off on a three hour van drive to Hong Kong and tomorrow we fly home.  The return flight is shorter-25 hours with layovers instead of the 29-1/2 that our flight over was.  Better, but
 
Last night we took the dinner cruise on the Pearl River.  Another boat was coming in as we were embarking and our guide told us that last Monday Nicolas Cage was here and rented that entire boat; sounded like it was quite a big deal.

Anyway, the cruise pictures aren't the greatest, but I've posted a few.  Hard to take pictures in the dark while moving :)
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Today we had our US Consulate appointment which is so anti-climactic, especially now that we are a Hague country.  I really couldn't believe how little fanfare there is now.  We went through security, sat in the hot airless room waiting to be called by someone behind the glass windows, and before being called a voice on the PA asked us all to stand and take an oath of honesty, promising that our paperwork was true to the best of our knowledge and then explaining what would happen next.  Then the PA turned off, we sat dow, and waited some more.

Once we were called to the window, our paperwork was stamped, sorted, stapled, and we were given a few copies to give to our guide who will pick up our brown envelope tomorrow and then we will present the envelope to immigration on arriving in the States.

That's it.  She's now ours.  There was more ceremony and celebration at China's Civil Affairs Office when they said she was ours.  At least we had our photo taken with the two country flags and representatives of the orphanage.  Probably the high point of today was when she threw up all over the floor of the lobby.

But, the end result is the end result. 

Here is a picture of the Westin Hotel where the consulate is located (you can't have electronics inside the waiting area).
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We went swimming for an hour or so, much to Eva's delight, and then she took a 45 minute bath, talking to herself and repeatedly grooming her hair.  She tried to dress it up herself afterwards but finally let Little Baby give her a hand.  Guess she will follow in the family tradition and let it grow to her waist or below-wherever it decides to stop-because she really likes having it done, and she dislikes it when Little Baby puts her own hair back in a ponytail; she wants it loose.  Here are the results of the two girls' handiwork.  (Oh, and Eva chose the outfit herself-pink top, orange socks, and purple pants-April G. would be so proud of her fashion sense!)
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When we applied to adopt Eva she was two months short of her sixth birthday and her referral said that she was a shy child attached mostly to one caregiver.  What we have now is a 7-1/2 year old who is not shy or attached primarily to one person.

This age is a difficult one for adoption.  Seven year olds are all about schedules, time management, perfection, finishing what they begin, and independence.  Six is still needy and eight is more open emotionally. 

Eva is a happy girl and sweet 90% of the time.  However, she is a little manager and she is also a little manipulator.  There are times when I ask for her hand and she runs to Little Baby, Samantha (our traveling companion), or our guide and grabs their hand, then smirks at me.  Not going to happen.  The girls will make her go to me.  The guide is temporary and Eva looooves to talk, so I allow that, but I don't let her play games with me.  Have already been there, done that, with Little Baby, always playing her father against me, and she is our biological child.

So I am trying to respect the natural boundaries of a seven year old and the fact that Eva's intelligence seems to be off the richter scale (last night in the van she said to the girls, "you are a monkey" with absolutely no accent whatsoever) while still making it clear that I am the mommy.  She seems to appreciate my role most when it is bedtime and when we're doing something new like swimming-she raved to the guide about how mommy taught her to swim and as soon as we got home last night she pointed up (the pool is on the roof) and made breast stroke motions.

In summary, I guess I just can't wait to get home and start our new normal!  I just wanted to post honestly because so many people post only the honeymoon stuff and then when it isn't a honeymoon 100% of the time, those parents feel alone and inadequate.

I'll leave you with images of our precocious little girl writing and the results of her writing-she loves to write!
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