We are a family that have been expecting our second child for over four years now. We started the adoption process in the spring of 2006, submitted our paperwork to China in September of 2006 and have been waiting patiently for a child since. We finally we got our referral and plan to have the process completed and travel to China this coming spring!
B is a child that has unbridled glee and enthusiasm. She is fearless, except of fire and thunderstorms. She embraces fun and play and life with an excitement and enthusiasm that I cannot fathom.
I sometimes wonder just how she can be so enthusiastically happy sometimes.
She loves:
pizza
pasta
tofu
the park
swimming
scooters
tricycles.
going fast sliding swinging running
animals
Itchy Frog
noise
singing
more noise
watermelon
ice cream
candy
books
Dora
doing "it" herself
She continues to amaze, delight and inspire me daily.
Today marks one year since we were first united with Beatrix. At times it feels like it went by so fast and other times it feels like time has stood still.
Looking back,we still can't believe how perfect this kid is for us. She is not an easy child, but she is just enough for us to handle. Most times.
This year we have come to understand Bea and her personality. Which is great. She has a wonderful sense of humor and is quite a clown. She loves to run and bounce and throw and kick and generally destroy things. She is seldom tired. Never sedate. Loves to sing and dance and draw (mostly suns) and read.
Bea is also a strong kid. Both physically and mentally. She loves to charge at me and jump on me and roughhouse. She is like having a boy sometimes. However, she is also a very strong person mentally. Bea knows no fear from physical obstacles, or mental ones. She will always want to do things herself, or at least try. She is a daredevil and loves rides at the park and slides. The faster the better. There seems to be no stopping this child and she does not seem to understand limits. Both her own and ones we set. This can be trying at times.
Bea is terribly curious and now is asking "why" all the time. Speaking of that, Bea has developed quite the vocabulary. She is still behind her 3.5 year old peers, but is rapidly catching up. She knows so many words that I often wonder what she doesn't know. She lets her feelings and desires known, like it or not.
Bea also has found the wonders of TV and especially Dora. She is also seeing the difference between Dora and Kai Lan. She also loves Maisy and Wonder Pets. Her favorite movie, and about the only one she wants to watch, is The Lion King.
For food, Bea loves Spaghetti and Meatballs and pizza. Must be Italian in her. Other favorites include Mac & Cheese, carrots, cauliflower, hummus, yogurt, eggs and sausage, bananas, clementines, chocolate and any kind of soup she can get her hands on. However,I don't understand how a kid who was raised in China for 2.5 years can be so bad at eating rice. She doesn't appear to be capable of getting any in her mouth.
Bea has also found a partner in crime. Itchy Frog.
Bea has been through a lot and this past year was probably her biggest challenge. Not only was she uprooted from a place where she looked like everyone else, they spoke her language and she was familiar with the food and smells, but she was thrust into a new world full of crazy friends and family. She was given more attention than she probably ever had or expected, she was introduced to a new language, new faces, new smells and foods and experiences. She celebrated strange new holidays and customs like coloring eggs, finding said eggs hidden in the yard, saw fireworks, had a cake with candles for her birthday, dressed up as an octopus and a bee and got candy from neighbors, she had turkey, sat on an old fat guy's lap who then brought presents, and she played in the snow. She took it in stride and enjoyed it all.
In all, she is completely a part of the family now. She and O get along much better. They act like real sisters, fighting about typical stuff. Bea knows all her grandmas/grammies and grandpas/papas, she knows her aunts and uncles, her cousins and friends. Most importantly, she knows her jie jie (sister) and her mama and daddy, and she tells us she loves us, and we love her.
On the website for Bea's orphanage I found a bunch of stories. This in one of them that I am sure is about us. (or at least about Jennifer) However, Google Translate leaves some to be desired. The first paragraph is about us and the rest is kind of a marketing piece for them.
If anyone can translate the original text at the bottom, I would appreciate it.
From Google Translate:
Jade is very smart
sensible small South, we all love her." March 10, loving mother of
Jennifer from the United States came to a return visit Longgang District Social
Welfare Center, moved to the center staff said. After three days of the integration
period, they decided to adopt 3-year-old orphan of the center a small South
jade, give her a warm home.
It is understood,
Longgang District, to promote social welfare centers to achieve a major
breakthrough in foreign adoptee, since last year, a total of 79 children
adopted by foreign families. Foreign adoption, is a foreigner or a stateless
person in the PRC adopted children of Chinese citizens. China Center of
Adoption Affairs is currently 16 countries with approximately
157 adoption
organizations were established. Foreign Adopted orphans and disabled children
can not only help recover the warmth of the family, but also give them a good
education and a bright future.
Longgang District
Social Welfare Centre from the end of 2008 to carry out the work of foreign
adoptee. To enable more children welfare centers as soon as possible into the
home, went to the Beijing Center for repeated contact with the China Center for
Adoption, and ingenuity to 188 children burn CDs, well-designed foreign
adoption information uploaded to the China Center of Adoption Affairs website.
July 2009, the Center for the first time the organization older orphans and disabled
children to participate in "Journey of Hope" foreign adoption
activities, so that nine older children returned to their homes. In early 2010,
the center has been actively fighting for the first year, "Hope" was
held in the center, causing the United States Madison Adoption Association,
American AAC (Adoption and Family Network) and other concerns of foreign
adoption agencies, and establish long-term partnership to accelerate the pace
of foreign adoptee. Currently, the center has 95 children adopted by foreign
families, located in the United States, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and other
nine countries. Through feedback that the current of these children live a
happy life in a foreign country, is growing up
Our first Christmas with Bea was great. Although she decided to sleep in and O was not happy about having to wait to run down to open presents. As O was up at 2, and 2:30, then 4 and 4:30, then 5 and then 6 and 6:30, we finally woke Bea up at 7 to open presents. She was not as excited as O, but she got into the spirit after her second pack of Sixlets that was in her stocking.
Present unwrapping took quite a while as she would open one present and then want to play with that present instead of doing it the "right" way and just tear through all the presents fast as possible.
This is the favorite present. She likes to both sit and watch the trains and make fiery crashes.
Another favorite that quickly becomes annoying.
The background sound to my life is now those trains that are always on and running. Bea likes to make sure they are always on, even if they are not always on the track.
