Hui-Hui Is Such A Lucky Little Boy!

This is something we have been told very many times. We heard it a lot before we went to China to get him. People saying it mean it mostly as a compliment to Tina and me. Or sometimes they mean he is fortunate to be able to leave the orphanage and have a family. While people saying this mean the very best by it, it's considered to be inappropriate language in the adoption community. The thinking is that you wouldn't normally say this to a new parent of a biological child, and as a child grows and is able to understand things being said around them, hearing this repeated again and again can make them start to feel like a life-long charity case. When people say this to us Tina and I are always quick to respond that we feel we are the lucky ones, and if you've met Hui-Hui you would know that this is true!
But the thing is, Hui-Hui really is A VERY LUCKY BOY! In fact, in the time he's been home with us it appears he has potentially come into almost $37,000,000!
Hui-Hui has his own email address and in the last four months he has received the following messages. We are looking into the best way to execute these transactions to optimize his earnings. We figure the whole college fund thing is going to be completely taken care of!
-----------------------

INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY PROGRAM

MADRID SPAIN
FILE REFERENCE NO:
PP2005-001-MLI
BATCH: 1505/004NL
TO WINNERS IN OUR PROGRAM
We wish to congratulate you over your success in our computer balloting sweepstake held recently.
This is a millennium scientific computer game in which email addresses were used. It is a promotional program aimed at encouraging internet users; therefore you do not need to buy ticket to enter for it.
However,your email address was attached to ticket number 10CBG3471913; with serial number 19034 draw the lucky numbers 1-9-74-31, which eventually won the lottery in the first category of the draws. This entitled to a cash award of €500,000.00 ( FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS). This is from total prize money of €15,000,000.00 distributed
to winners from 1st to 3rd categories.
Note that this program was largely promoted and sponsored by a group of philanthropist, industrialists from the internet ware industry and some other big multinational firms who wish to be anonymous.
To begin your claim, please contact the claims coordinator
Mr. Mack George
TEL: +34676020575
Email address:

cristinadie1@netscape.net

Yours Faithfully,
MRS. CRISTINS ROSA

-----------------------

FROM THE DESK OF DAYZERS E-MAIL LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL
PROMOTIONS/PRIZE
AWARD DEPT.

REF: S23/15/40/12/29/
BATCH: 54/010/0-PD

RE: EMAIL
WINNING CONFIRMATION NOTICE:

We are glad to inform you that your E-mail address appears as the confirmed Winner of our last Dayzers email lottery program held on the 30th November 2005. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 216-365-787 with Serial number 34/15/65 drew lucky numbers 32-15-54-35-47, which Consequently won in the 2nd category, you have therefore been approved For a lumpsum ayment of EUR 500.000.00 euros.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

This promotional program takes place every year. All participants were selected through a computer ballot system rawn from over 100,000 companies and 50,000, 000 ndividual email addresses and names from all over the world.

In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. We ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims
has been processed and your money remitted to you. To file for your claim or for further details, please contact our agent:

CONTACT NAME:
VAN BOMAN
CITY/ COUNTRY:AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
FREE SERVICE NUMBER:
0031-616-140-156
EMAIL:

dayzersinfo002@netscape.net

In respect of our commitment towards helping the less previledge, we ask that you voluntarily contribute 1% of your Global winnings to any charity organization you desire at your convinience.

Note that all winning must be claimed not later than 24th of December 2005. After this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake.

Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Vanessa
J. Smith

This email and its attachments are confidential and may contain legally privileged information. You should not disclose the contents to any other person. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system.

-----------------------

My Dear,

Compliments.

I am Madam Joyce Rssll,Account Director in Post Bank Netherlands, and I represent the former C.E.O of an Oil Company in Russia. I seek your partnership in using your name and informations to Re-Profile Ten Million United States dollars(10,000,000.00), kept in a finance firm located in Europe .You will be offered 20% as management fee for investment in your country or outside your country in which you will advice me.

If you are interested, write back WITH YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION LIKE PHONE AND FAX NUMBER,YOUR FULL NAMES AND ADDRESS.by Email:

joycerssll@netscape.net

and I will provide further details.

I look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Madam Joyce Rssll.

www.postbank.nl

FROM: MR.JOSEPH NGOBE.
TEL: +27-8-333-7753-3.
EMAIL:

jogobe01@sify.com

.
Or

jogobe01@yahoo.com

-----------------------

ATTN: DIRECTOR/CEO.
REQUEST FOR URGENT TRANSFER.

In my quest for a reliable and trusted partner for a highly important and lucrative venture cum investment, I came across your contact as a reliable partner for this venture. I am Mr. Joseph Ngobe, one of the senior Accountants of AMALGAMATED BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA (ABSA). To highlight you on this proposal, there is an account opened in this bank since 1980 till 1990 after which, nobody has operated on this account again till date. After going through some old files in the records, I discovered that if I do not remit this money out urgently it would be forfeited for nothing. The owner of this account is Mr. Ben Andreas, a foreigner, and a miner at Kruger gold co., a geologist by profession who died since 1990. No other person knows about this and my investigation further proved to me that his company does not know anything about this account and the amount involved as he made it his personal account. The money outstanding before his death was (USD 26 Million) Twenty Six Million United States Dollars. I am now contacting you as a foreigner because this money cannot be approved to a national with a local bank account here. But can only be approved to any foreign account because the money is in US dollars and the former owner, a foreigner. I implore you to act as foreigner and beneficiary to the fund as I will then intimate you on the processes abound as well as procure all the necessary documents required to lay claim to the money.

If you are capable and willing to handle such amount in strict confidence and trust according to my instructions and advice for our mutual benefit I shall highly appreciate. I need a trusted person like you in this transaction because I do not want to make mistakes; I need your strong assurance and trust. With my position now in the office I can effect transfer of this money to any foreigner's reliable account, which you can provide with assurance that this money will be intact pending my arrival in your country for disbursement. On the alternative, you can come down here to South Africa for us to meet one to one.

Send me your private telephone and fax numbers upon receipt of this proposal, if you genuinely want to assist and be a co-partner. I will also wants us to meet face to face, to enable us sign a binding agreement. As soon as you receive this money into a foreign account or any account of your choice where the fund will be safe. I will proceed to your country for onward percentage distributions and investment. I need your full co-operation to make this work because the management is ready to approve this payment to any foreigner, who has correct information of this account, which I will give to you later immediately. I will use my position and influence to effect legal approvals and onward transfer of this money to your account with appropriate clearance forms of the ministries and foreign exchange departments. At the conclusion of this business, for your assistance, 25% of the total amount will be accrue for you, 70% for me, while 5% will be for expenses both parties might have incurred during the process of the transfer.

I implore you to maintain the absolute confidentiality of this transaction.
Your earliest response is urgently awaited.
Truly Yours,
Mr. Joseph Ngobe.

4 Month Anniversary

I have been very busy at work this week with a committee project that has been very intense. This means I have not been able to accompany Hui-Hui at pre-school on Tuesday and Thursday morning. In order to accommodate this schedule my mother has stayed with us and taken my place at pre-school. This has been great as it has given her a chance to be with us in a relaxed "real life" setting. She was able to really get to know Hui-Hui a bit better. This schedule has left me little time for playing with the blog, so I missed posting a "anniversary" post yesterday which was the four month anniversary of the day we received Hui-Hui.
Today however is the actual anniversary of his adoption (unless you shift things for time zones, as Cameron pointed out). So I wanted to write about how much he has changed and grown. Maybe I'll have some time to do that this weekend. But I do have what I think is an even better entry. On this day, four months ago, after we completed the adoption at the civil affairs office in Shijaizhuang I had to drive 2 hours back to Baoding alone with our guide. Tina was alone with the three boys. While I was gone she wrote an entry for the blog that never got posted. Neither of us remembered that writing for some time, until I found it again the other day. So here is Tina's story of how Hui-Hui came to us...

4 Months Ago Today

Yes! I am finally officially mama to didi KaiHui Ocheltree~and getting a moment to check the computer! Kai is resting, Scott went back to Baoding to hand deliver the paperwork to make sure we get our passport for Kai by Friday. Our guide Bob didn't want to chance the mail~he was concerned it wouldn't come in time for our flight. Very nice man.
Our day yesterday was an odyssey that has continued into today on our journey to Kai. I have to say that China is an incredible, awesome, enchanting...and completely foreign land! The people have been more than gracious and kind to us. Our guide Chen Chen in Beijing was fantastic, and we had a wonderful time exploring Tian An Men Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Jade factory with the Oppliger family. We really enjoy their company, and their son Adam is a trouper! Looking forward to meeting up at the White Swan! Chen took very good care of us, and shared so much about her own life growing up in Beijing. As we headed out Sat. morning for our adventures she announced to us that we would be visiting the orphanage after all, and receive Kai the next day. Dare I say we lost it!!! So much for focusing on our day ahead!
She recommended that we take the East Great Wall, so our family did that, and the Oppligers did the West. (main one) I made it to the second to last tower and found myself completely alone for up to 20 minutes at a time. It was a crystal clear day, and the beauty and power of it was overwhelming. I highly recommend the East Wall.
Yesterday we wandered to the local grocery store for water and moon cakes before our new guide Bob picked us up to head to Baoding to meet Kai. We headed southwest on a hazy warm day out of the explosive population and building of Beijing into miles and miles of farms and deserted communes. It seems China is in the midst of another revolution. Out with the old, in with the new. We would pass truck after truck loaded with "stuff." We are guessing it is the remnants of all that is being torn down to make way for the new. Very curious. We also got to catch a glimpse of the Marco Polo bridge, and where the Japanese invaded China.
As we pulled into Baoding and worked our way further into the city I began to realize just how lucky we all are. And yet, with what appears to us to be such poverty, the people are happy, kind and enjoying a kind of community we just can't seem to grasp in our culture. As we drove up to the orphanage it looked like a palace next to it's surroundings. We were welcomed by the director of the children's section, and another man. They brought us water bottles, and soon Kai's nanny Tseng Chin-yen brought him in the room. He had just woken from his nap, and was very confused. We spent a few minutes getting acquainted and then it was decided we should all go to lunch! So, Chin-yen went with Kai (Dang Hui) back to the children's building. As we got to the van she reappeared with him, both in new clothes! So we all piled in and headed to "deep China." We were also told we would take Kai's visa photo while we were out. The whole day was so surreal. It soon became very apparent that Chin-yen was more of a foster mother to Kai than a nanny in the orphanage. She did not want to let me too close to him, and would only reluctantly let me hold him when told to by the director. So there we all were, in a back room with our family of 4 and 6 others, men smoking and drinking beer, eating chicken's feet and ???, plus little Kai in complete befuddlement. It was actually a great way to warm him up to us, and begin the transition to his new life. From there we went to a photographer's place a few blocks up the street. (walking) OK, at this point I could go on and on, but all I can say is that the whole time felt as though we were in some foreign film, but didn't know the whole story or our lines!! We got the photos, and family and all group photos inside and out, and then went back to the van.
When we returned to the orphanage (Chin-yen sat in front away from us. :( ) We went inside, answered questions, gave gifts and then were told we would be taken on a tour of the orphanage!! And yes, our sons could take pictures and video tape! The moments in the babies rooms were beyond what we could describe, or really process. Let's just say that we really need to do more to help them. The deepest depth of human need, and strength of those caring for them in one place.
On a much happier note, we asked about Liam (Carol's son) and we got to see him!!! I can't say more yet in case Carol hasn't seen my post! :) :) :)
They took us on a tour of the grounds, and showed us a new building that is being constructed for the older babies...all donated by Jackie Chan!!! Really!!! We'll post pics on our blog. It is beautiful, and will be ready for winter! We finally were given Kai, and after many teary goodbyes and thank yous (even our guide was wiping tears) we got in the van and I held Kai for the 2 hour trip to Shijaizhuang with him sleeping in my arms. He is pretty much in shut down, but is very cuddly with me and Scott, and warming up to his brothers. We even got a couple of smiles! He slept well, and is still on a bottle!!! :) Happy mama dance!
As this is getting really long, and Kai is going to wake up any sec, I will just give a brief story of today. We went with Bob to the Civil Affairs Office. The staff from the orphanage arrived, and Chin-yen swiftly had Kai. This was SOOO hard, but they both needed it. She brought him a beautiful amulet for long life on a red thread and tied it on him, and a shirt that she put on him. As we left for the notary she really wanted to take him in her car. (freaked us out!) The director made her give him to me, and he cried hard for about 30 sec. He was fine in the car, and I gave him a bottle of cereal and formula. When we got there....they pulled up and he was hers for this paper work session too. After a while the director once again told her to let "mama" hold him. He of course was not happy, but only cried for a few seconds, and then fell asleep (shut down). We waited for a long time, so I passed him back to her in the blanket Scott's mom made so that she could hold him one more time.
He was still sleeping when we departed. He is very tiny (20 pounds), and it will take a while to really know what he will need to catch up, but we know he will eventually let us see the wild side of Kai!
This has been the most difficult and wonderful 2 days of my life. As hard and long as this "gotcha" was, I know it was as it should have been. Kai needed to transition, and even more, the woman who has cared for and loved him since he was 9 days old needed to be given this time. I will never be able to thank her or express my gratitude for the what she has meant to him, and to me. I can only weep for her sadness for having to say goodbye to such a beautiful and sweet boy. Even the director was crying. We have been given a very precious gift.
Time to play, and eat some dinner!!
Hugs to you all!
Tina, Scott, Cam, Ben and "Mr. Peanut!"
P.S. The big boys are having a grand time and are off to the mall across the street to buy a guitar and harmonica to play for their didi!

Radio Program

Last November Tina and I participated in a Radio program with our adoption agency. I have put a copy of the audio on our site in MP3 format. You can listen to it by clicking on the radio...

The Boys From Baoding

The internet is such an amazing tool for connecting people. Our first glimpse of Hui-Hui was through our adoption agency's website, and now he is our son! Because we knew the Wickstrom family through the internet we were able to recognize their son when we were in China and bring back video and pictures for them. And now because we shared our story with Jackie Chan we have met another family who have adopted a son from the Baoding S.W.I.

Katharine, the webmaster for the Jackie Chan site, sent the following email to Hui-Hui:

Dear Hui-Hui,
I am forwarding a message and photo to you from a family in Tennessee. They read your story on the Jackie Chan website and would like to correspond with you.  Here it is: 

----- Original Message -----

From:

hilary & Kurt hales

To:

webmaster

Sent:

Sunday, January 01, 2006 12:50 AM

Subject:

Re: contact e-mail

As we were browsing through the Jackie Chan website, we came across the story about Hui-Hui being adopted from the Boading City Social Welfare Institiute.
We were very interested, because we got our son about 6 weeks ago from the very same place. We were also very impressed with Jackie's generosity and caring.
We were able to tour the new building that he had donated and saw the blessing it will be to all the children. We showed Hui-Hui (Andrew's) photo to Yang-Yang (Nathaniel),
and he was very excited to see him and it appeared he recongnized him. We wondered where you all lived and if we could contact you.
Please let us know if you are interested in getting together/corresponding. Attached is a picture of Nathaniel to show Andrew.
Kurt and Hilary Hales

----- -----

This was really exciting for us because we instantly recognized Nathanial from the pictures we received from the S.W.I. last summer. You can see those pictures by clicking HERE. Nate is with Kai in a number of them. In the pictures of them eating the two of them are sitting next to one another. Nate is about 6 weeks younger than Hui-Hui so I would guess they would have been together pretty much all the time at the S.W.I.
This is especially exciting to us because most of the children adopted from China are girls. I think it will be really nice for Hui-Hui to know other boys from the same S.W.I. While neither of these boys' families live close to us, we still will be able to have contact with them through the internet, and we hope to be able to arrange visits from time to time as they grow up.

Care to Comment

I have had mixed feelings about commenting on blogs. Part of me feels that a blog is personal statement, not a dialog. I have always felt that if you wanted to comment on this site you are welcome to email me. If I wanted an online conversation I would post on a forum.

However, lately I have found myself leaving an occasional comment on other blogs and felt that maybe it would be nice to let people comment here if they like.

So If you'd like to post a comment, now you can. Go on, tell me what you think.

Stinky Mouse

I want to make an accusation:
It was Scott,
In the kitchen
With the Febreze.

For those who don’t remember wasting rainy Saturdays trying to develop their deductive logic skills with the help of the Parker Brothers, that's a reference to the boardgame Clue.

The victim in this case was Stinky Mouse.

I have blogged about Hui-Hui’s predilection for “thumb snuckers” before. For the most part he’s not terribly picky about a specific toy to cuddle, but over the last couple months he has developed a preference for one particular stuffed animal. This little favorite has come to be known as “Stinky Mouse”. Actually most of the stuffed animals that get any regular rotation as a “snucker” start to take on a distinct odor. Stinky Mouse by virtue of his heavy use had become quite smelly. I wanted to wash Stinky Mouse, but he couldn’t go in the washing machine because he had beans inside him, his label said to “surface wash, air dry”. I suggested we spray him down with Febreze. Tina protested this idea very strongly. She hates the smell of Febreze. My argument was that Febreze kills bacteria and I was pretty sure that bacteria was what was giving Stinky Mouse his unique aroma. Tina said if I sprayed him with Febreze that Hui-Hui wouldn’t like him anymore. I was willing to risk it. I looked up the Febreze website to make sure it was safe to use on children’s toys. It seemed perfectly harmless, so I lightly misted him down and let him dry overnight.

The next morning Stinky Mouse was a new man. His stink was gone. He did have a slight cologne quality to him, but it wasn’t heavy and you could tell this wasn’t masking the old smell. You couldn’t hope to mask that. But not only was his smell gone, so was his mojo. Hui-Hui would have nothing to do with him. It wasn’t like this was a big tragedy. There’s plenty of stuffed animals he’s more than happy to snucker up with. But still I felt bad. Stinky Mouse had become a bit of a sidekick to Hui-Hui.

Tina, of course, put everything right again, She took Hui-Hui to the store and found Stinky Mouse 2.0. As you can see in the photos below he is every bit as serviceable as his predecessor was before I did him in. The stink is coming on nicely and should be at full potency in no time.

Grampa's House

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDESHOW

We finally made it "Over The Hill" to see Tina's dad and her brother's family. They have been so supportive of our family as we have gone through the entire adoption process that we wish we could have had them meet Kai sooner, but all the same it was a great visit. Tina's dad is 87 years old and lives just down the street from her brother's family. We visit them a lot, but this last year has been busy and our usual summer visit this year was made by just Tina and our younger son Ben. Cam and I were both busy with work.

We talked about having them come visit us on Veteran's day, but felt it would just be too much. At that point we had only been home from China for about 5 weeks and having 5 people (and possibly 2 dogs) was just more than we felt Kai was ready for. To be honest it was definitely more than Tina and I were ready for! So we postponed until Christmas. We were concerned about driving over the mountains in winter. We have done it pretty regularly over the last few years, but earlier this fall the weather had been pretty bad and we were feeling uneasy about doing a six-plus hour drive with a toddler. Thankfully Tina's dad helped us with airline tickets as a Christmas gift.

So instead of a 6 or 7 hour drive we were looking at a 35 minute flight. The kicker: The drive from our home to SeaTac, parking the car, shuttle, checking bags, security check, etc... doorstep to doorstep was just over 6 hours travel time. You can't win.

All the same Kai was a real trooper. He travels easy and is amazingly agreeable. A couple of fun footnotes on the journey over include stopping for dinner on our way to the airport at the same restaurant we went to when we flew to China. The waitress we had the first time was working and remembered us, she was really excited to see Kai. Then at the airport we ran into our niece's boyfriend Max. He had to fly back to L.A. to play a gig. Our boys are friends with him and were a bit bummed they weren't going to see him this trip, so this gave them a chance for a short visit to catch up with one another.

During the visit Kai pretty much stuck to his schedule. We weren't hard and fast with it, but for the most part he just went with the flow. It amazes me to see how easily he adapts to change. Kai had fun playing with his cousins and meeting his Grandpa, Uncle Bill, Aunt Erin, Aunt Peggy, and cousins Caitlin and Hailey. We even had an outing to the antique carousel in Spokane. Stupid me forgot the digital camera on that outing - have to get those photos next trip.

I'm glad we waited to make the trip. Kai has had the time to settle in a bit here and feel more rooted, which I think helped him be confident and comfortable meeting new people.

It was funny when we got back to our house, he was very excited to see his home again. It made us wonder if he thought we were going to come back here or not?

Merry Christmas!

We hope you have a Very Merry Christmas!

This year, as I'm sure you can imagine, we are thankful for so very many things! Not the least of which is digital photography. This is one of 27 shots we took - you don't want to see the rest of them. It took longer than any of these three boys wanted to be in the silk outfits we bought in China, so we are also thankful for moments of cooperation on the part of teenagers and three year olds.

Fruit Ice Cream

Okay, we're guilty...
We let Hui-Hui watch TV.
As former Waldorf parents we are all too well informed regarding the evils of television and the threat it poses to the developing minds of young children.
But he likes it.
We limit it mostly to a bit of PBS children's programming and a few DVDs like "Big Bird in China". Well, there's been a few holiday specials too, he really seemed to enjoy "It's A Wonderful Life" and "The Christmas Story". We're hoping this doesn't leave him with much more permanent damage than what Tina and I sustained as kids.

But now we've found a program which we are trying to expose him to as much as possible: "Fruit Ice Cream"
We stumbled across this program on the local World Television Channel our cable provider carries. We look at this channel occasionally, and wonder if the program on at the time is in Mandarin, or Cantonese, or Korean? I wish I could tell, but I can't. So one morning a few weeks ago I was home with the flu. I was laying on the couch with a low-grade fever feeling miserable. So I'm flipping through the channels and there was this asian children's program on. Tina and I both keyed in on it and wondered aloud, "Is this Mandarin?" Then one of the little puppet characters came on screen appearing upset, and the Grandma character said to it "Mei guanxi" - "It's Okay" in Mandarin, one of the few Mandarin phrases we recognize!

I looked up the cable channel's website, (KBCB TV) and found their programming guide which confirmed the program is in Mandarin. There was some writing in Chinese, but it didn't say the name of the program in English, just "Mandarin Children's Program". I was really curious to learn more about the program but couldn't find anything on the web. So I emailed the Chinese writing to our friend Meimei who translated it for us. It's called "Fruit Ice Cream". With this knowledge I began Googling more aggressively and I finally found some good links.

The program fascinated me as it had a number of unusual qualities, the first being that the grandmotherly hostess is obviously a man. And while there are slick Sesame Street-like puppets, the pacing of the show is much more like Mister Roger's Neighborhood.

It turns out the program is an extremely popular one which is produced by Taiwan Public Television. It's been on the air for 6 years and there are over 800 episodes filmed so far. There is an interesting article about the show you can read by CLICKING HERE. The article mentions that the Grandmother character was partially inspired by Robin William's Mrs. Doubtfire, which is exactly who we thought of when we first saw her.
You can see the English webpage about the show on the Taiwan Public Television website by CLICKING HERE. This page has a short video clip of the show you can watch in Windows Media Player format. The episodes we are seeing air here at home are apparently older ones, and aren't quite as flashy as the one in the video clip online, and we don't get any English subtitles, but we are all enjoying them.

We feel it is very important to try and maintain Kai's Mandarin as best as possible. We feel this is one of the strongest ways we can preserve his cultural identity and provide him with a valuable tool and skill when he is older.

Children's Co-op Preschool

- CLICK ON PHOTO TO SEE SLIDESHOW -

Tina teaches the Two-Day Class at Children's Co-op Preschool. The co-op is a great program that's coordinated by the local community college. The program involves parents in the classroom and is a lot of fun. We enrolled both our older sons in this co-op when they were little and were very involved in the program. So much so, that Tina is now the teacher!

Her class meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and is for 3 and 4 year olds. On the mornings Tina teaches I arranged my work schedule so I could be home with Kai. While it's great that we are able to always have one of us home with Kai, it's gotten a bit boring around the house for him; we don't have a very big social network of 3 year olds in our personal life these days.

One of the recommendations that came out of the early childhood development evaluation we had done for Kai was to get him into a preschool program. Rather than a remedial program, it was suggested that we try to find a program with "regular" kids. Hmmm... where could we possibly find such a program? While the answer seems obvious, it wasn't quite that easy. Even without his developmental delays and language issues, Kai isn't chronologically old enough to enroll in the co-op program. Still we thought this would be a great thing for him, so Tina discussed it with her facilitator from the community college and the co-op board parents. They agreed that this would be a good thing for him, so we decided to bring him to the class and have me there with him full time. I am not one of the regular working parents, I focus pretty much exclusively on Kai. I make sure he stays on task and doesn't disrupt the program for other parents. Also, as he isn't potty-trained I cover that area as necessary. We have been bringing him to co-op preschool now, since Thanksgiving and it's been wonderful! Kai loves being around other kids, and it gives him an opportunity to experience a wide variety of activities. I have been able to pretty much just be there to "spot" for him. initially he was pretty reserved, and kept to just the "sand" table and water table. But as of last week he has really started to break out and try some different things. He doesn't like to do the art projects as they are usually messy, and he is very apprehensive about anything that's sticky or gets your hands dirty. But he's playing in the kitchen and even with the playdough a bit!

So far we have been having him there just for the open activity portion of the day. We've tried the "circle" a few times, but he has a hard time focusing for that. Lunch is also difficult for him, so I have just taken him home for lunch, which means he also misses the "Big Room" (large motor play) and story/closing circle.

Tuesday was the last day of preschool before Christmas break and it was also Kai's birthday, so we decided to try having him stay for the whole day. This went VERY well! He enjoyed celebrating his birthday at circle - getting to wear the crown and sit in the special chair, etc. He didn't eat too much at lunch, but enough, and he got to stay for the Big Room.

I have to do less and less for him as he finds his comfort zone. Some of the things you would expect to be difficult for him are second nature; things like lining up to wash hands, sharing toys... yet these are the things he must have obviously dealt with daily at his home in China.

It's funny being in a preschool with Tina again. This has been a part of our life together since high school when we took an early childhood development class together. In college we worked together in a daycare, and as young parents we taught Sunday School together. For the last few years this has been Tina's exclusive domain, but now that we have Kai, we are both in it together again.

Tree Hunting

This is the third time the debate has been waged in this house...
Do we really want a Christmas Tree with a Three Year Old?
One year with Cam we actually had a table-top tree. Some might say we were wise. I think we were cowards. Ever since, we have always had a real Christmas tree. A few times we've bought them off of tree lots here in town, but we live in logging country. Out here in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains trees are for cutting down. So that's what we do.
Just a few minutes down the Mount Baker Highway from our home, Christmas Tree Farms are as thick as strip malls in California suburbia. We've been to a number of different farms over the years. This year we went to one called River's Edge, named for it's location along the Nooksack River. We chose this one because they have a wagon ride that takes you out to the trees. It was a really beautiful day, clear and not too cold. We got a bit of a late start as Ben worked today, and Cam took the ACT exam, but we made it to the tree farm before the sun dipped below the hills. Here's the view from where we were...

This has become such a big family tradition we don't even have to beg the teenagers to come along. They are Veteran Tree Hunters, and once we get to the tree farm we have to chase after Ben. Here they are with their young apprentice...

We rode the wagon out to the trees...

And began our search for the perfect tree.

We always go round and round on the selection process...

Mamma and Hui-Hui says, "Here it is!"

We all watched as...

Ben got ready to cut the tree.

Cameron helps steady it.

One reason the teenage boys may be so eager to come along is that we always visit Everybody's Store after we get our tree. This place is great! They have a deli sandwich bar that makes HUGE sandwiches, and if you come along and help cut the tree down you can have whatever you want.


We waited to bring the tree in the house until after Kai went to bed. He was quite surprised the next morning to find a tree in the livingroom! Tina and I put the lights on while he watched. This was very frustrating for him as he really wanted to "help". We managed to get it lit and called it at that until after his bedtime. It's been up and decorated for two days now, and he's been really good about leaving it alone. He likes to look at it, and has poked at it a bit, but it's not been a problem. He's too busy pushing the eject button on the CD changer.

Liam's Family is in China!

The Wickstroms are in Beijing and are on their way to get Liam!
You Can follow them on their adventure by reading their blog. Here is the link:

Bringing Liam Home

Liam is the little boy we met at the Social Welfare Institute in Baoding where Kai lived. The Wickstroms are adopting Liam through Children's House International, the agency we worked with to adopt Kai. We feel very fortunate that Kai and Liam will be able have a connection to one another as they grow up.

Children's Hospital

On Tuesday we went to Children's Hospital in Seattle. Our appointment was at 8:00 in the morning. MapQuest says it should take an hour and 33 minutes to get from our house to Children's Hospital. We left our house at 5:30 AM and barely made it. I do not envy Seattle commuters! We stopped in Marysville on our way to pick up my mom. She has been very involved in the care our nephew Devon has received at Children's Hospital so it was nice to have her along. We didn't have to think about driving directions or parking, etc.; made the trip MUCH easer.

This was a preliminary visit with Dr. Hanel to discuss Hui-Hui's hand. A physician's assistant gave Hui-Hui a general exam, which he was NOT happy about. He was quite distressed over being undressed in a clinical setting, but he calmed down by the time Dr. Hanel came in to see him.

I really liked Dr. Hanel. He has a calm, present, and gentle manner. He looked at Hui-Hui's hand and explained that we had a couple of options:
1) Do Nothing
2) Surgery

Before we went in, I was worried the doctor would immediately advocate for surgery, and as the physician's assistant looked at Hui-Hui, she said that he would probably want to straighten the wrist and build a thumb out of his forefinger. She said this as though it were a forgone conclusion. But When Dr. Hanel looked at him, he said it wasn't that obvious of a choice. If both of his hands were affected it would be a much more simple decision to want to create an opposable thumb. In that Hui-Hui's right hand is normal the need isn't as clear. Dr. Hanel also told us about a recent study of children who have had the procedure and ones who have not, and that the effect on functionality wasn't especially clear. For Hui-Hui, the decision to have this done is also complicated because his index finger doesn't flex properly, and the "quality" of this finger
effects the success of the operation.

The procedure of building a thumb out of a forefinger is called "pollicization". There is a good newspaper article which profiles Dr. Hanel and explains the procedure you can read HERE.

So we left the visit with an appointment to return in three months to discuss it again. Dr. Hanel asked us to think about what we want to do, but he did not give us a clear recommendation, as it's not a clear-cut case. He did have an OT come in and make a splint for Hui-Hui to wear on his hand at night. The splint holds his hand in an extended position to help stretch tendons and soft tissue. This will make surgery easier if we decide to go that route. Hui-Hui did not like getting the splint made. It wasn't really invasive, but the whole process was overwhelming for him. While we waited for the splint to be finished Gramma took Hui-Hui out of the exam room for a little walk around the hallways. This was very sweet, as it let her have an opportunity to connect with her new grandson, she was able to be there for him as a source of comfort in a stressful situation. Tina and I finished up with the OT then went to catch up with Hui-Hui and Gramma out in the lobby where they had gone to look at the fish tank. As we headed down the hall we could hear my Mom talking with someone and we saw a little asian girl standing in the lobby. It was Aimee Oppliger! We met Aimee's parents in Beijing, and Aimee in Guangzhou. They live near my sister outside of Marysville and adopted Aimee through our agency, CHI. Aimee was very interested in seeing Hui-Hui again, though Hui-Hui wasn't feeling very social after all he'd been through in the exam room. Aimee has fused fingers and was seeing Dr. Hanel as well. We were all just stunned that we had appointments on the very same morning!

Afterwards we went to Gramma's house for lunch. This was our first one-on-one visit with Gramma, and Hui-Hui really had a chance to connect with her.

Yes, that's Dori in the fish tank, Nemo was in there too.

Hui-Hui and Aimee meet again

Us with the Oppligers

At Gramma's House

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Waldorf Holiday Faire

On Saturday Tina and I took Hui-Hui to Whatcom Hills Waldorf School's Holiday Faire. This is the first time in eight years that we have not been parents of students at the school. It's funny how excited the two of us were. We have gone to this event since Cam was three, long before we were a part of the school community. Now we were returning as alumni parents and we were anxious to show Hui-Hui all the cool things! We have many good friends at the school we have not seen since our trip to China and we were excited about having them meet Hui-Hui for the first time.

Tina has brought Hui-Hui to the school a couple times before to visit the Roots & Wings store so this was not his first time there. Still, he seemed very apprehensive when we got there. Maybe we were too eager. We rushed to the Gnome Village and got in line.

We have been very cautious about taking Hui-Hui out very much. He goes to the store with us, and has been to some of the boys music events. These have included not only orchestra concerts, but brief visits to football half-time shows as well. However, visits to large social settings have been rare for these first two months. The few we have attended though have not been a problem for him. But this time he was not too sure about what was going on, and was very clingy. He wouldn't let Tina put him down, and was not interested in meeting Pocket-Man or digging for crystals in the Gnome Village. So we decided to slow down and break for lunch. We went to the "Wooden Spoon" cafe they host in Alia Hall and found a table. The place was packed and there was live music playing. We bought our lunch and had brought along custom Hui-Hui chow we knew he would eat.

Somehow, the noise and chaos of this room seemed to be just what he needed. After he ate, he got down from the table and started to wander in gradual circles away from us. He moved among the other tables then looped back to us as we visited with friends. Eventually he worked his way out of the hall and saw the swings on the upper playground; suddenly he seemed to be in his element. He wanted to swing and run across the snow-dusted courtyard.

We visited with old friends while he tugged on us to follow him. We wandered through the craft vendor displays at the rate of a distracted parent of a toddler - glancing briefly at treasures then chasing off after our little charge. It felt right. We whacked his schedule we have worked so hard to maintain, but it was a good thing.

The School Courtyard

Entrance to Gnome Village

A little leery of Gnomes

In The Gnomes Crystal Mine

Virtual Scrapbook

When we were in China I squirreled away a bunch of stuff to bring home for scrapbooking. Some of it was actually interesting and some of it was just stuff I kept for reasons I can't recall now. I have scanned some of it to put on the blog here. Many of these things have websites associated with them so they make a nice "on-line" scrapbook. I encourage you to click on these artifacts to see their links. If you do, please be patient and wait for the sites to load. They tend not to be the fastest sites, and Chinese web designers like lots of Flash animations and music.

This is a scan of a ticket stub for The Forbidden City. This was a fascinating place to see. They have a website too, which you can visit by clicking on the ticket...


How do you get around in China if you don't speak any Chinese? Most hotels have these handy cards you can show to the taxi driver, so you can always get back. The trick is getting to where you want to go first! Click on the images of these cards and you will go to the hotel's website. The English page for the Hebei Century Hotel doesn't work, but that actually makes sense based on our experience there!



PiyoPiyo and BoboHouse are brands of baby clothes and stuff that we bought in China for Kai. These are scans of packaging for things we bought. Both have cool websites you can see by clicking on the pictures...

Now I'm guessing that you probably recognize this package even if you can't read the writing on it. If you click on this picture you will go to the Chinese McDonald's website. It seems quite a bit flashier than the US site.

Hui-Hui's "Gotcha Day" was on Chinese Moon Festival Day. These are Moon Cake packages. The boxes contained individual cakes, each the size of a cupcake, but very heavy. These images may be upside down as my Chinese reading skills are non-exisistant. These link to the Wikipedia page on Moon Cakes

Messing With The Website Format...

If you tune in regularly you have probably noticed the general look of this site has changed a couple times recently. The program I use to create this website is an amazing little tool called RapidWeaver. If you use a Mac and want to publish a blog or a simple website, this is a great program. It's very inexpensive and very easy to use. Creating the custom page headers is a little tricky but I've gotten pretty quick at it. If you are keeping count, this is actually the fourth header to appear on the site.

The dragon graphic in the top right corner is a scan of a painting we had an artist do for us at The Yu Long Friendship Store near The Great Wall just outside of Beijing. The original painting is about 12" x 28" in size. Here's an image of the full painting.

The first three images are the letters: K A I made of birds and flowers. The last image of a flower, dragon, and mountains is a stylized representation of the Chinese character Kai:

We had this painting made the day before we got Kai, and didn't know we'd be calling him Hui-Hui, otherwise we probably would have had his full name painted. Unfortunately the painting took a bit of a beating during our travels and has some creases in it, so we haven't put it up on the wall. I think we will probably be able to get it smoothed out, but it will need to be framed for it to look right. Fortunately it did scan pretty nicely, and I like being able to use the graphic here on the website.

Note: now that it's December all the posts from November have been moved into the monthly archive available for viewing from the menu on the right.