Merry Christmas!

We wish you all a peaceful, magical, love-filled Christmas.

Extra-special wishes, big hugs and much love to our travel mates as you spend your first Christmases with your precious daughters. We miss you guys!

Love,
Girard, Raelene and Bryn

Dad's Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, her unconditional love.

On the second day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the third day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the fourth day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the fifth day of Christmas my daughter gave to me . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the sixth day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the seventh day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the eighth day of Christmas my daughter game to me, eight jumps on my back, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the ninth day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, nine rubber duckies, eight jumps on my back, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the tenth day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, ten belly laughs, nine rubber duckies, eight jumps on my back, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, eleven hugs with mommy, ten belly laughs, nine rubber duckies, eight jumps on my back, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.

On the 12th day of Christmas my daughter gave to me, twelve goodnight kisses, eleven hugs with mommy, ten belly laughs, nine rubber duckies, eight jumps on my back, seven wishes on stars, six pairs of Robeez . . . five big bear hugs . . . four hissy fits, three stuffed bears, two pony tails and her unconditional love.



To Bryn this first Christmas:

Holy infant, so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Love Dad

Christmas Letter 2007

This year’s Christmas letter is being written in a different set of circumstances in our home. Changes have taken place, things we aren’t used to having to deal with, and we are still trying to wrap our minds around the concept. I refer, of course, to the fact that Girard’s Fantasy Football team is one of the worst in the league this year, and he won’t make the playoffs. These are happy times for us, but it would be even better with a winning Fantasy Football team.

This year we welcomed Bryn Jenna CaiXing Hengen into our meagre existence, and that has made all the difference in our food and water bills. Not only that, but when Girard is alert enough after yet another night with not enough sleep, he secretly sizes up other people’s strollers, and feels stroller envy when someone has a really nice model, with the fancy big inflatable wheels and cool brand name. One benefit, though, to having a youngin’ is that when you’re walking in the mall, everyone is looking at our kid and her stroller. Nobody even notices the stroller pusher, so that allows us to walk around uncombed and unshaven (one of us, at least) without a care in the world.

Without a care, other than the hundreds of things we think could befall Bryn at any given moment. This is no exaggeration. We’re obviously new to the parenting thing. At our age we should be getting fitted for bifocals and bionic knees, but instead we now chase after our little girl, hoping for the best, hoping we don’t screw this one up. Girard just wants to rest, as he is even more tired than normal, but no such luck. Now he has to create as many objects as he can from a 24-block set, or sing (or in his case, recite) kids’ songs he doesn’t even know. Raelene has been doing most of the heavy lifting in the parenting department, which is typical, being that women are better at it than men. In a moment of weakness, men are apt to be more concerned about an upcoming second down conversion than whether the gate at the top of the stairs is closed.

We travelled to China in early February. We had an anxious night in Beijing before we met Bryn the following day. We flew to a tiny city of four million in southeast China called Nanchang. Bryn is from city of one million — hardly even a hamlet — called Xinyu, located near Nanchang, which is the capital of the province on Jiangxi. It’s a poor region of China. Sights, sounds and smells assaulted our senses, and that was just the stuff coming out of Girard. But Jiangxi is Bryn’s first home, and we came to really love it and its people, who might not have much, but they enjoy each day with a smile and good humour. Our society, with everything we can imagine available to us, could learn from that. We spent four nights in Nanchang, blissful and stressful times, and returned to Beijing for six more nights before departing. We had the good fortune to share our experiences with 11 other amazing families who have now become part of our extended family.

Bryn didn’t seem to mind us at first, but she was wary. It didn’t matter, she was our girl, and in time she became comfortable with us, and we with her. In no time we saw her first steps, her eating with a spoon, her first words, and her first timid walks outside. She’s very shy and not in a rush to fling herself headlong into anything (much like her parents). Despite that, she is now a non-stop talker, counter, reader, singer, runner, crawler, player, dancer, colourer, eater — you name it, she’s doing it. We started a blog when we returned from China about our life with Bryn, and if you are interested the address is http://littlemissbryn.blogspot.com.

This Christmas season we wish all the best for you. It’s a time of glad tidings — and we have more than enough to share. In fact, we’re positively radiating glad tidings, as hard as that is for people who know Girard to believe. We hope some of it rubs off on you during the holidays.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and healthy, happy New Year.

Looking Back

One of Bryn's referral photos and her Chinese name.



A year ago today we saw our daughter's face for the first time. Since we didn't have a blog back then many of you don't know the events of the months leading up to that day. Let me fill you in...

After sitting on the fence and thinking about it for over three years, we finally decided in February of 2005 to adopt a baby from China. That March we chose our adoption agency, Family Outreach International (FOI) and had our first meeting with our provincial social services office. The first week of May we had our first of three home-studies (which, coincidentally, were the only three days since we've lived here that our house was spotless). The paperwork and legwork was endless -- police checks, forms, meetings, interviews, physicals, photos -- on and on it went.

Finally on Sept. 5, 2005 our application for a baby was logged in with the Chinese Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The official wait had begun. When we had our first home-study we were told the wait from log in (LID) to referral (the day we would receive photos and information about our baby) would be from six to nine months. Yikes! We were shocked. We didn't expect it to happen so fast. Suddenly we had so much to do. The shopping and planning and wondering and worrying and the decorating (and redecorating) of our baby's room began.



Then came the delays. China was deluged with applications from all over the world from people like us who wanted to adopt one of their children. Each delay made us more frustrated, more anxious and, I hate to admit it, really grumpy.

On Nov. 30, 2006 the CCAA posted on its website that babies had been matched to all families with LIDs up to Sept. 8. We finally made it! Since we hadn't had any official word from our agency, we were a bit reluctant (pessimists that we were) to believe we were actually in. The next day, a Friday, we had an email from FOI confirming that we actually had been matched with a baby. It was a looooong, agonizing weekend waiting for word from our provincial office telling us they had our referral. The call came Dec. 4 at 9:30 a.m. Our file was in Regina and likely wouldn't be in Saskatoon until late that afternoon or the next day. They did, however, have a fax of our baby's picture. Did we want to come down and see it or wait until the next day when the color photos and the rest of the information arrived? Haha! What a kidder.



I've never seen Girard move so fast. Twenty minutes later we were looking at our beautiful baby's face for the first time. Yu Cai Xing, which translates to "colorful star", couldn't have been a more perfect match for us. We knew that the second we saw her. The six to nine month wait had turned into 15 long months. Funny, though, at that minute it just didn't matter. And we weren't grumpy anymore. We had, or almost had, our baby and we already loved her to pieces. We'd have to wait another two months until we held her in our arms but she was already forever in our hearts.

Now here we are a year later. A year older. A year wiser. And a year more in love with our colorful star, Bryn.




Happy "One Year Later" to our extended family in our travel group...enjoy reliving the moments. We miss you guys.

An oldie but a goodie

I took this video a month or so ago to use with our Turkey and Tidbits post. The way the audio was playing out of sync it made no sense at all when I viewed it on our blog, so I didn't bother posting it. Since that problem is solved I thought I'd post it now. (I apologize for the length of it but after all the video problems I've had I didn't have the energy to edit it.)

Bryn's cousin Brianna should be very proud of herself for helping Bryn out with her colors! (I've also updated Bryn's animal sounds video.)

Problem solved!

Yay! I finally have our video problems solved. It appears our Mac doesn't play nice with Blogger or DropShots for uploading videos which is why when you view them the audio is always off. I've tested YouTube and it's works fine so the next video I post won't play like a poorly dubbed foreign film.

In the meantime here are a few photos from our weekend snowfall. We actually had enough snow to make a bigger snowman than last time. And despite the fact Bryn isn't smiling she did love playing in the snow.

Snow and stuff

We had our third snowfall yesterday and managed to get outside before it melted. Here is Bryn's first day out in the snow. She had lots of fun (at least until her mitts got wet).



It wasn't great snow for building snowmen but Girard managed to make Bryn a miniature one -- her first!



Another busy day with her crayons, practising to be the next Picasso.



Looking pretty content watching TV from her favorite chair.



Potty Training 101 - learn to sit on the potty and fill it with toilet paper.

Our First Halloween

Trying to get both Bryn and Jessie to sit still and pose for a picture was quite a challenge.



Bryn was happy to be a monkey. Jessie, on the other hand, wasn't a very co-operative Yoda.





After a week of practicing saying "trick or treat" we're finally ready to go!

It's a zoo around here...

These are for Helena, who is tired of leftover turkey.








I know this is a dark video and difficult to see, but if you look closely you might notice Bryn now has a pony (we're still working on piggies).

Turkey and tidbits

Bryn enjoyed her first Thanksgiving dinner. The stuffing and pumpkin pie with ice cream were her favorites.


It's been brought to my attention I haven't had a newsy update on Bryn's blog in awhile so here are some tidbits and photos from the past few weeks.

- She's opening up a lot to others and will now let people pick her up or sit with them, though usually on her own terms. She'll happily give hugs and kisses now, which thrills her grandparents.

- In the past month she's slept through the night only twice. On average she's up twice each night for a cuddle. After 8 months of this I suppose we should just resign ourselves to the fact she's not a great sleeper and buy shares in Maxwell House. (This will be my last public comment on our lack of sleep.)

- She's turned into quite a tease and giggles over the silliest things. It used to take a lot to make her laugh so listening to her say "funny" and giggle about something is such a joy. She's such a happy little girl and is developing a real sense of humor but she does have a short fuse so there's usually an outburst or two a day when something doesn't go right but they're short-lived.

- She still carries her wet cloth around and sometimes sticks it on her head and says "nice hat".

- She's become a bit braver and will now go on the swing at the park and down the slide on her play structure. She's mastered climbing up the basement stairs and is getting pretty good at going down. Thankfully we've had no falls yet.



Collecting leaves on a walk by the river.



Walking a mile in dad's shoes.


- Bryn calls her aunts by something they've done with her. There's Auntie Bubbles (LeighAnn, who blew bubbles with her), Auntie Spizer (Simone sings Itsy Spider), Auntie Chele Fries (Michele bought her fries), Auntie Cheese (Carey fed her cheese from a pizza) and Auntie Nonie Cookie, an easy one to figure out.

- She has a picture of Girard and me she carries around and looks at and says "mom, dad, fammia". (Translation: family.)

- She still loves to dance and listen to music and has started singing along to some songs. She sings Wheels on the Bus, Head and Shoulders, Ring Around the Rosy, Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle, Pat-A-Cake and a few obscure ones Girard has taught her. She misses a lot of the words but it's so much fun to listen to her.

- She's back into her books big time and has started to really play with her toys instead of just spreading them around the living room. She likes her Mega Blocks and picture puzzles and loves to draw.



Reading with Nana who came to visit us last week.



Hanging out with Papa, who was here to spend Bryn's 1st Thanskgiving with us.


- We have magnetic letters and numbers on our fridge and she can pick out "m for mom", "d for dad", "b for Bryn" and "j for Jessie". I'm not quite sure if she's made the connection between a number and an amount but she recognizes 0, 1, 4 and 8. She counted to 5 the other day. (Her Nana, who was visiting, just about fell off her chair.)

- We continue to be amazed at her vocabulary. Because she repeats everything we say we really do try to watch ourselves. But we are human and slip up from time to time so for a few days Bryn was saying "Holy cap". Girard has since taught her to say either gadzooks or omigosh. Her sentences are often 3 or 4 words now. Some of her bigger words are necaween (nectarine), dinosaur, addidator and umbrella (I can't figure out how to spell that one the way she pronounces it though).





Helping with the yard work.


- During a summer visit, Bryn's cousin Brianna was teaching Bryn her colors. At 17 months old, that wasn't about to sink in but she loved saying yellow. For the longest time everything was "yewow" which is interesting because ever since China yellow has been her favorite color. It took her awhile but she finally figured out what yellow was. Now she knows yellow, purple, black, brown, green, blue and orange. She's turned into quite a tease as she always starts off by pointing to something and saying "yewow" with a big grin on her face. Of course our response is "that's not yellow!" and she giggles and tells us what color it really is.

- She'll spend hours watching the videos posted on her China sisters' blogs. Now she's wanting to watch the photos and can't quite figure out why they don't move.

As I was rocking Bryn to sleep last night she was so full of energy and chatter and giggles it was taking forever to put her down. At one point she held up her index finger and said "one". Yes, that's right, I said. Then she started saying "one finger." I'd say yes, that's right, good for you! and she'd laugh. Over and over this went til finally she held up both index fingers, looked at them and said "Two ones." I think I'm suffering from information overload -- I can't possibly absorb all this amazing child has to show me in a day.

Dim Sum

Yesterday we met Shea and Caia for dim sum. The girls had tons of fun eating their noodles and sticky rice while Shea, Girard and I had a great visit and enjoyed a delicious lunch.

I can't believe how well Caia eats with a fork. Not a kiddies' plastic fork but a real piece of cutlery. Bryn, on the other hand, still chooses to use her fingers most of the time. I'm pretty sure her thinking is she can eat more that way, which turns out to be true. She managed to wolf down most of the noodles while Caia sat like a little lady next to her, patiently using her fork to eat most of her lunch. She did eventually resort to using her fingers but she probably knew she didn't have a hope in heck of getting her share if she continued to be polite.



Mmmm...noodles!



An after lunch rest with wet cloth and blanket.

More Giggles

What makes stomping your feet so funny I can't quite figure out, but this qualified as a knee slapper for Bryn!


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When Dad's In Charge

The hardest thing about the past week has been not being able to pick up Bryn. As some of you know, I'm recovering from surgery. The 4 days I spent in the hospital without my baby were hell. It was the first time I'd been away from her for more than a few hours at a time and it was awful.

It's heaven to be home with her again, but it's so hard not to be able to pick her up. She stands at my feet and says "up, up, up" and when I say "I'm sorry, dolly, mom can't" she says "mom, owie" and then says "up, up, up" again. It's extra hard when she wakes in the night and calls for me and I can't go get her out of her crib and rock her back to sleep. It breaks my heart. How do you make a 19-month-old understand such a thing? The next few weeks will be hard, though quite likely harder on me than Bryn!

The second hardest thing as been watching her dad dress her. I think he's gone color-blind and I hadn't realized he was so fashion-challenged. The first few days I was home I didn't say much. But after seeing the outfit pictured below I decided I had to step in and take over. I'm now back to picking out Bryn's clothes each day. In Girard's defense, I suppose I should mention Bryn was the one who insisted on wearing her housecoat!



A fashion don't: Red shirt, blue and grey fleece sweatpants, bright pink slipppers and peach housecoat. All very pretty clothes on their own, but certainly not together! (Though she still looks adorable.)


The upside to all of this is we're fortunate Girard is able to get time off work and can be home for a few weeks so we have more time to spend together. He's taught Bryn to call her stuffed teddies "Da Bears" and she watches football with him and says "hut, hut", though not always at the right time. Ah, the influence of a man.

Thanks to everyone for your concern and all the get well wishes while I was in the hospital and since I've been home. And an extra special thanks to my best friend, Cath, who is always there when I need her and Simone for coming to help Girard while I was in the hospital.

Giggles

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We were so happy to have our niece Katja stay with us last week for a few days. She and Bryn had tons of fun! Thanks for all of your help, Katja, Bryn sure misses you (and so do we)!

P.S. Don't you just love the sound of a baby giggling?

No Longer A Baby

Last week Bryn turned 18 months old.

We spent her first birthday in China at the Beijing Zoo and the Summer Palace. I can't believe it's been six months. It was a beautiful day at the zoo wandering around with the other families in our group and their girls. The pandas were amazing, the monkeys pretty cool, the little kid pooping on the sidewalk quite a sight. The next day Kate and Helena (big sisters to two of Bryn's Xinyu sisters) stood at the front of our bus and sang Happy Birthday to Bryn -- what a great birthday present that was!

It's obvious to us now how scared Bryn was then. She didn't smile very much, just looked at us and sat quietly (though she'd scream at the top of her lungs when we changed her diaper or tried to dress her). She ate what we gave her and sat in her hip carrier looking up at me and seemed quite content to be there. The only thing she said that we could understand was mom (believe it or not) and she'd nod her head when I said yes. She did chatter a bit, very quietly, but of course we had no idea what she was saying.

How things have changed since then. She now runs around the house all day long. Yes...all day. Once she found her walking legs she took off and didn't look back. She's now progressed to running and other than the odd stumble over the gigantic dust bunnies in our house, she's pretty much unstoppable.

From what I know about the other girls, Bryn is the only one who doesn't require much sleep. She goes to bed around 9.30 and gets up around 7 (after getting up a couple of times in the night). She slept through the night for about two weeks until her molars started coming in but since then she's always up in the night. In the past couple of weeks she's decided she only needs one nap in the morning, usually for about an hour and a half. That means between getting up after her nap and going down for the night she's up for at least 8 hours, usually closer to 9. Aside from meal times and her bath, she's on the go that whole time. I have no idea where she gets so much energy. I can't imagine what she'd be like if she ate a lot of sugar!




One of her favorite reading spots is right by the front door.



She put her wet cloth to good use during our heatwave.



Bryn chatters non-stop, too, and has added so many words to her vocabulary we're amazed. Her most used word is no, then mom, da (dad) and Sheshie (Jessie). I love to hear her say mail, which she pronounces mayo; Girard's favorite is reebeet, her sound for a frog. Some of her newest words are fridge, rainbow, dossie (stroller) and spicer (spider). She's started putting two words together to make little sentences. No, mom. Sheshie seeping (sleeping). Beet (big) ball. Water bottle. Whenever she laughs at something I always laugh and slap my leg and say "that's a real knee-slapper". For weeks now she's been laughing and slapping at her leg. Yesterday she started saying "kneeswapper".

She eats like a horse which probably explains the 7 pound weight gain in six months. So far the only things I've found she doesn't like are cantaloupe and broccoli. Sometimes I call her Hoover because she eats so fast. It's now to the point that I only put a bit in her bowl at once because she picks as much up as she can and stuffs it all in her mouth at once. She refuses to eat with a spoon because it takes too long to eat -- she doesn't have a lot of patience when it comes to waiting for her food.

Bryn still loves books but is now paying more and more attention to toys. She has a couple of dolls she feeds and rocks and cuddles. We bought her a little musical piano/drum set (a.k.a. noisemaker). She loves it, Jessie isn't quite sure about it though. Bryn also loves to dance and yesterday learned Ring Around the Rosey. She loves her little pool but it's been quite cool the past couple of weeks so she hasn't been in it much. Every day she asks for it "spash, pool, panda" and it's hard to make her understand why she can't play in it right now.

She's slowly making progress with her interaction with other people. She'll now play with people and let them touch her and she even gives kisses to a fortunate few! The other day she actually let her cousin Anna carry her around for a few minutes. That's the first time she's ever let anyone other than Girard or me hold her for any length of time so it was quite a breakthrough!

Well, this has turned into a longer ramble than I'd thought. It's taken me three days to get it done (see paragraphs 4 and 5 above), I guess I should have stopped after two!



Look ma, no spoon!



Hanging out with cousin Anna.

A Special Day - Updated

Today is the 6 month anniversary of the day we first held Bryn. I had planned to have a photo from that day as well as one from today but to make a long story short, I had an accident with the camera about 5 minutes after I finally got Bryn to sit still for her anniversary picture. Enough said.




On our first night together in Nanchang.




Six months later.



UPDATE! Now that the camera is fixed, here is Bryn exactly 6 months later.



It's been an amazing 6 months, nothing we can even put into words. We're so incredibly lucky to have such a beautiful daughter and we love her more each day.

Happy anniversary to our travel mates and their beautiful daughters. We miss you all very much!!!

p.s. We'd be thrilled to host a one-year reunion. Think about it.

I tried...

As you can see, Bryn's hair still has to grow quite a bit to catch up to the other girls...





And she's quite sad about it...