It's October!

Oops, I never posted in September!

Jamie has been in preschool two mornings a week for a few weeks now. He did great at first but last week and today he was clinging to my leg sobbing, poor boy. He got over it pretty quick though (I hid nearby to listen.) Jamie told his teachers that he made pumpkin muffins at home with us. We were lucky to have daddy at home for 5 days in a row (he gets a lot of vacation time which we're grateful for!) Quan Quan sure missed his daddy today when he went back to work.

Jamie has been enjoying some fall festivals that local churches or schools have put on lately. He has the routine down. Go into some bouncy houses, then play games to win tickets, then pick out prizes. He is so cute when playing the games to win tickets because he'll walk right up to whatever he's supposed to toss a hoop over and just place it carefully over it, not throwing it at all. And then they give him the tickets, as if he'd made his shot from 6 feet away. It was adorable.

Recently there was a storyteller at a plaza telling German stories to preschoolers (not with books, just telling them.) She shared the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. As she was starting, she explained what porridge was (us Americans don't seem to know what porridge is, which surprised me--I think every preschooler in England knows what it is and eats it!) Anyway, she asked the kids listening to the story what their favorite foods were. Most the kids were silent/shy. Not Jamie. Nope. When she asked the children what their favorite foods were he immediately shouted enthusiastically, " Cake!!" Yep, he's his mamma's boy, that's for sure. ;-)

When David and I told Jamie that we were taking him to yet another festival with games and bouncy rides and then to a beautiful arboretum afterwards (well we said very large flower garden to him) he was so excited, he jumped up and down and yelled out, " I just love fall! I love it dis much!" holding his arms out wide. He had a great time at the garden which kind of surprised us. We thought he'd be begging to be picked up and whining (his usual mode, sadly, when we try to walk anywhere.) Nope. He was really into going on the paths and seeing what was around corners. He even said things like, " Ohhhh! Such pretty flowers!" and " Awwww, the ducks so cute!!" at the ponds.

This past Monday with David still off from work we made pumpkin muffins. Jamie wore his chefs apron and enjoyed stirring and then slowly (laboriously, lol) filling the muffin tins. He loved the muffins. Talk about easy. Three ingredients! A box of spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin and 2 eggs. That's it. Mix all three together really good and put them in a 12 muffin pan (we use the paper muffin liners) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

That afternoon after his nap we did a craft. He is not one for crafts, so I wasn't sure he would participate. We all did one. I made paper tree trunks and branches to glue on construction paper and then had long strips of red, yellow and orange papers for him to cut with kid scissors like confetti to be leaves we could glue on. Well, David being especially artistic made his look fantastic. Jamie seemed enthusiastic at first but once it came to gluing the leaves on, he stopped at, well, 2 leaves ont he tree and one on the ground, lol. Then he confidently informed us that he was, " All done!" I did a medium amount of leaves on mine. Then we put all three up and I noticed that daddy's had the whole tree full of colorful leaves, mine had a few on and a pile on the ground and Jamie's was bare w/ just 2 on and 1 off. I told Jamie, it could be like the fall season where the tree starts out with lots of leaves then the medium amount is the middle of fall and then yours is like the end of fall right before winter when most of the leaves are blown away. Well he loves this idea and has mentioned it every day he sees it several times. ;-)

We're going to make pumpkin spice scented playdoh on Friday.

Tomorrow Jamie is getting assessed to see if he might qualify for speech. His vocab is very advanced (he regularly uses complex words like, " I particularly like the way this looks in the evening". Yes, he's advanced w/ his vocab! His comprehension is above his age as well, but his spoken, well, we can understand him but few kids almost ever can and I usually translate. He is getting clearer than he was but we are soooo hoping he qualifies for speech! Let's hope he's a bit garbled tomorrow so he qualifies! We haven't been trying to teach or correct him in a like a week in hopes that he doesn't improve before tomorrow, lol!

Jamie said something really funny the other day to David. A little background: While Jamie is great about peeing on a potty and wears underwear for that, he absolutely refuses to poop on the potty no matter what we bribe him with. And we are talking truly alluring bribes that any child in their right mind should leap at the chance for! Nope, not him. He tells us, " When I older, I poop on potty. Not now. Now I want poop in diaper." (Then we put him in a diaper and he promptly poops as soon as it's on.) " Even if you can watch the whole cars movie, have a bag of m&M's, go out for popcorn (his favorite treat) AND buy a huge toy (that he's seen) from the toy store??" I ask increduously. " No! I want to poop in diaper." Well David's mom MiMi promised Jamie that if he poops on the potty instead of in a diaper she would take him to the hardware store to get a bag of popcorn. (An event that normally delights him.) He still tells us no. So the other day, David reminds him that if he chooses to poop on the potty instead of doing it in a diaper that MiMi will take him to get the popcorn. Jamie replies, very seriously, " When I older then I poop on potty and I drive car myself and drive my car to buy my own popcorn." Ha ha ha!!! I nearly cried I laughed so hard when he told me what Jamie said. I am having visions of him wearing a diaper to poop in at 13!

I recently asked a staff person at my son's orphanage if they ever saw other people in his birth city of Chengdu with curly/wavy hair like his (after I emailed her some pictures with his curly hair showing.) She said that a good friend of hers and also a number of children at the orphanage have wavy/curly hair. Sure enough not only them but I'm now friends with another woman from Chengdu and she has wavy/curly hair as well! They said it is more common in the Sichuan province than elsewhere in China. So I guess he's not as much of an anomaly as I thought. I just love his hair!

A few recent pictures here. The one in a classroom is his preschool class, that was from the first day! That is one of his teachers there. There are 8 children in the class and two teachers. A great ratio.

A picture of daddy, Jamie QuanQuan and the great grandparents! They live close by so we get to see them from time to time or share a meal with them.

The picture of Jamie by duck statues was taken at his preschool. I included it because ducklings and ducks are one of Jamie's favorite animals and often requested book (Make Way for Ducklings) and often requested characters in made up stories we tell (he currently has over 100 ducklings following and playing with him in an ongoing story we tell!)

One of the fall festivals had rides that Jamie enjoyed as you can see.

Finally, some pictures!

I tried to post a couple of weeks ago but blogger wasn't working right and for two days I couldn't publish the post. Then I completely forgot about it. ;-P

We finally have a camera cord since we never found the old one (this one from Amazon) and the connector to load to the computer, so here are some pictures! Our little guy isn't so little. He is growing up! Slow down, son! These pictures are from June, July and August. The lady in the picture w/ Jamie is his beloved MiMi. Jamie was so excited about going outside in a downpour one afternoon in June that he couldn't wait for shorts. He simply had to go out in a shirt and underwear. We told him he needed his raincoat and boots, so there he is, all dressed up, sans shorts, and raring to go. Until, that is, we opened the door and he felt a drop on his fingers and said no way. ;-)

My precious little boy

Just now as Jamie is napping, a few happy tears welled up in my eyes as I think about how innocent and unaffected little children are. Obviously I don't mean innocent in the sense of never doing wrong. LOL, you know I don't mean that. I mean rather, unaware of social 'rules' and speaking freely their minds with no inhibitions, etc. and such concrete and simple thinkers. Oh how I wish our children remained this way for longer! I am so glad he's still fully in this stage.

Earlier today Jamie met my cousin (so his first cousin once removed) Craig. He's never met him before as we don't get to see each other often. Jamie was anticipating meeting him from the night before when I told him Craig would be coming over for breakfast the next day and Jamie was starting to get excited before his arrival this morning.

Jamie tends to get just a little normal amount of shyness or bashfulness when meeting someone new so when Craig actually came in and went over and said hi to Jamie, Jamie said a quick hi and then felt a need to look away for just a brief moment and Jamie moved over to his train table next to us. He immediately found his favorite train Harvey and, under the wonderfully innocent mindset of 2-3 year olds who assume you know everything already about their toys and toy names/characters came racing over to Craig and cut into the conversation to say, " Dis is my Harvey!! My other Harvey not work on dis track. It work different track." (Of course I'm translating for Craig b/c most people can't tell what Jamie is saying w/o me translating.) Then he enthusiastically handed it to Craig while he ran over to grab his newest train addition. He ran back over to Craig and said, " Dis my new choo choo. Dis name.....mommy. What dis name again?" I said, " Spencer." Jamie giggled, " Oh yeah. Dis choo choo named Spencer!" then Craig and Jamie played w/ trains for a few minutes together. Nevermind that Craig has never heard of Spencer or Harvey and all. I just love this young mindset and age that is so enthusiastic and isn't bothered or encumbered with having to explain what he's talking about. He just says it.

Recently a neighbor came over for a few minutes to talk and Jamie comes up to her, without the adult type of thing like saying hi or nice to see you and just starts excitedly telling her (again w/ me having to translate every word): " Pea fall in lake when big house fall off tree! Pea swam!" and he cackled with laughter. The neighbor lady is smiling and then looking at me like, " Whaaa?" I said, " Earlier, Jamie and I were watching a tv show [VeggieTales] and thought it was so funny when a house in a tree tipped over and the pea who was living inside fell out." Ha, that probably needed even more explanation b/c she's probably wondering--what? A talking pea?

I just love how he never thinks about the fact that another adult or child hasn't had the same experience as him and he just starts telling them stuff that he loves.

Jamie often tells me that Harvey is his favorite train (it's from the Thomas the Train series). We have the wooden railway series. These things are sooooo expensive, it's nuts! That company sure rakes in the bucks. As Jamie mentioned, there are not one but I think now 3 or possibly 4 different versions of Harvey and other trains now depending on which tracks you use. They are not interchangeable. Nice way to rack up the bucks considering one train alone is 13-25 bucks!!! 8-O

I am very grateful for the 40% off coupons from the craft store b/c they carry the series of wooden railway friends trains that he has.

I want to say, that despite my son being a very passionate and headstrong personality that can be a challenge to parent at times, I love love love him!!! And for the first time ever, two times this week he told me that he'd miss me when I was away somewhere!! He's been saying that for months to David and I was so hoping I'd get to hear those words, uncoaxed. Yay!! Jamie is still working on attaching but it's vastly better now than before. We still need to work on it though.

I'll add some pictures in a newer post in a day or two.

Pictures from past several months

Here are a few more Jamie pics from the past several months since it's been forever since I posted any! I'd post more but 5 seems to be the limit per post or else I just don't know what I'm doing.

In the Mr Potato head picture, you see two things: One, Jamie is clearly creative and thinks outside the box (at one point Mr P had three sets of eyes and his feet were sprouting out of the side of his head) and I love his kind of zany humor. Two, do you notice that Jamie wearing big boy underwear??! Yes, he's usually wearing undies when at home now during playtimes! We're potty training here! ;)

I included the guitar picture b/c he's my little rock star and he loves music and musical instruments. He *still* regularly pretends to be a conductor and asks us to play marching band instruments (pretending.)

In the bike helmet pic I included that to say that a friendly neighbor gave Jamie his old bike (yes a two wheeler but of course training wheels are on it.) He has enjoyed it several times now.

Finally, the picture of him eating ice cream is from back in March. There is a yearly event open to kids to visit a local farm and they provide homemade ice cream. Jamie enjoyed it and he was so cute I had to share that precious picture of him.

Jamie's 3rd birthday!

Jamie recently turned three! I can't believe it! Sorry I didn't post sooner. We finally found our camera cord connector so I can upload some pictures here!

There have been so many Jamie 'funnies' I kept meaning to write down that unfortunately with my memory as crummy as it is, I forget. So often he'll say something really funny and I think, " I've got to write that down!"

Pop Pop taught Jamie something I was hoping would be reserved for when he was a lot older (thanks a lot, Pop Pop!)~~the phrase, " Well, duh!!!" Well to my surprise (and consternation) Jamie knows the appropriate context for when to use the phrase apparently. The other day Jamie was experimenting with banging his head on some object; not a genius thing to do and not something he usually does. He said, " Owww! Well.....duuuuh!" I laughed b/c he said it at the right time for sure.

Jamie greatly enjoyed his third birthday party at his cousin Ava's house. Ava has a wonderful pool and a nice pool house at her house so it is ideal for birthday parties! Jamie and one other boy were the only boys at the party w/ 6 girls! (The boy and his two sisters are good friends of ours.) All of the other girls are Jamie's cousins. They all had a great time swimming! They enjoyed kid friendly dinner and cake and then when it was time to open presents you should have seen Jamie's face when he opened the Cranky the crane from the Thomas the train series. He has been longing with a deep longing for that toy for a long time now. He was jumping up and down and squealing and doing the dance of joy when he opened it. On the way home that night, in his car seat w/ cranky on his lap, he said, " Is Cranky for my very own?" I said, " Yes, Jamie, Cranky is your very own. Aunt Cathy gave it to you. It's your birthday present and you get to keep it." " For my very own?" he questioned. " I no have to give back?" he said quietly. " No Jamie, you get to keep it forever as your very own." A sudden shriek of delight filled the car and he said, " Yay! Cranky my very own!!! Yay!" He was so cute!

Here are some recent pictures (I'll do one from birthday and then other stuff.)

By the way, the one of him eating ice cream w/ his friend~~that is Will, his friend who was also at the same orphanage at about the same time as Jamie. We are so lucky and blessed to have been able to get to know Will and his family. He is a delightful little boy and we just love their whole family. Thanks to them we also discovered a nice beach to take Jamie to sometimes! We are glad we got to see them this spring as we don't live in the same area. I'll make a separate post sometime soon w/ more pictures since it's been so long! The picture of Jamie in his PJ's with his hand up in the air is from his birthday morning, fresh out of the crib (note the crib hair, lol.) He was delighted that it was his birthday! By the way, big news--he is working on potty training and doing a wonderful job at home. We're hoping we might ditch the diapers before too long when we're out and about as well!

Asian boy Shirley Temple

I have the cutest boy known to man. This boy is seriously an Asian boy Shirley Temple. He's got the curls and the cute factor and he has a boy version of her absolutely adorable voice and giggle. Jamie, forgive me if you're reading this later when you're a teen or a man, and you are all boy in manner and actions, but somehow, you constantly make me think you're like Shirley Temple! Everyone else, forgive me for indulging in gushing about how adorable and cute my son is, lol. I hope I haven't already written about this as I have a sieve for memory, but lately Jamie is eating more vegetables and fruits. YeeeeHAWWWWWW!! Been a long time coming. He still isn't open to a ton of variety, but I'll take what we have! Part of what got him into it was this whole role play thing we do as good knights vs bad knights trying to steal the castle. Jamie always is the good knight of course. I make a galloping sound and pretend to be a bad knight and say, " I am here to take the castle good knight!" And he says, " No!" and puts his arms up and trembles in an 'I am so strong' kind of way. Then I say, " Uh oh. You look strong. Are you strong?" He answers that he is strong and I'll say, " Oh no. You haven't been eating your vegetables and fruits, have you? Green beans (or whatever veg is on his plate) make you super strong!" He says, " Yes, me eat green bean!" then I shout, " Run away! I shall run away. You are too strong! I will not take your castle!" Then Jamie has started saying lately, " It's okay bad knight. Me nice knight. Come for dinner." then I thank him and pretend we're eating dinner together at the castle. This single role playing act has worked now for over two months nearly every single night! He goes from saying no after one green bean to then wanting to be the one to eat the most! (He is very competative by nature.) He has eaten full servings of veg or of fruit nearly every night! If your toddlers don't like veg and are imaginative maybe this game will work for you. I don't know how long it'll last but at least he's getting used to flavors and textures. I cannot wait to put up pictures or videos. We will try to buy a new camera cord if we can't locate it. We cannot find it anywhere!