Young Republicans or Hitler Youth

Well, today is a new milestone in more than one way. Today is 5 months since 'Gotcha Day'. It seems like no time has passed and an eternity at the same time. Donna and Xander are doing so much better together and he now identifies himself as Xander Bell. True, but he will always be Yang I.

This morning, he climbed into bed with us to snuggle which is becoming more and more his habit on the weekends. When I laid him down for a bit this morning, he said I was HIS BaBa (daddy). (Y'know, I'll probably miss him calling me that if/when he transitions over to daddy or dad or something. Donna likely will remain Mama for a while but he has been using Mommy on occasion too.)

Today I discovered he knows the days of the week. I asked him what day it was today and he said Monday. Then rattled off all of the days of the week. Holy Cow, man, this kid is a smart one and has only been here 5 months and can do that. Yikes! He can count to 20 on his own and is using more and more words every day. He even wanted to know last night about the Space Station. He knew it was REALLY high up and there were people in it and he wanted to know what they were doing.

Milestones. We measured him today and he's grown a full inch since he got here and when he eats, he eats it all gone. He'll even remind me if I forget his medicine. (I'll be happy when we can finish that course of antibiotics off and I'm sure so will he. Thankfully, Kaiser co-pay for the meds is only $5.)

Of course, I would be remiss in not mentioning that today is his 4th birthday. We have a party planned and there will be cake and ice cream and puppies. A good time should be had by all.

So happy birthday Xander. I love you.

Ah yes, I almost forgot. The time came to retire the old Sidekick 3 last weekend. It served well, but had a few shortcomings especially with the web browser. It got the job done, but it was really slow like an old dial up connection.

So we went to the T-Mobile store and I acquired the new phone: the Google G-1. It is similar in nature to the iPhone, but has some features that I like. A keyboard for texting is just one of those features. It uses the 3G network, so Internet is fast and the browser runs really well. The touchscreen makes looking at things a breeze and I have the YouTube channel available. It has limits, but it is a cell phone after all, so I'll take it.

It has a memory card (1 Gig comes with the phone) that is upgradeable. I have to upload some music to it soon because I can use it to play mp3s and other music files. I've downloaded a bunch of free apps already, the favorite by far in Xander's eyes is the Cowbell. (Yes, I have a cowbell on my phone, much fun insued)

Now, if they would come up with an app for an address book and I'll be happy for quite a while.

Well, we've had Xander for a week and we've been home 4 days. It has been rough in spots.

Xander really loves his foster family. It was mutual and as expected was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced. He is a loving little boy who didn't understand why he was being taken away from those he loved. I hope he will understand that there were reasons beyond anyones control. We will keep the pictures his foster family gifted us with and will endeavor to get good translations of the information written in the albums. This is but one of the things we will hold in trust for him as he get older.

He did incredibly well during the flight home. He thought the ginormous airplanes were the coolest thing evah. He slept a good portion of the flight including the take off and landing. (Serious beanbag as we got off the plane and headed for customs/immigration.) There was a meltdown during the flight because he wanted to take off his socks. Sadly the lack of communication made this a much more protracted event than it might have otherwise, the funny thing is; once his socks were off, he went right to sleep.

The last few nights have been challenging because he's been wanting to get up in the middle of the night and did not want to go back to sleep. This was of course the result of the jetlag of traveling from Taipei to LA. Definitely says something for ocean liners. You spend so much time on the boat, you gradually change the timezones and thus no jetlag. Oh well. We've been taking him to the local parks to play in the evenings. Found a nice one on Madrona in Torrance and Xander got his first chance to interact with children here near his own age. He had fun climbing and sliding on slides and going on swings and just having fun. I think I'll have a good roller coaster buddy once he gets older and bigger.

Took him to the pediatric endocrinologist today, she was very nice and even referred us to a good pediatrician who he can see for the more mundane things other than his hypothyroid condition. He had to have a blood test and did not like getting stuck with needles any more than I do. Poor little guy. Still, it will give the doctor a good idea of what his hormone levels are and if we need to increase the dosage of his thyroid meds. After the doctor, Donna needed to stop off at work to get some paperwork filled out so Xander will be on her insurance by Friday when we go and see the regular pediatrician. The folks at her job all agreed that Xander was the cute.

Xander is a good little boy. He's polite, fully potty trained, a bit naughty but sweet. I think we're getting closer to him being on LA time soon. I hope he does well in daycare, we'll start him a partial day on April 1st, so here's hoping he'll do okay.

As a last thing, here's a picture that silverkun took this weekend while he helped us get settled from our Odyssey.

Just got a call from kyburg, we recieved a bunch of new pictures of Xander today. All posted on xanxanbell but I'll post them here too for convenience.













OMG OMG, he's looking at us! And he's smiling!

Maybe, just maybe, he'll not want to run away in terror when he meets us in a little less than 3 weeks.

I can see the gears turning in his head from the pictures. I think he's wrapping his head around the idea. It looks awfully good from here.

I mean, wow! That's my son!

(Note to self, need new icons)

Our day to get Xander is March 16th 2009. So we will be traveling on the 11th or 12th of March to Taipei, Taiwan.


OH MY GOD!!!!!!!


It is time, finally, it is TIME!!!!!

Further information will be forthcoming. Thank you all for the good thoughts and prayers!

cross posted from kyburg's journal

Yes, here us our cake from the baby shower. Wish you could have smelled it. It just filled the room with the scent of chocolate goodness...

My SIL bought it so sadly I don't know which bakery down here did the work. It was decadently delicious, a mix of red velvet cake, butter cream icing and the chocolate shell. (Think Tootsie Rolls flattened out and shaped to fit, only better.)

Well, after a fun-filled day at work on Sunday, hurried home to get a last few things ready for the Home Study update for the kiddo. We spent about 3 hours talking, poor lady had to get a second cassette, but all in all things went pretty darned well. Afterwards, Donna and I went out for Sushi. Mmmmm, sushi...

The effort to get the house ready definitely paid off. The back room, minus the crib which is likely to be removed for the near term, hasn't looked better. Still, it does need a toy chest and some kid-sized chairs. Need to look around, saw some at IKEA that might work as well as a nice bed to replace the one in there now.

Work was... Well, work. Another day in the life at Kaiser. What can ya do, eh?

Well, gotta run, more work...

Went to Heartsent tonight to hand in paperwork and make first installment on payments for the adoption. Thankfully, a lot of what we've already done with the China adoption for our daughter can easily be copied and used on this one as well. Lots less things to worry about, about half I'd say.

Still need to file the I600A forms with CIS and need to get new reservations for LiveScan fingerprinting for us both. Probably will have to be next week after we get back from the Bay area after seeing my mom and brother Richard.

Had dinner with catsonmars at a nice little place in Pasadena whose name escapes me. (Donna, Tommy, a little help here?)

So far so good. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers folks. And of course, more news as it happens.

Donna, aka kyburg, broke the news this afternoon...

We've been approved as foster parents by LA County DCFS.

So now that's done we can proceed with our adoption plans.

Here's to having a kiddo of our own running around sometime in the near future.


In other news, I torqued my back preventing a patient from hitting the floor today. Sitting here with a hot pack on and hoping it'll settle down before tomorrow. My back decided to go while I was cooking dinner. I finished, but I didn't enjoy it much. Thank God for Motrin!