Merry Christmas!

Christmas. It's the most wonderful time of the year (can you hum along?).... and the busiest. The past couple weeks have been quite a whirlwind of activity... Christmas party for families with children from China held at my church, traveling, having fun, meeting aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time, opening lots of presents, and, of course, celebrating the birth of our Saviour!

All that came to a screeching halt today when we had to take Gong Gong in for his first surgery bright and early this morning. Poor little guy.... The doctor actually discovered he had a bad hernia on top of it all, but we're thankful to have it taken care of. At this moment he seems to be doing much better. My challenge is going to be keeping this active little fellow quiet for the next two weeks!

Enough said, a picture is worth a thousand words....

Christmas Party

Meeting the other newcomer to the family (by marraige)

Snow tubing

Traveling

Cousins

Waterpark Fun

After Christmas Eve service at church

The reason for the season--it is our tradition to place the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning!

Princess meets Elmo. This toy is supposed to be good for age 18 months and up (I'm guessing 50 something, judging by our family).

Post-surgury Gong Gong--napping

Challenges, Blessings and First Kiss ; )

Reading with Big Sis

The last week or so has been pretty intense. Gong Gong had an ear infection and croup and the poor thing just wasn't his usual fun self! He has finally started feeling better the last couple days. We had a sweet shower at school and got lots of little boy clothes that will hopefully stay on him! I also took him down the the International Adoption Clinic of MUSC in Charleston and spent a lot of time discussing his issues with the doctor. No instant answers at this point, but I got some much-needed confirmation regarding some of my concerns. One thing she was quite adamant about was that we should not let ANYONE other than Daddy and Mama hold him right now. He's been a little, uh, indiscriminate in his affections reaching out to strangers and the like. I feel like this is probably hard for most people to understand and I'm afraid they might think I'm being possessive, but this is what we need to do. It is really important that we be the ones to comfort and provide. He has a "bone age" of 18 months, but I don't think he could really be that young. If that were the case, then he would have been a month old when he was found and his estimated birthdate would be more of a lie or a clerical error than an inaccurate guess.

Now for the really exciting news--I got my first real kiss this week! Woo hoo! At first he didn't understand making contact with my face and kind of kissed the air, but he's now totally into planting sweet, sloppy kisses on my cheeks! Made my week! Another cute thing he has learned is winking--at first he was squinting both eyes, but I've actually seen him wink at me with one eye now! And, as I rocked him before his nap today, he said "Mama", plain as day! This is a real breakthrough, as his expressive language (even in Chinese) is very low. Now, if I can just get him to call "Mama" instead of whining and crying for attention...