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14 day report
Daji has now been living in his new home for 14 days. Generally Daji has settled in well and has become an integral part of the family. He is generally a happy child, smiles quickly and easily and participates in the activities in the home. One gets the impression that he is a happy, helpful and independent child. Daji has just turned 3 years old, 95cm tall and weighs 13,5kg, and his stature is very thin. Daji has shown no signs of illness since he came home, although he does have a constant runny nose. His cleft lip is sewn together nicely, but he does have a hole in his gum and one tooth is missing from the middle of his upper gum. He has scratches on his face, although these are less pronounced than when we received him. We feel that Daji is very advanced for his age - also taking the fact into consideration that he has lived in an orphanage where he most likely hasn't had the same development possibilities as other children. Other people, both in China and in Denmark have also commented on this. Daji is very light on his feet, and very active. He is also very good with his hands. He runs around the house and up and down the stairs without any problems at all. He also likes going for walks, and walks and runs along almost at an adult pace. He eats everything that is served, including green vegetables that he refused to eat in China. He eats with a fork and spoon, and eats without spilling. We have to ration the amount of food that he is given as he constantly wishes to have more food if food is on the table. He can get very upset when he can't have more food. He eats very quickly. Daji is very interested in his sister and clearly looks up to her, copying the things that she does. He plays with toys, not least Lego/Duplo, but also cars. He is very good at doing wooden puzzles (i.e. the type where a brick illustrating e.g. a car, fits in a specific hole on the board) and can make them even when mixing two or more puzzles together. Daji has also developed a good relationship with his big brother. Yanmei hasn't shown any signs of jealousy - which we'd otherwise expected prior to travelling to China. He has met other people - grandparents, family and some friends - and has taken it in his stride. We converse with Daji using sign-language - at the same time saying things in Danish. He is very quick to pick up the meaning of different signs - to wait, slow down, later, to chew his food, sssh etc. He can already say Mummy (Moar) and Bye-bye and reacts to a number of other things we say to him. He still says "Ni Hao" (hello in Chinese) to people he meets. He cannot repeat words we say to him, they always come out as something else - e.g. Thomas is "Mamma-G". He speaks a lot, nothing that we understand. He's very loud and shouts if he's frustrated at something. Daji's laughing has continued, but is less pronounced. His hysterical outbursts have also continued - often for no apparent reason. It has been necessary to set strict limits for what Daji is allowed and not allowed to do, as he is very inquisitive, touches everything and thinks that he should be allowed to do everything that he wants to do. He gets very upset if he doesn't get his own way. It is still difficult to get him to stop crying or complaining, and is often necessary to raise our voices to get him to stop. Daji sleeps badly. He sleeps in his own bed in his own room. During the first week, he woke up two or three times per night, and initially fell quickly asleep again when Steven put him back to bed. We don't really know why he wakes up, it doesn't seem to be due to nightmares, as he only screams and shouts after he has woken up - often two or three minutes later. Recently it has taken up to 30 minutes to get him back to sleep. As it may be because he isn't used to sleeping alone, and we don't want him to get used to sleeping in our bed, Steven has started to lie on a mattress in Daji's room, in the hope that he soon starts sleeping through the night. However the first nights with this haven't gone well, with Daji waking up even more often (4 or 5 times) but falling asleep quickly again. Daji goes to bed at the same time as Yanmei, between 20:00 and 20:30. He falls asleep almost immediately, and there hasn't been any problems getting him to go to bed, or to sleep alone. Yanmei listens to music and looks in books after she has been put to bed, Daji is still closest to Steven, but is becoming more and more open for all members of the family. He also likes our cat, Peanut, who keeps a safe distance from Daji. Daji wears a nappy as he isn't toilet trained yet. He only wee's in the nappy, he always does #2 on the toilet. It's been a very difficult 14 days for us as parents. There have been a number of conflicts as it has already been necessary to set limits for Daji in a number of areas - not least his eating, messing with things and him exploring the boundaries that apply in our home. The situation has been made worse by Daji's sleeping problems, where the consequence of repeatedly being woken is certainly that our patience is shorter than it would normally be. We celebrated a "quiet" birthday for Daji on November 8th.
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