Ren's finding ad

Orphanages in China are required to run a provincial newspaper advertisement for children that are found and brought to their orphanage. They are called "Finding Ads." These ads contain information about where and when the children were found and which orphanage is caring for them. They include a photograph of the child as well. These photographs are usually the earliest available pictures of the children.

We received Ren's finding ad today from a fellow in the States who locates them for a small fee. It was published in the "Yangcheng Evening News" on May 18, 2007. We're not sure exactly how old Ren is in the photo but he can't be more than 6 months old - our earliest photo of Ren so far!

Our family is complete!

Er, thanks to Photoshop ...

Paul couldn't resist photoshopping Ren into our latest family pic:

A new (old) photo of Ren!

We received the most amazing gift today: another picture of Ren! It was taken before his referral pictures - when he still had hair! - back in March of this year.

As soon as we received Ren's proposal, we joined a yahoo group dedicated to families who have adopted or are adopting from his orphanage. Families often receive or take photos of their children with other kids at the orphanage and I hoped we would be able to get more pictures of Ren that way. Well, today we did! A family who adopted their daughter in March contacted me to say they had a photo of their daughter with Ren!

Check out our cutie! (By the way, I've obscured their beautiful daughter's face to protect her privacy.)

How long until we have our Letter Seeking Confirmation?

Today is day 24 since we sent in our Letter of Intent to adopt Ren. It's hard to say how long it will be before we receive the Chinese government's Letter Seeking Confirmation (that we still want to adopt Ren) but it could be anywhere between 3 and 6 months. So far, the wait has been easy but I think that's because it's not even conceivable that we'd receive the LSC yet. When our wait gets to the 2 1/2 mark, I'm sure impatience will begin to creep in.

Here's a little family pic from last weekend. I'm used to seeing just the three of us in pictures but now it's weird - where's our other kid?! Oh yeah, in China!

A baby book of sorts

You can probably tell that I'm a fairly frequent blogger. I like it. It's quick, it makes me feel connected to our little guy on the other side of the world, and it keeps family and friends up to date on the adoption. But most of all, I do it for Ren. As with Claire's blog, I intend to turn Ren's blog into books for him. I used to do traditional scrapbooking but I just haven't been able to find the time to get out all my tools, get the photos printed, crop them, choose pretty papers, etc. This is a much faster way for me to capture our thoughts and memories leading up to meeting him and his life with us for the first year or two.

Very shortly after I ceased posting to e-Claire, I "slurped" it using a company called Blurb. Basically, the free software from that company just takes all your text and pictures and drops it into a book which you can then play with until you're happy with the format of your text and pictures. I now have two hardcover volumes of e-Claire for our little girl - at about $60 a piece - and an additional copy of each volume for Paul and me.

I still haven't begun Claire's lifebook (either the toddler or the older child version) because I'm waiting for her history report from China Babies. Once I finally begin, I think I'll probably do those books electronically too.

I hope Claire and Ren enjoy perusing their books when they're older. At the very least, I think they'll be able to tell how much we treasure each and every moment with them!

This, that, and oh yeah, the shopping!

The day after we accepted Ren's proposal, I headed over to a nice little kids' shop in our neighbourhood and splurged on some items I had been eyeing up. I love the dragon fabric on the long-sleeved shirt. Since I'm a tiger in the Chinese zodiac, I had to get the green t-shirt with the tiger for my boy.

Last week, Paul, Claire and I had another great shopping adventure. I had been looking everywhere for toddler boys' shorts on sale (in case it's hot in Ren's home province when we get there) but I was having no luck at all. That is, until my friend Rae reminded me of the Children's Place outlet here in town. Jackpot! Great cargo-style shorts were on sale for $1.99 each! Isn't that insane? For that price, I decided to get four pairs in different colours in size 24 months and the same selection in size 18-24 months just in case he's on the leaner side. Usually Claire and I do most of the shopping on our own so it was really fun to have Paul there, helping to pick out his son's clothes.

In other shopping news, I now have all the items for Ren's care package ready, except for the disposable camera. Our coordinator will carry over our package to China in late November so I still have a little bit of time to get it ready. Claire and I picked out most of the items together - it was a lot of fun! I'll post a pic of the items soon.

On the topic of Claire, she is finally calling her little brother by the name Ren. It switched over from James to Ren on Thanksgiving weekend. I was actually starting to worry; what if she always called him James? Would we have to consider including that name in his string of names?

I'm still hoping every day when I open my email that I'll find an update on Ren there from our coordinator. Some families in the Waiting Child program get updated photos and even measurements just days after they send in their Letter of Intent. We sent ours in 2 weeks ago so I think if an update is coming, we could receive it anyday. We're dying to see his sweet little face in new pics!

Ren's jie jie (big sister) awaits his arrival

More about Ren

I get a kick out of the adjectives that appear on the Chinese development reports. They have a box next to each adjective so that the caregiver can check off whichever boxes apply to that particular child. The ones I find funniest are "obstinate sometimes" and "impatient sometimes". What infant or toddler isnt?!

Anyway, the boxes checked off for Ren are:

Active□√
Restless□√
Fond of listening to music□√
Fond of playing with toys□√
Having a ready smile□√
Getting along with others well□√
Fond of playing games □√
Obstinate sometimes□√

He is described as being closest to his caretaker and most fond of playing with peers and toys (particularly toy cars).

I just wish we knew more! I can't wait to see firsthand what his personality is like and how he interacts with his new family, particularly Claire. I'm sure that once we meet him, we'll have many and more descriptive adjectives for our little man.

The day we saw our son's face

Paul and I first saw pictures of Ren on Monday, September 29 shortly after 12 noon. Paul and I had hoped to be together when we saw our son's photos for the first time but we ended up opening the electronic images separately while we spoke on the phone.

I think one of the first things Paul said was, "He looks like me!" My main thoughts centered around how beautiful he is and how bright and alert his eyes are.

After Claire's nap, I dragged her to a nearby scenic spot to photograph the beauty of the river valley. It was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm, fall day - the temperature actually rose as high as 26.9 degrees Celsius - and I couldn't help thinking it was definitely weather befitting such a memorable day.

We weren't able to speak to our pediatrician about the referral until late the night of September 30 so we held off on telling Claire about her new little brother just in case there were any surprises. The morning of October 1, we finally told her and showed her his pictures. In a previous post, I mentioned how she said "aw" when she saw each picture. Here are a few photos of Claire perusing her younger brother's pictures.

I think it'll take a few days for Claire to fully accept the name Ren. We had been calling our hypothetical child James for several months. Since we weren't totally sold on the name, we didn't mind letting it go in favour of Ren. However, when we told Claire about the new name and said that's what we'd call her brother from now on, she said, "Little bit James" as if to suggest that we have to allow some margin for error on her part. And sure enough, every now and then she slips and says James instead.

Right after we showed Claire Ren's pictures, Paul began explaining to Claire how she, as the big sister, could teach her little brother things, such as what a sheep looks like and what sounds various animals make. Claire's face took on a very serious look and suddenly she blurted out, "Mama Daddy help me too!" At that, we realized she thought it was her sole responsibility! Poor kid. We quickly assured her it was Mommy and Daddy's jobs to teach Ren everything but she could help if she would like. That seemed much more agreeable to her!

Ren Li Walter W.

Tonight at last, we named our son. We have decided to call him Ren Li Walter W.

Ren is part of his Chinese name (Zhengren), Li has special historical significance for him and Walter is in honour of Paul's dad.

We were conflicted about settling on this name despite loving the sound of it. These are the Mandarin pronunciations of the Chinese characters for his names, the names we saw on his proposal and immediately took to. However, once it occurred to us that the names he was actually called would be pronounced differently in his Cantonese-speaking orphanage, we fell into indecision. We like the Cantonese pronounciations and knew that they would be more accurate for him, but we were already hooked on Ren Li. Finally, after a lot of grade-school scribbling on notepads and pondering, we decided to go with what felt right to us.

We had a little celebration tonight in honour of our son. When Paul, Claire and I were in the Okanagan last fall, we bought a special bottle of wine from Red Rooster Winery in Naramata, with the intention of sharing it when we received the referral for our second child. This week was so hectic that today was our first opportunity to celebrate with this wine. As it turned out, I'm glad we waited until tonight because it was nice to be able to toast him using the name we had decided upon. To Ren!

It's a boy!

Paul and I are overjoyed to announce that we have a son! We accepted the proposal yesterday, October 1, for this exceptionally beautiful little boy: Yes, real men do wear pink ... and argyll sweaters!

Our son's Chinese name in Mandarin is Zhu Zheng Ren (Zhu being his surname). We've been told his nickname is Renren. His name in Cantonese (the more common language where he lives) is actually a fair bit different and it is likely that it is the Cantonese pronunciation of his name that he is familiar with. The main difference in the names is that instead of "Ren" it is "Jan" (pronounced something like "Yun") in Cantonese. Anyway, we won't know for certain what his caregivers call him until we're actually there but we're quite certain that it's Yunyun.

As for what we'll call him, we're still floating around various ideas. Once we decide, I'll be changing the address of this blog. If you don't receive an email from me about the new address, contact me and I'll send it to you.

Other details about our boy:

• he was born on December 3, 2006 which makes him 8 months younger than Claire;
  
• he currently resides in the Zhuhai Social Welfare Institute in Guangdong Province (southern China);
  
• the last measurements we have of him were at 18 months but he sounds like a good-sized lunker if they are at all accurate: 25 lbs and 81 cm tall (yes, heavier and taller than his big sister, Claire); and
  
• he is described as an active kid, with a ready smile who likes others to tease him for fun. He often shows his caregivers a "brilliant smile" in order for them to take him out to play.

Claire is really excited about her new younger brother (notice how I say "younger brother" rather than "little" brother ). Yesterday morning when we showed her his pictures, she let out a gentle little "awww" with each photograph. I know she'll be a loving big sis.

I should note that we already think of this child as our son but he is not officially "ours" yet. The process for adopting a Waiting Child is different from the one we experienced with Claire. Instead of the Chinese government matching us like they did with Claire, our coordinator matched us with him. The Chinese government still has to approve us as a family for him. We'll know he's ours when we receive a Letter Seeking Confirmation from them, in the next 4-6 months. Although there is always a very, very small chance they may not approve us for him, I'm not holding back. He's our son and we're already crazy about him!

We expect to travel to China anywhere between February and May of 2009.