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.

Uh oh, the shopping has begun

Okay, we don't even have a child matched with us but I'm in shopping mode. I really did hold off as long as I could. And I'm still exercising major restraint as you'll see from the fact that there are only two items shown below for our second child.

I bought this panda Blabla doll for our second child and the orange monkey Blabla doll for Claire.

An acquaintance has one of these for her daughter and Claire immediately fell in love with it. These dolls are sooooo soft and cuddly. I hope it will be a nice tactile comfort toy for our new little one.

I have no idea if we will be referred a boy, but I had to get this boy's t-shirt. It was on sale, after all! I'm finding that shopping for a boy's clothes CAN be fun (I always thought it wasn't as fun as shopping for girls), especially with some cool Asian-themed stuff out right now. However, since we don't know for sure if we'll get a boy, and his size is anyone's guess, I'll stick to this one clothing purchase for now.

A family for a year and a half

One and a half years ago today, Paul and I received our little girl. It's unbelievable that time has flown so fast since then. Here we are on the long weekend.

We still don't have a good idea of how long it'll take for a referral for our second child but we are now quite sure it won't be as fast as a month. I'm remarkably zen about the whole thing but I guess that's because any way you slice it, our wait shouldn't be too long. It was exciting to contemplate a referral within a month, though. Oh well, it'll just give us something great to look forward to in the fall, winter, or spring.