Two Years

Yeah yeah yeah, I'm a month late here, but Johanna has been ours for two years now! Here's the yearly update...

Stats:
-46 inches tall (gain of 3 inches)
-40 pounds, 4 ounces (gain of 4 pounds)
-5T/6T shirts, 6T pants
-size 11 shoes
-sleeps from 8pm (or earlier if we can manage) until 7am-falls asleep on the ride home from school near the end of the week and sometimes needs woken up in the morning

Activities:
-Chinese dance class
-Children's Music Academy classes
-Theraplay (still working on the meltdowns!)
-swimming lessons
-Healthy Kids Running Series (she is fast-placed 5th overall in the series among K/1st graders!)
-Sticky Fingers Cooking Class
-Chinese Heritage Camp
-skiing, hiking, camping, riding her bike, etc.










            


Favorites:
These have all pretty much remained the same. She still loves pink and yellow, all things girly, painting her nails and wearing fancy dresses, eating meat and chips and noodles, swimming, helping me cook, doing art projects and drawing, cats, playing with Jonas, and presents! In addition, she now also loves playing the card game war, getting her hair curled, unicorns, My Little Pony, counting in Chinese, veggie straws, and wearing fancy boots.

Big Events This Year:
-moved to a new house about 20 minutes away
-started kindergarten at Global Village Academy with Mrs. Gregory and Ms. Mu (best friends are Emma and June)
-learned to ski with great control
-flew to Michigan alone with Jonas to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa
-saw 3 shows (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Newsies)
-rode a horse at Heritage Camp
-learned to ride her 2-wheeler bike
-got to be a flower girl at Aunt Morgan's wedding in California
-moved from her toddler bed into a full-size bed
-learned to tie shoes
-relearned lots of Chinese words (she spends half her school day in Mandarin immersion class)
-visits from Aunt Morgan, Mimi and Papa, Aunt Lindsey and Ignatius, Uncle Matt, and Grandma and Grandpa
-chosen to be in an art show for school

The way I described Johanna last year is pretty much spot on for this year as well. She's very sweet, shy, loves to help, and she tries very hard. She is also honest, neat, and well-behaved. Johanna's a bit of a perfectionist and sometimes gets frustrated when challenged. Food and sleep are very important for her to stay regulated! She's doing a great job learning to read, and she finds math a bit difficult at times. Sometimes she's a bit clueless about social cues or norms, and at other times she's extremely aware of people's needs and super thoughtful. Johanna continues to spend all her free time with her best friend, Jonas, pretending they are cats, Mommy and Daddy, or police officers and bad guys! Johanna is our little darling, and we're so glad she completes our family of four.

I'm still a regular on Instagram, so if you want to keep up with the kids, check out @aubreekeys!

Johanna's Room

I don't think I ever posted pictures of how Johanna's room looked at our old house. It was super cute, so I want to remember it here. It's pretty cute at the new house too, but we didn't paint the walls to match, so it's not quite the same. But the puzzle many of you helped complete has been prominently displayed at both places!

One Year

I blame it on second child syndrome...I never got around to updating Johanna's blog to commemorate her being home for one year! Better late than never, right?!

Stats:

-43 inches tall (gain of 2.5 inches)

-36 pounds, 4 ounces (gain of almost 6 pounds)

-4T shirts and pants (definitely no smaller than that, especially with pants-long legs!)

-size 10 shoes

-2 haircuts, including 1 major one to even out the bangs with the rest of her hair once they grew out

-sleeps from 8pm to 7am and takes a 90 minute nap each day that we have to wake her up from

-definitely an introvert

-meltdowns only occurring a couple times a month now (hooray!)

-fully fluent in English with an ever-increasing vocabulary and some lingering pronunciation/grammar issues

Activities:

-DU gymnastics

-Chinese dance classes

-Denver rec art classes

-Denver rec swim lessons

-Skyline soccer

-play therapy

-Music Together classes

-Children's Music Academy classes

-Chinese Heritage Camp

-camping, hiking, skiing

-Stephen Knight Center for Early Education preschool (Ms. Hilary/Ms. Bev's class)

Visitors She's Had and Places She's Visited:

-Grandma and Grandpa

-Mimi and Papa

-Aunt Morgan

-Uncle Justin, Aunt Cindy, Bryce, and Warren

-Godparents Uncle Jason, Aunt Amy, Elena, and Emery

-Various places in Colorado (Fruita, Twin Lakes, Granby, Aspen, Winter Park, etc.)

-Michigan (Holland and Traverse City)

-Chesterfield, Missouri

Favorite Things:

-the color pink (and also yellow)

-anything frilly, lacy, fancy, or princessy

-Frozen and The Little Mermaid

-wearing dresses, hair accessories, and fingernail polish

-eating meat (LOTS of meat) and also noodles...actually just eating in general!

-snacks (especially chips and sweets)

-singing along with the Moana soundtrack

-playing pretend with Jonas (for hours on end!)

-reading books, dressing dolls, building things, putting together puzzles

-art projects and drawing pictures

-practicing her letters (she's definitely left-handed)

-dressing up like a princess or wearing her China dress

-animals (feeding farm animals, small dogs, cats, etc.)

-helping me cook

-going to the park, zoo, museum, library, pool, etc.

-dancing, swimming, playing games (she can legitimately beat me at her Frozen memory game!)
-holidays (she loved being Tinkerbell for Halloween) and presents (she got her first baby doll for her birthday)

Other Items of Note:

-I still get asked a few times a week if she and Jonas are twins! He automatically answers now, "No, we are five days apart." Then I really get the confused looks from folks!

-Johanna doesn't seem to have retained any of her Mandarin, though we're suspicious she still understands a bit of it when others speak. We're hoping she gets into an immersion school for kindergarten next year, so she can get it back.

-Her heart continued to look healthy at her yearly checkup, so we hope she's good to go forever on that front!

Johanna is a sweet, eager-to-please, helpful, and intelligent little girl. She can be overly sensitive, awkward, silly, dramatic, and delicate at times. But she is thoughtful, honest, musical, quick-to-learn, and basically the little princess who has completed our family. She and Jonas are the very best of friends, and I can't imagine a world in which they weren't siblings. We love our little Johanna!

Follow @aubreekeys on Instagram for nearly daily pictures of both kiddos!

Happy Adoption Day!

Johanna has been ours for one year! We've gone from this picture of a very scared and sad little girl, taken on the first night in our hotel room in Nanchang, China...

...to the much more confident and happy girl pictured today, in front of our house in Denver. Yes, I pulled out the orphanage clothes (including the coat!) and let her wear them for awhile. I think it'd be fun to get a picture of her in them every year.

Johanna did have a pretty severe "traumaversary meltdown" (yes, that's a thing!) this afternoon, which was kind of unexpected, as she's been meltdown-free for over a month. But a day like today is probably a lot to take in. She's been looking at a lot of pictures from China as I finish up her Adoption Book, and she's been vocalizing how she misses NaiNai and her friends. It's also been a hard weekend of being cooped up and left to her own devices, as the rest of the family is sick.

We're pushing our family's Adoption Day celebration to this Saturday, as the flu has hit our household hard, and everyone but Johanna feels pretty miserable (she had it a few days earlier than the rest of us). So more to come on that, along with what she's been up to since the last update. Now to find some chicken soup!

First Day of School

Johanna's first day of preschool was today. She'll be going every morning Monday through Friday from 8:30-11:10am, and she's in a 4-year-old class with Jonas. Our little girl did really well...until she didn't. She was excited to go, smiling and happy for pictures beforehand, and she willingly said goodbye and participated in class activities. She was all smiles when she saw me after school too.

Happy on the way to her classroom!

But as we walked down the hallway afterward, she dropped her water bottle and then refused to pick it up. Then she plopped on the floor, and I could tell she was just DONE. The tears didn't start until we got outside, and the full-on meltdown didn't start until we got in the car, but today was a lot for her little heart to handle.
















A new environment, new kids surrounding her, a new teacher telling her what to do, new rules and expectations and routines, lots of new words and ways of doing things...not to mention doing it all without Mommy or Daddy there. For someone who's understandably still struggling with abandonment, attachment, and self-regulation issues, no wonder today was hard.

I've said it before, but I think it's worth repeating. Johanna's meltdowns are not "normal" 4-year-old tantrums. We know what those look like...Jonas has them! He gets upset or mad about something in particular, cries and yells for a few minutes, apologizes and is able to talk about how to handle things better next time, and he's over it.

You won't see this picture on Instagram
(she didn't know I took it either).
Breaks my heart, but I think it's
important to show all sides of adoption.

Johanna's meltdowns happen when she's completely dysregulated. I've heard it explained with two jars of pebbles. One jar, with some pebbles at the bottom, is the "regular" kid...biological or home for a good length of time, no major trauma in life, etc. The other jar, about 3/4 full of pebbles, represents a child who's been through some trauma (like adoption!). When stressful things happen (more pebbles in the jar), she's already near the "top" of her self-regulation "jar," so it doesn't take much to set her over the edge. Once she's over the edge...meltdown. It isn't pretty: screaming, crying, thrashing, kicking, hitting herself, trying to hit/scratch/bite me, and yelling nasty things.

The good thing is, when the meltdown is done, it's truly done. Johanna is sitting on the ground beside me as I write this, happily putting together puzzles. This afternoon, she was singing "Let it Go" and dancing to "Ghostbusters" with Jonas. She took a nap and ate a good dinner. She's laughing and smiling, and we just had a good conversation about what happened earlier today and how she was feeling.

We've already got a plan in place for me to be sure to hold her on the way out of school tomorrow (that's what she said she needed to feel better). I think school will get easier for her each day, and I'm hoping Johanna will eventually make some good friends. We did lots of extra cuddles tonight before bed and sang our made-up "family" song (her request) over and over. I knew today would be hard, but I also know Johanna will be okay. Happy first day of school, everyone!

Six Months Home

Johanna has been home for six months as of today! She has come so far, and it's hard to remember what life was like around here before she got home. 

Some of her favorite things include the color pink, fancy dresses, the movies Frozen (she calls it Let it Go), Moana, and Mulan, and eating. This girl still eats us out of house and home! Her favorite foods are still meat and noodles, but she pretty much likes everything (though milk and cheese are probably her least favorites).

Johanna still seems drawn to music, and she loved our Music Together class. She's learned to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano, and she likes trying out my violin. I'm looking to get her into another music class starting in August. She's also super excited about starting a dance class, and I found a Chinese one that might be perfect for her in the fall.

She also enjoyed art class and swimming lessons at the recreation center, and she played a season of soccer with Jonas. Gymnastics also became something Johanna looked forward to each week. Classes and sports have kind of died down for the summer, but we've been keeping busy going to the zoo, the Children's Museum, on hikes, playing at various playgrounds, and swimming. She enjoys all of that, as long as the hikes aren't too long!

Johanna still likes learning and practicing her writing. She's also recently enjoyed completing puzzles on her own, and she loves books and games. This summer, we've been working on letters and numbers and other preschool-type skills. She's always so proud when she learns something new and can do it correctly.

Other notable activities since the last update include Johanna's second camping trip (to Twin Lakes), attending two Colorado Rockies baseball games, a visit from her godparents Jason and Amy (and their daughters), setting off and seeing fireworks on the Fourth of July, seeing her first movie in the theater (Beauty and the Beast), and enjoying the trampoline we installed in the backyard.

The molluscum on Johanna's face are completely gone. Her bangs have grown down past her nose, and the rest of her hair reaches her shoulders. We're still working on getting her cavities taken care of (insurance changes and various other difficulties), but otherwise, she remains perfectly healthy. She's about 41.5 inches tall and weighs 33.5 pounds, which is a gain of more than an inch and three pounds since coming home (and she was already tall). 

Johanna sleeps through the night from about 8:15pm until 7:00am, though she still often likes me to stay in her room as she falls asleep. We read books together and then she reads some on her own in bed each afternoon before putting herself down for a nap almost every day. I end up having to wake her up from that so she doesn't stay up too late!

Johanna and Jonas still get along fabulously. Those two can play together for hours upon hours, making up various imaginative scenarios complete with costumes and props. Their latest favorite activity is pretending that he is Daddy and she is Mommy and some type of toy (usually their blue stuffed dog or Matchbox cars) are their babies. Then they act out everything from feeding them to taking them to the park to reading to them to putting them to bed. It's pretty cute, and interesting to think about how just a few months ago, Johanna had no concept of Mommy and Daddy and how a family interacted. Now she loves acting out what she experiences in daily life!

There are still difficult moments though. Johanna still copies Jonas to a somewhat unhealthy degree. We find ourselves challenging her to "be her own person" and ask for what she actually wants, versus what she sees Jonas doing or having. We hope that starting preschool will help with that, as she will hopefully make some girlfriends and branch off on her own a bit. I think having her involved in some different activities from her brother (dance and music) will help as well.

Johanna also still has a meltdown about once a week, though it doesn't deteriorate into the deep grieving cry anymore, and she doesn't call out for NaiNai. It usually starts with something simple, like stubbing her toe or being told no (especially if she's tired) or getting frustrated with something she can't do perfectly, and then her crying takes what I would lovingly call a "psycho turn," and she basically loses her mind. It's almost an otherworldly look in her eyes, and she screams and sobs and hits her thighs over and over and flails about on the floor. Sometimes I literally have to hold her down to keep her from hurting herself. It's very sad and scary. When she "comes out of it" (usually in ten to thirty minutes), she's completely back to normal and plays like nothing ever happened. She has gotten better about asking for (or accepting) a hug or letting me know that she wants to be held in order to help her get through it.

Showing affection and true emotion is still difficult for Johanna as well. The race to hug Daddy when he gets home from work is sometimes more about beating her brother there rather than showing she's happy to see him. Being held is sometimes more about having one up on Jonas rather than actually wanting physical contact. We're working on eye contact in emotionally vulnerable situations, expressing feelings, and not reverting to silliness or avoidance in uncomfortable moments. I know it'll take time for some of the hard stuff, but 95% of the time this girl is sweet, kind, happy, helpful, agreeable, and fun. At about four months home, she started expressing that she would rather live with us than go back to China, so that was progress for sure!

We did the 23andMe genetics test for the kids. No surprise, Johanna is almost 100% Chinese and of the Han ethnic group. We did it more to find out if there were any genetic health issues (none-yay!) and find biological relatives if possible. We were able to connect with her closest match, a predicted third cousin. She's a girl in North Carolina who's a few years older and was also adopted from Fuzhou, Jiangxi. They look similar in a lot of ways, so that was pretty cool to find.

So overall, Johanna is doing great. Having two kids is actually easier for me than one, since she and Jonas get along so well and entertain themselves most of the time. Plus I can easily take them places, and they can enjoy activities together because they are the same age and interested in a lot of the same things. It's harder for Zack though, as he has two kids competing for attention when he gets home from work! It's fun having a girly girl in the house to balance out the boys, and Jonas loves having a live-in playmate. At half a year home, Johanna is happy and healthy, and we're so glad she's part of our family!

I'll probably update this blog once a year in January like I do with Jonas's on his Adoption Day. I still post almost daily on Instagram under @aubreekeys (HERE) if you'd like to keep up with pictures of the kids. Thanks for following along on our adoption journey with Johanna!