Huan Huan

Huan Huan is Nora’s Chinese name that the orphanage gave her. It means happiness. She is doing really well adjusting to the Coulson family schedule. She is just learning new things left and right. She loves to mimic the girls. Anything they do she wants to try, except if it has to do with water. She did not like her bath last night. The girls went swimming today and she watched intently but did not want to go near the water. She has some spoons and containers that we have been feeding her out of and Dana taught her how to flip everything over and play “drums”. So that is a fun game now. She also likes to “cook” by stirring up pretend soup in her bowls and feeding it to her pink stuffed bear that the hotel maids gave her.

Nora had never brushed her teeth before and I wasn’t even going to attempt that in China but Dana showed her what to do and popped the tooth brush in her mouth and now Dana is in charge of brushing her teeth each night. Dana also gets credit for teaching her how to drink from a sippy cup. In the orphanage she drank three bottles a day. She had never experienced a sippy cup. We were showing her what to do and she thought it was fun game. She would put the cup to her mouth but wouldn’t actually drink. But last night Dana popped it into her mouth and she drank! Now she is a pro at drinking water. Clara learned how to mix formula and knows how to put Nora to bed.

Nora rides well in the van (some children from orphanages get very car sick because they have never ridden in car before but she hasn’t gotten sick) but she has never been buckled. In China children don’t use car seats. So her first experience with a buckle will be in the plane on Friday on the way to our next city in Southern China. We have stocked up on lollipops and m&m’s for the plane ride. (I’ve been told do what you need to do to survive the plane rides. So don’t judge my parenting skills from international traveling. 🙂 ) Nora loves watching the fish in the hotel fish tank and she is mesmerized by birds if she catches them flying in the air. She was not outside very often so all these things are very new to her.

Nora mimics new sounds every day. She says beep beep when she hears a taxi horn. She says ding dong when the elevator dings. She says bye, hello, mama and baba. She tries to mimic words like car and please. There are weeping willow trees everywhere here and they are really green right now. She was trying to mimic us saying willow. She loves to be tickled and chased. I heard her laughing in her sleep last night. So cute!!

She is definitely a two year old when it comes to little fits. If she is mad she will throw things and scream but if you distract her or ignore her she can turn it off as quickly as she turned it on. She also hits at me. She doesn’t do this to anyone else. So I am trying to learn how to tell her not to hit in Chinese. Other than that she is doing wonderfully.

She loves to be outside walking around the city. We rode over an hour today to the terracotta soldiers and she did great. It was really busy there and many people walking and pushing around. She even missed her nap but still did really well. She just went to bed a little early tonight. It is so fun seeing how much she is learning just in a few days. She is very behind on her speech but we were told that is very normal for a child living in an orphanage. She can kick a balloon like a champ and throw things very well. She grabbed a pen and paper yesterday and went to town scribbling all over. Clara wants her to be a lefty and tries to get her to color with her left hand. Our guide said that Nora probably never colored or held a pen/marker before. There is so much to learn and we are all just trying to figure each other out but everything is going really well so far.