Photos: New Hope Group 7-05 Reunion at Cochrans'

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"THEN". . .

(left to right): Mina Rothaus, Chelsya Cochran, Leila Bhagwandin, and Lydia Chin

January 11, 2007

Lobby with the famous red couch where parents photograph their adoptive children

White Swan Hotel

Guangzhou, China

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and. . ."NOW"

(left to right): Mina, Chelsya, Lydia, and Leila

April 28, 2007 (three and a half months later)

Backyard

Home of the Cochran family

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Leila sitting on the stairs

April 28, 2007

Home of the Cochran family

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Chelsya standing on the second floor landing

April 28, 2007

Home of the Cochran family

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Mina sitting on a small chair in Chelsya's bedroom

April 28, 2007

Home of the Cochran family

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Lydia sitting on a small rocking chair in the sunroom

April 28, 2007

Home of the Cochran family

New Hope Group 7 Reunion

April 28, 2007 (Saturday)


Magnificent Unfolding of Personality and Intelligence

In our mail today, we received the April 2007 of the Focus on the Family Action newsletter. In this issue, Dr. James Dobson, a child psychologist, joyfully announced the birth of his first grandchild, a grandson whose name is Lincoln Cash Dobson. Included among the text in that first paragraph were these words to describe the sense of wonder that a new child brings into a family’s life:

“My professional field is child development; and even after many years since my academic training at USC [the University of Southern California], I am still fascinated by the magnificent unfolding of personality and intelligence that springs forth when life is new. The Scripture tells us we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14). The handiwork by the Creator is never more evident than when the characteristics of ‘humanness’ begin to unfold like flowers on a spring morning.”


Reunion of Jiangxi Province Adoptees and Their Families

Tonight each member of the four New Hope Group 7 families saw the “unfolding of ‘humanness’” that has occurred over the last three months when we assembled at the Cochrans’ home.

Below is an update on the three other girls.

Leila Bhagwandin, a sixteen month old girl who has very feminine facial features, is still shy. She can walk on flat surfaces and up and down the stairs with assistance. Leila dislikes the word “no”, for when her parents say “no” to her, she bursts into tears. (Lydia also does not like hearing “no” from us, and she occasionally frowns in response to the boundaries that we establish for her.) Sam, Leila’s elder brother who is ten years old, has always treated her royally.

Chelsya Cochran, who is also now sixteen months old, weighed 19 pounds three months ago, has been eating everything that her parents have given her and has gained four pounds in that time period. Both Jerry, her father, and Nella, her mother, also commented that Chelsya’s temper, which manifested itself in China, occasionally erupts, particularly when her parents spend time with her brother. Brendan, Chelsya’s 4-year old brother, continues to treat her well and has adjusted to her presence in their home.

Mina Rothaus, who is now 26 months old, has also changed. Her weight places her in the 75th percentile for her age, and her height puts her in the 50th percentile. Like Leila and Lydia, Mina is also a patient of the same pediatricians who specialize in adoptive medicine. One aspect of Mina’s personality that has remained the same is her high energy level. Other characteristics have changed. Ma Wee noticed that her complexion has lightened. Dad and mom also noticed that her assertive manner has softened a little. When Mina was playing near Lydia, however, Mina used her strength to take away two of the three books that Lydia had selected. Brenda, Mina’s mom, said that Mina is undergoing daily cuddle therapy to treat her aggressiveness. Mina’s two elder siblings, Taylor (her six-year old sister) and Colton (her eight-year old brother), treat her very well.

Chelsya, Leila, and Mina have not participated in playgroups and have not been a part of the nursery in their respective churches even though all three families go to church each week.

The three and a half hours passed quickly as the adults talked, ate, watched the kids play, and took pictures.

Photos: Chilly Hands

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Standing in front of a patch of red tulips in bloom, Lydia is thinking, "My hands are feeling weird."



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Lydia uses her left index finger to point to her chilly right index finger.


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Lydia ponders, "Why are all my fingers getting cold?"

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Lydia looks at her pour pour (maternal grandmother, e.g. Ma Wee) for help in understanding her dilemma.

Notes:

SiowFong took all of these pictures shortly before 3:00 PM on April 8, 2007. The location of these photos is Roozegaarde, a two-acre show garden in Mount Vernon, Washington that attracts a number of visitors annually in April because of the Tulip Festival in the area.

When we arrived at the garden at 1:15 PM, the sun was shining and the skies were blue, but within a two hour period, clouds quickly moved into the area, blocking out any sunlight. With the sunshine gone and the wind accelerating, the temperature turned chilly, dropping from the low 60s to the low to mid 50s (Fahrenheit), the cause of Lydia's hand discomfort.

New Hope Group 7-05 Reunion

April 28, 2007 (Saturday)


Group 7 Gathering

Three months after returning from China, the four families of New Hope Group 7 are reuniting late this afternoon for a potluck dinner at the home of the Cochrans. We appreciate Nella Cochran’s initiative in organizing this supper.


The Menu

The Bhagwandin family is bringing two salads. The host family, the Cochrans, are serving a meat entrée and vegetables. The Rothaus clan is arriving with sesame chicken, steamed white rice, and dessert. We are responsible for chow mein (which dad is cooking that consists of chives, pancit noodles, scallops, and shrimp), stir-fried vegetables (stir fried broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, and yellow pepper) with garlic (which SiowFong is preparing) and fruit cocktail (that SiowFong made which includes canned longan, canned pineapple cubes, and fresh red seedless grapes).


Comments

This event is special for several reasons including:

First, this is the first time that Leila Bhagwandin, Chelsya Cochran, Mia Rothaus, and Lydia will be together since we were in China. Knowing how much Lydia has grown and changed in a mere three months, we are excited to see what has developed in the other three children.

Second, since Ma Wee is returning to Malaysia in early June, this event provides her an opportunity to see the other children one more time before she leaves the states.

Third, it is an added bonus that the occasion is being held during the two weeks when dad and mom are visiting us. Since they did not travel to China with us, this is a wonderful opportunity for them to get to know the other families in our group.

Fourth, this event hopefully will be the first in a series of gatherings for these four families.

The Origin of Cuteness

April 28, 2007


When strangers meet Lydia in a restaurant or in the mall, a few (usually women) approach her, say “Hello”, smile at her, and try to make eye contact with her. At the end of these brief encounters, they usually say something like, “She’s so cute.” Lydia and I heard these same gracious comments yesterday at my workplace when my coworkers saw her again.

Those words remind us again of what a joy and a treasure Lydia is to us, and we respond by thanking the person for those kind words, and occasionally we mention that Lydia is a gift from God.


Who Am I

As I was driving the car yesterday with Lydia secured in her rear-facing car seat in the back seat, I was humbled anew when I pondered that God created Lydia in His image. Because of the discovery of DNA and modern advances in molecular biology, I also know that God designed Lydia so that she is special. Finally, I paused that God has entrusted Lydia to our care.

As my thoughts were stirring, my ears were listening to the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, “Who Am I” written and sung by Casting Crowns (www.castingcrowns.com).


The following are the words of that song:


“Who Am I”

Psalm 139 / Psalm 52 / Ephesians 2

Lyrics: Mark Hall / Music: Casting Crowns

Who Am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to fell my hurt
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart

Not because of who I am
But because of what You’ve done
Not because of what I’ve done
But because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I’m calling
Lord, You catch me when I’m falling
And You’ve told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me

I am Yours
Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
‘Cause I am Yours
I am Yours

Copyright 2003 Club Zoo Music / SWECS Music / BMI


Our Hope and Our Prayer

At her young tender age, Lydia does not have much, if any, awareness about God, the Creator of the universe and the One who fashioned her uniquely.

During many of our bedtime prayers, SiowFong and I ask that God will make Lydia conscious of His presence, His love, and His mercy and that Lydia will come to know Jesus personally.

We know that many people around the world have an inaccurate picture of God, one that portrays Him as distant, impersonal, and uncaring. “David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, ‘God.’ Very few of the parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, ‘This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?. . .Do we allow our day to be shaped by God’s desire to relate to us?”. . .

The apostle Paul prayed ‘that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.’” (Philip Yancey. Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Zondervan: 2006. pages 43-44.)

Further Thoughts About Language

April 27, 2007


Further Thoughts About Language

During my drive home from work this afternoon, Lydia fell asleep as she had not napped this morning. My thoughts turned to my long-time friend from college, Scott Dreyer. As someone of Caucasian descent who grew up in the south, specifically the area around Roanoke, Virginia, Scott doubled majored in German and secondary school education. Shortly after we graduated from college, Scott traveled to Taiwan to teach English as a second language, his calling for the following seven or eight years. During the time that he lived in Taiwan, he learned to speak, read, and write Mandarin, and he learned to love the Taiwanese people. During that experience, he also met his lovely future wife, Deborah.

Even after he returned to the states and resettled in the Roanoke, Scott eagerly sought out opportunities to use his Mandarin, and over the last decade, he cultivated many friendships with the Chinese who were living in that area. Last year, Scott called me to inform me that a number of Chinese families had been meeting informally for years as a church and that he was coordinating an effort to establish the first official Southern Baptist Chinese Church in Roanoke.

As I reflected about Scott’s life and how God has been working and is continuing to work in his life, I could not help wondering how different his life would have been if he had never gone to Taiwan and learned Mandarin.

I realize that not everyone is gifted in the language arts like Scott. For many people, learning a second language is a struggle.

I also recognize, however, that the ease of learning a language is best done in the formative years, so we are committed to doing our best to expose Lydia to what we know and to get help for her for what we do not know (e.g. Chinese school and / or language tutor).

Stranger Anxiety and The Cantonese Connection

April 27, 2007


Stranger Anxiety

Today at noon was a potluck lunch at my workplace to celebrate the birthday of our office manager, Chesna Briceno. As I was off work today and as I knew that some of my twenty plus colleagues had not yet met Lydia, I decided to go and to bring her with me.

During the first twenty minutes after we arrived at the office, Lydia demonstrated her fear of strangers. When someone would say hello to her, she turned her head away from that person. Several people asked to hold her, and when I placed Lydia in their arms, she immediately cried out and began squirming. Eventually, she deteriorated to the point where she was crying big teardrops even when she was sitting on my lap and even when nobody approached her.

Her tears finally abated in the lunchroom when she saw the parking lot, the road, and passing cars from a large window in that room. (When she is home, she frequently asks Ma Wee to place her on the sofa near the living room window so that she can see what is outside. Because of her short height, she is only able to see one of our neighbor’s roofs, tall evergreens, and the sky.)


The Cantonese Connection

At home, we have predominately been speaking to Lydia in either Mandarin or Cantonese; as a result, she has not had much exposure to English since we know that she will encounter an abundance of English-speaking people outside our home. Although neither SiowFong nor Ma Wee spoke to Lydia in Hakka, she knows some words in that Chinese dialect from listening to SiowFong’s and Ma Wee’s discussions.

The importance of a shared language in connecting people was reinforced today during the potluck lunch. Initially the only person that Lydia would allow to approach her was Mayfanna Li, who spoke Cantonese to Lydia. Although Lydia first rebuffed Mayfanna’s offer to hold her, eventually Lydia relented and permitted Mayfanna to carry her. During lunch, Lydia even sat on Mayfanna’s lap while Mayfanna fed her fried rice with a fork.

Photos: Bath Time

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Ma Wee drying out Lydia's ears after washing Lydia's hair

Upstair's bathroom
March 3, 2007

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Lydia looking at SiowFong

Upstair's bathroom

March 5, 2007

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Lydia playing with the bath water in her green plastic bathtub that is 2 feet in diameter

Upstair's bathroom

March 3, 2007

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Lydia is not afraid of bathing anymore !

Upstair's bathroom
March 12, 2007

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Lydia using a cloth diaper to play "peek a boo" with SiowFong as SiowFong is dressing her after her bath

Sofa in the living room

March 12, 2007

Notes:

SiowFong and Ma Wee have done most of Lydia's baths. (Pa and Ma Chin helped with a few.) I have yet to do one though I have helped with a number of them.

The adage, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again", applies to pictures of Lydia's bath, which were taken on three different occasions. The primary reason was the shower stall because it was narrow (34 inches on each side) and recessed in one corner of the bathroom. A secondary reason is that the person bathing Lydia, either Ma Wee or SiowFong, sat in front of the shower stall and often obstructed me getting a good photo of Lydia.

Lighting was another problem. Merely bouncing the flash off the entire bathrom ceiling or the adjacent bathroom wall was not the answer because only a fraction of the light reached Lydia. My first attempt resulted in overly dark pictures of Lydia and her environment.

To light the area properly, I had to clamp the flash on the shower door's top edge and aim the flash so that the light would bounce off the ceiling that was directly above the shower stall. To trigger the flash, I connected one PocketWizard Plus II transceiver to the flash and another atop the camera's hot shoe where the flash normally resides. The PocketWizards are similar to garage door openers. When I press the button on the camera to take the picture, the PocketWizard atop the camera transmit a radio signal to the PocketWizard attached to the flash so that the flash fires when the photo is taken.

Finally I had to take some test photos and make adjustments to make sure that I set the camera's manual exposure mode appropriately to account for the light output of the flash.

Five Is Better Than Three

April 27, 2007


Five Is Better Than Three

In an earlier entry in Lydia’s blog, I mentioned that we are very grateful for Ma Wee and her caring for Lydia during these first months of Lydia’s arrival in America. Without SiowFong’s mom, we would have had a more difficult time simply because we would have had to spend most of our time meeting Lydia’s basic needs and less free time having fun with her. In short, with respect to the workload of caring for a child, having three adults in the home is preferable to just two adults.

Yesterday, with my parents’ arrival, their second visit to our home in the last three months, I realize that five is even better than three. For example, Ma Wee, SiowFong, and I had been sharing the cooking duties, but Pa and Ma Chin are assuming primary responsibility for those duties. Tonight’s entrees, the culmination of their efforts, consisted of their favorite homemade soup (the main ingredients are tomatoes, dried figs, potatoes, onions, and chicken), stir fried flank steak with sugar snap peas and onions, and stir fried Chinese broccoli with garlic.

Dad and mom also play and read to Lydia intermittently throughout the day, which Lydia relishes and which allows Ma Wee to rest. Although Lydia was initially cautious when she saw dad and mom yesterday, Lydia greeted them with enthusiasm today. When they ascended the stairs, she joyfully cried out, quickly walked to the gate to see them, and smiled so much that her eyes were nearly closed.

Finally, tasks like diapering, bathing, and changing clothes is easier with more adults. One adult distracts Lydia while the other two complete the job.

Yeh Yeh, Ah Mah, and Little People

April 26, 2007


Reunion with Yeh Yeh and Ah Mah

Yeh Yeh (the Chinese term for paternal grandfather) and Ah Mah (the Chinese term for paternal grandmother) arrived via airplane shortly before noon today. When Lydia first saw them, she did not immediately recognize them and hesitated to go too near to them when they first arrived at our home. After a few minutes had elapsed, she became comfortable with them once again. After lunch, she played with them almost the entire afternoon, so much so that she only napped thirty minutes, which is about an hour less than usual.


Little People

Whenever Lydia sees another toddler or baby, her attention immediately focuses on the other child. Such was the case tonight when we ate at one of our favorite local Chinese restaurants, T & T. To my surprise, when we entered the restaurant I saw six of my colleagues who were seated around a large round table and beginning their dinner. (Our table was next to theirs.) The one person who occupied most of Lydia’s attention was Andrea Sophia, a 6-month old daughter of one of my coworkers, Maricruz Cosio. Lydia just kept staring at her. Of special interest to Lydia was Andrea Sophia’s Winnie the Pooh bear. Because of Lydia loves playing with stuffed animals, she kept pointing to the bear and making noises to communicate to us that she wanted to play with it. Later when Maricruz fed Andrea Sophia her bottle of formula, Lydia pointed to the bottle as if to ask, “Why am I not drinking that bottle of milk?”

Miss Perky

April 25, 2007


Miss Perky

Lydia is beginning to show signs of a turnaround in her fight against the common cold. Last night, Ma Wee informed us that Lydia did not have any coughing that awakened her prematurely from her slumber. Lydia’s nasal drainage, which had been copious for the last few days, began to abate this morning, and her intermittent fever did not return today. She still has some nasal congestion, but that is not as bad as it was yesterday.

Fortunately her first illness in America has been a mild one. Sam, one of my coworkers, reminded me today that the average child of Lydia’s age can get up to ten colds a year. In the last few days that she has been ill, Lydia has had a hearty appetite, and one of the surprises of her illness is that she eagerly ate the rice porridge (congee) that Ma Wee made for her.

SiowFong and I praise God for Lydia’s disposition because she was neither crabby nor clingy during this illness and for her immune system because she is making a faster recovery than anybody anticipated.

Our thanks go out to all of you who have been reading Lydia’s blog, thinking about her, and / or praying for her.



Related News

Ma Wee’s cold is pretty much gone, but SiowFong is beginning to show some early symptoms of having a cold, including a little bit of a cough, a runny nose, and a scratchy throat.

Miss Droopy

April 22, 2007


Miss Droopy

Lydia awoke this morning looking a little tired. SiowFong remarked, “Her eyes are so small!” In addition, she had sneezing and a runny nose, both of which continued throughout the day despite treatment with an oral, over-the-counter cold and cold medicine. Ma Wee, SiowFong, or I was wiping her nose once every five to fifteen minutes with Kleenex, and we rubbed some Vaseline beneath her nostrils to try to minimize the irritation to that area caused by frequent nose running and nose wiping. By mid-afternoon, she had developed a fever, so she received Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin. Despite all of this, Lydia continued to eat and play well. She greedily ate her rice porridge during lunch and dinner, eagerly drank water from her bottle, and enthusiastically ate fruit (honey tangerine and grapefruit) that we gave her. With respect to napping, she napped somewhat less than usual, taking one between 11:00 AM and 12:40 PM and sleeping again between 4:30 PM and 5:00 PM.


Three Is Better Than Two

Whenever people have asked me how being a new parent has been in the last few months, I reply that it has been great, particularly because of Ma Wee’s presence. With three people caring for Lydia, each person has some free time, some margin. Three is wonderful to have when one’s child is well, but it is even better when one’s child is ill.