Henry Promoted to Toddler

When I picked up Henry at the children's center yesterday the director talked to me about moving him from the infant section to the toddler section. I had been holding off on this because he wasn't walking and was still using the bottle. The age to move is normally 18 months, so I had been using the technicality of Henry's innacurate birth certificate which reports him three months younger than his actual age.

But he has progressed so much in the past couple of weeks, and I think he will go even further by being with older children who are walking and talking. So today when I dropped him off I left him with the toddlers, sitting at a small table in a small chair rather than strapped to a high chair. Hopefully there will be many more milestones to report now.

Train Station and Birthday Party

We drove into Dallas to take my mother to the train station. She is staying for a few weeks in San Antonio. Henry seemed to think he was going somewhere, he seemed very nervous about getting onto the train and into the travel compartment.
Driving in downtown Dallas is c0nfusing, but I guess I would grow accustomed to it if I lived there. As Henry grows older I will no doubt be going into Dallas more and more.

After the train station trip we went to a birthday party--my friends Buddy and Jennifer's youngest son Chandler turned 4. This was Henry's first party to attend.
He was the youngest child there, and by far the smallest. He clung to me most of the time, but he did seem to enjoy being held by Buddy and Jennifer's mothers.
He was too young too participate in the pinata bashing, but he did get some held to gather up candy that fell to the ground.
During the pinata activity Henry found more excitement in looking at his reflection in the shiny bumper of this car.
After the party goers left we stayed and Henry played with Buddy and Jennifer's three children. They are very kind to him and take care to go slow with him. He really enjoyed riding this little jeep with Presley--with me following alongside to make sure he didn't fall out.

Visit to Grandmother's House

Henry and I went over to my Grandmother's house yesterday. The cat Sugar was hurt and the vet is over there. It turned out one of the feral cats must have bitten her on the leg. She is ten years old and not as feisty as she used to be. She stays in the house most of the time and doesn't seem to get along well with other cats. I guess I will have to let her out less often so she won't be getting into scuffles.
Henry and Sugar share the house but they don't interact much. Henry likes to watch her, and he squeals at her but keeps his distance.
My friend Ki-ae from Korea sent Henry a music table. I hope that with his long fingers Henry develops a musical talent.
The ECI people told me Henry needs to sit at a table that is his size. This table and chairs belonged to my mother when she was a little girl--we had it refinished a few years ago. It is the perfect size for him to sit at and develop his skills.

Henry Walks!

Last night after I got home I went over to my mother's. While we were sitting around talking and watching Henry, he started walking toward us without holding on or crawling.
Today I brought him with me to the library. I decided to put him back in the campus children's center--he went back on Tuesday. But today they were closed for in-service. There is lots more open room at the library than at home, and Henry really got to practice his walking.
Another librarian, David, helped Henry walk around. Henry has been very shy around David (and every other man other than me) but today he warmed up to him.
As a celebration today Henry further entered into the devolution of America by eating at McDonald's. He had a chicken nugget happy meal with milk. He ate two of the nuggets but he really preferred the fries. When we got back to the library he drank the milk. In the photo he is examining the prize--a Transformer.

Collecting DNA

We have begun the process of documenting Henry and Ben's relationship. Nancy Segal who specializes in twin studies at UC Fullerton (http://psych.fullerton.edu/nsegal/) sent me the DNA collection kit.
We filled out the forms carefully and photographed the process to show that we are taking DNA from each boy.
The swab had to be swirled around both cheeks and under the tongue four times.
Between each swirling we deposited the DNA to each of four circles on the pad.
It was left to dry for 30 minutes, closed up and then sealed in a special envelope. Now it is sent off to a lab in Utah and we wait seven business days for the results.

Hopefully once we have the documented proof (so far it's just word of mouth) that the boys are twins we can press forward for accurate data about their origin.

North East Texas E-News

The local paper (which is an online publication) did a story on us while Joe and Katie were here. The article can be found here:

http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_42677.shtml

A Lifelong Relationship

We had a really good visit with Joe and Katie and Ben. We live in much different parts of the country and it was fun to introduce them a little to Texas rural life.
It was fun to see the boys get to know each other again. They were never standoffish with each other, as I have seen Henry be with other children. I believe by the time I took them to the airport this afternoon for their flight home the boys had a sense of who they were to each other and had fallen back into the relationship they had developed.

Ben weighs about three pounds more than Henry. Joe and Katie have had him for three months longer than I have had Henry, so he has been receiving better care, nutrition, and medical attention for longer than Henry. The weight difference is less obvious from the profile.
Ben is walking, Henry crawls and cruises.
Luckily I had two car seats. I had to borrow my mother's car because mine didn't have room for two car seats and an adult to sit in the back seat. It was nice that the boys could look at each other while we drove around.
On the ride to the airport the boys were holding hands, looking and laughing at each other. It was really a wonderful cap to the weekend.

I am really glad that Joe and Katie and I found each other over the internet, and recognized the relationship between the boys. We only have oral confirmation from the orphanage that they are twins, but we collected saliva and sent to a genetics lab so that we can have documented proof. Then hopefully we can sort out the discrepancies in the paperwork and get accurate information that the boys may want someday.

For Joe and Katie and I we have embarked on what will be a lifelong relationship as we raise these boys. I am still surprised to find myself in this situation--it is certainly not what I expected when I began the adoption process. I thought I would be taking on a relationship with a child that I would raise--and now I've found my life intertwined with another family's. Thankfully we are all amenable to making this situation the best possible experience for Ben and Henry, and I am sure our lives will be greatly enriched as well.