Red Egg and Ginger Party

Our local chapter of Families with Children from China hosted an awesome Red Egg and Ginger party for children who have arrived in China in the past year.

Here is an explanation, from about.com:

"In Chinese culture, a baby's first month birthday calls for a celebration. Proud parents introduce their latest addition to friends and relatives by holding a red egg and ginger party. Traditionally, the baby's name is also announced at this time.

"Guests attending red egg and ginger parties bring gifts. Lysee or "lucky money" in red envelopes is often given to baby boys, while girls may receive expensive jewelry. The guests don't leave empty handed, either. The parents hand out red-dyed eggs, symbolizing happiness and the renewal of life.

"Red egg and ginger parties have their origins in ancient Chinese culture. As in other countries, infant mortality rates in China were quite high prior to the medical advances of the twentieth century. A baby who reached one month of age was likely to survive, and so the event was celebrated."

At our event there were eight kids, and after a delicious banquet dinner at a Chinese restaurant each family was invited to make a short presentation, and then we each got a beautiful laquered red egg carved with our child's name in Chinese.

Some families showed slides or talked about their adoption experience. All the stories were great to hear, and so different - the kids ranged from babies to 14! All of them had special needs of some sort, or were older.

Rather than do a presentation, we decided to read the kids our favorite adoption book: "A Mother for Choco." If you haven't read it, check it out. Quinn sat in my lap and all the kids gathered around us, which was fun.

It was a really special night. If you ever get invited to a Red Egg and Ginger party, go!


The setting was beautiful and the food was yummy.


Grandma Marj came with us. Check out Quinn's cool summer outfit, bought at Michael's in Guanghzou.


In typical Chinese banquet style, the food kept coming and coming. Quinn LOVED the ginger noodles.

Quite shockingly, the kid who will not eat anything cold went quite nutty for the ginger ice cream. He ate his entire bowl, and went for mine, too!

Here's a sign of the times: Of the eight kids who came from this year in our chapter, four of them are boys!

It looks like surgery - times two

Thanks to the amazing parents on the various adoption-related Yahoo groups I follow, we learned of a doctor in Houston who specializes in treating brachial plexus injury, a nerve injury that can occur at birth if the baby gets stuck and is yanked out. Even better, we learned that he occasionally holds free clinics around the country, so we took a short flight to San Diego last Sunday and met him. Our intention was simply to get a second opinion on whether Quinn needed surgery, but we were so impressed by him that we decided we'd really like him to do the surgery.

The good news is that while the orthopedic surgeon we have been visiting said we'd need to choose between a surgery that would allow him to reach up to the sky and one that would allow him to rotate him arm outward, Dr. Nath does both. He said Quinn's level of injury is on the not-so-serious side (he ranked it at 40 percent, with 100 percent being the most serious), which makes him a good candidate for surgery and gives him a good chance of a full or near-full recovery. However, that means two surgeries — and two trips to Houston. We're negotiating now with our insurance company to see whether they'll cover it.

So keep Quinn in your thoughts!

An amazing gift

I'm starting to think about (not yet work on...) Quinn's baby album. In getting organized, I came across these photos, which I had not posted before.

In Beijing we visited Quinn's finding place, a subway station, and had the amazing good fortune of finding a security guard who was on duty the day he was found and told us which police sub-station he had been taken to. We went there, and were able to meet the man who picked Quinn up from the subway and brought him to the police station. Thanks to the generous staff and our wonderfully tenacious Holt representative, Leah, we left with a copy of his file - and pictures from the day he was found, at six days old.

The bed Quinn is laying on is still at the police station, and that blue-and-white-checked blanket is still on it! I plopped Quinn right down and got a picture of him on the very same bed where his journey began.

And here he is, Baby Jianrong, on June 14, 2007:

Our new American

The Fourth of July was special for us this year, since it was Quinn's first Independence Day as an American. So we got all decked out and got my brother to take our photo, then we ate sloppy joes, pasta salad and corn on the cob. Doesn't get more American than that!

About that shirt...

Several people have asked why Quinn is wearing a shirt to go swimming. It's a swim shirt! Made of swimsuit material with an spf of 50. We got his at Gymboree but have seen them at Target and other places, too.

Who knew???

To celebrate Quinn's birthday, we took an overnight trip to Phoenix (nice resorts there are CHEAP in the summertime) and went swimming. To our great shock, Quinn knew how to swim! He walked in the water up to his waist and then leaned forward, let his feet float, arched his back and started paddling. We couldn't believe it. We know he received physical therapy for his brachial plexus injury at the orphanage, and our best guess is that they did some water therapy.

Quinn and Ba-Ba head into the pool:


Hey, this is fun!


Here's how it's done:


Quinn kept trying to push Tom's hand away so he could swim on his own, but Tom wouldn't budge:



Whee!

Whew, swimming makes us thirsty!


And happy:




My favorite picture of the day. This is Quinn's cow impression, but here he looks just like a little monkey:

Happy Birthday, Quinn!

Quinn is 2!!!

We didn't feel he was ready for a birthday party just yet, so we had a family dinner with some presents.

Grandma Marj and I collaborated on a cake. She baked her famous angel food cake with chocolate chip frosting and I decorated with some of Quinn's favorite wheeled toys (we had sort of a fireman theme):

I bought some party hats, knowing my goofball family would actually wear them. I was right:

As you can see, Quinn LOVED his special birthday cake hat. Just look at the joy on that face:


Quinn got a swingset from Grandma and Granddad. He LOVES it.