Self Image

It has been interesting to watch Little Guy use his sign language. He now talks to himself in sign. He was walking around the apartment yesterday signing "Where? Where? Shoes where?".
He is very close to Princess. They always are together. Yesterday he brought some nail polish to me. He wanted to paint his nails. I signed, "No, you are a boy. Not for boys."

Off to school, spider tie, wrist band, bug shirt, baseball hat. 100% boy.

He was bummed but he went on to do something else. A few hours later, he is very vocal and upset with princess. When he thinks someone does something wrong he puts on a face like his foster mom raises his hand in the air and starts shaking it like he is scolding. He holds out Princess's hand which is painted with purple nail polish.
He signs "Boy, no." I signed "Ok, girl ok." He just looked stunned. How could his sister not be a boy! In his mind they are just the same.
On the flip side Princess, the "maybe evil twin",

Princess, the artist

decided that she should give her brother a make over with her markers. As retaliation for not giving him the name she wanted, Cobalt (also the only name she refers to him by) she took that cobalt marker and made him a zebra.

Zebra

We started teaching this week. The reaction to our adoption by our students has been mixed. It varies from, "thats great", "you are so kind" to "YOU HAVE 3 KIDS NOW! YOU KNOW, I CAN ONLY HAVE ONE." to just the flat out confused, "How do you have a chinese child if your husband is white?"
I teach in the continuing ed. deptartment, so most of my students are actually university facilty and staff. I only teach actual university students once a week.
Some of my students are taking my class for the 4th (and final) time, so they have watched the adoption unfold. Their reactions to the adoption are most interesting. They ask many more questions. With one class, I was rather open and told them that we were having a challenge. I explained in my opinion that the difficulties we were having were due to the institutional situation that he came from. I carefully said that I have volunteered in Shenyang so I knew that all orphanages were different, but that I felt our son had been in a really bad place. And I gave some examples of things that we found a little shocking and were having trouble getting him to adjusting to life with a family. And I was very careful about how I said everything. I told them about the air gun pellet in his ear. The reaction was like I had said "Your mama....!" on the playground in an inner city school in Atlanta. Oh, no that can't be so. The self image of the chinese is very, very, proud. So when I said that the problems were from the care of the orphanage that was an insult to them. They firmly said, "No, those problems are because he's deaf."

Harbin, China