Dicsipline

Last night we had our first lesson in how to behave. Jia was in Deb's room, just basically tearing everything up. Roy kept telling her no in Chinese, but she was ignoring everything he said and every effort to pull her away from the destruction she was causing.

That's when he walked her into our room (crying and throwing a fit) and closed the connecting door to Deb's room. He made it clear she wasn't going to go back in and that he wasn't happy with her behavior. She cried and jumped up and down and was saying something. I went over and put my arms around her, then picked her up and held her as she cried. We waited for about a minute, then Roy gestured and asked if she wanted to go back into Deb's room (Deb's room had cartoons and Kenzie - and Jia didn't want to be away from either). Jia nodded her head. Then Roy and I demonstrated what we did not want her to do. She nodded again, saying "Wo bu dong le" (I think that was what she was saying).

We opened the door and let her in and the difference was night and day.

Then we got ready to go to eat. Once we were at the elevators, she began acting up again - really bad this time. We told her no and made gestures to try to get our point across, but she was once again ignoring us. Roy picked her up and we took her back to the room and I went with him, Again crying, she said the same thing again, which I am interpreting as "I won't be bad." When we left the room again, she was different... better behaved, holding my hand and not screaming or jumping or pushing every button in sight on the elevator.

At the restaurant, she was well behaved, with only a couple of testing phases. But overall, she was being good. She was giving me hugs and a kiss, and when one of the waitresses was trying to get her to come over to her, Jia shook her head no. Last night was progress.

At the end of the evening, just before we went to bed, I showed her four of the Youtube videos I had on. One being the adoption video of Kenzie. She sat still on my lap and was mesmerized by it all... and she recognized her jie jie as a baby, plus baba and mama. At the end she thanked me for letting her see it. It was very touching.

We had noticed that she didn't act up around the orphanage people - in fact, she was quite subdued. But we have to stop the wildness now or she'll not understand by the time we get back home why we are punishing her. Today is more sightseeing and we will have to work on her behavior consistently. But she really has it in her to behave and you can tell she wants to be part of the family.

I was proud of Roy, because he's never been the disciplinarian with Kenzie. But this time, he came through like the Baba I knew he could be. He wasn't mean, just firm. And I know she'll feel more secure if we set limits and don't allow her to run wild with her behavior.

And we are so proud of her - she understands very well what we are doing and that we love her. We both think she's an amazing child.

Everyone is right - I'll have my hands full and then some - esepcially when Roy goes back to work.