Introducing...

Darwin James Yao Killin!!

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We finally decided on a name! We'd actually been calling him Darwin ("beloved friend") throughout China, but didn't want to make the announcement on the blog until our adoption announcement cards were mailed.

Where did "Darwin" come from? Well, we had originally chosen it for Sebastian, but several people in our families protested, so we grudgingly abandoned it in favor of a more traditional name. However, when I first saw Yao Yu's picture, I thought, "hey, that's Darwin!". Sebastian has known his brother as Darwin ever since, and for that reason alone, we felt that we couldn't change it after meeting Darwin in China. Sebastian would have been SO confused! But, to be fair to Darwin, we wanted to also give him a more traditional name in "James", which is from my father's side of the family, and a Chinese name. This way, he can choose, when he is ready, to go by an unusual English name, his Chinese name, a common English name, or his first two initials, DJ, among other options.

I've been AWOL from my blog for awhile now due to the utter lack of sleep, which has been compounded by the fact that we have all been sick since we returned from China. Driving eight hours to Denver for Thanksgiving did not help the state of our health, unfortunately. Funnily enough, Darwin remains the healthiest of everyone!

We still had a great time seeing family that we hadn't seen in several years (shame on us!), and experienced our first snow of the season (and Darwin's first snow ever).

At home things are going as well as can be expected. Fighting over toys is almost constant, but it is getting better, bit by bit. It still seems like this transition is hardest on the three of us, and that Darwin is adjusting beautifully! He is even sleeping well now, with only infrequent waking during the night, and mostly he'll go back to sleep by himself. We still feel like there is a stranger in the house, most of the time. We are definitely bonding, but it is progressing much more slowly than I had expected. For example, I automatically hug and kiss Sebastian many times throughout the day, telling him I love him, but with Darwin, I often forget. It feels awkward and strange. If I catch myself, I force myself to hug and kiss him, but it doesn't at all come naturally. He is one of the cutest kids alive (how did I end up with two of those?!), but even when he does something unbelievably adorable, I find myself thinking objectively, "wow, that was really, really freakin' cute!" but it doesn't affect me emotionally at all. I don't feel an irresistible impulse to hug and kiss him on the spot, like I would with Sebastian, or even with my pets. I don't feel anything. I know it will come eventually, I just hope it doesn't affect Darwin emotionally before then. I am not good at faking anything, and since kids are particularly astute at detecting when adults are faking, I feel even more uncomfortable when I am forcing myself to express feelings I do not have.

So that's where we are, and here are a few photos:

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