It has been my first week home with both of the kids and it as been a fantastic week. We had Cydney going to preschool full time until last week. We'd paid for it so we thought she might as well enjoy it! We hope to get her into a new one where she only goes 2 mornings a week. Ian loved having her home with us. He likes to follow her around to find the "good" toys. Cydney likes being home so that she can "mother" Ian as much as she wants. They play pretty well together. Today I heard all this giggling coming from the living room and when I got there I found Cydney giving Ian a puppet show! Her Dad has rubbed off on her. :-) Ian likes it if the puppets try and eat him.
Reading my cousin's blog the other day I realized that we are having the same discussions in our house. Since Ian has been home the topic of body parts has come up and we've been trying to address them as clearly as possible. Just like my cousin's little guy (Landon), Cydney thinks Ian has a "peanut" or after being corrected..."pizza??". She seems concerned about it, but I think more because she's jealous that he gets to carry food in his pants. We'll keep those discussion lines open and hopefully get her straightened out before she has kids. :-)
Cydney has also started noticing the differences between her and Ian in other ways. We knew that this is the typical age for kids to start comparing themselves to others. Cydney loves Ian's eyes. She loves that they are so dark and she can see herself in them. I caught her today trying to get her eyes to be the same shape as his. I love that she loves his beautiful features. Of course, being out in public more now I've noticed that adults are not much different than 3 year olds on this subject. We get a lot of stares and comments. The worst one coming this week was "How much did he cost?". I'd read that this could be a question, but I wasn't prepared for it. All I could muster was..."He was worth it." Not that all the stares are dark or comments bad. Most strangers we see seem so very genuinely happy to see our little family. Before we got Ian, it was my biggest fear that the stares or comments would bother me. I've never liked sticking out and adopting a child of another race seemed like a very big way to go about doing just that! It scared me. I was afraid that it would be like wearing a sign that says, "Hello, I can't have my own child so I took someone elses! What's your name?" But I can now honestly say that none of it matters. Having Ian home with us and falling in love with him makes all of that disappear. People can think and say whatever they like...I'm in love and he's my SON!! But now my fear is for him. Right now it is easy. He's oblivious to all of this. In a few years he'll start to notice things just as Cydney is. Just as any new parent I want to have all the right answers at all the right times. Are there enough books out there so that I can memorize these quick witted answers to annoying questions and make him the most well adjusted adopted child in the world? Probably not. But I'll do my best. As long as he grows up knowing that he is loved and loves who he is, I think that's all I can ask. Just as long as he understands he doesn't have food in his pants. 
