Sunday, October 14, 2007
CLUBB FAMILY UPDATE

Although it has been autumn for a few weeks, we are just now getting into the cooler temperatures and it is finally starting to feel like fall here in Western Pennsylvania. Exciting! Ainsley’s and Griffin’s first Pennsylvania fall! This is one of our favorite times of year with the crisp autumn air, the leaves changing colors (not so much the part where they fall to the ground and we have to rake them!), pumpkins, cider, hayrides, toasty fires outside in our fire pit, breaking out the cold weather gear for David’s mountain biking, and more. So far, we have been visiting the apple orchard, taking lots of walks outside, visiting the food markets in the Strip District, and just enjoying a more relaxed month as the seasons transition. (NOTE: For those not in the Pittsburgh area, the Strip District is not a place with strip clubs! Ha! It is a culturally rich food market area – “a historic market district with many ethnic food purveyors, some art studios, antique dealers, unique boutiques and other such businesses setting up shop where trains once delivered produce by the ton.” It’s lots of fun! If you come to visit, we’ll take you there!)

Today, October 14th, marks exactly six months since the Clubb family became a family of four for the first time. Six months ago today, on April 14th, David and 1-year-old Ainsley (along with the “travelin’ grandmas”) made their way from Guangzhou, China to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and were united with Shannon and Griffin (who was just a little over one month old at that time). What an adventure these past six months have been!

We had lunch today at our favorite little Chinese restaurant and talked about how much Ainsley has changed in these six months. It is still so hard to believe she has lived more time of her life in an orphanage in China than in our home. When she first came home six months ago, she was still malnourished from having only been fed rice cereal her first twelve months of life. Her hair was short and coarse. She was still a scared little girl not knowing what all these changes were – spending two weeks with her Daddy and grandmas in a hotel in China, getting on a plane to a whole new culture, language, smells, sights, etc., having a new baby brother around all the time, having a big chocolate Labrador living in her house, and more. Even though she started opening up and trusting David while in China during those two weeks, she was still somewhat hollow when coming home to Pittsburgh. She has since developed such a loving and fun personality – or at least been open and trusting enough to show us that this was her true personality all along. We know that as an adoptive family we have a lifetime of issues to face related to adoption, and it is hard to imagine how much different life will be in yet another six months, but for now we are so thankful for the way in which Ainsley has become a part of our family and the love and joy she has revealed to us.

Ainsley turned 18 months old on October 5th. As we mentioned above, she is just a loving, playful little girl. You can already see the mothering role in her as she cares for her baby doll and for her baby brother, Griffin. She is so eager and ready to help Griffin whenever she sees he has dropped a toy or otherwise needs some assistance. As he gets older and more mobile (and almost as big as her), it is clear that they are going to be the best of friends (or the most fierce of adversaries!). One of Ainsley’s new words for this past month is “hup” (i.e., “help”). This has been a great word for her to learn as it cuts down on some whining. Instead of whining, she can say “hup” and we know she is asking for help with something. She still loves to spin and to dance and you can always catch her doing a bit of a shake whenever you turn some music on. She seems to have some rhythm, swaying or jumping to the music! While Ainsley loves her Mommy, she is still a Daddy’s girl at heart. All day long while Daddy is at work, she repeats “da-da?” over and over and over again while looking at his picture on the fridge, seeing his shoes in the garage, seeing his book on the steps, and more. She loves when Daddy comes home and spoils her with a piece of peanut butter candy before dinnertime (he claims there is some nutritional value)!
 

Griffin turned 7 months old on October 9th! This past month was a huge leap for Griffin as he got 4 teeth (now he has a total of 6), learned how to sit independently, how to get from his belly to sitting, how to crawl faster and faster, how to crawl up the step into our kitchen, and (biggest of all) how to pull himself up to standing which he does on anything and everything! This has made life so much busier for Shannon as she must be on the lookout at all times for where Griffin is going to end up. Life is in constant change as he continues to grow and develop. Just when we think we have a good rhythm to our days, they change completely as Griffin continues to do something new that we weren’t expecting. We’re fully confident he will be walking well before his first birthday. He is very strong. We had to lower his crib mattress, retire the bouncy seat, and are now on the lookout for a new car seat as he is outgrowing his current one. We’ve also been giving Griffin solid foods since the last update. Shannon is actually making homemade baby food and loves doing so. He has tried lots of things so far, but his current favorites appear to be bananas, avocados and butternut squash. These past six months we’ve been saying how laid back and easy-going Griffin is, but now we’re beginning to see that he is pretty assertive and certainly has opinions concerning what he wants and when he wants it! He is a handful and we love him!

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

● Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Our family was featured in the Sunday edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on October 7th. The University of Pittsburgh was hosting an adoption conference and one of David’s contacts in the University’s Office of Public Affairs turned some local reporters onto our adoption story to use in one of their articles about the conference. We were happy to be included and have a good family photo in the paper as well. Check out the story! (NOTE: We are a little concerned about some of the language in the article, which hit on issues that may be subtle to those outside the adoption community, but which are kind of "red flag" issues within that community. And since the overall focus of the article was an adoption conference, we felt it was important to clarify any misunderstandings, including a few quotes that we felt were taken out of context, so we wrote a letter to the reporter and editor expressing our concerns about a couple of issues. Even so, all in all, it was a good article.)