20 months later

It's been 20 months since we adopted, and I feel that an update is long overdue. The boys are doing FABULOUSLY. John is currently in 9th grade at Lima Christian School, and he is maintaining a A/B average! John competes (and medals) all over the country in taekwondo, and he'll be testing for his black belt in April. Yes, that is a year faster than normal, but he is a phenomenal athlete and he trains at the taekwondo academy 12-15 hours a week. He also plays basketball, runs cross-country and rocks on the electric guitar and drums. Ben is in 2nd grade at Lima Christian, and he also takes drums and taekwondo. Ben had a tough first year because of his severe asthma and dental problems, but he is blossoming now. What a charmer!! Both boys have doubled in size and weight, and they are fluent in English. John is, in fact, writing a book about his experiences as an older adopted child. We will post it for sale on Amazon when it is complete. Here is a teaser:

My name is John, but my Chinese name is (JiangFengHong). When my mom adopted me, 20 months ago, I was almost 14 years old. I think I was pretty lucky because in China they have a rule that if a kid doesn’t get adopted before age 14, then the kid can’t be adopted anymore. When I found out someone was going to adopt me, I was mad because I have so many friends. I was worried about if I will have friends in America. Will my new family like me? What if they don’t like me? Will American people keep talking about how I was an adopted kid. I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t remember being born. I can’t remember being a baby. But there are some things I know.  I know I was born in Beijing. I don’t know who my birth parents are, and I don’t know why they couldn’t raise me. But I think they can’t raise me because they are very poor, or they don’t want me live with them, or they are some crazy people. Anyway, I don’t blame them because they can’t raise me. I just want to say even though they couldn’t raise me, I still love them.