[speaker001:] how many children do you have
[speaker002:] um I have one child a little girl who's eighteen months old
[speaker001:] um okay we've got one he's uh thirteen weeks yesterday
[speaker002:] oh wow congratulations
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] um actually even though our daughter is a year and a half we just got her last July we adopted a little girl from Beijing
[speaker001:] oh okay from Beijing
[speaker002:] uh yeah my wife is also Chinese
[speaker001:] oh okay pardon
[speaker002:] my my wife is Chinese
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and so we um traveled to Beijing and we adopted her and so we're she's just at a playful age right now we just do a lot of things play with her and take her to a park of course can't right now it's too cold to go out too much here it's been really cold
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but um
[speaker001:] it's not not real toasty here either but I imagine it's a good deal colder in Iowa
[speaker002:] yeah uh although we were gone for most of our Christmas and we had a nice time in in California for our vacation visiting family
[speaker001:] yeah  so
[speaker002:] um yeah
[speaker001:] is that where you're from originally
[speaker002:] no that's where my wife's from and we also visited Seattle where I'm from
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] and so we just love mainly we we like to spend time playing games and um just she's sort of at a playful age teaching her new words things like that
[speaker001:] uh yeah right now uh our son's just uh dealing with grunts and squeaks and grinning and crying and
[speaker002:] yeah so yeah your your activities probably consist of staying up at night um
[speaker001:] actually no he sleeps real well at night
[speaker002:] really
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] that's good
[speaker001:] he'll he he generally sleeps through the night uh he'll go down about till well he don't doesn't go down till about ten ten thirty which is a little tough when you got a lot of studying to do but uh he'll uh he won't get up till like six o'clock uh somewhere between six and eight in the morning
[speaker002:] oh that's nice
[speaker001:] he'll be ravenously hungry by then
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] but he's truly a jolly little fellow and sleeps through the night too which is a real blessing uh it it took about the first four weeks before he started that which I don't think it was quite coincidental but he started sleeping through the night about the time we took him out of our bed and put him in a crib in in the next room
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] suddenly he started sleeping through the night almost consistently
[speaker002:] well we found that was important too for sleeping through the night um having um their their own room
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] in fact it was almost trained out of our daughter during vacation where at our parents' house where it's just um one room for all of us our daughter and us um
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] the first few nights back she was terrified to be in the room by herself but now she's
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] sleeping through the night again so
[speaker001:] yeah that's good that's good
[speaker002:] um we
[speaker001:] pardon
[speaker002:] my wife um is we also other things we're trying trying to do um um is potty train our our girl a year and a half that's a little some people think that's a little bit early but um she was the foster parents our friends in China who had taken care of her before we could get her um
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] have a Chinese generally potty train their children a little bit earlier earlier and um
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so um we're having spend some time with that also
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but and
[speaker001:] that's got to be a a lot of fun
[speaker002:] yeah well I'd she doesn't enjoy it that much but um she's learning slowly but surely
[speaker001:] yeah yeah uh uh it's you know
[speaker002:] we have a little book it talks about giving rewards and so it's a pleasant experience and things like that
[speaker001:] yeah yeah well they they the children are gonna to eventually training wind up training themselves but um they can be trained into it pretty early too so I remember some of the strange potty training experiences when I we were growing up amongst brothers and sisters so
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and we're almost kind of not looking forward to that
[speaker002:] yeah but there's a lot of we we're just having lots of fun with with our little girl right now um she has lots of toys got little
[speaker001:] anyway yeah
[speaker002:] she especially likes the little telephone and the little tyke bike that she has
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] um and then reading she likes us to to go through the books you know and she could say a few word you know she could learning to say the names of you know a lot of simple animals and um and the you know the sounds that they make
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] like duck says quack
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and doggy says ruff things like that so that's about her her stage right now and she's running around she she started
[speaker001:] yeah that's good
[speaker002:] when we first adopted her we she she wasn't walking yet but she was soon walking within a couple weeks after that and now she's running all
[speaker001:] yeah