26 September 2006

Kids Museum & Viet Bistro

Today, Julia and I made it to the Children's Museum and it was the best!

No question that the carousel is the favorite. She rode the tiger and then a horse; however, we did have some trouble getting off. Transitions continue to be difficult. This one particularly so, even when she found something else to do. Even while she was in the hall of mirrors the music of the carousel would send her back to moans and groans.
Finally, I scooped her up, put her under my arm, and moved her to another floor. Then, she was fine.

We had lunch at the museum. The only food that I thought that Julia would eat was veggies. I ordered a piece of pizza for myself. I didn' t think that Julia would eat the pizza because she didn't eat pizza last week but today, Julia Bye-Bye likes pizza. She did eat most of her veggies but also a good portion of my slice. That girl! She has tasted and preferred a number of things, including my ice cream, a number of times now. I am not sure whether she just wants what I have, or that she is willing to taste things that I prefer.

After lunch, we visited the dinosaurs and Julia practiced digging for ancient bones. While she was digging, a Chinese mother and son came into the digging pit. We started talking. She has been in the US for 6 years and has 3 kids. She was able to speak to Julia, and Julia seemed to understand some of what she said. It looked like Julia felt very good about seeing an Asian face and hearing Manderin. The woman and I traded names and phone numbers. We will try to get together for a playdate.

It is humbling to have another adult understand my daughter when I cannot understand her. It is humbling to have another woman say that Julia might still have a bit of fear of us because we look so different from what she is used to.

Tonight, we took Julia out to eat at the Viet Bistro. It is a quiet and quick restaurant, and it was both tonight. Its the first time we've been out to eat since we've been home and we had no idea if she would sit for the whole meal.

Even just coming into the restaurant put Julia in a good mood. She definitely liked or recognized the smells when we walked in, and she loved the food -- soft springs rolls, rice noodles with tofu, and chicken and broccoli. She inhaled it all. The food was very flavorful tonight and we enjoyed it just a bit less than she did. Julia has been very, very good about eating almost whatever I put in front of her. I've tried to give her some of what she might like but I know I am not spicing things in a real Chinese way. I will try to do some more authentic cooking, and we will take her out now and again.

Finally for today, there is nothing like walking to the car and having your little girl make sure she is holding one of mom's hands and one of dad's hands. Posted by Picasa

25 September 2006

Movies, School, and Order

Here is Cheshire and Julia laying in bed together in Hong Kong just a little more than 2 weeks ago. I do miss Chesh, and Julia misses her as well.

Yesterday, David's birthday, we went to Marcia's for a late brunch and then to the movies. Julia's first visit to another home. She was pretty good -- playing outside on the swing set, and inside on the electric piano. She ate waffles and fruit and loved Marcia's tapioca pudding. Julia almost sat through the entire movie -- we took a short walk about 2/3 of the way through. She watched pretty intensely.

Julia and I visited her school today, and we will visit again on Wednesday and Thursday. Today, we visited at lunch time and I packed lunch for Julia to eat there. We ate at a table away from the kids eating but Julia watched and said hello to lots of people. Then we went to a play area in a great indoor space. Julia had fun playing in the playhouse with kitchen and fake food things. We also visited the playground and Julia sampled all the swings and the climbing equipment.

The administrator of the school may set up some developmental tests to figure out what Julia needs at school. She is not sure whether Julia can be tested without English. I expect that if she starts school soon, I will be in the classroom with her until she learns some social skills and feels comfortable.

After the school visit, we went to the Mall to return pants to Children's Place. I expected that this would be a bit of a challenge but I wanted to get credit for the pants that Julia will never wear. We had to walk through Von Maur and Julia had a number of mini-meltdowns when I wouldn't let her touch things she shouldn't, whining and going to the floor, and me waiting until she was ready to get up and move on. The store, and mall in general, were pretty empty -- thank goodness -- and a very nice sales lady kept me company, talked to Julia, and told me about a friend of hers who had adopted 3 kids. We spoke while Julia calmed down and the woman asked how I was holding up and I had to answer that I was really okay about everything. And I am. We did get through von Maur and into the kids store. There Julia found these groovey girl-like dolls. I thought she wanted one and I would have been willing to buy one for her, but she only wanted to put them in order. She sorted the four different dolls into separate piles and put the sorted piles on the display.

Then we went to Marsh where she got to ride in her favorite cart with a car on the front while I shopped for dinner supplies.

All this and I was able to make dinner, and Julia was pretty pleasant during our after dinner walk and play in the church playground. I think we will be somewhat quieter tomorrow, and let Julia digest what we did today. Posted by Picasa

24 September 2006

Another very cool hair do

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23 Sept -- 2 weeks home!

Gosh, I noticed that the last two postings were rather down. Julia has been surviving in an institution for 5 and a half years, and although the behaviors she used to thrive in the orphanage do not work particularly well at home, I respect her strength, her spirit, her intelligence, and her soul. We are getting to know each other and very slowly learning to be a family.

Between those two rather down posts were two pretty good days – Thursday especially was very sweet because we moved at Julia’s pace. We played the piano twice and Julia was very interested in using her single finger to play twinkle and are you sleeping. We played with the trains and worked on a very simple puzzle. We also snuggled on the couch for a long time. When we left the house it was already the middle of the afternoon. We went to the little playground at the corner church and Julia went from one swing to the other as I pushed her higher and higher. She now says “higher!”

Today, we had a fine morning. Julia and I cuddled in bed. She is very shyly exploring my body in the morning. She rubs my arms and back and touches my breasts every so often. It is the kind of activity that Cheshire did as an infant. I hope that I am becoming Julia’s mother.

Julia and I had breakfast so that David could sleep in a little. Then we played with play dough. She is getting better about making impressions, using the cookie cutters, and taking the cut shapes away from the rolled out dough. I’m still rolling.

After lunch, we went to an arts festival in Carmel (Indiana) and saw Amber and Chris and the twins from our travel group. We spoke very briefly – the dancers and later the rain kept us from much conversation but it is good to see folks from our group. We also met an actor who stared in one of David's plays about a year and a half ago, AND he had a Chinese daughter as well! His daughter, Anna, has been home almost a year now.



We were in Carmel to see a very nice Chinese dance troupe perform. The dancers are all local women and they did a wonderful job. Lovely costumes and very interesting music and choreography. The only problem was that a storm was blowing up, and it sprinkled, drizzled, and then rained. We all wound up under the performance tent until the storm threatened to blow the tent away and the electricity went out. Then we ducked into a cafe for soup and hot cocoa before heading home.

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Of course, no festival is complete without a balloon animal made by a clown. And so, here is Julia with her first balloon animal -- a bunny -- personally made just for her. It took at least 45 minutes before she popped the balloon.

We visited the library where Julia found another five year old to be too noisy with. Maybe she is on target for a five year old???!

At home, we planned to watch a movie together and then have left overs for dinner. Julia and I were waiting for Daddy to bring home a movie. Julia has started to use a Barbie water bottle and she was laying across my legs like a baby drinking the bottle as if it was a baby bottle. Okay, so this is one of the moments you read about in adoption books when the child actually is asking the parent to baby them. Pretty cool, I thought. We’ve reached some new high. BUT after a little singing and cuddling, Julia took a big sip of the water, pulled out the bottle and squirted me in the face. A move that would be great for the movie, but really was the pits in person. I told her no and she laughed at me. She then started hitting and pinching me and I again told her no and put her on the floor. She took another sip of water and stood up and went over to my lap top and squirted that. David was home by this time and after we cleaned up my machine and me, and told Julia not to do those things we felt rather at a loss for how to change this behavior. This was all unacceptable and she wasn’t taking our scolding or our “time in” very seriously. David took out the many, many hair clips from Julia’s hair and told her that he was angry. She freaked out because of losing the hair clips and I had an idea. I took all the hair clips and told her to sit in front of me, to be quiet, to stroke nicely my face, etc. Each time she did what I said (and demonstrated), she got one clip put back in her hair. We backslided a few times and she lost the clips again, but by the time dinner was ready, Julia had all her clips in her hair, and was feeling pretty good about herself. And I was feeling like I was in the Miracle Worker. I have been looking for a consequence that she would respond to when she is misbehaving or testing. For now, hairclips are pretty precious to her, and perfect for the short run to work with.

22 September 2006

Oh, a tough day

Very tough day today. Cheshire left for Cambridge and the beginning of her very exciting year abroad. We neither followed our routine nor did we provide a good substitute for Julia Bye-Bye. And so, we had meltdowns -- one before it was time to go to the airport and another in the car as we were heading home. I am sure that Julia sensed that great changes were going on today. Especially because this child has no language with us and must depend on what she sees and perceives, and maybe what she felt was similar to what she experienced when she left the orphanage -- well, it made for a tough day.

We had Indian take out for dinner and Julia loved the spinach and rice. Then we watched a very silly movie (RV) and it was just after nine when we put Julia Bye-Bye to bed. She fell asleep quickly and just before she dropped off to sleep, she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

20 September 2006

Last ice pop of summer

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19-20 Sept

Tuesday was hard for Julia. We had her first doctor’s appointment. We were kept waiting too long for Julia and the appointment ended with her receiving 4 injections to start her catching up on her vaccinations. She also was testing limits incredibly – hitting the dog, throwing grass into the pond, daring to turn on the stove – things that I could not let go. When I took her up to take a bath and wash her hair, she threw a fit when I took the little pigtails out of her hair. Julia hasn’t had a bad melt down for a few days and this was a big one.

After awhile she settled down and I put her to bed. She went sleep easily probably because she was totally exhausted by that time. And I wondered if I was really up to dealing with this little dear one.

Wednesday morning, Julia woke up feeling warm to the touch. I gave her some medicine and she wanted to curl up on my bedroom floor. I picked her up and we sat in my comfy chair with the quilt over both of us. We stayed that way for more than an hour. Then we had breakfast, watched tv and snuggled more. We had lunch and went shopping at Once upon a Child. We found all sorts of good stuff there including a Elmo cell phone that she loves.

Cheshire and I went shopping after dinner and David and Julia played outside and played on the piano and had a hard time getting to sleep.

But it was a better day.

I am learning, slowly, but learning.

19 September 2006

Sunday Fun

We picked up ShaDiamon on Sunday afternoon and went to the JCC pool for some swimming. It was pretty cool but the water felt warm and as long as we were moving, we enjoyed it. I haven't seen ShaDiamon for a month and she looked so grown up to me. She was very sweet to Julia and willing to share her time with me.





After swimming we went to Holiday Park and found a great playground with lots of stuff to climb and great slides. Julia show that she was much more agile and stronger than she has shown us up to this point. She climbed and pulled herself up to reach platforms she wanted to get to.







I think that Julia had a great time with ShaDiamon and I hope that they can become friends. Posted by Picasa

Day 10

September 18, 2006

Day 10. Julia is learning to take comfort from us. She will go to David or I (or Cheshire when she is home) when she is scared or hurt. She complains loudly (whining to be more specific) when she has minor boo-boos, but we make a big fuss and kiss the hurt place.

Julia is not learning lots of new words yet. She works on counting, and also on three shapes – triangle, circle, and square. She still tries communicating in Chinese and chatters at us all the time. She sings in Chinese. She is picking up a few of the words of Oh Susannah which I have been singing to her since we’ve met, as well as the words to a few of the Chinese songs from our Chinese kids CDs.

Her imagination is incredible and much of it concerns music. Long legos are the keys of a piano, a lego stack becomes a flute or something blown into straight on. We have a game of putting her stacking cups in a tower and making a piano on each side and playing them together and singing nya-nya-nya. She is also very interested in plucking the guitar and David’s bass. The sound of the bass was astounding to her. Music at its most basic is organized sound. It makes perfect sense to me that a child without language or other means of communication would gravitate to music. And of course, we will encourage this interest.

On another hand, we went to the JCC the other day, and into one of the basketball courts. Julia carefully stood on the foul line and tried to make a basket. Where she saw any of these things, we will never know, but she may have converted from Jiangxian to Hoosier with that move.

On Saturday, we went to the Indy Zoo with Marcia and Matthew. We went again today, Monday, in the rain. She loved the dolphin show each time – I guess jumping fish are cool no matter where you come from. She loved the polar bear today and didn’t want to leave. She says the English word for bear but I am pretty sure she doesn’t know the Chinese, so it is not a translation but a new animal to her. Horse is still Ma; and Monkey is something I cannot write or pronounce.

Cheshire was in Florida for the weekend and this morning Julia was very happy to see her. Julia called her Jei Jei and a funny pronunciation of Cheshire and hugged her many times.

Last night, Julia looked at some of her books with more patience and interest than she has shown before. The books were all pop up books and the three dimensional pictures thrilled her. Still, she was looking at books.

17 September 2006

Saturday at the zoo

Julia has been home one week today -- tonight really -- an so we went to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Marcia and Matthew joined us and Julia had a wonderful time.

Julia and her wonderful godmother Julia enjoying the horses.
Julia and Baba (Daddy) ride the horses -- sea horses that is! Julia loved the carosel in Nanchang and I have the feeling this will be a regular stop during our zoo visits.
Julia and Daddy looks at the elephants. Julia was very excited about seeing the animals. She recognized many of them -- lions, monkeys, tigers, horses, pigs, goats, and the elephants.

And she connected the words cards we have for her. These are flashcards that have pictures on one side and words in Chinese and English on the other side. I brought along the animal cards to the zoo, and she was very excited about connecting the cards with the animals. She knows the Chinese names of many animals. Posted by Picasa

This week is pictures -- Our treasures from China

These pictures were taking last Monday, September 11.




After unpacking, we put all our China loot on the dining room table. I am not sure how all of this stuff fit in our bags but we came home with the same 4 bags that we left with -- oh, and three carry on boxes of china.
Julia loves the lego and playschool people. They climg lego towers, ride lego cars and trucks, and talk to eachother in Chinese.
The girls working together. Julia wants to be where ever Cheshire is, and is happy to be doing her work beside Cheshire. Posted by Picasa

14 September 2006

14 September -- Record speed!

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Yesterday was a big day for us. Julia is changing at record speed and I feel like we are just along for the ride. First, there are things that are the same. She is still wearing the 5 dresses that we had for her in China. We have two more dresses in her closet that I offer her but she goes for what she’s worn before. It dawned on me today that she is only choosing from what she is sure she can wear. She has been like this with toys. Up until today, she only played with the purple, red and blue play dough leaving another 6 colors alone. Maybe more was too much regarding both clothes and play dough, or maybe she did not necessarily think they were hers to have. Today she showed me the other playdough colors and "asked" if she could use them. She was very happy to find out that they were all for her and is very busy making a ginger-dough community. A rainbow coalition? My job is to roll out the colors.

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Julia continues to love and lavish affection on her stuffed toys and she has added her groovy girl doll to her affections. The doll was on her reachable shelf but she did not play with it until I gave it to her. She immediately took off the clothes and put them on again. I also opened the other clothes set we have for the doll and she loved the top, but discarded the pants for her doll. I had been wondering about dolls because she cannot deal with the Bitty Baby I carried to China. The moving eyes freak Julia out. So Groovy Girl was rule and Bitty will go in the closet for a few months. (Way to go, Robin and Alyson!).

Julia still sports innovative hair styles. Yesterday and today, she preferred six tiny pigtails on top of her head. I never saw anything in China like it so I don’t believe she is coping something. We’ll see if her taste changes when she gets to school.

Yesterday, we went to the playground of the JCC (Jewish Community Center) and she was in the playground when the pre-school and kindergarten had their outdoor time. She didn’t really play with the kids but she made sure that anyone doing the same activity that she was doing had the necessary tools – she found shovels for others playing in the sand and found a second truck for a little boy who wanted to play with the one she was playing with. Her interests – water and sand play, riding a trike, and filling and dumping a truck – are closer to the activities that the kindergartners are doing than to the pre-school kids. This was good for me to see, as I wasn’t sure whether to ask her school to place her in pre-school.

We also shopped in a supermarket and used a cart that had a little car on the front. No need for an amusement park when the supermarket provides such rides. She was in heaven – steering, waving to strangers, and chattering to me.

Julia is kissing! She practiced the night before last when she laid awake in our bed. She was making a kissing sound and screwing up her mouth in all sorts of ways. I tried not to laugh since we were both supposed to be sleeping. Just before she went to sleep, she have me a quick kiss on the arm. It was almost a sneaked kiss and she seemed embarrassed by it.

Yesterday morning, when she was sitting with Cheshire and I, Julia went to shake hands with Cheshire (she did this a lot in China, less at home), they shook and then Julia kissed Cheshire’s hand. Cheshire was, of course, delighted and made a big deal of it. Julia seemed very proud of what she had done. She then did the same to me. Then after dinner last night, Julia went around the table and kissed each of us (including David this time) on the cheek and hugged us.

After we spent so much time out of the house yesterday, Julia was exhausted, but we tried with all our might to keep her up until a good bed time. She had a bath at around 7 and then agreed to wear underpants and a pj top. She was cranky because she was so tired and got close to a tantrum. Then, she led me into her bedroom and we pulled down her covers and she climbed into bed. We looked at a few books and then she put the blanket over her head (her falling asleep position) and went to sleep. She stayed in her bed until about 3 am when she climbed out of bed herself and came into our room and climbed into our bed. It was like she had been doing this all her life.

12 September -- 3rd day home

Julia Bye-Bye and I are sitting on the floor in the living room listening to a Chinese CD of kids music and playing with duplo and playmobil people. Julia is playing very quietly and very seriously. She handles the little people, putting the hot dog cart together and giving the vendor the umbrella and a pitcher to hold. Every so often she joins in with the music for a few words. When something doesn’t fit correctly, she gives it to me to figure out.

She spent a good part of the morning playing with play dough, and now this afternoon with her duplo. We also drew triangles, circles, and squares together. She is interested in doing all of these things although it’s pretty clear that she has not done these things before .

Day 3 and we are not quite over jet lag. Our nights are a bit rocky. I am still exhausted because I haven’t had a full night’s sleep. David is back to work today lacking the same night’s sleep. Julia slept through the night in China but hasn’t managed it here yet. Last night was the worst; she was up from 2 to almost 5.

Marcia stopped over this morning to drop off something and came in for a few minutes. Julia came to greet her but seemed to close up when she saw it was not David, Cheshire, or I. I had been wondering whether it really matter that we were keeping ourselves cloistered, but her reaction to Marcia who Julia met when we came home. We will try next week for some visits but not before then.

Julia is very interested to watch us do household things. She watches me in the kitchen and tries to help at times. Yesterday evening, I brought a bowl of snap beans onto the floor so I could take the ends off while Julia played with legos. However, Julia started taking the beans out of the bowl and snapped off the ends of the beans and broke them in half for me.

Even though it was raining most of the day, Julia and I, and Julia and Cheshire walked from our house to 46th street and back again three times. She was very interested in the houses and cars. It kept her head turning. Yesterday, David put Julia’s car seat in the car and Julia was interested in sitting in it; however, she was not interested in going anywhere.

12 September 2006

And the amazing Schanker girls!


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And more!



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More of us!



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Best group ever!



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David and his new girl in Guangzhou



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11 September 2006

Day 1 at home

Julia had a great first day at home -- melted down only three times and only once was intense and that was at bed time. Transitions between activities were the trigger point each time. We kept her busy today and she kept us busy. I swear that every so often she looked to us to see if we were going to be moving, traveling, or relocating her. She offered a few hugs. Cried when David went to do food shopping and later when he went to fill her bike tires with air. She was overjoyed when he came back.

I am a little concerned about food. She does not communicate that she is hungry – and she is capable of telling us of her needs, bathroom needs for example. I offered her food 5 times during the day. I really needs to do some work and research about what to feed her. Today, she ate two hard boiled eggs, a cup of noodles, popcorn, a few corn chips, an apple, two bananas, tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, egg noodles. She drank apple juice and milk. She rejected oatmeal and chicken.

Julia is carrying around her stuffed dog (thank you, Debbie and the Chicago pro se crew!), and knows the difference between her stuffed toys – bear, dog, and dog. And she played quietly with duplo (thank you, Marcia and Matthew) which feels pretty amazing because she has not done much quietly. Julia and I went outside and pulled weeds for about an hour. She was very interested in weeding – okay, pulling plants out of the ground, but I have lots of weeds right now – and digging.

Julia is still trying valiantly to get us to understand her. We were able to connect the Chinese and English for dog, apple, airplane, and go. She continues to make believe – giving me a ball and telling me to take a taste of the "apple," using duplo pieces put together in an "L" shape to give us and her stuffed dog "shots" and also used the same duplo shape as a gun, I think. When she gave the dog shots, she had me hold the dog, pet it, put a finger on the shot place, and also pat its back and say "don’t cry" in Chinese.

She met our Latkah and Latkah’s favorite person, Jeannette, when Jet brought our last family member home. Julia needs to learn how to be gentle with the real dog. She was slightly joyfully manic which I think is her reaction to fearful new things. It was just a pale reflection of her gotcha day reaction, but I see similarities. Julia was friendly to Jeannette, sharing her toy dog and being charming.

Now to bed for me.

Pictures, pictures, pictures – I will post them soon.

10 September 2006

Indianapolis -- Home, Sweet, Home

It is about 3:30 am, but my internal clock, and my predilection for coming alive for a little while during the night, fight against more sleep.

Julia woke up about an hour ago after getting to sleep about 9 last night. I gave her some benydryl and sang to her for an hour. She is now asleep and I hope she stays in bed until first light. We need to get her on Indy time asap. I feel her yearning for some regularity in her life.

I realized on the plane ride that did not end ( 15 hours? 75? 132?) that since she had been with us (13 days give or take the time lost and/or gained at the international date line), Julia Bye has not been in just one place (even a hotel room) for a straight 15 hours. How tough is that on her? On anyone?

On the plane, she played with her bear and two of those little pillow cases for over an hour. Dressing and wrapping the bear, singing to him, telling him not to cry and sharing him with me.
Her room is perfect -- just enough stuff, not too much to overwhelm. Everyone who gave Julia a stuffed animal is wonderful! You have never, ever seen a little girl so happy, as Julia was when she went into her room and found her stuffed dog, cat, polar bear, bunny, And the black dog from the Mann girls! And the two dresses hanging in the closet got a hug when she saw them.

Marcia met us at the airport – hours early. We are so grateful that she could pick us up, could drop what she was doing and come to get us early, and that we could get an earlier flight from Newark. The woman at the Continental counter waived the change of flight fee because we were adopting. How nice is that! How many times during this journey have we been blessed with generosity from those we love and from strangers. At times, I do feel like we have sun shine beaming directly down on us.

Current questions which are keeping my eyes open:

Why didn’t I really believe that Julia would regress this much? And why didn’t I baby proof our house for a 2 year old? Two is probably not being fair to her – 3 maybe. But with the brains, guile, wisdom, and incredible strength and stubbornness of a full 5.5 year old.

Is she normal? Bright? Clever? Is she really speaking Chinese? These are normal mom questions. Yes, I am worried some, and even feel a bit resentful of the orphanage director who could have given us more on Julia. But deep down, I know all is fine.

Should I find a stroller? And thank you to, M3, whose link to stroller rating made my night just now! Yes, there are strollers what carry more than 40 pounds!

How many more tantrums? I want to thank each person on the China-Newark leg of our trip for not making snide comments out loud or wiggling fingers as they passed our seats during Julia’s 45 minute melt down before she went to sleep for 2 hours. Of course, there was that little old Chinese man who stood and watch her wail and flail for a good 10 minutes. I have no idea what he was thinking. I’d also like to thank the baby who cried at least as long, if not longer, than Julia. And I did not mind one bit.

Will she hate us? Oh, the look in that kid’s eyes when she is angry at me. It is very pure. If looks could kill, I’d be charcoal! I take comfort in her smiles and hugs, but when this kid is angry . . . remember that story of Jesus in the temple with the money changers? I don’t know why I just thought of that, but the comparison is apt. Righteous anger – Julia has lots right now.

What am I going to do with her tomorrow, and then next day, and the next, and the . . .

Okay, I’m going back to bed. I’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.

Just one more thing -- People have said we are special, very good, generous, etc., for adopting an older child. I have to admit that these last two weeks, I've looked at the babies in our group with envy. Babies cry and fret and spit up and have messy diapers and get teeth and don't sleep, but they are small, and prone to love pretty quickly. I could go for that, but from the beginning we felt sure that an older kid was for us, and although it has made the China journey harder, and although I have no idea what comes next, I do not doubt the wisdom of our decision. There are no words to describe how right it was.

08 September 2006

Hong Kong -- Last travel post!

We are going home!!! In less than 12 hours, we will be boarding our Continental jet. It is a long ride and considering our spicy dragon's behavior the last few days, the ride home will be a challenge. Please, say prayers, chant, burn insense, and offer sacrifices to the travel gods that the other passengers will not kill us before we land at Newark.

Barb, Steve, Chris, Squeaker -- we'll give you a call when we land in Newark.

So on the up side today -- We took a bus tour of Hong Kong and the difference between mainland China and HK is incredible. Only S. Calif. culture can compete with the flashy wealth and the stark poverty that we see here. But like S.C., H.K. is a beautiful place. A city built on lush hills and a reclaimed bay. The people too are a different sort -- New Yorkers or Parisians. Very interesting and it would be great fun to visit with lots of time and money and a personal guide to take us about.

More up stuff -- Julia said I love you to me in Chinese -- I don't think she really understands but I've said it so many times to her that she may be just coping. That's okay. I'll take that for now. She gives hugs as well (no kisses yet). She sang another new song today and is trying to copy my Ol' Susanna.

Her behavior continues to deteriorate and I am just waiting to get her home. She went through a few days of refusing to walk, and in H.K. without a stroller, it is tough. Today, she did more walking and we were extremely happy. She is still laying on the ground when she is angry -- she had laid all over China and Hong Kong, and nice Chinese ladies have clucked at her. She is, however, eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom well and with great regularity.

I will post when we get home and try to get more pictures up. Thanks to everyone who has written or thought of us during this journey. All of it really helps keep us connected.

07 September 2006

Hong Kong -- 7 Sept -- Beware Spicy Dragon!

I am in an internet cafe and not sitting cosy with my laptop, but I am too cheap to pay for the hotel internet. I have a theory that the more expensive the hotel the more they charge for stuff like internet service. Shouldn't it be free when the room are primuim rate? And most everything in Hong Kong is primium.

Yesterday, we cleaned up our stuff in Guangzhou -- last minute shopping, packing, red couch pictures, and checking under beds to make sure nothing was left in the room. We left home with loose bags; now they are stuffed with China chochkas!

Our red couch pictures and our group pictures were chaotic and I probably didn't get everyone. But here we are -- a very happy and glorious group that I am missing already!










In the afternoon, we did the last American part of the adoption. Our guide and agency representative, Catherine (a wonderful person doing our agency proud), did the leg work of getting all our papers to the American counsulet so all that was left for us to do was to prove we were us, pick up Julia's Chinese passport with an American visa, and take an oath that all the forms we filled out were true to the best of our knowledge. The American official in charge was an officious little man who spoke about the difference between the IR-3 and IR-4 to a room full of parents jiggling cranky babies and a few wild children like ours running about the place. If you didn't know the difference before his talk, his speech was not enlightening. He did not seem to be aware of his surroundings and continued talking amidst screams, tears, etc. I was rather embarassed for him. I've seen our judges swear in new immigrants and they do it with such graciousness and pride. I'd like to see the same tone set for the adoption oath. Handing out little American flags would help and a sincere welcome to the newest Americans would be a nice touch.

When we finished with the government process, we bade a very quick good bye to our group of Jiangxi families, who we are alreadying missing, and boarded a bus for the train to Hong Kong. We reached our hotel room at about 10 last night -- a bit frazzeled but none the worse for wear.

Today we saw a little bit of Hong Kong -- a very little bit. Traveling with a 5 year old who has decided to see if we really mean it when we say we are her forever family doesn't promote much tourism. Julia is pretty impossible right now. She insists on being carried everywhere and scratches, pinches and pulls hair whenever she doesn't like the direction we go, the weather, or the noise level. She has spilled water, juice, soda, and David's coffee on every available surface that should not be wet. Does this mean that she trusts us?

We limit ourselves to some outing in the morning after breakfast, followed by lunch, followed by time in the pool, a little bit of "quiet" time, dinner, a bath, a book, and bed. This plus numerous mini-tantrums makes up our day. Our Julia goes to the ground and lays flat when she is angry at us, and I've let her do it time after time anywhere she wants to unless it is unsafe. Needless to say, we get lots of looks and comments (but most in Chinese so I have no idea what they are saying), but I think it is working somewhat. The laying down will continue I am sure, but it is shorter than it was a few days ago. Poor kid is so very angry at all this change and we are the only ones she can take it out on.

When she is not laying on the ground, or screaming in our arms, Julia Bye-Bye is incredibly charming and lovable! She sings all the time and does these funny dances with fancy arm movements. And when this kid throws her arms around any one of us and says Mama, Baba (Daddy), or JeiJei (big sister) we all melt.

Her new word today is "Okay." She is counting to 4 in English and I think to at least 10 in Chinese. She has also enjoyed snuggling in bedwith us the last two mornings, and she loved the big king sized bed we have in our Hong Kong hotel. Last night, after her bath, she laid in the very middle with two pillows at her head and a soft white coverlet over her body. What perfection!

We hope that all is well at home. We miss home and can't wait to see familiar faces. One more day and then we get on the plane for the USA!