Kian Comes Home

Halloween fun

2007-11-01T20:44:00.000-05:00

K-Dawg gets down

2007-10-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

Oh the indignity.....

2007-10-15T19:14:00.000-05:00

.....of being a boy with only big sisters at home....especially sisters that love to "do" hair!

Settling Down

2007-09-11T12:57:00.000-05:00

Our household has been extremely busy ever since we got home from China with Kian and today is the first day that things have been quiet. My oldest son got married 10 days ago and we had to travel a bit for that, plus family members with us who were visiting from the West Coast. It was good to see family and I was happy they were able to meet Kian, but it's also nice to just relax as well.
Speaking of the name Kian, we just starting using 'Kian' about a week ago and we still use it interchangeably with 'Ming Yuan'. However, I pointed to myself today and said 'Mama', then pointed to him and he poked his own chest and said 'Kian' with pretty good pronunciation, so I believe he's starting to understand that's his new name. We'll still say 'Kian MingYuan' as I want to make sure he knows that either name is ok.
His vocabulary is growing rapidly. I think it's impressive given that he had no chinese language of his own when we met him. The only chinese word we ever heard him say was 'Da', which our guide giggled at and said it meant 'hit'.
So far, he says: 'More', 'Cookie', 'Water', 'Cup', 'Dog', 'Up', 'Down', 'Go', 'Shoe', 'Night-Night', and 'Bye-Bye'.
His motor skills are also rapidly improving. He climbs up and down off the couches and has started trying to climb the barstools as well as his high chair. He can go down the stairs by sliding on his rear end and up by crawling. If someone holds his hand, he will walk up the stairs like an adult, but can't balance yet to do that on his own.
We have an appointment to take him to Shriner's for an evaluation soon and we're looking forward to that. I'm especially wondering what the exact anatomy of his little arm is, and if anything can be done to help improve the function of it.
I continually forget he has a limb difference at all, and it definitely doesn't slow him down one bit. It does hurt, though, when he climbs on me, as the bone at the end is fairly pointy and it feels just like a teeny elbow jabbing into my skin. I think I have bruises all over my legs from him! :-)
Here's a picture of Kian chair dancing at his big brother's wedding reception:

Two Weeks Home

2007-08-25T16:46:00.000-05:00

We've been home for two weeks now with our little munchkin and things are starting to gel in our household. Sleep was difficult the first few days, particularly for Kian. He only woke up and cried once in the night the entire time we were in China, despite all the changes, moving to different hotels, etc. However, the first six nights we were home, he woke up and cried multiple times, and was hard to console. I think he was just really out of sorts with jet lag and didn't know how to express it. So, naturally, D and I were out of sorts ourselves, what with the lack of sleep and all. The next few nights, he woke up only once and then has been doing much better ever since.
He's been sleeping with us as we planned so we're always right there when he wakes up. He's such a little acrobat in his sleep that it's hysterical. Some nights he turns completely around and rests his feet up on the headboard. Other nights I wake up and D is huddled over on the very edge of the bed, with Kian snuggled right up against his back, so he has no hope of getting any more room. I can only imagine how he flipped around when he slept in his crib in the orphanage.

He is starting to be more secure about not having me in his sight at all times. In China, he would go into hysterics if I was out of view at any time. He even needed to stand and watch me in the shower, it wasn't good enough to just be in the bathroom hearing my voice. He's now willing to sit and have a snack with a family member while I run upstairs and shower. I guess food is the great motivator. The luxury of showering alone can't be underestimated! :-)
We had a quick first visit to the ped's office, as I strongly suspected he has giardia. I had been alerted to this possibility before traveling, as several other children from his same orphanage have come home with it. I had the fun task of collecting the samples and we just got the results that my hunch was correct. In the meantime, holy cow! The stench from one small boy is at times overpowering. I hope the medicine does the job and gets rid of it soon.
He goes back for a full check up in a few weeks. In the meantime, we are also having a chest xray to rule out any bony abnormalities of his rib cage. I noticed this the first time I undressed him. His rib cage looks similar to Rhianne's, with a protrusion around his heart area. However, he doesn't have a heart murmur, so hopefully he just has different looking ribs. I guess if he does have a heart issue, we already have an established relationship with a pediatric cardiologist.

We've had a real busy past week as my oldest son got married, and my parents and aunt arrived for a 10 day stay. Kian has really take to my dad and all we hear is his little voice crying 'Poppa!' 'Poppa!', wanting him to look at something or do something.
His language skills are starting to flourish and he is understanding a lot of what we say to him. Maybe not every specific word, but definitely the gist of things. The child who spoke no chinese when we met him is starting to parrot everything we say and says a few words spontaneously now. His first word (other than 'Mama') was 'Trash.' He knows that word because he loves to take his dirty diaper and put it in the trash can. He's not strong enough to push down the foot pedal with his foot but he can lift up the lid. This poses a problem for him holding the diaper with his other arm because he can't figure out how to get it out from under his arm and into the receptacle. So we usually have to help him by pushing down the foot pedal. This is just one of those things I'm sure he will figure out in time.

He also had apparently never used a utensil or drank from a cup when we met him. We tried a cup a few times but it was really confusing for him so we're sticking to a sippy cup for the most part. He is really motivated to use a fork or spoon, since he sees us all using one. Tonight he was the last to finish dinner because he was trying as hard as he could to get the food scooped up with the fork. And he did not want anyone else to do it for him. He's starting to get the hang of it very well but it helps if we eat 'sticky' food so it doesn't fall off the fork just as he gets it to his mouth.

He's pretty much a happy little guy and loves running through the house, creating a little trail of stuff wherever he goes. :-)
Here's an example:

Can't you just see him saying "I just thought I'd re-arrange your CDs and DVDs Mom, honest!".

Blocks and drink coasters are also a big hit to dump out and strew around the room.

Hmmmm, what mischief shall I get into next??

Hong Kong stay/Flight Home

2007-08-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

We arrived into Hong Kong in the evening on the 17th and checked into the Novotel Citygate hotel. I had booked this hotel over the internet and gotten a special rate by pre-paying, so I was sure hoping it was a decent place. Instead, the room surpassed my expectations and then some. First, we were led up to a special checkin desk on the 21st floor and assigned an extremely nice room on the 22nd floor. The room had a small foyer and a hallway leading to the bathroom and bedroom. The bathroom was like my dream bathroom, large and modern, with separated (huge) shower and toilet compartment. The deep jacuzzi tub had a built in lcd tv and surround sound speakers. There were two entrances to the bathroom, so you could enter from either the bedroom on one side, or the hallway on the other side. My whole family could fit in it at once! Then the bedroom was equally large, with one entire wall being glass looking out onto a wonderful view of mountains, and a freeway, soccer fields and basketball courts far below. The room was completed with a gigantic plasma tv mounted on the wall. I immediately wished we were staying a few extra days in Hong Kong, haha.

The next day, we headed to Hong Kong Disneyland. It's also on Lantau Island, so fairly close to our hotel. We had to take the MTS train for one stop, then switch over to the Disneyland special rail. We felt the anticipation bubbling when we got on the Disneyland car and saw the Mickey mouse head shaped windows, handle pulls and character statues.

HK Disneyland is fairly new (just celebrating its 2nd anniversary) and is still pretty small. However, being a weekend, it was also packed. Not to mention, being hot hot hot. And humid. The kids all enjoyed getting wet by the tiki torches and cooling off a bit.

Here's Kian in his new shades, for the few seconds he would tolerate them being on.

The day passed quickly and before we knew it, it was evening. We decided to go on one more ride, and settled in for the long 45 min wait to go on Autopia. Here are Kian and Rhianne as we waited in line there:

Just as we got up to the head of the line, the heavens opened up and it started pouring rain, as well as loud thunder and lightning. Having no umbrellas with us, or any other shelter, we immediately rushed for the safety of the nearest gift shop. About 8000 other people also had this bright idea. I have never been in this kind of pandemonium in my life. F. had to fight the teeming masses to get to the cashier and buy plastic ponchos for us to wear, then we had to hurry all the way out, not only of Disneyland but past the entrance to where the MTS station was. Poor Kian somehow fell asleep in his little poncho, ensconced in the stroller underneath the pouring rain. He was so exhausted that he slept all the way through the train rides, a quick stop in the mall adjoining in our hotel to get some take out for dinner, and being undressed/changed and put to bed.
We were all bone tired, but I still had to repack our things to get ready for the long flight home the next day. I sure wished I had one more day to rest and recoup, but no chance of that.
The next morning, we checked out and headed to the airport. Our flight was totally full so we didn't have the empty seats around us I was hoping for. We'd only been in the air for about 30 minutes when Kian started having episodes of diarrhea. He didn't seem otherwise sick, but it seemed that I had only been back in my seat for a short while after each trip to the bathroom, when I would have to take him back again, waiting in line while stinking up everything around us! I had to wash his clothes out in the sink b/c I only brought 2 extra outfits with me in the carryon. I also started stressing about running out of diapers! I was down to one left when I found out that the flight attendants kept an emergency supply, thank goodness.
Kian was entertaining himself by getting down from his seat, then popping back up again, until the guy in front of him complained about him bumping the seat. So then I had to prevent him from getting down, which made him cry. Perversely, I hoped the guy liked the crying better than the bumping ::evil grin::.
The video system on our flight has been upgraded to on-demand, meaning there was a video library of over 200 movies to choose from and a host of other entertainment options. It also meant you could jab the screen with your finger and the screen image would change. This was a source of never ending amusement for Kian. However, mindful of the bumping that this jab would surely cause, I tried to teach Kian how to gently touch the screen, and praised him for each attempt. So what that resulted in was a gentle touch 4 or 5 times, then a sly look at me, and JAB!, followed by giggles.
Yes, what with the never ending stench of dirty diapers, the bumping and the jabbing, I'm sure everyone around our row loved us.
Toward the end of the flight, Kian finally fell into a fitful sleep. Right about then, Rhianne got a terrible nose bleed. It literally bled for over one hour, and eventually I ran out of tissue and had to call for help from the flight attendant. She brought some ice and a washcloth and we finally got it stopped. By that time, Rhianne was weeping since she was so tired and her nose hurt from me squeezing it. I was feeling pretty frazzled myself since I had no sleep since the flight began.
But we finally landed and were able to deplane. We were the last passengers off the flight, and it took over an hour to get through immigration. Shortly after we got off the plane, Rhianne's nose started up again, so we spent that next hour holding her nose again. I was so looking forward to seeing D.'s face as we emerged from the international arrival area, but when I didn't see him, I felt like crying myself. About an hour later, we eventually connected with him and it turned out that he had expected us to arrive at a different terminal.
Three hours after we had landed at the airport, we were finally in the car on our way home. Of course, getting Kian into the carseat was a traumatic event for all of us. He had no idea what was happening, even though we pointed to Rhianne in her seat and told him that was Jie-jie's seat, and then pointed to his seat and said that this was MingYuan's seat. He shook his head violently to that and screamed 'Mama Mama' over and over again. We finally decided we had to just get him into the seat no matter what it took as the car was in the temporary loading area and we were about to get rousted out of there. It took me, D. and F. to forcibly strap him into the seat, during which he bit F on the arm. Poor little guy was just terrified. After I got him all buckled in, I quickly ran around the car and got in so he could see me and I could reach back and hold his hand. Then he finally calmed down and eventually gave me a small smile.
When we got to our house, he walked in like he owned the place, and wasn't scared at all of our little Italian Greyhound dog, who was beyond ecstatic at seeing us again. While we are all terribly jet lagged, and each of us seems to be in a different time zone, things are looking up and it's so, so good to be finally home.

Kian eating/wearing spaghetti in his own home with his forever family.

Whirlwind stay in Guangzhou

2007-08-17T16:38:00.000-05:00

Where did the last few days go? It seemed like our time in Guangzhou was very short. We arrived into Guangzhou late on Tuesday night, extremely late so you can't even count that as a day. The next day was the medical exam and filling out paperwork for the consulate. I have to say, I really did not appreciate how much paperwork is involved. Some of it seems quite redundant and arbitrary. For example, on form A, the date must be written dd/mmm/yyyy. On form B, the date must be written mm-dd-yyyy. And yes, the dashes/slashes are critical. And the forms are going to the same place, i.e. for the U.S. consulate.
When we adopted last time, our guide had already filled out the paperwork for us, she just handed it to us and told us where to sign on multiple papers, I wasn't even sure what the heck we were signing. So doing it all ourselves this time gave a better appreciation with what was involved.
The girls went down to the White Swan playroom while the paperwork was being done, but there was no way Kian was leaving my side so he sat in the chair next to me and continually ate cheerios until we were done.
Finally we were done and had an assembled packet of paperwork, ready for our guide to take to the consulate for an appointment the next day. A small group of us decided to have lunch at Lucy's, which offers western as well as asian food. F. was excited at this opportunity, although I ordered noodles as usual. I have to say, I love, love asian noodles. But since I am usually sharing with Kian, noodles and rice are my default items that I know for sure I can feed him (other things may be too hard to cut into bite size pieces when you only have chopsticks, or may be too spicy, etc) so I'm getting a little tired of noodles. Rhianne crashed before we even ate lunch, and I had to lay her down in Kian's stroller. And after lunch, we all crashed along with her. We had gotten minimal sleep the night before, what with arriving at our hotel at 11 pm and having to be at our appt at 7:45 am. So passed our 1st full day in Guangzhou.
Our 2nd day we leisurely slept in and piddled around until we had to meet up with our group before lunch. We took some group photos, the red couch photo, of course, and some pictures with the waterfall behind us.
We had a chance to do some minimal shopping at the local touristy shops. Most of the people in these shops speak some English so shopping is pretty easy. I got some boy traditional outfits for Kian, and some things for the girls too.
We headed out later in the afternoon to do a bit more shopping, but found that the heavens had opened up and it was pouring rain. I was out of diapers, so we had to get to the grocery store and made it there with a combination of three umbrellas over us and the stroller. Poor Kian's legs were still drenched, though. He didn't seem to mind a bit, but I still felt terrible. This is where some kind of carrier would have come in handy, so I could have held him up higher and under the umbrella. I just don't have the arm strength to hold him on my hip for very long, and he doesn't help by holding on yet.
With the rain, we just headed back to the hotel room after getting the necessary items, and didn't do anything further for the evening. Oh yeah, I was looking for some kind of snack cookies or crackers to buy at the store, found a few interesting things. One that I remember was labeled 'Crab Spawn Cookies'. Yum Yum!!
Our third and final day was pretty whirlwhind. We headed out for a quick shopping trip into Guangzhou city. We first went to the jade and pearl market where we bought a few trinkets, then to the electronics market, where we bought DVD's galore for 4 RMB a piece (about 60 cents). I would have loved to spend much more time in both of these places, but our time was extremely limited. We returned to our hotel room to have lunch with a family we had met some time ago on one of the yahoo groups, but never met in person until then. I had only eaten part of my lunch when our guide spotted me in the hotel restaurant and told me the bus was ready for me to load my luggage. Eek, I hadn't even finished packing our stuff! I took two huge gulps of my noodles, said my hurried goodbyes, and ran upstairs with the bellboy at my heels. With him waiting in the doorway, I threw the last items into the suitcases, had the girls use the restrooms and rushed downstairs to check out. I remembered this time not to lose either of the electronic keys (staying at this same hotel last year, we lost one of the keys and had to pay 50 RMB penalty, and of course I later found the key in our luggage), but they asked me where one of the laundry bags were, and the cover to the umbrella. I told them they were both somewhere in the room and I guess they were satisfied with that answer b/c they didn't charge me for either of them. Finally got checked out and rushed to get on the bus. It was a large greyhound size bus and I was amazed at how the driver navigated it through the narrow streets of Shamian island. A few times, I though he would take out a street sign or two, though.
We headed to the White Swan to pick up the remainder of the families in the travel group, and load all their luggage on the bus too. Then we went to the U.S. consulate, which is about a 45 min drive from Shamian Island.
Once there, we had a quick speech from the consulate official, then gave our pledges that everything we had filled out the forms was true and accurate to the best of our knowledge. Then our brown envelopes were distributed. Inside this sealed envelope (not to be opened until we hand this to an immigration official in the U.S.) is all the paperwork we earlier filled out, and copies of the translated adoption certificates. We also got Kian's chinese passport back with the visa to enter the U.S. We're now free to go home, woohoo!!
The last part of our trip began as we left the consulate and headed directly to the train station to take the train to Hong Kong. Several of the families were heading to the airport and one other family was staying in Guangzhou a few more days. So it was just one other family along with ours on the train, the same family that we were with for the week in Xi'an.
It was another adventure getting the voluminous luggage on the train. First just getting it across the street and up two escalator flights to the station itself. Then having to pay a porter to get it to the place where it needed to be checked in. Then paying to actually check it in.
Upon our arrival in Hong Kong, we had go through immigration again (after going through it on leaving Guangzhou), and then to the place where we picked up our checked bags. We had to pay again to have someone bring the luggage outside to where we could get a taxi. The other family negotiated with someone to bring a van for each of us. I asked the porter how much it would be to get to our hotel near the airport, and he told me 300 Hong Kong dollars, which was a little cheaper than a taxi. He also told me I should pay him upfront, but I told him I wouldn't do that, I would only pay upon arrival. He said ok without much fuss to that, and we got loaded into the van.
I worried the whole way to our hotel, wondering if I was going to be asked for a different amount of money (or worse!), but everything was all right in the end. We arrived safely and I paid the amount requested.
More about our Hong Kong stay in the next post.

Last Day in Xi'an/ First flight

2007-08-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today was our last day in Xi'an and we are now in Guangzhou.

I had promised the girls we would go back this morning to the Muslim market to get a few more souvenir trinkets and so we hurried to get all our bags packed and ready to go before heading out. We had to check out of the hotel at 2 pm so we didn't have that much time to shop, but still managed to take a leisurely stroll of a few streets and get them a few things. No heirloom quality items but still the girls will enjoy their purchases. F. took pictures of some of the street scenes and stall merchandise as we walked along.
Looking down the street:

Man making cricket and grasshopper cages.

Want to buy a nice healthy grasshopper?

Step right up, get your own Terra Cotta Warrior. In any size.

Musical instruments, both hanging (the flute thing) and on the table (the egg thing).

Lots and lots of street food vendors. Some cooking right on the street on a hot plate thing. No clue what most of the food is.

After checking out of our hotel, the two families in our group loaded all our bags onto the van and headed to the airport. We had a couple of stops along the way, the first being the notary office to get the official paperwork. This included the officially translated copies of the adoption certificate, the abandonment certificate and the birth certificate. All three of these documents are necessary so that our new children can be issued visas to enter the U.S. We waited for over an hour in the bus outside the notary's office and it was starting to get a little worrying that there was some problem. But finally, we saw our guide hurrying out of the office, with our packets of documents in hand. Whew. We headed to the airport, where we had a 7:30 pm flight to Guangzhou, in southern China.
Kian got a short nap while we were waiting at the notary office. Isn't this the sweetest face ever??

So, these domestic China flights are pretty funny. First of all, the boarding passengers take no prisoners. They were actually running down the ramp to get on as fast as possible. No orderly line, or anything resembling it. Then the whole stroller thing. I asked the gate agent if I needed a ticket to gate check the stroller. He waved me on dismissively, so I thought maybe I would just gate check right before getting on the plane. But when I asked the person at the entrance to the plane, he indicated that I should just wheel the stroller onto the plane itself. This prompted some kind of furious exchange between that person and the flight attendant at the door. Eventually she begrudgingly moved the stroller into the galley area and motioned me to keep boarding. I later found out all the strollers (the other family in my group had two of their own) were folded and laid down on the floor in the first class bulkhead area. Hmmm, seems kind of strange to me. Do the chinese not use strollers on planes?? Oh well, it arrived along with us so no complaints, I guess.

So this was our little guy's first flight, and he sure did keep me busy. It took him all of 30 seconds to figure out how to unbuckle the seat belt. Oh my, that was loads of fun.
Here's the procedure:
1)look slyly at Mom
2)quick as a flash pull to open the buckle.
3)look around with pride and giggle as Mom and big sister react with dismay.
4)Repeat over and over again.
Alternate procedure:
1a)When Mom holds the buckle together so it can't be opened, slide down in the seat until the belt is just under the armpits.
2a)Cry piteously until Mom opens the buckle to re-position you.
3a)Beam with pride that once again, you succeeded.

When the seat belt trick gets old, the tray table trick is fun too.
1) Cry and point to tray table
2) Mom opens tray table
3) Push tray table up, then let go so it falls down (repeat this step as necessary)
4) Bonk head on tray table
5) Cry
6) Mom closes tray table so head won't be bonked
7) Cry and point to tray table
8) Repeat

That two hour flight seemed much longer, trust me. I can hardly wait until the 15.5 hour flight from Hong Kong back to Newark in a few days.

As soon as the wheels of our plane touched down, we could hear the click of seat belts coming undone. Some passengers even started getting up in the aisle and getting luggage down. Two of the flight attendants got up and yelled at them, which didn't phase them much, but they did get back in their seats.
We duly arrived at the terminal, collected our luggage and headed to Shamian Island, where we're staying at the Victory hotel. The kids finally got to bed about 11:30 pm and we have to be ready for the medical exam at 7:45 am again. Should be fun to get three sleepy kids rousted, dressed and ready to go with just hours of sleep. Not.

Starfish Foster Home

2007-08-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

D. left early this am to fly home. He was sad to leave and we were sad to see him go as well. He has a short 1.5 hour flight from Xi'an back to Beijing, then has a direct flight from there to Newark, another 13.5 hours, with a 5 hour layover in Beijing. There were later flights into Beijing, so that he would have a shorter layover, but the travel coordinator was concerned that if there was any flight delay, he would miss his connection. And there is only one flight per day on Continental back to Newark. So, he will just wait it out.
After yesterday, we needed a low key day. So the kids and I mostly hung out in our hotel room until late in the day when we went to visit the Starfish Foster Home. We had brought donations from the US to deliver to Amanda, who started and runs the foster home.
The official site about the foster home is here:
Starfish Foster Home and Amanda's blog is here
She had given me the address in chinese characters along with instructions to tell the taxi driver to drop us off at the west gate to the apartment complex. Naturally, he dropped us off at a different gate, leaving us standing wondering where the heck to go from there. Fortunately, several of the security guards took pity on us and led us all the way to the correct building in the complex and even up to the very door. It was a longish walk and we had no chance of finding it on our own so we were grateful.
When the door opened, and the sound of crying babies drifted out, Kian went into hysterics. He must have thought he was being returned to an orphanage of sorts. His whole body stiffened up and he cried 'Mama Mama' over and over. I had to calm him down for a while before I could even go inside the apartment with him. Even then, he did not leave my lap for a bit. After about 20 minutes though, he felt secure enough to get down and play with some of the toys there.
The foster home currently houses 20 babies, and Amanda hires 8 nannies to help care for the babies. Virtually all of them are special needs, some with severe prematurity or spina bifida. I held one little teeny one with unrepaired spina bifida, and who had a large fluid filled sac on the back of his head the size of a tangerine. He has to wait until he's about 3 months old to have it repaired. He started crying while I was holding him and one of the nannies handed me a bottle. The baby drank all of one ounce before drifting off to sleep again.
The apartment was a chaotic scene at times, with all the babies, some toddler age, some crying, some not, and the volunteers and visitors. But the babies were getting wonderful attention and lots of love. Amanda's goal is to get each one healthy, and get them in the system to be adopted, so she can continue to help other babies that come along.
Here are some pictures from our visit there:

How to annoy your big sister and make your mom laugh

2007-08-12T11:56:00.001-05:00

Just before I started filming this short video clip, F. plaintively asked me, 'Mom, how do I get him to take me seriously? I keep telling him 'Bu' [No] but he keeps throwing his shoe at me!'. My response, 'Um, he's 2. This is what 2 year olds do.' So she is sitting on the bed kind of miffed that I am filming him and laughing at his antics. Btw, the trashcan is sitting out in the middle of the room because it is apparently great fun to pick it up and walk around with it. Also dump out any trash that is already in it and put toys in it instead. Or get out any used straws in the trash and chew on them while running around the room.
We are still calling Kian by his chinese name, we will probably work into his new American name as time goes on.

Xi'an City Tour

2007-08-12T11:27:00.001-05:00

Another long day of touring today. Xi'an is a city rich with culture and things to see and do, and it's hard to not want to see things while we are here. Still, it does make it tiring when traveling with children. Kian is a real trooper so far. I wish I could always say the same for my 10 and 6 yr old daughters!
We started off by going to the local history museum. We have an excellent guide who is very knowledgeable about the local history and her stories are entertaining and interesting. Still, with Kian running around and the other two girls to keep track of, I only caught 1/2 or less of her narratives.
Here are the kids in front of a mural that was displaying images of the terra cotta warrior faces and showing how each face is unique.

There were several sections to the museum and each section entered and exited via a gift shop where the usual overpriced junky souvenirs beckoned to us. I managed to stave off the kids from getting anything with promises that we would be souvenir shopping later.
We then headed to the Wild Goose pagoda. This pagoda was built about 1350 years ago and seems amazingly high for a structure of this era. There is still a practicing monastery on the grounds.

After a nice buffet lunch, we went to see the Xi'an city wall. It is a wide flat city wall that is over 8 miles long and was constructed in the late 1300's. It's possible to rent bikes or ride an electric car on top of the wall, but we didn't do that.
Steps up to the wall, on the inside:

On top of the wall:

Tower at the gate where we entered, there are many of these towers along theh wall:

From on top of the city wall tower, the building in the distance is the Bell Tower.

Next on our agenda was a visit to the Drum Tower. This building is close to the Bell Tower and is similar in size and structure. Yet another climb up steep stairs carrying the stroller. On top, inside the tower, there was a troupe of drummers who were mostly practicing their performance pieces but it still was very interesting to watch and hear.

Outside is a series of large drums including a big one you can pay 5 yuan to try out yourself. So of course my family all had to try it out. D. acted like he was up at bat, whaled away as hard as he could and got applause from some of the other tourists watching. :-)

We rounded out the day with a short shopping trip to the Muslim market. We plan to visit this area again before we leave so I'll leave this description for another day.
Kian held up well but we were all tired and cranky by the end of the day. For the first time, he woke up in the night and could not be consoled for a while. He wasn't really awake, eyes mostly shut, but crying a plaintive cry. Finally he sucked down some warm milk and drifted back to sleep. He has otherwise been a really good sleeper so I think the lack of a nap made him overtired and really out of sorts.

Orphanage visit continued

2007-08-12T06:33:00.000-05:00

While visiting the toddler room, we had asked to see a 7 year boy who also has a waiting family. They told us that he practices dancing and quickly organized a short exibition for us. About 7 of the older children came down and gave a demo of the dance. It appeared that they were following a video as they started it up on the tv and the children followed the movements shown. It was really cute.
Next, the director invited us to have a meal prepared by their cooks. We walked out of the CWI and to the neighboring building which was a cafeteria. There were about 10-12 large round tables and several cooks in a large adjoining kitchen. Then the feast began. I cannot describe most of the dishes we had. Everything was very, very good and at one point we were told their cooks competed in some kind of cooking competition. They also said that they did not normally have so many dishes but wanted to have something special for us. For example, one dish was potatoes cooked in some kind of sugar so that it crystallized. As we picked up the pieces of potatoes from the main plate, we dipped in the accompanying bowl of water to solidify the sugar. Another dish was a fish, with head and tail still on and somewhat artistically displayed, i.e. fanned up. Then the middle was like an explosion of fat quills, with pieces of fish deep fried and lightly covered in a sweet and sour sauce. We were stuffed, but we could still hear the cooks cooking and they kept bringing out more dishes!
Finally we were allowed to put down our chopsticks and talk a bit more. We told the director we would like to purchase something for the orphanage and asked what they needed, with the suggestion being a supply of formula. They told us that wasn't necessary, as they had formula being donated, but they did need toys for the older children. Not small toys for the babies, but toys like tricycles and such. So we all headed to a large department store to complete this purchase. Of course, this being China, once the directors had made their selections, they asked to get a better deal since they were buying so many items. This involved a lot of negotiation and some walking away at times, but eventually their haggling was successfully concluded. I believe that in the end we purchased 8 small bicycles/tricycles, a couple of scooters, a humidifier and an electric tea kettle. Finally, we said goodbye to the directors and thanked them again for caring for our son and the other children, then headed back on the long drive to Xi'an.
While it's so sad to think of any children in an orphanage and not in a loving family, I really felt good about Kian's life before we met him, having seen where he lived. I believe the directors and nannies really care about the children and do their best, with limited resources and time. Only three nannies care for all of the children in the toddler room, it must be incredibly difficult to just keep them all dressed, fed and in clean diapers. It was clear they had affection for the children and the children were in turn attached to the nannies. Several of them were scared at the sight of strangers when we came into their room and clutched the nannies for dear life, while others let us pick them up, hold them and pose for pictures. Six of the toddlers we saw have families waiting for them, there may be others that I don't know about. One of the toddlers, an adorable little girl, has had her file submitted through the non-special needs program. I hope she will be referred to a family very soon.
When we were about halfway home, I realized that we had forgotten to ask about Kian's finding site, and go to take pictures of that area. I was really disappointed that we had forgotten, especially since the site may not exist forever, as we found out in Rhianne's case.

Catching up again

2007-08-11T12:52:00.001-05:00

It's been busy day after busy day here, leaving me little downtime to update this blog.
Yesterday we toured the famous Terra Cotta Warriors. It was really awesome to see them up close and personal. The pits are much larger than I would have imagined and it's amazing how they built huge buildings up and around the excavation sites. The warriors that have been completely reconstructed look as though they have always been whole, even though all of them [except one single figure] was disinterred in pieces. The archaelogical work is carried on at night when no tourists visit and must be painstaking and tedious.

The heat really wore us all out, as none of the buildings had a/c and it was very hot and humid yesterday.

Today we visited Kian's orphanage in Baoji City, which was about a 2.5 hour drive from Xi'an. D. was originally a bit reluctant to go, but went along with my insistence. It was definitely worth the trouble to go there. Kian was quiet as usual on the drive there, and went readily to the nanny who primarily cared for him. We were ushered into a large reception room with nice leather couches and offered bottles of water and fresh peaches. Along with Kian's nanny, there were several other officials from the CWI, the director and assitant director and one other man whose job I don't know. We chatted for a while and were asked if we had any other questions about the CWI or about Kian. They told us they currently have about 80 children there, and about 30 of those are severely disabled, and will never be adopted. The remainder are mostly minor special needs, like Kian and there are a few that are non special needs. They did say that the abandonment rate in the region had dramatically decreased. Now they only have 1-3 babies per month abandoned, when the rate used to be much higher. Most of the children abandoned there now have a special need of some kind.

The CWI is relatively new and looks it. Everything was spotlessly clean and looked inviting, with murals of children and other things on all the walls. F. was a little appalled by the large picture/painting of two little babies on the wall of the room we were in. Both babies were naked and obviously boys. :-)
We were then given a tour of the rooms where Kian lived. First was the infirmary/quarantine room. There were a couple of babies in there currently. One was teeny teeny one that was probably a preemie. Children come to this room when they are either sick or when they first enter the CWI, until they have been evaluated by their medical staff.

Next we saw the infant room. The babies were laying in little cribs, most of them had blankets tied onto their torsos.

Next we saw the crib room for the toddlers. Kian's nanny put him in his crib so we could take a picture of him there. He hung his head the instant she did that but did not cry. I called to him to look up for the picture but he just would not look up.

Once we left there, we headed into the toddler play area. This is where Kian spent the majority of his waking hours. While we were there, I was able to get updates and pictures of several children who will soon be adopted, which will hopefully make their waiting parents happy. :-)

********
I'll be adding to the description of our visit later tomorrow.

Kian Laughs

2007-08-09T05:20:00.001-05:00

Adoption Day

2007-08-08T10:28:00.001-05:00

Today was our first full day with Kian, and things are going very well. This morning, he woke up and blinked, then started whimpering a little. So far, he has not made any attempt to stand up in the crib, he will just lay there until I come to get him out. I should have read up on what a typical 2.5 yr old eats, because I'm kind of clueless. I just ended up giving him a little something from lots of different things on the menu. Although he is reportedly still taking a bottle, I decided to see if a Nuby cup would suffice. The silicone spout is kind of nipple-ish so it seemed a reasonable substitute to me. It took him a couple of tries to get the hang of sucking on the spout but now drinks like a champ from it. He also like to wedge his little arm inside one of the handles and hold the cup that way, leaving his other hand free to do other things. So I'm thinking this is more useful than a bottle that would take up his only available appendage.

He pretty much ate everything we gave him at breakfast, but it was hard to tell when he was full as he would just keep cramming food in his mouth whenever offered. Finally it seemed like he was starting to hoard the food in his mouth instead of chewing and swallowing and we used that as a cue that he was done.
After breakfast, we went back to the civil affairs office and finalized our adoption. Kian James MingYuan is now forever and ever our son. :-) We have already received the red adoption certificate that declares him our child. The nanny and CWI directors were again at the civil affairs office today and we were able to ask a few additional questions about him and also gain permission to visit the CWI, which we will do later this week. It is not close by (about a 2 hour drive) and it's a little bit of a pain to organize but definitely worth it. We also got a few pictures with Kian's nanny holding him. I would not say she is hugely attached to him, but she definitely cared about him and wanted to see him have a family of his own. After the picture, I came over to get him and he held his arms out to me, which she was happy to see.
We next headed to the public security office to apply for Kian's passport. We will need this to be issued before we can fly out of the province with him next Tuesday. I guess it's a good thing they don't have the backlog that currently exists in the US!
We were free the rest of the day and Kian took a great nap, again whimpering just a little when I laid him down in his crib, but falling asleep within a couple of minutes.
Rhianne and I braved the heat/humidity for the walk to a large supermarket. Well, the first floor has clothes/cosmetics/shoes, the 2nd floor has groceries, the 3rd floor has household supplies like laundry detergent and the 4th floor has books, cds, appliances and such. We headed there to find a stroller, as I just can't carry Kian for long. I think he probably only weighs about 25 lbs but it's completely dead weight, he doesn't hold on or grip with his legs at all. It's not surprising, he was never held much in his life before this. While he shown us since yesterday that he can walk pretty well, it's still a slow toddling walk. He also fits perfectly into 18-24 month size clothes. I haven't tried the 2T's on him yet, they might be a tad too big, depending on the brand.
Before we left home, we had gotten this great deal on a name brand stroller which folded up compactly and had a carrying strap, that we lugged all the way to China. Well, somehow, we lost it along the way. We had it when we checked out of our hotel in Beijing, it was loaded in the van for the drive to the airport there, but we did not have it when we landed in Taiyuan. We have no idea where we left it, and no one to call. So anyway, nothing but to buy another stroller. The pickings were pretty slim and of course it's a huge process to buy things there, involving about 5 sales clerks, but we managed to get something acceptable.
We then went down to the lower floor to get some more drinks and snacks. The hotel has a grocery store but the prices are like American minibar prices, i.e. outrageous. The first day we were here I sent D. down to get drinks and he came back having spent the equivalent of US $20 for 6 bottles of water/juice and I about fell over.
The prices at the grocery store are a fraction of that.
However, we also have to endure the staring as we walked through the store and the double takes in the street as we walk to get there. Many people literally turn around and walk backwards for a bit just to get a better glimpse of us. It's worse when we have Kian. Our waiter at breakfast actually grabbed his arm to look more closely at his limb difference. We experienced the same thing when we adopted Rhianne and it might have been worse then because there were so few caucasians in that city when we were there, so we expected something similar but it's still annoying.
By tiny bits and pieces, Kian's personality is starting to emerge. While Rhianne and I were gone to the store, F. had him laughing out loud and giggling at something she was doing. We also blew up some of those punch balls and they were a big hit.

I've also heard him say a couple of words, 'Jie-jie' meaning big sister and 'Baba' meaning daddy. He has only talked really softly and just those few words, otherwise he is just quiet. No babbling or anything else. I've never seen a kid so quiet! This will probably change somewhat after he settles in to the family, but we did ask the nannies again and they confirmed he is just a quiet boy. We'll probably change that in our noisy family! :-)

For dinner tonight, we took a taxi over the to the Bell Tower. The area is full of stores and restaurants and has a very busy nightlife. We had intended to go somewhere with the other family in our travel group, but our respective taxis got separated and I don't know where they ended up. So we walked around a bit and ended up going to this restaurant for a dumpling feast. We later found out from our guide that it's the most celebrated dumpling restaurant in the region.
With lots of gesturing and misunderstanding, we finally managed to place our order for the least expensive fixed menu. The menu started at 100 RMB per person and went up exponentially from there. I don't know if the other menus were more food, but we could not come close to finishing what we got. And we only ordered meals for three, since we could just share whatever came. These were no typical take out chinese dumplings. The types started off fairly mundane and got much more exotic and fancy, including these artistic dumplings where the top was opened up and four different seasonings sprinkles inside each part, or the top looked like a honeycomb. The fillings were wonderfully delicious although I passed on eating the frog dumplings! D. said the pigeon ones were pretty good. We were totally stuffed and they kept bringing out more and more things that we just had to try. The final item was a hot pot that they brought to the table, lit the flame underneath and added soup broth and tiny dumplings to it. After it had cooked a bit, the waitress served us each a bowlful of the delicious soup.
Kian ate mostly everything I gave him, although a few things (like the shrimp) he just chewed on a while and later took the chewed blob of food out of his mouth and put it on the table. He was busy playing with his little toy cars and then made the discovery that F. would pick them up if he dropped them. So then he started doing it on purpose, dropping the car on the floor and going into gales of laughter at her mock disgust as she picked them up. When he laughs, his whole face crinkles up, it's really funny.
All the kids were dead tired by the time we finished our meal and so we grabbed a taxi to head back to our hotel. I would have like to walk more around the area, it's extremely vibrant with tons of shops and restaurants and was also crowded with throngs of people. Also many pushy street vendors and beggars. I told D. to make sure he had his hand on his wallet as we made our way through the street.
Tomorrow is a free day for us as the other family in our group is visiting their new son's orphanage (he is from Xi'an). We may try the pool for the first time, we'll see how that new experience goes.
Kian still does not like anyone picking him up other than me and will start sobbing if anyone tries but I'm trying to let D. be the 'source of all good things' so he will be more receptive to him. He is just fine with sitting next to D. , talking to him, etc, just not being held by anyone else. We haven't even had him two full days yet though, so it has to be confusing in his little brain, what the heck is happening right now.

More about yesterday

2007-08-08T00:50:00.000-05:00

Just to backtrack a little bit, we received Kian yesterday at 5 pm at the civil affairs office in Xi'an. When we got there, our guide told us our son had already arrived, then we saw several adults walking down the hallway with a teeny little boy walking somewhat unsteadily next to them. He was looking around a little curiously but didn't seem scared. We got down and immediately started talking to him, then his nanny handed him one of the toys I had sent in my care package. She had to untwist it from the packaging, so it was obviously unused. I only sent a few toys as I was fairly sure that toys would not be given to the children. He immediately clamped one of the cars under his little arm and grabbed the other one in his hand. After talking to him for a while, I gingerly picked him up and sat down with him on my lap. He didn't cry but looked a little worried. D. and the girls talked to him and I thought he was starting to get comfortable, so I asked D. if he wanted to hold him. I started to hold him out to D. when Kian let out a huge wail and started sobbing. So I just held him tight again and patted his back and gradually calmed down again. I had brought a little snack cup full of honey nut cheerios and those were a big hit. He ate them steadily until they were all gone. He did not make a sound other than the time he cried, he mainly looked around with curious eyes. He also did not make any attempt to stand or get down while I was holding him, but he did snuggle into my body, as if he was hungry for love and affection. I will say that the CWI had taken pains to make him look really nice. He was wearing a brand new outfit and shoes, he was clean and his fingernails were just cut.
We were able to ask the nanny and CWI director a few questions. He does not have a nickname, they called him MingYuan. He is not potty trained, although at first their response was that we have to take him to the bathroom. Then when we asked what words he uses to indicate he has to go, their response was that we'll need to use diapers. :-) That's ok, I came prepared for all eventualities. He still drinks bottles, although he also eats anything adults eat. He is a very quiet little boy and does not talk a lot.
Then the CWI director presented us with a few things. A photo album full of pictures of Kian and the CWI, a bag of dirt from the CWI grounds so he'll always have a piece of China with him, and a special gift. When we unwrapped it later in our hotel room, it turned out to be a red embroidered bib. I don't know yet what it says but will have our guide translate it.
We signed a few documents giving us temporary custody of Kian and then headed back to the hotel. Kian was very quiet this entire time and just continued to look around. He is definitely very passive, for now at least.
Back in our hotel room, we got out a few toys for Kian and he tentatively played with him. I don't think he has had much opportunity to play with toys and overall he is around a 12-15 month level developmentally. We are not concerned at all about this and rather expected it. In fact, all the toys I brought were appropriate for 12 month olds and they are working out perfectly.
When it was time for bed, I laid him down in the little crib and laid next to him stroking his hair. His lip quivered a little but he didn't cry. He took a while to go to sleep but finally drifted off and slept the entire night. He whimpered once or twice in his sleep but didn't wake up. We hope to see more of his personality as he gets more comfortable with us and comes out his shell, but we can already see that is a truly sweet little boy and we are so, so fortunate and honored to have him as our son.

No words can describe it

2007-08-07T09:36:00.001-05:00

All I can say is, how truly blessed we are, yet again.

Beijing, Taiyuan and LuLiang

2007-08-06T09:42:00.000-05:00

I have to condense a couple of days into one, it has been a hectic few days! Yesterday we got up bright and early, (yes the kids were up around 3 am again) and had a fantastic breakfast at our hotel. I could have eaten there for a week and not tried everything on the buffet. From there we headed out on a whirlwind tour of Beijing. We were in a small travel group of two families, but the other family has four children, two parents and the wife's mom. So we ended up making a significant size group with just the two families.
First up was the Jade factory. They had a few people in glass cases at the front of the showroom showing how they carve and polish the jade pieces. Some of the work they do is truly amazing, i.e. carving freely rotating spheres (think whiffleball) inside other freely rotating speres, up to four or five deep.

And the huge ornate sculptures too.

Then of course the huge sell with cases and cases of jewelry and whatnot you can buy. We just bought a small thing for each of the girls there.
Next we headed to the Great Wall, a different section than we visited last time. Our guide said we could go the easy route or the hard route. I took one look at the hard route and realized it was climbing a virtual mountain.

And here's a look at the easy route.

So we took the easy route. Well it was easy for the first 10 minutes, when we were heading downhill. Then we crossed a river and started heading uphill. We got a better look at it here.

Some steps were virtual babysteps and others I don't think I could have gotten up without hauling my body up with the handrail. The bigger steps were almost up to Rhianne's waist.

At times we would pass through little guard houses, where the stench of human urine was unbearable. I can't imagine actually urinating on the Great Wall, but apparently others have no such compunction.
We climbed the other side for quite a ways until we got to a point we could reasonably call the 'top', although when we got back to the other side, it was evident we could have gone higher before getting to the summit of this particular section. After catching our breath, we all headed back down. The knees got an even better workout heading down, ouch! The whole mountain was pretty hazy/foggy/smoggy, so the pictures don't really do it justice of how scenic the whole area was.
After getting back in our tour van, we headed to the cloisonne factory and friendship store. We passed through a small area showing how they make cloissone, and how everything is handcrafted, then we ate a pretty good lunch at the restaurant there. It seemed to be a pre-packaged meal, because we didn't order anything, they just brought food out. Then we went out to the friendship store. It was supposed to be a government run store and thus no bargaining but in actual practice they would negotiate, particularly on higher priced items. We bought a very pretty cloisonne vase that is being shipped to our home. It depicts the dragon and phoenix, which is supposed to represent the opposites in a harmonial marriage, kind of like the yin and yang.

After leaving the store, we headed over to the Ming Tombs. We had decided earlier that we would only go to the 'Sacred Way'. I think I did not truly understand what that meant because it was mainly a (very nice) walk along a path with various stone carved statues. No actual tombs, but it was a really nice walk and the weather was cooperating with a cool breeze.

Our bus picked us up at the end and then we headed over to see an acrobat show. It was pretty interesting but I probably could have passed on it, on the whole. The most amazing sight was when four extremely limber girls did extreme bends with their bodies. Then they brought out a metal pole that had four mouthpieces protruding from it at an upward angle. In turn, each girl fitted her mouth on the mouthpiece, then flipped her whole body up and over her head, so that her back was touching the back of her head and she was looking at her own heels, with her entire body supported on that mouthpiece. Then the next girl would use that girl as a stepping stair to get up to the higher pole, and so on until they all were like that, then the pole started to rotate. I'm probably not describing it well, but it was pretty eye-popping.
After the acrobat show, we headed over for a hutong tour. We split off into pairs and got into pedicabs, like rickshaws but pulled by a man on a bike, for a tour of the old hutong areas, ancient little streets mostly inaccessible by cars. We stopped at a home where a woman made us dinner in her home. We had teeny tiny plates, smaller than a regular saucer, but plenty of food and it was very good. I have no idea how this woman made such a meal in what had to be an extremely small kitchen. Rhianne was really tired and had fallen asleep in the pedicab and didn't wake up through the whole dinner. I had to eat the whole time holding her on my lap.
After dinner, we got back into the pedicabs and toured more of the hutong area, then finally back to our van and back to the hotel. We were all exhausted!!

The next day, we had to be up at 4 am and checked out of our room at 5 am. A guide met us in the lobby and got us to the airport for our 7:30 am flight to Taiyuan. Our itinerary said that our flight was at 9:25 am but our guide insisted (and double checked) that our flight was actually at 7:30.
It was a relatively short flight to Taiyuan on Hainan Airlines, which I'd never heard of before. A few differences, they introduced the flight attendants by name and each bowed as her name was called, then they all bowed in unison at the end.
When the drink cart came around each passenger was handed what looked like a packaged sandwich. When we got ours, I realized it wasn't a sandwich, it was actually this:

When opened, the mystery revealed a type of shortbread cookie. They tasted pretty good but it still was funny that they would hand out a fairly large package of cookies to each passenger.
After arriving in Taiyuan, there were only a few people waiting there, none of whom was our guide. There was a guide waiting for another adopting couple who was on our same flight, and he helped us call our guide's cell phone number and figure out what was happening. (We later found out the waiting guide was her boss). Apparently, she was also given the later flight and flight number, so she wasn't expecting us yet. So she finally arrived and we had to wait about 20 minutes more before the driver arrived, but we finally got on the road to LuLiang, which was about a 3 hour drive. It was really interesting to see the true countryside and farmland in China. As we got closer to LuLiang, we started see much more industrial areas and we passed several coal mines, very dusty and dirty. We also were heading up into the mountains. Finally we pulled into the courtyard of LuLiang SWI. We had been told the SWI was being renovated, and we could see the doors to the classrooms were mostly missing, and some exposed brickwork. No actual work was being done while we were there, though, it had a rather abandoned feel.
Rhianne told us she had to go the bathroom and immediately ran away from us, saying she knew where it was, and took an exterior staircase somewhere before we could even tell her to stop. I guess she found it ok, b/c she came back in a minute with the job accomplished. We then went up a different staircase to the director's office. We presented her with our gifts and a photo album of Rhianne and three other children who were also adopted from LuLiang.
The director called out 'Hua Hua', and Rhianne acted very shy around her. She appeared to understand what was being said to her, and responded with nods or shakes of her head, but wouldn't say anything. When asked to translate, our guide had trouble at times, since she didn't understand the local dialect well, even though she (the guide) is from Taiyuan.
Another ayi appeared and rushed in to body hug Rhianne and broke down in tears. She was really overcome with emotion. She felt her chest (Rhianne used to have a grade IV-V heart murmur with a thrill, so you could feel it even through her clothes) and immediately asked about her heart. She was happy to hear that she had had her heart surgery and was completely healthy now. She kept hugging and squeezing Rhianne and talking to her nonstop. We asked about taking pictures and were told it would only be allowed of the front gate. So we all trooped outside to take a picture. More people appeared, some older children from the SWI and other ayis, and all were excited to see her. We kept hearing 'Hua Hua', 'Hua Hua' from various people.

We took some pictures of the various groups in front of the orphanage gate and we asked to treat the director to lunch. Somehow our group grew so that by the time we arrived at the restaurant, we were about 15 people. I wasn't even sure who half the people were until the end of the lunch.
At the restaurant, we were immediately ushered into a back private room, where some food was already waiting. New dishes kept appearing, at various times. It was a true feast. Almost everything was extremely spicy, so now we understand why Rhianne likes spicy food. I didn't know what a lot of the dishes were, but I don't think anything was organ meat or something I wouldn't eat. It was really good food, although I was sweating from all the spiciness! Toward the end of the meal, they brought out a plate of peeled whole cloves of garlic. Rhianne eating straight garlic now makes sense, although it sure seemed strange the first time she did this at home. :-)
Then, our guide asked us if we wanted to try the noodle specialty of the area. We were pretty full at this point, and Rhianne was refusing any more, but we were assured that we really needed to try it, so we said ok. They brought in individual bowls of pasta for each of us, hard to describe exactly but kind of like small squiggly noodles, along with other bowls of sauces and garnishment. Rhianne's ayi took over, adding various sauces and stirring it all up for each of us. One sauce had a tomato base, and then cooked egg in it, and one of the garnishments was garlic spouts with vinegar, that's all I can say for sure. But it did taste really good. Rhianne ate her bowl and then finished mine when I couldn't eat any more. Poor kid, we've been depriving her of her favorite food this past year.
Finally we had to wrap things up and head out of there as the day was wearing on and we wanted to visit and take pictures of Rhianne's finding spot. I didn't bring the official abandonment certificate, but I did have a written narrative of how she was found and who found her, in English. She asked one of the SWI workers about the name and it turns out that the ayi who rushed in and hugged Rhianne was actually the same person who found her! How amazing was that!
She led us to the spot where she found her and the exact spot no longer exists. There used to be a park directly across the street from the people's hospital and that was the spot. Now that park is gone because the city built a huge canal cutting through the town. We took some video of the canal and the surrounding street. It's definitely a place where you would expect people to come along and find a crying baby, so while it hurt my heart to think of our sweet little girl being left alone there, it was also good to know that she was left near a hospital where she would be able to be helped. We eventually had to leave, as we had another 3 hour drive ahead of us to return to Taiyuan. We had earlier decided to stop and see the ancient walled city of Pingyao if there was time and the guide said that we would indeed have time. I will have to write a separate post on that topic, because we're now in Xi'an and our guide here just called and said we will leave in 30 minutes for the civil affairs to meet Kian!!

We're in China!

2007-08-04T03:36:00.000-05:00

We left our home early Friday am for a 2 hour drive to Newark, where we caught a direct flight to Beijing. It's the quickest way to get to China from the East Coast, but still, 13.5 hours in a plane is no picnic. We were lucky to have empty seats next to ours so we could have some wiggle room, the service was decent and on the whole, the flight couldn't have gone better. I managed to get Rhianne to nap a little bit, although she was a chirpy chatterbox most of the time. Her carry on was packed with a huge arsenal of stuff to keep her busy and she checked out almost all of it. I had been saving the Harry Potter book for the flight and I successfully managed to read it on the way. Whew, no more worries about accidentally overhearing a spoiler. :-D
We landed in Beijing and didn't have an overly long wait to get through immigration. Our luggage all arrived in short order and we headed out through customs. Of course, right as D., pushing the cart piled high with all our bags, arrived next to the customs officer, the pile toppled over and all our bags ended up at his feet. Oops.
We eventually made it out to the entrance hall, where the way out was lined with throngs of people, all looking for their arriving passengers, many holding signs with names on them. Since we didn't know what our guide looked like, we had to scan all the signs along the way. I was a little worried when we got to the very end and I hadn't seen a sign with our name on it. Then a youngish man beckoned to me and said 'Over here.' I hesitantly followed him for a few steps, thinking to myself that I wasn't going too far until I knew who he was! Then he called me by name and introduced himself. All was well, this was indeed our guide. We had about a 45 minute drive into the city and we're checked into our hotel here now. It's a very nice hotel room, seems recently renovated including the big plasma tv on the wall. Several english speaking channels to choose from too.
Right now D. and Rhianne are snoozing and F. and I are watching national geographic. Before our guide left, I asked him if he could recommend a nearby restaurant for dinner, and he basically said that we should stay in the hotel, that he didn't know if things would be safe for us. Oh and he pointed out a McDonald's down the street. Hmmm well I didn't just fly halfway around the world to eat American fast food, so we'll just figure out something on our own.
Tomorrow we have a very busy itinerary so I should have some interesting things to share then.

Here's Rhianne on the plane as we descended down into Beijing.

And here's the view from our hotel room. There aren't too many in this picture, but the number of cranes in the skyline as we drove to the hotel were unbelievable. Construction is going gangbusters, presumably in preparation for the Olympics.

Five hours until we leave

2007-08-03T01:31:00.000-05:00

Our bags are packed, zipped, and ready to load in the car. Everything has been crossed off my list. The bags are completely full, so even if I did forget something, I couldn't fit it in my suitcase anyway, haha.
So I'm sitting here contemplating the changes in our family that will happen in just 4 days and thinking of how things will seem to Kian.
Before we adopted Rhianne, I don't think I had a full appreciation of the child's perspective when it comes to adoption. For us, like in most adoptive families I'm sure, this is a time of great excitement, lots of plans and preparation and anticipation of great joy. So it may seem contradictory to be thinking about losses and grief. Yet, in adoption, those things are inextricably bound together. Obviously, I believe our decision to adopt Kian is the right thing to do. As a child with a visible special need and an orphan, he has a very limited future in China. So my words do not belie the fact that I am firmly convinced we are doing the best thing for him, by making him part of our family in the U.S.
However, for Kian this will not immediately be a time of happiness or rejoicing. Very shortly, he will be handed over to complete strangers, who cannot understand a word he says, who look and smell nothing like people he is familiar with, and go stay in a place he's never been before and nothing is familiar. He will come with nothing more than the clothes on his back. When we leave China to bring him home, he will forever be losing the opportunity to really know what it means to be Chinese, to be immersed in his birth culture. While he may visit or even live there later in life, it can never be the same as if he had grown up in his birth family in China. He already lost that family, most likely because he was born with a limb difference, and now he is about to lose everything else.
So my happiness and excitement tonight is tempered with a little bit of sadness about the grief that Kian shortly will be experiencing.

5 days and counting down

2007-07-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

We leave for China in less than 5 days, it's hard to believe our turn has finally almost arrived. Our bags are 90% packed and my list of things to-do, to-find, or to-buy has dwindled down to the very last things. One whole side of my bedroom is devoted to our luggage and I keep tripping over things. From the picture one would think we are moving to China and not just going there for 17 days. As you can see, we're not much into the ubiquitous black wheeled suitcase. Or matching luggage sets. However, nobody else ever has our luggage and they're very easy to spot coming off the conveyer belt at airports.

Plans firming up

2007-07-23T17:29:00.000-05:00

Hotels are getting reserved and internal China flights are getting booked, yay! So far, we have:
Aug. 3 - Fly out of Newark
Aug. 4 - Arrive Beijing in afternoon. Low key day, maybe eat some Peking duck?
Aug. 5 - Sightseeing in Beijing. On the plans are to see the Great Wall (a different section than we saw last time); the Ming tombs; and go on a hutong tour.
Aug. 6 - Take 7 am flight to Taiyuan (about a one hour flight). Drive out to Rhianne's SWI and visit. Drive back to Taiyuan and spend night there.
Aug. 7 - Take am flight to Xi'an (another one hour flight). Get Kian?? This part is not yet firmed up. I have been counting on this day, though.
Aug. 13 - D. flies back to US, leaving me halfway around the world with three children. :-) I'm sad that he's going home early, but he needs to be back for work, and the heat of Guangzhou is not good for him.
Aug. 14 - I take an evening flight to Guanzhou. Kian's first time on a plane - should be very interesting! Hopefully in a good way and not a screaming, nightmarish kind of way, haha.

The remainder is the same as in my previous post. I did go ahead and book a hotel in Hong Kong. I booked it on my own, with guidance from reviews at tripadvisor.com. It's right by the airport and offered a pretty good rate for pre-paying. I had a really difficult time trying to find a room that would accomodate one adult and three children. Most rooms only allow two people or two adults and one child. While the girls would be ok sleeping on the floor with some comforters or something, I didn't want to take the risk of being rejected at checkin, particularly since I will be completely on my own at this point. Well, alone in terms of other adults with me. Fortunately, I was able to find a queen suite that allows two adults and two children, with breakfast for all for around $150 per night. And it's only 5 minutes to the airport so we don't have to rush off at the crack of dawn like last time we flew out of Hong Kong.
I'm still not sure what we're doing for the one 'sightseeing' day in Hong Kong. I have this tiny idea of taking the kids to Hong Kong Disneyland. I understand it's very doable in one day or even less than day, as it's much smaller than either the FL or CA Disneyland. Yet, I don't want to overload the end of our trip so we're all completely frazzled and tired.
So much depends on Kian and his temperament. I'll just have to wait until the end of our trip to see how everthing is going and decide then.

Tentative Travel Plans

2007-07-19T19:53:00.000-05:00

We have a confirmed consulate appointment for Aug. 16th and so we have a tentative travel agenda:
Aug. 3 - Leave U.S., fly to Beijing
Aug. 4 - Arrive Beijing, try to stay awake until bedtime to get on correct time. (Last time we traveled, I preached to my whole family that they needed to do this. Unfortunately, I was conked out at 6 pm, thereby ensuring that I was wide awake at 1 am...)
Aug. 5 - 7 Sightsee, visit Rhianne's orphanage
Aug. 7 - fly to Xi'an
Aug. 8 - Kian Day!!!
Aug. 9 - 14 Hang out in Xi'an, start bonding with Kian, do some sightseeing
Aug. 14 - Receive Kian's passport and adoption registration paperwork
Aug. 14 or 15 - fly to Guangzhou
Aug. 15 - Medical exam and visa photo
Aug. 16 - Consulate appointment (only my guide goes to this, we just wait to hear that everything passed ok)
Aug. 17 - Swearing in ceremony at the consulate, receive Kian's passport back with a visa to enter the U.S.
Aug. 17 evening - take train to Hong Kong
Aug. 18 - Sightsee Hong Kong
Aug. 19 - fly back to U.S.

I purchased our airline tickets today. We're spending about the same as we spent last July, even though we have one more person flying round trip. By some miracle, I was able to snag one ticket with frequent flyer miles, which I'm eternally grateful for. Now I'll be even more grateful if I'm able to sit with the family on the way. For some reason, the online system is not allowing me to pick a seat, even though seats show as available. We might have to do some last minute juggling. Whew, it's good to have that taken care of!

It's here, it's here!!

2007-07-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

The phone rang today and the travel coordinator said the words I've been longing to hear "Your TA is here!" They are requesting a consulate date of Aug. 15 or 16, which means we could be flying out by August 1st. Gulp, two short weeks! Not complaining, of course.... :-)

Day of Many TA's... but not ours

2007-07-16T23:56:00.001-05:00

I was so sure today would be our day, and it was for many other people with our same LOA date (and even later than our LOA date) but the agency did not receive a package today. Maybe tomorrow.....

Toddler Shopping and General Prep

2007-07-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

I did quite a bit of shopping this weekend, preparing for our trip to China and also just buying things in general. Our last trip, I was up until 4 am packing things and getting everything ready, I'd like to avoid that this time if possible! :-)
Many people on my adoption lists recommend that you don't bring a lot of things like snacks and such, or even a stroller, that all that can be bought in China. However, I don't want to be rushing out on a shopping trip with a possibly very unhappy, grieving toddler. So I'm opting to bring as much stuff with me as I can.
I bought a stroller a few weeks ago and plan to gate check it. It's a lightweight umbrella stroller that not only folds down, it folds inward as well so it's really compact. It even has a shoulder carrying strap on the back.

As for toys and gadgets, so far I have playdough and playdough accessories, stickers, crayons, little toy cars, a play cellphone, some books and some little plastic tub toys, plus a little toddler size Diego backpack to keep it all in. I also have sippy cups, bibs and little snack bowls with lids. I still need to get bubbles and stacking cups.
I have no idea if Kian is potty trained or not, but I packed some pullups and swim diapers, as well as a bunch of 2-3T underwear. Clothes I have mostly size 2T, but also a couple 24 months and 3T, just in case. I'm not bringing any shoes, as shoes are cheap in China and I wouldn't know what size to buy. Of course, they seem to be cheaply made as well. One of Rhianne's light up sandals we bought there stopped lighting up the day after we bought them. I guess for the equivalent of $4, we can't expect too much!
I also finally bought a car seat for Kian.

We're not taking it with, of course, as there is not much use for them in China. It would be handy to have for the flight home, but I can't see lugging it all the way to and around China for that sole purpose. So it will be belted in our car, ready for the drive home from the airport.
I debated buying another Britax Regent, like we have for Rhianne, but that is one freakishly huge and heavy carseat. I once lugged it to L.A. and back (and gate checked it) which practically killed me, and I really have no desire to do that again. This carseat can be used on a plane (the Regent can't) and it does go up to 65 lbs, so we should be good for quite a while. I will have to get a 2nd carseat for D's car as well, but that can wait until we get home from China.

Well, I feel good about the progress I made towards getting ready for the trip. Now if only the TA would arrive so I can actually plan said trip!

No TA yet

2007-07-14T15:27:00.000-05:00

I really thought we would get our TA (travel approval) this week, but it didn't happen. My window for traveling in August is rapidly shrinking and if we don't get TA by next week, I will have to resign myself to traveling in September. I think I'm more antsy about this adoption than the last one, because there is a real time constraint.

LOA finally arrived back in China

2007-07-03T05:23:00.000-05:00

I'll spare the rant here, except to say that the LOA's sent to my agency as a group were finally sent back as a group, and were received in China on Monday July 2nd. So now I am finally waiting for TA.
Our timeline for traveling before Sept. has become more tight, since our oldest son has decided to get married on August 30th. Unless we can travel and get back home by Aug. 18th, I will have to wait to travel until September. That would mean that our 10 yr old dd would have to stay home. And then most likely, D. will need to stay home to take care of her, unless we can work out some other arrangements. Soooo, we are really, really hoping for a speedy TA, now more than ever.

LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-06-18T17:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm back to the three letter acronym for post titles.... :-) I'm thrilled to say that our LOA (Letter of Approval) from China was received today at our agency. They are fedexing it to us today, so tomorrow both D. and I will sign it and fedex it back to our agency. This means that our dossier has been reviewed and approved and we are a go for bringing home our little guy.
Next we wait for TA (Travel Approval). I'm really hoping we can travel the first two weeks of August and I think we have a good chance of that. Lately, LOA --> TA wait has been running 3-4 weeks, so if that holds true we will be in good shape.

Overall, a very good Monday here.

Day 58 Update

2007-06-06T21:12:00.001-05:00

Not for us personally, but it was a great LOA day in the China Adoption world. I was thrilled to find out that everyone who was waiting ahead of us (e.g. their LID were prior to ours, they're using our same agency and they're adopting a waiting child) has now gotten their LOA. That means we're next! Ok, it may not mean we actually get ours next, since the CCAA appears to have no rhyme or reason as to how they send out these batches of LOA's. Still, we very possibly could get it in the next couple of weeks, if the current wait times continue. I'll just cling to the belief that it feels like progress!

Day 51 - And Nuthin' to Report

2007-05-30T09:55:00.000-05:00

Not much news on the LOA/TA front this past week, and maybe none expected for another week or so. I understand the director of the CCAA is out of the country, part of a delegation touring Australia. From discussions in the past, he is the only person authorized to sign (or CHOP) the Travel Approvals. I'm not sure the same is true for the LOA's, but very possibly so. We have to get our LOA by mid July if we have any hope of traveling in August. I have to say, I'm really dreading the sweltering heat. I could have enjoyed China so much more during our last trip (July 2006) if the weather had not been so darn hot and sticky. Still, traveling later would mean that the girls would miss school. For Rhianne, it's not so much a concern since she'll be in first grade. However, with F. starting middle school this year, it would be a great hardship for her to miss so much school. Last year, we made an impromptu trip to CA right after school started (because Rhianne's heart surgery was postponed and this way we could have her meet my entire family) and it negatively affected F.'s entire first quarter, before she truly got caught up.

Day 42 post LID

2007-05-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

We're up to Day 42 (but who's counting?? haha) in our wait for the LOA. My agency got a batch of LOA for LID's earlier than ours last week and I was super excited to see that one family was on day 45 and two families were on day 55, while all the rest were in the 60's and 70's. I really hope this trend continues and we hear something by next month.
I've gradually started to buy things for Kian. I've been a little superstitious that this adoption won't go through and so I've been reluctant to buy too much. However, I wasn't able to pass up some really good clearance deals and bought his new bedding set. I love it and can't wait to get his room all fixed up for him.

I also bought him a bunch of summer clothes, anticipating that we will be traveling in August or Sept at the latest. I bought size 2T, purely based on his height/weight update from last December, and then extrapolating on the same curve of the growth chart.
I've picked out a stroller, high chair and car seat, but I'm holding off on any other purchases until we have LOA in hand. I'm still not sure if he will be ready to sleep in a twin size bed when he gets home or whether he will need a crib of some kind. I'm thinking of getting a toddler bed and crib mattress to keep in our room until he's ready to sleep in his own room. Then again, he can always sleep with us, it will not bother us. Decisions, decisions....

LID!!!

2007-04-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

[And yes, every post will now begin with an acronym and several exclamation points, haha..]
I was ecstatic and more than a little stunned to find out today that our dossier was logged in at the CCAA on April 9th, the same day it arrived. This mean our official countdown has begun. In fact, we're 9 days into the wait. Still, I'm not getting my hopes up that we will have less than a 100 day wait for the LOA. I even planned a family vacation to CA for two weeks over the 4th of July. When I told a co-worker of our trip, he looked surprised and asked me "But what about China?" My response was that things were running a lot more slowly this year and I was sure we would be traveling in August at the earliest, and more likely September or October. As always, I would love to be proved wrong.

DTC!!!

2007-04-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

I am so thrilled to post that we are DTC today!! After all the excitement and scurrying around to get the paperwork done, we now just sit back and wait to hear from China. We don't know how long it will take, but from what I've been seeing from others in the same situation, it will probably be about 4 months until we get to the next step, which is receiving our LOA, or Letter Seeking Confirmation. Basically, it's a piece of paper confirming that we do, indeed, want to adopt Kian. We'll sign that, send it back, and then wait for TA (Travel Approval). It's been running about a month from LOA to TA. So, I'm estimating we'll be traveling in the September/October time frame. Hopefully not later than that, but no guarantees. The one good thing is that airfares will have come down. When we traveled to China last year, we flew in July, which is when the airfares are the most expensive. Plus the weather in Guangzhou is the hottest.
Don't get me wrong, I would travel in a heartbeat in July again, if we have the opportunity. I'm just trying to look on the bright side of a longer wait. Last year they hadn't yet instituted this 'LOA' and so we only waited 63 days from LID to TA. Actually, we were LID April 4, 2005 for Rhianne. At that time, we never dreamed that almost exactly one year later, we would be bringing home another child. We had a hellacious paperchase for Rhianne, and the lessons we learned then put us in good stead for this time, so it all went pretty smoothly.
I feel sooooo blessed to get to this point, in the time frame we needed to.

State authentications done

2007-03-26T22:33:00.000-05:00

I took the day off work today and drove to Harrisburg. All our PA state documents are now authenticated and our document fedex-ed off to the dossier consultant in NY. I understand the turnaround time for the NY consulate is 4 days so I'm guessing everything will be back and complete by next Monday. We still need to pick our dossier photos, gather up some miscellaneous items and send those things off directly to the agency. I'm so excited to think that we could be DTC by next week!

Woohoo!

2007-03-24T00:02:00.000-05:00

I rushed home from work today, eager to check the mail. I didn't even park the car, just pulled up to the mailbox so I could lean over and grab the mail. To my delight (and still some disbelief), our USCIS approval has arrived!! I cannot believe how lucky we are that it was processed so quickly. Our social worker had told us they were running about 6-7 weeks with a big backlog. I did include a cover letter when I sent in the homestudy, mentioning that we were trying to get our dossier submitted prior to the rule changes in China, so maybe that helped. I'll take it, no matter how it happened. So Monday, I'll be taking a little road trip to get all our home state documents state-authenticated and then fedex it off to get the consulate authentications.

USCIS approval??

2007-03-22T21:10:00.000-05:00

I was surprised to get a phone call from USCIS at 7 am today. The orphan officer said she had our file and everything was there except for one document. She gave me her fax number and I quickly faxed it over to her. I'm assuming that she wouldn't be looking at our file unless she was reviewing it for our approval. I'm cautiously excited but also a little stunned as I was told they were working on a 7 week approval time, while they've only had the homestudy for about 2 weeks now. I will be thrilled if this is true!!

Homestudy Done!

2007-03-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

I'm holding in my hands a copy of our completed homestudy. It's flying to the USCIS tomorrow and hopefully we will have our immigration approval in the near future. That's the last document we need for our dossier, so we're really hoping it can make it to China before the May 1st rule change. We will still be ok even if we don't make that date, I will just have to work extra hard on the treadmill in the meantime.
Here's the latest picture of our son that we received in December.

PA Received!!

2007-02-16T20:02:00.000-05:00

Got the great news today that our PA has arrived! That means that China has given the preliminary approval for us to submit our dossier for Kian. Our paperchase is moving along, just waiting for one more paper to arrive so that our homestudy can be submitted to the USCIS for our immigration approval. As soon as we get that, we'll be DTC shortly thereafter!!

LOI Written

2006-12-05T00:33:00.000-05:00

Amazingly, we embark on this adventure once again. Who knew that less than 6 months from bringing Rhianne come, we would be ready to start this process all over again? In my ideal world, I planned to start our homestudy when we had our first post placement visit for Rhianne in January. Then, armed with a completed homestudy and I-171h approval in the works, we would begin haunting the waiting child lists, trying to find our little boy who will complete our family. Ha. The reality is that I have never stopped looking at each new list that comes out, mostly out of curiosity and also to see who in my 'waiting child' circle is adopting whom. I've oohed and aahed over many beautiful children.
Two months ago, an agency came out with a new list, and on it was a little boy, a baby really. He has a left arm/hand limb difference and he looks like a little emperor with a serene, peaceful gaze. My heart was pulled to him immediately. But just as quickly, I had second thoughts. He's so young! Do I really want to do diapers again? And then back again. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a wee one again. Not so little as to have to deal with bottles and maybe not long in diapers, but still a busy toddler.
I was torn, but decided to email the agency. After talking with the Waiting Child coordinator, I found out that they usually prefer to have families adopt at least one year apart, but an exception would be made if his file was close to being sent back. She suggested I email her again at the end of the next month.
Well, I kept watching the list, sure that some other family would just scoop him up. But each petition period kept coming and going, and the words 'pending' never appeared next to his name. It was really incomprehensible.
Finally, the end of the next month arrived and I emailed again. The answer this time was yes, they could now accept our petition. So, over the Thanksgiving weekend, D. and I had a serious discussion about it. We filled out the multiple page petition and faxed it in. I couldn't really concentrate on work that day, on pins and needles to find out what would happen next.
On my way home from work that day, I was surprised to find that the agency had earlier left a voicemail on my cell phone, saying that they had received our petition, but one other family had also petitioned for him. They would be calling me again to talk things over with me before their matching committee met.
Now, months ago, I had decided that I would only petition for a child, no matter the agency, if there were no other families petitioning for that child. I don't ever want to be in a position of competing for a child. Yet here we were. I had already committed to him in my heart, and D. had agreed (no small feat!) and the paperwork was already in. I thought to myself that even if the other family was matched with him, I would be happy for him. He was getting a family and a home and that's what was really important.
To my complete shock (and I had really convinced myself that the other family would be chosen!), the coordinator called and said we had been matched with him. I almost had no words, just complete and utter joy. Ok that was a lie, a little bit of terror too. But 99% joy.
We're getting our little boy!!
So, since that day, we've perfected the LOI (letter of intent) that needs to get send to the CCAA. This is what the Chinese government will use to give us pre-approval (PA), which is our official referral. While we're waiting for PA to arrive, we will be paperchasing to complete the official dossier. Even though we just adopted earlier this year, everything needs to get done again from scratch. We will be assigned to a dossier consultant and a social worker for the home study once we send in our signed LOI and signed contracts to use this agency. I can't post pictures until we have the PA, but trust me when I say this little boy is just adorable, you will love him. I already do.