Things to be Thankful For

Hey---I’m back! After a brief interlude of insanity, otherwise known as a busy life, the blog is back online. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, although, if you read Tara’s blog, you will already know that there were some less than favorable moments. We’ve had a family tradition for years of camping on Thanksgiving. Well, when we first started camping, we would be one of 25 or so tent campers in camp ground. There might be 3 RVs. Now camping is like pitching your tent in a trailer park. We were subjected to extremely loud and very bad sounding karaoke and drunken football revelry. I’m not sure what we’re going to do next year but if anyone knows where we might go to tent camp in a serene area where we might enjoy the sounds of nature, you know, birds and stuff, let us know! The little ones enjoyed themselves, poor little things didn’t know that bad karaoke is NOT part of the camping experience. Anyway, it was Tabitha’s first Thanksgiving and she loved sharing it with her nieces and nephews (as long as they didn’t try to ride her Care Bears scooter). We all had many things to be thankful for, our family, health, and the good fortune not to actually BE drunken redneck karaoke singing RVers (just be camped near them).

Now to get ready for Christmas. Another first for Tabitha! Our tree is up and just waiting for little hands to decorate the bottom half. Tonight we’re off to the city’s Festival of Lights celebration and hope to get some pictures of Hopers and Noodle in the parade.

Tabitha Funnies

This morning while getting ready for pre-school and work, I attempted to put Tabitha’s hair in two pony tails. I do this mostly to keep her hair clean and out of the way because she has a wild mane of unruly wavy hair. I probably should get it cut but I love her curls. So every morning I try to make some semblance of a part, which her hair does not do naturally. I sit her on the bathroom countertop, between the two sinks and chase her bobbing head as she gets into everything she can. I try to position her head with my hands to remind her where I need her head to be but she ignores me and gets on with the business of plundering toiletries. This morning I cried out in exasperation after my third attempt at a part, “Tabitha, will you hold your head still!” She promptly put her two little hands on either side of her head and held it still.

Last week when she was finger painting at school, her teacher told me that Tabitha put her entire hand down in the paint, looked at her hand, then rubbed the paint all over her face. She still had a purple tint when I picked her up. I guess she thought she would be really pretty with a purple face.

This Wednesday was picture day at school. Since I had to sit under a blanket and hold her when we took her for studio pictures, I didn’t have much faith that the school would have better luck than I. The teachers said they stood in the next room laughing as the photographer positioned Tabitha on the stool in front of the back drop and ran to the camera as Tabitha turned to face the backdrop. After trying this five or six times, the photographer finally wised up and placed Tabitha facing the backdrop before running to the camera. This time, Miss Stubborn, turned to face the camera.

Yesterday, while I was trying to cook supper, Tabitha was hanging on my leg and crying because she was hungry and because she always wants my undivided attention. I pacified her by giving her pieces of the raw vegetables that I was chopping. She loved raw bell pepper, yellow squash, and zucchini. I gave her a piece of raw cabbage that was a little bitter. She tasted it, ran to the trash can, spit out the cabbage and exclaimed, “That’s old!”

She keeps me laughing every day.

(No pictures for now, my camera is broken.)

Two Year-Old Check-up

Tabitha weighed 16 pounds and was 27 inches long when we first met her in China. Today she had her 2 year old check-up and after just 7 months of Gerber food, she now weighs 19 pounds and is 30 and ¾ inches long. Woohoo! She’s still not on the American growth chart but she’s growing! She got a shot, another TB test, and a lab sheet for more blood work. Some things have to be checked twice just in case she was exposed right before we brought her home. She watched those needles carefully. No one will be able to sneak up on her again with one of those. She got a snazzy pink camouflage Band-Aid and a spider-man sticker and she was really proud of both. She wouldn’t let me remove the Band-Aid even though it was starting to come off during her bath. She earned that Band-Aid, and, by golly, she’s not going to let anyone take it from her.

How's It Going?

A lot of people ask me that, referring to Tabitha, usually as we’re departing church or I’m drying my hands in the Ladies room at work. I know they want the short answer, the one you want when you ask, “Hi, how are you doing?” When people ask that question, they’re politely acknowledging your existence and usually don’t want the gory details of your gall bladder surgery. So, depending on how much sleep I’ve had, I answer, “We’re doing great!” or “Pretty good for not having slept in 6 months.” To tell you the truth, the real answer to, “How’s it going?” is complicated and not something I could answer in brief. For most people to fully understand my answer, they would need to have an understanding of the issues involved in adopting a child through international adoption.

First of all, bringing a toddler home from China is much different than bringing a new born home from the hospital or even adopting one domestically. It’s different for the parents and different for the child. Maybe someone should ask Tabitha, “How’s it going?” I imagine that if she was verbally fluent (she’s still at one to two word sentences) and could analyze her feelings enough to put them into words, she might tell you that she’s starting to get used to her parents. She didn’t know for sure why they took her from the orphanage, after all, she had never left it before. Her life in the orphanage had been one of routine and she knew what to expect every minute of each day. She was taken by these two strange looking people and subjected to new experiences with no two days being the same. She might tell you how terrified she was that she might be left somewhere so she clung to the “mommy.” Somehow through the terror, she started to notice that these new people were very focused on her, they held her and stroked her and cooed their strange words to her. Today, she’s pretty sure Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to go away but she holds tight to them, just in case. A feeling of panic creeps on her when she’s in new situations, especially when Mommy and Daddy are not focused on her. She has to do things to get their attention. She’s noticed that she’s not always in the center of their attention and that’s a little scary, she doesn’t want her life to be like it was in the orphanage, when attention was given in small doses. So she pushes Mommy’s hands away from her computer and climbs up in her lap with a book for Mommy to read to her. She makes Mommy hold her while Mommy cleans house. She has to make sure these people don’t forget about her. And then there’s Hoper’s and Noodle. At first when they came to play, she thought they were going to stay. Mommy loved on them and that made her feel panicky, too. She didn’t want to share. At the orphanage, you had to be special to get loved on and maybe Mommy would think Hoper’s and Noodle were more special than her. So she hit Hopers and pushed her. Now she’s not so worried about them taking her Mommy away from her but she still gets a little nervous around all kids. Night time is the worst time. She doesn’t like being alone. When she goes to sleep she doesn’t know what might be happening, so she doesn’t want to sleep. She feels safest in the big bed between Mommy and Daddy but sometimes she still has bad dreams. She really likes her toys. She didn’t have toys that were just hers before and doesn’t like it when other kids touch her toys. “I’m not in the orphanage anymore“, she wants to tell them, “I don’t have to share toys.” At school, she “shares,” which means she forcefully takes the toys she wants. She has to hit the kids there sometimes because if you hit them first, they won’t bother you. When you are smaller than everyone, you have to fight for everything. She doesn’t cry at school, even if it hurts when she falls down. School feels like an orphanage because Mommy and Daddy aren’t there. At the orphanage you didn’t always get comforted when you fell down. Crying doesn’t do much good in the orphanage, the grown-ups can’t always help you because they have to help all the kids. Mommy and Daddy will help, though, so she cries really loud and long when they’re near. The experiences she had at the orphanage, both good and bad, are starting to fade, but the lessons she learned from living there are still with her. She’s learning that things are different when you have a family, but changing your expectations of the world and the way you react to it is hard.

From my perspective, I have this amazing and beautiful little girl who soaks up life like a sponge. She watches and learns from everything around her. I love her so much that my heart nearly bursts when I think about her. She commands my attention every moment that she is awake and even some moments when she is asleep. She is both fearful and clingy and yet fiercely independent during the same point in time. She has nightmares and night terrors that keep us up sometimes for nights on end. She has been sick so often that I fear that I won’t have enough sick leave to make it through the winter months. At home, when we’re just hanging out, she’s loving and playful but when we take her places, she’s anxious, and more often than not will act out. She will cling to me and push me away, making me exhausted and wish that we had stayed home. At home, I realize I need adult companionship so I call my grown kids on the phone and annoy them. Bit by bit, she’s learning to play on her own and doesn’t always need me sitting beside her. She’s still intensely jealous of all activities that don’t involve her, so all my activities are done in small spurts or with her on my hip. Sometimes it’s very wearing and my patience runs thin. Now that she’s two, she has learned that inevitable word, “no” and is perfecting the art of balking. She’s also cutting all her teeth at once and is extremely cranky at times. Just when I think I can’t listen to another minute of whining, she puts her tiny arms around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder. "Mama," she whispers softly. I remember why I love her, my little piece of pure heaven.

So how are you?

Celebrate Life

Celebrate! Tabitha’s 2nd birthday, our 6 month anniversary of her adoption, the State of Florida’s recognition of our adoption--we had so much to celebrate this past month! Most of all, we celebrate that we have added to our already wonderful family, this precious baby girl. God is really good to us!

We had a big party bash for Tabitha. It was her 2nd birthday, but her first birthday party. She has been to several others’ birthday parties and she knew just what to do, except for the candle part. We had lots of friends and family over. Doc T and family and Grandpa came for the weekend. As you can see from the pictures, Tabitha got lots of presents. This house was rocking and rolling with chaos. It was so much fun! Thanks to everyone for helping us celebrate.

Doc T Graduates

We (me, G-Daddy, Tabitha, and Grandpa) attended the final graduation ceremony for Doc T. She’s finally done with her residency program and is stepping out into the real world. I’m the mother of a doctor now, which means that I can back up my internet degree in medicine with real medical advice. She can’t write us prescriptions, there’s some kind of medical code of honor that forbids that, but all the members of her family can feel free to wake her up at 2:00 am to ask about a strange looking mole that may have turned cancerous sometime during the night. I’m so proud of her. I remember when Doc T. was just a sassy little girl, the sassiness started around birth, and now she’s all grown up. I guess that sassiness will serve her well when she’s brow beating someone into getting a colonoscopy.


Big boy Natey tried to keep his Aunt quiet during the graduation, telling her, “Be quiet, Tabifa.” Tabitha entertained the people around us by holding my cell phone to her ear and saying, “Hewwo? Yes, yes.” Both kids were pretty patient with the whole affair and baby Nick expressed his excitement by sleeping through most of it.

Proud Parents

Proud Grandpa

Happy Boy

Nicky Wakes for a Moment

"Excuse me, I need to take this call."

The Family Bed

We’re doing the family bed thing. If you don’t approve of the family bed concept, well, just go on your way now and sleep your peaceful sleep. I don’t want have to explain myself but suffice it to say I just can’t stand the idea of her feeling abandoned or lonely or frightened. She starts out in her bed, or at least in the Pack-n-Play she thinks is her bed, but almost always ends up in ours. Each night she drinks her bobble (isn’t that soooo cute), kisses Daddy nite-nite, and runs off to the bathroom yelling “teeth.” I brush her teeth, then tuck her in with Pooh and LuLu the Lamb. She cheerfully blows kisses at me and is sound asleep within 5 minutes--it’s now 8:00. The house is quiet except for Daddy’s inevitable crime show. Since I’m a grown-up and can stay up as long as I want, I doze in my chair until 9:00 before crawling off to bed. Then sometime around 1:00 comes the blood-curdling cries. I try patting her back, stroking her gently but the crying becomes more frantic and increasingly louder. Just before the sound barrier is broken and the neighbors call law enforcement, I sweep her up into our bed. The crying usually stops instantly and the turf wars begin. The grown-ups cling to the edges of the bed while the smallest occupant kung fu fights for dominance over the rest. This morning I felt her tiny hands pushing at me and since I had no place to go except the floor, I picked her up and moved her to the center of the bed. Next thing I know, she’s on her knees with two fists full of my pajama shirt trying to throw me off the bed. Maybe I was snoring. Who knows, but I’m thinking about sleeping in the Pack-n-Play and letting her have the family bed.

Getting Adjusted

Look what I found under the couch! It’s a blog. Kinda dusty.

We’re getting adjusted. I knew that going back to work full time would be the test for me. Tabitha’s doing great; I’m exhausted. My house is a mess, my car is a pigsty, but we’re happy. Every morning on the way to day care I tell Tabitha “The Story of Monday (or whatever day it is).” In this story I describe her day and how at the end of it Mama comes to pick her up and take her home. She joins in with a chorus of “home!” at the end of each story. I don’t know if it is this preparation or that she’s just a stoic little girl, but after giving me a goodbye kiss and hug, she waves bye and toddles off to play without a tear. Part of me wants her to cling to me and cry so I’ll know she’s attached to me. When I come to pick her up in the afternoon, though, she runs to me laughing with arms reaching up. It makes my heart warm just thinking about it.

The day care workers tell me she never cries and that she’s totally fearless. Occasionally she has a time out for aggressive behavior toward the other babies but they’re patiently trying to teach her, along with all the other toddlers, to share. I read a lot about attachment disorder while we were waiting to go to China. I know that many children adopted from orphanages suffer from this disorder. I have the list of attachment disorder symptoms burned into my brain from reading them so often before she came home. (I had a lot more time on my hands then.) Every time I see her behavior lean in the direction of one of those symptoms, like never crying at day care, not crying when I leave her, and her fearlessness, my mind tries to put a check mark beside a symptom. Then I erase the check and tell myself, “Self, she’s only been home since January. The orphanage was all she had ever known and you don’t know what she experienced there. Give her time to adjust. Of course she’s tough and stoic, she’s never had a primary caregiver who she trusted to take care of all her needs. Keep showing her that you’re hers and you will take care of her no matter what. Enjoy her, love her, worry later, if necessary.”

Okay, when I’m not worrying about attachment disorder, I enjoy her spunkiness. I love spunky kids. She’s funny, too. She loves to be silly and clown around. But don’t cross her or she may have to take her shoe off. The day care workers told me that she went up to the biggest boy of the two year olds, took her shoe off and started hitting him with it. Poor little fellow obviously didn’t realize he outweighs her by 10 pounds so he ran from her. She chased him a few feet, still swatting at him with her shoe. Then she stopped and calmly put her shoe back on. The teachers scolded her and comforted him then inwardly howled with laughter at the sight of the tiniest chastising the largest. My petite baby girl is 17 pounds of pure dynamite.

Disclaimer: She must have learned the shoe thing in China. We have big feet and our shoes would be considered lethal weapons. We don’t hit each other and if we did, we certainly wouldn’t use shoes.

The Face of Confidence

Okay, I will admit that I am a very inconsistent blogger. Raising a toddler is consuming all my resources. (Yes, that means a tiny, 16 pound, one year old is whipping my rear-end and I am too exhausted at the end of each day to think of how to type, much less what to type.) But before you nay-sayers say, “I told you so,” hush, I love this little tyke immensely and am totally content.) It is hard to blog, though, since she is insanely jealous of my laptop and whines to get in my lap if I even look at it. And there are so many other things that keep us busy each day. There are lunches with friends, trips to the vet, trips out of town, shopping to be done, playing at the park, stomach viruses (nasty), and all those day to day things that aren’t getting done, either. And then before you know it, looming on the horizon is my inevitable return to work. I have to make the most of my time off work doing bonding activities and fun stuff.

I’m having a little trouble with the concept of work and my new status as mommy to a toddler. Not that I have a choice about returning to work, since my income is half of the family’s support and that toddler has to eat. But I sure will miss our leisurely mornings of bottles and coffee, daytime excursions, and rocking her to sleep for her afternoon naps. I know that weekends at the end of a workweek will be full of errands and chores that will rob of us of our one on one time. Basically, I’m not ready to leave her yet.

The important question is whether she is ready for me to leave her. As the experts advise, we’ve worked on meeting her needs immediately so that she can feel secure. I’ve guided her gently and slowly through accepting her new world. She has made great strides in the short time she has been home. Just look at her face; it is a face that shows confidence. Confidence that her smallest whimper will bring us running, that the hugs and kisses will keep coming, and that all the ice cream belongs to her. She now holds up her arms for her Daddy to pick her up and will snuggle her little body next to his for comfort. She chants, “Da Da, Da Dee,” when he gets home from work. Big change from not wanting him to touch her. She has climbed into her big sister’s lap of her own accord and no longer cries when sister tries to hold her. She’s warming up to her niece, Hopers, and calls her, “Op.” She still follows me from room to room but doesn’t panic when I leave her to put away laundry. Today she stayed in the nursery at church. I was apprehensive and kept waiting to be summoned to comfort a sobbing child but they said she played the entire time. Huh. She could have at least looked sad for a minute but I guess this is testimony to her feeling secure. She was happy to see me when the service was over and I was happy to see her! I think she is going to do just fine; I don’t know about me.

Doc T Delivers Another Nephew for Tabitha

Sorry about the dearth of posts but I have a toddler now which means I am lucky to put together a complete sentence verbally, much less write it down. Those of you with toddlers know that the law of physics for toddlerhood is: For every action completed by an adult there is an extremely unequal and opposite reaction completed by the toddler. For example, you, the adult, see a cheerio on the floor that must have fallen there sometime in the last week and you, being the tidy person that you are, deposit it in the trash. This action means that sometime in the next 10 minutes your toddler will dump an entire box of cheerios on the floor (or eggs, or laundry detergent, or flour, or anything else that you absent mindedly put down as you rushed to get your toddler out of the trash that she has just removed from the can).

The big news this month is: Doc T delivers and baby Nicky made his debut, weighing in at 8 pounds and 10 ounces, 21 inches long. Big brother Natey, by all accounts, was not as thrilled as the rest of the family, telling them to not talk about the baby anymore. But hey, from a two-year-old’s point of view, a newborn is pretty under- whelming. Except when baby brother cried, Natey lamented that he couldn’t understand what the baby was saying. We don’t know either, Nate, but I can guess from my experience with boys, that he’s saying, “More food!” So, Tabitha, I have another grandson and you have another nephew. I hope that doesn’t make you feel too old. Of course, she doesn’t know enough English to fully express what it must feel like as those nieces and nephews keep coming. Wasn’t it just yesterday her sisters were babies?

She is adding to her vocabulary with rapid pace, however. She can say, “hush” to the dogs, “up” to be picked up, “bye” and “shoes” for the obvious, along with “Mama” and “Daddy” and some things I’m not sure about. I’ve heard her say, “diaper,” “bottle,” and “baby.“ She understands what we say to her as much as any typical 19 month old would. She is also learning other many useful skills like how to recycle. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know what to recycle, so you never know what you might find in the recycling bin (like her shoes).

Tabitha has finally begun to allow her daddy to pick her up and to hold her. Not only does she allow it--she demands it when he has a bowl of ice cream. I think he knows now to dip two bowls of ice cream if he expects to eat any.

She’s also making great strides in getting comfortable with the dogs. She helped me bathe one of the weenies and later felt of his soft ears and bopped him on the head with her toy. He might not have appreciated the progress but he does love kids and will tolerate tough love from them.

First Days in Changsha: A Retrospective

Those first few heady days in Changsha before baby and when we first got her all seem a long time ago now. The pictures, grainy though they are, bring them back along with the tears of happiness. The time seemed almost surreal. We had waiting so long and jumped through so many hoops to get this baby and then we were there, actually doing just that. I don’t know if it was the jet-lag or the gray weather that hung over us for our week in Changsha but everything seemed a bit fuzzy. I kept expecting to wake up back at home, still waiting. We arrived at the Changsha airport on a cold and drizzly day, the eve of meeting our daughter.

On baby day, the group of expectant parents woke up a little and the anticipation of finally meeting our daughters made us all a little giddy. We took a bus to the stark government building and waited for the babies to get there. Daphne, our adoption agency rep, gave us our number, which indicated the order in which our babies would be presented. We were last. I watched as each baby was brought into the room and handed over to her family. Most babies cried loudly and most parents wept with joy. By the time our name was called, I had completely lost my composure. Tabitha whimpered and looked extremely anxious, a look that became very familiar over the next few days. I took her to a far corner of the room and cuddled her, stroked her head, and whispered mommy words in her ear. Ba Ba watched us, occasionally stroking her and adding in his own words of comfort. She cuddled against me, somewhat comforted, but still frightened. Having completed all the paperwork the night before, thanks to Daphne’s wise experience, we were then free to go on the bus. Tabitha leaned against me and slept. I cried. You can see from the picture that my lips were cracked and dry and I surely could not afford to loose any moisture but I cried nonetheless. Tears of joy, relief, and love. She was mine and finally, finally in my arms. I’ve added pictures to the slide show of that day and the next.

Tabitha is so much more vibrant now but sometimes she gets the look that she had during those first few day, a look of fear and helpless resignation and I feel a pang of hurt that cuts to the core of my being. I know she doesn’t understand why her world has been turned upside down. During those days, I so longed to see a smile--or even a temper tantrum--anything but resignation in those eyes. Her cries even sounded weak, like the cries of a newborn.
We spent the next few days getting acquainted with our frightened little baby. We still could not believe she was ours. She remained passive except that she clung to her Mama with fierce determination. My presence was the constant in her suddenly tumultuous life. Our guides, Daphne and Ellen, gave a birthday party dinner, complete with cake to the little ones in our group. Most of them had passed their first birthdays without fanfare. Tabitha was oblivious to the festivities as she struggled with the concept of sitting in a high chair. She didn’t like being anyplace Mama’s arms were not. It’s okay that she didn’t realize there was a party in her honor, she has plenty of shindigs in her future.

Hong Kong Boat People

Since there’s not much to blog about right now--Chicken Pox is pretty boring--I thought I would start showing some pictures of our trip. Today’s slide show features part of our Hong Kong tour when we visited the Boat People. We rode in a small boat driven by a tiny woman who makes her living giving tours of the Boat People “village.” She has spent her life on a boat and since her husband died, no longer fishes. The Boat People live on these boats their entire lives and have for many generations. The city grew up around them but their lives have remained basically the same. The floating restaurant caught all our attention since it was so ornate. Once we saw the rusty back with yucky looking stuff being pumped into the bay we decided it was not where we wanted to eat.

My oldest brother lived on a boat for several years. I wish that I could share these photos with him but he died two years ago just as we were beginning this process. This slide show is dedicated to his memory.

A Pox on Your Child

People in medieval times believed that chicken pox was due to a curse. Tabitha just might agree with them after the past two days of her bout with chicken pox. She was one sick little baby. Apparently, she was exposed while still in the orphanage since the nearly two week stay with us in China fits the incubation period for the illness. Four of the 11 babies in our group have chicken pox. One of them we are very worried about; she has them in her eyes. We've exposed Hopers, who is unvaccinated, Doc T, who is pregnant, and the one billion people we came into contact with as we flew across the world on three flights, one of which included a 4 hour layover at the Chicago O'Hare airport. Sorry about that, we didn't know until the next day that the irritability was chicken pox. There were many things to be irritable about. Fourteen hour flights tend to do that to people.

Yesterday Tabitha felt much better and achieved several new accomplishments. After watching niece Hopers crawl across the floor, she decided crawling might be fun. No more staying in one room. She can walk but floor coverings and shoes are tricky things when you’re just learning and tend to trip you up when you least expect it. Crawling can get you somewhere quickly and if you fall, well, there’s only like 3 inches to the floor. You might think that a walking baby would already know how to crawl but because most orphanages are not heated, the babies are dressed in so many layers of clothing that they resemble starfish and are not given much tummy time on the cold floor. Not very conducive to crawling so they skip that stage and move on to walking.

The accomplishment she was most proud of was her mastery of the rocking chair. She knew it was kid-sized but she couldn’t get her short little legs high enough to climb in. Then baby Hopers, aka The Giant Baby, came to visit and climbed in with ease. Hopers, though 8 months younger, is a little taller than Tabitha and has been mobile since she was 4 months old so it was an easy feat for her. Not to be outdone by a 10-month-old, Tabitha figured out how to climb up also. Today she climbed in and out of the rocking chair 100s of times with the intense concentration of an Olympic athlete in training.

We have great plans for Tabitha and nieces Hopers and Noodle to become good friends. This will be especially convenient for us since big sister T will be watching Tabitha during the day when I return to work. Right now, Tabitha will not let anyone besides me hold her and has no use for other children, except as role models in exploring her world. Noodles, being a mature 5 year old, can get Tabitha to laugh and is very patient with her pushing her away and slapping at her. She thinks Tabitha is too cute and, of course, reinforces all the wrong behaviors by laughing at them. Each day, though, we see a happier and more secure baby, one who is accepting and liking her new world.

Last Day in China

Today was our last day in China and we are ready to come home! The day began around 3:00 am with a snuggly baby girl crying to get in bed with me, after which she did acrobatics in a light sleep while I tried to keep her from falling off our twin bed. For some reason, the double rooms we've had here in China contain two twin beds. My only complaint of the room--American sized people need bigger beds! After a couple more hours of keeping the baby on the bed we got ready for the day and headed down to the breakfast buffet. It was plain toast for me today since my stomach is definitely tired of Chinese food. I tried Tabitha once more with the congee, the baby food staple of China, but she shook her head no violently and pointed at the buffet. Now she knows, there's more to food than congee.

After breakfast we went with our group to the Guangzhou Zoo. Tabitha slept through the first half but enjoyed seeing all the animals. I thought it was a good warm up for our house of dachshunds, especially the part where you can go in the monkey habitat and hand feed them. We actually just watched since I don't think monkeys and babies mix well, at least not as well as dachshunds and babies. Apparently, lawyers aren't allowed in China because in the US there would be at least 30 lawsuits per day over this monkey business. The zoo was an old zoo, very well kept and very pretty. The one resident 60 year old panda even got up and stretched his arthritic bones for us.

Next there was souvenir shopping around the hotel. We didn't get anything yesterday at the Pearl market, sorry guys, so thought we better at least get some "My friends went to China to adopt and all we get to do is babysit" t-shirts for our friends back home.

Finally, there was the trip to the consulate where we completed the last step in China needed for Tabitha's adoption. We swore an oath that we were truthful in our paperwork and had our passports checked for the millionth time on this trip. As soon as our plane lands in Chicago, Tabitha will be a US citizen! Someone needs to greet us at the airport with a Happy Meal since she swore an oath never to eat congee again. Some nice Chinese ladies talked with her on the steps to the consulate in Chinese. I don't know what they said but when one tried to touch her she pushed her hand away and turned her head. The lady probably offered her congee.

Yea! We're coming home now with our tiny opinionated US citizen.

Pictures

Here are pictures of the "Red Couch" in the White Swan, of our trip to the Buddhist Temple, and us walking around the hotel. As you can see, Tabitha did not like the picture taking on the red couch. That's because she couldn't touch me and that's a big no no in her world right now. More blogging later; we're off to the Pearl Market.

Welcome to the White Swan

Yesterday, after a harrowing bus drive through Changsha that involved a lot of honking, we made it to the airport, which involved a lot of standing around. Our sweet agency rep, Daphne, sang children's songs and a Hunan folk song on the trip. She told us of her pride for her country and her wish that we teach our children about their beautiful country and teach them to speak Mandarin so that one day they could come to visit. She told us how happy she is that we were adopting China's orphaned daughters and giving them opportunities that they would never have had as orphans. She gave each child a small embroidered bag of soil from their homeland so that they would never be lonely for China.

At the airport, apparently, the person weighing our group's luggage had a heavy thumb and decided that our group of eleven families needed to pay around 2,000 RMB fee (about $260 US) for overweight luggage. Our guides haggled with them, but the group, fearful that our luggage might be delayed or may not make it to the same destination as us, decided to cough up the money. Hmmm, an interesting experience, one of many on this trip. During the hour long haggling, our group drew a crowd of curious Chinese onlookers. We must have been quite a spectacle to them, a group of Americans with little Chinese daughters. Families with little children and grandparents gathered and stood about two feet away from us, pointing and laughing. It is quite a different experience not to blend in with your surroundings, one that your average white American doesn't experience often. The onlookers were only curious and were friendly so no one was bothered by their stares. We know we look weird.

Now we are at the White Swan which, is quite sumptuous. It is filled with shops of expensive clothing and antiques costing around 3 bazillion RMB each. Our view from the window of our room is of the Pearl river and the city beyond. It is still gray and drizzly here and cool but we're hoping for sunshine tomorrow. We ate at the hotel restaurant, which will probably be our only time to do so, except for the included breakfast buffet, since the meal cost us around $80.00 US. The food was very good, however. I sat with the Princess while BaBa fetched our food so I didn't get to see if it boasted the same foods as Changsha but the fish on the buffet did stare at us as we walked to our table. And their stares didn't look friendly.

Today BaBa did the paperwork for the American consulate while I took Tabitha on our first mother-daughter shopping trip. Before we left the hotel room, though, Tabitha let me in on a little secret she had been keeping from us. She can WALK! What a stinker, she plopped down and cried every time I stood her on her feet before. Today I sat on her the floor while I hooked up the computer and from the mirror above the desk I saw her walking behind me. It is still the toddling, lurching walk of a novice but she walked across the room. Her little personality is starting to emerge from her shyness. Daphne told us that Hunan people are known for their spicy foods and our babies were spicy chili peppers. I never believed that about my sweet little Princess but today I saw her throw a toy in a snit. You go girl! Your going to need that pepper personality to keep up with your nieces. You know the famous Noodle and Hopers, co-authors of the best sellers, "How to Wreck a Room in 7 Seconds," "Ten Sounds Guaranteed to Make Adults Cringe," "Body Art With Markers," and "Decorating With Flour." Now we're off to take the famous red couch pictures. Check back later for photos.

More Changsha

Little by little, Tabitha Jian Jian is warming to us. She still spends 90% of her time in my arms but is now playing with toys and giving us sweet little smiles. This morning she even laughed out loud when I tickled her. Her favorite activities so far are playing with stacking toys and her spoon and cup, looking at her gorgeous self in the mirror and making calls on Skype from Mama’s lap. The only time she vocalizes is in front of the computer as she moves her index finger around the mouse pad. She’s a fast learner; she’ll have her own blog in no time. She’s a very easy baby to care for since she pretty much stays where you put her and only plays with the things you give her. She cries only when we lay her down to sleep or when she thinks I am too far away from her. Most of her cries are silent sobs that are accompanied by big tears. It breaks your heart. When we adopted her, I vowed to love her and raise her as my own biological child and to never abuse her or abandon her but I never vowed not to spoil her. That’s going to be really hard not to do when she can melt your heart with one little glance. Notice in her pictures that she has curly hair, just like her Mama.

We have experienced “Shopping at the Apollo.” The Apollo is a 7-story store where you can buy anything from refrigerators to baby clothes. Kind of like a huge Sears. Each floor is arranged into mini-stores by brand. The process of shopping is a little different than shopping in the US. Here, you pick the item you want, get the sales clerk to write a ticket if the item is in the size you need, then you proceed to the check-out counter and pay for your merchandise. After paying, you return to the sales clerk and she will collect your receipts and give you your merchandise. Of course, you can wander around the store picking out things and collecting tickets and pay all at once. I recommend this only if you are really good at memory games or can actually read Chinese. And never, I repeat NEVER, attempt to walk around the store with unpaid for merchandise. You WILL be chased down by a team of sales clerks.

Yesterday we visited the Embroidery Factory. I’ll have to admit that I almost passed on that one because watching women embroider sounded as exciting as watching paint dry. I’m glad we went, however, because it was extremely interesting. The factory includes the Hunan Embroidery Research Institute of China and our lovely agency representative, Daphne, gave us a good briefing on the museum contents and the history of embroidery in Hunan. Hunan embroidery is renowned throughout China and it is magnificent. We saw a reproduction of an embroidered picture of President Rooselvelt that looked like a painting. This work was done for President Roosevelt who paid $3,000 for the piece and the original is now in the Roosevelt museum in the Little White House. We also saw magnificent two-sided works, which when flipped over showed a completely different picture or even the back view of the picture on the front.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Guangzhou. Yea! The first half of Chinese Adoptive Parent Boot Camp is almost over. We stayed in the room today except for a foray to the hotel’s playroom. We’re just waiting on paperwork and passports at this time. Tonight we will make our nightly trip down to the Fear Factor restaurant where we will cautiously eat from the Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails Buffet. Those names are, of course, coined by me. I know there are people who enjoy lifting the lid to a dish and looking eye to eye with a snake slit lengthwise and stuffed with something unknown or seeing tiny baby turtles. And I knew that people ate dogs but wasn’t interested in experiencing it first hand. I prefer my dogs unbraised, thank you very much.

Loving Miss Tabitha

I can’t say it was love at first sight because we loved her before we saw her but holding her really cemented the reality. I’ve had lots of practice with that reality because she doesn’t want me to put her down. She is the Velcro baby that I have read about on so many other adoptive parent blogs. It doesn’t hurt my feelings a bit. I’m learning how to shower and do all the necessary things of the day with her clinging to me. Ba Ba (Father), otherwise known as G-Daddy, is useful for fetching all the things we need but she’s not too keen on him holding her just yet. She has stopped hyperventilating when he comes near, though. I did notice today that when another father in our group came near, she looked at her own Ba Ba. She definitely knows who she belongs to and it is amazing how quickly she figured that out.

She was first placed in our arms yesterday and she cried only briefly. I, however, cried the whole time and still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Our group of eleven families all went by bus to a big room at the Register’s office and one by one they called the couples to receive their babies. The room was filled with the sound of crying babies. G-Daddy and I were last ones to receive our baby. She was placed in my arms and the rest of the world disappeared, time stopped, and there were just the three of us looking at each other. I can’t describe the rest of the proceedings because all I can remember are her frightened big brown eyes looking at mine. She is so beautiful and so tiny.

Today, we all piled back on the bus and returned to the Register’s office. All of the babies were a little anxious at getting back on the bus and each clung to the family member that they decided was the most trustworthy. That would still be me for Tabitha. Ba Ba is taking it well and loves her from afar. I wore her in my baby sling and she looked as if she thought that was where she belonged. We completed the last of the paperwork and she is officially ours!!! Like we needed paperwork to know that! We gave all the gifts, signed all the papers, paid all the money and took official pictures. Tabitha did not want the orphanage director to get near her so she is crying in that picture. I think she thought that we were going to give her back. No, sweetheart, we are in this for the long haul and we are yours.

See? China.

Hong Kong

We survived the most grueling 15 ½ hour plane trip ever imaginable (except perhaps the one that we will be making with a toddler perched on our laps for 15 hours). We flew over the North Pole, over China (don‘t worry sweet Tabitha, we‘re flying back), and down to Hong Kong. At about 6 hours into the trip, I thought, “This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” I napped, ate when they served food, became annoyed trying to watch the in-flight movies through people who stood up every 15 minutes just to open the overhead storage and touch their carry-on luggage, and napped some more. G-Daddy entertained himself looking out the plane window and creating a National Geographic special in his head. Occasionally, he woke me to make an announcement like, “We’re flying over the Russian Steppes now,” at which point I would peer bleary-eyed at the whiteness below and say something intelligent like, “Cool.” By the end of the trip we were sleep-deprived, irritable, and sure our bodies could not take any more abuse. We were asleep in the hotel bed by 8:30 pm Hong Kong time.

Today we toured the city through a haze of jet-lag and the smell of Chinese food. There were 114 CCAI adoptive families joining us in 3 bus loads. It was enjoyable even with our tired selves. First we had a dim sum lunch at a restaurant. I was feeling a little ill through the beginning of the meal but was able to eat some. Afterward, we visited the boat-people village, which has a name that has totally escaped me, and rode on a boat through the house boats. These people live their entire lives on the water in their boats. There was one interesting floating restaurant in the middle of the boat people. Our guide, Matthew, said the food was only so-so. It was very fancy in the front but looked extremely unappetizing from the back view.

Next we toured a jewelry factory and were given the opportunity to spend hundreds of dollars on jade and jewelry. We declined the offer, though there were many, many beautiful things to be had. They showed us the workshop and explained the jewelry making process. I missed most of this part of the tour since I was visiting the “Happy House,” our guide’s name for the facilities.

We shopped in an outdoor market, which had cheap prices, then went to the top of a mountain on a smaller island to view the city below. The ride up the mountain was quite interesting since our bus is larger than the narrow street lanes and passed other buses with what looked like, at least from my vantage point, inches to spare. Occasionally, on one of the sharper curves up the mountain, the bus would stop so that another bus could pass. Conveniently located at the top of the mountain was a ritzy shopping area where once again we were offered the chance to spend hundreds of dollars and once again declined.

Back at the hotel, I had a cup of noodles and typed this while G-Daddy slept soundly, but not quietly, still fully dressed where he fell across the bed. Time to join him. (I'll add pictures later, connection is too slow for my jet-lagged mind.)

Stay tuned for Changsha…

It's Travel Time!

Christmas came and we had the grandgirls and their parents over and feasted with extended family. Grandpa and Uncle Steve came and stayed a few days. The house was littered with wrapping paper and bows and plastic cups with names written in marker script on them. Noodle got the My Little Pony Castle which unfolds itself with a touch of a wand and majestic pony music. She later told me that the two things she loved most in life were her pony castle and me. My heart swelled with love and pride at being right up there with the pony castle. Ten-month old Hopers got wrapping paper, boxes, and bows. I think there were some toys in there but she didn't let them get in the way. She did have a fatal attraction to the pony castle which had to be put away since the ponies didn't come with lances and weren't very good at defense.

Then there was New Year's, otherwise known as Christmas Celebration Part II, where Doc T drove up from Tampa with Joe and little Nathan and we filled the living room with another round of wrapping paper and presents. Nathan got Thomas the tank engine stuff and the living room was converted into his personal train station. Doc T and Joe got us LUGGAGE. Now how did they know we needed that?

And now it's travel time! All that waiting and struggling to get the I171H and now we're moving like the gigantic snowball you see in cartoons, rolling down hill, getting bigger and bigger, with ski poles and legs sticking out. Except we have luggage and diapers and 3 ounce toiletry bottles in quart size bags and passports and...well you get the picture. We leave January 10 for an overnight in Tampa then on to Chicago Ohare where we will board the plane for Hong Kong. Fifteen hours and 37 minutes later we will actually be in Hong Kong and it will be Friday, January 12. Too bad hypersleep only exists in science fiction. We leave Hong Kong on January 14 for Changsha, Hunan and on Monday, January 15 we will finally meet our beautiful daughter. There's a whole bunch of stuff after that and we'll go to Guangzhou and do more stuff but I can't seem to focus on those details right now. In fact, I don't seem to be able to focus on much right now. I have lots of details to attend to, packing being the most immediate, but I keep drifting off and forgetting where I am. My grown children will tell you that one of their duties in life has always been to finish my sentences for me, so will one of you Ts get over here and finish this blog? I've got to go look at the