A Sister for Eddie

Past 6 Months

2008-06-18T21:41:00.006-05:00

have just flown by, but then again, the past 9 months has too. Here are some more pics -

Bella in her new hat and gloves from Aunt Wendy

Bella loves tossing Raggedy Ann out of her wooden crib and climb in there.
Pop-Pop and Bella. We were celebrating Pop-Pop's 70th birthday.

Uncle, Lily, Danny and Elaine come down for a visit in January. This was taken at Ming's Coffee Shop. We had an amazingly delicious breakfast there.

A visit from the Clouds. Lily and Bella get to visit every once in a while.

There she is in RA's cradle again!

What kind of baby picture collection doesn't have a generous sampling of tub pictures?

We get to see cousin Danny twice in 2 months! We all went to Owen's Station Hunting Preserve. This is Dad and Uncle sitting in the clubhouse, chatting while the boys went hunting for ducks.

Bella really enjoyed cousins Jason and Nick. Doesn't she look snazzy in Jason's glasses?

Dan - are you going hunting, or auditioning for a Dept of Transportation job? That sure is bright.

My boys...

Jane and the kids met us for Dinner after the big hunt.

Did we mention Bella likes to eat. Eat yogurt. Eat eggs. Eat french fries. Eat just about anything. This is her feeding herself yogurt for the first time. This picture was taken in March. Last week, she drank out of an open cup by herself and Grandma Chen says she's been doing it for a while.

Eddie at the Easter Egg Hunt at the Masonic Home where Troy works. He organizes the event each year and invites us.

Happy 2nd Birthday Isabella

2008-06-12T13:34:00.007-05:00

Hard to believe we've been home with Bella 9 months now. After the huge bash we threw for Bella in March, we wanted to celebrate her 2nd birthday with a small reserved celebration at home... and of course, with Elmo

Bella seeing me get the camera ready, lined herself upright in front of the camera with her biggest smile. She loves being photographed.
Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop and The Nuss' lavished Bella with tons of Elmo gifts, clothes, puzzles & toys. Bella got cash and check gifts from Gong Gong, Aunt Wendy, Aunt Elaine and Uncle Matt.

Sunglasses from Aunt Denise and Uncle Troy. She wears them all over the house and carries them to bed with her. Don't think she gets the whole point of "sun" glasses yet.

We were headed out on Sunday for our (11th) anniversary dinner - yes with the kids. I said, "common Bella, let's go." She grabs her Elmo purse, Elmo cd player and sunglasses and heads for the door. LMAO.

June 15, 2008
She's doing very well. Loves going to the Chen's for daycare. Seems to learn something new every day. Tonight she said her own name "Bella" clear as a bell, then followed with "my name is Bella". At her 2 yr old check up last week, she got more shots, but after her next visit in December, she'll be all caught up with shots, and won't have to get them 4 and 5 at a time. She weighed 24.2 lbs and is 34.75 inches long. She is at 52 percentile for length and head circumference and 20% for weight. She fits well in 18 month sized clothes and while she'll rough it up with Eddie - she's all girl. Loves to wear new things. We got her a pair of (fake) crocs and she loves toddling around in them, showing them off. She loves books. Will ask anyone who's willing to read to her. She can do the shape sorter Aunt Wendy got her very well, can get all the shapes in almost entirely by herself. She speaks about 20-30 English words and maybe a few more in Mandarin. She's starting to say short sentences, like "night night Eddie".

Mama! He came! He came!

2008-01-06T12:35:00.000-05:00

I'll always cherish the Christmas mornings, and even the days approaching Christmas, when Eddie is so excited he could burst - but Christmas morning, when I am woken up by the sound of little feet rushing around the house, down the stairs, then back up the stairs, then to my bedside "Mama - he came! He came!" I'll never forget the sound of excitement and anticipation in his voice that sounds like nothing else.

The black and white polka dot dress is from the Chen's the people who care for her while we're at work. This dress was a gift from Mom-Mom. She loved my putting her stockings on her for the first time. She kept feeling the silkiness on her legs and smiling.

Trying to get a decent posed picture of us is impossible. The one above, Eddie looks like he's being goosed, by the 3rd shot, Izzy is way done with taking pictures.

Izzy loved the gifts from Aunt Wendy. She's a real Picasso on the Magna Doodle.

Keeping Tradition

2008-01-06T12:15:00.001-05:00

If you look through the Chung family albums - you'll notice lots of cemetary pics. Our family from New York used to come visit each year, and a trip to the cemetary to visit the departed was always part of our holiday celebrations. (Helps explain my strange personality I suppose.) So in keeping with tradition, we thought we'd take a few shots of this year's visit to my mother's grave. It was freezing, so Izzy stayed in the car - yes, by herself. See my car, at the top of the picture?

Here's a few more pics from the last series that I thought were cute.

This gingerbread house was a creation by Eddie, Bill, Matt and yours truly. (Not to name names, but Eddie, Matt and I take no credit for the purple-eyed, mammary enhanced working girl standing out front.) Oh, I do have to confess to the speared road kill in front of the house though. We got issues for sure. You'll have to contact me directly to get the full story of this year's gingerbread house. Think CSI.

The Nuss' come to visit and bearing gifts! Izzy's first Christmas gift.

She's digging the new Elmo See and Say toy, but can't understand why it can't be a cell phone too.
Izzy loves Elmo. Denise and Troy got her this very cool Elmo chair. It spins and talks!

Three Months Today

2007-11-27T21:37:00.000-05:00

I love her expression in this pic. Too bad I didn't have the wherewithall to relocate the oh-so-attractive space heater before snapping the shot. I have the camera around and handy for just these moments, but somehow, when I notice she's looking particularly cute and may be in the mood to have me flash a camera at her oh, about 25 times - there's just not enough grey matter in my head to think of the stuff in the backdrop. Plus I'm almost sure that if I ever could put that much thought and coordination into it all, that by the time I removed all the unattractive items in the background and foreground, the moment would be over, and I'd never get any pictures of her. So here's a very cute picture of my Izzy and our space heater.
Its hard to believe - three months ago today, August 27, we were all sitting in that little room, pretty sure, they were about to bring the babies out to us, but not really sure how it would go, how long would we wait, were they coming in? Would we be called out? Adoption in China was a lot of not knowing, but finding comfort in being in a group and everyone else was sitting there, so why not? Many times in that trip, lost, in the dark, afraid - I found solidarity in these men and women we travelled with. I hope we get to have our reunion sometime. I would hate to lose touch with these, my brothers and sisters in the maternity ward.
My first time holding my Isabella. She was so scared. Wimpering, sucking her thumb. I'm sure full of uncertainty. I don't really look at these pictures often, because I find myself feeling so sad for how scared she was. So helpless I couldn't immediately communicate everything would be alright - that she was safe now. So sorry I couldn't do anything about getting to her sooner than we did.

Izzy's 1st Thanksgiving

2007-11-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

Uncle Matt came down for Thanksgiving and it happened to be 6 days after his birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday and had cake for him. The kids, especially Eddie really enjoyed having Uncle Matt stay over.
Saturday, we went to Longwood Gardens to try to get some exercise, look at the pretty Christmas displays and maybe get a couple shots that would work for our Christmas card this year.
This is inside the new Children's Garden which I must say is pretty darn neato burrito.

Back to Work

2007-11-21T07:15:00.000-05:00

Going back to work, leaving kids in daycare - no matter how good the day care situation is - has to be the hardest thing for any mother to do. This mother for sure. So Nov 12 came and it was time to get up early and get a shower, dressed, Eddie dressed, Izzy dressed, Is everything in Eddie's bookbag? Is Izzy's bag complete with diapers, wipes, change of clothes, bottles, snacks, bib...? Are all the forms for Eddie's school signed, folders emptied, homework assignments done, the box of baggies the teacher has requested, a can of coffee for the food drive, a picture of a tree for some project, oh and do the daycare people have all 12 numbers of where to reach us in case... aaaggghhh Bill helps out a lot which makes a big difference. Still off I go to work on Nov 12, crying all the way to work. This sucks.
But we made it through our first week. Now on our 2nd, but with Thanksgiving upon us, I have 6 almost uninterrupted days with my kiddies! Isn't this sweater the cutest? Izzy started daycare walking, falling, mostly falling. 2-3 steps, boom. 3-4 steps, boom. You know how it is. By Friday of the first week, she came back a steady walker. (with walking comes a lot of falling. Notice the red bump on her forehead.) She'll still fall, mostly when she's tired, or when I stupidly get a new pair of slippers that are as slippery as ice skates or to use a Bill-ism "as slick as whale snot". I doubt many people think of whales period, much less that they have snot or what it might be like. Being married to Bill, you inherit a lot of Bill-isms. There'll be more. Stay tuned. Anyway, that's how fast it goes. She's almost 20 lbs now, up 3 lbs since we were in China, less than 3 months ago. Her hair is full and thick. She's had a few colds, but kicked their butts in 3-4 days. She still smiles alot. First thing in the morning when I hear her cooing, I peer into her crib, and she's got a smile as wide as the Great Wall of China is long. The smiles we get at the end of the day are worth more than all the tea in China. She's doing great.

Izzy's 1st Halloween

2007-11-02T09:07:00.000-05:00

This little pig went to see big brother at the Halloween Parade at school.

Eddie and his friends went with the soldier theme. Sad for me to see him in this get up. Eddie was just under 2 when 911 happened, and I remember thinking, this will end up in some sort of military conflict that might drag my son into it. Everyone kept reassuring me, 'any war or conflict will never go that long - not these days with nuclear weapons'. Hmm. Eddie will be 8 next week.
Eddie and Ragan conspiring - figuring out a way to end the war no doubt.

Back in the car, Eddie loves to hug Izzy. She's (sorta) getting used to the requisite 200 hugs a day.

This is the - ok, enough of this hugging, get off me look.

And this is the... ok buster. I warned you. Now you get your nose tweaked. Eddie is so good natured with her. He doesn't mind.

This little piglet is pooped. All done with Halloween. Sitting out in front of the house, on the ground, by the giant kitty - she just hung out there for a long while pushing against the kitty.

Princess Bella

2007-11-01T12:34:00.000-05:00

Debbie, Denise and Gina planned a wonderful shower for Izzy and what a great time it was. Doesn't she look like a little princess in this? Just needs a tiara. We all had a great time. Unfortunately, no nap for Izzy today made for a very tired little girl, who was still trying her best to cooperate because crazy mommy insisted on taking pictures of her in her pretty pink dress.

Among the many gifts our very generous friends and family bestowed upon us was this Leap Frog musical learning table thingy that Aunt Denise and Uncle Troy gave Izzy - she loves it.

This past Sunday, Carole threw a shower tea for Izzy so the ladies from the craft group could all get a gander at Izzy and shower her with tons of gifts. This outfit was a gift from Jen, our neighbor, Carole's daughter, Jon's sister - you know who. Its so cute and perfect for the weather today.

Gymboree

2007-10-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

When we saw Aunt Wendy at Aunt Elaine's wedding in June, we were presented with a generous number of beautiful outfits from Gymboree. Last week, I mustered up the energy to go to the Gymboree store to exchange a couple of the items for some pieces more suitable for Fall. I like this one in particular and took this series of pictures because Izzy was particularly playful. Seems she likes her new clothes too.

On occasion, I sit at my computer at my desk in my bedroom, Eddie watching tv from my bed, Izzy playing with a stuffed animal or toy, not usually paying particular attention to either of us - I turned around the other day and found Izzy, all snugged in the crook of Eddie's arm, content as could be. I had to take a picture.

2nd Visit to Dr. Field

2007-10-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

Izzy had her 2nd visit to the doctor yesterday and gained 2 lbs in 4 weeks! She's at 18.8 lbs now. Eats and sleeps well still. She did get 4 shots yesterday - poor girl. All her tests are done and the results are all good. Whew. She is in the 47 percentile for head circumference and length and with her recent weight gain is almost on the charts. She's gone from her 9 month clothes being baggy to fitting nicely in 12 month clothes. She is still on formula, but hopefully after her next blood work will be able to transition to milk. She eats congee, baby cereal, fruits and veggies - loves the Organic Butternut Squash and Corn, and any soft table foods we're having. Safe to say, she loves food, all food, any food, any time.
The highlight of both of their days is when I pick Eddie up from school in the afternoon. She tries to say Eddie when we pull up to the school - but it comes out more like "ad-da".

The coolest thing about Eddie being almost 8 yrs old and still only just over 50 lbs, is that he fits in the Pack n Play and Izzy loves it when he joins her in there. I never dreamed they could be so much good company for each other with such an age difference (6 years and 7 months).

Lots of Visitors

2007-10-12T12:30:00.000-05:00

Izzy and Uncle Matt.
Trying something new with the blow dryer. Who needs gel?

The Clouds come to visit. Enjoying the last few nice days on the deck. Izzy loves her food.
Lily and Charmaine. Joe in the background.
Lily and Izzy. Bill and Joe clowning around. It was great to see Lily, Joe and Charmaine.

A Letter for Izzy

2007-10-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

In the mail today, Izzy got her first piece of mail. A letter from GW. I called Bill to tell him Izzy got a letter from the President. He said, "Gosh, it must really be slow down there in Washington." She's an American girl now.

There used to be a picture of her citizenship certificate here, but Bill just had a cow that this very official document with a seal was on the internet for the whole world to see - so its gone now. If you didn't see it before, and you want to see it, you'll need to contact us in person to see it now.

Gained One Pound!

2007-09-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

Before After

Before After I put some before and after pictures together. The pictures above were from the end of September. And she's actually another pound more than the "after pictures".

I don't weigh her every day - but its hard, so about every 2-3 days, and I'm happy to report a whole pound weight gain since her Drs appointment 2 1/2 weeks ago. She's a good eater. She'd have to be to fit in this family. She hasn't refused anything we've offered and enjoys most things with much excitement. I took some pictures of her in this outfit that she hasn't worn since we were in China. I had only brought 4-5 things for her to wear, one of which didn't work, and had been tired of seeing her in the same outfits, plus it has been much cooler here. You can really tell a difference in how she looks (and fits) in the same outfit.

Just wanted to throw this one in there. Bill's Dad took the picture. I love Bill's smile here.

Happy Girl

2007-09-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

Izzy is a happy little girl. Its very easy to get her to smile or laugh. If you just look at her she laughs. I wonder sometimes if she's laughing at us. The only thing that mungs her up is when she's hungry and you're not getting food to her fast enough and when she needs a diaper change. I can't believe how wonderfully blessed we've been to get such a wonderful little girl.
Eddie has just completed his 2nd week of 2nd grade. He's doing well. He loves his little sister. Her crib is in his room, so they wake with the first sight of each other each morning. I'm picking Eddie up right after school these days (instead of him going to aftercare). It helps him get a jump on his homework and helps us save a little money. As soon as we pull into the parking lot, she gets all giddy, cuz she knows she's about to see big brother. She's smart and a fast learner - picks up on things very quickly.
Aunt Debbie gave her this walker. She mostly likes to play with it sitting or squatting, but took a few steps with it the other day. When we first got her just under 4 weeks ago - she could pull to standing - a little shaky, but could. Now, she does it with a snap and stands real strong, for a long time. I make sure she gets about equal amounts of time to crawl around the house, pulling up on furniture, cruising - as well as spending time in her pack n play or crib (when not sleeping) so she can build strength to walk, but also cope with having to go to daycare when I go back to work, in only 52 days I might add. I'm mourning already.
She does not make many demands. She'll sit at her seat at the dinner table long after eating is done. She's been awake in her crib for the past 30 mins or more, while I update this blog, just playing with her feet, hands, looking around, amusing herself with the sounds she makes. She's been "stretching her vocal chords" - with interesting "songs", sounds, sometimes shrieks (much to my dismay). She says "ma, ma, ma", "da da da", though I doubt she relates those sounds to Bill or I. She says, "na, na," and occasionally, a series of sounds that sound like it could be a sentence in a language from another planet "ak gho mi na na nei ma da". Translation anyone?
She practically flips herself out of her chair, pack n play, wherever she is when she sees Bill come through the door. She adores her father. If he doesn't go directly over to pick her up, and for more than a couple minutes, there's lots of shrilling, shrieking and even crying involved. Bill will have to learn to change out of his work clothes with a baby in arm. ;)
She's gotten more used to bath time. I'm not sure how they bathed her at the SWI, but I doubt it was in a tub like this. I saw pictures on their Yahoo site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeChangFamilies/ of the area they bathe the babies in, and saw these large tubs or basins, so maybe it was more of a sponge bath she got. She still doesn't like getting water on her face, or in her eyes, but is definitely getting used to the bath and shows signs of even enjoying it, patting the water, making splashy sounds.

Home at Last

2007-09-13T20:30:00.000-05:00

We come home to find balloons, gifts, flowers, and food waiting for us. Boy were we glad to be home. It has been a long exhaustive journey. But we're home. The picture above is Izzy's first meal at our dining room table. Those are some tired faces.
Izzy is diggin' being in her Pack N Play. Its filled with stuffed animals, toys and all hers. She's so easy going.
This is the chair Mimi gave Izzy. She gave one like it to Eddie too. The chair has her name inscribed on the back. Today was the first day, we didn't go running all over. Dropped Eddie off to school, then back to just hang out for a bit. She's wearing one of the many outfits Aunt Wendy gave her. We went back to Dr Field today to have her look at the TB test she gave Izzy on Tuesday during her physical. Its clean - yay! She also got some of the results from Izzy's bloodwork back already. She's healthier than we thought and hardly anemic at all - not with a 12.0 hemoglobin. Yay again!

Going Home - Words Can't Describe....

2007-09-10T21:24:00.000-05:00

Eddie and his newly adopted family the Falks. He thinks Colton is the coolest cat in town. Judy, Doug and K Kay. We're at the lobby of the Regal Airport Hotel in Hong Kong awaiting our guide.

Eddie and Izzy on the plane. She's diggin it. The flight attendant gave her her first set of wings for her first flight.

Day 11 - Almost forgot. The shopping.

2007-09-06T10:44:00.001-05:00

I have to say I'm amazed at how easy its been getting around. We've been all over shopping. The cabs are abundant and cheap. We ride clear across town, like a 25 min ride and at most its 27 yuan or US$3.56. Can't beat it. Yesterday, Cousin William came by to take me shopping for jewelry. I wanted to get Bella a gold bracelet and some jade. He took me to Beijing Lu (the giant walking mall that intimidated the crap outta us a few days before) to this giant department store called Grand Buy. Its 5 stories with all the stores we know and love, a Clinique and Estee counter, Samsonite, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Neutrogena, an entire floor of womens apparel, another of just shoes, another of sports clothing like Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, Levis etc. The top floor has a giant supermarket. Anyway, Cousin William hired a car and driver, picked me up at the airport and took me first to a mall that only had jade vendors. Floors and floors of them. I had thought to buy a jade bracelet for myself, but between my giant wrists and arthritis, I couldn't get any of them to fit. That and the jade market seems to be very complicated. Jade bracelets sold from US$50 to US$3,000 - all look very similar to me. They explain the 3 grades: A, B and C. Well I gotta tell you the truth, it all looks a lot alike to me, but with my luck I'd end up spending $100 on a jade bracelet that's really just colored glass - so I pass and get Bella a jade charm to wear around her neck. The Chinese believe jade worn on the chest will help calm a child's heart and ease her fears. With a quick call on the cell phone, by the time we got down to the ground level, the driver was out there waiting for us. Off to another store for gold. I felt like royalty and Cousin William and I sure had a lot of fun laughing and touring around Guangzhou like a couple celebrities. At the Grand Buy Mall, we go to Chow Tai Fook to buy Bella's bracelet. Its a bit more expensive, but you can trust the big names like this one and Chow Sang Sang, both are Hong Kong jewelers. Also, no bargaining. There seems to be a lot of unscrupulous merchants in China - between them and the fakes, buyer beware. After shopping, we head back to the hotel to get Bill and the kids (hee, hee, "the kids" still getting used to saying that) for Dinner. He takes us to the best fish head restaurant in Guangzhou. This restaurant is built inside a city park, with running streams and waterfalls all around the glass restaurant. We ate fish, yes, fish heads, shrimp, scallops, oysters, chicken, chinese vegetable, fresh lotus soup - the best I've ever had. Stuffed we head back to the hotel, where William presents us with more gifts. A Hermes Birkin bag, 2 Hermes ties, a Louis Vuitton wallet, a Versace belt.

Today, Carmen in our group, said she wanted to buy a gold bracelet for her daughter Jaiden, so in a cab we go, back to the giant mall. Afterwards, we went to McD's for lunch. Felt like a regular girls day shopping trip. I'm impressing the folks in our group with my strong command of Cantonese and the ease in which I hop in and out of cabs - jetting here and there, when truthfully, they all could do the same. In fact, I've never felt less Chinese - there are many more foreigners (meaning not Cantonese people) here in Guangzhou than ever. Between many people, including cab drivers not speaking Cantonese, and my slaughtering every word I utter - I never leave the hotel without asking Concierge to write down exactly where I want to go on the back of a card that says "Take me back to the White Swan Hotel" in Chinese just in case I can't get through the next cab driver.

Its been a lot of fun pretending to be on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Its back to being plain ole me, in plain ole Wilmington Delaware sooner than we realize and much poorer than we care to realize. Good thing I paid all the bills before we left. This place can be dangerous to ones financial health.

Day 11 - Leaving Guangzhou Tomorrow

2007-09-06T10:23:00.000-05:00

This chop is a gift from Helen and Der. It has our family name and the official adoption date of Isabella on it. Der called a meeting in his room at 11 am. He tells us Helen took our visa applications to the consulate this morning and all is in order. We are good to go. Tomorrow we will go to the US Consulate to get visas for our daughters to go to the US. Our daughters all have Chinese passports, but will have visas for entry into the US in them when we go to the Consulate tomorrow. There will be a swearing in ceremony there. We cannot bring anything in. No cameras, no bags, nothing. Its a post 911 security thing.
We all gather in the atrium for a group photo. The dads took pictures of the mommies and the babies. The dads join us and the photographer takes a group picture of all of us for a souvenier.
The red couch photo is a tradition here at the White Swan (also known as the White Stork). We gather our babies in their chinese outfits and head to the famous red couch. The dads were snapping away trying to get one good photo of all of them looking in the same direction. They were surprisingly well behaved, just sitting there looking at each other, looking at us. It was very cute.
And then there were 5. One had to bail.
And then there were 4.

Tomorrow, we leave Guangzhou for Hong Kong. I may not update from Hong Kong, so see you back State side. What a wild and crazy ride this has been.

Day 10

2007-09-06T03:12:00.001-05:00

Its hard to believe its already closer to the end of this adventure than the beginning. Today, we don't have much going on (again). None of us are too sure why we had to be here this long. Eddie is so very attentive to Isabella - always trying to amuse, placate and appease her. Its great watching the 2 of them.
I know some critic is going to say this would be a great pic if not for being off centered. Trying to get the both of them looking my way, I snapped the picture when I got the right expression, not paying attention to the frame. Oh well. If I were a photographer I wouldn't be a foodie now would I?
I absolutely love this spot. Its off one side of the dining room where we eat breakfast each morning. Its called the "Coffee Shop", but serves 3 meals a day and is not like the coffee shops I'm used to in the States. Isn't this a great shot of Eddie?
This is in the lobby of the 1st floor of the hotel, just outside the bank of elevators to get to our room on the 12th floor. I took the picture, so if Bill ever asks ya'll about gift ideas for me, I'd love a screen like this one. Of course, I'd need a bigger house to put it in.

After breakfast, we decide to go for a walk - and a little further than the 3-4 blocks we've been circling. The weather today is the best since we arrived to GZ. Its cooler and comfortable, probably 78-80, not humid, not rainy, a little overcast, but overall the best weather we've had since arriving here in GZ. Not far from the hotel, in the park along the river, we see people dancing. There's music for the waltz, fox trot, and other classical dancing. I wonder if this is like what they're doing in Central Park. We walk by other people playing mah jong, others doing Tai Chi. In general, people seem very relaxed here. Lots of people hanging out. Grandparents with their grandkids.

We walk by this crowd of people singing - didn't understand what they were singing or what this group was about, but it was cool.

I was quite amused by the style of the buildings in this area. A lot of British influence.
We've seen a lot of bikes and people with carts moving very large payloads like this guy.

Day 9 - ahh, Papa Johns

2007-09-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

We got the number for Papa Johns and ordered a large pizza, 1/2 pineapple and ham (Eddie's favorite) and the other 1/2 "The Works", 4 Tsingtao Beers and 1 Sprite - 180 RMB or Yuan or US$24.83 one of our more expensive meals, but still a great deal. It wasn't exactly the same, but close and familiar. You'll see below, we did some damage. Notice the URL on the side of the box. We get a kick out of the simplest things.
Still feeling like crap this morning when I awoke, Bill said for Eddie and I to stay behind, and he took Izzy with the group to her medical examination. It was done at the hospital only a couple blocks from here. He said she was a trooper and the best baby there, letting the Dr do the physical. She got a clean bill of health and is weighing in at 7.99 kg or about 17.6 lbs. I'm beginning to think the report we got with our referral was a bunch of crap, since that said she weighed 7.6 kg and it was supposedly done in March.
She is a whole new kid. In just 8 days, her skin color, tone, everything is all different. She's got a little belly on her. I don't want to be the only chick in this family with a belly ;) Only hers is cuter. She takes 3-4 9 oz bottles of formula a day, 3 meals of congee, and some fruit (baby food fruit in a jar). Considering last Monday was the first time she'd had any food off a spoon - I think she's come a long way. We try giving her fresh fruit at breakfast - there's never any less than 9 varieties of fresh fruit available, but its still too hard and she's not used to chewing. We'll stock up on some jarred fruits before our long plane ride home. The shops in the area surrounding the hotel have lots of baby supplies, so it'll be easier to get it here before leaving for HK on Friday. She tries just about everything we give her. Rice noodle, rice, egg, but is quick to return to you anything that she feels is too hard. She's strong and has a veracious appetite. Don't fool around when feeding her or she'll let you know you're not fast enough by pulling your arm. Several times, she's almost yanked the bowl right out of my hand. Eddie is a big help - picking up the toys she chucks off the table, giving her her bottle, playing, amusing her. She's gotten used to the bath now, but still doesn't like water running down her face. There's a detachable shower head in the bathtub that I pull down and let her feel the water running from it. She liked that and isn't so intimidated by the tub anymore. She still is very good with sitting by herself in her crib and doesn't require a lot of attention. Of course, with 3 of us here, held up in a hotel room, and all this still being a novelty, its hard not to pick her up. Plus she's such an easy baby, so easy to make her laugh and smile. How to resist? I hope we don't spoil her - its nice that she placates herself, but isn't so removed like some babies - not wanting to be held. We are so very lucky to have such a great baby.

Day 8 - Bill at the Temple

2007-09-03T23:15:00.001-05:00

Bill went with the group on a tour of a temple. I think he said it was over 300 years old.

All this was made by hand.

This is Rob from our group. He's telling the statues a secret. Bill had a lot of fun with them.In the afternoon, Eddie and I were feeling a bit better, so down to the pool we headed. The batteries died so I only got this one picture of Izzy in her new floaty toy and the bathing suit aunt Wendy gave her. She loves floating around in the pool. Eddie was being silly with Colton, Carmen and Frank's 14 year old son who is also missing the 1st week of school to be with his family. We all went to Dinner last night at a restaurant where the dining room is made out of a train. It was a very nice restaurant. All the staff were dressed in formal attire. The food was good, probably some of the best we've had since arriving to Guangzhou. Bill had Spaghetti Bolognese, Eddie and I shared a roasted chicken.

Day 8 - Hospitality and Service Like None Other

2007-09-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

You all know I'm extremely picky and everywhere I go, look for the finest hotels, restaurants to enjoy and never leave without finding something to complain about. Well, unless things change in the next 5 days, this may the place. The hotel staff are well trained, and truly understand the meaning of service. I've never left the room even for as little as an hour when upon returning did not find our beds made, room tidied and straightened up with fresh towels and water. The housekeeping staff on the floor have been the same 4 or 5 faces since we've arrived. When you get off the elevator, there are four hallways, 2 on each side with banks of rooms - the hotel staff know guests are always lost getting off the elevator and are always there to direct you in the direction of your room. When you leave your room, they rush ahead to the elevator to push the button to call for an elevator and walk you to it, making sure you get on safely, not tripping etc, which many new moms and dads holding their new babies do I guess.

I complained about the room not being cool enough the other night. Within 2 minutes an engineer was at my door to check on our unit. The next day, upon returning to my room from breakfast, the housekeeper asked me if my room was cool enough and comfortable. She said, while we were out, the engineer came back to check on our unit and confirmed the temperature was at 22 celcius. I've never had anyone follow up on a complaint at any hotel I've ever been at before.

I asked the housekeeper to write on a piece of paper for me the chinese words for "honey" and "lemon" to send Bill to the store with in case he needed it. She said honey was very good for babies. I explained it was for me, for my sore throat. The next time I passed her, she handed me some salt, which she got for me suggesting I gargle with it, that it would help. (By the way, Bill got my honey and lemon without needing any help from my cheat sheet. He's managed quite well here.)

You know, even with the language barriers - the people here, especially the staff at the hotel, but even the staff at the surrounding stores and restaurants are very accommodating, quick on the uptake with what you want and need. Many don't know much English, but are very perceptive. Its very easy to get around without knowing any Chinese. Knowing some, like I do helps, but not necessary.

Day 8

2007-09-02T21:24:00.001-05:00

Still feeling a bit rough today. In our adoption group, there is a doctor who offered me some antbiotics last night. I think I will take her up on it. I'm worried I've got one of those upper respiratory infections I'm famous for brewing. Eddie still wretches at even the smell of food - so I'm a bit worried about him too though now he's happily playing one of the 70+ games cousin William got him for his Nintendo . He hasn't eaten more than a couple bites like twice a day since last Monday. I think he may have some stomach bug. Boy, I'm just praying we can keep it together til this Friday, then Saturday, we're on our way back to the good ol US of A.

Today was tour a temple, do some shopping day. I asked Bill to go without us (can you all imagine Bill at a temple), which I'm glad he did. He took the camera so hopefully will get some good pics for me to post later. The rest of our week looks like:

Tues (tomorrow): Go to hospital for medical examination for baby. Let's hope Eddie and I won't have to hang out for medical treatment for ourselves!

Wednesday: Der and Helen are taking the group for shopping in the morning, then Der has arranged for his friend a jeweler to come to the hotel with some pearl necklaces for us to purchase. Cousin William is coming to meet us and take us to do some shopping so I think we'll go with cousin on our own. We were supposed to go with him yesterday to do some touring but it was raining pretty hard, so we didn't go. Good thing, as bad as I was feeling, just needed a day go nowhere, do nothing and relax.

Thursday: We're to stay in our rooms from 9:30 am - 10:30 am in case Der and Helen have any problems with our visa applications and/or have any questions. Then there's a big meeting with them in their room at 11 am and at 12 noon, a group picture of all of us and our babies, then at 6 pm a dinner boat cruise which I hope we can go to. It sounds like fun. That'll be a big day, so I'll have to rest up for it.

Friday: We leave the hotel at 2:45 pm for the US Consulate for our interviews. This is the immigration part, where we petition and seek permission to bring Isabella back to the States with us. We had pre-applied and have already been approved, so hopefully its just a formality of filing the paperwork and the US getting $380 from us and nothing goes wrong. She is a Chinese citizen with a Chinese passport, but will enter the US with us with a special visa. Once she gets past the immigration border in Newark, she will be a naturalized US citizen. I think we do have to do some paperwork after returning to the States to get her a US birth certificate. Assuming all goes well at the Consulate, we depart Guangzhou on a bus afterwards for Hong Kong (another 3 hr bus ride). I was surprised that even though HK is back under Chinese rule (since 1997) that there are still border, entry, exit, immigration borders to go through. Coming into GZ there were 2 borders. Our HK guide said it was to keep control of the numbers passing to HK. If even a fraction of 1.3 billion people in China went to HK, the island would sink. I did some checking on google. There are only 6.6 billion people in the world, which means the Chinese in China alone represents just under 20% of the world's population. According to the US Census Bureau, the US has 302,767,461 people as of the 2000 census. In other words 1 out of every 5 people in the world live in China. Check out this site for more data on China's population http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/population.htm

Saturday: We're heading home! This place is beautiful and magnificent, but there is truly no place like home. Having a child is hard. Having one in a foreign land, where you're not used to the food, surroundings, language and cultural barriers, is like nothing I can even begin to describe. I'm still glad we did this, but boy oh boy...

Day 7 - Taking it Easy Today

2007-09-02T09:58:00.000-05:00

Had to take a tub picture. She's had some showers and some baths. I doubt she'd ever been bathed like this before, so its taken some getting used to for her. She likes the bath now, I think. So long as I don't put water down her face, which is hard not to do to get the shampoo out of her hair. She won't lean back for me to pour down the back. So I leave that part for the end. I still can't believe how much she has changed in just 5-6 days. She's a whole different kid.

Sorry, this picture is blurry. I wanted you to see how well she stands and pulls to standing on her own. She's so much stronger today than Monday when we got her. She's very active, mobile and strong. Especially when eating and she doesn't think you're feeding her fast enough. As not to upset her balance, we've tried to keep her close to her diet. She wakes to a 9 oz bottle of formula, then its congee for breakfast. Then another bottle around noon and more congee. We supplement with whatever soft foods we're having as well to get her to experience new textures. Its amazing how far we've come in just under a week. On Monday, she didn't know how to take the congee off the spoon. Today, she opens her mouth real wide, and if you don't keep it coming fast enough, she grabs your arm or goes right for the bowl. She's still very uncomfortable taking anything hard or solid, and tries to spit it out. Yesterday, she figured out how to eat those Gerber toddler puffy snacks I brought. They melt fairly quickly in the mouth and are strawberry flavored.
Today, I woke up with a sore throat and what seemed like the beginning of a sinus infection. Great. I did bring 2 Biaxin I had leftover from the last time I was sick and had the wherewithall to bring with me. Then I took some of the antibiotics I had filled for Eddie. You shoulda seen me playing pharmacist trying to figure out how many of his to take. I didn't go to breakfast, so I could sleep in a bit. Izzy was sleeping still too, so I asked Bill to take Eddie to breakfast and try to find me some honey and lemon. The blocks surrounding the hotel are filled with shops, mostly selling junk, baby clothes, toys, diapers, wipes, stroller rentals, etc. There is a 7-11 across the street and about a 1/2 block down and a small grocery store about 1 1/2 blocks away. Then there's Jennifer's, who sells a bunch of gifts, chinese art crafts, children's clothing AND does laundry. We sent a bag of about 8 pieces there the other morning. It was ready by 8 pm the same day and it only cost just under US$5. It came back all clean, pressed and nicely folded, in bags. Most the shops, including Jennifer's are staffed with English speaking people. Granted, not perfect or even fluent, but they are very perceptive and good with figuring out what you're asking for. Anyway, after breakfast, Bill and Eddie ventured out, and surprised me by bringing me back, 1 bottle honey, 3 lemons, and a hot steamy bowl of braised beef rice noodle soup. Everything is served very hot here, so it was still very hot and felt like a million bucks. We hung out in the room a bit. Then I had to go to Der and Helen's room to fill out the Application for Immigration and Visa paperwork that we're turning in later this week. That was a scream, Helen and Der trying to guide 6 families through their paperwork. Everyone was pretty awkward with it, not having much experience filling out this type of paperwork. It took a while. Then we went to get visa pictures taken of the babies. It was already pretty steamy outside, so the little venture tuckered me out. Its been thunderstorming off and on all day. After all that, I came back to the room to give Izzy her bottle and get ready for nap time. Bill and Eddie went to drop off some more laundry to Jennifer's and came back with more Beef Noodle Soup for me. Then they went off to the pool while Izzy and I napped. I'm so glad cousin William didn't come today as we had originally planned. He was going to come take us to do some sightseeing, but the weather forcast rain all day, which would've made that quite difficult and my not feeling well, it was better we didn't.
This is Charmaine of Joe and Charmaine. We have had dinner together just about every night since arriving to Guangzhou. We found this place called Lucy's last night, that is kind of like a diner, with a very expansive menu of everything from burgers, fries, hot dogs, salads, to samosas, fried noodle, thai, southeast asian dishes and calamari. Weird, but at least it was food we recognized and for folks who aren't used to eating Chinese food every day, its a welcome change. The place is decorated with "I Love Lucy" signs all over and license plates from the US. We liked it so much last night we came back tonight and got seated right next to the DE license plate. Notice it next to Charmaine? Unfortunately, as soon as our food arrived, Eddie got nauseus and we had to leave. I'm a bit worried about him. Most of you know, for being so thin, Eddie can put it away when it comes to eating. He hasn't eaten a full meal since we got to Guangzhou. He gets nauseated as soon as the food comes. I'm worried he has a bit of the Chinese Montezuma's Revenge. Hope he feels better tomorrow.

Day 6 - Daqitou Village continued some more

2007-09-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

This is a high chair used by the inhabitants of this village. The last inhabitants probably lived here as late as the 70's.

In China, scaffolding is often made of bamboo. First, its available and cheap. Second, it can be very windy here, winds up to 70 mph is not uncommon during typhoon season. Bamboo is more flexible than steel.

Day 6 - Daqitou Village continued

2007-09-01T09:27:00.000-05:00

This is the look of 2 very heat and humidity sensitive Americans about to go stark raving mad. We are standing in front of some alter thingy. They are explaining what all this is, but I can hardly hear through the humidity.
Look at the tiles on the roof. This was all built by hand.
I think they said this word is "long life". Ironic, I'm not sure I'm going to make it out of this building alive, much less have a long life.
This alley is between the buildings, rows and rows of homes.
Hard to believe this still looks so good, exposed to the elements for over 300 years.

Day 6 - Daqitou Village

2007-09-01T09:21:00.000-05:00

This village is over 300 years old.
This is the entrance to one of the main buildings. Look at my happy Eddie. We are melting in the 99 degree heat and high humidity.

This room has alot of artifacts.

Day 6 - On the way to the Village

2007-09-01T09:07:00.000-05:00

Guangdong Province is very fertile. Lots of farmland on the way to the village.
This woman is riding what looks like it could be a wheelchair, but is turning this crank by hand. She's got 2 stools on the back! and is crossing a busy intersection.
The roads are mostly cars now, whereas 17 yrs ago, it was mostly bicycles. Our guide says the government encourages privately owned cars. We pass by several gas stations and notice gas is $4.68 yuan a litre (US$ 0.6128 per litre). I so wished I'd paid better attention in Math, but Google tells me 1 litre is equal to .264 gallons, which translates to US$2.32 per gallon, which is darn expensive for what these folks earn. Look at how well the median is landscaped?
We're here! This is about an hour from our hotel.

Day 6 - A Tour of the Countryside

2007-09-01T08:41:00.000-05:00

Another pic of a fisherman going down the Pearl River, taken from the window of the restaurant at Breakfast, by Eddie.
In the van on the way to today's outting. Der and Helen (our guides) are taking us to an ancient village outside Guangzhou.
This is Der and my Bella. She is happy to be on a roadtrip. It rains almost everyday here. Just a passing shower or two. This is on the highway. We notice most these highways are new.

An interesting building on the way. The landscape is beautiful. Guangzhou is a very fertile area. Lots of beautiful foliage.

Day 5 -

2007-09-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

We get back to the White Swan without incident and with one brand new DVD player. Shortly after we got back, Cousin William calls to say while he was in Hong Kong yesterday, he picked up a replacement a/c adapter for Eddie's Nintendo DS and bought him some game cartridges. He said the game cartridge had over 50 games on it and we shouldn't have to buy games for Eddie for 3-4 years. He got all the new titles. Apparently, he went to some gaming store, where he picked games to have loaded on this cartridge, and they have this technology where they put multiple games on the same cartridge. Anyway, he was having a friend bring it over to the hotel for us and wanted to be sure we'd be around. What a hook up. Eddie is beside himself. Izzy is happily playing with the box for the adapter and the DVD player.

This is another view from a different end of hotel. This is the Pearl River.
More city views from our hotel.

Day 5 - Eddie and I Out on the Town

2007-09-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

So, we decide to give the outside world a try again. Isabella is napping and Bill was good enough to stay behind with her. Cousin William said we might have better luck looking for a DVD player at a place called Gome (a chinese version of Circuit City). So we get the concierge lady to look up the closest one, write it down on a piece of paper in Chinese and off Eddie and I go. The pic above is taken in the back of the cab. Their cabs are very high tech with these video screens playing their version of CNN, music videos, advertisement and a crawl across the bottom. Too bad I can't understand most of it since I can't read Chinese or understand a lot of Mandarin, which by the way is an archaic term now. The national language is called "po tung wah". Still mandarin to me.
After Gome, Eddie says he is thirsty. We notice a Mickey D's right across the street. Our curiosity gets the best of us, so off we go. A bit hungry too, (we seem to miss lunch a lot since coming here) we get a Double Cheeseburger Value Meal, a #3. Notice the chinese writing on both the burger wrapper and the ketchup. Tastes just like the stuff at home. Aahh - finally, something we're familiar with. Eddie and I shared a #3 for $15 yuan which is less than $2 (about $1.98 when the exchange rate is 7.57) and brought Bill back a double cheeseburger and fries for $12 yuan (US$1.58).
You'll see plenty of cars on the road, looks a lot like our roads, only people drive a little more agressively. Ok, a lot mroe agressively. The other day in the bus on the way to some adoption business, the other people in the vehicle were gasping as the driver was weaving in and out of traffic. Again, to draw another comparison to NYC, these people are like 20 times worse! At one point, I noticed the cars and trucks were 5 across in a 3 lane road! There are a lot of traffic circles, and its kinda like a game of chicken to see who can get ahead first - there's definitely no yielding. I doubt that's even part of the rules of the road. The only rule that is apparent is the one who gets ahead goes first. Busses, vans, cars, big and little, motorcycles, all engaged in a big game of chicken.
This is a bus full of commuters. We did notice all the busses are LPG.
Downtown, where we are, the buildings are quite modern, like this one. There are old buildings too, but most of them look unoccupied or like they're being renovated.

Day 5 - At Breakfast

2007-09-01T07:36:00.000-05:00

Eddie loves to take pictures of the vessels floating down the Pearl River from the giant window where we eat breakfast every morning. The picture below shows the dining room. If you look carefully, you'll see Bill pushing Isabella in the stroller and Eddie is to the right of the picture, crouched behind a chair. The woman on the left, is she taking a bite of something or picking her teeth?

Me and my kids at breakfast. Aren't they cute?
Back in our room. Eddie took this pic. He is good with the camera. He was so proud of himself, getting Bella to put her arms up in the air and taking the picture.

Day 5 - A Booming City

2007-09-01T04:29:00.000-05:00

These are a couple views from our room on the 12th floor of the White Swan Hotel. New construction is everywhere - I can only imagine what this city will be like in 10 years.

She sucks her thumb when she's bored, when she's stressed, when she needs to comfort herself, when she's hungry. Its the cutest thing.
This picture is on the 1st floor outside the elevators to our room. This area is flanked with these beautiful chinese screens and other Chinese furniture and art.This is the atrium on the 1st floor. Just behind is the 3 story waterall. The marble floors are spotless - all day. The staff are continuously trimming, clipping, watering and caring for the plants and public areas in this hotel. Never a piece of trash on the floor or anywhere. Below is the waterfall. See the fish in the water?

This is the chef that makes the made to order omelettes each morning. Above is the breads table, one of 4 buffet tables for our breakfast each morning.

Day 4 - Venturing Out

2007-08-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

Today, we finally feel comfortable enough to venture out, and not get killed, lose one of the kids, so we're going to get a cab and venture out towards Beijing Lu (Walking Street) where there are lots of shops to take a look around, maybe do a little shopping, and try to find a replacement a/c adaptor for Eddie's Nintendo, which I killed by plugging into the 220 outlet without an adaptor. This is after already having charged it once in Hong Kong with the adaptor. Did I mention extreme fatigue?
This place is wild. Picture any street mall in anywhere in America and multiply it by 100 times. It almost dwarfs New York City. Streets and streets of stores, 100 or more, looking up one side, then the other, mostly organized by types of products, like a whole street of just women's apparel, another of all shoes. We never found the electronics street, though cousin William said he's going to Hong Kong for business tomorrow and will pick one up for us. It has been incredibly helpful having him here. While many in the hotel know English to some extent, the cultural gap is the most notable. Even if I were to find someone in the hotel who understood what we were looking for - they wouldn't know the types of shops we'd like to shop at. For example, this Walking Street place, is too big, with way too many streets and shops. We are not adapt to walking more than a couple blocks in 99 degree heat and humidity. We were all very grouchy today. Well, not Isabella. She was a trooper, sleeping most of the time in the stroller, while the 3 of us walked around grumping and grouching at each other. I was sure Eddie's charger cord thingy was there, but having the stamina to find it was the challenge. Only a few of the stores had English writing on the sign out front, so you had to walk, look inside the store for clues of what it sold. When I say walk - I mean like down a block that would have 80-100 stores, two and three stories high. You may know, we're not exactly rugged. So after walking around for almost 2 hours, we took a cab back to the hotel, defeated. We pass the girl at the concierge desk who suggested we go there, giving us a card with the name of the place on it to give to the driver - she asked us if we got it. We said no. I got an empathetic look that crossed between disappointment and dismay. Boy, do I feel like a "dumb American".
Look at my girl standing. She has come so far in just 4 days. She pulled to standing all by herself and even takes a hand or two off the crib to show us how strong she is. Her skin and muscle tone has improved by more than 100 percent. She is happy, smiles and giggles. She's probably laughing at us.

Day 4 - Mornings

2007-08-31T17:14:00.001-05:00

Isabella has slept for 8-10 hours nightly since her first night with us - operative word, "contiguously". She wakes at times, not that I notice, because I've always slept so soundly, but Bill is happy to report in the morning that she wakes a couple times through the night, makes a few wimpers, sucks on her thumb and puts herself back to sleep. Just before bedtime, we bathe her, give her a small bottle, she plays for a few minutes, lets us enjoy her fresh clean baby smells, and we put her in her crib, and she's out in a few minutes. Most of you know, putting Eddie to sleep, even now at 7 3/4 requires a bit more from us. You all were right. Girls ARE easier!
Most of the time, she plays happily, coos, watches us intently, requiring very little attention. She's not a crier. Even when she's upset about something, she'll try to soothe herself.
She is most curious of Eddie. She loves his silliness and antics, and he loves to perform, so its a perfect match - Eddie has a continual audience now.
I continue to be amazed at how natural it is for Eddie to play with her, to love her. He is so patient, a patience I've not seen before now - I know some of you skeptics may say this is the "honeymoon period", but I have a feeling and hope this is the beginning of a life long bond for the two of them.

Day 3 - Part Deux (It's Official)

2007-08-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry, didn't take a lot of pics today. I think we forgot we actually had a camera, or maybe how to use one. The less than 3 hours of sleep a day is starting to get to us, though its amazing how much you get done when you don't waste a lot of time sleeping.

Today is Security Bureau day. On the way, Der tells us, we are now legally the parents of our adopted children. He shows us our official adoption certificates and says we're going to the Security Bureau to get "interviewed".

We're running a bit early, so Der asks if we want to stop by a grocery store? Sure, why not. We pull up to this giant shopping plaza where there's a huge, I mean huge for being an inner city grocery store, on the ground level of this giant building. This store sells everything, mounds of fresh fruits, chinese sausages, and more regular items. The crowds turn most of us off - not used to the density of people seemingly everywhere, trying to navigate a store where you can't read any of the signs, though find familiar brands, etc, because the graphics and colors are the same, but most products, including Coke are not marked bi-lingual - oh, and doing this with our babies in tow. I get a couple things, a couple mini moon cakes, and an ice cream cone for Eddie and scram back to the bus.

Its a little ominous, as we pull up in front of this official government building with armed guards everywhere. He says, don't look at them, no pictures. He obviously has arranged for appointments for our group. We go up to the 2nd floor into a room that kind of looks like a DMV waiting area in the US. We wait our turn. One by one, families are called up to meet with a very official, straight faced (did we mention the Chinese have no sense of humor?) government worker, who confirms we are who we are, takes a picture of the baby, and dismisses us with one glance. A little creepy, but who cares, we're almost done with Chinese government type meetings. Tomorrow is a day off for us. Depending on how much sleep we get tonight, we may venture out, take a taxi to check out the surrounding area - on our own.

So, on the way back from the Security Bureau, Der asks, "So how old the documents say your baby is?" I replied, "14 months", but quickly picked up his cue, and asked, "Why? How old do you think she is? He reached over, felt the top of her head and said, "No, not 14 months. At most, 10 months" and motioned toward her fontinel, which I felt, and noticed it was still open about between the size of a quarter and a 50 cent piece. Hmmm. Interesting. Explains her size. She's fitting quite well in her 9 mos clothes I brought.

Day 3 - Turning Point

2007-08-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

I think today is a turning point for all of us. Isabella is happily playing with Eddie's Spiderman watch. I had forgotten how cool it was, children at this age, playing, amusing themselves with the simplest of things. She is such an inquisitive little girl, taking everything in, her eyes noticing everything, watching intently, each of us, what we do, what we say, she seems more interested and curious about her new surroundings than intimidated, as I feared she would. She is indeed a happy little girl. Last night, Eddie had her cackling with laughter as he was dancing about, acting like a clown which we've all witnessed, tickling her, making funny sounds. He is such a natural at this, being a big brother - and boy did it warm my heart to hear my children laughing. My children. Wow.

She is doing well. She sleeps well at nights, 8-10 hour stretches. Wakes occasionally, soothes herself - she sucks her thumb(s), and goes back to sleep. She takes 3 nine ounce bottles and eats congee, and soft solids at the table with us. We gave her some fruit at breakfast this morning - cool to watch her expression experiencing the new foods. We're sure she ate no solids and had no experience with spoon feeding prior to now. But she's a fast learner and tonight was opening wide for the noodles Bill was feeding her with his chopsticks. Already in just a little over 2 days, she is looking better, with better color, smiles, laughs, and plays quietly at the table at meals. Can I say how helpful it is to have Eddie here with us. He tries so hard and is so good with her. Tonight at Dinner, Bill and I actually got to eat at the same time, while Eddie was feeding her congee. Yesterday at the pool and again last night, Bill had her on her feet, cruising, holding onto the bed or Bill, taking steps, shaky, but taking steps. She is able to roll over, sit herself up, and is doing more of that today, but wasn't moving much on her own the first day.
I rarely openly disclosed, mostly out of embarassment or shame for what I thought most would think was less than appropriate feelings, but so often through this long, arduous process - I questioned whether or not this was the right thing to do. Not knowing what to make of the abivalence I just could not suppress. Was that ambivalence an internal cue of what would be the biggest mistake of my life, or just fear of the unknown? Would not "going through with this" end up being that mistake? Surely, the length of time we all have had to wait, think, re-think, wait some more, and my usual way of over-thinking just about every situation in my life, has contributed. Though, as I watch my husband, my son, emerge over the past 2 days, bonding, working, trying so hard to care for this new little creature in our lives, I start to remember why we did this to begin with. Then today, only the 2nd day after what I assume has to be a most traumatic experience for her, I get a clear, distinct message from Isabella that she is happy to be with us - I know for sure now, that this was the right decision, that this was our path, and she was always ours. She completes us. (ok, it wasn't entirely the message from Isabella, but the 2 hour discussion, Bill and I had over 2 boxes of tissues in the middle of night while Eddie and Bella were sleeping.)

At breakfast in the hotel, we get a table by the window this morning. This fisherman? on this boat has come down the Pearl River every morning with this giant net. What is he fishing for? Bill says the fresh catch on tonight's menu. Ewwww. Let's just say the river isn't exactly crystal clear..

Day 2

2007-08-28T15:30:00.001-05:00

Back at the CCAA. Today we met with the Director of the CCAA to go over and sign the adoption papers.
Afterwards, we had some lunch. Isabella slept all last night, quiet as a mouse. She wakes for brief periods (no crying), but soothes herself and puts herself back to sleep. She did some eating at dinner last night. It was her first experience at spoon feeding, but was a champ. A chip off the ol block I say. She'll do just fine in this family. Eddie is amusing his lil sister, waiting for his Wonton Soup with Noodle. Bill is having a Cheeseburger. Where in America can you have both at the same restaurant?
Eddie is enamored with her. Already we're amazed at how good he is with her.

You can't tell from this pic, but she actually has a lot of hair. Its thin and kept short, kinda spiky on top, like Billy Idol. Me, on the other hand didn't even bother putting make up on today. We're still having quite a bit of trouble with the jet lag and adjusting, which is why its 4:44 am, I'm up, updating this blog and have been for hours.
She's been very good. Doesn't do a lot of crying, and is easily soothed. She's taken about 3-4 eight ounce bottles from us today, and eaten congee and we experimented a little with some rice noodle. Don't want to make the mistake of giving her too much too fast and upset her stomach like with so many newly adopted kids. We're taking it nice and slow. Tomorrow we'll try some additional foods like fruit, etc. Its nice having a breakfast buffet fit for a king every morning because its all right there. The buffet would be compared to that in a hotel in America that'd cost $35 a person! There's 12 different fresh fruits, including fresh longan and starfruit, along with melons, berries, etc. There's a table with smoked salmon, whitefish, bagels, fresh pastries, breads, muffins - another with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, grits, french toast - made to order omelettes with fresh eggs and a dozen toppings, fresh seafood, shrimp, crab claws and legs, oysters, lamb, beef, and of course chinese favorites like dim sum, congee, spring rolls and at least 50 more items. They do a great job here. Its definitely a 5 star hotel, with pools, a driving range on the roof overlooking the pearl river, fitness centers, shops, a dozen restaurants, laundry, baby equipment rentals just steps away. There is a giant 3 story atrium with a waterfall inside, a pond filled with foot long coi and goldfish. This is the first time a hotel has exceeded my expectations and was even better than the pictures and description on their webpage.

This is Eddie amusing the fish. He loves the idea that when he flaps around, waving his arms and legs, they come to him, heads out of the water, mouths wide open. Bill and I explained they think you're going to feed them. He thinks they're enjoying his show.

She has 6 teeth that are in or mostly in with looks like at least 10 more coming in soon. She sucks her thumb to soothe her achy gums or when she's upset. She's very good at self soothing. It'll be hard not to spoil that by wanting to hold her all the time.

The End of Day 1

2007-08-28T15:06:00.000-05:00

Already comfy, safe in her father's arms, on the bus on the way back to the White Swan - Day One is coming to a close. We are all physically and emotionally drained and exhausted. We have our little girl. Tomorrow we will come back to the CCAA to sign some paperwork to start the process for legally adopting her in China. Now, we go back to the hotel, where we already have dinner plans with William, his sister, her husband and daughter. He called me in the 15 minutes after getting into our room and before we had to go back downstairs to go to the CCAA yelling, "Cousin, so you arrive in China and don't even call your cousin to tell him you're here!" Ve-ly funny. When I said, I literally just walked into the room. He said, I know. I wondered if there were cameras. You know, we're in Communist territory. I told him we had to be back downstairs in a few minutes. He said, ok. We'll go out to dinner tonight then - to celebrate. I'll be there at 5 or 5:30. Just then, Der came to our room to make sure we were ok with our arrangements and was a bit perplexed that I could already be on the phone chatting away in Chinese to someone. I told him it was my cousin, who wanted to come take us to Dinner. He said you better make it 6 or 6:30. Already causing a ruckus, we are.

Isabella's first night with us. A new beginning for her and a long way away from the LeChang SWI. I was saying to Bill, things are already looking up for this little girl.

Tears of Joy

2007-08-28T14:45:00.001-05:00

Gosh, she's so little. Probably very scared, never having been in a car that long, never seeing so many new, strange faces. Just hold her so she knows it'll be alright from this moment on...
Bill is being so good, taking pictures of this most precious moment for all of us. Eddie is looking on pensively thinking.... hmm, i wonder if my Nintendo will be charged up again we get back to the hotel. Actually, he's probably thinking, so that's what she's like.
Well Eddie, you asked for a sister. Here she is. Love her. Be good to her, from this day forward.
Our long journey's end. The beginning of our new family.
By some stroke of luck, while the nannies have a different native language, they also speak Cantonese! They, along with most everyone else we've run into are shocked I speak Chinese. We are chatting about Isabella's life til now, her habits, routines, diet, etc. They tell me she is a happy little girl. She is healthy and very smart. Her eyes are dark, very dark - they emphasize several times. (I was embarrased to not know, so did not ask the significance of that til later when I ask William and his sister at Dinner that night why it was important.) The Chinese believe the darker the iris, the healthier and stronger the child is. They kept remarking how we got a good healthy baby. Indeed, her iris is so dark, you can hardly see her pupil in lower lighting. The other parents did not get the luxury of getting all the background info I got.

Live from Guangzhou - Meet Isabella Chung Templeton

2007-08-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

This is from the bus on the way to Guangzhou. I hardly recognize this city from when I was here last in 1990. Steady growth, buildings, skyscrapers everywhere. We crossed the 2nd longest twin span suspension bridge in Asia. The longest one is in Denmark - according to our guide Ben.
This is at the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs). After a 3 hour long bus ride (Eddie napped, Bill and I didn't, can you tell?) from Hong Kong, checking into the White Swan, dropping off our luggage, etc, they whisk us away by van to the CCAA to meet Isabella who is waiting for us. At the same time, we were travelling by bus from HK, she was travelling from her orphanage in LeChang, which is about 3 hours by car to Guangzhou.
We're waiting in the lobby area along with 6 other families in our group - can you say anxious? Oh well, let's get those people to take a picture of us, since we're all standing here with our cameras out. Eddie is all ready to meet his new sister, with toys in hand.Now, we're moved to a room. Moms on one side, Dad's with cameras on the other side. Why do we do that? Idling chit chatting with the other anxious moms. We're realizing that unlike the last time we were at this moment, while still in a room with lots of people, we're fully dressed - and if we wanted to, we could have a drink like in the next few minutes.
We all have family numbers. Ours is #4. That's Der (in the red shirt), one of our 2 guides in China. I guess, he'd be the midwife? When he called #4 first, I felt like I was on the Price is Right, and he just said "And the next contestant... Come on down!" (I think I even heard the music playing in my head) What a weird sense of humor I have.... The woman holding Isabella is her nanny and the woman behind her is the Director from the LeChang SWI (Social Welfare Institute - Chinese for orphanage). I don't know who the woman in the white shirt is admiring my new daughter.

Alas, the daughter we've been waiting two and a half years for.

Arriving in Hong Kong

2007-08-27T23:06:00.000-05:00

Arriving at the airport in HK. Feeling pretty good after a 15 hour flight from Newark. Of course, you notice Bill is doing all the luggage handling - its all I can do to move myself and take this picture. The direct flight on Continental to HK - we highly recommend it. We were on a Boeing 777-200 - the one with 9 seats per row, 12 bathrooms on board. Service was great and the gizmo at each seat that had over 300 movies, games, tv, radio and music videos for free - that was cool and occupied the 3 of us for the majority of the flight. That and feeding us every 2-3 hours - Elaine, you would've loved it!

This is Ben, our HK guide. He met us at the airport, gave us instructions, a short tour of the airport and area and tucked us in a very nice hotel. We would be going to Guangzhou the next day to meet our babies, so he said to rest up and avoid temptation to go shopping. That, plus the new airport is on Lantau Island and about an hour from the downtown shopping district in HK. Its nice though, a lot nicer than the airport in Kowloon we landed at last time. This airport opened 6 yrs ago.
Check out the Krispy Kreme! I can't get a hot donut in Wilmington DE, but can at the airport in HK. How about that? Not that I need donuts, hot or not.

Got a Departure Date!

2007-07-31T20:37:00.000-05:00

Well, looks like we're leaving for Hong Kong (then onto China) on August 23. No return date yet. Gotta love the process. So its the countdown and we're finally, really, going. Here are some pics from Eddie and my recent trip out West.

Playing hooky one afternoon in Seattle...

Still No Date

2007-07-25T19:45:00.000-05:00

We're told to be ready by mid August. That the anticipated travel date is still Aug 20-25 - but no exact date. Meanwhile, we're going a little crazy...

Still No Travel Date

2007-07-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

i think this part of the waiting is actually harder than the first 28 mos. at least then, i didn't know her. i hadn't seen her face. i didn't know her name. there wasn't a specific little girl in china waiting for her family to come get her. now, i'm stuck. here. waiting for them (the agency? the chinese? who knows?) to tell me when i can go get my little girl. the new addition to our family. she, who will complete - us. it'll be a month this sat since we got our referral, but still do not have a firm date on when we can go to china. gracewood is planning for us to go between the 20-25 of aug. now you know what i know, which isn't much...

Isabella Chung Templeton

2007-06-13T06:50:00.000-05:00

Isabella was born on June 6, 2006. She is 17.8 lbs and 27 inches tall. She is at the LeChang SWI (Social Welfare Institute) in Guangdong Province and has been there since June 8, 2006.

We do not have an official date for travel yet, but expect to travel towards the end of August.

The Wedding

2007-06-13T06:23:00.000-05:00

The Call

2007-06-06T22:28:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd be one to have a blog, (I barely want to keep up with my email, and they pay me to do that!) -- how well I maintain, update this one remains to be seen. Today, our lives changed again. We received "the call" from our adoption agency informing us we'd be receiving a referral in the next couple days. I thought this be a good time to create this space to help us share our news in the coming months. First, our timeline:

Jan 11 2005 - we attended the Adoptions from the Heart Info Session

Feb 3 2005 - Pre-Adoption Meeting at AFTH office in Trolley Square. (We want to do this. We fill out an application and have begun "the process".)

Feb 9 2005 - Dossier Meeting at AFTH (Don't remember what we did here. Probably just went to give them money.)

Mar 4 2005 - Home Study Group Meeting (I think they tell us what the home study is about and we pay them more money.)

Mar 11 2005 - Another Home Study Meeting ("bring your checkbook")

Mar 22 2005 - first of many fingerprinting sessions (and thus the paperchase part of this has begun)

Apr 1 2005 - Adoption Education Course (this is where they tell us what it means to adopt, be an adoptive parent, etc)

from March through October - we're working towards completing our dossier - fingerprinting at the State and at INS, police records, letters from our employers, banks, personal references, financial statements, medical records, birth certificates, an application to the INS and Homeland Security, marriage certificates, blood, urine and DNA samples - ok, i'm kidding about the DNA sample - they got that when the got the blood and urine. then the home study! then everything had to be notarized, authenticated in Dover by the State of DE, then again by the State Department. Our stuff is actually signed by Condoleeza Rice! Then off to China it all goes. Actually to Gracewood, the agency that is our agencies connection to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA).

Oct 2005 - our dossier is all signed sealed and delivered - to Gracewood (in NY)

Nov 2005 - we receive a letter from AFTH telling us our dossier has been received in China meaning, we are officially "in line" so enjoy the wait. Our LID (log-in date is Nov 4). I should interject at this point that when we started the process in Feb of the same year, others were getting their referrals between 4 and 6 months from this point or a total of 12-14 months from application to child in home.

we wait.
we wait some more.
we read things have "slowed down dramatically"

July 2006 - we receive notification that all our documents have expired and will need to be re-done including a Home Study Update. did ya'll hear me scream?

Sept 2006 - most of our updates are done or underway. i'm not in any major hurry because things continue to slow down. people applying now are told the wait is 2 years or more.

Jan 2007 - referrals for those with LIDs through 9/27/05 (we're thinking ok we may see something in March)

Feb 2007 - our updates are ready and we're good to go again, but hearing it could be another 4-8 months depending on how much things continue to slow down. referrals through LIDs 10/13/05. ok what? we waited a whole month for a little over 2 weeks worth? this isn't looking good.

March 2007 - no referral. referrals went out for people through 10/24/05 LIDs. so another month and only 11 days worth. not good.

April 2007 - no referral for us. through 10/26/05. (remember we're 11/04)

May 2007 - still no referral. through 11/1/05. (ok at 5 days worth per month - bill and i are going to be 72, and too old to travel to get her.)

June 6, 2007 - we get the call. i gotta say, i was shocked.

by the numbers: 28 months from application. 19 months from LID. 25% more gray hair. 6 costco sized bottles of advil, but who's counting.

we're supposed to go to the "travel meeting" on sat, june 9. earlier in the day, they said june 16, but tonight, june 9. of course. why not. we're supposed to be attending elaine's wedding on sat. they're checking to see if they can make an accommodation for us. we hope to travel in 6-8 weeks. we'll be in china for 2 weeks, then home.

will post again (probably friday) with pictures and more info.

oh, in other news - this friday, my eddie will have completed 1st grade. he's very excited about his great accomplishment. this friday is also bill and my 10th wedding anniversary. lots of things to celebrate.