One week down, forever to go

It's Sunday here and it has been a full week since Tallulah joined our family!  I'm going to officially make the call that we have turned the corner and are only going up from here.  She's doing so well and has changed so much this past week.  She went from scared and withdrawn to happy and bubbly.  She's gone from 4 oz of formula per day to 24 oz per day and she has a newly sprouted double chin and Buddha belly to prove it.  Her rattly cough sounds much better and her nonstop boogers are gone.  She used to cry when we put her in the bath, now she cries when we take her out.  When she wakes up in the morning or from a nap, she has traded in last week's furrowed brow and teary eyes for automatic smiles and laughs.  The sores and bruises on her legs are healing and she has color in her cheeks now.  She's let her little personality and sense of humor out too.  She is absolutely hilarious and she knows it.  I'll have to write more about her antics next time.  I can't wait for everyone to meet her.

Today, we went to the Banyan Tree Park and the Chen Clan Family Temple.


                                                        ALL four smiling at the same time!  

 

 

It was a perfect day for sightseeing outside, 70s and a little misty and overcast.  We went to the Banyan Park first, named for its many Banyan trees.  Because most people here live in small apartments, they do not have yards to go outside and relax or play sports, so parks are very popular gathering places for everyone in the city.  This park was beautiful.

 

 

I love this picture I took of the tree's branches and a high rise building reflected in the still lake. 

 

 

Since it was Sunday, the park was very busy with lots of people.  We got to see how the locals spend their time.  Here is a sampling:

 

 

Singing:  This was adorable.  There was a huge crowd here and one guy up front who was leading them in song.  He had the lyrics posted so everyone could follow along.  Helen, our guide here, said the local people do this as good exercise for their lungs.  (Maybe it helps clear all the cigarette smoke?)  If I can figure out how to post my video, I will do it later. 

 

 

Dancing:  This was also so cute.  The people have music playing on a small radio and have all their moves synchronized.  The lady in the orange sweater and heels was really into this jam.

 

 

Exercising:  This equipment is mainly used by retired people who like to come here not only to exercise but to make new friends.  Some of the equipment is bewildering, like the giant round things they just spin in circles.  Nathan thinks they are training to be bus drivers.  (Oh speaking of buses, our mini-bus got hit today in traffic...minor, but still just one more funny story from our trip.)  Just like Lanzhou, there is an amazing sense of community here given how large this city is.

 

 

These two ladies were walking along with us talking to Helen.  Helen started in on the usual, "They say you have big hearts for adopting Chinese children with disabilities.  They say 'thank you'."  As usual, I was thinking to myself, "Yeah, sure!"  But then the woman in the orange coat came up to me and pointed to Evie and Tallulah and gave me a thumbs up.  Her friend joined in the party.  Then the women wanted a picture with us.  The one in the orange coat got teary eyed and started hugging me.  Helen translated, "I am so touched.  Now these children can have happy lives.  I have tears for their new happiness.  Thank you, thank you!"  I decided to stop being a skeptical American jerk right then and there.

 

 

More scenes from the park:

 

 

Food vendors outside of the park:

 

 

 

Next we went to the Chen Clan Academy or Chen Clan Temple.  It was built over 100 years ago for the Chen Clan family as a place to worship, study, and gather together.  It was very impressive, with stone, brick and wood carvings. 

 

 

Tallulah and Lily Grace from our travel group

 

 

This lady wanted a picture with "beautiful girl"

 

 

 

Of course, it was also full of vendors selling local crafts who also conveniently accepted credit cards.  This guy did these paintings with his fingers and hands only.

 

 

This guy must have nightmares about paper cuts.

 

 

The girls got hand painted scrolls with their names written in Chinese characters.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we go to Shamian Island and the Pearl Market for more shopping and sightseeing.  Goodnight from Guangzhou.

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Ni Hao from the South of China

We made it to Guangzhou, where we spend our final week.  Getting through the Lanzhou airport and onto the plane with 4 kids was quite a, um, new experience for us.  The smallest one has decided that she is very comfortable with us now, let us finally put her down, and hasn't stopped since.  I'm not kidding.  I remarked to Nathan yesterday that I think this little girl is our boy (even moreso than Camille is!).  She has realized that she has freedom now and is using her boundless energy to explore every single inch of her world.  I love it.  The baby Bjorn carrier has become nothing but a useless appendage these past couple of days.  When I try to put her in it, she uses her legs to stand up against my body and halfway launches herself out.  Stop laughing.

Yesterday was her first flight and she hates flying like her Mommy does.  She was terrified during take off (as I always am!) and screamed herself to sleep finally.  I felt so bad for her.  I read this book called "Room" about a year ago about a little boy who was captive in a room until he was five or six.  The author did a great job researching sensory issues because she included vivid details about the boy's first sensory experiences with things we take for granted everyday: stairs, new foods, etc and how disorienting they can be when introduced later in life and all at once.  I'm sure this is exactly what Tallulah is going through right now.  She's lived almost 2 years in a crib.  That would do a number on anyone's head, but for a baby who really needs all that sensory input, it can leave them with lifelong sensory problems.  For the most part, she has fully embraced new sensory experiences, but some things still really scare her.  Like the feeling of being in an airplane. 

First flight, post scream fest.  The guy next to her was stoked, I'm sure.

But we made it.  And it was all worth it.  When we walked through the doors of the Garden Hotel and smelled the fresh flowers and saw all the glistening surfaces (ok, they may not have been glistening, that could've been the tears of joy in my eyes), I turned around to Regina, another travel partner and said, "Do you miss the Zugong Hotel yet?"  She said, "Wow, you don't realize how bad it was until you're out of there, do you?"  Well said, my friend.  I couldn't agree more.  I've stayed at my fair share of not so nice places (hostels) (tents) (ok the tent was once, but once was enough) and I can put on my big girl panties when I need to, but when you are on a trip as exhausting as this one, it really is nice to be pampered a little bit.  Tallulah was pretty nervous for the first few hours we were here as expected, but she got comfortable quickly and is now unstoppable.  Again.  :)

Watch out world!  Here I come!

Poor Gianna wasn't feeling so well on the plane either.  When we got in the van to come to the hotel, she started looking a little green.  When she announced she was going to puke, I quickly dumped the contents of the bottle warming bag and it got one final use.  When we got to the hotel, Nathan spent some quality time with the toilet too.  All I have to say is, if they were going to get sick, here is a nice place to recover.  So we skipped dinner with our group last night, went to bed early and everyone woke up feeling better today.     

Tallulah had medical exam required for her US immigrant visa this morning.  When we had Evie's 3 years ago, it was in a tiny, cramped, old, HOT building.  And all the kids had to get 7 or 8 shots back then.  This wreaked havoc on their underweight, malnourished, sick bodies.  When we got home, I wrote a long letter to my agency about it and apparently, so did a lot of other families.  So now, we can sign a waiver to waive the vaccines here and just promise to do them once we get to the US.  So thankfully, all the babies were spared that horrible ordeal this time.  The medical exam is also now done in a new, clean, air conditioned building.  It was so nice and relaxing, I kept waiting for someone to come around and take my drink order or maybe feed me grapes off the vine.  It took about an hour and we were done.

 

This was in the lobby of the medical exam building for parents whose children did not do so well. 

 

 

We only have one more appointment left on Tuesday where we have to go to the US consulate and swear her in as a US citizen.  Other than that, we are free to sightsee and just relax.  The weather is warm, the beds are soft(er), our hair no longer smells like "an old lady's dried up diaper" after our showers (eloquent and accurate phrase courtesy of my aunt), and Guangzhou has tons to see and do.  I'm looking forward to spending our last week here in this beautiful city.

 

Leaving Lanzhou

We leave early tomorrow for Guangzhou, and I'm high on cold meds, so just a quick (likely incoherent) post with pictures tonight.

Today was another great day of progress.  Tallulah had more smiles than tears.  Her crazy sisters start their morning entertainment session for her at breakfast, and it sets the mood for the whole day.  She is completely in love with all of them.

 

I'm cautiously optimistic that we've turned the corner with her, though it seems impossible for it to have happened so fast.  We went to Water Wheel Park today on the Yellow River, full of...water wheels.  They use them to irrigate farmland in the summer time.  It was a nice walk alongside the river.

                                    

 

Some weird guy keeps photobombing all our pictures (see right side).  We plan to alert authorities if it happens again.

 

The Yellow River, which appears in need of renaming

 

With "Sally", whom we adore

 

After the Water Wheel Park, we went to a little flea market full of lots of cool local trinkets.

 

 

I love the red lanterns hung everywhere

 

I could watch this guy write calligraphy for hours.  He gave Gianna's hair a "thumbs up".

 

Ok, I need to write about the food here so I never forget.  It's freaking delicious.  Everything is very fresh, with tons of fresh herbs and spices.  I didn't do a lot of eating out on Evie's adoption trip because I was afraid of getting sick since I was the only adult here.  But since we've got four adults this time, I'm trying everything in sight!  Sally has taken us to a few places to eat showcasing local foods and every single thing has been delicious.  A crowd favorite so far has been one of Lanzhou's local specialties: Beef Noodle Soup.  Sounds about as boring as a peanut butter sandwich, right?  But it's SOOOOO good.  Sally told us it's the local specialty because it combines the 3 local cultures in one bowl: Tibetan yak meat, Chinese wheat, and Muslim recipe for noodles.  It's made to order with fresh, hand-stretched noodles, then you add vinegar and a chili oil that also has other herbs and spices in it.  Nathan, the girls and I have had it everyday for breakfast.  When I have to go home and eat cereal for breakfast, I may lose the will to live. 

 

 

 

Lanzhou's cuisine gets five stars from me.  I will seriously miss it and wish I'd taken more photos of local vendors with their food.  However, their accomodations leave something(s) to be desired.  I already detailed the smell of the shower water.  The beds here are also something I won't be sad to leave behind.  We all think the "mattresses" are actually made of plywood with only this 1/4" thick pad on the top.

 

 

The other day, we were sitting in the room watching the cranes outside across the street construct a new high rise.  One of them was lowering a large square item.  Melonie (one of our travel partners) asked innocently (and perhaps deliriously after several nights of no sleep), "Hey, is that a mattress?"  My aunt said, "WHAT?!  A mattress?!  Where?!?", as we started looking out the window to see it.  We all busted up laughing, realizing that it could only be a mirage, much like an oasis in a desert.  Surely, no mattress could actually exist in this city because if one did, I would have sniffed it out and paid any amount of money for it by now.

 

Alright, one funny then I'm off to bed to have nightmares about our flights during what little dozing time my slab of plywood actually affords me.  Tonight, Camille was in the shower talking to herself and said, "I am washing my arms, my belly, (etc etc) because I want to be all fresh and clean for the airport.  I'm about sick of all these people here touching me and I need to wash their germs off."  We didn't have the heart to tell her that Guangzhou has 10 times the population of Lanzhou, so she's about to get 10 times more people wanting to caress her hair and face and hold her hands.

 

The last night in the province is always bittersweet for me.  It's one more step closer to home and to getting on with living our lives together as a family of six.  But it's also very sad to be leaving the place and people our daughter came from, not knowing if and when we'll ever be back. 

 

Goodbye Lanzhou and Gansu Province.  Despite being so large and populated, you have an amazing sense of community and togetherness that I'll always remember.  Thank you for sharing your city, your people, and your Beef Noodle Soup with us.  We are so grateful and humbled to be taking the absolute best part home forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life in the Fast Lane

Today was another pretty great day for Tallulah. 

I woke up sick (think I caught Gianna's cold), so I stayed in bed this morning for a few hours.  But Nathan said she did well at breakfast and had a great time playing with the girls.  I could hear them all laughing like crazy out in the hallway.  The first couple of times she tried to laugh yesterday, it was almost a grunting sound.  It was like she didn't know what to do with that feeling and hadn't done a whole lot of laughing before.  Mei did the same thing.  And if anyone remembers when we adopted Camille, she also did the same thing.  I don't think there's a whole lot to laugh at in an orphanage and so these kids just don't really know what to do at first when they feel that sensation to laugh.  But, as we all know, Camille now has the most robust laugh in the Northern Hemisphere, and Tallulah is well on her way to perfecting hers as well.

In the afternoon, I was feeling a little better, so we all went for a walk to Lanzhou University.  It was very...brown.  This place is just so dry and arid.  I'm sure spring and summer look a little different but for now, it's kind of dismal.  But it was nice to go for a walk on the grounds since there were no cars and the kids could just run around.  Tallulah LOVED it.  She was smiling, laughing and kicking her legs the whole time.  I thought she might burst out of that Bjorn.  She loves to point to things and for me to tell her the name.  Today, she loved the trees.  We pointed to lots of trees and touched them.

 

 

After our walk, we just decided to make life easy and order room service.  The items on the menu were hilarious, but this one was the best.  Grandmother Drunk Fish?  Maybe tomorrow.

 



 

A few more details about her:  She is TEENY TINY.  They say the camera adds 10 pounds, and that is certainly the case for her. Seeing her pictures before we got her, she looked great, so I couldn't fathom that she was only 16 pounds.  But she really is just a miniature little thing.  The size 12 month clothes seem to fit best.  And none of the shoes I brought fit.  The smallest size 3 falls off, so my aunt and uncle had to go buy her some that fit.  She totally loves them by the way.  She's an accessory girl.

Evie used to be our tiny girl, but she looks so big now.

She's adjusting really well for the most part.  She slept through the night last night up until about 5am, then I just held her so she could doze for another hour.  She seems to really hate our hotel room though.  She has a great time when we go out or play in another room or the forbidden hallway, but coming back into our room makes her brow furrow and her eyes well up every time.  I remember this with Evie.  I think that all the trauma happened in the hotel room, so it's just a bad association.  Things got better with Evie and the hotel room when we went to Guangzhou, and I'm sure it will be the same with Tallulah.

The biggest issue we have right now is her eating.  The funny part is that I was most worried about bottle feeding, but she's got that down no problem.  Her reports from the orphanage indicated that she ate all kinds of solid foods and she seems to want to eat them, but when we try to give them to her, she chokes a lot, scaring the heck out of her and us!  (However, strangely, she can manage Cheerios and Gerber Puffs with no problems.)  She seems to dislike purees, period.  When I try to feed them to her, she looks at me like, "Are you kidding?  I am NOT a baby!"  I think we've devised a decent method of giving her teeny bites followed by a sip of liquid to help get it down, but that takes so long, I seriously doubt she would ever get enough calories even if we fed her all day long.  If any of you reading have cleft-affected kids, I'm all eyes for advice.  It's really kind of stressing me out.  I've checked out the inside of her mouth and the roof is...well....missing.  Clefts come in various sizes and hers seems really huge to me.  I have NO idea how these kids have survived this long in the conditions they have.  It's really a miracle.

I know you are concerned about my child's bowel health, so let me share with you that the other issue we are having is massive diaper blow outs.  I'm really hoping we aren't dealing with a parasite here.  But everyday at around 2pm, she has a huge movement.  I've ended up throwing away the outfits every time because it's that bad.  I think we're going to have to go to the store and buy her some cheap 2pm pants because I don't want to keep tossing all her cute stuff.

Camille and Evie are doing better with her now that she's coming out of her shell more and being playful.  The both love to try to make her laugh.  She has definitely become a Daddy's girl...she loves being held and snuggled by Nathan.  Last night, he left to take some clothes to the laundry place and she freaked out!  Gianna and Evie are both definitely Mommy's girls, and Camille is both, so it was time to try to even the score.

 

 

I hope reading about our wild adventures today didn't leave you too exhausted.  Good night from Lanzhou.