Happy St. Patrick's Day...

...from the loser Mom who failed to pack green clothes so her Kazakh/Chinese/American children could celebrate an Irish Catholic holiday in Communist Buddhist China.  The kids are also wondering if leprechauns visit China.  I'd like to say, "Oh well, next time", but well, it's obvious I really blew this once in a lifetime chance. 

Today, our group was going to Shamian Island and the Pearl Market, but Gianna is now pretty sick again.  Poor kid has been sick almost this whole trip, but today she looked worse and had a fever, so I took one for the team and stayed in the hotel room with her.  I kept Tallulah here too since the outing would last well into her naptime and we are learning that this girl NEEDS her naps.  (By the way, if anyone wants to know any of the latest developments on either Crimea or the missing plane, after watching an entire day of the BBC, I'm your girl.)  After some Tylenol this afternoon, Gianna felt a little better, so we walked around the beautiful grounds of our hotel to get some fresh air.

Tallulah used to be terrified of the elevator, but she learned pretty quickly that getting on the elevator = going somewhere = amazing time!  She LOVES getting out and about.  In that book, "Room", I mentioned before, the little boy has difficulty distinguishing between what's real and not real.  I think she's going through some of the same thing.  She points to EVERYTHING and says, "Eh?" and looks at me, like, "What is that?"  I tell her the name and she wants to touch it.  She absolutely loves exploring and seeing new things.  She was deeply offended this morning when Nathan and the other girls got in the elevator and left her behind.  But we had a great time walking around looking at waterfalls and koi ponds once G was feeling up to it. 

When we first got her referral, we were scared by her measurements, which are so far off any growth chart.  I have a go-to doctor that I call who specializes in reviewing medical files of these kids.  Her name is Jeri Jenista and she is known for giving the worst case scenario based on the info she's given.  I appreciate this because I think it's best to know what the worst possible outcome could be.  With Tallulah, she was most concerned about her tiny head circumference and indicated that this in conjunction with her cleft could indicate a syndrome at play.  The biggest challenge we discovered any of these syndromes could hold would be low IQ/learning disabilities.  But we decided that we could handle that if it were to be and have the resources to support a child who may need extra support in that way.

But as of right now, I see NO signs of low IQ or other issues that Dr. Jenista informed us could be present.  She makes very quick associations between things (TV and remote, pack of Wet Wipes and hand cleaning, which lids go on which bottles or drinks, elevators and good times, smacking herself on the head and everyone around her laughing--on second thought, maybe I should have her IQ checked...?).   She has a very healthy sense off curiousity and you can literally see on her face when she finally "gets" how something works or what something means.  She is beginning to understand some words and sometimes tries to imitate them.  I'm still going to have her tested when we get home to see if she needs any therapy or other support, but I'd say she is probably right on par with any other 20 month old in most motor and cognitive skills.  Emotionally, she is also surprisingly typical, which is AMAZING given where she's come from.  She is incredibly motor driven and busy, which leads to her great need for sleep.  She can nap like nobody's business and slept 12 hours straight last night. 

Our biggest challenge that I can see so far will be speech.  Of course, we can't really begin to work on this until her lip and palate are repaired, but it's very encouraging to see her already trying.  Knowing how motivated she is, I can already tell she will work her buns off in speech therapy and will be fighting with her sisters in no time.  Some have asked when her first surgery will be.  We are meeting with her surgeon again in the first week or two after we get home.  They usually schedule the surgery about 6-8 weeks after that.  It will be the biggest and most painful one, so I think the timing will be good.  She'll be home long enough to get to know us well and vice versa, and to understand that we'll be there to comfort her.

Post nap photos:

 

 

Regretfully, I sampled some food tonight from a "Mexican" food place across the street called Mr. Pancho's.  I'm beginning to feel not so hot.  I have a feeling I'll be hanging out in the bathroom pretty soon.  I just hope it goes away before I have to be coherent at the consulate tomorrow.  Goodnight from our little gangsta.  (These PJs are size 18 months by the way!)

 



 

 

 

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.