Tuesday

Today is our last full day in Guangzhou as tomorrow we fly to Beijing. We had our consulate appointment this morning with a bunch of other families and all seemed to go well. Then we returned to the clinic for our son's head to be checked. He seems to be doing well and the Dr was happy with the look of his head and stiches. The rest of the afternoon was just relaxing. As we were walking around the island we were approached by another American who is also adopting. She said, "I wanted to ask how your son is doing - I heard about what happened from another adoptive mom." We laughed and asked if we are "that family that everyone is talking about and saying Thank goodness it wasn't our son!" She replied "that thought did cross my mind." I tell you his accident is something I will always remember about this trip. Also the kidness of the other adoptive families here and especially the family from Indiana that helped us out in a big way which has been a blessing. Also we were very lucky that our guide, that we used when we adopted our son 2 yrs ago, just happened to be here and allowed us to use his cell to call the doctor in the US. This guide was completely prepared to help us in any way possible. That too was a blessing. I am, as you can probably expect, counting down the days until we can get our son home and seen by his doctor ...

 

Here is a pic of our son in his bandages ... which we are covering, when we are out, with a baseball cap.

 

 

ALL CLEAR & info on our daughter

The TB test came back all clear - yahoo!

 

As for our little peanut (as Tim calls her) she is a hoot. Her personality is definately starting to shine thru. She is a very silly girl and a tattle tail ... she is constantly ratting her brother out when he is touching something she is not allowed to touch or doing something she doesn't think he should do. She hates opended doors and will go around closing the closet doors. She is potty trained (oh yeah) but we do put pull ups on her at night just in case. She will nap as long as someone is going to nap with her - she doesn't want to miss out on anything and will cry if it looks like she has to take a nap and her brother doesn't have to.

 

As for food: she is starting to actually get selective (before she'd eat anything) she handed back to Tim the cracker with the blue cheese on it after trying it and making a ewe face. She will now take small bites instead of shoveling in as much as she can. She no longer cries when it is time to finish eating. As for Oreos (with the chocolate filling - which she loves) she eats the filling first then the outside cookie part.

 

Faces: She LOVES making faces. She will copy Tim's faces he makes and thinks it is a hilarious game.

 

Stickers, purses, coloring books and of course the stacking cups are still great entertainment for her. She will now gives kisses to both me and dolly without prompting.

 

pics of our silly girl

Monday

It has been a low key day so far. Last night we awoke our son up every 2 hrs checking for a concussion. That seemed to go well.

 

We go back to the medical office to have our daughter's TB test checked this afternoon. I am hoping all is well because the thought of bringing her to the hospital for a chest x-ray does not appeal to me. As soon as our daughter sees a Dr she starts crying - even the dr yesterday that was for her brother and not her ...

 

If all goes well tomorrow is the consulate appointment then Wed we leave for Beijing.

 

I will post some pictures later of sights of Guangzhou and our daughter.

 

Thank you all who have been praying for us. Please continue to pray that the rest of the trip will go well - no surprises. thanks Kelly

Sunday - PRAY PLEASE!!!

It has been a VERY BAD day - our son sliced opened the top of his head at the playground and had to get 3 stiches. PLEASE PRAY that he does not have a concussion ... and that the next 24 hrs goes as needed. We are VERY worried for him.

 

Thank you.

Sat Medical Exam

This is never a fun time. We have learned that our very friendly girl does NOT like doctors.

Cheerio Training

Mountain & Sweet Tofu

I guess a sweet treat that the Chinese like to enjoy is a sweet honey flavored tofu. Tim and I tried it - our son did not - our daughter devoured it.

more pictures of the mountain

pictures of the mountain

white cloud mountain

Tim's blog entry:

The day started out gray with a misty overcast but warm and only slightly muggy, both kids slept a littl better they were up at 6 today instead of 5 am. We had breakfast as usual in the hotel, our son finaly tried something new: bacon. Our daughter ate what everything that was put in front of her with her usual gusto. Today we tried putting several things in front of the little garbage disposal and she actually made some distinct choices. She preferred the eggs the most. In fact she actually giggled with excitement when the hard boiled egg was placed in front of her. She even picked the tiny egg chuncks out of her fried rice before eating it.

 

Today was another day scheduled of sightseeing. There is a local mountain about on the edge of the city that is named white cloud mountain. The locals call it green lung mountain because everyone likes to go there and get some fresh air. I did not notice that fact that I had not had any fresh air until we were walking at the mountain. There are 2 paths up the mountain one is a long winding hike with small overlooks and a large Buddhist temple along the climb. The other was a gondola ride to the top. With 2 small kids we opted for the gondola as the hike is long, hard and steep in some places and we did not feel like hauling them the whole way. It was our son's and I am assuming our daughter's fist ride in one. Both kids loved it without hesitaion. The views were spactacular. The gondola climbs slowly up the mountain as the city expands below in an amaing display of size. You can get a real feel for the sheer magnitude of it. I noticed at one point when we were on a highway cutting thru the city, that after nearly 30 mins of highway speed we where stil in the same city. It would be like driving from Federal Way to the downtown area of Seattle, but the whole time it all looks like down town Seattle. The scary part is that this city, is not all that big compared to other ones. At the top of the mountain they have a bird sanctuary, some resturants and a small park. We watched a parot theater show. It was simple and geared for kids but our son loved it and thought it was very funny to watch parrots play basket ball. Our daughter enjoyed licking the seat she was sitting next to. The highlight at the end of the show was when they ask the birds to speak. Let me tell you hearing a parrot say "ni hao" instead of "hello" kind of blows your mind. After that we went back to the hotel to just relax.

 

Our daughter is still not saying anything or responding to her name even the given Chinese one. She seems content not to respond to us so I devised a game using the one thing I figured may motivate her. I got a bag of cheerios and sat down on the floor and had her sit next to me. I then had our son sit down too and then turned to him and said quietly say "Hi Ba ba" (father in Chinese)after I say Hi to you. He nodded and I said Hi to him nice and loud then he said "HI BA BA" back and I gave him a cheeerio.

 

I then looked at her and said HI to her. She smiled oh so sweetly and held out her hand for the cheerio. I then turned back to my son and repeated the exchange then I gave him the cheerio just like the last time. Kelly at this pinat said "you think this will work?" just as I turnd to our daughter and as soon as the hi came out of my mouth she yelled very loudly and clearly "HI" with her great big smile and eager hand. All of us laughed I did not expect such a clear Hi. She then spent the rest of the day yelling HI over and over like a mantra usually at me with her hand out followed by the ASL sign for food. So I think I have taught her the word hi means cheerio.

 

Oh well at leat it's the fist clear word we have out of her so far. We did this trick several more times and tried different words. She evntally picked up on "MA MA" a little but mostly she keeps coming back to "HI." We ended the day with dinner, she still gets teary-eyed when we take away her licked clean plate, but she is quick to laugh and is easily distracted onto something new. All in all a great day. 

 

Pictures tomorrow.

more pictures of the zoo

Guangzhou Zoo

Today we went to the Guangzhou zoo - it was very different from the Safari Park but nice. Our son and Tim got to feed the giraffe. It was a very enjoyable morning. Here are some pictures of our time there. The rest of the afternoon we just hung out and relaxed.

Our precious girl

I believe this didn't post the other day so here it is again ....

 

Yesterday we met our little girl for the first time. The place was the same place as our son but the experience SO different. Walking in Tim and I looked at each other and smiled - we were excited and relaxed SO different from last time. After handing in some papers we were told she was ready to meet us. So we walked over to the door and within seconds this adorable little girl walked right over to me - she saw the Cheerios and juice and I was immediately ok. She was very content letting me give her food and letting our son show her some toys. After a few minutes of getting to know each other we moved to another room to fill out paperwork. She let me hand her over to Tim and he even got a few giggles out of her. At one point I took her to the bathroom (as she is semi-potty trained) and attempted to help her use a squatty potty. As I am trying to get down her pants and get her "lined up" so to speak I moved the wrong way and her foot went into the water - the look she gave me was funny - it was mixed amusement and a "you are one crazy lady" .... so other than a wet foot we made it thru that adventure ... then back to the hotel. She was completely fine traveling in the van and when we went back to the room we ended up changing her clothes - she played well by herself and others and her absolute favorite toy of the night were the stacking cups. She is a very good eater she ate chicken and noodles for dinner with gusto.  She and Tim had some great cuddle time at bedtime - something she did try to resist and the only time that she almost started crying. Overall she is a very happy go lucky and VERY self efficient child.

 

Our Girl & our day

A little info about our girl - she can eat and will eat anything. She babbles and smiles constantly - she is definately a very happy child. She is constantly putting her thumb in her mouth which means LOTS of drool all the time. We are trying to curb this. She can play very well by herself but if we sit down to play with her she will play with us. She is VERY independent - she will feed herself (she does this VERY well) and try to put on her clothes herself. She loves shoes, stacking cups and purses. She has also been enjoying the beach ball we brought and has a pretty mean arm throwing the ball. She loves to rock, cuddle and have her back or belly rubbed. She thinks everything is a game and laughs a lot in her deep voice chuckle.

 

Size wise she fits into her 2T pants (some are a tad too big) but the 2T tops are a little snug. With the way she eats I'm sure it won't be long until she is fully into 3T.

 

She will let us know when she has to go potty usually with the gestures she learned at the orphanage although we are teaching her the ASL sign for potty and she will use it in conjunction with the ASL sign.

 

Today we went to the Police station to start the VISA paperwork and we got some of our Chinese adoption paperwork we need. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day - she didn't want to miss a thing so we were unable to get her down for a nap today - other than 10 minutes in the car -  currently (although she is EXhausted) she is fighting sleep even though big brother is already down and out.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we go to the zoo.

Adoption Day

Our girl woke up in the morning unsure where she was and we thought she was going to cry. Then big brother brought over the stacking cups and a smile came accross her face and she was fine. We went down to breakfast and she ate very well :) Then back to the government office to finalize the adoption. She was calm and had no problems posing for the picture or sitting in the offices while we were being interviewed. Big brother was a bit antsy and ended up taking the camera and taking pictures much to the surprise of the notary. It was funny both of the people who interviewed us seemed more interested in our son. They did ask the customary questions for our current adoption but were very curious about our son - "Is he Chinese? When did you adopt him? Where in China is he from?" Both were very surprised that both children were from the same orphange. All and all that day went very smoothly and we came home and put everyone down for a nap. In the afternoon we relaxed, did some local shopping on Shaiman island - went to Jordans of course (well known in the adoption community) and had a pretty nice evening. The only time our girl was alittle upset was when we took her plate away and when we went to take her shoes off for the night. It was a very good day.