Almost 2 weeks home!

One, 2,3,4,5,6,7--1,2,3,4,5,6,7--1,2,3,4,5,6,7.  How many times have I done that already?  I'd try to guess but apparently that is as high as I can go right now.  I used to laugh about the time my mom left my sister, Susan, at a gas station when we were on vacation; I won't laugh anymore.  For some reason 5 kids is the magic number that makes us big enough that we have to count to be sure that we are all there.  It is also the number, apparently, that makes us big enough that we look like an "agency" when we go out.

We were out having pizza for lunch one day when a lady ran up and asked what agency we were with as we tried to leave.  She had been watching us and with Ian not speaking but babbling incoherently, Jay with his (happy but) super sensory self, and exhausted (and so) clingy adorable Katie-bug the lady had assumed they were autistic.  She said they were so well-behaved that she wanted to enroll her autistic child.  She looked uncertain when I told her they were all 5 my kids.  I expect we will get many more uncertain looks in the coming years.  :)

Eating pizza for lunch has been the only time we've had to eat out since we got home;  which is incredible and brings me to my next stream of thought...hang in there with me.

Yesterday, Tim and I went to the first Emmaus meeting since we've been back.  (It is an ecumenical group of wonderful people that have been very emotionally supportive of our journey.  In fact, when God started nudging us toward our children in China, He used this group as his "nudgers" quite a bit!)  There is enough scripture instructing us that our Emmaus friends never questioned "why?!"  (James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  Psalm 68:5 "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling."  Psalm 82:3 "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.")  

Yesterday, though, I heard something that bothered me ... although the why of it isn't easy to articulate.  Someone who truly was trying to compliment us said that we were his heroes.  How to deflect that without sounding snotty or artificially humble, hmm.  Tim and the kids and I aren't doing something "heroic".  We are trying to follow where God leads us and we are being a "father to the fatherless" (or at least mother, in my case), but adopting is not the only way to follow this scripture.  

The people that came up with the idea of starting a Meal train for us, the ones that signed up to bring us yummy homemade meals for the last 10 days, the people that kept our office running so that we could go to China, the people that made sure that our lawn got taken care of and the patients that didn't leave our practice because we were gone for a month, these families were also being defenders of the fatherless.  Not everyone is called to adopt but everyone is called to do something. 

This really struck me yesterday when we got back from the Y to find dear friends at my house dropping off incredible fresh shucked corn and homemade meatballs and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies that they had worked harder than I had yesterday for my kids.  What an incredible thing that is, that someone who gets nothing out of it but a thank you card, would spend considerable time being sure my family is well fed.  

So really, who are the heroes?  

Random notess about getting home and the last few days.

So we made it back to Tulsa!  We had lots of friends and family present and Mr. Social did great!  It was funny when he saw Naomi and started chasing her around the airport lobby.  :) I also thought it was sweet that when he saw NaiNai, he asked Tim where YeYe is.  That helps me know that he really did get to see the picture book that we sent (or he could have just been being logical).  

The flights all went exceptionally well other than very little sleep.  The kids all got about 4 hours sleep in the last 26 hours with Jay maybe a little less and Ian maybe a little more.  The grown-ups mostly got considerably less.  The only time we had an American delay of flight was the DFW to Tulsa leg tonight and it wasn't bad, we came in about 50 minutes late.  Bless the hearts of our friends and family that met us, that put them out fairly late for a work night!  

Ian seemed very pleased to meet his new family and extended family.  Tim and I were talking tonight in the car on the way home about sort of hating that they call the nannies in the orphanages "Aunties"  or Ayi.  That is the same term for aunt as in my sister (or sister in law).  When we introduced him to Auntie tonight we sort of half wondered if he didn't think she would be his new caregiver.  She is from Thailand and he thinks she speaks Chinese, he just rattles off mandarin and she smiles and nods although she doesn't understand him any better than I do.  :) 

One snafu I didn't anticipate was on the DFW to Tulsa flight, the bulkhead seats (that we had 3 of) were an exit row.  So that meant the little were supposed to all sit together across a row with only one adult.  At that point, Katie had about had enough and wanted Mom and Dad.  Eventually, we got a lady to switch to the bulkhead and let Tim move back although she wasn't too thrilled.   It all worked.  :) 

The last few days were fun at HK Disney but I think we were all ready to head toward home.  At one point when we were at Disney, Katie said "I want to go home!"   When Tim asked if she meant the hotel, she clarified HOME.  Ian has been a little more subdued than he had been since he started seeing a lot more non-Asian people in the airport but on the final leg, when we were walking toward security, he asked Tim if we were in America yet.  When Tim said we were, Ian gave a big fist-in-the-air pump.  Loved seeing that even when it is becoming more real, he seems excited about it.  

We are in the car as I speak, Mitch is driving the van with the luggage and Nai Nai (yes, the van that was dead at extended parking when we got there) and Tim is driving the van with the rest of us.  Mitch is the only one of my five currently awake.  

I think jet lag is a little like labor; you forget how bad it is until it happens again.  Tonight I apparently kept saying Naoma and Jessie instead of Naomi and Jessa.  (Sorry, Jessa and Naomi--thanks for not correcting a crazy lady!)  Even when Laura corrected me, it still sounded correct in my head.  I will definitely not get back into the office until my head has cleared some.   (Not a place I want to say one thing and mean another!!)  We took 4 weeks with each of the first 2 adopted kiddos but will probably not go that long with Ian.  He is adjusting so well and being older, I think he will understand more easily when we can't both be home together with him.   One thing that should make it much easier this time is having wonderful friends that set up a Meal Train for us!  We have about 2 weeks that we have friends that have committed to bringing by dinner.  Oh, to not have to cook in this muddle brained state is going to be wonderful.  :)  :)  

There is probably a lot that got missed in the blog in the last couple of days.  I'm going to make a blog about HK Disney in a few days (I hope) with lots of pics.  As a minimal commentary about the last few days of the trip:  the mood stayed good for all concerned, it was incredibly hot in HK but even with that, everyone did well.  None of the kids (or grown-ups for that matter) had a bad case of gimme's at Disney.  I wondered how that would go.  Ian asked for things on occasion but was mostly perfectly fine with being denied.  We allowed them to get some souvenirs but always as a planned thing.  One tim allowed at literally the last few minutes of our Disney extravaganza was the light up Mickey light sabers.   (they were lots of fun carrying thru the airports)  I think he said yes because of how much he enjoyed watching the wonder and excitement on all 3 faces during the night time Light-Up the Night Parade.  The Hong Kong Disney hotel was magnificent.  HK Disney is a great end to the adoption trips because it is still Asian for the newly adopted kiddo but is a little more American for the rest of the family.  If feels a lot like home at the end of a long trip.  Its hard to be unhappy at Mickey's house.  Katie got to do all of the random transportation things that she kept saying that she wanted to do "Once we get Ian" like boats, trains, planes, vans, buses, teacups, Dumbo and horses (on the carousel, that is).

I will try to add photos tomorrow.  Thanks SO MUCH FOR ALL THE SUPPORT; it would have been a much more dificullt journey without all the help we'ver received along the way!

It is now Thursday morning and I am still looking at a mess of a house!  We came home to a nice clean house and then brought 7 people and 11 suitcases full of dirty clothes, souvenirs, and other random stuff into the house.   It isn't pretty!  We have our clothes sorted at least, so that's a start.  I think life will be easier once we find a new normal and get things back in order.  We are already much closer to a normal sleep schedule than I could have hoped for though and for that I am very thankful.  It is amazing how much sleep affects life.  

One of the hard things about international adoption is that you come home from that incredible trip and are so jet-lagged that everything seems harder than it should.  Yesterday for breakfast, I had decided pancakes would be an easy, well accepted choice.  We had left-over fried rice from Auntie as well.  So when I was looking for Bisquick, I realized that the 2 cups that we had were not going to feed a family of seven.  (I will eventually learn to put things on the shopping list sooner, at least as long as I am cooking for 7 at each meal.)  In China, breakfast usually included rice or noodles and so I asked Laura to "Warm the K-Y please."  When she gave me a very confused look, I pointed to the rice.  To which she responded, "Shall I warm the rice instead of the K-Y?"  (To those who don't know me personally, I am a family med doc who does ask for K-Y frequently but not usually at home.)  Luckily, I have a daughter with a good sense of humor.  It is so weird that random things pop out of my mouth that have very little to do with what I thought I was saying.  So, if you call my house, bear that in mind and take whatever I say with a grain of salt for the next week or so!  Not enough Bisquick and asking for random things still ended in a lovely breakfast of cake-batter pancakes and shrimp fried rice.  :)  

We also got our first "Meal Train" meal last night!  It was wonderful and included vegetable beef soup, salad, buttered french bread and fresh cut pineapple.  We devoured it happily.  Ian had three bowls of the soup, which also made me happy.  I have been nervous about feeding a 10 year old who has primarily only eaten Chinese food and have been very relieved to see him enjoy American foods.  I thought it was funny that the friends that brought the meal, the Nichols, whose daughter is from the same SWI as Ian, got to answer a very confused child about why they were bringing us food.  She asked her mother several times why they were bringing us food.  Her mother's answer of "to be helpful" just wasn't cutting it, so finally she asked her if we had a kitchen!  Hehe, it makes me giggle just to think about it.  

The China Daily Report

Well, here is today's blog ... THE CHINA DAILY REPORT, the Friday night edition ... I will leave the Hong Kong version to the girls. As mentioned in Tracy's last blog, we had to split up because the U.S. is unable to print visas right now. Supposedly it is a "global" problem, not unique to China, so they are working hard on fixing it. Um, maybe reboot the computer? Just saying. 

Anyway, the adoptive families are hearing all kinds of answers to the question "when will they start printing visas" ... answers ranging from someone's senator's office who said 12 hours ago that the problem is already fixed and they are ready to print the visas (nope) ... to "it will take a week" (I hope not!) ... to "they will print them on the weekend and issue them on the weekend" (I'm not holding my breath on that one) ... to our guide's answer, which is basically "who the heck knows ... I will let you know when I know something" (sounds realistic to me).  

Basically, we are hoping and praying that Ian's will be issued by Monday so that we can take a van to Hong Kong and fly out with he rest of the family on Tuesday

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In other news Jaden is doing incredibly well ... He is sharing, being patient, and not being too jealous of my time. The only time we run into issues is at bedtime when we are reading books because I run out of arms for the kids to pile onto and Jaden likes to snuggle at bedtime.

In my last blog I had some of the kids quotes ... Here are a few more Katie quotes ... 

"I love my Ian"

At the hotel where we were when we got Ian ..."This is the Ian hotel" ... That was the official name as far as she was concerned.

Katie after Jaden fell asleep one night ... "I love J!"

Katie to dog on the street ... "It's ok, we won't get you" ... ???? :-)

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Ian has been with us for 10 days now.  

As we have spent the past 10 days together, I have only seen further confirmation of my initial impression that Ian appears to have a very caring and generous heart. There are many examples, and I can only remember a handful of them right now ... Here are a few examples.

............

After the initial excitement had settled down at Gotcha Day, Ian brought each of us a cup of water.

Ian asked Jaden if he wanted more fries at lunch at the end of our first meal after gotcha instead of eating the last few himself ... And trust me, food is a BIG DEAL to kids from orphanages. 

Jaden fell one day during our walk, and Ian immediately went to comfort him. Katie bumped into something later and Ian immediately ran to help her, too.

He has really wanted Katie to play with him, but he is not really sure how to get her to play so he tries stuff and then backs off when she needs some space. They seem to connect best in the evening time when they are supposed to be settling down for the night :-) 

He shares snack nicely with J and K. If we give him a snack, he wants to make sure they get one, also. Also, if he gets a yogurt drink (which all here of them love and at least J and K would forgo food to drink) he wants to get them one, too.

Ian esp likes to help with anything that is physical, such as carrying suitcases, getting suitcases off of the belt at the airport, pushing the luggage cart, carrying bags, etc. 

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Here are some random observations and thoughts re: Ian ... 

He enjoys food. I have learned that when he says he wants five of something, he really means it. If it is a food he particularly is in the mood for he will give a big dramatic move and hold up four or five fingers with a big smile. (It works every time, by the way)

The first time we had pizza delivered by room service, he was very excited and shouted "PIZZA!!!!!!" ... we actually had to order more pizzas for that meal. :-). 

He enjoys a very wide variety of foods including American style food, Chinese food, sandwiches, some of the (seemingly) bizarre combinations of food that are put on the buffet here, and he can put away lots and lots of fruit (esp bananas and watermelon). He likes desserts, too, but is not excessive with them.

He still enjoys telling people "hello" and "goodbye" and "good morning" ... Always with enthusiasm and always happy to show off his English language.

He likes to do most things for himself but he will accept or ask for help if he needs it.

Ina likes humming and seems to have a very good pitch and a good musical ear. He enjoys dancing when he hears music, dancing in the elevator, etc.  

The other day we heard him singing "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen. :-)

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Tracy messaged me a few minutes ago that they made it in to the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel and have a busy day planned tomorrow. I will leave those details to her, although it sounds like they will be a lot more busy than we are here in China so I don't know if they will be able to blog or not.

Tomorrow's plan here is busy but not on a scheduled timetable. It looks like this: a run for me in the park, then some swimming, basketball, kickball, playing on the swing set, more swimming, more kickball, a walk, more swimming and who knows what else. Also, I plan to start working harder with Ian on his English skills and I want him to help me with my Chinese pronunciations, too.  

By the way, if anyone is wanting to learn Chinese I highly recommend Serge Melnyk ... he has podcasts that you can listen to, but you can also get private lessons from him via Skype and those really helped me a lot with my pronunciation.

I have joked on my prior two trips to China that Chinese folks must not really speak Mandarin because they could never seem to understand what I was saying, even though I was speaking mandarin so well ... This time the limiting factor has been when I don't know WHAT to say, but thanks to Serge's help I seem to be (mostly) understandable with what I DO say.  

He really helped me get a better grasp on hearing and speaking the tones (still not well, but much better!) 

Certainly his lessons helped me a lot with communicating with Ian, which has been priceless! Anyway, I recommend his services if you want to learn more mandarin ... He TOTALLY customized our lessons as I needed, which was fantastic. For example, as much as I would like to be able to read Chinese writing, it just was not realistic so he removed those completely from our lessons at my request.  

Also, the last two lessons were just back and forth about scenarios I might encounter during this adoption trip and about how to communicate with Ian. Several times when I have been talking with Ian I have sent a silent thanks for Serge's help and I can here him gently correcting my pronunciation. :-) 

http://www.melnyks.com

Sorry about that detour, but he really helped me so I wanted to get that info out.

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Well, that's it this evening from China.  

Good night all (well, good morning for you, but good night from here since we are 13 hours ahead of home.)

the Guangzhou Safari Park and Visa issues

We we had a wonderful day yesterday at the Safari park.  Four of the five kiddos took a nap on the way there in preparation for the busy day.  (Dad may or may not have also napped.)  ;)
All 5 kids seemed to enjoy it.  We saw lots of animals up close and personal and got to feed elephants, giraffes and goats.  It was 90-95% chance of thunderstorms all day which kept the locals away and it isn't yet summer vacation in China so that also kept domestic visitors to a minimum.  There were many times that we thought we had the park to ourselves!  Usually, the park is wonderful but is madness as far as the number of people.  One of the interesting thing about the Chinese culture is their total lack of belief in taking turns or standing in line.  Usually it is a free for all with people literally pushing people on to or off elevators or subways. We enjoyed having a quiet day.  We only had about 10 minutes of heavy rain and that happened to be when we were indoors eating ice-cream anyway.  It was incredibly hot and humid but it just reminded us of our growing up years in Mississippi.  It also gave us good reason to have ice cream 3 times yesterday!

Ian's SWI had warned us that he likes to run off or perhaps just that he is easily distractible on outings and so I was worried about losing him  but we had no problems at all.  He would occasionally test boundaries some but he showed absolutely no defiance or sneakiness with it.  Again, I will say it was a huge blessing to have such an empty park.  :)  Usually all of thee available trains are running and it only looked like one or two was running yesterday.

We had our pick of seats at the shows and durin the dinosaur exhibit, we had only our own kids screaming with delight (fright?).
Now, on to some not so good news.  It looks like Tim and I will have to separate for a little while.  :(
The American Consulate is still saying that the visa system is down.  It has to be fixed in Washington, DC and since it is now way past working hours in the US, the likelihood of it being resolved today is low.  That means staying here until Monday for Tim and Ian and having me and the rest of the kiddos going on to HK and leaving as scheduled.  We could all stay but that would mean paying for the two rooms here and the 2 in HK.  You have to cancel 1 week in advance for HK and obviously it is too late for that.  So by us going we can just keep the smaller room here for Tim and Ian and the rest of us can go ahead and do the days at HK Disney as per the plan.  I'm not thrilled about it; I don't like dividing the family but I also hate to disappoint the littles and not let them see Disney.  If it isn't resolved by Monday that means changing the flight plans too.  Ugh.   There is still a chance it will work out in the next few hours...

Anyhoo...I'll update as we get info.  We appreciate the good thoughts and the prayers!

Shamian Island fun and American consulate

It is Tuesday afternoon and we are essentially finished here in China!  Today we did our consulate appointment and Ian was given the opportunity to say if he wanted to come to the US.  He was also asked if he knew his biologic parents.  He said "yes" and "no"  in the correct order.  :)  This was the final step of many that will allow him to get a US visa to come into the US.  Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, he will have a US Visa on Thursday evening and we will leave Guangzhou on Friday.  His Tb test came back normal, so Yea!, he does not have tuberculosis.  He continues to do well and is trying to learn some English.  He has a couple of phrases but it will be a LONG time before he is fluent.   

After the visa appointment, he fell asleep in Daddy's arms.  When we got back to the hotel, we met up with the other family and went to Shamian Island.  That is the place that all Americans used to stay.  It has a giant hotel that used to cater to adopting families.  It has been closed 4 years now for renovation and the American consulate has moved into the city center.  These changes have left the island pretty deserted.  It has a lot of classic locations for family photos and we took lots of pics.  Unfortunately, the temp and humidity were both high and we were all drenched.  I haven't looked at the pics yet, but I'm not expecting much.  :) So now, the little boys are at the pool with Laura and Dad, Mitch and Katie are sleeping and I'm watching gymnastics with Chinese commentary on TV.  Tomorrow is a rest day so probably some pool time and the YUMMY hand-pulled noodles from a near-by noodle shop and maybe a first pass at organizing in preparation for leaving the hotel Friday am.  Hard to believe that so much of the trip is already behind us.  

The guides have been great, the food has been delicious and plentiful,  the weather has been gorgeous and all of the kids (big and little alike) have been flexible and sweet!  There isn't anything that I could have wanted to go differently.