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.
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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. :-)
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.)
Xiexie ni, Tim. Talk to you after you get back! Enjoy your time in China!
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