Micah surveys his empire. . .

We're still sleeping in three to four hour shifts and are out of synch with time. Steve took over at around 3:00 am and was up with Thea and Micah, then I got up at 6:30 am and we fed Micah. Until our trip to ShopRite, the cuisine is rice cereal and prunes - but he's loving it so far. I need to get formula because what I do have on hand, Micah does not like one bit.

After getting online to make sure the grocery store is open, Micah and I set off for ShopRite - the one with the Dunkin Donuts because Mom wanted coffee after two weeks of tea. Micah had his first ride in Mom's car and in a shopping cart. That early in the morning, the store is being restocked, so we were navigating amidst boxes and stock clerks.

Then we took a ride down 295 to see my office and those lucky few working on a Saturday morning. It gave Micah a chance to meet a few new people, and he was a little more clingy than he usually is. In China, he'd go to practically anyone - and he's definitely a Daddy's boy, so it was nice to have him hang onto me a little bit. He did well though and even though he wouldn't go to Maryann and Earla, he was willing to share his Cheerios with them and with Monique. It was so good to see them. We also stopped at the vegetable stand for tomatoes - a Jersey tomato is pure summer to me.

My little man fell asleep on the ride home, so we didn't stop at our neighborhood CVS to see if it still has the little squishy Fisher-Price fire truck he loved in China - of all the things we could misplace or lose on the trip, we're missing three stacking cups and that fire truck. He and Steve were back upstairs having a nap, Thea had her first breakfast which I hope will start getting her back into real time. I need a nap, but Thea wants company, so I'll fold laundry instead.

Off to the beach tomorrow, packing later tonight.

Photos Added - Micah Unveiled

I've put a few photos into the various posts and will upload them to www.kodakgallery.com as well. It's 11:30 pm Friday, Thea's eating pasta, I'm on the computer and working on laundry, Steve's trying to get Micah to sleep. I hope jet lag passes faster than it did last time. . . .

It is so good to be home, mostly for our own bed. Mattresses in China are rock hard and the beds seem lower (especially with our pillow top mattress). It's also nice to be able to go to the sink to brush my teeth without thinking about having a bottle of water handy. Minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.

We're home!

Our Continental flight had great tailwinds (70+ miles per hour) so we were slightly more than an hour early. Steve was in the center section and had an empty seat next to him, so we had five seats to use, which was very, very nice. Even with being the last in line at immigration, things moved quickly - and even the car service was at the airport waiting for us. The children won't be riding in a limo again until they go to their proms.

The flight was long, but uneventful. The same three episodes of CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY were playing on the video - all total they ran about 150 minutes, so after two thirteen to fifteen hour flights, I could almost recite dialogue.

Micah's immigration officer was Charles Olah - I picked his station because the one next to him with a short line had an officer who looked about twelve years old. I thought the officer we met at the San Francisco airport actually went through the sealed brown enveloped we brought home for Thea in 2004, but this guy just took the packet and said Micah's Certificate of Citizenship should arrived in about six weeks. (The brown envelope is given to each family the same day the child's visa is issued and the Chinese passport is returned to parents; the instructions are to hand carry it, don't open it on pain of death and hand it to the immigration officer at whatever port of entry into the US families return to.)

Last night we were in Hong Kong, but way out on Lantau Island at the Regal Hotel at the airport. We could walk from customs to hotel, and could take the baggage cart with us. The hotel was something out of a neo-, techno-, disco-ain't-dead decor. Dieter from the old SNL skit "Sprockets" would be quite at home there. A nice clerk with the unlikely name of Angus (he's Chinese) at the check-in desk upgraded our room, so we were down the hall from the Cash family instead of in the other tower. On our way back from dinner I was pushing the double stroller and oblivious to the world, but a classmate of Thea's from YingHua was calling out "Thea, Thea..." She and her mother and grandmother had just arrived and were leaving the following day for Wuhan on an Our Chinese Daughters Foundation tour. Small world. Thea was also sort of oblivious due to tiredness.

Micah's first act as a newly-minted American citizen was to poop and stink up the limo. Fifteen hours on a plane, and he chose this particular moment. Thea and Micah were wonderful on the plane; both slept well - Micah with three naps and Thea with one long one. She missed the plane landing at Newark because she was fast asleep.

Pictures will be uploaded soon - Steve ran off to Princeton to register Micah on his health insurance. Micah is discovering the toybox with Thea's old baby toys, but until we get the play pit up, this kid needs to be watched like a hawk. I've got to get to the store to stock up on baby food and diapers; I didn't buy much ahead of time because I wasn't sure of his size and what he'd be eating.

We survived, no illnesses, no glitches. Everyone's starting to crash (it's 6:30 am according to their internal clocks). It's going to be a few days of being out of sync with real time.

My most pressing question right now is: where in the world did all the dirty laundry come from? We sent out laundry once in Wuhan and once in Guangzhou and I still have a mountain of stuff to be washed.

Micah has his visa!

He's street-legal for entry into the US! Micah must have known it was a big day because he gave us a six a.m. wake-up call. For all those who know Steve and his utter dislike of getting up early in the morning, he was at breakfast at 7:30 a.m. today, which occurs on the same timetable as Haley's comet at best and virgin births at worst.

We went to the American consulate visa unit in the TianHe section of GuangZhou, about 30+ minutes from the hotel in traffic. It's in a non-descript office building, a five-floor escalator ride from street level. It is the only immigration visa unit in all of Asia according to the consular officer who did the swearing in, so this is the gateway through which everyone passes. It is about as dull and butt-ugly looking as any US government office space in Washington, DC - though there was a bunch of toys and things for children to play with in the waiting area.

The consular officer who did the oath actually had a personality, quite the opposite of the American ex-pat toad/drone who did the oath for Thea's visa - somewhere in the emails I've saved from our 2004 trip I have a bit of a rant about him that I'll throw in after I'm home and can edit the blog a little. Her name is Kathleen Yu, and although the last name seems Chinese, she's Caucasian. Since we were in the first row, I went to thank her after everything was finished, and she spoke to Micah in Mandarin - which was probably a refreshing change for him from Steve and I yelling "Bu yao" to him ten thousand times a day.

During her little speech prior to the oath, she said that she personally reviewed and signed off on all the children's applications - and there were enough families from the White Swan alone to fill one large motor coach and a minibus, she had her work cut out for her. The 'interview' at the visa window was only a review of our faces and photographs, no words were exchanged so the word used to describe what transpired was a complete misnomer.

After we all got back to the White Swan, we did the usual red coach photos - Thea and Jillian were about equally grouchy about having pictures taken. Then we all met at Lucy's for dinner. Today was Jim Cash's birthday - so Mary wanted a candle in a slice of apple pie a la mode so we could sing "Happy Birthday" to him. No way this could have been a surprise, the waitresses kept coming and asking if we wanted the apple pie with candle. No subtlety there whatsoever.

One interesting thing we saw on the way to and from the Consulate was guys swimming in the Pearl River. On the way there it was just a few, and they were pretty close to the riverbank. Once were were back in our room, looking down from the 10th floor we could see three or four men out in the middle of the main channel, right in the middle of the ferries that are constantly running back and forth and the shipping lanes. I question their sanity on several fronts: getting whacked by the hull a boat might smart a bit and the pollution level in the river has to be ridiculously high. Wednesday must be the day for this activity because it hasn't happened before. I tried to get a picture, but the zoom on my camera wasn't getting a good lock on them.

Tomorrow Ashleah's family is leaving to return to Des Moines. They are going to the airport at seven a.m. so we said good-byes and got their email address tonight. Micah and I took off a little early from the restaurant because I had to go pick up his chop. I got it at the same store where I bought Thea's chop in 2004. It has his name, MICAH and the two Chinese characters for his former name, Zhong Ji carved into it.

I'm toast, there's nothing more to write about. Our luggage has to be out in the hall at 11:20 am Thursday, the minibus will pick us up at noon. One night at the airport hotel in HK and we're on our way back.

Since this will probably be our last trip to China for a long, long while, I am going to miss it in many ways. I want to get back to our room to watch the light show on the Pearl River before the blue lights on the bridge get turned off at ten pm - though I hope that they turn the music down from wherever, we were treated to everything from Chinese songs to Roll Out the Barrel while trying to get Thea and Micah to sleep, which must come from a CD of the background music in Hell.

Good night all, good night GuangZhou, hello jet lag.

Just another day in GuangZhou

No obligations today, other than one of us being in our hotel room between 10:30 and 11:30 for a call from Lucy to let us know everything as ok (or not) with our visa paperwork. It wasn't much past 10:45 when the phone rang and we had the 'all clear'. Steve and children already were at the pool - Thea is now extremely enthusiastic about going to the pool and since her one suit was still damp, she even agreed to wear her two piece tankini suit, oh miracle of miracles. We puttered around the baby pool and the steps of the bigger section of the pool for about an hour before heading in to get showered and dressed to go out shopping.

I'm not into the high pressure sales and bargaining scene, it is just not my thing, so we headed to A Gift from China. We were the only people in the shop, which is a charity-run store that benefits orphans and disabled children in China, and there was a corner with toys for the the children to play with - which kept Steve distracted as well so I could shop in relative peace. We then went to the small park down the street, where Thea was undeterred by the heat and the fact her parents were turning into puddles. She tried out some of the exercise equipment and the slides, then we went to Lucy's Cafe for a late lunch.

Before sitting down to lunch we had to make a bathroom stop for Thea - the bathrooms in the park adjacent to Lucy's are all squat potties. I usually take Thea's shorts and underwear off and let her have at it - this time she planted her feet on either side of the hole and looked up at me and said, "How do I use this thing?" even though she's a veteran of at least three previous visits to bathrooms with no toilets.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, and since naps were not part of anyone's game plan, anyone under 48" tall, that is, Steve and Thea headed back to the pool. Micah and I hung out playing for a bit. He got his poop face on, but the phone rang and it was one of our group checking in about dinner plans. This gave me enough time to forget about changing Micah's diaper, so he let me know by going over to the table where the wipes, changing mat and diapers were, pulling them one by one on the floor and then sitting on the changing pad. At first it just seemed like he was in his usual investigate and destroy mode, but then it started looking like he was deliberately doing something, and he was. I told you he was a gastrointestinal genius.

After changing the diaper, Micah and I went for a walk to see if there were postcards available in the hotel shops. I went in for a couple postcards, and came out with two books of Chinese fairy tales and five postcards. The saleslady was still following me after I paid trying to see if I was interested in books about Hubei or ChongQing, postcards of Hubei. . .fortunately Micah was squirming and wanted to keep moving so we said thank you, but now thanks and moved on to the pool.

Thea and Steve were in the big pool, and she'd been brave enough to go with him to the waterfall - I got that advance report from the Cash family as we passed in the hall leading to the pool area. She is so proud of herself - and Steve was so happy to be out of the baby pool. Micah and I hung out for a few minutes and then went back into the hotel. He was doing a lot of walking - I walk backwards, encourage him to come forward and then keep moving out of reach. He'll take it up with his therapist later if this is somehow damaging to his little psyche. On the way back, right near the fish pond, he just plopped down and wouldn't budge. By the time I had him picked up and on the elevator, he was asleep so Steve and Thea went to Lucy's Cafe to see our group, but Thea fell asleep at dinner so Steve had it packed up and brought it back to the room. Micah shared her spaghetti and then Steve and Thea went out to retrieve our laundry. Dirty clothes for four people, accumulated over about a week, returned clean for under $18. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to cook, do laundry, and grocery shop again.

Tomorrow I've got to get a few more things done before starting to get organized for the trip home. I don't know if we get the passports and adoption certificates back tomorrow - since the Consulate appointment is late in the day, I'm hoping the stuff isn't returned on Thursday or I'll be shopping at the 7-11 for Tums.

Visa Paperwork, Etc. Finished

Today we went out at 9:45 to have the babies photos taken for their visas. We met the third LaVida family who adopted an eight-year old girl from Fuling, ChongQing. Ashleah is visually impaired, and learned quite a bit of English while in foster care. Her new mother is also legally blind and works with visually-impaired and blind students in the Des Moines, IA school system. The shop where the photos were done was right down the street from the International Medical Clinic - but without the clinic's lovely air-conditioning. So much for the shower, I was doing pretty well walking the tree-lined central street but within minutes of hanging out in that shop I was damp and sweating in places I was heretofore unaware I had sweat glands.

The physical went a little differently than Thea's, much more crowded for one - so I now know why our previous facilitators made us get moving by 8:00 am. Micah has gained about 1/2 pound, if the clinic's scale is to be believed - he got weighed and measured AFTER seeing the doctor for his physical, so that was rather useless. The doctor asked what was wrong with his head and idiot that I am, I thought she meant his auditory canal atresia and microtia. No, she meant the bruise on his forehead from last night's collision with the marble floor. Oops, baby mommy.

For what the internet costs here at the White Swan, we should probably go out to the internet cafe down the island a few blocks but the humidity just smacks you over the head like a baseball bat when you walk out the door so wimps like me pay the price to sit in peace and air-conditioning and crab about how much they are looking forward to going home.

Among the miracles of today: Thea went in the pool today. It was akin to the parting of the Red Sea. We have begged, offered bribes, you name it over the past ten days and the stubborn mule that she is, she absolutely refused to go. Once in both kids loved it, and were so tired they passed out at dinner or shortly thereafter. Problematic when dinner is at a restaurant (with no worms or insects on the menu) a block from the hotel and we didn't bring the stroller. Micah is portable, but Thea is dead weight. Fortunately the Cash family had their stroller for Jillian (also portable) so Steve could bring Thea back in that. I left a little ahead of them with Micah, but had to make a trip back down to the front desk because my key card didn't work.

Second miracle: Micah might actually be somewhat trained to use the potty. This morning we were playing on the floor when he got that pinched and serious look that is the international language of defecation in progress. Steve brought out the little purple plastic potty we (fools that we are) brought from Wuhan. Even though there was poop in the diaper, we thought we'd sit him on the potty to refresh his memory. He continued to rock and squint and grunt while playing with his Link-a-Doos, but I thought it was just going through the motions until we uncorked his little behind from the potty and saw the monster offering he put there. So my little man is a genius of a gastrointestinal nature. He's going to get plopped on the seat right after he has his bowl of rice cereal tomorrow morning so he can do a repeat performance.

I just confirmed our reservations on China Southern from GZ to HK. This airlines needs 72 hours for confirmation. Amazing.

All the consulate paperwork was done today. We go to TianHe to the US Consulate Adopted Child Immigration Visa Unit Wednesday to swear we didn't lie on the paperwork and get his IR-3 - which will get him immediate citizenship upon return to the US. Two hours of filling out forms with the other families (in our room at the hotel); Micah slept through it all. The noise level was probably similar to what he knows from the orphanage. This time when we go to the Consulate office we can take a small diaper bag/baby bottles since it's 35 minutes away. Last time when it was within walking distance of the hotel, it was passports and that was it. Period. No cameras, no electronic equipment, no diaper or bottle.

The Going Home Barbie arrived in our room today. It's made by Mattel and is given to guests at the White Swan. Micah's first doll - I'll keep it to show him what I looked like before children came into my life and then see if he would want to donate it to one of the charities working with Chinese orphanages to auction off. You would not believe how much some parents care about this silly plastic doll. This one just looks like a bad fashion decision carrying an Asian baby girl; Thea's looks like Barbie went to Woodstock, smoked a little something and then said, "Like let's go to China to adopt a baby, dude."

Anyway, that's the latest from GuangZhou, where all the (American) men are sweaty, all the (American) women are dripping in perspiration and all the children are looking forward to their next trip to the pool.

Thanks to all those who've emailed or left comments - especially since the phone Steve got from Princeton has been pretty much worthless, it's like a small slice of home arriving each day.

Lydia

GuangZhou - The First Day of Phase II

Any day with a 4:30 am wake-up call is bound to be disastrous, and although our flight on Shenzhen Air went extremely well - Micah was barely aware he was on an airplane much less leaving the province he's lived in his entire 16 months - the rest of the day has been completely downhill.

At the airport in GuangZhou, we were met by a representative of the White Swan Hotel. We were expecting our guide, Lucy, to make an appearance. Fortunately all nine of us and all the luggage fit in the small van. At the hotel, it took a bit to get into our rooms. Worth the wait for us, since we're on a true non-smoking floor, and have been upgraded to a room with a view of the Pearl River. Our guide finally turned up and gave us a brief rundown of tomorrow's plans. Compared to Eric, I'm not impressed thus far.

Steve's Blackberry still does not work, so both of us want to kill the person at Princeton who said that it would work for phone service and for Steve to get work-related email while in China. In Wuhan service was expected to be iffy, but it should have worked in Beijing and here and it doesn't. Rack that one up as a mini-disaster.

We almost got Thea into her bathing suit and to the pool. She's been resisting - and in Wuhan, the indoor pool was so hot and humid, not a big deal. We had her dressed with a minimum of hassle, Micah was in his swim diaper and trunks, and it started thundering and raining, so we decided against going out. It was over in 20 minutes.

Then Thea and I went on an exploring trip around the hotel while Steve and Micah napped. We checked out the pools, went to look at the waterfall and koi pond, took a look at the playroom (too noisy for Thea and the toys were too baby/toddler oriented). While walking around the second-floor part of the hotel, coming out from one side of the waterfall to the other, I missed a step - just a little three-inch high thing that seem to be everywhere in China - and came crashing down, taking Thea down with me onto the marble floor. Fortunately she was ok and I'll see how I wake up tomorrow, probably a little sore. Slight amplification on the disaster-meter.

After we went back to the room, we woke up the boys and I was playing on the bed with Micah and he headbutted me. I never thought that when someone catches you square on the bridge of your nose (with glasses on) that it would be as painful as it was. My eyes teared and it just throbbed. Fortunately Micah was none the worse for the incident and went on playing as if nothing happened. Another notch upward on the D-M.

Lucy suggested a restaurant down the street for Cantonese cuisine. We walked with the Cash family and finally decided on one with fish in the front as the guide as described. Fish swimming in tanks, and sand worms, and water beetles, and fingerling/baby fish, it was a zoologist's wet dream. Mary was in charge of the menu and she said she was hard pressed to find four dishes that didn't come with worms, bugs, jellyfish or the like. (Eric, our Wuhan guide, told us that people in GuangZhou eat everything on the table except for the legs (of the table) and he was not kidding.) This place had all the makings for an episode of "Survivor." I don't know if this was some sort of revenge on her part for our questioning why she wasn't at the airport or an innocent recommendation.

The restaurant put us in our own little room - which was nice, but it also was more humid than the rest of the place. Thea hadn't napped so she was irritable and itchy from a bug bite on her foot, so after I ate I took both Thea and Micah back to the hotel. After showering off, having a box of milk and brushing her teeth, she was dead to the world.

Steve came back a bit later and we were trying to find the few things that got packed and not found - which at the moment is my toothbrush and Thea's. Fortunately the hotel provided two toothbrushes, so I just used those for now. Micah has sort of learned how to slide off the bed without face-planting himself on the floor, but that didn't save him from faceplanting in the marble-floored entry way. I have never heard him cry so loudly, it was just horrible. So that was the final coupe-de-grace of the disaster that was today. Unless this computer crashes, which has happened to me a few times on our 2004 trip.

Anyway, four more days to go, so long as I don't screw up on the visa paperwork. Please keep fingers crossed and offer good thoughts to the deity of your choice.

The Last Full Day in Hubei

Tomorrow our wake-up call is set for 4:30 am. Luggage at the door by 5:30 am. The flight to GuangZhou is at 8 am and should only be a couple of hours. The circus is moving out of town.

Today we went to a Buddhist temple in Wuhan. It was very pretty - and very busy with people coming in to make offerings and pray. Thea and I lit incense sticks and made wishes before entering the grounds. There was also a room with 500 Arhats - women go to the right, men to the left. You pick an Arhat and start counting until you get to your age and then remember the particular number of the Arhat and go outside and buy a card that gives you insights: not quite a fortune, not quite a character analysis. The Arhats are like variations on the Buddha theme: I started counting at one that had a benevolent face, the third Arhat after that one was Thea's - and coincidentally it was a Buddha with a small child standing on its palm. There were ponds with goldfish and turtles. The monks buy turtles from the market, thus saving them from a future as someone's dinner and doing a good deed. We were standing at the wall looking down into the pond and all of a sudden there was a thunk and a splash and another one joined the flock.

After the temple we went to a Bonsai and geology museum. Lots of interesting stones: turquoise, jade, chrysanthemum stones, a few dinosaur skeletons that briefly held Thea's attention.  Afterward we were taken out to eat at another restaurant in the Hankow section of Wuhan. This area was visited by Westerners in the 1860s, the architecture in the areas of the former foreign concessions is much like Shamian Island in Guangzhou. The restaurant was good, two more ways of eating lotus root: pasted with sesame seeds fried into balls and sliced in a really nice sauce. Micah was eating anything I put in his mouth. There were meatballs covered with rice that he really got into.

I took Micah in to the bathroom for a quick standing diaper change, but after eating a huge amount of food for the skinny little person he is, his face got that look of intense concentration so we had to assemble supplies and return to the bathroom. The fold-down changing table has not made its way to China, so I had a throw-away changing pad, diaper and wipes and had to lay him on the counter. By the time I had his outfit unsnapped, the bathroom attendant and two or three other ladies were involved in the process. One was holding his head, two were tapping on him and talking to him, and I was dealing with the reason we were in the bathroom in the first place. I'm sure they were all questioning my intelligence for changing him but the child does not like sitting around with poop on his butt - compared to Thea, who could be in a stinky diaper until flies were text-messaging other flies to come have a whiff - Micah is rather prissy.

After lunch we went to a waterfront park to see the river. The park is near where the Han River flows into the Yangtze River. People were flying kites, hanging out. The weather today was wonderful: grey, dreary with rain threatening - so it was much cooler so the humidity was bearable.

Now we're back at the hotel. Micah, who slept briefly on the bus, was sung back to sleep by his father. Thea is saying she's not napping, so I told her she's in charge, watch over Daddy and Micah. After sending this off to the blog, I've got to start organizing and packing. It's hard to believe the first week is over and that by this time next week we'll be home and on our way to the beach.

"We can keep him." Thea Albin, 07/13/07

Today we made our final trip to the government office to pick up the adoption certificate, the orphanage donation certificate and the babies' passports. As we pulled into the parking lot, Thea said that this was the same office that we got baby Micah - and I told her that this was the day we get his paperwork, or should we give him back. She said we can keep him. Today is her "three years and nine months" birthday.

After the official business, we went to a park on the East Lake and saw lotus plants and walked around the water. It was very pretty, and because it is overcast and drizzling, it was actually bearable outside. On the way home, the driver dropped Jim, Leigh Ann and I off at Carrefour. The baby who was allegedly semi-potty trained is really grooving on wearing his own personal port-a-potty around. He blew through three diapers this morning before we were even out the door. So I bought a bag of disposable diapers and more wipes, apple juice for Thea, another packet of formula and two Snickers for me. While I was checking out, Jim and Leigh Ann went to KFC - and were nice enough to pick up Thea's lunch while I was in an endless line at checkout.

Meanwhile over the past few days a cross between Bam-Bam and the Wild Man of Borneo has emerged. I don't know if Micah was indulged because he's a boy or just was a favorite of his nannies, but he is one spoiled little guy who loves to throw or slam things onto the ground - whether it's a spoon, toys, baby bottles, you name it. He also loves to bang things, the louder the better. So far he has not managed to destroy any of the bread plates at the restaurant. He also likes rolling things, I only brought one truck and wish I had gotten another.

Last night we all went out to a restaurant down the road, recommended by the White Rose's concierge (whose outfit makes him look like a bellboy from a 1940s movie crossed with one of those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz). It was called the Portugal Restaurant and was in another hotel. It was a comedy of cross-cultural communication to get the point across that we wanted Chinese food; the menu they gave us was sort of a Chinese spin on European dishes - though the steamed frog oviduct didn't seem to fit in anywhere. Once they got that concept, the waitresses brought out a menu, in Chinese. Fortunately we had Eric's cheatsheet 'chicken', 'pork', 'beef', 'vegetables', 'no innards/organ meat' written out in Chinese - we got four dishes that were all very good. Thea was tired and wasn't even tempted by her own big bowl of rice. The waitresses were infinitely patient considering that between two babies, a few things got spilled.

Leigh Ann, Thea and I went to the restaurant's ladies room together and encountered our first squat potty. Since Thea was the one needing the bathroom, I just took off her bottoms and prayed I aligned her correctly and that my shoes were washable. It was a flushing squat potty so it wasn't quite as awful as I expected. After dinner, Steve, Leigh Ann, Thea and I walked back to the White Rose. Leigh Ann learned how to play Thea's Peanut Butter and Jelly game (she's very patient with Thea, who sometimes lacks the attention span to finish a game, especially when she wants to be three places at once: playing the game, seeing what Daddy is doing to make Micah laugh, showing off another toy.)

After Jim dropped by to pick up Leigh Ann, the kids were still going strong, I don't think we got them to sleep until after 10 pm. Thea slept all the way through until 8 am, Micah was up and didn't really want to go back in the crib, so I just threw him in bed with us and he went back to sleep until a little after 8 am.

Anyway, despite - or maybe because of - the rain, today has been a good day. The only bad news was finding out our flight to GuangZhou is at 6 am on Sunday morning. Offer prayers to the deity of your choice, he's going to need it.

Strange side note about food: Yesterdays lunch buffet at the restaurant had a dish called "Fried Jew's Ear". Steve found it really offensive. I googled Jew's Ear during yesterday's session at the Business Center and it's a mushroom or fungus that grows on decaying wood.

Oscar the Grouch in China

Who needs Big Bird in China, this morning I was Oscar the Grouch in China. Thea was up early, she fell asleep before dinner last night and hadn't had anything to eat or drink. So I got her a juice box of milk and some Cheerios. There was almost no hope of her getting back to sleep so I made a 'clubhouse' for her in the little entry hall in our room by putting her pillow and her Backyardigans blanket on the floor so she could lay down and play games on her Leapster. Micah was the next one up and he had cranked out a present in his Huggies, so he needed sprucing up and feeding.

We had to be downstairs and ready to go to the Yellow Crane Tower by 9:00 am. Going out to the minibus, the humidity just wilted me in a nanosecond. This was a no stroller trip since there were stairs, stairs and more stairs. Micah crashed on the ride there, so I had him the Over-the-Shoulder-Baby-Holder sling - which was probably easier for carrying him upstairs. Sleeping, that is, not the sling. Dead weight is much less squirmy. Today started out overcast, so Eric suggested bringing the umbrellas from our rooms - Steve went up to get that. He didn't manage to think of bringing a bottle of water for us - after packing up the diaper bag, getting two children dressed, bringing the diaper bag, camera, Brother Tiger down to breakfast, I'd hoped that after our last three days of going out he could remember one simple thing, it's hotter than Hades here, bring a bottle of water, dammit. No such luck.

Once we'd climbed the stairs to the Yellow Crane Tower, which is really a 1980s remake, we rode the elevator to the top. Steve presumed we'd take the elevator down as well - thinking he was being kind to me and my knees. I was just cranky enough from the heat, humidity and being gawked at by hordes of people that this really ticked me off. I walked down like everyone else, thank you very much.

While we were up in the tower, it started to rain - not enough to use the stupid umbrella, but enough to make the stone stairs a little slick. Thea got a little fed up with the whole thing about half way down the tower, I was completely fed up when I saw some local tourist photographing Micah and Steve. Their intentions were probably harmless, but when I'm sightseeing in the States, I don't go up to complete strangers and asked to be photographed with them. How much of this was being hot, grouchy and just fed up with being stared at, I don't know. I do know that the ones who are staring who don't have a benign or pleasant expression on their faces are getting stared right back at. So far I've never been the first one to break eye contact.

Once back at the Hotel Nicotine, Thea had a quick cool-down in the tub, Micah hoovered some rice cereal and bananas, and I tried to do a little self-exorcism and we went to lunch with Mary, Leigh Ann, and Olivia. I had my third salad here, despite what the guidebooks say. I don't think the water used to rinse the vegetables is all that bad - it's probably the PCBs and heavy metals that would get you, not the bugs. Unfortunately the hotel chef's interpretation of a Cobb Salad (described as having roast beef and chicken in it) actually has kidney beans, chopped egg whites, chopped tomatoes, crumbled blue cheese, crumbled egg yolks, and black olives. The vinaigrette promised on the menu is actually thousand island dressing.

After lunch Steve went back to Carrefour with a list of stuff, returning with about half of it. How he has managed two trips there without knowing the lay of the land beats me. We have to make a trip back to the Civil Affairs office on Friday, so maybe the minibus can leave me off there. Thea went back in the tub, playing deep-sea rescue mermaid and water salesman. Micah sucked down another bottle, cranked out another smelly diaper, splashed a little on the side of the tub (until Thea said, "Mommy, can you take him out of here?" when she was fed up with his tossing the plastic boats in and splashing her.) Once Steve was back in the room, I got paroled and headed to the hotel's Business Center. My sessions here are getting shorter and shorter as my tolerance for cigarette smoke lessens.

Tomorrow we're getting hauled off on another tour. Eric is at the notary's office today and will supposedly have the babies documents by this evening. Friday is the day we are given their passports, Saturday we're free again and Sunday morning we fly to GuangZhou - where I hope a non-smoking floor is truly a non-smoking floor. Today I found out that there is no non-smoking section at breakfast, we just get seated where there are the fewest people incinerating carcinogens and inhaling them into their lungs.

I need chocolate, I have been deprived but to a good end. If the hotel scale is correct, I've lost about twelve pounds - and that's while still having a Coke or two a day. I need the caffeine, the coffee here is foul and amongst all the American fast food restaurants polluting the local scene, there is not one single Dunkin Donuts. I bought a small container of Chips Ahoy cookies at Carrefour on Sunday. Three years ago the ones I bought at Parkson's in ChongQing were exactly like those from home. This time they looked a bit too much like the vegan chocolate chip cookies served on the flight to Beijing. Anything with 'vegan' and 'chocolate' used in the same sentence does not bode well for a carnivorous consumer.

Oscar the Grouch is going back to the Teahouse of 1,001 Dalmations. I did take a picture of Micah napping on the bed amidst all the spots, so the experience has been preserved for posterity.

Tomorrow will be a better day, I hope.

The most amazing big sister. . . .

...is my little Thea. She has been the best three-year old traveler, putting up with jet lag, crazy meal schedules and new foods, strange hotel rooms, and having a new little person appear in our lives before we're even adjusted to the time change. And she's done it with barely a meltdown - the only real meltdowns coming from being woken from a long afternoon nap during our first few days here.

Micah's first day with us, Thea would help get things and do things to help him/us, but she didn't want to feed him and sort of maintained her distance most of the time. Yesterday while Steve was feeding him dinner, she got involved and was soon scooping whatever pureed baby food slime he was being fed at the time into his snapping little maw. Now she's very into helping mix up cereal and scooping formula for his bottles, and is the one to ask if you want to know where the baby wipes are.

Today and tomorrow were/are "no official business" days. Eric said that the babies passports might be ready by Thursday afternoon - which would be amazing since all the information we've been given say that it's five days. He took us to the Hubei Province Museum where there are artifacts from a tomb from 431 BC are displayed. Bronze bells, and other brass items - it was interesting, especially since there were reproductions of the bells used in a concert. Really great music - the performers played a few traditional Chinese pieces and then did Beethoven's Ode to Joy. There must be another US adoption agency's families in town because there were other Caucasians with babies at the concert.

After the museum, Eric took us out to eat at a local restaurant which was fantastic and a nice change from the restaurant at the hotel. I tried fried lotus root (very good), and some sort of fried duck skin wrapped in a pancake (ok). Eric also showed us how to mix rice into the steamed egg - which the babies seemed to love, but to me, it took a phlegmy-looking dish and added boogers to it. Thea ate like a hoover and seemed to really enjoy it.

The TV in our room has Deutsche Welle on it, thank goodness since CNN doesn't come in. We've been pretty much cut off from news other than the China Daily that the hotel staff drops off each night, and if we miss the turn down service by having the Do Not Disturb sign up, no newspaper.

Micah had his first outing to the pool. He looks very spiffy in his crab-print trunks (actually he looks like he's being swallowed whole by a set of trunks, but he swaggers like he's king of the world; his size six pool shoes are big on him.) He did ok, not in love with it, not completely in hate with it either. I gave him his first bath afterward - Thea was in the real tub holding the blue plastic baby tub still - with the two of them (Thea wanted water in the big tub) he was bobbing and floating in his blue plastic boat. He was pretty severely annoyed about having his hair washed, but recovered fairly quickly.

We had the Cash family - minus whoever had Jillian at the moment back at there room - over to see the Teahouse of Cruella DeVil Dalmation-fabric room. Their rooms are "normal" - I can take the hideous black and white print so long as we're not on the baby floor.

We sent laundry out, via Erik. It's not really much of a noteworthy event unless you saw the amount and got a whiff of it. Thank goodness he decided we could do it a day early, I nearly passed out inventorying the bag for the laundry list. If it didn't go today the next thing would be to burn them. Supposedly wherever he sends the laundry out to is 40% cheaper than what the hotel would charge us.

Much as I would love to stay on the computer awhile longer, I am signing off. Too much smoke in and around the business center. The White Rose Hotel is twenty floors and only TWO are non-smoking floors, and I've definitely smelled cigarette smoke on our allegedly non-smoking floor. It's just so pervasive here. I was waiting for the elevator on Monday and two guys get off, cigarettes blazing and I made a point to look and there was a No Smoking sign clearly posted in the elevator: there was, for what little it was worth. The back of my throat is constantly scratchy.

Day #2 with Micah

What a personality change in 24 hours! At the Civil Affairs office yesterday, he was quiet and just watched everything. He didn't even cry when I picked him up. Yesterday afternoon at lunch he cracked his first smile - it took almost five minutes of snorting like a pig into his neck and back. When we went back to the room because Thea had fallen asleep while at lunch, Micah started to play with his toys with Steve and he just started to emerge from his shell. Steve got smiles, noises and laughs out of him. Later that afternoon, playing with the balloons we brought along, he started to like me a little more - and since I'm the one shoving most of the food into his mouth, he should be adoring me a little more. This child eats anything, and I've probably violated about ten different recommendations about how to introduce new foods all within 12 hours. He hoovered an Gerber banana/blueberry mix and rice cereal in the room, vegetable congee and steamed egg at dinner, as well as apple juice and formula. The only worrisome thing is that he hasn't pooped yet, so we're pulling out the big gun tonight (prunes) if he doesn't do the deed. (We found out today he uses the potty, but I think it's a bit early - we bought a little plastic pot at Carrefour today just to see if it was true.)

He's got one upper front tooth, with the second coming in, so he has a very pumpkin-esque smile.

Today (Tuesday) we had to go back to the Civil Affairs office for the official paperwork. Yesterday when we got Micah, the province granted us temporary custody for 24 hours. We had to have an official interview with the province's adoption director and we also had an opportunity to talk some more with Director Huang from JingZhou CWI. At the official signing and sealing with fingerprints (and Micah's footprint), we received a silk bag with soil from JingZhou and a little jade ornament with a dog on it since Micah was born in 2006, the Year of the Dog. So now we are a Rabbit, Rat, Sheep and Dog.

Tomorrow is a free day so we're being taken to a museum and then going to a local restaurant for lunch. It will be a nice break from the hotel restaurant, though it's breakfast buffet is great. Thea got KFC chicken nuggets and fry-fries today for lunch, since the KFC is in the same building as Carrefour. Steve and I passed - neither of us was all that hungry and we didn't really come this far to eat what we could get around the corner in New Jersey.

Anyway, that's the update from the Teahouse of Cruella DeVil. The other family with us has two adjoining rooms with 'normal' decor. I'm going to be seeing spots for weeks after we're back - I need to take a picture of this room after it gets made up and before Micah and Thea start dismantling it for the day, it's a five-second-long window of opportunity.

From here I can't put titles on the posts, and I can't get into see the comments, even with www.anonymouse....

More later. I need to see if Steve is surviving watching two children.

It's a boy!

Considering that a number of official papers have listed Micah as Zhong Ji, female, born 03/02/02006, I really wanted to check under the hood. At the provincial adoption office, the opportunity didn't present itself - that whole experience went by as a blur. The Cash Family and our family walked in, there were two babies there and several people from the JingZhou CWI and the provincial adoption office. We put down our bags and two minutes later I picked up Micah. He's very quiet, has the very serious expression that everyone has seen in his photos, but he's not horrified by the strange twist his life took today.

We signed off on a 24-hour custody agreement and will go back tomorrow for official paperwork and an opportunity to talk to the CWI staff about Micah. I already have four pages written out. We gave our additional gift bag with cloth diapers, vitamins and Mylicon drops - and a small photo album with Micah on the cover and pictures of family on the inside. Even with no language in common, we want the orphanage to know a little bit about where he'll be living and the family members he'll be meeting.

The CWI gave us an absolutely stunning gift (in addition to Micah himself). The director presented both families with a photo album with pictures of JingZhou and pictures of Micah. There is a photo of Micah as a newborn, wrapped in a red blanket, on the day of his abandonment. Seeing that was when I really started to cry.

We came back to the hotel, where Micah, whose orphanage diet seemed to be milk, rice cereal, steamed egg and a bit of table food diced into congee (rice gruel), promptly hoovered down a container of bananas and blueberries and half of a sweet potato apple container. He's also eating Cheerios and the Gerber stars. So far nothing we've offered has been rejected. His Great-grandmother May would be proud.

After feeding came the diaper change, and he is most definitely a boy.

More later, we're on borrowed computer battery time. Many thanks to the Cash family for the loan of their computer.

Greetings from China!

It's Sunday, 3:00 pm here - 3:00 am for those of you at home, sleeping on the East Coast. Thea just went out for a nap and Steve is upstairs babysitting.

Our flights went surprisingly well - starting with the limo drive and the biggest stretch limo I've ever seen. Even Thea said "Holy cow" when she looked out the window at it. Thank goodness we got this free upgrade just by luck, the standard car Steve had arranged for wouldn't have held it all. The driver, Deen, got us to Newark in record time. The worst part of the whole morning was going through security and retrieving all the bottles of Thea's juice and tubes of butt cream and whatnot to put it in baggies. The double stroller with ride-on platform for Thea was fantastic, she could sit or stand, the front part (at least until tomorrow) could hold her precious Tiger and Brother Tiger and the diaper bag.

The flight to Beijing was good - although we were seated amidst a group of college-age chorus members who were going to some sort of international gathering of choral directors. If the bim in front of me whacked my knee one more time, I was going to strangle her with her headphone cord. In Beijing we sailed through immigration formalities, retrieved our luggage and walked from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 in record time, so much so that we moved our flight to Wuhan to an earlier one. Thea only slept two hours out of the 13, so she was a little fried and passed out even before the flight to Wuhan took off, and stayed that way until I woke her up to take her off the plane.

And our chance to get to Wuhan a little early was when we found out that Steve's Blackberry cell phone didn't working Beijing. We had to call Eric, the local adoption agency guide in Wuhan, and Steve couldn't get the Blackberry to receive a signal. Fortunately a complete stranger with cell phone let Steve make a call on his phone, and Eric was able to pick us up at the airport in Wuhan with a minivan. The tiny taxis here would not have cut it for three people and three large bags.

Wuhan is a furnace, with humidity that is so above and beyond anything I've experienced. Hot doesn't even begin to accurately describe it. I was amazed that upon meeting Eric at the airport he was not even perspiring, had some sort of industrial strength hair mousse to spike up his hair a little and seemed completely unbothered. I'd carried Thea on my shoulders through the airport until we could retrieve the stroller at baggage claim, so I was a puddle. I've lost seven pounds in the past 48 hours.

At the hotel, which was chosen for its proximity to the government offices where the adoption will take place and not the number of stars, we got a room on the 12th floor, the "baby floor" - a scary place with rooms decorated with Snoopy fabric down to the curtains, and cartoon decor even in the halls. The room had two slightly oversize single beds, so we made the change today, out of the baby ghetto and onto the 10th floor. And into the Teahouse of Cruella DeVil. Imagine a room with gigantic Dalmation-print fabric everywhere: The floor to ceiling curtains, the bed, the chair covers. The room looks like it doesn't know whether to bark or moo. But it has a king-size bed, slightly more floor space and doesn't resound with the sound of a dozen or so children wailing (French and Spanish adoptive parents come through Wuhan for their consular appointments the way we have to go to GuangZhou for the last week of our trip to get Micah's visa).

We ventured into the blistering heat this morning for a walk to Carrefour, a French department store whose layout had to have been done by M.C. Escher. We could not find the ramp upstairs for the first fifteen minutes - and the grocery store part was on the third floor. Anyway, other than looking like lost sheep - and already a walking advertisement for adoption, we survived. Thea isn't quite up for the sort of in one's face, totally different concepts of personal space, and overall noise level in China.

Anyway, 8:50 Sunday night - EDT, be thinking of us. It will be Monday morning and we're getting picked up at 9:00 and will be meeting Micah at 9:30. Tonight, now that we're settled into our room, Thea and I will be putting together gift bags for the various people who facilitate the process.

I'll try to post pictures of the room, it is a hoot. I got a bunch of photos over Greenland, too. Not exactly National Geographic quality, but decent.

We're all doing great, so whoever is offering up good wishes and prayers to the deities of their choice, please keep it up - it's working.

It's not the heat, it's the humidity. . . .

. . . was one of the phrases I hated most while I was living in Washington, DC, in a house with ceiling fans and no air-conditioning. Hot is hot is hot, in my opinion, end of story. I just checked http://www.weather.com/ for Wuhan. 88 degrees, with a notation "Feels like 104." Oh, the horror. Steve thinks I married him for his good looks and wonderful personality; it was probably for the central air-conditioning.

My sweat glands are quaking in fear, and I think my hair is starting to frizz. Time to back away from the Web, and just finish packing.

Today Thea said good-bye to the teachers at YingHua Preschool and went with me on a quick errand to my workplace, where April, wonderful person that she is, gave Thea a Hepatitis A shot. It makes Thea angry when something she says makes me burst out laughing, but while April and I were talking, and Thea politely interrupted us with, "Excuse me, exCUUUse me Mommy, I don't want a shot" in the most perfectly calm and rationale voice. Calm and rationale left the room when Thea realized that it was going to happen no matter how polite she was. (Mommy did not have the mental fortitude, stones or spine to do the deed herself, and Thea did not buy into my giving Steve his Hepatitis B on Sunday while she held his hand and then Steve holding her hand while I gave her the shot. Mommy will not have the MF/S/S to do the second injection in six months so April had better be ready once again.)

And away we go: The 'Official' Itinerary

Friday,
07/06/07 depart on Continental #89 12:10 pm from Newark
arrive 1:45 pm in Beijing on Saturday, July 7, 2007

Saturday,
07/07/07 depart on China Southern #6366 5:20 pm from Beijing
arrive 7:20 pm in Wuhan


Hotel: White Rose Hotel Telephone: 011-86-27-6887-6888
750 Minzhu Road Fax: 011-86-27-6887-6887
Wuchang, Wuhan 430071
Hubei Province


Monday
07/09/07 Micah’s Arrival/Adoption Processing Begins


Sunday
07/15/07 Travel from Wuhan to Guanzhou


Hotel: White Swan Hotel Telephone: 011-86-20-8188-6968
Shamian Island Fax: 011-86-20-8186-1188
Guangzhou 510133
Guangdong Province

Monday,
07/16/07 Medical Exam for US Visa

Tuesday,
07/17/07 U.S. Consulate Appointment


Wednesday,
07/18/07 Micah’s Visa Processed/Picked Up


Thursday,
07/19/07 depart on China Southern #307 2:45 pm from Guangzhou
arrive 3:20 pm Hong Kong/Baiyun


Hotel: Regal Airport Hotel Telephone: 011-852-2286-8888
Summit Hotel & Resort Fax: 011-852-2286-8622
9 Cheong Tat Road
Hong Kong SAR

Friday,
07/20/07 depart on Continental #98 10:25 am from Hong Kong
arrive 2:05 pm in Newark


Cell phone while in China: 609.751.4064, time difference = +12 hours

Sunday,
07/22/07 Off to Bethany Beach with Oma, Shannon and Willi

Today is the day the Cash family is leaving (actually has left) for Beijing. They are visiting friends there and will be coming to Wuhan the day after we arrive. We're staying in the same hotel. They're bringing their eight and eleven year old daughters along; the younger is from Ningdu, China. We've emailed and spoken a few times since finding out about each other.

Happy 4th of July

Thea and Steve at the Blueberry Bash, June 2007

A Study in Red, White and Blue

So far it's been a slow day. Thea and Steve have taken off to go see Grandma (Steve's mother) and have lunch with her, my mom (or Oma, if you are Thea) has called to check in on her latest shipment of clothing for Micah and chat about plans for the upcoming beach week, and I've sent out for an order of steaming hot motivation, but the delivery person is incredibly s-l-o-w.

When we return from China, we'll be back home for a night or two and then taking off for Bethany Beach, Delaware where Thea, Oma, my sister-in-law (Aunt Shannon, if you are Thea) spent a wonderful week in 2005. So Micah will be on the move again, but I hope a week playing in the sand with his cousin Willi will be a good trade off for not being home and working on getting into a routine. If I had to pick a place to get over jet lag, the beach wins over New Jersey, no contest. It's probably going against much of what parenting handbooks tell their readers to do, but flying in the face of what the conventional wisdom tells us to do seems to have worked out OK with Thea.

Now I've got to get organized and get some more packing done before the troops return and havoc one again reigns.

Packing 103

For a face like this one, you could give away ten boxes of girls' clothes, couldn't you? Well I did, with the exception of Thea's Wiggles, Thomas the Tank Engine shirts and a few other selections from the boys' section of Gymboree and a bunch of plain onesies.




Micah's clothes are sorted and ready to packed, it's amazing how quickly tasks go by when one is watching CSI:Miami. All the miscellaneous stuff is packed. After stuffing Micah's clothes into ZipLoc bags, I stamped "Thank You" in gold metallic ink onto a bunch of red paper bags for our orphanage and notary gifts. Like anyone really is really going to care, now that my rational side is back in control. My excuse is the neuroses told me to do it; people do stupid, impulsive things when they go to Michael's or similar craft-type stores.



The ZipLocs for the kids' clothes is to keep them sorted so Steve is not trying to stuff a size 5 or 6 Thea into an 18-24 month old Micah outfit. Those who know Steve well enough will understand completely, those who don't will just have to trust me that this isn't meant to be busting on him. Not really. Well, maybe a little.



Tuesday is my night for organizing Thea's clothes. My guess is the washer-dryer is going to be in use until the car service comes for us at 7:30 am Friday morning.

Avoiding the To-Do List

Five days until we leave for China, though we don't yet have our tickets. They will be arriving Monday or Tuesday via FedEx. Meanwhile tomorrow in JingZhou, Micah will be 16 months old and still blissfully unaware of the changes in store for him. In one week, on July 9th he'll be going on his first trip from JingZhou to Wuhan.

I am beginning to think that a journey of thousands of miles doesn't begin with a single step, it begins with what feels like a thousand trips to Target, ShopRite and CVS, and a few hundred packing and to-do lists, most of which will disappear like socks in the dryer. The worst of the shopping is over - it's the little things from various China adoption packing list. Nix (lice medicine) - didn't need it last time, why am I obsessing about it now? Teether biscuits? Available in China. I need to take a deep breath and put a piece of duct tape (bought for our first trip and also never used) over the mouth of the little voice in my head that seems to have OCD.

I am hoping that posting to this blog will work while we're in China, but for now I'm happy that I actually can do it from home. I am hoping that this will be a better alternative to email - I emailed quite a few times while in China when we adopted Thea, but there were also a few long emails that I wrote while in ChongQing and GuangZhou that got vaporized when my email connection terminated.

Yesterday we took a day off from getting ready to see three other families from our first adoption travel group. It was such a great day - even though Thea is still in her "I don't want to wear a bathing suit, I don't want to go in the pool" phase. This from the child who loved the pool during the twice a day pool sessions at her daycare last summer.

This afternoon, while I was sitting on the steps making another packing list for the carry-on bags, Thea was busy with her chalk on the sidewalk: This is an airplane, this is Princeton, this is China where Baby Micah is, this is the White Swan Hotel - it was sort of scary all the elements she was working in from the bedtime stories we've being making up for her over the past week. Princess Thea Stories - and now instead of going on adventures with the Wonder Pets, the Wiggles, the Backyardigans and a few select classmates, Princess Thea's adventure has been going to China to meet her baby brother, Micah. Considering that the second time I started a story on the Princess Thea Travels to China theme, she popped out with, "Not that again, you already told me this story" she actually must've paid attention.