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.