Twins?

Okay, so they're not twins, but they sure look cute in matching clothes! These pix were taken Sunday when the girls got to play with their cousins, Mike, Brian & Sara. Olivia sure likes Uncle Ed's magic blanket rides!

Videos: Olivia speaking Chinese

We'd been trying to capture her speaking Chinese on video, but she'd always clammed up when the camera came out...but this morning, while we were trying to get ready for the day, she was talking up a storm in Chinese and didn't seem to care about the camera. We don't know what she was saying, but maybe something about Emily getting dressed??

Videos:Bonding over basketball!

Last night Andy was watching Illini basketball and Olivia Tan Tan was having fun imitating all of Daddy's "Yeahs" and "woo hoos" (before they lost, that is) and was really bonding with him over basketball, of all things! She was luke warm with him before, but last night something clicked and Daddy was suddenly the funniest person alive--even when he wasn't trying to be!

Gotcha Day photo

Within an hour or so of getting Olivia, we had to get an official adoption picture taken. We were so impressed with how well it turned out that we ordered a copy for ourselves!

Impromptu photo shoot

Olivia cuddled up with a teddy bear and it struck me as a Kodak moment so I grabbed the camera and asked her if I could take her picture. She immediately hopped up and walked away so I took that as a "no," but what she was really doing was going to get the sunglasses she'd been photographed in earlier! Once she found her props, she nestled back in for a serious photo shoot. Although she didn't smile much, she kept telling the bear to!

Our super models

I know I already included some these photos in the previous slide show, but I thought I'd give them more air time. Olivia smiles and laughs a lot, but usually clams up once she sees a camera. However, she likes looking at herself on the computer and is slowly coming around to this whole photography concept :)

Happy at home

Aside for a bit of jet lag, we're all doing really well and adjusting smoothly to being a family of four. We expected Olivia to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated, but she appears to be taking everything in stride and is such a joyful little girl. It helps having a big sister to show her the ropes and make her feel comfortable. She'd apparently never been in a swing before and resisted with some tears until Emily demonstrated and then she wasn't so scared and quickly learned to love it, as the pictures show. You can also see that she's interacting more and more with Daddy and initiating it herself :)

Olivia Tan Tan is very good at communicating with words and motions and is picking up English quickly. She's a little parrot and is learning new words every day. Some words are harder than others and it's so cute to hear her practice saying them, trying to get them just right. Like "school." When we dropped Emily off at school, she tried over and over to get the "L" ending and watched how I used my tongue and eventually got it! For "whoops," it still sounds like "whoosh," but we know what she's saying! Other words she's mastered are:

Hi, hello, bye-bye, Emily, Chelsea, come, come on, milk, juice, thank you, whoa, yeah, good girl, shoes, no, go potty, all done, wash hands, dry, hot, all gone, night-night, shhh...

Emily also agrees that it's fun to have a sister and someone to share a room with. This morning she asked Andy why it took so long to adopt and why there was so much paperwork. Good questions, Emily! But we all agree she was well worth the wait!

Home Sweet Home

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We arrived home safely late last night. It's was so nice to have a nice welcome banner, balloons, and decorations thanks to the girls' Aunt Laurie & Uncle Ed and cousins Brian & Sara...and some FOOD from Grandpa Ploessl!

We didn't know how Olivia (who still answers to "Tan Tan")would react to our dog Chelsea, but so far so good! At first she laughed and laughed when she first met her, but asked to be picked up if I set her down with Chelsea around. This morning, both are on the loose and they both seem fine with each other. She's already mimicking us and saying, "Chelsea, SHHH" when she barks, and not showing any fear.

The girls were up bright and early at 4 am having a tea party and bringing me endless dishes of imaginary food...so we are up, too, even though we didn't get as much sleep on the plane as they did. We may be crashing later, but I feel okay right now :) It's just so nice to be home!!

Hong Kong with Olivia

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We returned to Hong Kong on Saturday and spent the night before flying home from there on Sunday. The girls had a nice time at Kowloon Park which was just down the street from our hotel.

Tip for the next adoption group flying out of Hong Kong: When we used the (very nice) airport train from Kowloon, we noticed they had remote airline check-in counters right near where you purchase the train tickets and we were able to check in our luggage with United right there without having to lug our stuff on the train to the airport. It was a very nice feature that nobody ever mentioned, but I thought I'd pass it on.

Goodbyes

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Farewell from China

We have to be out of our room by 8:30 am tomorrow to catch our train to Hong Kong. We'll spend one night there, but we already found out that it costs $25/day for internet access and we're not making that mistake twice. So, I'm signing off here and now and don't plan to post again until we're home safe and sound. We should land at O'Hare about 6:45 pm Sunday. I hear it's cold in Chicago, so I'm putting our request in now for spring weather!

We've had a great trip and now we're ready to settle in for real at home. Olivia probably thinks we live in hotels!

Last Supper

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Tonight is our last night in mainland China. We tried to hail a taxi to go someplace different, but gave up and ended up walking to Pizza Hut again. Really daring, huh? Although the pizza tasted the same, there is a cultural difference when it comes to the salad bar! In fact, there is quite an art we've witnessed both here and in Nanning to getting the most out of the ONE trip salad bar! It's fascinating to watch everyone load up their bowl as high as possible in such an artistic way! Seven people shared one of these tall bowls!

Squeaky Shoes

Here in China they sell squeaky baby shoes, presumably to encourage babies who are just learning to walk to take more steps. Since Olivia's not a baby or new to walking, I didn't really plan to buy her any. However, since she's so tiny--most of the 2T clothes I brought are a tad big--it's hard to find any shoes her size here that don't squeak! Since they were only a couple bucks AND the squeakers can be removed (see the removable plug in the heel?), I bought her some squeakers after all.

Brrrr

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It's been pretty chilly the last couple days--as low as the 40s--with rain added to the usual grayness here due to pollution. I'm sure those back home would have no sympathy, but this is supposed to be a subtropical place and we didn't pack for this weather. I'm looking forward to seeing a bright, sunny, cheery day again, even if it comes with snow!

This morning we ventured to the "toy market," which is basically a street full of multi-storied building with flea market type stall after stall of trinkets and toys. Nothing very exciting though we did have to laugh at the plastic Pizza Hut toys that were labeled, "Pizza Roof!" We spent more on the taxi ride there and back than we did on toys, since we only ended up buying two light-up tops for about $2. The guys also checked out the "electronic market," but came back empty handed.

After I got Olivia settled down for an afternoon nap, Caroline and I went to Shamian Island to get hour massages for about US$10. We were surprised that they had us leave all our clothes on and then did the massage through towels that were on top of our clothes! I think my girl was digging in with her elbows, so it actually was still effective through all those layers!

Tomorrow afternoon (Friday) we'll drive about an hour to go to the visa ceremony at the US Consulate where we'll swear that the information we've given on all the documents is true...and then we'll get Olivia's travel visa, the last requirement before we can go home! Then Saturday morning we'll catch a train back to Hong Kong...and fly home Sunday :) Not looking forward to the long flight, but we are looking forward to being home!! This has all been an interesting experience, but living out of a suitcase gets old really quick. We're also looking forward to a bigger variety of familiar food choices besides Pizza Hut, McDonalds or KFC.

Playing in the hotel room with Emily & Jack

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Thanks to Olivia's three hour nap, I'm getting caught up with some pictures. I hope it's not too overwhelming to view so many at one time, but I didn't want to get too far behind. Our bed time routine is taking longer than I'm used to and I'm running out of free time to blog!

We're all doing very well, but bedtime seems to be an emotional time for Olivia and the last few nights she's cried pretty hard. Fortunately it's never lasted more than about 10 minutes, but then, after be soothed, she switches gears and wants to play! Even after she settles down and stays in bed, she'll play with her hands for an eternity before falling asleep. I suppose she's spent a lot of time in a crib and has had to come up with ways to entertain herself! I've been staying with her until she falls asleep and it's been taking a while until I get to sneak out. Hopefully it'll get easier in time. But again, if that's the worst of our problems, we can handle it :)

Benign Girl

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We bought the girls toy cell phones and they're not Barbie, but "Benign Girl!" These are just some pix we took hanging out in our hotel room. In some of the poses, Olivia's pretending to take pictures with her phone, saying "sha-mile," and in others she's kept doing some palms up thing that Daddy tried to copy. She's a fun little girl :)

Monday's trek to Shamian Island

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On Monday we went to Shamian Island for Olivia's visa medical exam. She did pretty well, but didn't care for the tongue depressor or for the part where we had to remove some clothes to be examined. Noting that Olivia had already had corrective heart surgery, the doctor was surprised--and so were we--that she still has a heart murmur. Hopefully it's not anything that will require more surgery. We also asked about a lump on her forehead, but after getting a second opinion from a surgeon, the doctor said it feels like bone, not a wound. They suggested getting a CT scan at home, so hopefully that's not a big deal either...

After getting through the medical exam, we let the girls play at a park to help Olivia relax again. She's really enjoyed the slide and the girls had fun playing together. The hard part was dragging her away to eat lunch at a restaurant called Lucy's. Later we found out that others had been warned not to eat there due to families getting sick, but two days later, we're still fine.

Since all American adoptive families have to go through Shamian Island for the medical exam, quite a niche market for adoptive families has built up there! It's kind of a neat place and it's fun to run into so many other families with their newly adopted children. Not only is Shamian Island unique in it's clientele, it also looks very different than the "real" China since it was once a British colony and has British architecture.

Our hotel is about a 10 minute walk from Shamian Island, away from the tourist shops, but right on a pedestrian street with modern shops for the locals. In order to get to Shamian Island, we walk through a pet market and a Chinese medicine market, all of which are just tiny storefronts that overflow into an alley. As always, we draw quite a bit of attention as we traipse through.

Guangzhou

Here is our current home away from home at Guangzhou's Holiday Inn Shifu. It's very new, nice and spacious!

Olivia and Jack's home town: RongXian, Guangxi

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Mouse over for captions. Click "view show" for a new window with identical, but larger slideshow.

I'm glad we went to Olivia's town and saw her orphanage, but at least in the short term, it wasn't as momentous or impacting as I thought it might be. I'd had some apprehension about the visit, wondering how Olivia (or I) would react. Would she be scared, thinking we were returning her...or would she be happy to be back "home" and want to stay? In the end, she seemed to have neither reaction and for the most part seemed content to be securely held in her baby carrier on my hip. I was kind of surprised by how nonchalant she was during the visit and we were relieved that, at least for us, it wasn't the emotional turmoil we'd tried to prepare for.

We had gotten permission to visit the town, but were not be allowed inside the SWI (Social Welfare Institute--hers is home for both orphans and the elderly). Shortly after Mandy called to alert the SWI that we'd arrived in town, quite to our surprise, the man from the SWI that we'd met on Gotcha Day just happened to be standing right outside our van as we drove through a busy street! After a brief word with Mandy and the driver, he hopped in his truck and led our van through town straight to where Olivia and Jack had lived! Our driver wasn't familiar with the area at all, so it was nice to have a guided tour!

It was interesting to see where Olivia lived for over three years, but it was hard to get a real feel for what life there is like since we couldn't see inside and never saw any residents. I did note however that we didn't see any play equipment or toys outside, though there was a basketball court. There were no indications that kids lived there at all, but Mandy, who has seen other SWIs said it seemed like a pretty good place.

In spite of visits being officially prohibited, the staff was very gracious and offered to lead our van to the town's famous temple. There we said our good-byes and thought we wouldn't see the staff again, but they kept popping up again and again, so I guess they weren't really ready to see us off!  While we were at the temple, two ladies from the orphanage even delivered a bag of bakery goods and milk boxes because they knew we hadn't had lunch yet! It was such a humbling thing to see how generous they were to us "rich" Americans when they have so little!

Around the temple area there was a park that Olivia didn't seem familiar with, but Jack clearly was as he led his parents around. There were some elderly people that obviously knew Jack and were calling him by name and they found out that his foster family lives near the park and he was a frequent visitor! The short term effect of the visit was much more traumatic for Caroline, Craig & Jack than us (he cried and wanted to go to some of the people who called out to him), but I think they'll be glad to have that extra knowledge of his former life. They also got to go away with memories and pictures with them all together in Jack's park. When we left the temple area several elderly people he knew crowded around our van to say some teary-eyed good byes to Jack and wish him well.

After leaving the park all sweaty, we loaded up to head out of town only to have our the SWI director stop at another important spot in town, a governmental building. We all piled out again for another photo op (and another good-bye) in front of the building while all the passersby gawked, surprised to see westerners and doubly surprised to see us carrying Chinese kids! Here, the staff took note of our girls' bare arms and pointed to their own long sleeves and sweaters! They were being good natured about it, but I felt like I was busted AGAIN for not dressing our new daughter warmly enough! Oh well. In one of the pictures you'll see the director trying to warm Emily up because she was surely cold in the 70+ weather :)

Overall my impression was that the staff was happy to see us and that they really care about our kids. One of the ladies kept getting choked up around Olivia, even though Mandy said none of them were direct care givers. It was hard to watch her get teary eyed, but it was comforting to know that there was enough connection there to even get choked up. I've only heard good things about this place from other adoptive families so I wasn't surprised to see such caring staff. Before we left the SWI, one of the staff ladies went to the garden to get some rocks for the kids to keep. I appreciate her thoughtfulness and hope the two stones will mean something to Olivia someday.

From the staff we learned that RongXian has about a million people--not the small town I once thought!! Still not sure if something was lost in the translation though??  They thanked us for our orphanage donation, saying it will help to cover future surgeries &/or hospital transportation for other special needs kids, just as previous adoption donations had been used to help ours. Some of it also might just go to help them make ends meet since they said that the government only gives them 135 RMB (about $20) per child per month. That's not much to work with, but they somehow seem to to a good job. Olivia is a pretty happy kid and that surely didn't just start a week ago when we met her. We will be forever grateful that she had such good care.

I'm sure the visit would have been harder if she weren't such a carefree, happy kid or if she hadn't already started attaching to us. But, fortunately, she seems happy to be with us and often wails for me if I go out of her sight. As we were standing around with the orphanage staff, the ladies were obviously discussing us as she imitated Olivia's "mama...ma....ma..." as they chuckled, taking note (I think) that Olivia definitely knows who her Mama is!

Many faces of Olivia

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Here are some shots of Olivia we managed to capture today while waiting at the airport. Today's flight was only an hour, but she was great! While we were in the air, Emily was making funny faces trying to get her sister to smile for the camera when Olivia got such a kick out of Emily sticking her tongue out! The whole plane could probably hear her yelling excitedly for me to look at how silly Emily was and then laughing hysterically! You can see that captured, too..minus the sound effects of a child shrieking, "Mama...Mama...Mom...Mom!!" It was very cute to see them enjoying each other so much :) I'm so glad they really like being together!

Farewell, Nanning

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Farewell, Nanning. All the pix except the one of Olivia are shots I took from the taxi on the way to the airport today.

I'm happy to report that Olivia was a lot easier to redirect today and much better about accepting "no" without an attitude as well. She's also getting better about sharing as we try to teach her to ask instead of grabbing things from Emily. She still has her moments when she wants what she wants when she wants it, but I am happy to see that the "easy" child has made a reappearance. She may have just had a bad day yesterday since it was such a long trip and her nap was pushed way back. I doubt she knew where we were heading yesterday, but she may have sensed something was up. Whatever the case, yesterday I was afraid the honeymoon was over, but I'm glad that today she was really good in spite of our air travel and missing a nap. I imagine new frustrations and behavior issues will crop up, but we're still VERY fortunate that things are going so well.

She's also doing really well with Daddy :) Tonight she let him carry her around in the baby carrier/Hip Panda and they shared an ice cream cone as we walked around our Guangzhou Holiday Inn. He also gave them a bath AND put them both to bed (previous attempts resulted in wailing for Mama). She still smiles and laughs a lot, but it's hard to capture that because she still doesn't like the camera. I've been trying to coach her into smiling for the camera and now she imitates what I first showed her by putting her fingers to the corners of her smiling lips as she says, "shamile!" She does this readily as long as there is no black box aimed at her. She enjoys looking at her pictures on the camera's display so maybe enventually she'll like hamming it up in front of the camera. Hopefully.

Our new hotel in Guangzhou is quite an upgrade from the one in Nanning, but we don't have the comeraderie of too many other adoptive families here like we had in Nanning where there were several on our floor. Aside from our travel mates, we haven't seen any other caucasians since arriving. Tomorrow we'll visit Shamian Island where most adoptive families stay, but we agreed to stay a 15 minute walk away from the touristy area in favor of roomier, newer and cheaper digs. And boy is this suite spacious and nice!! We have a HUGE living room that's bigger than ours at home that has a plasma TV, an ultra modern bathroom. We paid extra to be on the executive floor to be away from construction noise so we have the perk of having access to the executive lounge with it's refreshments. It's all pretty swanky and nice.

I still have to sort through pix and post about RongXian, but it's late and that will have to wait for another day. Andy and mom are happy to have found English TV and are watching Jim Carey in "Bruce Almighty." Inside this hotel we could think we're back in the states...until we look out the window!

Tomorrow morning (Monday) we'll get Olivia's visa photo taken and have her visa medical check-up. Our next appointment isn't until Friday when we have the visa ceremony, so we'll have three free days to do whatever we want to do :) Not sure yet if we'll want to take any little field trips to sites out of town or if we'll just stay nearby.

Nanning Zoo

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Here are some pix from yesterday (Friday) when we went to the zoo. Today was a long day traveling to the kids' hometown and then when we got back we had to pack up to leave early tomorrow. Mandy was able to get Olivia's passport yesterday (instead of Monday) so we're flying out earlier than originally planned. It doesn't mean we'll be home any earlier, but we'll have more time to spend in Guangzhou.

Today I found out why all the updates had "sometimes obstinate" checked. Our little angel isn't always so angelic. Actually that applies to both our girls...both can be sweet most of the time, but they both can have an obstinate, feisty side! Olivia had been endearing herself to me and hadn't really showed me her other personality until today... Most of the time she was still her happy giggly self, but today I saw that she can be quite a challenge when she wants to be. When I stopped her from playing with the AC dial in the van, she tried to let me know that she was the boss! I didn't back down and neither did she. She didn't win, but a few minutes later she had a beef with Emily and swatted Emily's face before also hitting mine. Lovely. I was afraid it was too good to be true. She's also now decided that she wants anything and everything that poor Emily is playing with and is determined to get it by whatever means necessary. She's not doing anything I didn't originally expect, but now it looks like I'm not going to escape the typical behavior of institutionalized kids after all. Things are still good most of the time, just not as easy as it first appeared.

Now we're at that tricky stage when we're still trying to get her to bond with us, but we can't afford to give into bad behavior as she tests the waters. And we need to teach both girls how to share Mommy and toys! I'm not discouraged though because Olivia's still doing much better than I expected and better than most others we've encountered here :)

Tomorrow I'll try to post about our journey to RongXian.

Chopsticks

We discovered that Olivia can eat with chopsticks and it's so cute to watch her use them! Today at the zoo we stopped for drinks and popcorn and after we'd eaten them, she got up from the table with some urgency and pulled me back to the vendor. She then patted a bowl of instant ramen noodle-in-the-cup and handed them to me with some insistance before dragging me further down to the line to where the man poured the hot water in the noodle cups. She knew exactly what she wanted and she let me know it! They seem to be very popular because we see people eating them everywhere. This video shows her eating those noodles at the zoo with chopsticks. She is not real keen about being photographed yet (better get used to it, kid!) and you can see her expressing her displeasure.

At about 6:00 tonight she brought me a similar cup of noodles that we'd bought at Wal-Mart the other day and again let me know that she wanted them NOW. She could hardly wait for the water to heat up and was in heaven when she finally got to slurp them up. I guess I know what we'll be buying at home! Thankfully it's a lot easier to make than other things she might have picked, like sticky rice.

Baba (Daddy) is now giving the girls a bath before bedtime and I'm glad Olivia's "allowing" him to do it :) I hear her giggling, so apparently it's going well! Earlier she played catch with him, let him take her (and Emily) for a little walk to the gift shop and...drum roll please.... she even put up her arms asking him to pick her up for the first time :) Progress!!

Tomorrow (Sat.) we are leaving bright and early for a long road trip to see Olivia and Jack's home town. It's 3.5 hours by van each way so it'll be a long day. We're not allowed to visit the orphanage, but did get permission from civil affairs to visit the town. It's a small town that doesn't see many westerners, so we've been told to expect even more stares than usual. We're also supposed to be low-key so we don't ruin it for future parents who might want permission to visit. I'm not sure exactly how to be low-key when we stand out like sore thumbs, but we'll try not to draw attention to ourselves. I hope Olivia doesn't think we're taking her back when she sees the outside of her orphangage...

Oh, and by the way, I've asked Mandy to tell the driver not to pick Olivia up. I don't suppose he's read up on attachment theories to know any better, and probably thinks he's being helpful, but it undermines our efforts to get her to bond with us. I hope he gets it without being offended. I'm confident that Olivia will bond with Andy sooner or later, but it's just a little hard to watch her resist her new dad and then see her reaching for this strange man that's been picking her up. The strange man does look and talk more like her so it makes sense, but it's just hard to swallow at times.

Day #3 Green Mountain

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I've added captions to today's slideshow pix, so mouse over an image if you want to read it. To make the pix larger, you can click on "view show" right beneath the pictures and it'll open a new window with an identical, but larger slideshow.

I've posted some pix from our little field trip to Green Mountain which overlooks the city of Nanning. I believe this city has about 6 million people, so it's no little town though we'd never heard of it before this trip!

Olivia (Tan Tan) continues to be an extremely easy child! We never dreamed she'd be the easy one of our girls so early on. She is such a happy little girl, but she is making her preference for Mama known and now resists letting Baba (Daddy) do things for her. This is pretty normal so we're not too concerned, but I imagine it must hurt Daddy's feelings a bit though he's taking it all in stride.

All of the adoption attachment/bonding advice says not to let others hold or care for our child as we try to teach her that we are the parents and the go-to people...and to ask friends and family NOT to pick her up or feed her even if she asks, but to refer her to the parents to meet her needs until she learns that WE are her family and her source for getting needs met (vs. what she grew up with having various staff members meet her needs). ...so, I'm not appreciating our Chinese driver's affection for Olivia as he tries to pick her up every chance he can. Whenever he is around I make sure I'm holding her, but the minute I set her down to rest my arms, he materializes and swoops her up :( Yesterday, she nestled into his lap and was so content she almost fell asleep until I insisted that he give her to Mama. Though she is attaching to me, it's obvious she would be just as happy to be with him. We've only had her a few days so her reaction is perfectly normal, I just wish he'd get my not-so-subtle hints and gestures to cut it out. I really shouldn't be complaining though because that's pretty minor (and we don't see him every day) and if it's that's my biggest gripe, it shows that things are going extremely well :)

Day #2 at the park

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After the girls (and Daddy) woke up from a nap yesterday, we went to the Nanning Peoples Park in the rain. Olivia was very curious about everything, but a little unsure of what to make of the amusement rides--we don't suppose she's been exposed to much with most of her life inside an orphanage. She agreed to go on a kiddie ride with Emily, but then told Mandy, our guide, that it was not fun. I think it was too jerky and fast for her first ride. She wasn't so sure about the moon bounce either, but warmed up to it pretty quickly with the help of her big sister. When she'd fall down, she'd just giggle and giggle!

We heard her first cry when I had to go down the hall to Mandy's room to discuss our itinerary and Olivia did not like my leaving one bit. She wailed and yelled for Mama, and then was mad at poor Daddy (Ba Ba in Chinese) for preventing her from following me. Although it wasn't fun for Daddy to be the bad guy, it was a good sign that she's attaching to me and knows who her Mama is. Once I came back, she didn't stay mad at Andy too long. It's pretty common for kids to initially attach to only one parent and want nothing to do with the other for a while. For Andy's sake I hope she doesn't reject him, but he knows that may be part of the process...

Emily is enjoying being a big sister, but asks for equal lap time and thinks I ought to be carrying her on my other hip. She's pretty big for me to carry any distance, but Daddy's been hauling her around a bit lately. I'm impressed, however, that she hasn't been possessive of her toys that Olivia (who still calls herself "Tan Tan"--rhymes with won ton) has taken over. They also had a good time taking their first bath together.

Today we're going on a field trip to a mountain. Hope it doesn't rain!

Day #2

Everything is going great on day #2. The only wrinkle we've had is when the adoption official was concerned about Olivia not being dressed warm enough. We were all sweating--including Olivia--but I added a shirt and jacket to appease her.

Here is a picture with our guide, Mandy, as well as the orphanage staff members who were present for official adoption interview. Olivia's doing very well and warms up to everyone quite easily.

Olivia videos from Day 1

While the girls are both napping, I'll try to post a few short video clips. Day 2 is going just as well as yesterday :) And...we officially adopted her today!! Now she is really and truly ours!

Olivia FuTan, all SMILES!!

What a wonderful, wonderful day :) Well worth the wait!!

Gotcha Day :)

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Introverted? Timid? Shy? Huh?? Olivia FuTan is a giggly, sweet little bundle of love that seems far from the reserved child I expected!! She has such a belly laugh and is just too cute!! I'm not sure if the other shoe is going to drop tomorrow, but today was just wonderful!! At first she was a little quiet and shy, but after I held her and fed her a while, she really warmed up and turned into a giggly chatter box who loves to eat like there's no tomorrow! She hasn't cried at all yet, not even at bedtime. She's been surprisingly easy so far...it's my other one who's having a hard time with the adjustment. At bedtime, Emily was feeling a little jealous and sullen and Olivia reached out to her to try to console her! They are now sound asleep next to each other. I'll try to post some video clips later if I get a chance :)

Hong Kong pix from yesterday

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Here you can see our Hong Kong Holiday Inn, Tai Chi in a park, the Victoria Peak tram and views from the peak, and Hong Kong Park (it's beautiful and we saw several brides getting photographed here). It was such a beautiful sunny day that we shed our jackets and got sunburns! Not missing winter at all!

As we walked around Hong Kong Island we constantly ran into throngs and throngs of young women congregating in parks, subway walkways, and public court yards. They were sitting in clusters on card board boxes or mats playing cards, doing crafts, snacking, or doing each others nails as they chatted away. It appeared as if they were gathering for some event, but when asked a lady said that since it's a holiday (Chinese New Year & a Sunday)they just all like to come out and meet with their friends to talk. The women seemed very social, but I couldn't help but wonder where all the men were. Wish we would have taken a picture.


Tomorrow at 3 pm we'll be getting Olivia!! I hope we'll be able to coax some smiles out of her, but she may need some time to warm up. Can't wait to meet her! Wonder if I'll get much sleep tonight... Better hit the hay now. It's past 11 pm Monday here as you're just starting your day at home.

P.S.
I'm glad I practiced blogging from home. From here Blogger (the blog hosting site that I use) is all in Chinese!! So far I've been able to remember which buttons I usually click to make my way through posting, but I wouldn't have a clue which Chinese symbols to click if it was my first time posting. There may be a way to get the interface in English, but I haven't found it yet!

Tai Chi

We got to watch some people doing Tai Chi in a park in Hong Kong and Emily had to give it a try! To see Emily in action, double click on the arrow and expect the first time through to stutter.

Hello from Nanning

We've just arrived at the Majestic Hotel in Nanning, Guangxi! Today we met Mandy (our social worker and guide) at the Hong Kong airport and she'll be with us here and in Guangzhou. She has mentioned more than once that we need to be prepared that the transition might be more difficult since we're getting an "older" child...but not to get too concerned...relax, keep smiling, and have confidence that we'll warm up to each other eventually. This is nothing new, but it still makes one a little anxious about how tomorrow will go. Yep, tomorrow!! Hard to believe, but at about 3 pm tomorrow we'll finally get to meet Olivia!! I'm excited, nervous, happy, scared, anxious, and...

It's almost 7 pm here, so we need to go get some dinner and meet up with our travel mates, Craig & Caroline. I'll try to post some more pix later. I only posted once from Hong Kong because it cost US$25/day at our hotel, but now in Nanning it's a more affordable 60 cents/day :)

Hello from Hong Kong

We arrived safely at our hotel at about 6pm local time (4 am IL time!!) last night. None of us slept much on the plane, but it was pretty smooth and painless. The strange thing was that we followed the sun and so we never experienced dark or night. We flew right over the north pole and got some neat pictures of frozen Siberia and some mountain peaks.

We went to bed within a couple hours of arriving at our Holiday Inn since it was early evening. We all kept waking up throughout the night, checking the time and looking out the window, but we didn't actually get up until 7am (5pm at home). And I'm happy to report that we got the two double beds we requested--they'd previously warned that they this kind of rooms might not be available due to it being Chinese New Year.

We're real adventurous with our meals here--McDonalds for breakfast and "Chicago" pizza for lunch! The McDonalds had different food choices than we're used to and the Chicago pizza had unfamiliar options, too (egg, tuna, lettuce).

Today we wandered around Kowloon, but we plan to take the ferry tomorrow to see Hong Kong Island. We hope to go up to Victoria Peak tomorrow, but wonder if we'll be able to see anything through all the haze.

And we're OFF!

Packing up the laptop and leaving for the airport :) Next post will be from Hong Kong :)

slide show test

| View Show | Create Your Own | Playlist

I wanted to test a different format for posting a big batch of pix. I just used a folder of oldies from Emily's first year just to try out a RockYou slideshow. I'm not positive I'll be able to upload to RockYou.com from China to do this, but I thought it'd be worth a try. As the pix loop through, you can pause, go forward/backward and change the speed. Let me know if this gives you problems. I added captions, but I don't see them here. Hmmm....wonder why not. The music isn't of great significance...just part of the test.

If I mouse over a picture, the caption appears, but I'm not sure how to get it to automatically appear. Oh well, good enough for now.

Let me know if this format works for you--I'm especially interested to hear if it works on on dial-up...

We're leaving for the airport hotel tonight and we're packed and ready. Just trying to do some last minute computer stuff :)

New Hard Drive

Success! Andy was able to find, buy and install a new hard drive tonight :) The computer is now fixed, but I probably won't be able to reinstall everything before we leave. That ought to be okay for the trip as long as I've got the basics up and running :)

Thanks, Dan and Cathy, for offering a loaner laptop. That was so sweet of you, but I'm happy to report that we won't be needing it :)

The not-so-rosy part (RQ post)

This is a timely post on a blog about China adoptions. It's long, but it explains some of the stuff I wanted to say, but got lost in the computer crash.

Rumor Queen is writing to prospective adoptive parents, but reading it may help you to see my prospective when I say I'm excited and also a little nervous, too. I believe that Olivia will eventually be a happy addition to our family, but we need to have a long term perspective. We have to be prepared for it to not be all rosy from day one.

Here's a snipit of the post:

"We all know this transition to a family is for the best in the long run, but all the child knows is how they feel right now, and they are scared and mad and grieving. Some move through it faster than others. Some seem to move through it in China and then backtrack once they are home. Some show their bubbly personality in China and then show the grief in America (or whatever country they are going to).

I see people who are talking about how happy their child is going to be to finally get a family. And that just isn’t the way it works. I see a lot of people setting themselves up for problems by having expectations that just aren’t very likely to happen."

To read the complete post, click here:
http://chinaadopttalk.com/2006/11/14/the-not-so-rosy-part/

Computer woes

We're leaving town tomorrow and the laptop we bought for this trip four months ago is very ill :( Andy had revived it from it's crash last week and it seemed like it was doing okay... As I re-installed software it was showing signs that it wasn't fully cured, but as the issues came up, Andy'd find a patch or a work around and it seemed to be usable. Until yesterday, that is, when it wouldn't even boot up. Andy recovered it AGAIN with the disk recovery, but a health check has since warned us that hard drive failure is imminent :( ARGGG!! It must have somehow known that it was at the four month mark, past any 90-day return period.

Last night Andy bought a new hard drive, but when he went to install it found that the kind that appeared in manual after all, so he inadvertently bought the wrong drive. And it's apparently hard to find the right kind :(

I'm mostly packed so I'm not that stressed about that, but the computer thing bugs me. Lost with the crash is a post I'd been writing about attachment parenting and explaining why and how friends and family can help support Olivia as she learns to bond with us. I'd pulled info from here and there and stayed up way too late writing it...and now it's all disappeared :( Poof. And yes, I'd saved it, but crashed computers don't care. Reminds me of my college days when my entire term paper vanished within a few hours of it being due. Only this time I have no scribbled notes to refer back to.

Computers...can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

P.S. I hope I don't get sued for slander...but it's an HP, if you're wondering. Just now I was about to compliment the 5+ year old Dell laptop that I'm using, but as I tried to type it, things got painfully slow and when I got the "NOT RESPONDING" message, I thought this post was going to disappear, too. I sense dissension in the ranks. If all else fails, we can take this old machine, but it is slow and doesn't have a DVD burner to offload photos. I don't know if it's got enough power or memory for posting video clips... Not the end of the world, but not what we want to be dealing with the day before we leave.

Olivia FuTan

Isn't she cute?! Had to post her pix again since it's been a while since her face has graced this space. Can't wait to meet her!! Today is Chinese New Year. I wonder what she's doing to celebrate China's biggest holiday of the year. It won't too long and we'll be celebrating our Gotcha Day with her on Feb 27th!

Videos

If you can see the video images of Emily in the previous video post but nothing happens when you click on the arrow...you need to click again to start the video :) Try double clicking on the arrow and it should say "loading..." and then play. The first time through may have hiccups.

If you don't see Emily's pictures at all, you may have a firewall (at work?) blocking access to YouTube videos. If you're on dial-up, sorry, but videos may be a lost cause.

I hope you can view them because I'm hoping to capture and post some cute little video clips of Olivia in China so you can all "meet" her :)

She's really going to be ours :)

We're excited to finally meet Olivia, but we also know it might not be an easy transition. Rather than romanticize how wonderful our life is going to be I'm trying be realistic and be prepared in case she has NOT been pining away for us like we have been for her. After 3 1/2 years in an orphanage she just recently got a taste of what it's like to have a foster family. She may be perfectly content there and not welcome these strange foreigners "kidnapping" her and taking her away from everything familiar--strangers that look nothing like her and don't even speak her language. She may be less than thrilled. She may rage against us or shut down. We hope she'll warm up to us, but we have to be prepared that it may not happen right away.

We sent the talking photo album with the hopes that she'll have an inkling of what's going on, but we don't know when or if she got it. Some kids are well prepared, others are told the day of their departure. We have no idea what she knows or how she'll take to us. We hope having Emily along will help Olivia feel more comfortable. We'll also bring some bubbles, a doll, and some snacks to help break the ice. She's going to be ours whether she likes it yet our not :)

Video testing

I thought I'd try posting video so I'll now how to do it from China. I interrogated Emily so I'd have something to post, but she didn't mind too much :) They are short clips (13-46 seconds@), but may stutter the first time through as they're downloading. They should be smooth the second time through.

Anyone know why this bumped my right column stuff way down the page? Or how to fix it?

Itinerary

• Wed, Feb 21............leave for airport hotel (to avoid rush hour hassle for our early flight)
• Thur, Feb 22..........fly to Hong Kong
• Fri, Feb 23..............arrive in Hong Kong
• Mon, Feb 26...........fly to Nanning, Guangxi
• Tue, Feb 27............GET OLIVIA (2:30 pm China time)
• Wed, Feb 28...........register adoption papers for Olivia
• Th-Sat, Mar 1-3....wait for notarized documents and Olivia's passport
• Mon, Mar 5.............collect notarized documents and passport
• Tues, Mar 6............fly to Guangzhou, Guangdong (where US consulate is)
• Wed, Mar 7.............Olivia's required medical exam for travel visa
• Thur, Mar 8............collect medical report and apply for Olivia's visa
• Fri, Mar 9................get visa and attend visa ceremony at US Consulate
• Sat, Mar 10.............travel to Hong Kong by train
• Sun, Mar 11.............fly home! We leave at 5:45pm and due to time difference, arrive same day at 6:45 pm

Overwhelm

I'm feeling overwhelmed and close to tears today. We just got the run down of travel costs from our agency and everything is much more than they estimated. With 16 nights in a hotel, an extra $50+ a night adds up :( And, for that premium price 3/5 of our party will be sleeping on the floor--the rooms with two double beds aren't available so we're getting ONE king bed for the five of us. I'm not sure if they sell air mattresses in China, so we're going to have to see if we can fit that in our 44 lbs @ luggage limit.

I'm mostly frustrated because I've looked online and it appears that I could book our rooms (same hotel, same nights) much cheaper. If you know me at all, you know that I'm a bargain hunter and can't stomach wasting money. I'm asking our agency about the high hotel prices, but at some point soon, I'm just going to have to let it go and stop fretting about it. ...and the fact that Olivia's one-way ticket cost more than Emily's round trip. I'm trying to tell myself it's only money. We'll manage.

Just please don't tell me that we're having a child the "easy" way (getting out of child birth and diapers)! Trust me, "easy" is not the proper word. And yes, adoptive parents say they hear this comment :( It hasn't been easy bringing either of children home, but they are each worth the effort!

P.S.
Also contributing to my overwhelm is the fact that my new (Oct 06) laptop crashed and after much fussing with is still giving us problems :( We were/are planning to take it to China so this is another headache we could do without this week.

Packing, Emily style!

This morning Emily saw me writing a list and asked what I was doing. A packing list? Can we start packing, Mom? Now? I agreed and started gathering all the meds from the list, but that didn't quite look like packing to her. Unsatisfied, she took it upon herself to get the suitcases out and she kept wanting me to go upstairs and do the real packing. When I asked her to get dressed for school, she reminded me that we still hadn't packed and she needed to do that first.

Since I'm not really ready to commit our clothes to suitcases yet, I told her maybe we could pack some clothes for Olivia now. She looked surprised and said, "you mean we've got to pack clothes for her, too?" I guess she thought she'd come with her own wardrobe in a suitcase?? But she was happy with that idea and said, "Do you mean I get to pick out her clothes??" I said she could pick a few outfits for her, so the next thing you know, she's got an armload of Olivia's clothes and plops them in a suitcase, hangers and all! Then, she wanted to put my makeup bag in too. ...ummm...we've got 14 more days...but that doesn't seem to compute right now. She's eager to go! Now!

Travel Dates!!

Today we finally got word about our travel dates and I was able to book our flights!! I didn't get as good of a deal on the flights as I'd hoped for but they could have been much worse. We leave in about two weeks!! Wow, we better get busy!! We'll fly to:

• Hong Kong Feb 22 (arriving on the 23rd)
• Nanning on the 26th (the capitol of Olivia's province, Guangxi)

(probably get Olivia on the 27th)

• Guangzhou (Guangdong Province) to process immigration papers--US Consulate appointment is March 8th
• Hong Kong, March 10
• Chicago! We'll leave Hong Kong March 11 at 5:45 pm and arrive at O'Hare at 6:45 pm (also March 11!) .

Bedroom overhaul

Over the weekend we made a trade with the girls' cousin Sara. She got an extra double bed that we had, and we got her twin bed...so Emily and I had fun shopping for new matching bedding and changing the room around for TWO princesses!

For weeks now, Emily has been suggesting that Olivia might need signs to find her room, so she took it upon herself to make 14 numbered arrows up the staircase (but stopped at the top of the stairs, neglecting to give any direction as to which of the four bedrooms at the top of the stairs to turn to!). I sure hope Olivia can find their room!

So, if we've got four bedrooms, why are they sharing a room? The answer is threefold. 1) Emily has always hated having to be in a room by herself. 2) Olivia has probably never been alone in her life except when she was abandoned. She was with multiple kids in the orphanage, and in foster homes, they often share the family bed. Experts suggest letting institutionalized children sleep in the same room as siblings or parents. 3)We're hoping that the two of them can keep each other company so that don't want to be in OUR room :)...but we have haven't taken the toddler bed apart in case plan A doesn't work and Olivia needs to be in our room.

Updated info on Olivia :)

We got some new updated info this morning. I'm glad to see Olivia's gained 3.5 pounds since November! Her feet have also grown a cm. Kids in institutions generally have stunted growth (it's estimated they lose about one month of developmental and linear growth for every three months they're institutionalized--so Olivia could be a full year behind). Once they're with a family they usually start to blossom...and she has obviously benefited from being in her new foster home :)

Updated Information:

Name : RONG Fu Tan
Date of Birth : February 1, 2003
Height : 87 cm (34.3 in.)
Weight : 27.5 pounds
Head circumstance : 46.2 cm (18.2 in.)
Chest circumstance : 52 cm (20.5 in.)
Foot length : 14 cm (5.5 in)
Number of teeth : 20
Favorite toys : Balls, Dolls & Toy cars
Favorite food : Meat, Steamed egg & Fruits
Personality : Introverted and quiet, cry easily but mature
Eating Habit : Breakfast: 8:30 am
Lunch: 12:00 pm
Tea: 15:00 pm
Dinner: 17:30 pm
Feeding Food : Congee, rice, noodle, cake, bun, meat, cake & fruit

We're going to China!!

This afternoon--on Olivia's birthday, no less--we got THE CALL!!! We have officially been invited to travel! We don't have the exact dates yet, but it looks like we'll be leaving in about three weeks and be back home by March 8 or 9.

So much to do between now and then!! How exciting!!