Goodbye Shanghai, Hello Guangzhou (day 8)

Sorry, no post yesterday.  We were so busy yesterday with traveling to Guangzhou and I was too tired by the time we got here and got the kids fed and to bed.  The flight yesterday was delayed...again.  Two out of three of our flights have been delayed so far.  Think we'll have a little luck on the way home and just have them all leave on time?  And why, oh why, do they put you on the plane before they inform you of the delay?  Wouldn't everyone be happier spending that time in the airport instead of on the plane?  Anyhoo, the flight was fine once the plane left the runway.  Our guide got us quick and brought us to our hotel, China Hotel.  It's a Marriot and it is fantastic!  Our room is amazing and we got the first good night's sleep for all of us for the first time on this trip, thanks to Unisom for me and Benadryl for Ella and Ethan.  Liana is just a great sleeper and so is Erik. 

This morning, we hit up the hotel breakfast buffet which was fabulous.  It was so nice to see other families who look like us everywhere.  We don't have to be the center of attention everywhere we go anymore!  Holt's offices are in China Hotel so all of the Holt families stay here and there are many other adoptive families here too.  There are 15 Holt families in all here this week.  Everywhere you look, there are adoptive families.  I love it! 

After breakfast, I gave Liana a quick bath and took her to her medical appointment while Erik stayed back with Ella and Ethan.  All of the Holt families gathered in the lobby and jumped on the buses and we were off.  First, we had to get the kiddos' pictures taken for their visas and then we had to have their medical check-ups.  There were about a million families there at the same time and we were all just being herded around like cattle by our guides.  It was crazy but I was just looking around at the tons of families around us and had to smile because all of those children didn't have families just days ago and now they do!  What a blessing to see so many new families all around me.  Back to the check-up, there are 3 stations that we had to hit: general medical, ENT and height/weight/temp check.  The actual checks were super quick, not much of anything but there was a lot of waiting.  Liana was super, as always, except when we went near anyone wearing a white coat.  As soon as we got close to any of the rooms, she started crying.  The hardest was right before we left, all of the kids over two have to get a TB test and I had to hold her on my lap and hold her arm while they stuck her.  I was worried that she would hate me after but she didn't.  She stopped crying the second I got out a bottle to mix.  Then she started babbling away, I assume speaking actual Mandarin but who knows.  She has the most adorable little voice ever.  I call her an Ewok because she sounds like an Ewok and she walks around like a little Ewok too.  So, so cute!  Wish I knew what she was saying!  Oh yeah, she was 32.7 inches and 25.35lbs, so pretty small for 2 years old, at least compared to what we're used to!  Ethan is 10 lbs more than her and at least 6 inches taller and only 3 months older!  He is freakishly huge though. 

Tonight, we went to the little play area that the hotel has.  It was nice for the kids to burn off some of their energy.  I get the feeling we'll be visiting that play area a lot in the next week.  After that, we had dinner with another Holt family that we met.  We've met some really nice families here and it will be fun to spend more time with them this week.

Every day is getting better with Liana.  She's always been easy but we are seeing her becoming more herself with us all the time.  Where she used to wake up sad and need time to get used to us all over again, now she smiles first thing in the morning when we get her out of her crib.  She smiles all day long and shows us a little bit of sass, which she should, she is two after all!  She calls me "Mama" all the time now, even when she's sounding annoyed it's "Mamaa!"  She just seems so much more comfortable with all of us.  I am just shocked.  I have read so many different people's experiences and I guess we're just one of the lucky ones.  She is such a doll!  I joked with Erik yesterday that after giving us Ethan, who is tough, tough, tough, God decided to take it easy on us with Liana.  Now, I have heard of adopted kids having a "honeymoon period" and then being much more difficult when that wears off so I am prepared for that to happen but, for now, I'm enjoying this sweet, smiley new daughter of ours.  She is just a dream! 

From yesterday...

Rough night?

 Ethan, doing his favorite thing in our hotel in Shanghai, looking at "the city" and playing with cars

 Cute gift for Liana from China Hotel

 Our room

From today...

 More bath pics.  This time with smiles so you can see that she really does enjoy it!

 Liana and Mama, heading out for her check-up

 Waiting for her turn

 Let's get this thing over with...

 Not fun!  Get me outta here, Mama!

 Naptime

Last day in Shanghai (day 6)

Today, our guide, Alice, took us to Yuyuan Gardens.  It was built over 400 years ago during the Ming Dynasty.  We didn't see the oldest part because you have to pay for a ticket and we weren't up for it because Ethan was losing his mind.  It was beautiful there and there are a ton of shops where you can buy some amazing things.  Can you believe that until today we hadn't bought anything?  We bought this beautiful framed hand-painted picture of Liana's Chinese name.  Thank goodness Alice was with us because she was able to write the Chinese characters down for the man who painted them.  He painted the sign in about 5 minutes and it is just amazing!  Alice made sure he put a tiger in the name because Liana was born during the year of the tiger.  She also got us a deal.  The man was charging 230 rmb but Alice got it for 150 rmb which is about $23.  What a steal!

So, the best part of the day was the discovery that we have 250 pictures of Liana on a flash drive that we sent to the orphanage just a couple of weeks ago!  For her birthday, we sent a cake with a panda bear, disposable camera and a flash drive.  We thought that they hadn't used the flash drive because it was still in the package but then Ethan was walking around with it today and I realized that if he got it out that easy, it must already be open.  So Erik stuck it in the laptop and lo and behold, pictures, pictures, pictures of our beautiful baby!  And to think, until we got to China we only had 8 measley pictures!  On gotcha day, we were also given a beautiful photo album of her and they looked at it with us and pointed out her best friend in the pics.  Get this, I actually know the mama that is adopting her best friend!  I recognized her little girl, Daisy's, picture right away and told her later on Facebook that I have pics in Liana's album that I would scan for her when we get home.  But after discovering the flash drive, I found 24 pictures of her daughter in the pics with Liana!  I already emailed them to her.  I am so happy to be able to do that for another waiting mama.  I would have died for someone to be able to do that for me as we waited.  I'm so happy that we know each other and it turns out she lives in Washington so when we visit our parents in Oregon, we plan to meet up so the girls can see each other again.  What a small world it can be sometimes!  Who knows, maybe Liana and Daisy will be friends forever!  They sure share something most people don't share with their best friends.  They share something with each other that we can never share with Liana...her first two years and a life in an orphanage.

Liana is showing more personality and more smiles every day.  I think she's figuring out who Mama and Baba are.  Yesterday, when Erik was out getting lunch for us, I said something about Baba and Liana looked around the hotel room like she was looking for him.  Then today, we were sitting on the floor eating lunch and I asked her if she wanted to sit on Mama's lap and she said, "Mama" and reached for me.  It melted my heart. 

What an adjustment this small girl has had to make in the last few days with us.  Just think, her whole life so far, has been spent in an orphanage and that is the only thing she has ever known.  Now, she has these white parents and brother and sister who look funny and sound funny and take her to all these strange places.  Nothing is the same and now we're about to take her away from her city and the hotel that she probably assumes is our home and change things on her again.  Poor baby.  It's going to take a long time for her to know what our normal life is like.  In her two years, she has experienced things that I can't even imagine.  Even though I do believe that she was loved very much in the orphanage, it's not like life with a family who provides for your every need.  Just putting her down for her nap today and seeing her grabbing out bites of food out of her mouth and handing them to me so that she wouldn't gag as she fell asleep, I realized the kinds of things she must have gone through to think that if she wants food, she better just hang onto a bite from her last meal.  We'll never know what her life in the orphanage has been like but you take little things like this as pieces to the puzzle.  I'm so amazed by her strength.  How strong she must be to be handling all of this so well.  I certainly wouldn't.  I can't wait until she feels safe enough with us to just fall apart when she needs to.  She'll get there. 

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the flash drive



 Liana and her best friend, Daisy

Liana's 2nd birthday...so glad we could at least give her a party with her friends!

And from today...

Yuyuan Gardens

Looking at Ethan

Odd child

 

Getting to know you (day 5)

Is it really our 5th day in China already?!  Wow, the time is just flying by!  I feel like we haven't seen very much and soon we'll be leaving Shanghai for Guangzhou.  The days fill up faster than you imagine before you come.  You look at your itinerary and see "Free day" so much, you just imagine you'll have all the time in the world to see the things you want to see and do the things you want to do.  But then your son falls out of a chair and ends up needing stitches and more time is spent at the hospital than you ever imagined.  Oh wait, that's not everyone?  Speaking of the hospital, that ate up our morning as Erik had to take Ethan back to the hospital to have his stitches checked.  Oh Ethan, how I love that crazy, crazy child!  He's doing just fine by the way and will get his stitches out in Guangzhou on Monday.

I lucked out and got to have my first "girl day" with my two daughters!  We had a good time.  I stuck Liana in my carrier and we went to Starbucks.  Ella and I enjoyed some drinks and Liana drank a yogurt that we swiped from the hotel's breakfast buffet.  The yogurt here is really good.  It's thin and you just pop a straw in the top and drink it.  Erik was drinking one at our first breakfast with Liana and she just about jumped out of the high chair as she ripped it from his hands and claimed it for herself.  So we sat at a table outside, watching people and this woman next to us says hello to Ella.  Ella says, "Ni hao!" which tricked the woman into thinking Ella knows some Chinese so she says a whole bunch of other stuff to her.  Ella looks at me and shrugs.  Then, the woman smiles and points at Liana and says, "Mei mei (little sister)?"  I nod and point to Liana saying "mei mei" and point to Ella saying "jie jie" (big sister).  It was so nice to have my daughter with big, blue eyes and blonde hair and my daughter with almond-shaped dark brown eyes and dark brown hair recognized as sisters!  After Starbucks, we did a little shopping at the children's mall next to our hotel.  It has floor after floor of just children's stuff.  If we thought we were getting looked at and having pictures taken a lot before, you should see us now!  Nothing gets you stared at more in China than being white parents with blonde kids and one Chinese child.  This is pretty far out of my comfort zone but I'm learning to just pretend I don't notice and walk on.  Ella and Ethan, however, love attention and will say, "Ni hao!" or wave.  I wonder what they think of us! 

I gave Liana her first bath today.  I didn't think it would go well as I've heard other adoptive parents call the early baths of their Chinese children "Chinese water torture".  Add to that the fact that Liana had to have her diaper changed and her clothes taken off beforehand, two things that she hates the most.  So, she was crying when I took her into the bathroom but when I stuck her in the tub, she just sat there all calm.  Then she grabbed up a couple of rubber duckies and started splashing them around.  She didn't even mind me washing her hair.  Granted, I did it very carefully with a washcloth but water was dripping down her face and she didn't mind at all.  After her bath, I slathered her with lotion and she just smelled like Johnson and Johnson heaven.  Mmm, I love that smell!  I've been dreaming of getting her all washed and lotioned up for months. 

After nap today, we walked to The Bund, which is an area down by the Huangpu River.  It was too long of a walk with way, way too many people.  Everyone was staring at us and taking pictures and grabbing Ella for more pictures.  I did not like it.  It was a really cool area though and I'm glad we saw it but I was also glad to leave.  On the way back, we ate at Pizza Hut while listening to Christmas music.  You've gotta love Christmas music in China in September!

Here are some things that I've learned about Liana, so far

She loves to eat but she's slow at it and always saves some food in her mouth
She loves to make faces at herself in the mirror
She loves books
She loves to color
She hates having her diaper or her clothes changed
She loves her pair of shoes from the orphanage so much that they're the only ones she'll wear and slept in them at nap time
When she gets irritated with her siblings, she slaps her knee and juts out her chin
She can be a little sassy with Ethan and rip things out of his hands...although, she might have learned it from him
She has a very pitiful cry
She can be very cuddly
She loves wearing bows.  When I took one off today for her nap, she tried to put it back on
She likes to always be holding something in her hand, even it's just a cap from a water bottle
She could spend forever just walking back and forth from one table to another transferring her toys
She can sit on a bed with a few toys and be quite content
She needs a little light on to sleep
She's a great sleeper and easy to put to bed (knock on wood)
She's a beautiful and wonderful daughter and I have so much more to learn about her!

Cuddling with Baba after nap

 Bathy time!

 All dressed up for our "girl day"...no, I wasn't in a matching outfit :-)

On The Bund

Ella and another adoring fan

  Sleepy sweeties watching Caillou