handsful

Orphanage visit day. Something we both wanted to do, but were apprehensive about doing.

There were 2 other families with us – a little boy from Dylan’s room and another mom who has a son from Luoyang but was never able to visit the orphanage. (The boy she just recently adopted is from an orphanage too far away to visit). We split the cost of a van and driver and our guide Rita was also with us.

It’s a 2 hour drive, and Dylan spent his time writing in mama’s notebook, snacking, and playing with his other toys. I asked Rita to please explain what we were doing to Dylan…I wanted him to understand we were NOT leaving him.

We enjoyed watching the scenery change from big city to wide open spaces with farm land and cave homes built right in the side of the mountain.

Field, with a large tomb in the middle. You can see here how bad the air quality really is. It’s extremely dry and dusty.

As we neared Luoyang, it became city again – not as large of Zhengzhou, but almost as busy.

As we pulled up to the entrance, Dylan got very excited and exclaimed something. Rita told us he said something about “being home”. Uh oh.

We were met in the lobby by some ayis (nannies) and I think someone who works in the administration of the orphanage. We gave them our donations, and then were taken to see several rooms, most with little babies and toddlers. My first impression…how much the halls smelled of urine. I eventually got used to it.

It was lunch time, so many of the children were away. I had 7 children to find for waiting mamas, and our guide made sure we found and photographed all we could (2 were in foster care, and weren’t there). All of them were such beautiful children, and I’m so thankful that they each have families waiting anxiously for them.

We were able to see Dylan’s playroom and take pictures and video. Then, we walked to a room with 6 cribs, and were shown which one Dylan slept in. Megan and I were excited to find out that her son Jack and Dylan’s cribs were end to end, so they definitely knew each other (which it had already seemed that way). Suddenly, I saw that Dylan was crying. Quietly, but with fear and almost panic in his eyes. I quickly called out to Rita to help explain…we were only here to visit, this doesn’t mean we’re leaving him here, he’s going home with mama and baba. Rita, who is wonderful by the way, stroked his head and explained it all and he calmed down. My eyes were full of tears, just seeing him go through that. No wonder he’s been afraid of his crib – he has bad memories of night time at his orphanage, like so many other adoptive children do. Night time can be scary for any child, but for a child who has laid in his crib in the dark, not knowing if anyone will come if they cry…it makes me so sad. I pray that leaving that room with him is the first step in showing him that his orphanage days are behind him.

An adoptive family traveling before us donated these cribs after they returned home. So, I don’t think Dylan was in his (far right, in the back) for long. The picture I received of him sleeping not too long ago showed him in an old metal crib.

Dylan blowing a kiss to an ayi. I kept him in the Ergo carrier, which made sure he stayed in my arms. I think the ayis understand this.

These young girls (possibly teachers at the orphanage) were thrilled to see Dylan. The one on the far left was one of the orphanage workers with him on Gotcha day – she reached to pick him up and an older woman in back of her shouted something that stopped her – she smiled like she understood and then they talked excitedly to Dylan for a few minutes. He was loved, we can see that.

His playroom – all the kids are at lunch.

We were then met by one of the directors of the orphanage in the hall, and she escorted us to a meeting room. We all sat around a large table with water bottles, fruit, and peanuts awaiting us. We sat down and the other main director of the orphanage joined us. He told us how much he appreciated us giving these children loving homes, and how he knows they will now have a bright future. The female director asked us if there was anything we could do to improve things, and also expressed her gratitude for parenting these children. We asked how many children had been adopted from Luoyang so far this year and were told 80. Fantastic! The gentleman director then stood, and picked up a large scroll. He unrolled it, and it was a gorgeous hand painting of peony flowers…Luoyang is known for it’s peonies and has a popular peony festival each year. Then he floored us by saying that he had one of these scrolls for each of us as a thank you gift. Our jaws dropped…Randy said “is that for us??”. It’s obviously our most treasured souvenier yet.

Our guide Rita is in the orange coat. The lady seated on the right is one of the orphanage directors.

But, he wasn’t done. He then offered to host our lunch at a local restaurant that serves traditional Luoyang food. We piled back in the van, and drove a short way to the restaurant. We sat in a private room, with waitresses bringing in dish after dish to the huge lazy susan in the table. Now, I’ve had several meals so far in Chinese restaurants while here, and have always managed to find things I like. It was harder this time – very unrecognizable things, broiled fish with heads on, very interesting. I finally settled on nibbling on a spring roll, fried noodles, sweet and sour tiny potatoes, and some sliced spicy beef. The director was having a grand time…he toasted us many times, and then explained that since we’d adopted Luoyang children, that we were now part of the family. He then picked us out one by one and told us “who” we were….little sisters, brothers-in-law, etc. It was a hoot. Dylan was in great form today, doing his best to get all the attention by being silly and cute. It was working.

Cheers! The man at the head of the table is the main director…he was quite a character. Toasting every few minutes it seemed!

We gestured that we’d like a picture with him, and he snatched Dylan right up and posed. Dylan, of course, gives his signature peace pose.

Soon, our lunch was over and we were off again. Rita took us to see each of our children’s finding places. The entrance to an underground shopping center, the train station, and finally the entrance to the out-patient building of the Luoyang Central hospital. She took our picture there. So many people milling around, we assume Dylan was left at night.

The 2 hour ride back was mostly silent at first…lots of things to think about and our children were exhausted and snoozing in our arms. We were all happy to arrive back at the hotel.

So, it was an amazing day, and incredibly hard too. But, we know it was worth it to see our child’s home for his first 3+ years, and hopefully worth it for him to realize he’s no longer there, but now with us.

Our newest crew member, showing us his cool side :)

We’ll soon be on our way downstairs to breakfast, before heading to visit Luoyang orphanage today. We have a list of children to find for waiting families and a huge duffle of baby clothes to donate…thanks to so many friends and family who contributed!

I wanted to post a few pictures of yesterday and I’ll do the rest later. Dylan is officially ours, and we have the papers to prove it! That was our day yesterday, doing all the registration and notary paperwork. After it was all done, the registration official declared that all of our children were now ours – we all let out a collective shout of relief and excitement! Then, she presented each of us with our children’s adoption certificate.

Walking up the 6 flights of stairs to the notary office. No elevator.

Outside the notary office. The entire building is filled with smoke…smoking is allowed inside most all buildings in China, including our hotel. Most ALL Chinese men smoke. It’s hard to get used to.

We’ll post more pics later – we had 2 shopping trips yesterday, one to the Lotus Center with the group and another trip to Wal-Mart last night with just us. Lots of great shots of Zhengzhou to come :)

Dylan continues to do very well. He’s decided he doesn’t like his crib anymore…cries a very pitiful, scared cry when we put him in it. So, he’s been napping and sleeping with us at night now. Can’t wait to share more later. Prayers for our visit to the orphanage would be welcome…we just want Dylan to realize that we’re just visiting one last time and he’ll never have to go back there again.

Now that I posted some pics of our little guy, here’s how yesterday went –

We all met in the lobby of our hotel at 9:30. All holding our precious paperwork, gifts, and wearing our anxious smiles. We made it to the Civil Affairs office about 15min. later and saw that one child had already arrived. We all oohed and ahhed over their forever family moment (I was already crying…what would I do when MY child arrived?!?). I walked to the corner of the office to put my things down on a chair, and a cloud of tiny moth-like bugs poofed up. Okay then.

Our group is big…about 16 families total and our children from about 5 different orphanages. We knew the children would come in waves, so we paced the room and waited. About every 15 minutes, a new van would drive up and everyone would start whispering “here come more!”. We were eventually told that the children from Luoyang wouldn’t arrive until nearly 12pm. It wasn’t even 11am yet. So, we enjoyed watching all the other new families and took lots of pictures for everyone.

Then, suddenly, here comes Dylan (who is still Yu Hai right now) in the arms of a nanny. Ahhh!! We were near the door, so we walked right up. The nanny was all smiles and started telling him that I was his mama and Randy his baba. I held out my hands, and as the nanny handed him to me, Yu Hai kissed me. Oh my! He was quiet, no crying, and making eye contact off and on. He fussed a little initially about going to Daddy, but eventually went right to him. Then later, he cried when Randy tried to give him to me. He was so confused, as expected. I can only imagine what his little mind was thinking. We gave him a stuffed frog, and he held onto it with a death grip. We sat in chairs and let him play with a cell phone, which he loved. He loved the fruit puffs we brought, and took water from his sippy cup.

We boarded the bus around 12:30 to go back to the hotel. He sat with me, and played with my necklace a little. We started noticing him copying me…I tapped the window, he tapped the window. Back at the hotel room, we ordered room service and set out some toys on the floor to play with. Stacking cups were a HUGE hit. If you ever consider adopting, do NOT forget these. Lainey loved hers too :) Yu Hai figured them out right away, putting them in the right order, then putting them in different orders, then putting the small ones in the big ones, etc. He’s very detailed and inquisitive in his play – you can tell he’s thinking the whole time. We were told by the nanny at the office that he was considered very handsome and very smart. That’s my guy.

It was while playing that he started smiling. And, pretty soon, he was giggling…and, then laughing right out loud. We believe we have a giggle box on our hands. :)

Lunch came, and we laid out a twin sheet and ate picnic-style. He had congee (watery rice, basically – a staple of every Chinese baby/toddler), rice, and bread. Bread is a favorite of his – mien bao. He lights up when he sees mien bao! Randy and I tried a “beef burger” but it wasn’t much of a success. At least the pizza in the hotel Italian restaurant is AWESOME (we found out the night before Gotcha).

Pretty soon, I had to meet the group with our guides to do paperwork, and Randy laid Yu Hai down on the bed with him to rest – he fell asleep for about 10minutes before I came back and told him they both had to come to the meeting room to complete the paperwork and do Yu Hai’s hand stamp.

A little more playtime, and soon it was dinner time. We decided to try a noodle restaurant in the hotel next door. We got a highchair for Yu Hai, and he played samarai swords with the chopsticks. :) We ended up with dumplings, fried rice, and a beef noodle dish. I tried the noodles, and at first they were great…then, the heat turned up and Randy said they were swimming in curry. It was so hot, it was burning my lips, so I gave that to Randy and ate the rice. Yu Hai acted like he’d been going to restaurants all his life…ate politely, let us help him with his fork, smiled as he ate. Could this truly be this easy??

Back to the hotel, play time, and then PJs and teeth brushed. We laid him in his crib about 8:30, and he laid there quietly until drifting off to sleep soon after. Randy and I also crashed (we had been lying in the dark, quietly, so he could fall asleep).

It was a wonderful first day with our Dylan. We are blessed beyond measure, and all glory and honor goes to our God who ordained this child to us.

I’ll post about today later on…we have to be downstairs in 5 minutes for our trip to the Lotus Center (a.k.a. Wal-Mart). Pictures later I promise!!!

Our first glimpse of him today…

I’ll spend more time later going through all the details of today. But, for now…pictures. In a nutshell, we are in love with this little man.

Today is the day that our touring trip turns into a true adoption trip. We loaded the bus early this morning and made our way to the airport. There are 16 families in our group, which is at least 2 people per family and some have brought their kids or parents. That means, around 40+ Americans poured into the Beijing airport with tons of luggage being pulled behind us. We were quite a sight!

Arriving in Zhengzhou, our guide Yisha along with her assistants Rita and Cindy, met us at the gate and loaded us onto another bus for our trip to the hotel. On the way, she gave us our pep talk on everything coming up, along with our detailed itinerary of the days ahead. Today was spent turning dollars into RMB, setting aside money for all the individual fees and wrapping our gifts for the officials. We unpacked, loaded all of our orphanage donations into one bag, and packed our backpack with Dylan items for tomorrow. We meet in the lobby at 9:30 for the trip to the civil affairs office where our children are being taken to meet their forever families. There are children coming from around 6 or 7 orphanages, and they will come in shifts. I have no idea when Dylan will be there…hoping we don’t have too long to wait!

My cold is better in some ways, and worse in others. My sinus’ aren’t as bad, but my voice is really hoarse and nearly gone. I’m sure Dylan would rather his mom NOT sound like a chain smoker, so I’m hoping it’s better tomorrow.

They delivered the crib this afternoon. Once we’re home, he’ll be in his twin bed. But, we know he’s used to a crib in the orphanage. We’ll see how he likes it…we have a king bed this time around, so he can always bunk with us if he needs to. Hard to believe he’s going to BE here tomorrow.

Randy and I took a walk to the local Wal-Mart here. Zhengzhou is a big and very busy city. It reminds me of what NYC must look like, on a smaller scale. Tons of traffic, horns constantly honking, bicycles and scooters dodging around each other in mad dashes to wherever they’re going. Lots of neon, lights, and the hotels are all decked out for Christmas. The walk was about 15min, and we had to pay close attention while walking…these people don’t look for you! I held tight to Randy’s hand when we crossed the street! We ended up walking right past it, but ran into friends who turned us around. lol…

We bought a few snacks for ourselves and Dylan. If we get a chance, we should bring the camera to Wal-Mart. The “meat” section is especially interesting…too bad we can’t upload the smells. Well, that’s actually a good thing.

We were hoping to find a stroller, but the cheapest one was $60. We’ll be going to a different store tomorrow, so until then we’ll carry him in the Ergo. Randy plans on heading out one of these nights with the camera/video camera to catch Zhengzhou nightlife.

Our meal tonight was pizza in the hotel’s Italian restaurant. Kinda neat, since our last meal before meeting Lainey was also pizza at the hotel in Hefei. I guess we have a tradition there?

We’re all ready for tomorrow. A day we’ve been thinking about and praying for for almost a year. We know that God has it all planned and ready for us, and we trust and believe in that plan.

Dylan coming up!

Looks like Randy has successfully fixed our issues, and here we are! Whoop!! On to the rest of our trip…

So, after our visit to the Hutong area, we vistited the silk factory.

 

 See the tiny thread of silk being woven together and pulled up into the spool?  Each cocoon is made from a single silk thread – not strong enough to use on their own.  So, they weave about 6 together to make the thread.

We then had lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant.  The food was okay, not great.  And, the entertainment was…uh, interesting.  Girls in less than modest costumes dancing to really LOUD music on a stage behind us.  Okie dokie.

Next stop was the Tienamen Square and the Forbidden City.  Even though this was our second time visiting this area, we enjoyed it just as much as the first time.  It’s so large, and the architecture so beautiful – plus, to think of all the history in that place, to imagine the people that have walked those same pathways and courtyards.  It’s really amazing.

 

Our group of adoptive families…most of us are headed to the same province on Sunday.  We’ve met some really nice people on this trip.  The couple to the right of us in the picture, for instance. We discovered that the mom grew up in the town that we now live in – and we found out that we also went to the same college, during the same years, taking the same major, and living on the same floor in the same dorm.  Impossible!  We definitely plan on keeping in touch.

I’m sure the emperor would have frowned on my antics in his courtyard.

Returning to the hotel, we crashed for a little while in the room and almost fell asleep.  It was around 5pm.  Too early for bedtime, so we walked down into the basement of this hotel which leads you to a HUGE upscale mall – (we can afford NOTHING in these boutiques – a cute pair of Lainey size shoes were $100.  I dont’ think so.  Anyway, walk a little further and look down and there is an ice skating rink.  Each night, little Chinese girls take their skating lessons with their very serious coaches critiquing every move.  We found a Subway in the food section, and took sandwiches back to our room.  By about 9:30, we called it a night.

11/27

Up early again, and met the group in the lobby at 8:20.  First stop, jade factory where they walked us through how the turn jade rock into art and jewelry and then we were set free to shop.  Shopping in China is interesting.  If you show even the SLIGHTLY interest in something, there is a sales person beside you urging you to buy.  And, if you do choose to buy that item, they have to take it from you and fill out a purchase ticket.  That item is kept by them and you continue to shop – with the process continuing with each additional item.  It’s a little maddening.

But, I’ll deal with the difficulties if it means I can shop :)

 

Randy makes friends with Mr. Angry Jade Man.

Afterwards, we headed to the Great Wall.  I made it farther than last time, up to the first large tower.  Randy stayed with me this time, rather than flying past me to make it to the top. He figured he did it once, no need to repeat.  It was beyond cold.  I had 4 layers on top, gloves, hat and ear covers and the wind went right through. This time of year, Beijing is just plain COLD.

While at the top, we met two men who were visiting from Turkey. We took a picture for them, and they returned the favor for us. We talked to them a little while about their trip and explained why we were in China. I marvel at little things like that…I’m at the top (almost) of the Great Wall in China, having small talk with travelers from Turkey. I never knew God had little blessings like this in mind for me, but they sure do make me smile.

It’s hard to express in pictures how STEEP these steps are, but this one does a pretty decent job!

Lunch time again, and we went to another restaurant.  This time they brought an innocent looking bottle to the table – we eventually guessed it was Saki wine.  Randy, Kristin, and Thomas were brave and downed a small cup of it.  I heard it felt a little like drinking fire.  Glad I skipped on this one!

Loading up on the bus again, we rode to see the Olympics buildings, the Birdsnest and the Watercube. We weren’t allowed inside, but did walk around the areas outside and were able to take a few pictures. Seeing the amazing archtecture of the Olympic arenas was really cool, but the gaggle of giggling girls that came up to us was priceless. They were teenage girls, and came up to us and asked if they could have their picture taken with us. We said sure, so they all huddled up and their friend took the picture. Then, we asked if I could take their picture with Randy and they giggled some more. After I took the picture, Randy told me that one of them told him “you’re cute”. That’s right, little girl, my husband needs his ego built up just a LITTLE bit more! lol… We also had a young man come up to us, obviously thrilled to find Americans he could try his English on. We enjoyed introducing ourselves and having a small, slightly broken, conversation with him.

Randy, the rock star.

Our last stop was the Acrobat show, which we saw last adoption trip but it was much better this time! We bought the DVD video of the show, to show Dylan while we’re here and for the other kids back home. The lady selling them started out asking 95 RMB, but Randy haggled here down to 60. $10. I’m glad he likes to bargain.

We’re loving our trip so far – the only downside has been my bothersome cold and Randy is having sinus issues. We’re praying we’re feeling much better by Dylan-time. :)

Today was very busy, and jet lag is hitting full force…but, I’m gonna blog at least some of our trip now because I know my audience is waiting. heh. Truthfully, my “gotta blog the trip” mentality won’t let me NOT blog. So…

This was our quick self-portrait as our flight left Atlanta for Seoul, Korea. See how happy we were?

Here we are after arriving in Beijing. Still happy, just worn out from ~ 18 hours of flying!

Today was our first day of touring in Beijing. We went to to the local Hutong neighborhood and met a couple who live in a large courtyard home. We learned that the wife was born there, and the house had originally been owned by her grandparents. Her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson also live with them. The property is worth 3 million american dollars. They have indoor plumbing and own a car. By China’s standards, they are doing well.

Our CCAI guide, George, translates for her as she tells us about her history and then answers our questions. She was very sweet and gracious.

The husband’s hobby is raising racing pigeons. Yep, you read that right. He’s won trophies and everything…here he is, trying to keep them off the roof. Most of the others were in cages.

The wife used to be a biology teacher and is now retired. Her ancestors were calligraphers, so she and her son-in-law continue the practice. We purchased one of the son’s works.

Okay, I’m stopping here and will pick up where I left off tomorrow! We’ll be at the Great Wall, Jade Factory, visit the Olympic games buildings, and then the acrobatic show. With all that coming up, I’ve gotta get some sleep! Night :)