Shhhhhh. She is asleep.

We came back from China last night. What a hellacious return trip. Nina has come down with some bug and is laid up in bed with tissues in her nose. I started my antibiotics a few days ago and have begun to feel a lot better. I think we caught something from Leia. Ahhhhh parenthood.

Right now Leia is snoozing away in her crib. Our old family rocking chair has come into good use now. Leia will rest her head on my chest and I we will both fall asleep. Once I am sure she is in dreamland I will carefully place her into the crib. It is like defusing a bomb. One false move and BLAMMO, she is up. I call it cutting the red wire. But I think my technique has improved.

One piece of our luggage was lost. The one with all of the gifts. Luckily they found it and are dropping it off at our house today. Sunday at that. So despite the headache we will give American Airlines kudos for getting it back to us.

Nina and I would also like to thank all of our friends and family that have helped us out. Jeff for watching our house. Rachel and family for stopping buy to water our plants and for providing us with food on our return to we did not have to go out shopping right away. And also my Mom and Jady for driving us home from the airport.

Well its onto parenthood. I hear a faint whimper coming from upstairs. Until later.

Jesse

Earthquake Up North

Hello everyone.

We are fine. The Earthquake was way up north. We barely felt a tremor.

Will post again soon.

Jesse

Leia's Mile Stones

It has been busy for us the last few days taking Leia here and there.  Yesterday we went to the gardens in Guangzhou.  They are really beautiful in their own right but with the 2008 Olympics around the corner the gardens have been Disneyified with cartoon like anime creatures and gaudy looking building props.   It was a really nice day though.  Visibility was about 2 miles which really makes the city look bigger than it is under normal conditions.  

Yesterday we also went out to dinner with the other families to a Thai restaurant on Shemian Island.  I got my traditional Masaman Chicken and mango sticky rice for dessert.

Yesterday we also had the traditional family photo done at the hotel. All of the families in the adoption group buy a traditional Chinese outfit for their daughter and have their picture taken on the White Swan's red couch.  Because we were rushed Nina and I ran into a store right around the corner and almost picked one at random.  We will get her a real one later.  The ones in town seem cheap.  Photo is below. 

Leia is really starting to open up with only 5 days of one on one attention.  When we picked her up she seemed very introspective.  She would quietly sit in your arms and look around.  Today sits on the floor with us and loves to play.  She is a great mimic.  When I yawn she will open her mouth right after me.  I have a game I play with here where I thrown my arms in the air or grab my stomach and she will follow along.  I cannot wait to play Simon Says with her.  I think I have taught her to say Da Da but it could be Mandarin for "white man with big nose".  She is great fun to play with.  She also has a great laugh.

She is also actively crawling around now and can stand with some help.  She can pull her self up to a standing position with the help of a stationary object but has yet to master the balance for standing on her own.  She is a quick learner though.

Nina is feeling a little sick.  Probably something we ate or fecal poisoning from handling diapers.

Sick Baby

Since we have had Leia she has had a snotty runny nose and a gurgly cough.  It cleared up a day or so ago and it came back today.  So we took her to the hotel Doctor who told us she has a mild case of bronchitis.  The doctor recommended some antibiotics that they could give us or use the ones on hand they our own pediatrician prescribed.  After placing a 10:00 PM call to our Dr. in Richmond she concurred and suggested that we also give her some benedryl to clear up some of her chest congestion.   

Leia likes to be held a lot.  She is most comfortable when we are walking around with her or just standing.  But if we sit down in a seat half the time she will begin to whimper, cry or squirm.  My routine for getting her to sleep is to rock her for about 1/2 hour before bedtime, which here is about 9:00PM.  Once she is limp I slowly ease her down into the crib while rocking.  She will usually wake for about 30 seconds throwing a minor fit and then will just switch off and go back to sleep.  She sleeps pretty soundly.  If I hear here wake at night and cry I just walk over and use my hand to rub her back or belly.  After 5 seconds she will switch off again.

Yesterday we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with our adoption group.  It was really fun as I got to eat chicken feet for the first time.  What a delicacy. Tastes just like chicken.   

When we are out in town I carry Leia in one of those baby Snugly like a kangaroo.  She seems to like it.  I try to mind meld with her when she stares up at me.

Leia is also officially ours according to the Chinese Government.  Now we just have to get the U.S. government to accept her.

Hope things are well at home.  I have attached some pictures.  One of them is of a pool they sell here in China for children.  Not sure if it would be allowed in Toys R Us for sale.

Jesse

Gotcha Day

Sorry it’s been so long, we’ve been busy. Yesterday was Gotcha Day. Which started off with a 10 am meeting with the adoption guides going over the days proceedings. All 8 families gathered into a meeting room. I was so nervous I wasn’t sure what I’d do. It was like getting butterflies before

heading out for the start box on cross country. You know that nervous anticipation that you get. Once the starter counts down for me “You have 10 seconds…..followed by 5, 4, 3 2 1, go…..” I get super nervous. But as soon as I head out of the box I’m fine. Yesterday was like that. I thought I was going to fall over from the weight of the anticipation all morning long. But at 3:30 pm when I held Leia in my arms I was alright. All the gittery nerves dropped away.

She was amazing, never a peep, just stared up at me with big wondering eyes, clutching on for dear life. When I tried to sit her on my knee she’d fuss until I held her close again. When I handed her off to Jesse she would cry, but quieted the moment I held her and stood up to walk around. She was silent by the second step I’d taken, the 3^rd pat on the back. I sang to her the song my Grand Nina sang to me. Although I only know 1 verse. So Mom or Aunt Anna you need to email me the rest of the song! CooCoo Bird sits in the Old Gum Tree, (Or is it CooCoo Burra sits…). Of all the babies crying and fussing in the room that day she was the quietest. She must have been just overwhelmed.

We came back to the hotel room and hurried our little prize off to our room. Hunkered down for the night. That’s when the fussing began. I handed her off to Jesse, he was dying to hold her. Leia cried for a little wile then realized that he was just as good as me in the holding department. I went through about 5 different bottles trying to figure out how to get the formula/rice cereal mixture to her liking. (We never did get to eat that night, but did manage to get some water in her. She fell asleep on his chest. Jesse put her down in he crib and got her to go back to sleep. Amazing she slept from 8:30 to 6am. She even slept through a serous coughing fit at 3 am. She’s had a cold in the orphanage

Leia loves to be held. We think she is a little scared because when we put her down she will cry again. It may have something to do with her past. She is doing well otherwise. We play with her on the bed a lot. It is amusing that her favorite toy is an empty roll of toilet paper and not a Fisher Price approved toy. I checked the safety rating on the roll but it must have been forgotten.

Leia likes to eat mush and formula/mush. I did get to feed her some yogurt on my lap. I will try to crush some fruit for her next.

She is now sitting on my lap as I type. By the way she is officially ours according to China. Next we need to work with the the US side of things.

Nina’s Notes on the trip so far…

Jesse’s been writing the blog all along because I type with the speed of a ground sloth. It takes hours and typically I hit some button a lose the post. But I wanted to add some of my thoughts on this trip so far.

Wow to be in China, wonderful. I type this on Tuesday morning. Yesterday our trip into Foshan was memorial on so many levels. It was a sharp contrast to what we have seen so far in our little tourist centered section of Guangzhou.

Foshan lies about 45 min by car west of Guangzhou. Foshan has a population of 3 million and Guangzhou 75.9 million. It all translates the same, densly populated and closely packed high rise buildings all over the place. The sides and median of the roadways are planted in well trimmed hedges of Hibiscous and other tropical plants. Blooming tree species and manicured lawn. The trees are all propped up with bamboo scaffolding, which makes me think that this is in preparation for the Beijing Games. (The Olympic Torch comes through Guangzhou on Wednesday)

Our first stop was the Ancestral Temple Complex called Zu Maio. The Huang Fei Hong Memorial Hall is attached to its side. We walked through the beautiful gate and around the grounds. Senior citizens over age 65 and over are given free pass to the grounds and sit clustered in groups, talking, eating, playing chess or other games and in general passing the time with friends and family. The smells of incense burning drew us towards the Temple Complex where crowds of Chinese (mostly elderly) gathered to burn incense, and hang gold and red colored prayer flags. Ok the guide called them “wishes” and that they were requests for good harvest, good catch at sea or healthy children and the like. The temple was gorgous, the roof tiled and edged in intricate carvings. The craftsmanship and detail was overwelming.

We walked on towards the Wong Fei Hong Memorial Hall. It was fun to read through the exhibit and recognize actor’s faces we had seen in Chinese Kung Fu movies… from the well-known Bruce Lee to lesser known but equally recognizable faces from some Stephan Chow films. As Jesse mentioned our guide coaxed a few members to perform for us (as the rain earlier had cancelled the normal daily performance) We saw 2 young boys a teen and a man perform individually lightening fast martial arts maneuvers. They are really really fit, fast, disciplined and good. It was a special treat.

Next we walked over to the Foshan Folk Art Institute, which sat next to the Buddhist Renshou Temple. We had the Folk art Institute to ourselves. An institute guide took us on a tour of the building and the artwork. We viewed room after room of paper cut arts, paintings, jade chops and figurines, rocks, furniture etc. It was exhausting and overwhelming and caught us off guard as we had expected a tiny little shop of folk art souvenirs, not a vast complex. The temple next door pulsed with the chanting of hundreds of souls and the incense was thick in the air. I longed to be over with them, caught up in some ritual proceedings and immersed in a cultural strangeness and not stuck in this shopper’s purgatory. But the art was lovely and we did buy a lot of things.

Next stop was the Liang House and Garden. A wealthy families house and grounds turned over to the public in the 1980’s (I think) was an incredible sight. Beautiful traditional Chinese architecture. Lovely grounds and gardens. Again, this was the China I had come to see. The carp in the ponds literally bolted for us when we made our appearance at poolside. Hundreds of fish looking for a treat tossed their way. Birds in cages squawked and mimic the guide saying Hello in Chinese.

Then onto LUNCH. There is a Chinese saying that a perfect life is “to be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangshou, and die in Liuzhou.” The food here is very very good. We had asked that our guide and driver eat with us as our guests and that they take us to a Chinese restaurant. The guide was a bit surprised. She said that normally families ate at the MacDonald’s or KFC. The restaurant was in a 4star hotel in Foshan. The guide ordered for us, and we shared 4 main dishes. Chicken, a dish of 5 or 6 different types of mushrooms and fungi that I didn’t recognize but thoroughly enjoyed, a dish of beef and greens, and a dish best described as a chunk of pork bone simmering in a clear broth with leafy veggies. All Absolutely delicious.

Then next was the Ancient Nanfeng Kilns in the nearby town of Shiwan. The difference between Foshan and Shiwan was unrecognizable. You drive down the same busy, congested road lined with shops at the base of tall buildings to arrive at a kiln site and village surrounded and swallowed by the city.

Note on the driving in China……it’s not really the white knuckled ride everyone makes it out to be. Sure it is different than the us, but they have a system that works for them. The reason the Chinese can drive the way that they do (darting about with apparent abandon on super crowded highways…remember 75.9 million…) is only because the Chinese look where they are going and they are POLITE within reason AND they accept personal responsibility. The other drivers begrudgingly allow you to push your way in; the pedestrians pat attention to their surroundings and get out of the way of a car or bike as it pulls onto the sidewalk to park. If anyone drove like that in the US people would be screaming lawsuit.

Nanfeng was again an exceptional treat. 2 huge ancient dragon kilns climbing their way up the hillside, a rabbit warren of a historical village clustered at the kilns side. The buildings no longer lived in but now filled with pottery shops, demonstration areas and work sites. Echoing through the village was the haunting sounds of Cantonese opera. The sound of a woman singing a Chinese opera is something that just pulls my heart out. It’s absolutely beautiful. We followed the sounds and found its source. A large courtyard led to a room, in the center of which sat a large table around which 8 men and women sat, smoking, talking, meeting, eating, whatever…I’m not sure what they were doing. I felt like I had just stumbled into someone’s living room. But they all looked up at our intrusion and smiled and waved at us. Just past them in an encove was a man and a woman, each with a microphone in had, singing. They were following the words and images on a TV of a famous Cantonese Opera…. A lot like Karaoke. But hauntingly beautiful. We stood transfixed, turned on our tiny digital cameras, set them to video and enjoyed the music.

WOW from there we drove back to our hotel, said goodbye to ort wonderful guide and driver. Went to our rooms, showered and changed. Jesse slept all afternoon…he’s sleeping now Tues am as I type this. He’s still stuck on US time, sleeping during the day, up all night…..But today is his birthday…eh can sleep in.

So last nights dinner was in close, Jesse had napped all afternoon and wanted to sleep more….I needed food and I needed to calm my digestive system down. I had spent the entire week previous to our trip to China with a stomach bug and had eaten only oatmeal, white rice and toasted bread in attempts to calm my stomach down. So in China I was popping pepto bismal to stave off the final throes of the stomach bug….NOT b/c the food or water here disagreed with me. So for dinner I headed for Lucy’s and American style restaurant. Think bad greasy spoon coupled with really bad American style Chinese food and you get the picture. I can see the value of such a place if you were traveling with a finicky teenaged or middle school aged child from the west as the menu has things like grilled cheese sandwiches, French fries and PB&J on it.

Live and learn.

Tuesday we have nothing planned, Jesse will sleep all day. I’ll find a reasonably priced laundry service and sit and fret and stew in anticipation of tomorrow. Gotcha Day. That was the main reason yesterday in Foshan was so wonderful, it captured my mind and kept it from wandering to Leia, and my New Mom worries…..

Later, Nina B

A Visit To Fushan

On Tuesday we went to Fushan which is about 45 minutes west of Guangzhou.  Before I begin I have to emphasize what excellent drivers the Chinese are here.  I am completely serious.  Place anyone of our U.S. NASCAR drivers on the streets of China and they will be blubbering like a baby within the first two minutes.  The rule of the road is No Holds Barred.  Signals....Haaaaaa, not needed here.  Just careen into the lane you want to enter and let others figure out your intentions.   To picture exactly what it is like.  Imagine I-95 in a traffic jam. Now add one million motorcycles, two million bicyclists, and 4 million pedestrians.  Now picture them weaving in and out of each others lane at 50 MPH.  That about sums up the Ben-Hurian driving experience. Our driver was excellent and brought us through the ordeal in one piece.  I tipped him well needless to say.

Driving really gives you an excellent picture of life in China.  Primarily the vast population.  It is as if all of the open land was cleared for towering apartment complexes all densely fit together.  However the streets are lined with beautiful landscaping.  A really neat mix of two different worlds.

Our first stop was the memorial shrine to Huang Fei Hung, one of China's most famous martial artists and doctors.  This was a beautiful temple that we paid about 20 Yuan or 2.00 U.S. dollars to enter.  Elderly people over 60 are allowed to enter it for free.  Inside is a maze of stone hallways filled with golden statues and intricately carved wooden scenes of China's culture. Further back inside the temple is the school that Huang Fei Hung operated.  Because it was raining the martial arts demonstration was cancelled but our tour guide managed to get three young martial artists to perform for us.  It was fascinating.  

The next stop was an Arts and Crafts center that sold traditional Chinese crafts.  They had rooms full of Chinese landscape ink paintings, paper cut pictures, ceramic artwork, and jade. From the quality of the work you could tell that hours and hours were spent creating these pieces of art.  We bought a few items and moved along to the next stop on the tour. 

Next was a garden complex that was in the former home of a well known local figure.  This person must have been very wealthy because of the beautiful stateliness of the complex. Entering through the main gate we came upon a shrine that many locals come to to pray for a male child.  

Further back the structure is broken up into long hallways and adjoining rooms that the family used to live in.  The entire structure is made of stone and brick, capped with ceramic tile shingles running in columns down from the roof.  The garden was beautiful.  A long walkway circled around the gardens which had a central pond about 2 acres in area in its center. Thousands of Koi goldfish swam in the pond with two geese making their presence known with their honking.  There were also about 200 bonsai style trees to look at throughout the garden. Some of them must have been at least 150 years old.

After that we headed out for lunch at a local hotel/restaurant.  We let the tour guide pick our food.  All of it was good.

Lastly we headed out for the large pottery complex in Fushan.  It is really best to describe this as an old working village whose existence is for the running of the two large kilns.  These are not the kilns used in your college pottery elective but massive super structures built up the slope of a hill.  The length of both kilns is probably about 65 yards long and about 10 feet in height by 10 feet wide.  Apparently these kilns have been running none stop for the last 500 years.

Inside the working village are shops selling all manner of items related to pottery.  We bought a few beautifully made figurines.  While we were walking through the village we heard clear voices singing.  The sounds echoed nicely throughout the stone village.  We walked towards them and came upon a group of older folks sitting around a table playing a card game.  Behind them was a lady and man singing karaoke style, traditional Chinese opera.  It was really moving.

After that we were pretty much worn out and asked our tour guide to take us home.   Our ride back home was uneventful and we gladly tipped our guide and driver for an excellent day.  We will have lots of wonderful memories to share with Leia.

On Wednesday we will see Leia.  Tomorrow we plan on just relaxing.