Red Couch pics & Consulate appt

Today was a crazy, jam-packed today. This morning was our consulate appointment, at which Zhilu’s visa paperwork was submitted. We didn’t attend the appt (our agency reps handle it), but we did have to stay in our room from 9:30 to 10:30 to be available if they called with any problems. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but when Mama decides to press the snooze button for nearly an hour, I was then left with 30 minutes to shower, dress, run downstairs to the breakfast buffet to grab yogurt and bananas, then race back up to wait by the phone. It was a bit harried.

Once we got our “all clear” call from our agency rep, we then had 10 minutes to walk to the other side of the island to their hotel to have our departure meeting. Yay… departure! We got the details of when and how they would coordinate getting all 16 families to the airport at the required times, and other tips for leaving. CCAI definitely has the most amazing in-China staff ever, and they take such good care of us, telling us everything we need to know, every step of the way. After the meeting, we all rushed to change our children into traditional Chinese clothing, and then headed down to take the classic “Red Couch” pictures. These are a long-standing tradition for adoptive families, to take photos on the red couches at the White Swan hotel.

Zhilu was not amused by the picture taking, but I was able to snap a few good ones before he went into full meltdown mode. Poor kid… we had very little time in our day for play, which just doesn’t bode well for an energetic two year old. The best photos were the ones with all the babies… I just couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of trying to get 16 young children to all pose for a picture. Poor kiddos! But we got the pics!





After photos, we headed for a quick lunch at Lucy’s. There we said goodbye to two of our dear friends from our group… they are heading for home late tonight. We have been lucky to have such a wonderful group of families traveling with us, and we’re going to miss them all so very much.

After lunch, we had to head to the US Consulate to take an oath swearing that we had submitted true and accurate information on our children’s visa paperwork, and then sign one last piece of paper. Its now official! Zhilu’s visa has been approved, and once he lands on US soil at JFK, he will officially be a US citizen. It was an emotional moment, I think mostly because this marks our final step in this journey, and it means that we are so close to being home. My heart breaks for Zhilu leaving his homeland, and for our time being nearly over here, but I’m so ready to get home to my girls and be together as a family once and for all.





We got back from the consulate around 4:30 and then it was time for another round of goodbyes… for two more of our dear friends from our group. A majorly emotional day! I tried to cheer myself up with some shopping, but Zhilu wasn’t having any of that. We had dinner at Lucy’s again. A family who has an older son with albinism who looked just like Zhilu when he was little saw we were alone for dinner and invited us to sit with them. However, the tiny table did not allow for the 3-4 foot radius I need around Zhilu in order to prevent him from grabbing, throwing, knocking, kicking anything… so they had an eventful dinner helping me stop him from destroying the dinner table. Not sure they’ll invite me to a meal again, haha! But it was really nice to have the company and get to chat with them.

I love this picture from dinner cause he looks like he's giving the peace sign... just like all the cool kids in China do for their photos. :)



After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to do bathtime and bedtime. He’s now sleeping peacefully thank goodness… this mama was ready for a break from the “toddler-ness”. Here's a pic of one of his favorite past-times, when mama forgets that the latch to the bathroom door doesn't work so well...


And here's a pic of an Angry Zhilu, after I took the camera away (the camera that he had slyly swiped from the desk, right under my nose, without me even noticing)


Looking forward to a fun day tomorrow as we are heading to the Safari park, which is supposed to be amazing. We can’t wait. Two more nights until we begin our journey home!!!

Busy day in Guangzhou

Wow… what a full day today, I am wiped OUT! We started with a group trip to the pearl market… I wanted to get out of the hotel room, and maybe get some ideas of what I’d like on my list for shopping later. We hit McD’s for lunch again, since we needed to get back to the hotel to get ready for the big afternoon shopping trip. Zhilu got his first official happy meal, complete with a toy and a cute little Chinese McD's milk carton.


Shopping with Ann from www.redthreadchina.com was just as fun as it was last time. She found us some amazing deals on jade pieces, pearls, silk clothing… it was a blast! I can’t fully describe the shopping experience with her… she’s a teeny tiny lady, she is FAST, and she knows her stuff. She was hilarious to be around… and she’s a tough cookie. At one point, she had us crossing three lanes of traffic in the middle of the road… no crosswalk. It was crazy! She also kept having us all (three ladies, two babies) load into a taxi really quickly, so they couldn’t refuse to take us, after having one cabbie decline to take us because he thought it was too short of a trip. And we had one cabbie who was talking to himself a lot, so when we were leaving the cab, she told him “We think you are really crazy because you talk to yourself”. Ha! She cracked us up.



After shopping, we had a dinner cruise on the pearl river. It was a buffet dinner, but I wasn’t adventurous enough to try much… but the view from the front deck was amazing and it was nice to be out in the cool air. Zhilu had fun on the deck, though he was pretty ready to get back to the hotel room to play a bit, since he’d spent a whole lot of the day cooped up in either the sling or the stroller.







Check out the funny face Zhilu is making in this photo… It cracks me up!


This is a picture of my friend’s son and Zhilu… we got so many comments today with people thinking they were biologically related, or twins. Aside from the white hair, they really don’t look alike at all, but we just smile and laugh. Tonight, as we were walking back to our hotel, the two little guys were playing a little back and forth yelling/grunting game. It’s really the first time they’ve interacted with each other, even though we’ve been around each other a ton the past few weeks. It was super cute!


Big day tomorrow, so I’m going to cut this short… only a few more days until we are heading home… Can’t wait to see my girls!!!

And the shopping begins...

Monday, Dec 6th

This morning we met up with our group to get our kiddos TB tests read. Zhilu’s was fine, and then we were free to enjoy our day. Myself and two other moms (with kiddos in tow!) decided to venture off the island to do some shopping. I was excited to figure out how to be able to do it again, when I’m going stir crazy at the end of the week and needing an escape. It was nice to be back in “real” China again, instead of this sheltered Disney-esque experience here on the island (which I love, too, but need variety). I was on a quest to find diapers, and didn’t manage that, but we did find McDonalds! I realized that the location we ended up in is where our travel group is headed back to tomorrow, so I’ll have time to look around again.










We headed back after eating lunch, and I was able to get Zhilu to nap… yay! Mama napped too… I love it. After we got up, we played a bit, walked a bit, shopped a bit (found some GREAT deals!), and then headed out to dinner with friends. Zhilu has this lovely habit of throwing his food once he’s done with his meal, and he has these crazy go-go-gadget arms that seem to reach EVERYTHING, so he’s an interesting one to bring to these nice restaurants. But we made it through, and he was hanging in enough to do some more strolling and window shopping. (Do you notice a theme to our time here… eat and shop! )

We stopped back by the store that had the great deals earlier for a bit more shopping… I found a marionette dragon that I had been willing to pay more than $30 for at our local FCC auction, priced here for about $6. I love it! I remember Mom and I getting some really good deals at this store last time. The frustrating thing about shopping here is that many of the merchants are open to haggling… and I just hate doing that. So I love to come to a store where she just gives you the lowest price. The particular item I bought was 65 RMB, and at several other shops, the price had been about 110-120 RMB. For the exact same item! The shop owner is super sweet, too… she asked me if she could take my picture, to add to her book of customers. And she gave me (and my friends) several free gifts just for shopping in there. I’ll definitely be heading back!



We headed back to the hotel and did a quick spin through the playroom… Zhilu is getting bored with it already. But he LOVED wearing his very first pair of squeaky shoes… (and mama will be removing the squeaker probably ASAP, since they drive me bonkers!) . Then back to the room for skyping with Daddy and the girls. Zhilu had a lovely temper tantrum right in the middle of it, and the girls thought it was hilarious when I pointed the webcam at him and they saw him rolling around on the floor kicking his legs. I told them to get ready for it! He’s all boy, and he’s all two…. It may be funny over webcam, but it’s going to be less so in real life.

After that we did his bath, which he loved again and was back to being all smiles. Then it was snack and bed-time. He fell asleep a lot easier today, which is good, so I am back on schedule with all my blogging.

I’m including a picture of the children’s school, which is right next to our hotel. The older children were still in school at 8:00pm… what a long day for them! It seems like the younger children get dismissed earlier. When Zhilu and I were out walking before dinner, some young girls stopped us and wanted to chat. It was so cute, they obviously were just learning English and could say very simple things like “What is your name”, “Where are you from”, and the very best “You are our friend”. Adorable! And they giggled and acted all shy, but they really sounded great. The funniest thing was that they each had already picked an American name for themselves… similar to what we experience with all the guides around here, and the shop owners. They were “Kelly” and “Minnie”. Too cute!


So, our hotel being next to this school is very interesting… during nap time, it was obviously band-practice time. Thank goodness both Zhilu and I could sleep through anything, cause it is SO noisy here… and they’ve got a PA system that just blares so very loudly. I don’t remember this from last time, but last time there were some crazy noisy animals on the roof, so maybe this is the trade-off.

I found out tonight that we are exactly one floor lower than the room I was in with Leah… same room, though. I was setting up with a guide here to go shopping tomorrow and she said “I have your room number written as 3588”… it was our room number from last time. This time around its 3488. It would have been neat to have been in the exact same room, but this is close enough.

So tomorrow is another big day of shopping! In the morning, our group is headed back to the shopping area we visited today… I’m hoping to window shop and be ready for our shopping trip with a guide later in the afternoon. Ann runs a care package service which we used a few times to send things to Zhilu in the orphanage, but she also offers personal shopping service where she takes you around to the best merchants and haggles the deals. We got some amazing prices last time around, so I’m hoping to get the same sort of deals this time. Then at night, we are headed out on a dinner cruise… should be fun!

Touring in Guangzhou

Sunday, Dec 5th

We had a great day in Guangzhou today. We started off by touring with our group… our first stop was a Buddhist temple. I had Zhilu blessed at the temple, in true Unitarian Universalist style of embracing all different faiths. It was a very special moment, and I wish Adam had been there to be a part of it.








Our next stop was the family Chen house… it’s a historic location that they’ve now turned into a folk art museum. I’m a little fuzzy on the exact details as its hard to pay attention when you’ve got a squirmy two year old with you. It was very sunny and very hot, so we walked around the house jumping from one bit of shade to another. Zhilu still wants nothing to do with his hat and sunglasses, so I’m having to chill out a bit and hope that eventually he’ll get used to them. For now, we’re just keeping up with the sunscreen and trying to stick to share as much as possible.






The final stop was a government run souvenir shop which seemed very expensive. Our guide kept saying everything there was really good quality, but it had many of the exact same things you can find here on the island for cheaper. I suppose if you were looking for higher quality big ticket items, you might want to shop here but Zhilu and I just looked around. The big hit was finding the grocery store across the street carried his favorite milk-juice-box thingies… he hasn’t wanted to drink any of the milk I’ve found here, but he loves those. I stocked up on those.



We came back and had lunch at Lucy’s, which Zhilu slept through mostly. I then was tried to go back to the hotel for him to finish his nap, but he was not interested. Didn’t he realize that mama wanted a nap, too? LOL At 4:45, we met with our guides to finish up our paperwork for our Consulate appointment on Wednesday. It was really very simple to do… the process has changed since Leah’s adoption, and now you do a lot more of the steps ahead of time, so it’s nice not having to worry about much paperwork while you’re here with your child.

After paperwork, a group of us went to a local Chinese restaurant for an authentic meal. It was delicious! And aside from Zhilu throwing a sippy cup and knocking over a whole glass of water into other dishes (thankfully not shattering the glass!), we had a lovely evening. We were lucky to have a woman who’s been living here in China for many years as part of our group, so she was a tremendous help in helping us order dishes which had a more ‘American’ Chinese feel… ie. No eel, fish with heads, chicken feet, etc. We all had a great time and then strolled the island for a bit after dinner.



Zhilu is turning into quite the night owl, so when everyone else was heading to their rooms for bed, Zhilu and I headed up to the playroom. We met another family there, and had a nice time chatting. Zhilu was climbing up a slide and going down all by himself… it was so exciting so watch, and he loved it. We then headed back to the room and I tried to get him to sleep, but he was quite fidgety and it took longer than expected. I think he’s still expecting Adam to be around for bed-time, and we’ve completely messed up his routine. Hopefully, he’ll settle more once he gets to see Adam’s face tomorrow morning.

You'll notice a lot fewer pictures now, seeing as I've lost my cameraman! I'll try my best!!

No post for today

Zhilu whole bedtime routine has been thrown off balance because Daddy's not here anymore, so he's not falling asleep right now like he should be. I'm going to give up on trying to stay awake in order to right up today's entry after he falls asleep, since it looks like that's going to take quite a while. I will try to catch up tomorrow...

First day in Guangzhou

Saturday, Dec 4

We were thrilled last night to find out that we didn’t need to meet up with our group this morning until 10:20am, so despite our long day yesterday, we all got some great sleep. The breakfast buffet here at the Victory is not as fancy as the previous hotels, but it has got all the staples that we’ve been eating every day. Being in Guangzhou is a lot of fun because all the US adoptive families have to stop here on the way back home, so there are families and children everywhere. It started at breakfast, where we were already chatting with a father who was here completing his fourth adoption, and then in the lobby, where we met a mom who has an older son with albinism back home. It’s going to be fun meeting new people over this next week while I am here.

The group of families staying at the White Swan ventured up to our hotel, and then we were all off for visa photos. All the kids did great, and the photographer moved us in and out quickly. It was very efficient. Then we all headed over to get the medical examination, required by the US in order for a visa to be issued. The clinic is a complete madhouse… there are dozens of families, multiple ‘stations’ to visit and the ‘technology’ they use is hilarious… they test hearing by squeezing a squeaky toy in a child’s ears, they look in ears with a standard flashlight, the ‘exam’ lasts about 30 seconds during which how much could they possibly even see. But Zhilu passed with flying colors, and then we just had to get the required TB test placed. Poor guy did not like that at all, but recovered quickly. We then had the day free.

We ate lunch at Lucy’s with a couple of folks from our travel group. Lucy’s serves western style food, and is like the quintessential adoptive family experience. You can’t visit Shamian Island (which is the part of Guangzhou on which all the hotels, shops, and medical clinic is) and not go to Lucy’s. Adam had a burger, which looked amazing, but later he said he wasn’t sure it really was hamburger meat. He’s hoping that it was maybe a soy-burger, but given that the Guangdong provincial cuisine is famous for using ALL sorts of animals, I’m thinking maybe it was something else. But we’ll say it was a soy-burger, and I’ll make a mental note to not order a hamburger later this week.

Zhilu was getting tired during lunch, so Adam took him over to a nearby playground once they had finished eating. Supposedly, they had a nice time playing, but the temper tantrum on the way over was a doozy and Adam’s got a scratch to show for it. The temper tantrums are becoming more frequent now, which I keep reminding myself is a really good thing. The first few days, Zhilu wouldn’t even leave our side in the room… he was petrified. Then he started getting comfortable enough to venture around the room. Now, he’s comfortable enough to share his feelings and test some boundaries… just typical toddler stuff, but good progress in our relationship. And the fact that we continue to love him and care for him after these tantrums reinforces the bond that we are building. It’s funny, because I can actually see that happening... skipping ahead a bit, he threw a tantrum tonight for some reason I can’t even remember and during it, he kept swatting my hand away and turning his back to me. But once he was done, he was reaching out and wanting to snuggle again… like he’s asking, do you still love me after I showed you that? It’s very neat to watch it unfold. And the tantrums are amusing, too, because he likes to give this little grump face, and stomp his feet to make his point, all coming from this tiny little smiley sweet boy… it’s hard not to laugh at how cute he is, even in the middle of the tantrum.

Anyways… back to our day… after lunch, we headed back to the hotel to let Zhilu (and mama!) get a nap. I sent Adam off to tour Shamian Island, since he was going to be leaving this evening. The island is truly gorgeous… it a locale similar to Florida, so the weather is sunny and warm. And the island was once owned by the British, so the building have this colonial feel to them. Adam says it reminds him of walking through Epcot center… you can tell how cultured we are! Adam had a great time wandering, he spent half an hour talking with one of the shop owners (the true Shamian experience!), and came home with a sword and a feathered hacky sack. I wish he had been able to have more time here to enjoy it, but I’m so glad that he’ll be home with the girls soon.

After nap-time, we got Adam all set to go to the airport and then dropped off laundry with Adam’s new best bud, Judy, a shop owner. Hopefully, everything comes back fresh and clean… there are numerous places here on the island which will do laundry, and it’s hard to know exactly which to use. It’s getting old wearing the same few outfits, but at least I’m not washing things in the tub anymore.
We headed back to the hotel and Zhilu and daddy had some last minute playtime. Then we had to say goodbye… I didn’t expect it to be so hard, but we are really going to miss him and its going to be a long week alone here. I’m so thankful to my parents and my sister for holding down the fort with our girls so Adam could be here for this much of the trip… he missed the entire trip last time, and never felt that special bond to China that we all did after the experience. Now, he’s been here, he’s seen China’s beauty, he’s interacted with her people, and he will be a better parent to our Chinese children because of it. We can’t thank you enough!!!

Zhilu and I joined our travel group for a dinner at the nearby Thai restaurant. The food was good, and he ate like a champ. Notice the photo of the dish at the end… its tofu and broccoli. He loved it! Then it was back to the room for bath-time… this time, he didn’t want to get out… the boy loves the water! What a change from his very first bath where he was terrified. He raided the mini-bar drawer while I was occupied getting pictures off the camera, and then had another temper tantrum when I had to pry the bottle of Jack Daniels out of his hand. LOL… making his Uncle Colin proud! At bed-time, he didn’t want to lay down, and kept peeking his head out the doors into the living area. He didn’t say anything, but I’m convinced he was looking for Adam since he had been the one to lie with him at bed-time. Poor little guy… he doesn’t understand what happened to Adam, and I have no way of telling him that he will see him again. Hopefully, seeing Adam on skype in a few days will help.

I just heard from Adam that he has arrived safely in Hong Kong, so that’s my cue to give up on the blogging and get some sleep. We are joining the group for some touring of Guangzhou and have a pretty early meeting time (well, early for us anyways). Again, I’m just throwing in the photos at the end… tomorrow, I’ll get them inserted properly in the entry.