Life with our Little Monster

It has been a day or two since we blogged, mostly because Larry wanted to write the next one but then didn't get around to it. Also, since the Little Monster is no longer sick, she naps only about half as much!

She sleeps through the night most nights, and wakes up giggling and ready to play! In the mornings, she likes to start the day by playing all of the games she has learned from us so far: the tongue game, the Indian noise game, the popping game, etc. and she giggles the whole time. She doesn't wake up from naps quite so easily, however, and likes to be held for awhile after she wakes up from naps.

She also will still breathe through her blanket and hold a toothbrush when she is stressed, but those times are few and far between lately. Additionally, it has been 4 days since stray tears of sadness ran silently down her cheeks.

Usually for breakfast, she sits in her high chair and eats a three course breakfast: scrambled eggs, followed by either bread or oatmeal, and then for dessert she has a banana. We cannot even let her see a banana before the first 2 courses are completed or she will refuse all food and go straight to banana.

She enjoys playing in the hotel play room, which is all carpeted and padded and full of toys and is sponsored by Matel. We like to take her there to tire her out before a nap. She goes down for naps easily, but she hates bedtime. Surprisingly to both of us, Larry is a better disciplinarian to her particularly regarding bedtime. She wrestles and fights and screams and wants to play her games and Larry will tell her no and keep rocking her. I can't help laughing. Last night I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt and Larry had to take her and get her to sleep. She was just so silly- squirming and yelling and trying to get me to play with her I couldn't help but laugh.

Despite our initial perception of Guangzhou as a tropical paradise, it has rained for the last 3 days and been cold (not Beijing-cold, but cooler that we would have planned for ourselves) so we have been stuck in-doors. Thank Matel for that playroom!

We have also done some shopping for Abigail and have selected some very nice gifts to give her throughout the coming years. We are quite pleased with ourselves and hope she will like the gifts. It was recommended that we get her some "special" Chinese things, and not because we can't find "made in China" things in the US, but to get her some precious things actually purchased on the adoption trip.

We could not be happier with this child in our lives. Adoption was our first choice for building a family because it just felt "right" to us and we were absolutely correct with this decision!!! She is such a bundle of joy and fun and love. She is intellectually curious. It is amazing that someone who can't even speak can be so funny. Every time I look at her, I feel like I am looking at her for the first and last time so I just want to soak her up.

Guess who has a boo-boo

Abigail wanted all of her people to know that she has a boo-boo, we don't know what type, and that-despite her screams- the doctor was only cleaning the wound, not amputating the finger.

(There was stuck-on cookie on her finger around the wound and the doctor found very puzzling. Larry kept telling our interpreter that it was cookie, but the doctor didn't believe it until after a formal investigation of the substance. Also, we don't know how the injury happened. She came with it, but it has been getting worse.)

Six Banyan Tree Temple and Chen Ancestral House

This morning we took a tour of the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees. It is a Buddhist temple that is 1500 years old.

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/guangdong/guangzhou/six_tree.htm

Then we went to the Chen Ancestral House.

http://www.chinadiscover.net/china-tour/guangdongguide/guangdong-guangzhou-chenfamily.htm

Both places were nice, but not interesting to a 1-year old child. We got some nice pictures though.

Abigail's personality is emerging more each day. She is such a happy and curious child. She is a sweetheart who is trying so much to learn from us. We don't have to hold her 24-7 anymore. She likes to be held after she wakes up, for about an hour, and she prefers to fal asleep that way, although last night she woke up and entertained herself for 45 minutes in her crib just babbling and trying all of the games and tricks we have been teaching her, as if she was practicing. Jim said she is studying like a good Chinese kid already! She plays hard now, likes to wrestle, likes games, enjoys repeating sounds we make and gestures we do. She crashes hard at nap-time and loves when we let her feed herself. She prefers French fries to steamed white rice, and she loves fruit. (She only had one Fry, btw, we aren't trying to make her fat already but she really did not want her rice after the fry was gone!)

Abigail Health Update

We are now in Guangzhou, the most fabulous city on Earth we have been to besides NYC. It is tropical and beautiful.

Anyhow, this is just a quick post to tell you that Abigail had her immigration physical today.

Her lip and palate are completely repaired, although some of her teeth didn't come in on the top where the cleft was.

She is also 18.6 pounds and 30 inches!!

Baby Bird's First Flight

Above: When we thought baby bird would sleep the whole time.

Below Right: Abigail and Larry waiting to go through security

Below Left: We put the baby in charge of carrying the passports for the three of us. She did a great job. We should have given her more responsibility because on the plane we lost that darling little red hat from Norma K that she has been wearing in all of the pictures!!

In addition to calling Abigail "little monkey" we sometimes call her "baby bird" because of the way she tilts her head back and opens and closes her mouth for you to put food into it. (And btw Jim, what is Big Bird's real name?) Anyhow, last night was her first ride on an airplane. The first 20 minutes were good- she had a bottle and fell asleep. We patted ourselves on the back for being such great parents and thought the rest of the flight would be no problem. Then she woke up and we played "try to entertain an exhausted 14 month old for 70 minutes on a plane". How are we ever going to make it 17.5 hours in the air from Hong Kong to Detroit?!?!?!

First Bath and Leo Bloom's Blue Blanket

Abigail has been down for her morning nap for over 2.5 hours. Larry is passed out with her: they both had a rough night last night.

I really want to organize our stuff into suitcases again for our flight this evening (each time I have to do this, it is harder- apparently our stuff is multiplying), but don't want to make noise and wake them up, but blogging is pretty quiet.

Thanks for all of the advice from everyone on what to do about Abigail not letting us sit down. We appreciated your help, even though it was all variations of "hang in there" while we are dead exhausted and living in a hotel with a sick baby and all we want to do is prove to Abigail that we love her sitting down as well as standing. We still have to stand up most of the time when she is awake, but yesterday she did start to let us play with her while sitting, so that was a start. Maybe she will let us sit and play with her a little more today.

Attached are pics from our first successful bath with Abigail. She was standing in the hotel sink. As Steph pointed out to me, we have no idea what we are doing, and our first attempt at a bath was not successful. Apparently, kids don't like to be in chest-deep, skin-blanching water in a full-sized bathtub. (Larry's idea.) Our second attempt, holding her over the tub while pouring water over her was also a failure. (My idea.) We tried to convince her that we are actually a pretty intelligent duo, but she doesn't believe us.

If anyone has ever seen The Producers (movie or musical or movie musical) you know that there is a scene in which Leo Bloom becomes stressed out and he reaches for his blue blanket, holds it over his nose, and breathes deeply into it. We have discovered that Abigail has taught herself this same stress-relieving technique. When something really stresses her out, often she won't scream (only sitting down makes her scream). Instead, if she is stressed (such as when one of us leaves the room, she is fighting sleep, she dirties her diaper, there are too many people around her, etc.) she holds her blanket over her face and hyperventilates into it until her breathing slows down or the situation is made right again. We think she is an amazing adaptor-- this has to be a behavior she developed at the orphanage. Again, we are impressed at the depth of her intellect, instinct and emotions.

"How is it possible to love someone THIS much?" -- Larry

This will be a quick post, but today was the most incredible day so far! Mostly, the day was indescribable, because Abigail was really interacting with us. Not just letting us change her and feed her and hold her, but really *playing* with us. She started giving hugs, not just hanging onto us for dear life. For example, she was standing on my lap and then suddenly looked into my eyes, smiled, threw her arms around my neck and hugged me and started giggling. It was the best noise in the whole world.

Larry got her to sing this evening. She repeated his "la la la"s in a sort of little song.

Also, she didn't make us stand all day today either. She trusted us enough to let go of our necks and play. For almost an hour, we sat together and played little games. Larry was the silly one who high-fived her, pretended to steal her toy, and tickled her ribs while I was "base" and she giggled and hid in my arms.

We also took her to the park, but since she is still a litte sick, we bundled her up very well and were only out about 20 minutes.

Tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou for a week in tropical paradise.

Happy New Year!

Abigail's Favorite Game: Advice Needed

Abigail has invented a game. Here are the only two rules: if you aren't holding her, you lose and if you sit down, you also lose. Larry said that game is like "Heads I win, Tails you lose."

You don't always have to be moving to win, but you may not sit under any circumstances. For example, you might be standing perfectly still, Abigail over one shoulder, and then slowly try to sit straight down in a tall chair behind you. She screams, you stand back up, and she wins the game.

Luckily there are two of us so we can take turns playing the game. And if she is asleep, you can sometimes not play the game and transfer her to her crib or to the bed. Last night at 3 o'clock AM she wanted to be held while sleeping. I let her sleep on my chest, curled up in a ball, my arm around her. When she was sound asleep, I tried to transfer her ("hug and roll") but she woke up and clung for dear life like a baby monkey to its mother. So I let her sleep on my chest for another hour. When I thought she was sound asleep again, I tried to transfer her to the bed next to me. She woke up a minute later, took matters into her own hands, and crawled up onto my chest again and fell asleep for the rest of the night.

Attachment Issues and the Grieving Process

We have one really amazing kid here. We love her so much and she wants to trust us, because we are the ones here taking care of her, feeding her, changing her and even sometimes, making her laugh. When we went through our mandated 10 hours of parent classes to be able to adopt from China, we were told that children attach in different ways. Some kids are so neglected in the orphanage that they have already shut down and given up and are very slow to attach. Others, after experiencing the same neglect, realize suddenly that someone will tend to their every need and desire and quickly attach and become clingy. Some kids attach only to mom and others only to dad. This made sense to us. We were also told that kids go through a grieving process when they are adopted. The grieve for the foster home they lost, the birth mom they will never know, the familiarity of their orphanage or for a worker they may have attached to. Larry and I sort of ignored that part of the course, thinking that since Abigail would only be 13 months, she would not be old enough to grieve.

We did not give her enough credit. The depth of her emotion is beyond what we can understand and what she is going through right now is breaking our hearts.

She seems to have attached to both of us pretty well. When one of us is gone from the room, she will often become very stressed out. Larry went through this yesterday when I had to go for an hour to a paperwork meeting. Twenty-four hours of love, attention, and bonding later, Abigail is a very conflicted little girl. Today Larry had to leave for 2.5 hours to run errands. One hour into the separation Abigail became inconsolable. She was in my arms and we were sitting in a chair. She crawled onto her knees on my lap, facing me and began to go through a type of comfort ritual that we have noticed she does when she becomes stressed. She stuffed a corner of her blanket into her mouth and sucked on it, silent tears ran down her face, she started hyperventilating, and buried her face in my chest for about 5 minutes, sobbing silently and sucking on her blanket and gripping my shirt th

e whole time. Then her breath would slow down, she would sit up, look into my eyes, find a dry spot on her blanket, and repeat the process.

This little human being has been through 2 abandonments (as she sees it) so far in her life and seems terrified that it will happen again. We talked to the social worker with us here, worried that something is really wrong with her because all of the other kids are playing on the floor with their new families and our kid can't be out of our arms for 2 seconds. Apparently, this is just another version of "normal", although it seems like the most cruel and heart wrenching thing in the world to us right now. We have no way to tell her "We are never going to abandon you: this is it, Kid, you are stuck with us!" except to just keep holding her, letting the tears fall, and letting her work through it.

Christmas time in China

Though not a Christian nation, China has been recently embracing the secular side of the Christmas holiday. There is Christmas music playing in stores and hotels and lobbys. There are trees and lights and decorations everywhere. One thing Lar and I both particularly liked was that all of the decorations didn't disappear on December 26th, like they do in America. We both wish that in America the Christmas music and decorations would start a little later (after Thanksgiving) but go until New Year's Day. But in China, everything is still decorated nicely.

One of our favorite decorations is a mounted deer head, as you would see proudly displayed on the wall of a hunter in America. But if you look closely, the deer is actually Rudolph!! As Jim and Steph know, some things don't translate well into Asian culture and I guess this is one of them.

Pictures are of poor Rudolph, Abigail examining some lobby decorations, and of Lar and Abigail in front of the hotel lobby tree. Abigail LOVES the hotel lobby. We hang out there and she looks at all the marble staircases and floors and the 3 story ceilings and the grand piano and the lights and the snow flakes and chandeliers and just stares at it all. We had to explain to her that our house in America is not so fancy!!

OMG!!! We are equal parts "love her to death" and "exhausted"

We are sorry that we haven't posted for a day or two: we got Abigail and we have been quite busy. We are exhausted and we ache - babies are exercise! We were also unaware that new parents do not get to eat, but when presented with the choice between "eat" and "sleep", the latter is chosen.

Here are some details about getting her ("Gotcha Day" in adoption slang) that you may find interesting.

All the families were driven to the registration office and we walked in and some kids were already there waiting to be adopted and their parents were matched with them really quickly. Moms were crying, Dads were crying, newly adopted kids were looking, playing with new presents and the rest of us were snapping pictures of everything. Then the next rush of kids were brought into the room by their orphanage workers. Abigail was among them. We recognized her when she came through the door. She was carried by a young orphanage worker or "nanny". When the nanny handed Abigail over to us, she began to scream. And cry. Huge tears streamed down her face as she reached for her nanny. Lar and I had assumed months ago that when we finally got to hold her for the first time, we would both be crying, but luckily, Abigail took care of that for all three of us. The nanny also handed us a photo album, full of pictures from Abigail's first year! It was so special and not a very usual gift to receive.

The whole time we were at the registration office, whenever Abigail caught sight of her nanny, she would try to throw herself to the ground, climb rock climber style over Larry's shoulder to get to her, reach out to her and wail. It was heartbreaking. And ours was the only kid crying (she is also one of the 2 youngest).

What we found out later, after the nanny left, was that the nanny had loved Abigail so much, she called her "daughter" and Abigail had been calling her "mama" and sometimes the orphanage worker even took her home at night instead of making her stay in the orphanage. She took pictures of her, some in the orphanage, some in her home that we love so much: she is wearing funny costumes, hats, playing on the floor, opening our care packages, celebrating her birthday... this little girl was so very taken care of by this woman and hadn't been just another mouth in a line of cribs to feed on schedule!!! And we couldn't even thank her.

We are very grateful for this attention and love she had in her first year, even though it made our first day(s) together heart wrenching. While other new adoptees are playing on the floor with their parents, toddling down the hall, etc, ours is clinging to us for dear life.

Lar is amazed (as am I) that a 13 month old has such complex emotions. She has already realized that we are here to take care of her and love her, but that means if one of us leaves the room, she screams. She must be scared to death of being "abandoned" again. In addition to this challenge, she has chest congestion and a cough. We took her to the doctor and she is on 2 medicines (we don't know what), but she is not too interested in taking them.

A few pics are posted, but we plan to post many more, as well as a video, as our little monkey gets adjusted and we have more time to do such things. This has already taken 10 minutes of my sleeping time, so good night and happy viewing!

How to flip out a Chinese bell boy and Abigail update

As everyone in America is finishing the last of their Christmas pie, knocking back another eggnog, and my Dad is falling asleep on the couch after sampling Jim and Steph's latest wine, we arrived at Zhengzhou. We love it a million and a half times more than Beijing.

The irritating thing about the Chinese, though, is they love to serve you. I find this inefficient. I want to say "Bell boy, I'll still tip you just to get you out of my way, but I am going to carry my own d*mn bag because I can do it 100 times faster than you." So after we arrived at the hotel, armed with another checklist of things to complete before they hand over our daughter in a few hours and eager to get started, we were at a stand-still because the bell boy hadn't brought up our luggage. It was going on half an hour. So, I found the bell boy on the floor above ours, struggling with the inordinate amount of luggage for the ever-high-maintenance von Trapp family. I gave the bell boy a tip, grabbed our 2 suitcases and began hauling them down the hall. The guy chased after me, calling out in Chinese and trying to help. Then I picked up a 44 pound suitcase in each hand and started down the stairs. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he saw this (probably because no Chinese woman would sling around 88 pounds of suitcases). He yanked the one out of my hand (breaking the strap) and then carried it the rest of the way to my room, saying "I sorry I sorry I sorry" the whole way. Given the language barrier, I had no way to tell him that he shouldn't be sorry, I wasn't mad at him, I just wanted to get on with my day in an efficient American fashion.

(On a similar note, yesterday Lar had a bathroom attendant follow him to a urinal, tried to help him unzip his pants, brought him an extra roll of toilet paper (I had to check- TP is not something guys usually employ when using a urinal) and got a little too close to the situation, if you know what I mean. Lar was quite shaken up about the "too much service".)

Anyhow, we are in a frenzy to update the final paperwork things and wrap the gifts for the orphanage before we get Abigail. Lar is currently at the bank and left me with some things to take care of in the room, but I figured I could post an entry before he got back and still get my work done here if I hurry.

Part of the final papers we got on her update her info to help us prepare for her drop off in a few hours:
1. she is walking on her own (I am SO upset I missed this part, but it means her orphanage is really good and didn't keep her in a crib all day)
2. she has started on soft solid food (another good sign- some orphanages keep kids on milk for 2 years to save money)
3. she is sleeping through the night (8:30 until 7:00)
4. she loves dolls (Tammy and Judi will be happy to hear this and she'll get her Asian baby as soon as she gets home)
5. (the most fun news) she LOVES little dogs!!!! Jedi will be so pleased.

Pictures coming soon!