Bathing Beauty or Computer Geek?

On my way to the pool!
Just my toes in first please!

Daddy makes the pool feel safe.

Mr. Gates, are you hiring 9 month olds?

We took Zoe to the pool on Thursday, probably the worst weather day we've had since we've been home. She now loves to splash in the bath so we thought it would be safe. After a few minutes she seemed to really enjoy it! Of course it then started to rain :) This weekend is supposed to be very nice so we'll probably head back.

We had our follow up Dr. appointment on Friday. She's gained 7 oz in two weeks which the doctor was pleased with. All of her bloodwork thus far has come back fine. We still need to have some more tests done this week. The doctor noted that Zoe has better iron levels than most American kids. He was surprised she wasn't anemic at all. Thanks Enfamil with Iron! The doctor also told me what Eric and I have suspected, Zoe has hyperflexive joints. He said that she will probably be extra flexible her whole life and it should serve her well in athletics, should she decide to pursue that. The doctor wasn't surprised when I told him that I get nervous dressing her because her limbs seem to get into positions that are highly unnatural!

Zoe's made a lot of progress on her pursuit of crawling. She is able to get from point A to point B...but not as efficiently as a full crawl. She does this thing where she gets into a crawl position, crosses her legs in the back, and kind of hops. It will happen soon enough and then we'll really need to baby proof!

I don't think our 10/28 friends are able to read the blog in China, but if you can...our thoughts are with you as you finally meet your daughters tomorrow and Monday!

A couple pictures

My two favorite people

Holding her toes while she sleeps on her daddy.

Brave Girl

Yesterday we took Zoe to get the bloodwork done she needs to check her health and to make sure that the vaccinations she received in China were effective. She was such a trooper. There were two kids before her who just screamed and screamed...but were too dehydrated to get their blood drawn. We were very nervous. Well, Zoe screamed but we were able to get the first 1/2 of the testing done. She was such a brave girl. We should have the results by our growth check appointment on Friday. I put her on a scale (not a terribly reliable one) and it said she was now 16.5 pounds which would mean she's gained a pound in a week and a half. She's definitely filling out, but I'm not sure she's gained that much :) After the lab appointment we took her to the mall to get her a baby laptop. She loves pushing the keys on the expensive one so we thought she might enjoy it...she does. However, she fell asleep on the car ride to the mall and Eric and I were able to enjoy a nice lunch (relatively kid free as she slept in the stroller) at the Cheesecake Factory. Funny how your relationship changes after a baby, we finally get a free moment, and we spend it talking about how cute she is! Yesterday afternoon she played with the twin boys who live next door. They are only 17 days younger than Zoe so it's so nice to have them nearby. Their mom has been very helpful with parenting tips for me!

Today we're going to stop by the outlets before heading to lunch at Eric's parent's home so Zoe can meet her great Uncle and third cousin (I think that's how it works....second cousin once removed?) We also are going to have some of the artwork we bought in China framed for Zoe's room. The little angel is currently asleep in her stroller. She has this thing now where she will only nap if we're moving (in the stroller or car). The class I'm teaching starts tonight. It seemed a good idea at the time to teach, but now I'm regreting it. Luckily it's only until the first week of August.

The best news is that another 4 couples from our Mid-Atlantic adoption group are now either in China or on the plane to Beijing!! Hurry home guys, Zoe can't wait to meet her new playmates!

Fun with Food and Friends

I took this picture this morning after Zoe slept 11 hours straight!! She wasn't the only one who has happy! We're trying to encourage self-feeding :) She apparently has no sensory issues with food..she loves to eat everything and squish it between her fingers (particularly her morning oatmeal). She'll pick up any food product (Cheerios, Gerber bites, graham crackers) but so far I can't get her to put them in her mouth herself. We're getting her to at least put her hands on the bottle when we feed her, but again, not real interest in doing it herself yet. She does love to play with her food and loves to look in the containers to see where everything is coming from!
These pictures are from our last night in Guangzhou. We had a pizza party in our room with some of the families that hadn't already left for the States. Zoe is playing with her friend the beautiful and silly Emma Rae. I love the last picture, it always makes me laugh :) We need to get Zoe into a playgroup here so she can go back to interacting with kids.

8 hours of sleep

I got 8 hours of sleep ;) Zoe slept through the night. Well, she had one little tiny cry at 1am but was easily reassured and quickly fell back asleep until 6am. She took a major nap yesterday afternoon from about 2:30-5:15ish so I was worried she wouldn't sleep...but apparently that rumor is true..they sleep better when they nap. Who knew? She had two one hour naps today, and I'm not counting on another good night of sleep, but she's proven she can stay in the crib all night. We're so proud :)

A Girl and Her Dog

Seriously, how cute is this? We're still struggling to get on some sort of a schedule. While she napped easily in China, Zoe fights taking naps here. She plays hard all day and then falls over asleep at 7:30pm. Come 2:30am, she's wide awake. She will fall asleep a couple hours later, but it's not easy. I know she's not getting enough sleep, although you wouldn't know it to see her play, but we can't really do sleep training with her because of the adoption issues. We've tried to make her stay in her crib and stay with her, letting her know we're there, but it's just brutal. In the week we've been home, we've had one good sleep night. She's also teething again (that would make 6), and is having some reflux issues as we've switched her to the American formula (Enfamil) and dropped the rice cereal in the bottle so that probably isn't helping as well. I'm open to any and all suggestions.

Eric and I both think she's gained weight since we've been home. She has a little buddha belly and eats like a champ. She loves oatmeal, all fruits, and Yobaby Yogurt is apparently baby crack..she can't get enough. She's sitting completely unassisted now, belly laughs at Peek-a-boo, and easily switches toys from one hand to another. She couldn't even bang the toys together 3 weeks ago. She gets into the crawling position but pushes herself on her belly backwards which just frustrates her to no end :) She loves to grab on my fingers and pull herself up to a wobbly stand. She smiles all the time now, quite the change from China where she was more reserved. She loves, LOVES the dog (not that you can't tell from the picture).

All is well here, and we're settling in to being a family. Sleep issues are our last major hurdle for now :)

It's Nice to Be Home!

It's so good to be home, and drink from the faucet. Thank you everyone for your e-mails. I'm sorry if I don't send personal e-mails yet, we're just exhausted. I think I fell asleep with my eyes open today. Zoe's little body thought that she should be up at 3am this morning and she just couldn't be reasoned with :) She just went down for, hopefully, the night.

For those of you who didn't see the Red Carpet pictures I'm attaching them here. Zoe is in the middle. If anyone from our travel group reads this blog, thank you for everything. We're so glad to have shared this experience with you and we hope you had an uneventful and safe trip home.

Free Day

Today is a free day. Our guide took our paperwork to the American Consulate and we're just waiting on his call to make sure everything was done correctly. This afternoon is the "Red Couch" photo with all the babies. I think we're going to dress her in one of the silk outfits we had made for her in Nanchang. She's been very fussy the last two days. She's cutting another tooth and, on top of her possible sinus infection, she's been unhappy at times. She really enjoys the Swan Room in the hotel, a room set up by Mattel for the little ones. It's nice to go down there and mingle with the other families as well.

Tomorrow is her swearing in at the Consulate so that when we land at Dulles on Wednesday she'll become an American citizen. I can't believe we leave the day after tomorrow. Sometimes it feels like we just got here, but others it feels like we've been here forever.

Sorry no pictures, have to run to give Zoe her bath.

Guangzhou

I can't begin to describe how beautiful this hotel is, it's really wonderful. The service is incredible. When we leave our room, the lady who works on our floor has already called for an elevator and escorts us in. The food is amazing at the breakfast buffet, the room has air conditioning, it's just luxury. Although I've never been to New Orleans, Shamien Island makes me think of what New Orleans must look like. When I told that to someone who has been there, they said this island is much cleaner. The trees have that moss in them, the streets are clean, and the people are so friendly. It's also really, really humid :)

Yesterday Zoe had her medical checkup required by the American Consulate. She's medically sound and a whomping 15 pounds. That means she has tripled her birth weight already. She is also 27 inches long. The doctor didn't see signs of an ear infection but did notice she has a lot of wax in her ear which may be affecting her hearing a bit. He said to take care of it when we got home. She has an appointment with her pediatrician on Friday so we'll get that taken care of. Yesterday was a day of firsts for Zoe. She sat quietly and contently in a high chair for the first time, she took a bath with me (there is no baby tub here) and didn't cry, and most importantly (and TMI probably) she pooped without intervention for the first time. In the adoption world, that's a huge thing. She slept nine hours last night but woke up around 6am. We thought she wanted to start her day but after her bottle and changing she was still fussy so she's now back asleep (and so is Eric).

Today we are going to the pearl and jade "mall." I'm particularly excited about this portion of our day. We completed all of the paperwork we needed to for her visa yesterday so now we wait for that to come through. We still can't read blogs here so I haven't been able to keep up. I hope all of you 10/28ers have made your travel arrangements.

We made it to Guangzhou!

Yesterday was Zoe's first plane flight. She was so wonderful. Didn't even cry or fuss which makes me think that she doesn't have an ear infection after all. My ears seemed to hurt worse than hers. Eric and I had to sit apart so she was all mine for the approx. 2 hour flight. We sat next to a wonderful Chinese young woman who spoke English beautifully. She asked why we chose China and about the adoption process (e.g. Is it harder to get an American baby than a Chinese baby?). She told me that she and her husband are hoping to start a family soon so she went to get the license from the government giving her permission to have a baby. It was a very interesting conversation.

On our last day in Nanchang we just did a little shopping. Zoe had slept 12 hours the night before so her schedule was a bit off. I hope she's trying to kick this cold. I don't really want to put her on the antibiotics. I can tell I'm getting her cold and while it feels icky, it also feels run of the mill so far. We just want to get her home. Driving into Guangzhou seems like paradise compared to Nanchang. We booked a suite at the White Swan and it is about the nicest room I've ever stayed in. We got in so late last night that I had about 30 Pringles and 3 Oreos for dinner. I can't wait to try the breakfast buffet I've heard so much about.

We have to get Zoe up to start her day. Today is the "medical" exam, which from what I hear is a joke. China must be on to all the bloggers here. We could all view our blogs until a couple of days ago, but now we can only post to them. Sorry no pictures, I'll try to do better later :)

Last Full day in Nanchang

I can't see my blog so I don't know if this will post or not. We had an amazing morning. We went to a village outside of Nanchang today. It was not part of the GWCA expereince but we asked our guide to arrange it and we split the bus fee. We weren't able to go to Fengxin, where most of the girls are from since it is a long way away, but this village is apparently representative of villages in the area. From what our guide told us, the families rent the land from the government for growing crops. The families also build their house and all generations live in the same house. Our guide went to one family and told them who we were and why we were there. I think we were a show for the villagers as they all came out to see us. A woman in our group had the wonderful idea and foresight to bring a Polaroid camera. She was able to take pictures of the village families and give them a copy. It may be the only family picture these people have. If you have yet to travel, it's a great idea you may want to copy. They were so appreciative and really enjoyed having their pictures taken. The rooms in the homes were small and pigs and chickens were right outside (the pigs in a small pen, the chickens roamed free). Rice fields were all around. I'm so grateful we got to see what life may have been like for our daughters. Hopefully this will keep Eric and I from taking too many things for granted. Our guide said the annual income of a family is 10,000 RMB which is roughly a little over $1,000. In China, the fine for having an additional child is 10,000 RMB for the first child and 100,000RMB for the second child over the limit. One family today have twin boys...quite the blessing as they are both male and only count as one child. I have to go sign paperwork so I'm going to try to post this now. This is our last full day in Nanchang. Tomorrow we're going to a porcelin shop and then off to Guangzhou. We're all ready to move on I think.

I'd like to thank the makers of Fleet..

for giving us today's poop. Well it was a momentous occasion today, unfortunately we had to use the laxative but all is well ;) What a difference a day and a schedule makes. The orphanage gives you a basic schedule. Say it's like getting the operating instructions on a Civic, but you'd purchased an Accord.....similar but different. Zoe, we've found, is a three nap a day girl as opposed to the one nap that the orphanage told us about. Usually we're out and about for the first couple naps and she falls asleep in the Ergo carrier on me, but she also falls asleep around 2:30 every afternoon. She's also really easy to get to bed at night, she likes it when I sing her lullabys (as in Hush Little Baby don't you cry, I forgot the words to this lullaby....)
Today was another 1/2 day tour of "a very old building" in Nanchang. It was very pretty. The group photo is from outside the building. Inside it's essentially 5 floors of gift shop. Nanchang is well known for its porcelin. I wish there was some way to get all of it home, it's beautiful! We bought Zoe a very nice porcelin chopstick set.

When we got back from the tour we went with another couple to a place called Tiffani's around the corner from the hotel where they make traditional silk suits and dresses. We purchased a suit and dress for Zoe as well as a wall hanging and a baby bracelet with her Chinese name on it all for only $100. No one in our adoption group price haggled so we all got things for free. As one dad on the trip pointed out, a sure sign you've overpaid :) Still, it's so cheap!
After exploring the street around the hotel after shopping, and realizing that it just wasn't that safe, we hopped in a cab and went to a more swanky part of town to get McDonalds. Seriously, the best filet of fish and coke I've ever had...and not just because when walking through town we saw fried duck heads in the window :) The reason I call this part of town swanky is because they had air conditioning (a rarity). If you look at the second picture that's posted, it's of a building from that street and then the apartment building next to the street. There is so much poverty here, it's very sad. We saw a man digging through the trash for food, and eating the trash with chopsticks.
Zoe is doing so well. She has been sleeping through the night and now she really loves her floor time. She's building up her core strength and can do short periods of unassisted sitting. When she's on her belly she can reach for items and bring them to her. She sort of gets up on her knees and I don't think it would be too long after we're home before she figures out the crawling thing. She has such a wonderful little personality. It seems she's always happy. She's so interested in what is going on around her. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we got back the 3 rolls of film the orphange people took of Zoe. The orphanage looks just like the pictures, rows and rows of cribs. We got pictures of her nannies as well. It is priceless to have pictures from that time in her life.

I saw that referrals had come out..congrats to all the new parents!!!

Nanchang Adventures

Hi. After finally getting 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, I'm starting to feel better. Zoe slept from 8:30 to 6:30am. She did wake up twice but Eric (world's greatest father and saint) was able to get her back down in about 15 minutes each time. Poor little thing has a cough which wakes her up.

Right now Zoe and her daddy are taking a nap together so I thought I'd catch up on the blog. This is actually a big moment. Until now she would only nap outside of our room. When we pulled into our hotel in Nanchang our guide told us about a baby once who would scream whenever she was in the room..outside of the room fine, inside she'd scream. Guess which baby we got :) We actually had some successful floor time today.

Yesterday we went to the Walmart in Nanchang. Unless the Walmarts back home have suddenly started allowing their customers to choose which live animal they wanted slaughtered and hacked up in front of them.....it's not like your typical Walmart. There was also this smell which i can not describe except to say it was putrid. Forever now when I smell something bad I'm going to refer to it as "smelling like Walmart." In fact today I ate something and said, "it tastes like Walmart smells." Two thoughts kept running through my mind in the store..1) Which one of these is not like the other ones, and 2) have you ever felt like everyone is staring at you? For the most part everyone was very friendly. They came up and read the card our guide had given us describing that we were adopting her. There was one younger woman who just glared at us and the thought crossed my mind that of all the thousands of people in the Walmart, maybe someone had abandoned her baby. We had a group dinner last night at a local place our guide took us too.

Today was a relaxing day. We went to Elephant Lake and there is a palace there to celebrate Taoism, I believe. Very pretty. An older man came up to us, read our card, and gave us the thumbs up sign. It's nice to know the adoptions are accepted by the older generations. We went to lunch at a fabulous place. I ate the best shrimp, heads, shell, and all. All of our group meals have been served in a manner to share. All have also cost only 5$ per person. At home that meal would have run 40-50 dollars easy.

Real quick to answer Melanie's questions.....the money was no big deal after all my stress. Our guide took everyone's money and presented it as a group (I think, he had the money anyway). The legal fees were converted to yuan before we paid those. Oh for Shawn and Karen, Zoe fits into the 6 month onesies..but the 6 month sleepers with feet don't fit because her feet are too big. Our girl has clown feet...just like her mommy.

I also wanted to say real quick to those of you coming next month, particularly those who don't have kids yet....when you first get your girls you are on survival mode. I wasn't prepared for that. I don't know what I thought, but we did bring US videos to watch "after she feel asleep". I can hear the BTDT parents laughing. She goes to sleep and 5 minutes later I'm right there with her. You stress when they don't eat, you cry when they cry at the baths and diaper changes because it's all new to them and they are scared, you worry about pooping. You hate to give them Western meds with no guidance and doctors back home with a 12 hour time difference. You're in a strange place where people don't speak your language and you can't read their characters and you have a little person just handed to you and off you go. Your hotel room isn't home. I'm sure the experience is different for everyone and if you're in a place that's more Western than Nanchang it may be a bit easier....but maybe not. Every day gets better, easier..but your first couple days may be different than you imagined. It's completely and totally worth it, but I would never say that it's been easy.

Officially ours

We completed all of our province paperwork this morning. Zoe is legally ours. We're on a lunch break now but are going to go to the Walmart in Nanchang this afternoon. Zoe was a great sleeper last night. She fell asleep at 7:30pm, had about a 1/2 hour wake up at 11:45 and then slept until we woke her up at 6am. I have a feeling that was a fluke. She's doing better with the bottle and just took some rice cereal with a spoon. I think she thought the spoon was really cool. Still no #2 (which those in adoption world know is important) but I have suppositories on stand by for tomorrow if need be. Since she liked the spoon, I may try to give her some prunes tonight. We had to give her some Tylenol cough and cold today as most of the babies have a cold. No fever though which is good and I'm trying to get it under control so it doesn't spread to her ears. She had her first bath with us today....she's not a fan. She is loving the Stacking cups though and right now she is listening very contently to a Chinese lullaby CD. I think right now she is fighting a nap. She slept during our appointments this morning. On an aside, of all the wonderful things the Chinese do well...air conditioning isn't one of them. Seriously, it's miserablely hot and humid in the buildings. Our hotel room is also a bit warmer than we'd like. We're going to crank that AC this summer at home.

Nanchang is definitely different than Beijing. While Beijing just felt like any other large city, Nanchang really makes us realize we're in China. In Beijing there is so much construction and a lot of things are in English so you kind of forget you're in China. You can't do that in Nanchang. Oh, one really interesting thing we've noticed...all of the maniquins (sp?) are of Caucasian people, even the ones selling traditional Chinese ware. Anyway, I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow. This is such an amazing, wonderful, (stressful at times) experience. It's amazing how quickly you can fall in love.

Zoe

We have Zoe. We arrived at the hotel in Nanchang around 2:20pm. The men went off to buy formula and water while the women set up the diaper bags and got the rooms ready. At 3:30 we were on the bus headed to the Jiangxi Civil Affairs Office. When we walked in I knew her right away. She's on the nanny's lap to the left. I knew her eyes. We were the 3rd to get our baby. She never cried in the Civil Affairs Office, but she also didn't make any noise. She was very observant. One of her room mates was crying and when I brought Zoe over to her they reached out for each other. That made me cry. Of course I was sobbing when we first got her anyway. We made it back to our hotel room before the crying began. It didn't last too long. She likes to be held and walked around the room. To anyone coming to Jin Feng hotel, if you can swing it get a suite. The regular rooms are very small and it's nice to be able to do the pacing without leaving the room.
I'm exhausted so I'm going to cut this short tonight. Zoe crashed about an hour ago which means she'll be wide awake in the middle of the night. I'm waiting for Eric to get back from signing paperwork before it's my turn. The pictures are obviously from today. The last picture has Zoe doing this really cute thing where she lifts her leg straight into the sky. She's either got gymnast or ballarina genes :) She thinks it's hillarious when Eric tries to imitate her. Oh, she's able to wear Carter's 6 month onesies. She's long but thin. She flips over like a little acrobat though and likes to pretend stand. She can sit up by herself for short stretches. We're working on the feeding issues as our first bottle wasn't too successful. She took her liquid vitamins like a champ though. Tomorrow is the official signing of the paperwork to make it all legal.

Beijing

What a wonderful and long day. We went to bed last night at 7pm but were awakened by a phone call from our guide, Michael, at 8:15pm. After that I didn't fall asleep again until after 10. Eric and I were both wide awake around 1:30. We forced ourselves to stay in bed and managed to get some more sleep on and off until about 5am. We left for our Beijing tour at 8:30 and just got back a few minutes ago. Today we saw Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. The picture above is from Tianamen Square as is the one below of the child in split pants. All of us in the group have noticed that many families have little girls. The preference for boys does not appear to extend to Beijing.
My intentions of going through China squat-potty free ended quickly in the Forbidden City. Note to future travelers...go to the bathroom in the Forbidden City. They are the cleanest restrooms you will see all day. They do have Western style toilets too, but since there is no such thing as a line in China you just have to push through and get what you get. Once you do it once, it's no big deal. I actually find it harder to keep my mouth closed in the shower than I do to use a squat potty. Do make sure you bring tons of Purell and tissue though. I also would advise against open toed shoes :) All the bathrooms today did have doors. Flushing is apparently at user discretion :)
So to all you 10/28ers..the gauntlet has been thrown. Eric and I and our fellow travelers made it to the 5th tower on the Great Wall. Let us know how far you make it next month.....when it's hotter. The Great Wall is a misnomer. It should actually be called the Great Steps. Holy Cow! My legs are burning. Use the restroom right before you start climbing the wall. Your legs will be so shaky after you climb up and down that using the squat potty will be much harder :) I can't describe how amazing it is to be in China and actually be on the Great Wall. Unfortuantely there is so much pollution in Beijing that even on a "clear" day, everything looks pretty hazy. We did the tour today with everyone who will be traveing to Nanchang tomorrow. They separate you in to groups based on your orphanage. It's really great though since we did spend about 10 hours getting to know everyone before we all get our babies tomorrow. Everyone we're traveling with is so nice, we're very fortunate.

Our room service just arrived. We're going to eat dinner and watch some of the NCIS DVDs we brought with us. Our last night as just a couple. I'll post again after getting Zoe settled tomorrow night (if I'm not too exhausted).

We're Here!

Just a quick post to say WE'RE IN CHINA!!! The flight actually wasn't too bad. Saw a few movies and tried to get 4 hours of sleep but got two. The big tour of Beijing is tomorrow so hopefully I'll post pictures of that tomorrow. Off to get ready for dinner (so weird it's 5am at home).