How can it be?

Grace fits in like she has always been here. She and Kevin are silly as ever -- of course he can make her laugh until she wets her pants, who doubted THAT? I have been taking her over to Frannie's daycare guru, Cheryl, for little visits and this morning I wanted to try to leave her for just 10 minutes to see what she would do. Apparently, Cheryl is an adequate substitute white lady because Grace was only concerned about breakfast there and knew exactly where to sit to attain it. Tomorrow I'm going to try to leave her for half a day and see how it goes.

Grace just toddles around our house, checking out the cabinets while she smiles. Hmmm. Should have gotten this one years ago. Nancy, I am going to try on her Christening gown when she wakes up from her nap :) I'm pretty sure it will be a perfect fit.

Can you believe she still can't feed herself properly?

You Asked for a Family Photo

Here's a shot, summing up our day. Good night everyone.

Home Sweet Home

There was a flood? Huh? The aftermath is incredible. Casey, call me! Good thing we have a disaster relief person in the family. Our church and church school got flooded!

We made it home with very few issues. Nancy's husband and good ole' Pitty Pat met us at the airport with airconditioned vehicles and lots of space for all our bags. The girls slept almost the whole way (thanks melatonin, jr.), but still no Kevin. He is driving home from the airport right this minute and we are hoping for a huge group hug any moment now. The girls were MOSTLY on Atlanta sleep time, thanks again to No Jet Lag, however, Grace did not get any so we were all up at 2am and never went back to sleep.

I will post the last of the pictures soon. Thanks everyone for your comments and prayers. God bless America. :)

Last Blog From China

We are packed to fly out to Beijing for a 24-hour stop-over. The Forbidden City and Peking Duck, please. We are so happy to have been here, to experience all this foreign culture, but like most people in the world, we look forward to going home.

Our Guangzhou experience has been mostly good, I hope I haven't complained too much. Our hotel is very comfortable, the room is huge and we are about 7 minute's walk from the island through an interesting maze of shops, as you may have seen from previous pictures. We got quite a few bargains along the way -- can't wait for Kevin's face when I give him one of these surprises (ha ha). Little Grace is a trooper, but she is soooo mischieveous. She loves to play tricks (like knocking your hat off or stealing your spoon) and laughs like crazy when you catch her. She is already watching Frannie's every move and when Frannie gets impatient with her, she just toddles away or keeps trying to steal Frannie's toys. Grace smiles a lot and just wants to be tickled, fed and to look at herself in the mirror. Her skin spots are healing rapidly, but I can't wait to get her to the doctor for a check-up. She needs to see the cranial-facial doctor, the cardiologist and the orthopedic doc for her feet too. It may be nothing, but she walks funny to me. I was a little nervous at first, because I had forgotten the first few days and weeks with Frannie when we were ALL getting to know each other. We didn't automatically love each other and that scared me the first time around. This time I knew I would eventually see past the smelly baby they handed me, not see her imperfections or stubborn nature. I knew eventually I would just look at her huge grin and want to gobble her up with kisses, falling in love all over again. Kevin is just going to burst.

WWKS, final installment, Guangzhou, China, What the Heck is the Date?

Honey, you better come home because the dishes are piled pretty high and I have no idea where the trash bags are. Where is the washing machine anyway? I had to buy new underwear and the Chinese restaurant just delivers my sweet and sour chicken every night now. Pick up some eggs on your way home from the airport, would ya?

Not Much Going on Here

What else is new (besides a new baby) except that I am sick, which is so par for the course. I started to feel a sore throat a few nights ago, which escalated into painful headache, sinus, etc. Poor Nancy is out in the heat right now with the girls so I can rest.

Our consulate appointment is today and the swearing in ceremony is tomorrow. Thursday is shopping with Ann from Red Thread! Can't wait.

Pray for Nancy not to kill me and pray for me to not be so grouchy.

Substitute blogger's note: Due to the flooding in Atlanta, I have been without internet since Sunday night. Sorry for the delay!

We Are Making Progress

We went to dinner at Lucy's last night with a couple from Chicago and their daughter, Ruby (hee hee). We had to sit outside in the humidity, but enjoyed a few burgers and beers. What a great group we have -- truly fun and caring people.

Today Nancy and I decided to forego the temple trip and the pearl market as we hope to go with Ann to the pearl market later in the week. Darcy, I asked another woman to get you your names, and I will get them later. We walked through the maze of vendors between our hotel and the island, with lots options to buy! We were tempted by dried snake skins, enormous tree bark, tiny kittens and lizard skins! We were told that some of these are good to boil and put in soup, but only some are good for men, others for women. Don't get them mixed up, I guess or we could be in trouble. Don't worry, I won't eat any prostate soup or testicle tea!

Picture this: August, Atlanta -- you go to the gym with your sweat pants and long-sleeve shirt on and the air at the gym isn't working! You work out anyway and after about 20 minutes of a strenuous workout, your shirt and sweats are completely stuck to your entire body -- that has been our experience, just walking around Guangzhou! Actually, just walk outside and you too can experience this phenomenon! How interesting!

Our group is heading over to a restaurant tonight on the island for some "traditional" Chinese food that our guide Helen has recommended. She showed us the restaurant last night and luckily, it was not the one Kevin and I experienced last time, but it's right next door! Hope we don't find any live grubs in our dinner.

We did just a little shoe shopping today.....

Finally in Guangzhou

We made it WITH OUR WHITE FOLDERS to Guangzhou. No real incidents this time, except that I stupidly packed all our liquids (ALL the girls' medicines, which we have been using and needing), hair-care products, etc. in my carry-on so we got it all confiscated, of course. I begged the guy for the antibiotic and he relented, but only after making me chug some. Fine with me! Chug, chug, see?

We have a large group and we met everyone this morning. 7 families, one from California, and the rest from Michigan. We all had to have our medical checkups today and little bobble head Gracie had to get 5 shots. Out of nowhere I just started sobbing right along with her, it made me so sad that she's been cut and poked so many times in her little life. She did seem to not blame me after, however :) She gave everyone in the room her stink eye and just clung to me like a little monkey.

I have to tell the funny story about her pictures from when we sent her a cake for Chinese New Year that I posted on her blog 6 months ago (the one with cake SLATHERED on her face, ha ha). I spent months telling my friends how happy I was that she looked happy and at peace with her foster family. I pegged her Gramma, her foster mom and her "older" sister. Come to find out, the foster Mom was the woman who gave her to me on Gotcha Day, an unknown woman to Grace from the orphanage, the Gramma was the Orphanage Director and the older sister was another nanny. Ha ha.

Grace has a very good sense of humor. She about dies laughing when you drop anything and she loves silliness and therefore, she and her Dad will get along just fine. HOWEVER, Kevin, she is stubborn and likes to hit her big sister. We are working very hard to show her gentle, gentle, no hitting and I must say, Frannie is a champ. Today, Grace slapped her across the face in the van on the way to her medical exam and about 4 seconds later, a toddler from behind grabbed a fist-full of her hair and she just squeaked.

Difference No. 9765 from the US: people in the US, as a general rule, do not SCREAM at parents when their child is screaming on a plane during takeoff and landing and parents of screaming children do not GENERALLY smack their 18-month olds for screaming. I wanted to physically harm that horrible man, but.... international incident ....

My favorite Frannie lines from this week:

1. After waking up on the airplane, lying on my stomach, she blinked at me, stuck two fingers up her nose and said "Mom, I have two nipples."
2. After days of hearing Frannie say "Look Mom, I'm shaking my bum bum," and I finally said "Frannie, that is enough. We don't need to hear that anymore" to which she responded "Yeah, all the other girls would be jealous."

WWKS, Guangzhou, China, September 19, 2009

The jewelry market in Guangzhou, I hear, is closed for the rest of the month of September. I hear it's a dangerous place anyway. All the jewelry is fake and so I think you shouldn't waste your time there....use this time to practice the Gator chomp with Grace and play the Florida fight song for her while she sleeps.

We went to the zoo today, which sounds like a lot of fun, right? It was like a war zone with some wild animals thrown in. The differences between the US and China are so numerous to even mention (a man stood at the top of the stairs today as we grunted and struggled to get the stroller up the stairs and he just watched us), but one enormous difference is that when you are at the zoo in the US and they have dug a hole the size of a compact car right in the middle of the pedestrian path, they AT LEAST put a freakin cone up to warn you DANGER is coming! The zoo in Chongqing was under major construction and people continued to walk around the rubble and the huge piles of rebar and bricks regardless. To make it more interesting, it was 95 degrees. How can we go to Chongqing and not see the bleepin pandas? Well, it took us 2 or 3 hours to find them so we looked at the 3 of them eating bamboo. Let's scram, go back to the hotel and get something incredibly fattening to eat. We are wiped OUT.

We ate hot pot last night which was crazy. They gave us our own private room and the inner boiling pot made my lips numb so when I asked the waitress/cook to not cook me any more spicy, she continued to hand me veggies and noodles that tasted like molten lava. We laughed a lot. Thank goodness we could bring our own bottle of wine -- it came in handy :)

Frannie has mastered the squatty potty. The first time she tried it, she squatted, her pee hit the opposing wall and it ricocheted off the wall and splashed all over her shoes. She's learned. Personally, I've given up drinking liquid so that I don't have to ever chance peeing in these toilets.

WWKS, Chongqing, China, September 19, 2009

You are so embarrassing. Nice shot of the gator.

Substitute blogger's note: Sorry this is late but some of the pics that Ellen sent didn't come through and I waited to post this in case she got my message and resent them. They're not here yet so there may be some additions tomorrow. I apologize for the lateness of this post.

Today is What Day?

Okay, so I boycott Walmart in the U.S. and I spent this morning in Walmart. We went looking for the cute, cheap shoes that I loved the last time in Xi'an and apparently, prices have increased or this town is more expensive. We had a good time shopping -- Nancy and I concur that if we had 1 yuan for every stare, we would be quadrillionaires. I wanted to start sticking my tongue out at all the people who stare, but I don't want to start an international incident like my husband did in Xi'an. Nancy and I decided to say Ni Hao to every person who stares, smile and allow them to touch, stare and make comments. No hurt feelings when they point to Grace's funny lip, I just don't want them to make judgments on Americans based on one experience with a psycho-protective American Mom. So when one woman came up and started to adjust Frannie in her stroller, I just held up my hand in front of her, smiling and said Ni Hao, but let it be known -- back off nut job.

Our guide is.... okay, I'm trying to be a Christian here .... annoying to me. She is not very clear, she is not very helpful and almost everything I ask for results in "that will cost more," including fetching my missing bag from the airport. She talks over me, she corrects me constantly and when she told me to bring 6,300 yuan to the civil affairs meeting then later, in the office said 'so where is the 7,080, did you forget it? I wanted to kung fu her too. Not to whine, but after our previous experiences, I'm ... looking forward to getting out of this place.

Kevin had to e-mail me a passport photo, which I had forgotten to include in my packet. I had to venture to the photo lab, down the street from our hotel and when the photo lady tried to gesture to me that something was obviously wrong with it, I could not help but have fun with it and say "Yes, I know he is funny looking" and she frowned and repeated more gestures, pointing to his forehead and his chin and I said "Yes, he is a smart alec and I want him to shave that goatee too." We finally got through it and she just wanted me to know she might have to crop the picture, but in the meantime i had fun. Making fun of Kevin is so fun in China.

Grace is showing her stubborn side occasionally, not allowing me to feed her (FINE by me!) and she started to hit Frannie with a scowl on her face. Luckily, Frannie had learned to just wag her finger and say "No Gracie!" and pat her gently. Gracie is ticklish, loves it when she or I drop ANYTHING and likes to imitate her big sister. Her palate is pretty severe, from what I can see and she will definitely need plastic surgery on her gums, etc. The other day when we went to the civil affairs meeting, the orphanage director was not able to attend so the same nanny that brought her was there again. Gracie did NOT want to go to her and clung to me. Hmmm, scary. She does not seem to be grieving, but I'm not sure of anything (she could still....)

I will post the pictures from today later. We are wiped out and I need to sleep! Miss you KJF :)

WWKS, Chongqing, China, September 17, 2009

Go teapot. Go Gators. It's too late to think of anything fun or funny.

Gracie is a Fay!

Gracie could not be doing any better (well, physically, she could, but...) she is smiling lots and Frannie is generally sweet to her. We went to our civil affairs meeting today and Frannie got very, very jealous of my holding Grace and cried when I had to go in the other room to take pictures. Frannie is usually pretty good with her and only freaks when it comes to my holding Grace. It's not always easy to hold two of them (while walking, for instance), but she is doing better than I thought. Nancy has been a true champ, taking my freak out moments in stride and taking up where I leave off....Grace had not cried once since we got her until yesterday. We had to leave our thumbprints on the official documents and when I put her thumb in ink and had to turn her hand over and and press down, she cried like I had pinched her. So sad to see. When I gave her a bath last night and tried to use the shower head extendo-arm to rinse her head, she wailed for a good 10 minutes. Alrighty, no problem, we have a plastic cup for rinsing purposes.

Grace's skin does worry me, but it seems to be getting better somehow. I'm waiting for word from MP....

My prayers go out to Karoline and her family as I just read that her Mom passed away. God bless all the Rumps.

We went out to get meat on a stick for dinner last night. See Frannie eating tentacles with gusto. We all enjoyed the spicy Sichuan food. Believe it or not, there is an entire section of the grocery store dedicated to Ramen noodles. We are trying to eat the local cuisine as much as possible, but I have to admit to Donna that we did break down and eat KFC one night due to time constraints. HOWEVER, we had mystery meat sandwiches from there so it doesn't count as eating American fast food. We are scheduled to eat at a hot pot restaurant tonight after a tour of the hot spots in Chongqing.

WWKS, Chongqing, China September 16, 2009

Have you started teaching Gracie how to Gator chomp yet? Have you told her about Tebow? Does she know that the Gators are 2-0 already?

The girls spent the evening in the hotel room checking out Gracie's new toys, backpack, sunglasses and playing peekaboo. Frannie is struggling some, but doing remarkably well, considering. Grace has a questionable scabby thing going on? I'm praying it's not scabies, but we are medicating it like it is. Hoping to get some advice. Unfortunately, both girls napped very, very late and they did not want to go to sleep until after midnight. We are trying to regulate them both today, but as the adoption week goes, we have to meet at the civil affairs office today right in the middle of nap time and we will just have to make do. Grace is almost exactly Frannie's size when we got her, about 12-18 months. She is vocalizing, and actually makes sounds like Mama, but she can't really articulate. She won't let me see her palate yet. She is smiling a lot and loves noodles!

For some reason, we cannot get the sound to work on this brand new computer only on the dvd. The sound works fine for all other sounds, but we can't get it to work for the dvd. Yes, i have already checked the computer set-ups, sound settings, etc. Thanks for any advice!

Gracie!

She smelled like poop, she was pretty filthy and she hardly reacted to us at all, but when we got back to the hotel she started to giggle and respond to her new big sister.

WWKS, Chongqing, China September 14, 2009

Her braces are going to cost us a fortune. Maybe she can start saving now....

More to come...

Last Few Hours Before Gracie

Nancy is playing with Frannie while I am writing this and I can't help but wax philosophical, spiritual, emotional....

Yesterday when we left our hotel in Shanghai to head to the airport, the driver coincidentally drove around the back of the hotel where we saw an old lady picking through the huge piles of garbage and Nancy mentioned a minute later that she saw a little boy in there too. I am reminded of two things when I see this: 30 years ago or so my parents went to Bermuda to celebrate their anniversary without the kids and for some reason my Mom brought all her jewelry with her, valuing about $20,000 and it was stolen. She was grieving the loss of these pearls, jade necklaces, etc. when she saw two little kids trying to come into the hotel to beg for money and the bellboy shooed them away. My mom told us when we got older that she needed to see that in order to get over the lost jewelry. She was so grateful to have 5 healthy kids, at home with our aunt, with no wants or needs. As I left Shanghai, I thought about that and how crazy it is for me to grieve over a few articles of clothing, gifts for Gracie's foster family, etc. We have the ability to buy more and this poor old lady digging through OUR garbage behind the hotel has nothing. I was also reminded of the garbage dump in Kingston where many of the disabled kids are found and brought to the orphanages of Mustard Seed and MOP. This garbage dump is HOME to many who have to battle daily with wild pigs in order to find food.

Okay folks, I can't help but philosophize everything, it's the way my brain is wired. Almost the instant I let go of the stupid suitcase and decided to just get over it, the hotel in Chongqing tells me it's on the way -- kinda like God wanted me to learn that lesson before I got the bag back. I needed that.

Frannie is doing remarkably well with all the travel, various rooms, traffic, noise and general hubub. We leave here in about 3 hours for Grace and I will post pics later.

By the way, Nancy was introduced to "General Social Differences Between Americans and Chinese" last night. We went to a local restaurant, attached to a big department store like Chinese fast food. We had to just point to the pictures to order. We sat at a table right next to a sink where, apparently, people will wash up before they eat. We had just gotten our food when a little petite woman walked over the sink and started clearing her throat. I mean, snorting and hockering and blowing her nose into the sink and hockering some more. I thought Nancy might need a barf bag. I'm sorry that this still makes me laugh. Makes me think of a trip I took with Susan M to the Badlands and the sights we saw in the portajohnnies at the rest stop.....

Miracles Do Happen!

We went to the airport to fly out to Chongqing and Nancy pushed me to go over to the Delta representative and ask about my bag again. The woman on the phone had been a bit short so I re-told the story to a guy who said something like "Delta lost your luggage?" and despite that not being ACTUALLY the truth that I had surmised, I went with that so they took down all my info and we got on our flight. Our guide Christie picked us up, all is well, yadda yadda, yadda (Lisa F, the hotel is just great, nice, convenient location, thanks!) and when we walked up to the reception, the woman tells our guide that Delta called and they are sending over my bag this afternoon. God is good. And yes, we prayed that Saint Anthony would put in a good word for us with the big guy ..... thank you Lord!

We will leave the hotel tomorrow at 1:30 to get Gracie! Please pray for that little tyke to have little fear and an open heart. Give us all understanding for her grieving and the wisdom to know what she needs.

Lucy, I had to take a picture in Shanghai of that sign. Cracked me up! Show Lauren :)

WWKS, Chongqing China, September 13, 2009

Oh honey, you deserve it, go shopping anyway! Take in a massage while you are at it.

Today's Update

We are up at 4:30 am to get ready for the ride to the airport. Frannie was nice enough to wake me up early for our early wake-up call! We spent the day yesterday walking down to the Bund via the famous Nanjing Street shopping area. Funny how a claustrophobic person who hates crowds was stupid enough to choose this city for leisure. By the time the 10th person came up to us, shoving a pamphlet for watches in our faces, I wanted to kung fu him or her. I did manage to find some men's shorts to buy and some cheap t-shirts for the time being.

To explain about the bag (mostly for the sake of my husband, who I am sure is thinking something like "I bet she left it on a curb and drove away."): We got through customs, went to the luggage turnstyle where Nancy was waiting for us with 3 of our bags already. I went to get two trolleys for the trip outside. By the time I got back, Nancy had gotten all of her bags and started stacking them on one of the trolleys. I saw a red bag that I thought might be mine so I picked it up and realized it was much dirtier than mine so I put it back. Right after that I saw my other bags and the stroller so I grabbed those and Nancy continued to stack them all on the trolley. I turned back and saw another red one and thought to myself "that one looks much cleaner' and grabbed it. We went out the front of the airport to the long taxi line and walked to the front where a guy with a clipboard met us and asked us where we were going. He and the taxidriver spent about 5 minutes packing and repacking all of these bags into a car about the size of a Camry. The picture of Frannie on Nancy's lap shows the tight fit with the suitcases next to them. We got to the hotel, watched the bellboys unload and went up to the room. No red bag. We talked incessantly about the order of that -- how I remembered very clearly grabbing that clean red bag and in what order the bags were stacked in the taxi. The hotel people even looked at their surveillance cameras for us to see how many bags were taken out of the taxi. We counted 9 at the airport and 8 were taken out of the taxi.

Okay, so on to happier things: we are leaving here in a few minutes to head closer to Gracie. We will write when we arrive and have lots of good news!

We Have Arrived

We are here, staying in one of the nicest hotels I have seen. The flight was very comfortable and seemed to go quicker than I remember. Frannie was incredibly well- behaved the whole way, given all the confusion and time-travel (we left Detroit at 4:30 pm and arrived in Shanghai 13 hours later at 7pm, what the....)

So imagine that you are in China with no clothes.....somewhere between the curb at the airport and getting to our hotel, my suitcase was lost with ALL my clothes in it. We are praying for an altruistic soul to return it to lost and found, but for now, we know nothing. The Radisson is frantically working on it as we are about to stroll down the Bund to get a Starbucks.

Rather than Kevin's sub-column from the last trip entitled "Kevin's Two Cents," I have devised my own rendition entitled "WWKS" (also known as What Would Kevin Say, allowing me, from thousands of miles away, to make fun of Kevin and speculate on how he might react in our current circumstances). For Today:

WWKS, Shanghai, China September 12, 2009 8:26 am

"You did that on purpose just so that you could buy all new clothes -- you don't fool me."

PS. Dawn, the DVD player died before it even started -- I may owe you a new one?? Nancy's laptop would not play sound so Frannie was left with no movies.
Lucy, our seats in First Class had those massaging fingers with the gentle lumbar pulses, ah, the joy of having Steve Angel as a friend....
Cheryl, the photos are being loaded, but Nancy's computer died and we couldn't figure out how to charge it -- cute pics to come....

FYI to the all travelers: "No Jet Lag" is the bomb. I feel fantastic and all 3 of us slept like logs last night -- during the NIGHT. Someone needs to explain this to me, in a chemistry-sort-of-way, I am mystified.

*phew* that was close

Frannie is doing MUCH, MUCH better, thanks be to God and thanks to everyone praying. She has two close friends who have had the swine flu recently and I'm so, so grateful that Frannie is better. She has slept through two nights and this morning I actually woke her up when I looked in at her at 7:15.




The scenes here are what goes on while Mom is packing -- Frannie must wear that backpack (because Dora has one) and she has to watch it from a 2 inch distance (because every child HAS to do that) and the dogs are right at my feet, following me all over the house as I search for packing necessities. Thanks to all my friends, calling me and wishing us well. Thanks Denise C. for the lavender, thanks digit friends for all the prayers and advice, thanks Mary Pat for pick us up at the airport and thank you to everyone else out there. I will NOT post from Detroit (ha ha) but I will post something from Shanghai -- can't wait to see this crazy, bustling city! We are scheduled to get Gracie on Monday, the 14th (we will be 12 hours ahead so we will probably post photos by the time you wake up that morning) :)

Pray for Frannie

Frannie woke up on Thursday with a fever. She had no other symptoms except clinging to me so I took her to the doctor who said her throat was red and just told me to give her Tylenol. She has not been sleeping well at all, waking up crying in her sleep about every hour. Well about 2am I heard her choking/coughing and I knew she had developed something new -- this is obviously not good news for travel in two days, but more importantly, China has been quarantining people who come in from the U.S. with fevers and suspected Swine Flu. Frannie needs prayers.

Just to explain, since so many people asked yesterday: Kevin and I discussed the China trip about a month ago, discussing whether he should travel with me (work concerns), whether Frannie should travel with me, should I go solo, should I take a friend, etc. We decided that Frannie, more than anyone, needs to bond with Gracie, she needs to see her grieve, she needs to help comfort her and help her assimilate. I don't think I could spend two weeks without her anyway. Kevin's work is so busy right now that giving up two weeks' worth of income would be too much. So we prayed and discussed who would be willing and able to join me -- Nancy agreed right away so here we go, off to China for the "Girls Gone Wild in Guangzhou" trip.