Settling In

We've been home for almost 5 days now and things are starting to settle in. Neela is getting more comfortable with the new sleeping arrangements. We moved the crib next to our bed and kept her in the crib the whole time last night. She only woke up a couple of times and needed comforting to get back to sleep. Our previous strategy was to start her out in the crib, but then move her to our bed whenever she woke up. This was probably good the first few nights while she became used to our bedroom, but now that we are past that it was just resulting in all of us getting less sleep as we bounce around each other. Naps seem to going very well now. Marnie reads to her and rocks her and she goes down without a fight.

Foodwise, things are getting better. So far she continues to be a picky eater, but we are probably giving her a lot of new foods and she just needs time to get used to a wider variety. Grapes and applesauce have been added to the tolerated fruits list. So far ham is the only meat which does not come rolling back out her mouth. She'll each the white part of a hard boiled egg, and sometimes scrambled eggs are okay. Rice and congee are still king. This morning I'm making banana muffins and fresh congee. If my calculations are correct, she will love the muffins. I think maybe I'll try a cut up hard boiled egg in her congee, with the hope the congee will make the yellow part palatable. I'll keep you posted.

In general, she is as cute and playful as ever. The "little people" toy bin has been her mainstay. She loves going outside and just running around. Luke and Andrew gave her rides in the Lamborgini, which she loved! We should get a picture of that posted. The boys and I are getting some things ready for Halloween. We made a ghost which we hung from a string outside the front of out house. The plan is to pull on the string from inside the house to raise and lower the ghost, thereby scaring any nearby trick or treaters. Also plan to do the front door which opens itself using some fishing line.

We're home!

Finally arrived home at 11:50am yesterday. The plane ride was rough and the jet lag brutal. Our first trip from Guangzhou to Tokyo was only about 3 hours with meal, so that was pretty doable. We had a 2 hour layover in Tokyo, which was barely enough time to get through another round of security screening. Neela slept for 2-3 hours out of that 10 hour flight, and did gymnastics in my lap for the remainder of the time. We took her around the plane a little bit, but mostly we stayed in our seats. After she fell asleep, we positioned her on our laps, pushed the call button, and cashed in our drink coupons for a beer and a Bailey's on the rocks. After arrival, we had to go through immigration for our new little citizen. Marnie nearly passed out in line from the trip and dehydration. We made it through okay, stacked all our luggage on a cart, and rolled out to the street where Ed and Andrew picked us up.

Neela seems to really like it at our house. She is still learning how to go over the landing by the steps. She has given Luke and Andrew multiple hugs and likes to hold their hands while walking around the house. We all struggled to stay awake through the afternoon. I kept nodding off in spite of the coffee I was drinking. Neela fell asleep right in her high chair after only having a couple bites of her dinner. I went to bed shortly after dinner, and Marnie shortly after that. Neela spent most of the night in our bed instead of her crib, which is fine. We'll give her some time to get over the jet lag and get used to our house before trying to get her to stay in her crib. She and I got up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. She had some milk and prune/rice cereal, played blocks and "little people" for a bit, and went back to bed at 1:30am. We all slept pretty good then until 6am. If that was the worst night in her "adjustment", then we should be okay...

Neela seems to be doing pretty good, so it would be okay for people to come meet her, but we just want to not have everyone come at the same time. So please call in advance to arrange a time. Thanks!

Dave

On my way back to you...

Hello, Marnie here signing in for one last post while in China. I imagine we will be able to post once or twice when we get home and then regular life will take over again. I must say that I am definitely ready to be back home and am not even going to gripe about the 16+ hours of travel it will take to get there. While living in the lap of luxury at the White Swan is nice for a bit, I am mighty tired of each elevator lobby lady grabbing Neela to play with her and 5 servers hovering over our table ready to snatch our plates away as soon as our lips close around the last bite. I just want to be alone in my own home. Well not alone. I am really excited to see the boys again and to sit in the cozy chair by the fireplace and snuggle them both on my lap and read a good Magic Tree House book or tell them all about our trip or hear what they want to do the next day. This has been such a long time to be away from them. We know they were in great hands with Grammy and Gramps and Grandma and Grandpa and they had a lot of fun times together. It was also very important for us to focus just on Neela for this time and I'm pretty sure I would not have had it in me to do this trip with 3 young kids. We will bring them all back to China someday, but for now I am so happy to be coming home so we will all be back together again. Here's a little smoochie and a hug for you, Luke and Andrew! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo I love you and see you soon!!! --Love, Mommy

1 more day

Took a little "blogger break" yesterday. Sorry if we left anyone hanging. Had a rough time putting our little congee munchkin to bed last night (at left is how miss manners likes to finish off her bowl of congee). She took a late nap which made it harder for her to go to sleep at the usual time. But once she did her usual scream for 5-10 minutes then she was ready. Then she treated us to another scream session at 3:30am because she wanted to go to my bed instead of Marnie's bed. When Marnie presented her with the options of her crib or Marnie's bed, then she was okay to with Marnie's bed. (fyi: we have another room with two single beds, if we had a king bed I think this would be a non-issue) It continues to be hard on Marnie when Neela continues to prefer her "ba ba". She does just fine with Marnie when I am not around, so a big piece of this just seems to be her stubbornness. We both feel things will be better when we are home since we'll have a little more space to manage these kinds of things.

Yesterday we finished up our shopping for various souvenirs and gifts. In the afternoon, we took a small bus and did a bit of touring. The first stop was at a Buddhist temple, where we made wishes, lit incense sticks, and received a blessing from a Buddhist monk. I clicked my heels three times and wished I was home, but apparently that was too tall an order for the Buddha. The various statues were very large (notice the little stacks of orange soda in front) and very beautiful.

The next stop was at an old school which was converted to a museum. The buildings were impressive with large dark wood framing and tall doors and ceilings, and in the middle of everything was a peaceful stone and small tree courtyard. The museum featured various artwork such as embroidery, carved ivory, and palm leave fans. The ivory carving was amazing, but is outlawed now of course. The last stop was at a store featuring high quality jade. They gave us a brief lesson on how to tell good jade from bad jade, and then followed that with a lesson on how to transfer money from our pocket to their pocket. Marnie got a nice little jade necklace which we intend to call "Merry Xmas".

We ended our day with another meal at Lucy's and a drawn out bedtime thanks to our not so tired little friend. After she was asleep, we enjoyed a little more of our $5 wine and the Discovery channel feature on the building of the Airbus A380.

Today we will pack up our things (again) so we can move to a more expensive hotel right next to the airport. On the way, we will stop by the US consulate to pick up her visa and take some sort of oath. I imagine it will read something like "we promise to raise her with the highest of capitalistic values and shop at Target regularly".

Tonight we have the daunting task of trying to get our money's worth out of the $200/night hotel by the airport, which we will be at for less than 12 hours. This will be especially challenging given we will miss breakfast, which rules out filling our backpack at the buffet. How they can even have a $200/night hotel in a country where you can get 7 ice cream bars for a dollar is beyond me. The other hotel we stayed at on our way to Nanchang was only $30 a night. I'm not only expecting them to tuck me in, but to also put my jammies on and brush my teeth...

3 more days

Today was a busy day. We were all up at 6am sharp and went down for breakfast at 6:30. The breakfast buffet here is fantastic. It is a little more western than the last place with a wider variety and everything tastes great! We sat by the window near the river and watched an occasional boat go by. After breakfast, we met Molly and made the rounds for visa pictures and medical examinations. This clinic was much better than the orphanage clinic - very clean and orderly. The doctor thought the little "outie" belly button she has is probably a hernia, which Marnie's mom thought might be the case. Not a big deal, easily fixed. She also thought she was a slight bit pale, perhaps due to her heart defect, though her lip color looks good so she is probably doing pretty well. She seems to have good color to us, but maybe scale is shifted a little for Chinese babies. Will have this checked out as well when we get home.

Next we took a little break and then Marnie went to Molly's room for more paperwork. Neela and I went and checked out the Mattel playroom. It was pretty nice, wall to wall carpet with lots of stuffed animals and a few other toys. She had fun checking out the new stuff and playing with the other kids there. Afterwards, we went back to the room and had lunch. She was pretty tuckered out at this point, since she usually takes a short morning nap and here it was already 1pm. She ate half her lunch and then fell asleep between bites.

At 3 pm we met Molly again for a walk to the local shopping areas. We first walked through a street full of shops for Chinese traditional medicines. (We'll spare you the picture of the hundreds of dried frogs with legs stretched out lying in a box...) Eventually these shops gave way to shops with all kinds of other things, such as small turtles and multicolored fish. The cute puppies and kittens always caught Neela's eye. As we neared the end of this street of traditional shops, the sign of the nearby Holiday Inn loomed in the skyline.

Next we visited more modern shops with pearls, baby clothes, CDs and DVDs, and eventually ice cream. The streets were crowded making me wonder "Don't these people have jobs?" This did seem to be a younger crowd here, at least on this street with the more modern stores. We don't seem to be as much of a novelty as we were in Nanchang, which is nice. Neela has made friends with the kids from another adoption family and insists on holding their hands as we stroll down the street. They don't seem to mind. We think she is going to love having two brothers!

Oh yeah, forgot to mention there was a nice little gift courtesy of Mattel waiting for us in our hotel room when we got back this morning. We were told that these are a White Swan exclusive gift that you can't get anywhere else. Hmmm, appreciate the gesture, but not sure we are big fans. Aside from the whole Barbie thing (which we won't get into), this just seems to have some message about international adoption which just doesn't seem right. Apparently these sell for big bucks on Ebay, so maybe we will give it a new home and put the $ in a savings account for Neela...