First Adoption of the New Year

How could I forget to mention-- our adoption of Clara Rose is number 001, 2010: the first adoption in Tianjin for the new year and the new decade.   The officials told us this means much luck for our family!

Daddy and His Ducklings

Today was a very busy day. We spent the better part of the morning running around Tianjin completing the China portion of the adoption, visiting a notary office, and applying for Clara Rose's Passport. The good news-- we got it all done and we have the certificate of adoption from China! We will pick up her Chinese passport on Friday morning.   Clara Rose had a good night-- after she fell asleep. She did cry quite a bit at her bedtime-- bedtime is often a hard time. Wim and I thought she would wake during the night crying because of all the change she is experiencing-- but she slept the night.   Josie was up at about 3:30 am and I set-up the computer so she could watch Dora followed by Clifford the Big Red Dog. I had time to look through Clara Rose's photo book from her foster family and the bag they sent with her. She was obviously loved and well cared for by her foster family. She has a brand new VERY lovely dress with the tags still attached in her bag along with some new boots that are clearly too big for her-- meant for when she is a bit older.   We also discovered that we have the phone number to Clara Rose's foster mom. Our guide talked to her today and I will be meeting with the foster mom Thursday afternoon-- without Clara Rose so we can talk. The foster mom agreed that it would be difficult for Clara Rose to see her again-- then to separate again. Clara Rose is bonding more to her Baba so I will meet with the foster mom and our guide. We feel very fortunate for this opportunity and are hopeful that we will be able to maintain some contact with the foster family in the year's to come. What a great blessing this will be for Clara Rose as she grows-up.   This adoption is very different from Josie's. We feel a bit guilty-- like we are taking Clara Rose away from a family. We were able to talk to on the ladies from the orphanage today. She explained that when these kids turn 14-years old, they return to the orphanage for either more formal schooling, trade skills those kinds of things.   Clara Rose will interact with me-- she has even offered and fed me some cheerios, smiles, etc. She does not want me to pick her up and she will cry if Wim leaves the room. She is very funny and definitely has a mischievious sparkle in her eye. She will offer something to me or Wim and then pull it away with a smile. She also does this Groucho Marx thing with her eye brows. Too cute!   Josie is doing her best to be a big sister, but there is some jealousy going on. Until now, Josie only had limited interest in her daddy, but now-- Josie is EXTREMELY interested in her daddy and wants him to do the same things for her he is doing for Clara Rose.   For the first time in nearly two years I have been able to do things like go to the bathroom without Josie following me or beating on the door while I am in there. Instead of constantly trailing after me-- she is trailing after Wim and Clara Rose. I sort of feel like I have lost an appendage-- but it is nice to be able to sit back and observe a bit more this time.   This afternoon we had a longer than usual nap-- I woke feeling like a ton of bricks fell on top of me. Perhaps I have broken through the wierdo sleep barrier I was experiencing. We have a free day tomorrow and most of Thursday. Our plan tomorrow is to visit ancient cultural street and maybe the Nanshi (sp) food district.    A good friend of ours adopted thier daughter from Tianjin-- Josie's friend Angeline-- often featured on our blog. Her mom told us how good the local food is in Tianjin and boy oh boy she wasn't kidding! I am loving the steamed buns filled with Red Bean Paste and burger stuffed steamed dumplings this area is known for. We haven't had the chance to try the fried dough yet-- hopefully this evening or tomorrow. There is also a noodle dish with broth where you choose your noodles, vegetables and they flash boil them then add a broth and you add a few more things of your choice like scallions, tiny salty shrimp, some kind of hot paste--- MMmmmmm-mmmm. Wim really likes that-- I do to, but it is hard to not fill-up on those steamed buns.   We don't have a lot of pictures from today-- what we do have are on Shutterfly. It is definitely more exhausting chasing two around than just one-- especially doing all this busy work, but folks here are very nice. Two women in the notary office were asking the ages of Josie and Clara Rose. Josie was giggling and doing her show-- this got Clara Rose giggling, which got a lot of smiles from the multitude of people in the notary office-- several thumbs-up.   And before I forget, Clara Rose has quite the Mandarin vocabulary-- she knows lots of words and talks quite a bit-- clearly, she is able to hear well enough to have developed language and able to speak it well enough that our guide can understand what she is saying.   So much to try to say with limited mind capacity-- OK, both girls want to drink from thier sippy's without the lid and Wim said no, so they are asking me-- guess what I am going to say!

Clara Rose

We have Clara Rose. The meeting was a bit hectic to say the least. Clara Rose was with a foster family, which was not specifically stated to us. They dropped her off and were there this morning, but we did not really get to talk to them or were told they were her Foster Parents until they were gone.   It seems that the orphanage has a room in a separate building dedicated for adoptive families and the kids. We were not able to see any of the kids in the orphanage nor were we able to go inside the building where the kids reside.   Clara Rose was  very upset-- crying inconsolably while our guide and the orphanage nannies gave us papers etc. Things got disorganized pretty quickly.   We went to the passport office immediately afterward. After Wim and our guide came back to the van for the 2nd time looking for paperwork (I stayed in the van with the girls) we decided it would be easier for us to all go inside. I still ended up going back to the van one more time. On the bright side, Clara Rose had calmed down a bit. She prefers Wim, but will interact with me.   After the passport office, we went to the Bank of China so Wim could exchange US to Yuan currency. Then we were able to go back to the hotel. It was close to 12:30 at this time-- both girls nap at about this time, but were too jazzed-up to sleep nor had we eaten lunch. Clara Rose's foster family sent her with a lot of her favorite snacks and a bag that we have yet been able to look through.    We finally got the girls to calm down and they were just about to doze off when our guide called us to tell us we would need a bit more money for the paperwork fees tomorrow.  Three hours later, the girls are finally taking their nap at about 4:00 pm Tianjin time.   A VERY hectic day, but we are so happy to have Clara Rose. Hopefully, things will be a bit more calm the next few days. She is a very sweet girl. She opened up rather quickly back in our room and was exploring everything.. WE definitely have to watch where we put things. Her and Josie played with the play dough, colored a bit, had some snacks and we got quite a few smiles and even a few laughs.    I didn't get much rest last night either-- who knows how tonight will unfold. Between Josie waking-up every few hours and Wim coughing all the time, it is hard for me to fall asleep and stay asleep. It is starting to really wear on me.   I will upload all of the days pictures to shutterfly-- very interesting drive to the orphanage-- lots of people out shoveling the streets!

More Sleep deprived ramblings

Hi Folks,   We are getting a few questions from some of our adoption groups. Several adopting families with our agency are snowed-in up in Beijing. Tianjin is about 60 miles (maybe a bit more based on how long it took us to drive here and it didn't seem like we were going slow) SE of Beijing.    Wim and I didn't make it to cultural street on Sunday. The rest of the week in Tianjin is being reported on Wunderground that it will be clear and sunny, albeit COLD-- but hey, we're Rhode Islanders so we can take the cold!  Our itinerary shows that we have a couple more down days before we leave for Guangzhou and we plan to make a good trip to ancient culture street before we fly out. It is #1 on the list for things to do that are not related to the adoption.   OK, so I'm still not sleeping well. I drank 1 1/2 beers earlier this evening and fell right asleep around 8:00 pm. I woke up again around 10:00 pm wide awake. Wim is up as well, but he also had a good nap yesterday.  I don't think it is the actual sleep that gets you-- it is your body's biorythym. Maybe they are the same thing-- I am sure they are related.     I guess it is time for another beer and a half and hopefully a longer sleep than 2 hours.  I'm not sure what would happen if I kept doing 1 1/2 beers and 2 hours of sleep intervals to get at least 8 broken hours in. Hmmm, I don't think I want to try that.   OK-- enough ramblings from over the Ocean.

Some not so exciting pictures

Blogger has a very slight max for emailing pictures to the blog. I am posting just a few here and will upload the rest to Shutterfly.  For the rest of our trip, we will likely just post one or two pictures to the blog and some notes-- the rest of the pictures will be on Shutterfly.   You can view them by clicking on Clara Rose's picture on the blog.   Here are a few pictures from our day. Josie and I sent Wim out periodically in the snow storm to run errands and bring us treats. Along the way, he took a few pictures.      A picture of our Hotel.   The every popular and most beloved, Mr. Happy! Josie insisted I take a picture of her with Mr. Happy.   I think Wim is pretty good for having caught up on sleep. I am really feeling the lack of sleep and I think I will sleep well tonight. Josie had a good 3-hour nap today at what would be her normal nap time. We swam for an hour, so I am hoping she will be ready to sleep tonight at what would be her normal bed time.   [Oooops, quick update-- major meltdown. She wants to go to sleep and we're not letting her yet. ]   Tomorrow morning we will be up bright and early for the yummy breakfast buffet and then off to the bank with our guide and then the orphanage! It seems like it is really happening fast but also happening in slow motion.

White OUT!

So here we are in Tianjin during somewhat of a mini blizzard. We have not ventured out of the hotel much other than Wim running out to get us some sandwiches last night.  Everyone was tired, but we were up at about 4:30 am Tianjin time this morning.    We had a very nice breakfast in the hotel this morning—local fare like dumplings, steamed buns filled with red bean paste, a noodle soup dish where you pick the ingredients and they cook them. There were also plenty of Western items to choose from—but we can have those at home. It was all very delicious and Josie charmed the crowd.   We checked out the fitness center and pool—the pool is really nice! We plan to go swimming this afternoon after Josie naps (and us too likely).   The big news is that we will get Clara Rose tomorrow. We are working with our guide through several phone calls to figure out how to get our American dollars converted to Yuan for all the paperwork fees tomorrow. The Banks are closed today and the hotel can only exchange $500 American dollars to Yuan. As soon as we get all of this done at the First Bank of China tomorrow morning, we will head to the orphanage to meet Clara Rose and assume custody of her.  We are VERY excited.   Other than that, we are hanging out in our hotel room down to our skives because our room is like a sauna—this is with the heat turned off and the window open as much as we can open it—during a blizzard.   I'll try to post some pictures later today/evening from swimming and our hotel room.   Also, the blog is set up to email comments to me—so we should be able to read your comments that way even though we cannot access our blog directly.  Lots more excitement to come!

What Happen Mr. Sun?

Hi Folks,   We made it-- to Tianjin-- finally and are settled at 10:00 Pm our time..  What a LONG DAY!   It started off fine-- no surprises.   When we arrived at O'Hare earlier than scheduled to discover that our flight to Beijing was delayed an hour, which turned into two.   We did have a nice encounter though-- we met Jane Leidke-- our china adoptive families will recognize her as the Director for the foundation, "Our adopted daughter's from China." What a nice surprise to have a chance to chat with her.   After boarding the plane to Beijing, the pilot made a few announcements and told folks to listen to the music-- the song was--"Everybody must get stone." Wim and I looked at each other and said-- can we have a new pilot?   The flight was long-- VERY Long. Josie quickly learned the phrase,   "Oh God! We're still over Canada?!"    About seven hours in we had more excitement when Josie woke up crying-- crying-- the chinese lady sitting next to me tried to help and I asked her not to because Josie doesn't like strage people touching her especially when she is freaking out-- not knowing where she is etc.   Well, that wasn't all that was wrong with Josie, who for the first time ever since we adopted her-- got sick. I'm talking a full blown puke all over both herself and my shirt.  Too little sleep, not her regular eating schedule and she was upset about NOT having her crib.   The Chinese lady was very gracious and helped me clean up Josie.   We finally made it to Beijing and went through all the check points quickly-- one piece of our luggage was the last to come out though-- but hey, they all made it!   We met our guide no problems. She is a very nice young woman named Belinda. She arranged for and accompanied us  in the van drive 2 1/2 to 3 hours to our hotel in Tianjin-- the Renassoince-- pretty snazzy. Only one big bed in the room though. They did bring us another twin-- so I guess Josie will be getting her wish-- Rose will be sleeping next to her!   Tomorrow, we will explore a bit on our own and Monday, we will meet Rose. The time has not yet been set, but we should know more tomorrow.   That is it in a nutshell and Josie is her perky little self-- she slept the rest of the trip after "the incident."  Wim and I are ready to drop.  No pictures today, I am sure we will have lots tomorrow and the days to come.   On the van ride to the hotel, Josie woke up and said it was time to get up. Looked around at the dark sky and asked, "What happened to Mr. Sun?"   I am emailing this, so somebody email my yahoo and let me know if it posts.   Love and Miss you all!