Our First Family Photo!

OK, everyone, my apologies for not keeping you informed of our journey! We finally have the internet working on our laptop, so I'm going to attempt to describe the trip so far before the kids wake up from their naps. Thanks to my friend Jen for posting this for me! (I can't access blogspot from here.) As I'm typing I'm listening to "Do-a-Deer-a-Female-Deer" played by the street cleaning machine outside. This happens several times a day, and at 6:00 am and noon there is more sophisticated music played for the city to hear. It's quite interesting!

OK, so backing up . . . We were all ready to leave last Wednesday morning. I'll have to share the details once I'm home, but Jesse and I ended up waiting until Friday to leave. Everyone else made it safely to Beijing on Thursday. They saw all the important sights and were quite worn out by the time we got there! Jesse did great on the plane. I actually didn't mind the 14 hours--got to see a few good movies, and didn't have any problems at all. Wish I could say the same about the past week--he's been a bear! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, we got to Beijing Saturday afternoon, took a little rest, and then met up with the other 4. We went out for Peking Duck dinner. SO good! But unfortunately, I was too tired to thoroughly enjoy it. But it was still very yummy. We went to bed, but Jesse and I and Heath were all awake a lot through the night. At 5 am I finally returned to sleep, only to OVERsleep! Our alarm was still on US time (12 hours off), so it didnt' go off and wake us up. Fortunately, Stephanie (Heath's mom) woke us up, and we got all our baggage packed on time and made it to the airport. The Beijing airport is WAY improved than when I was here before. Quite impressive. We flew an hour and a half and arrived in Xian. Oh, and we got a full lunch on that little flight. I guess the Chinese airlines haven't cut back like the American ones!

We got to the hotel here in Xian. It's inside the old city wall, which is so cool looking--can't wait to walk on top! It took a bit to settle in. First our door key didn't work, then we had an army of people come in and assemble a crib for us, then we blew a fuse by plugging in the wrong thing. But finally we were in. I spent the next hour moving us in. I unpacked and arranged things and finally felt a bit of order to our lives. Then I prepared the gifts we'd brought for the orphanage director and workers. About an hour later it was time to get Tabitha! Our guide took us to the office where she was. When we came in the room, I didn't realize she was there at first because she was hiding between the legs of her nanny whose back was to us. We met the orphanage director, and the nanny, and only then did I see the cute little girl--OUR girl-- hiding there! She was very quiet. She let me hold her hand but didn't want to be picked up. So I just took it slow and knelt down by here while our guide translated various information for us. Turns out they had just brought her back from Beijing THAT DAY! We knew she was there for medical care, but we didn't realized she'd been there for over a year, and had just returned that day. We gave our gifts, and they gave us her baby book, pictures, and the toys we'd sent to her. We signed a paper saying that we had to be with her overnight and then make our decision the next day. As if we'd say, "Well, on second thought, she snores--we'll just leave her here and go home." Yeah, right. (She doesn't actually snore, I just can't imagine how anyone could change their mind that late.) So, she finally let us hold her, and we got some pictures. She didn't cry at all, just very calm, quiet, content.

When we got back to the hotel, she just sat on heath's lap, very calm and quiet. But all that changed when she saw the doll we'd brought for her. Remember how they said she doesn't like toys with big eyes? Well, it's not just big eyes--it's anything with a 3D shape of a person or animal, we think. She started crying and batting the doll away. Other than that, she has not cried a single time! Ethan carefully tied blankets to her crib to cover up the pictures on there. But now we've realized pictures with big eyes don't bother her--only 3D things.

We went to dinner here at the hotel. Tabitha's a very good eater. She's liked everything we've given her. Dealing with the catheter has been fine too. There's just a valve on the bag that we have to empty into the toilet. When we get to Guangzhou the doctor will change it for us. At dinner Jesse fell asleep. At bed time, we put her in the crib, but she wanted out, so I just held her and rocked her until I thought she was asleep, but upon laying her down, realized she wasn't. So, I laid down with her on my chest, and we both fell asleep that way. Very sweet. Then we transferred her to the crib, where she slept very well. In the morning she looked around for me until I came and got her. Jesse and Ethan both had various ailments and weren't sleeping so well. So we were all quite tired.

Monday was a rough day. Ethan was sick, I was exhausted, and Jesse was (and still is) extremely crabby. We left the boys with mom, and went back to the office to sign all the necessary papers and have our interview. Nothing too difficult, and we passed. =) We went to lunch at a nearby restaurant. Our guide wasn't with us, and no one spoke english. Fortunately the menu had pictures. And I managed to use two of my Chinese words to get us water and white rice. :) Mom managed to get herself a fork too--she's just not enjoying the challenge of chopsticks. After lunch we picked up the official paper, so she's really ours! Then we went shopping for various things at a big supermarket. By this time Jesse was just beyond miserable, Ethan still wasn't feeling great, and I was going mad and ready to go home! Fortnuately my bad mood only lasted a couple hours, and the rest of the time has been good. Oh yes, at lunch Jesse had been looking at the menu too, which included many interesting things. When our chicken, veggies, and rice arrived he got this offended look on his face and said, "I wanted crabs and turtles!" He also attempted to eat the chicken head that came on the dish, but I prevented it. Mommy can only stomach so much.

For dinner Monday we ate at the hotel again. We ordered a hamburger for the boys to share, thinking they'd be excited to have familiar food. Ethan had one bite and said he was full. Jesse (who cannot fall asleep during naptime no matter what we do) fell asleep on the chair before he even ate anything. After dinner we came back to the room, and the three kids played together. Tabitha really came alive. She was chasing the boys, laughing out loud, and they were all having a great time. She looked hillarious, because I took out the little braids that were on top of her head, and her hair was huge! But it was so fun to watch them together. We gave her a bath, which went fine and took care of the hair problem. :)

Tuesday morning Tabitha woke up very subdued, and turned out to be sick. She threw up after drinking her cup of water, but we thought it was just because of drinking too much water on an empty stomach, so we gave her some crackers, but she threw those up too. Thought we'd try congee (watery rice cereal) down at breakfast. (This hotel does have an AWESOME breakfast--you were right, Joyce.) She ate half a bowl and was doing great, but then suddenly threw up all over Heath! So we took her back to the room, and she slept all morning. Heath stayed with her while the rest of us went to the pool. Then I stayed with her while the rest of them went out to lunch. They walked around the "authentic" areas and ended up eating chicken and squid-on-a-stick. Except for Ethan who had french fries from McDonald's. Oh well. By the afternoon Tabitha was feeling much better, Jesse was coughing less, and everyone except Jesse was in a good mood. We attempted naptime for Jesse, but to no avail. We walked to the city center for dimsum and dumplings. Jesse was tired of walking, so I carried him piggy back. Within 2 minutes of putting him up there he was asleep! On my back! I thought he'd fall off, so Heath took him the rest of the way, and we finally made it to the restaurnat. Dim sum (I think that's the right word) is where they bring all the selection on a cart and you just point to what you want. Very nice for us foreigners. Plus, there was a British couple there who helped us figure out how to order dumplings. They were so good! That's what this place is known for, and it was delicious. Jesse slept through the entire dinner once again . . . 3 for 3. Then he woke up when we put him in the stroller for the way home, and complained the whole way back that he was cold. The temperature is beautiful here, actually! It's a great time to come as far as the weather goes. When we got back, Jesse didn't want to brush his teeth because he wanted "to go right to bed!" But we did brush teeth, and then he went to sleep. Best night of sleep yet, for all of us!! Oh, and Tabitha must not have had tooth-brushing as a regular part of her life. Her teeth have a lot of plaque, and she would NOT open her mouth to let me brush them. We'll keep working on that.

Anyway, everyone slept well last night, and we're all healthy. So this was a very good day. We went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors this morning--Xian's claim to fame. They're about 2200 years old, life-size clay warriors buried with Emporer Qin for his army in the afterlife. They were discovered accidentally by someone digging a well in 1974. There are thousands of them, and they haven't even excavated them all yet. Very cool.

I think Ethan enjoyed seeing them. Jesse was still pretty whiny there, but he did enjoy some of it. Tabitha has started to come out of her shell. She's no longer Little Miss Compliant. Now she makes her wishes known by pointing and squirming to get to where she wants to go. She loves to walk around, and hold hands IF you're going her way. We had to run after her a couple times already because she wanted to go elsewhere. Such is the duty of a 2-year-old. But she still hasn't cried or whined about anything. We have heard her say a couple words in Chinese, but not much. At the Terra Cotta factory, we showed her the miniature warriors to let her pick one to have. But when Heath held it up to her, she started yelling "Mei You! Mei You!", which means "No! No!" It was kind of funny, but I guess we'll stop trying to force her to like figurines. :) She seems to like all of us, but doesn't yet have a preference for Mommy and Daddy. She likes Amy and Mom-mom just as well, and would probably go just as easiliy to a stranger. I'm glad she likes them, but I'll feel much more secure of my position when she wants Mommy and Daddy over anyone else! Not that I'm jealous or anything. =)

We came back, and Tabitha took her nap, and believe-it-or-not, Jesse did too! Now it's 4:30, and we're having trouble waking them up! I hope this doesn't spell disastor for bedtime tonight. But at least maybe Jesse can stay awake through dinner today. :)

I think the most precious thing is yesterday when Ethan said to Tabitha, "I love you more than cutting down trees." And for Ethan--that's pretty intense! He also told me that he loves Tabitha "a little bit more than Mommy" because she plays with him more. Oh well. I'm glad he likes his sister. =)

Sorry for the typos--trying to get this out quickly. Thank you all for your continued prayers. I'll try to update again soon!