We had a really good day on Saturday. Julianna decided that perhaps her daddy was not all that bad and let him hold her and play with her. She even sat with him without crying while mommy showered. They played with the band aids, which I think may be her favorite toy in the whole house. She was stuffing them in her pants pockets on Saturday. This is her concentrating on the box.
Sunday, however, was an absolutely miserable day for everyone. We woke her up for church and probably rushed her a bit more than she is used to in the morning. This resulted in a very grumpy morning. Not even her band aids would soothe her.


Then it was off to church, which completely threw off her morning play routine, as well as snack time. About half way through the worship service she was completely exhausted, but would not sleep in a strange place, even though I stayed with her in the nursery the whole time. We put her in the car to come home and she was asleep before I turned the car on. Once we get home, she has not eaten, and is completely exhausted, all of which results in the worst temper tantrum we have had in weeks. Plus mom is pretty tired of going to church just to sit in the nursery for hours on end. I could sit at home with a happy baby if I'm not going to get any worship in. I know someday she will go to the nursery herself, but for now, we are going to have to change our Sunday routine.

Today has been a mixture. She is into everything now, which results in mommy telling her "no" more often and setting off temper tantrums. I would not let her turn on the stove and was thanked by a thirty minute scream-a-thon. We are at a loss as to how to handle them. We have tried ignoring them, but they can go on forever. We usually end up picking her up and taking her to another part of the house and distracting her, but worry that it will ultimately make them worse. We want her to learn that pitching a fit is not an effective way of dealing with a situation, but feel like we are fighting what she learned in the orphanage, where the loudest baby is probably the one who got attention.


This is her in her new smaller shorts. A couple of minutes later they were completely off her backside. We got her even smaller shorts and today those were around her ankles. I may just dress her in bubbles until she grows a little.

I realized this afternoon that we take very few pictures of Julianna now that we are home. We will have to take more so we can share them with everyone.

We went shopping for more clothes. I'm sure those of you who have seen her closet find that surprising. But mommy got tired of her "pants around the pelvis, undies exposed" fashion statement and we got some smaller shorts.

Here is something else to contemplate (because we do): things to expose your child to. We are not big TV watchers ourselves, so there is not a lot of baby TV going on in our house, but we are big readers. Everything seems different now and is questioned. For instance, Anne of Green Gables is a wonderful children's story and has very funny and endearing parts. Plus she is an orphan who gets adopted. But the mother does not want her at the beginning of the story and initially intends to send her back. Now when I think of having my child read that story, I wonder if she will move past that part or if it will be something she dwells on, wondering if we would send her back. The same goes for The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Absolutely beautiful book with wonderful illustrations, but it is a story of loss and, eventually recovery. How old should a child who has suffered horrendous loss in their life be before reading a story with loss? Most of this will probably work itself out as she grows, because by the time she is old enough to read independently, we will probably have a better understanding of her personality and temperament.

I think the fact that we have time to sit around and think about books and culture shows that things are going much more smoothly here. She is a very happy baby and her temper tantrums are becoming less frequent and of shorter duration. We have not had a complete meltdown in awhile. She is showing some attachment signs, like walking off and looking back to make sure I am watching. She also walked away from me this morning while I was working on the laundry. She let me empty the dishwasher and refill it and wash some dishes, although by then she wanted to be held. She is much better at going down for naps and at night and will even let me rock her in the rocking chair in her room. She still will not go to Phillip.

Thanks for your comments on the Bible reading. We have a children's story Bible and an adult one for her. We will probably do stories from the children's and maybe Psalms from the adult one.

Julianna is napping, which means time for blogging. This week has been the week of questions. As she is getting more comfortable, we are beginning to get more behavior that we do not approve of, things like trying to turn on the stove burners and dial the phone (which is a strange one, because she screams in terror every time the phone rings). This has resulted in "how do we handle this?". The obvious is not to let her do it, and we do not, but this results in temper tantrums (she is after all, almost two). The problem is that it always leaves us questioning our behavior. She is not appropriately bonded. She is better, but is not there yet. So we always end up wondering if we are damaging the bonding by disciplining her. We like to think not, that this is all about establishing boundaries and developing a proper parent-child relationship, but we still wonder.

The other question we struggle with is Bible reading. Not if we will read the Bible to her, but in what version, as in adult or children's story Bible. What seems most obvious is to read her an adult Bible, because that is the Word of God, but then what do you do with the hard parts? Do you skip the David and Bathsheba part and just read the David and Goliath part? And if you do that, wouldn't it be easier just to read a children's story Bible, since they are sanitized? Do you try to explain the bad behavior in general terms or do you explain it for what it is? We read to her right now so that she can hear the language, but one day (hopefully soon), she will understand what is said.

I mentioned in another post that we have been reading The Horse and His Boy to Julianna. I am trying to work it into our bedtime routine. It's not going so well, but I am still hopeful. Anyway, last night we got to my favorite part of the book, when Shasta (the boy) meets the lion Aslan. Aslan explains to him that all the lions in his life have been one lion, Aslan himself. That Aslan was the one who saved him from death as a child, who guided him, who comforted him and who punishes. I think it is such a beautiful illustration of God--that He is the one who saves us, guides us, comforts us and punishes us. It is why it is my favorite book and why I wanted it to be the first book Julianna heard.

Julianna is becoming more and more comfortable with her surroundings and with us. So much so, that she is exploring the house. Which means, all of the things we don't want her getting into are now her favorite places in the world. Just two days ago you could sit her somewhere and turn to do something—like blog—and she would stay put, playing with whatever you gave her. Never again. This morning she perused CS Lewis' Perelandra off mommy's bedside table, but decided CS Lewis in a Time of War was not worth her effort. Mommy agrees.

She is beginning to understand us, to an extent. She knows when we are telling her "no, don't do that". She will even start to do something she knows she should not and look at us for a response. I guess she is testing her boundaries.

Today she also decided that perhaps she could spend a few minutes out of mommy's direct sight. She has been cruising up and down the hallway on her own while mommy worked on laundry and picked up everything at baby height. I never realized what a habit we had of just leaving coins on tables. Coins that are the perfect size for swallowing. Fortunately, Julianna finds them all for me so I can put them up.

The picture is off her puckering up for a kiss.

We have had quite the weekend and a wonderful day. On Saturday, we got Julianna a birdhouse because she likes to watch the birds. We put it outside the kitchen window where there is a window seat, so we can see the birds from there. Now if only the birds would find it.

On Sunday we went to church to see our church friends. She did better than I expected. We spent a little time in the worship service before going to the nursery. She got a little vocal. She is enjoying life and likes to express her joy, which is great except in the middle of church. She did well in the nursery. I stayed with her the whole time, but she did get out of my lap and play and even let the other kids sit in my lap. Here she is in her Sunday finery.
Today we went visiting--to one of my offices and to Phillip's. She was a bit worn out after Phillip's, so we will have to finish our rounds tomorrow. We went to a fast food place for lunch, one that lets you get fruit cup and juice instead of fries and coke. Of course, being novice parents, that might happen at every fast food place. Anyway, the fruit cup had Mandarin oranges and she squealed with delight when she saw them. She would not eat anything else until she ate the oranges. Then she ate the apples and strawberries and finally two chicken nuggets, but I think only because the fruit was all gone. She even fed herself. At dinner she had another thing of oranges and nearly a whole banana. She is a fruit eater!! She even ate quiche at dinner on Sunday. She may turn us into healthy eaters.

Last night she decided to walk. Only a few steps and only a couple of times. But today, she let go, we walked all over the downstairs and in the front yard. We had a meltdown when mommy would not let her walk in the street (mean mommy!). She cruised in the hallway after dinner. She is struggling with the transitions between the bathrooms and the hall, I think because they change from tile to hardwood. She walked to Phillip when he got home from work, but then would not let him hold her. She is making lots of progress. Hopefully the language skills will come at the same pace.

One last photo from China. At the end of every adoption trip, it is traditional for the families in the travel group to do a "red couch photo". Basically, you line the kids up on one of the big red couches in the lobby of the White Swan and take a photo of them. This is as close as Julianna got to the red couch. That is it below my knee. The rest of the photos are of the other kids on the couch and me behind the couch with Julianna. She was not alone in her couch phobia. There are two other mommies doing the same thing.

Things continue to get slowly better. She only woke up once last night and only cried a short amount of time. She is also starting to sit in a room with me and play while I do things, like make the bed. She is still not willing to let me out of the room and is not going to Phillip. She started kissing her teddy bears today. It is very cute. She sucks her lips in instead of puckering out and kisses them on the nose. She also tried to mimic hair combing, except she had the comb upside down. She hates having her hair neat. As soon as I comb it, she runs her hands through it to make it messes again. She has also mastered pulling out pony tail holders.

Mommy finally has time to blog. It is so different being home. At the hotel, I could sit at the desk and blog when Julianna went to sleep and still know if she woke up, but at home, I have to climb the stairs to the computer and leave her downstairs and it never seems to work. Right now she is napping up here, so I have a free moment.

Julianna is still very clingy. She is warming up to Phillip and will play with him for a good while, as long as I am still in the room. This has let me catch a couple of naps while they play. She is still having trouble sleeping at night. I think part of it is she is afraid we will leave her while she sleeps, so she likes to have mommy as near as possible. Hopefully this will improve as she adjusts to us and her new surroundings.

Her personality is coming out more and more. She is definitely a strong-willed child. She can scream and kick with the best of them if she does not get her way. We are trying to not feed the tantrums and they do seem to be getting shorter, if not any less loud. She is also making more babbling noises and can do "Ba" quite well. We are trying to work on other consonants, like "da" and "ma". We are also trying to teach her "meow" for the cats. She is enjoying playing with her toys and we are trying to break her of the habit of throwing them. We assume that it was an attention getting method in the orphanage, so we are trying more positive interactions and not retrieving toys she tosses.

She ate her first fortune cookie last night. Her fortune was "You are pretty".

Ok, now for the rest of the planes, trains, and automobiles story.

When we got to LAX it was mid-afternoon and we were deplaned and loaded on buses to go to the terminal. By the way, LAX is not a great airport. First came the line for Immigration, which was of course cogged with adopting families. We found the two others in our travel group and waited with them, keeping some semblance of relationship or cameraderie while we still could, helping out with looking for luggage and strollers, that kind of thing. It hit me then that once we left the international terminal the link between us all would dissolve back into an online relationship, and I found that kind of sad. Especially with the one couple with whom we shared an orphanage trip.

Once Julianna was officially an American (Yay!) we got in yet another line, this one reported to be leading to the China Southern desk for making arrangements to connecting flights. We didn't know for sure because the line snaked around the corner. Eventually a representative came around with a piece of paper with Sherry's name on it. They had (seemingly) booked us a flight to Chicago on an American plane that would be wheels-up in thirty minutes. we took that info and raced to the American desk (a five minute race, to another terminal) only to find that they had booked only Sherry. The American agent luckily found out we were an adopting family and said that her sister was paper chasing. She quickly made arrangements for the earliest possible route home, LAX to Dallas leaving at Midnight, and on to Mobile, and instructed us to get China Southern to book us a hotel so we could shower.

China Southern did so, and we spent several relaxing hours in the Hilton.

The flight out of L.A. was not pleasant. We were in the very back row, and after about thirty minutes Julianna started to cry, and it lasted the duration. There was nothing we could do to calm her or get her to sleep, so she just cried and cried. She finally stopped when we got her some apple juice from the nicest, most understanding flight attendant I've ever met. Just doing her job, I'm sure, but we were lucky to have her back there with us.

A short layover in a chilly Dallas terminal and we were on our way to Mobile. Julianna slept right through it. The airport party was wonderful, and Julianna was alert and responsive for it, thank goodness.

Now comes the hard part. We have to raise her into a responsible caring adult.

Well our long international nightmare is over.

Julianna, Sherry and I are all home, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty hours late. Most of that was spent on airplanes. After the China Southern 777 out of Guangzhou had engine trouble (loud plane-shuddering engine trouble) we turned around and limped to Osaka, Japan—which took as much time as it would have to complete the flight to LAX with two engines.

Then the 150 or so of us (many of them adoptive families) were in quarantine for ten hours waiting for China Southern to supply us a solution. The Japanese airport folks made us go from the gate through the main terminal (a tram ride away) to herd us past a desk so we could each say we had no communicable diseases, and then we all took the tram back to the gate we had come from to sit and wait. We had no Japanese visas, so no leaving the terminal to at least see Osaka. Well, I mean we could see Osaka because the airport is on one of those man-made islands. But you get my meaning. This is when I got off the previous post, luckily they had WiFi and the laptop battery had some juice.

After a while somebody had disclosed a number we could dial on a pay phone to get an AT&T operator without actually having any Yen. Salvation! And there were two little shops that took U.S. Dollars and gave pocket change in Yen. So, buy a Coke, get some coins with holes in them as souvenirs.

When the new China Southern 777 arrived on the tarmac, the line began forming to board, made mostly of native Chinese (as we Americans were all too skeptical at this point). Sure enough there were a series of delay announcements because the Japan airport people decided it was neccessary to re-screen all our checked luggage for customs purposes. When they could have just transferred it all to the other plane and gotten rid of us. They took a plane full of luggage INSIDE to xray it and make sure it didn't pose a threat. This makes no sense to me, but there you go.

Once we finally got underway again we could take a nap and worry about the malaise at LAX. After all, we were a day late at this point. But the post is getting long and I need to sleep. sleeeep.....

OK, GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS. WE GOT JULIANNA'S VISA, AND BOARDED THE PLANE TO LOS ANGELES.

BUT IT HAD ENGINE TROUBLE OVER THE PACIFIC, AND WE WERE DIVERTED TO OSAKA, JAPAN. WE HAVE NO IDEA WHEN THEY'LL GET US GOING TO L.A. SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL CALL THE AIRPORT PARTY OFF.

Sorry folks. We are about fed up here in Japan. There's a whole planeload (it seems) of adoptive families stranded in the international terminal here. We can't use any phones because they don't take credit cards and we can't get to a money exchange.

Please pray for us and we'll call when we can. we have a little cadre of families to support each other here so....

*sigh*

It's noon on Friday and we're really, really hoping it's our last day here. We're still not sure about Julianna's visa, but we are going to check out of the hotel and go the Consolate at 3:oo anyway. Our guide said not to buy more plane tickets, so we are going to the airport directly from the consolate.

We're already packed and just waiting. Walking around Shamian Island has gotten old, and there are less and less families here and more and more business types. It's lost it's lovely feel. The lack of families on the island may mean that folks are already getting visas and going home. I guess we'll find out.

Hopefully by the time you read this we'll be somewhere in the U.S. Hopefully.

Hey everybody, we wanted to fill you in with what's going on in the world. Our little world.
There are problems at the U.S. Consulate and visas are being delayed. Don't panic! We're not sure if ours will be affected. We won't know until sometime on Friday but we'll keep you updated as to our status.

We wanted to tell you more about our time on the island. It's a popular place for having photographs done. We've seen several couples having wedding photos taken, and they dress in western wedding outfits—white dress, white tux. We've also seen a couple of fashion shoots on the island; at one of them the male model was doing a quick change and stripped down to his skivvies in the park. Not what we expected to see on our morning stroll. Also not expected was the little boy who flipped his pants down and peed girly-style in the gutter.

The couple we have been hanging around with loaned us their video camera for the day so no pictures. Well, the Red Sofa pictures but they don't count. And the videoing is not as easy as the still photos...there's lots of waiting for something to happen. Sherry and I didn't bring one for that reason. But we'll see what we get this afternoon.

Ok, Daddy here. There's not much I can add to what Sherry said about happenings today, but I can post more pictures from Baiyun Mountain.

Julianna in Mommy's arms on the way up the mountain. That's the stroller handle cutting off her chin. She has a love-hate relationship with the stroller. If it's moving forward she loves it. at all other times, nope.

This is a quick photomontage of the lower level of the temple complex about halfway up the mountain. The families are gathered around a koi pond that also had thousands of turtles taking in the sun. That's right folks, I said sun—and a blue sky. It's been so long.
Here's two-thirds of the family looking at the fish.

We're going to have to get a koi pond. The ten thousand turtles might be a bit much though.

They were funny in that sometimes a couple would lose traction and fall, taking a bunch of lower turtles into the water with them.

Today was quite the day and much happened. This morning we went to Baiyun Mountain, which is basically this mountain in the middle of the city that you can walk up to see vistas of the city. I'll leave commentary on that for Phillip. I will say that there is a Police station at the top of the mountain. We got a golf cart ride part of the way and walked the rest. Julianna was in her stroller and fell asleep while we walked. When we got to the top, she woke up, disoriented and started screaming and kicking and screaming. Loud, crowd-attracting screams. People actually stood around and watched us try to console her. It was absolutely horrible. We finally got her to stop kicking enough to go back in the stroller and start the walk down. She fell back asleep. I was not the most fun I've had.

For lunch, we went to a busy, loud, crowded Brazilian restaurant with most of the group. There was a long table with several high chairs set up. Julianna went into her high chair without difficulty, but we could tell she was scared. She got very quiet and clung to her water bottle and rattle more tightly and just looked around. It struck me that she does not realize that she can turn to us for comfort when she is afraid. I took her out of the high chair and put her in my lap and she felt better in a while. I guess we are sometimes that way with God. We put on our brave face and endure the world rather than turn to Him for help.

Dinner, however, was the highlight of our trip so far. We went to Lucy's, which is becoming our favorite place simply because you can order a hamburger or grilled cheese. Nothing like a hamburger to remind you of home. We sat outside, partly because it is absolutely beautiful today, and partly because the patio of the restaurant opens to a large park and you can walk a fussy baby around. We were waiting for our food and Julianna played with us. We started by rolling her sippy cup to her and she would push it back. Then the cup got sat up and she pushed it over. This started a new game—you set up the cup, I knock it over. We started saying "oops" every time she knocked it over and before long, she was saying something very close to "oops" with us. Made our whole trip to hear her interact with us on such a level. The day ended with us actually getting smiles out of her.

We still dread the airplane trip home because she will be waking up in a strange place, so you can add that to your prayer list.

Despite today's progress, she still does not go to Phillip, so don't expect much interaction at the airport.

Here is the mommy commentary on yesterday's outing to the orphanage. First, I'll say I'm glad I went because it gave me a little insight into why she does some of the things she does. I am also glad we went to her finding place. She was not actually found in Gaoming. She was found at a market in a little town nearby. It was an outdoor market in a square with live animals and fresh produce and on the edge is a store, kind of like a 5 and dime place. That's where she was. It makes me wonder if her biological family brought her from the country to the market, but we will never know. At least when she is older we can show her the photos and tell her what we know.

I was a little bit surprised that she did not let the nannies hold her. I was expecting her to find them somehow familiar and comforting and want to be with them instead of me. I think that in her mind, she was terrified I was going to leave her with them. The other Gaoming girl did better after awhile and did let them hold her. There were four girls in the orphanage with Julianna all about the same age. We have one photo of the cohort from January. The nannies lined up the two who are awaiting their families and the other adopted Gaoming girl for a repeat photo. Julianna did not want to participate. I sat her down for like three seconds, long enough for one photo and the result is her at full scream and the other three looking at her. The nannies also told us which child was Julianna best buddy in the orphanage and we got one photo of them together, sort of. It is a photo of me holding Julianna and a nanny holding her buddy. We are going to have to meet her buddy's family someday so they can keep in touch.

I still think that all in all, things are getting better. We are getting better at knowing what she wants, but still have a long way to go. She still we not go to Phillip. I seriously doubt she will be up to letting anyone hold her at the airport, so be prepared. I am looking forward to being home and beginning her on a regular schedule. I think that will help things along even more.

On the lighter side, I brought CS Lewis' The Horse and His Boy to read to Julianna as she goes to sleep. I have not been consistent with it. I brought it because it is my favorite book and right now it is more about her hearing language than about her understanding the story. It is a great story with a wonderful spiritual theme. We also brought a Veggie Tales Bible story book. It was a total impulse buy the day we left. Last night I sat down to read her one of those and she was fascinated by turning pages. She would flip the pages and close the book and then start all over. No reading occurred, but hopefully we have a book lover in the making.

Ok, mommy and Julianna had a long day, so it's up to me.

Today we visited the orphanage where Julianna stayed while she waited for us. We went with another family, whom we've gotten to know and like during our trip. Needless to say none of us were very optimistic when we got in the van for the hour-plus trip to Gaoming.

When we got there we were greeted by the two nannies we had met on Gotcha Day last week. And of course they tried to get Julianna and the other child to come to them. They would not. Yay! I for one had half expected Julianna to desert us. But the whole time we were there she stayed in mommy's arms, almost clinging for dear life. Bonding? We think so.

Julianna's crib.

After the visit we had lunch in the area, the best meal I've had since we've been here. Here's a strange thought: here in China there are no "chinese" restaurants. There's just "restaurants". It's a point to ponder.

Anyway, after lunch we sought out Julianna's finding place. A Market about thirty minutes away from the orphanage, I believe to the West. I was kind of disoriented by the rain and smog.

On the ride home, Julianna went to sleep, and upon waking had a terrible, horrible cry. It hurts to remember. There was nothing we could do to console her. I think she must have dreamed she was back at the orphanage and when she woke in a strange van she was overcome with grief. Who knows? But it was heart-wrenching for all of us.

She is sleeping now, with mommy close. Wish her dreams of Alabama.

Hey, y'all. Daddy here.

The sun almost came out today. I got a good photo from our 15th floor window of the city:

Visibility at the time was about two miles. I know this from doing a measurement in Google Earth, from the hotel to the TV tower you can just barely see in the smog. This is a retouched photo by the way, I had to lighten it up.

The island we're on is man-made, a moat was cut around the riverbank in this location in the 1700s and it was used as exile for europeans. Hence the architecture difference. Up until about ten years ago most of the national Consolates were here on the island. Now I think only Poland is left.

There are at least two schools on the island, which is a treat to see a bunch of kids all dressed in their tracksuit uniforms laughing and playing. School here is not a drudgery even though they go longer than American kids do. I guess when you have no siblings school becomes more important.

The central avenue here on Shamian Island is one long park. At this close range the smog looks more like fog and gives the island an ethereal beauty.

Overall, today was much better. She sat in her high chair for two meals, she played with us, instead of near us and we got a smile. Not a lot of smiles, but one is better than what we have been getting. She managed to go all the way to about 4 or 5 before having a serious meltdown. She is no longer eating congee. We keep offering it, but she turns it down. I think she has discovered there is a whole world of food out there that does not involve congee. She had scrambled eggs at breakfast. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make those either, but at least I know people who do. We've decided to stick with the vanilla soy milk, since the grandparents located a source of that flavor. She took a couple of steps holding on to the cabinet and a few holding on to my hands.

We had a new parents mistake this afternoon. We went to the local market to get more soy milk and they had a display of tea sets on the opposite shelf. We put the stroller by the tea sets and were both turned to the soy milk, picking them up and going "which one is vanilla", when we hear "crash". Yep. Julianna was busy checking out the tea sets. She only broke one cup, but we now have a tea set. All we could do we do was shake our heads.

We absolutely love getting all your comments. Checking the blog is one of the first things we do in the morning.

I'm going to call this the post about things that I forgot to post about earlier.

Her orphanage gave us a little photo album on the day we received her with two pictures of the orphanage and a few pictures of her. Only one set is labeled with the date. Two of them are alternative shots for the two referral photos we have.

Julianna has a fascination for plants. When we are out walking (which is a lot), she will touch the leaves and point at nearly every plant we see. She also likes to point up. We are not sure if she is pointing to the sky or to the canopy of the trees, but she likes it. We are convinced that her first word will be "up", because we say it a lot.

She has suddenly developed difficulty sleeping. She went down without any fuss the first two nights, even slept in the crib all night the second night, but it was downhill from there. At first we thought she just felt bad from the cold, but now I think it is that she remembers when she sleeps. I think the first two nights were from shock and now she is trying to deal with her new circumstances. I have taken to letting her sleep with me, which at least gets us through the night, even though I may regret it in a few months. But I am too exhausted from her only wanting to be with me to not sleep at night. Now I'm rationalizing.

I got to order off the children's menu last night. It was great. When we have gone out as a group, our guide has done all the ordering and a vat of congee magically appears for all the children to share. Last night we went out with just the other family from her orphanage and I got to order for her. She had noodle soup with chicken, which was the thin oriental noodles and a small amount of chicken. She loved it and ate a fair amount of the noodles.

We spent a good amount of time at dinner comparing notes with the other family from her orphanage. Their child is 18 months and also special needs. It is nice to be able to reflect on our struggles with someone at the same place.

Tomorrow is our orphanage visit. We are concerned that we may have a set back in our transition when we go. Please keep us in your prayers.

Happy Easter again. Julianna just went to sleep. We had a pretty good day. A couple of rough spots, but better. As we have said several times, she will not take the formula. So we went in search of rice milk or soy milk, since she gets both in the formula and should be able to drink them without difficulty. We lucked out with the boxes--they have both English and Chinese on them. She absolutely loves it. We got three flavors, just in case one did not work, but she does not seem to care. So if someone wants to stock us up on soy milk, we would be thrilled.

One of the things that has intrigued me about Guangzhou is that most of the signs are in both Chinese and English. The English, however, tends to be a literal translation, which does not always make sense. This is from the zoo...

So the next time you are at the zoo, remember, shaken, not stirred...

Happy Easter everybody! Julianna had a good day today, both at the zoo and playing in the hotel room.

The downside of the zoo was that we adopting families were the exhibit most of the time. There was lots more staring than anywhere else we have been in China. Julianna was more interested in the canopy of trees than any of the animals.

It's afternoon here now, and we are about to go to dinner with the other Gaoming couple. They are staying at a hotel elsewhere on Shamian Island and have been here longer than any of the rest of us, so they know the good restaurants.

Ok now...how does one clean out a nostril clogged with dry snot? This dad's gotta know.

Hello folks, daddy here. Well, daddy in name only at this point—Julianna won't have anything to do with me. One of the several spectacular hour-long crying fits she had yesterday was sparked off by my touching her. And when she's crying, a word from me will send the pitch and volume up a few notches. I know, I know....hang in there and all that. But it hurts to be rejected, is all I'm saying.

Here's a picture of the fabled atrium here at the White Swan. I snapped this yesterday morning. it's five stories from roof to koi pond. click the pic to get a good view.

Yesterday, as Sherry mentioned, we went to Yuntai public garden on the side of Baiyun Mountain. It was very nice, with lots of vistas. I haven't posted many of the pictures I've taken because I know y'all want to see the kid, not the sights. But I took a lot of pics and when we get back we'll show them off.

After the garden we went to a "pearl market" which is a mall where all they sell is jeweley. When I heard that I was thinking a mall full of Kay's or Zale's type places, but it was more like a jewelery flea market.

Well as it happened, we got there right in the middle of a crying fit. So Sherry told me to go inside and get the skinny about where to meet up (so as not to be left behind) while she calmed Julianna down outside. We were way behind the group by then and by the time I got there the speech about where we were and where to meet was over—I got some sketchy instructions from one of the daddies and went back outside. When we tried to find the group, well....have any of you ever been hopelessly lost in a foreign country where every turn you make looks just like you've been there before? This was a multistory place, with tight spaces, where every store looked exactly the same.

Eventually we found the entrance where we got separated and Kelly was there looking for us. Whew. My personal #2 nightmare was over. Sherry got some earrings.

I have been neglecting to tell about GuangZhou the city. It's huge. It's the size of Baldwin County and is mostly tall buildings. At 9,000,000 people it's twice the size of Alabama in population. Luckily the little island the hotel is on has less of a press of humanity, but when we're out in the city looking at a buddhist temple for instance the sheer number of people is overwhelming. Imagine a fire ant bed, having just been kicked.

We haven't seen the sun since March either, because the smog here is unbelievable. I'm willing to bet Julianna has never seen stars. The only good thing I can think of about the smog is it cuts down on visibility so that you can't tell you're in the middle of a sea of high rise buildings. I like to imagine a horizon out there, somewhere, but I know that if the air were clear it would just be more alien and claustrophobic.

The architecture is a strange mix of ultra modern glass and steel to three-hundred year-old hovels. and every building on every street has shops in front, specializing in one thing. It's bizarre to see a store selling washers. No, not the appliance, the fastener.

Recognizable logos we've seen: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Papa John's (which we had yesterday), KFC, all brands of electronics (duh, they're all made here), all brands of soft drinks, all brands of diapers, and a few nabisco brands, recognizable by the packaging, if not the logos. They have oreos here!

This is a mommy edit: Julianna let phillip pick her up out of the crib this morning. Progress.

Greetings from the Azalea City. Wait. Greetings to the Azalea city? We went to a beautiful garden today and look what we saw!! Julianna loves to be outdoors. She looks at everything and makes vocalizations. She has not said any words. This has been her favorite mode of travel...

Aways with mommy; she still will not go to daddy. This has resulted in very sore arms, wrists, back, legs... We got her a stroller this afternoon and she fortunately took to it. Some of the children in the group are very resistant to anything except being carried.

I honestly cannot decide if things are better or worse. She is definitely more interactive and no longer in shock, but this means that she is also more opinionated and unbelievably vocal. Ear drum rattling screams. It is also difficult to figure out what she wants. Yesterday she could not be without her sippy cup. Today, she was ambivalent about the cup, but had an absolute meltdown over a benedryl bottle. She will not take a bottle. We have tried three different bottles, including one that the orphanage gave us with a pre-cut nipple. It even had the formula mix in it on the day we got her. We also tried a sippy cup, which worked for someone in the group. She will eat most any table food and has been drinking water, apple juice and pedialyte. She likes noodles. We got her a noodle cup from the local 7-11. It was sort of a ramen noodle thing--freeze dried, just add water and enjoy. The label is entirely in chinese and we were picking up different cups, trying to guess the ingredients by the pictures on the top. We tried to find chicken, but ended up getting seafood--squid and octopus. We discovered this when I was stirring the cup and up comes an octopus tendril. Yuck. She ate the noodles. Didn't give her the tendril.

The White Swan has a very beautiful waterfall and Koi pond. Julianna loves to look at the fish. This is probably the most expressive photo we have of her so far.

We are progressing in the "baby bodily fluids I have worn" category. We now have, vomit, urine, and mucous (for all you non-medicals, that is snot. Lots and lots of snot. Who knew something so small could produce such a prodigious amount of mucous). Julianna has a full blown cold. We stayed home most of the day while daddy went to the Six Banyan Trees temple. He might give you a rundown on that later. It was kind of nice to have a laid back day. I was able to straighten out the hotel room and relax. Julianna continues to be more interactive and playful. She does not play with us, but all in good time. We have learned that she will drink out of a glass. We learned this pretty much by accident; she did the "I want that sound" when one of us was drinking and we gave it a shot. It is a messy affair, but at least it is some liquid in her mouth. She is doing a bit better drinking from the sippy cup as well.

I typed this post once, so if it starts sounding familar, just skip it. I'm not sure what happened to the first attempt and the blogger buttons are all in chinese. I cannot figure out how to change that or even why.

Yesterday was a much better day. We fed her three times and we found crackers she would eat. There is less fussiness about everything and she even played. She played with a car yesterday morning and then with crayons and stacking cups yesterday afternoon. Up until then, she would just hold the stacking cups, but she actually stacked them!!

She has pretty much decided that the sippy cup is her comfort item. She likes to hold it and will occasionally lift it to her face and check the supply. She had not been drinking it, except for the one morning. Mostly just holding the cup to her tummy and patting it. Yesterday afternoon, she brought it to her face, checked the level, and then drank it down. This was right before we went to the group dinner and we did not have any more. We got to the restaurant and one of the guys at the table ordered beer, sort of a apple juice colored beer, and here comes the "I want that" sound. Fortunately, the waiters bought chips with the drinks and she was content with that.

Julianna is becoming more interested in the world around her. She likes to look at everything and we have not yet figured out the best way to get her in the carrier so she is content. We took a walk yesterday and looked at the fish in the pond. We got a new sound out of her, sort of a "what is that", with lilting on the end. She pointed at the fish as well. She likes being outside and looking at everything.

She still will not go to Phillip, but at least is no longing upset with him being nearby.

Phillip's luggage is physically in China. We hope to have it before today's outing.

We received Julianna's weight and height from her physical. She is 21 pounds and 30 inches. She fits pretty well into 12 month size clothes. We have only tried one of the dresses I made and it was too big. But she wore it like a trooper. Unfortunately, that was serious meltdown day and we do not have any photographs.

All the children in the group have the two fist issue. They all like to hold something in each fist at all times. They are all gradually loosing the trait. Julianna will sometimes still do it. She mostly does it with food and will break a cracker in half so that she has part in each hand if she only has one. This is her with a cracker in each hand. She was sitting facing me, leaning against my chest. She would eat off the cracker in the hand she was facing and when she would flip her head, she would eat off the other cracker. It was very cute.

Good morning everyone. Thanks for all your comments. It is encouraging to know that there are people back home who love us and are praying for us.

We forgot to mention in the drama of yesterday that Julianna is officially ours. Part of yesterday's outing was a swing by the Civil Affairs Office to get our "red books", which is the official adoption certificate. We applied for her visa as well. The only paperwork left is pretty much with the American government. We have to visit the US Consulate once we have her passport and visa, which is sometime next week. The next several days are all tourist outings. The orphanage visit has been moved to Tuesday rather than this Friday as originally scheduled.

Now for the updates. Phillip is still without luggage. Fortunately we had packed some clothes in the carry on "just in case". We have sent stuff to the laundry once, so he may wear the same stuff, but at least it is clean. We bought him a straight razor and shaving cream, so he has lost the rugged outdoors man look. The airline automated message says the luggage has been located and is being delivered.

I'm not sure where we would buy congee in Mobile. There is a recipe somewhere in the stacks of papers from the adoption agency. Might could also find one online. It is a slow cooking affair, if someone (hint, hint grandma) wants to try making it.

Con Gee: Rice congee is a type of rice porridge that is eaten in many Asian countries. The word congee derives from the Tamil word kanji. In some cultures, congee is eaten primarily as a breakfast food, while in others, it is eaten as a substitute for rice in other meals.

So, it's gruel. After tasting it I guess you could also call it Nas Tee. But it's about the only thing we can get Julianna to eat. She will not take her formula.

We made the mistake today of going with the group to what Kelly called a "women and children department store" or something like that. What it was, was Times Square asian style. The store itself was on the third floor of a building with several different stores that sold everything a Chinese person could need. We spent all of five minutes in the children's department before Julianna started making her customary sound (uhh, uhh); which we interpreted as hunger, seeing as how the last congee she had was at breakfast. She had turned down her bottle of formula, naturally.

So, off we went to find sustenance. Among all the stores were a couple of McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, a KFC, and hundreds of booths selling fried duck heads and whatnot. Our first stop was a little grocery on the first floor of the children's store building. The one thing they didn't have wast the cornstarch crackers the other (read: perfect) children in our group adore. The helpful lady took my hand signals to mean our baby was teething and presented us a box of what looked like long skinny crackers. We also bought a box that really was long skinny crackers. More on the fake crackers in a minute. Anyway, once in Julianna's hands, she made an elaborate point of dropping the crackers to the street in disgust.

So we thought we could find some congee or noodles (she loved the noodles at the restaurant last night), and we went by all the booths looking. Apparently this is one of the cultures that only eats congee for breakfast.

Ok, how about good old McDonald's? we got some chicken mcnuggets and managed to slip a piece the size of a lima bean into her mouth. Mom and dad had to eat the rest.

So, we found the old standby, the steamed bun we thought was her comfort food (she was holding one when we first got her) at a 7-11 on the far edge of "asian times square" but we never even got it out of the bag before she turned her head from it. By now the "uhh uhh" was real crying, and it was time to get on the bus to come back to the hotel. We never should have gone in the first place.

I'm sitting here in the dark now, wondering how in the world a kid can survive on breakfast alone.

Freshly bathed and with her first dress on (ever).

Julianna slept all night in fer crib. We had one middle of the night awakening, but she went back to sleep after a little holding. Right now she is sucking back a sippy cup of apple juice, which thrills us to no end because she has refused every bottle we have offered. Yesterday she ate congee, two steamed rolls, rice and noodles. Funny thing about the rolls. She was clinging to one when we got her and would not let it go. Phillip saw one on the breakfast bar yesterday and brought it to the table. I fed her the congee, then she had this meltdown—crying, making her "I want that noise", just having a fit. Never pointed at the roll. We gave it to her out of desperation and she immediately calmed down and started nibbling on it. I think that is part of the difficulty. We never know what it is that she wants when she cries. We just hand her everything in sight until one of them works.

Hey y'all, Daddy here. Today we went to the Adoption Registry Center to finalize the Chinese portion of the adoption. The building was very nice inside, with glossy floors and discreet lighting. We got our official family photo, paid our fees, and signed a lot of different papers. One intruiging thing about the paperwork here is that they recycle paper–I mean pages of paper. One of our pages had what looked to be an excel spreadsheet printed on the back. It was in chinese of course so I had no idea what it was. One other couple had a hispanic family's names, dates and occupations on the back. Just one of the quirks about the Chinese government I guess.

Baby news... we got Julianna in the crib just now. A small victory for the new parents. She has been clinging to Sherry like a baby koala all day. I mean all day. Mommy's training has paid off for the most part—months of holding Andi makes for good strong holding arms—but today was just too much.

Kelly, our guide, took us all to dinner at a Cantonese restaurant down the street. They were displaying their wares in the lobby which would put most of you readers off your appetite real quick. We're talking live things in tanks, sharks and eels and stuff. And bugs and worms. And dried shark fins in a display case like they were fine china. Kelly, of course, ordered pork, beef and chicken for us all. She is very wise. It was the best chinese food I've ever had. And cheap. It will be hard to go back to the Super Buffet and feel like I'm getting what I paid for.

Julianna snores.

This is from last night. She has been clinging to the rabbit. She gave the brush up when the turn down service brought chocolates in a plastic box. She took it straight from the lady's hand and would not give it up. I finally got it away from her in her sleep.

It's been a rough trip so far. Phillip's luggage is still lost. I have two pairs of pants covered in vomit. Julianna will not take a bottle. She's had pedialyte, which I hope comes out of khaki pants. I'm also trying to master typing with a toddler in my lap. We did expect it to be tough and we know it will get better and that one day all will be forgotten. But it still makes the day long.

Thanks for all your comments and prayers. We can't wait for all of you to see her.

We went down to the Civil Affairs Office at 1030 this morning to get our babies. There are 12 families in our group, although not all from our orphanage. The orphanages brought them in and the girls from Maoming were adorable. They were all dressed the same and walked in like a little train, each holding the jacket of the one in front of them. I tried to get a photo, but so did the eleven other families. Julianna's orphanage brought two girls. They wisked them in and all I got was a photo of the back of one of the nannies.

Here are a couple of photos. There are more photos and one of the other daddies made a video of the whole day and has promised everyone a copy. I'm having trouble with the blogger, so more photos to come.

Hello everyone. We are finally here. It was a very, very long trip. We spent four hours or so in Dallas and missed the flight to China on Friday night. We then spent almost 24 hours in LAX waiting for the next flight out. But, in the end, we are here and we will be going to get Julianna in about two hours. All that time in LAX pretty much eliminated any time spent here fretting.