Today is opening day at the French Open. It is raining. I have big dreams of watching lots of tennis over the next two weeks and teaching Julianna all about the beautiful red clay of Roland Garros. After all, between her performances as a concert cellist, she will be playing professional tennis. Right now we are working on our toss.

Okay, back to reality. Julianna is doing much better at communicating her desires. She has figured out that she eats in her high chair and that if she asks to get in the chair, food will magically appear. She has learned that strawberries live in the refrigerator and that the back door leads to a yard. Her point and grunt style breaks down for anything more complicated, but it is progress over crying about everything.

We are thoroughly enjoying our little baby. She is the bright star in our life. We feel very blessed to have this fabulous sweetie.

It is hard to believe that I have not blogged in a week. A lot has happened. Julianna is sleeping in her crib. She has been doing so for about a week. It was one of those strange things. We were actually moving the crib out of her room, giving up on our efforts to get her to sleep in it and she wanted to get in it. So, we pushed her into the hall and down to our room and she did not scream. We let her play in it for awhile and then at bedtime, put her in and read to her. She woke up once and cried about 45 minutes, but we waited it out. The next night was about 30 minutes of crying and very little since then. She even naps in it. It was a huge amount of progress.

We ate biscuits. The key was apparently strawberry-fig jelly. Strawberry flavoring was also the key to drinking our milk again. Strawberries are yummy, especially all over our face.


We went back to Grandma and Paw Paw's house to have a "Welcome" party for Julianna and a "Welcome Home" party for Uncle Don.

It was a convergence of the relatives. Unfortunately, Julianna was not cooperative with the family photo.


We did manage to get a four-generation photograph. The generations are my great aunt, my mother, me and my daughter.


Julianna rode on Grandma's rocking horse. It is much smaller than the one we bought her. Her feet do not touch the ground on it. She really enjoyed this one.

She got a new purse. We keep her babies in it, Monkey Paul and Bear Don. She loves it and will sling it over her shoulder and parade off. It is a great gift. We can fit three babies in it. It makes it easier to carry them around with us.

This is cousin Jessica.


I went to work yesterday and today, for about a half day each. Yesterday, Julianna and Grandma went to the office with me and played some in the office and went to the mall across the street. She did so well that today she stayed home with Grandma and I went to work by myself. It went quite well, but a little strange to go somewhere without the baby. Daddy and I even went out to dinner alone. Then we went to the bookstore and bought her three books.

We've had a busy time here at the grandparents house. We got to drink our milk out of the Moo Cow Creamer. This is a family tradition. We have had the Moo Cow since we were children and "took turns" drinking out of it, if fighting over who was last counts as taking turns. Now the grandchildren drink from it when they visit grandma and paw paw. This grandchild's visits results in some first times for the Moo Cow--soy milk and a straw through his mouth.

We went to the park for the first time, but did not like the slides or the swing. We thought the car was a little bit fun. We took a walk around the lake and fed the ducks. Next we were off to the mall and rode the carousel. We enjoyed the stationary horse, but not the moving one so much. She did scream when we left, so I think overall it was a fun time.

Then we got up at 0330 (that would be morning) and went to meet Uncle Don at the airport. He was coming home from Iraq for his mid-tour break. Funny story about the shirts. We were meeting Don's family near the airport and had only set up a time with them. Grandma, Paw Paw and I decided to wear American Flag shirts so we went to Old Navy to get three. Don's family decided to do the same, so when we got to the meeting place, we were all dressed the same.

Uncle Don brought us a kinder egg. Yummy. The USO was giving the soldiers Beanie Bears as they came up. Julianna decided that Uncle Don should give her that bear. Now we have a bear named Don and a monkey named Paul.

Here is our last new activity for the day--eating tea cake cookies. My grandmother would make tea cake cookies for me and now Julianna's grandma makes them for her.

Julianna has done very well on her trip to Grandma and Paw Paw's. She has let them hold her and play with her and Mommy went to the bathroom alone!!!!!!! This was an exciting moment in mommy's life. Julianna is showing her strong willed nature. I'm sure it is a survival technique from the orphanage, but nap time is becoming a test of wills. She does not like to be rocked and thinks singing to her is an invitation to point out Miss Kitty's nose. It is hard because I cannot do what the parenting books say to do--lay her down and walk away. That results in some unbelievable screaming, I think because she is still not convinced that if I walk away, I will come back. It is also hard because I am used to giving orders and having them followed. Two-year olds aren't much into following orders.

Julianna and mommy have headed to Grandma and Paw Paw's house for a few days. We discovered their squirrel gun, also know as a super soaker water gun, on the back porch and thought it might be fun to water the plants and the porch and the bird feeder, our socks, most of our dress...

We helped Grandma make biscuits for breakfast, but we would not eat any. Still like our oatmeal and banana's.

Here we are with Paw Paw in the back yard. Take a close look at the cat in the background. That is Captain Jack, who is planning an assault on the bird house.

Today we are off to shop and shop.

The baby got a new toy. Okay, technically, mommy got a new toy, but nonetheless, we have a trailer for the bike. We have gone out twice and she seems to enjoy it. She has a new way of checking out the birds and trees and mom gets to ride her bike, which makes mommy very happy.

I know everyone thinks there child is the smartest, but mine really is pretty smart. She is trying to inflate the tire wheels. Before I snapped the photo, she had the end of the pump in the spokes of the wheel and was pumping. I did not teach her any of this. She saw me inflate the tires when we put the trailer together.

We still have a good moments and bad moments. She does stuff that makes me laugh, even though I may not want her to do it. Makes it hard to discipline your child when you are laughing hysterically. Last night she was swinging her plate full of mac and cheese around. Not sure why I found it so funny. Fortunately, the mac and cheese stuck to the plate. One day this week I was holding a book that I have borrowed and I did not want her to have because she might tear the pages. She got her lady bug purse and offered to trade me her purse for the book. Made me laugh because we do this to her, trade her an acceptable toy for something we are concerned she will harm herself with. It was touching.

This is Julianna with Pastor Paul. He was our pastor in Wisconsin and is now in Nevada doing missions work. When we talk about The Pastor, we mean Pastor Paul. Everyone should have a Pastor Paul. He had a great influence on us and we have enjoyed our friendship with his family.

Everyday we learn a little bit more about parenting. Today's lesson was be careful how close you put the stroller to, well, basically everything. You would think after the tea set episode I would know this, but I guess I needed a refresher course. For the record, the little tear in her eye is because I left her to get the camera, not because I scolded her.

We are practicing the "walk away" method to deal with her tantrums. We have learned that you have to completely walk away and ignore her. I tried just sitting away from her and watching the drama, but that encourages rather than discourages. It is hard to keep one eye on her to make sure she doesn't hurt herself and at the same time appear to ignore her. It does seem to shorten the dramas. I'm still hoping they stop completely soon.

She understands that she is the "Ba Ba" and will point at herself proudly and say "baba". I think she might understand that I am the mama. She says mama all the time. She does not understand that Phillip is the dada, but she says that a lot too.

We have been playing classical music for her. When she likes the song, she will sway and close her eyes. It is very cute. She will even clap at the end of a song. For the most part, the music is background noise to her, but sometimes it catches her attention.

Today we went to the doctor. It went smoothly. She had a lot of blood drawn and needs to produce a stool sample. She is no longer anemic, which you may remember was one of the things that made her special needs. The doctor thought she was doing very well. She is 20 pounds but he was not worried. She got a TB test placed and we are going back on Thursday to get the TB test read and to discuss the rest of her blood work.

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.