No new pictures. No excuses, just no pictures.

Things around here are in some ways settling in. Brother has really started to push the boundaries and test the limits. It is almost as though he figured out we were not going anywhere and decided he needed to establish the control. He is very different from sister in his power struggles. He will do more half-obedience and delay tactics than she would. Unfortunately, mommy wants full obedience and delay tactics result in being carried to bed. Sister is pushing the limits, too, I assume to figure out the new norm and establish some control for her. The days can be very long, but I know someday it will all pay off.

I have finally given up the battle of a toy free living room and have begun to turn it into a play room. I bought a kid table and two chairs today. I had one put together when brother woke up and he claimed it as his chair. It is identical to the other, but he drug that chair all over the house to make sure only he sat in it. I would walk to the kitchen and here he came with that chair. It was almost comical. He also went through his sister's room decided which toys in there were "his". She did not take well to that expedition.


We have our appointment with orthopedics May 7.

It remains difficult to get two children smiling, looking at the camera and not physically harming one another. We are sporting new glasses around here. They arrived yesterday. It is hard to tell if there is a big difference or not, but he does wear them pretty consistently.

We had our eye appointment yesterday. It went reasonably well. They put the drops in to dilate his eyes then made us wait TWO HOURS before they did the exam. That was sheer misery. He does have vision in both eyes and hopefully glasses will help. They are being made. The eye doctor used a set of lenses to test his vision. I'm not sure how it works, but somehow it does. We go to the regular pediatrician next week.

They are a couple of busy beavers. I tend to run out of activities by about 0930. Right now they are "napping", because I needed a break. I go back to work in the morning and I think I am more excited about it than I should be. Hopefully I will remember all my log-in information this time.

We are back from the international pediatrician in Birmingham. He had to give some blood and both of them had renal ultrasounds for melamine. They gave us a lot of information and right now we are processing it all. We go to the ophthalmologist in the morning. He still has a visit to orthopedics and urology in his future. And his regular pediatrician. Mei Mei continues to be delayed.

My camera battery died right before Easter. It is recharging, but no Easter photos. We go to UAB tonight for an evaluation in the morning. We are ready to start the medical exams and hopefully, some treatments. Or at least some answers to what all is wrong.

He is starting to pick up more English, but it continues to be very slow. We have a lot of sibling conflict. He went to Sunday School and extended session on Sunday with no problems. The first week he lasted about 15 minutes. This week he stayed the whole time, no issues. Whether that is good or bad, I suppose, is open to debate. He charms everyone. He can now ride a tricycle. He sleeps alone in his bed. He is terrified of our cat. Silverware is still a challenge. I don't know where we are with attachment and bonding. He does give us some eye contact, but with the vision issues, we don't know what to expect. He is very loud sometimes and is very sweet sometimes.

We have now been on US soil for one week. Things are going quite well, I think. The jet lag haze is beginning to lift and sleep patterns are approaching normal. Mei Mei still thinks 4 or 5 am is a good time to get up, but we are making her stay in her bed until 6, even is all she does is play and sing. Hopefully she will gradually return to her normal 0630-0700 wake up time. There is a lot of sibling rivalry, mainly on mei mei's part, but I am trying to not intervene unless blood is shed. We have an Opthalmology appointment for next week and are waiting for our UAB appointment.

The photos are from an Easter Egg Hunt (in case you have never seen such an activity before). The eggs stayed in the car until mommy could remove the sugary contents. They fought over them until they realized all the jelly beans had been removed. Now they will shake each egg repeatly, just to see if I missed one.

Sleep is getting a little better around here. Everyone is in their own bed right now. We will see how long that lasts. We got some proper shoes for the boy today. No more ill fitting shoes. We were buying two pairs and he had a fit when we tried to take of the first pair to try on the second. I guess he thought we were not going to get them if they came off his feet. We are planning to go to church in the morning. Hopefully that will go smoothly.

We are starting to settle in around here. I have not unpacked the camera and most of the clothes are in the hall waiting to go through the washing machine. Everything had a funk to it, even the stuff we laundered in China.

Last night was a rough night. Mei Mei has always had sleep issues. She slept soundly the night we got her, all alone in her crib, but that was the last time. I fondly refer to 2 am as the witching hour because she wakes up like clock work. It used to be screaming and trips to the rocking chair, now it is just calling out for mommy, sometimes to potty, then right back to sleep. Well, last night was like the old days. She woke up every forty minutes and screamed. I had to get out of bed and walk her around. I made several trips to the kitchen. She woke up for good at 3 am and I finally went to sleep at around 5. Ge Ge slept like a rock until about 5 am. I'm hoping tonight will be a better night for her. Ge Ge is refusing to go to bed.

We are home and all in bed. I am hoping no one wakes up before about 630 am. I have one story from our otherwise uneventful travels home. We had one large suitcase that on the way over exceeded the US domestic weight limit and had to be repacked in the airport before I could check it. So, coming home I was meticulous with this one and weighed it constantly in the hotel room to keep the weight down. When we checked in for the flight to LAX it turned out to be 22.7 kg (49.94 lbs), which just squeaks under the limit. Before we left LAX, I took a few more things out just to be on the safe side. We get to the airport and they don't even weigh it!! The attendant slaps tracking labels on all of them and sends us off to the TSA x-ray machine without a second thought. AUGGHH!! All that obsessing for naught.

Happy sleeping to everyone.

-- Posted From My iPhone

-- Posted From My iPhone

We are on the blessed united states of America and waiting for our flight to Memphis, then mobile. Hoping the weather is not too bad.


-- Posted From My iPhone

Today is our last full day in Guangzhou. We went to the Chen Family Temple as well as to a park with a statue of five goats. I don't remember the name. Here is a photo from the Temple of the two Beijing daddies walking the kids. We constantly joke that these two are going to have an arranged marriage. No doubt the dads are discussing the dowry right now. The kids are happily sharing a bag of pumpkin crackers.
Jodi apparently tells him he is covered in crumbs because he looks at his shirt and starts wiping them all off while she supervises. They looked like an old married couple at that point.

At the five goats statue. The kids were running around happily until Julianna fell into a ditch.


If you see this one on a Christmas Card, act surprised.
We bought the shirts just for the photo and will probably not wear them again until our next trip to China.

Yesterday was the physical exam. Keith did not do well on the vision exam (big shock there). As best we can tell, he was unable to see the image at the top of the chart. There was some difficulty with following directions, so it was not terribly accurate. He can see fingers held in front of him. They did not test each eye individually. He also had to get two shots, part of the new Hague requirements. He told the nurse he would not cry. They did not seem to phase him at all. I gave him some motrin before hand.

We purchased his traditional outfit yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not take him with me, so it is two size too big. Julianna got three new ones. She wanted white. Every time I would ask a shop keeper for white, they would say, no, red for Chinese new year. Sorry, she wants white. In the end, we got white, red and blue.

We are winding down here in Guangzhou. We still plan to be home on Thursday at 4 pm, northwest from Nashville.

The yogurt is for the kids. We also need eggs.

To answer the question about the flight, Keith did well. He got very fussy on landing because he did not want to wear the seat belt, but other than that, no issues. The long flight leaves at night, so I'm hoping he will sleep a good portion of it.

Being here in Guangzhou is strange. There are so many memories from the first adoption. Our first trip was miserable. Very miserable. I was sleep deprived and lacking confidence in my parenting skills. As we visit all the same places, it dredges up those feelings. It has been a very painful trip for me. I am very ready to leave here and get home to my comfortable surroundings, although not doing my own laundry has been very nice.

BTW, if the people responsible for buying home coming supplies could invest in some drinkable yogurt, any flavor, we would be grateful.

We have made it to the famed White Swan hotel and have ventured out in the pouring rain for dinner at Lucy's. The hamburger is everything I remember it to be. I almost ordered Julianna scrambled eggs just so our meal would be what we had two years ago. Tomorrow is a shopping day and we do the physical exams on Monday.

It is finally our last day in Beijing. We had a free day, so we have gone back to the Pearl Market, ostensibly to buy Julianna the Wonder Woman Barbie she has been talking about since our first trip, but in reality to buy mommy a Legolas Barbie (or would that be a Ken). We also did some shopping for souvenirs, all of which means repacking. I am a bit ashamed of my packing for this trip. Not at all efficient. If I had a week or three, I could probably get it all down to less space. It would also help if people would quit asking for packed items. Around here, out of sight means 'I need that more than air right now'.

Today was the last of the scheduled activities in Beijing. We went to a public park that has a kiddie amusement park in it. The kids had a blast and the parents doled out cash. This afternoon Grandma and PawPaw entertained the kids and I engaged in my favorite past-time--packing. Tomorrow we get the new passports and on Saturday we fly to Guangzhou.
We are so ready to be in a new hotel room and to be back on Shaimen Island. I never thought I would say that, but at least it is familiar territory, having spent a long two weeks there. It is, by the way, almost two years since we boarded a plane to adopt Julianna. We will arrive home from this adoption on her Gotcha Day.


This is Keith's little buddy from his orphanage. She is nearly five. We have decided that we will pursue an arranged marriage between the two. Her parents will head to North Carolina when they leave here, which is also where Julianna's orphanage buddy lives. I foresee a road trip to the Carolinas in our future.

Julianna ran straight to the engineers seat when it was time to board the train. She loves the driver's seat.

Addendum:

We went to dinner tonight and on the way home I stopped into a bread store for cookies. The price was 10.60, so I gave them a twenty. To be quite honest, the change stuff here just confuses me. Some of it is little paper money and some of it is coins and I can never figure out how much any of it is worth. Well, they didn't have enough in the kitty to give me .40 change and wanted me to give them .10 so they could give me .5. Well, I couldn't figure out the change, so a nice Westerner tried to help, but my German isn't better than my Chinese.

More pics from the Summer Palace

Hey y'all. Daddy here. Yes, there is a riverboat at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. Seems the female emperor (Referred to as the Dragon Lady by our guide) was interested in American technology back during the Industrial Revolution. And the item that caught her imagination most was the side-wheeler riverboat that plied cotton and gamblers up and down the rivers of the Antebellum south. So what does she do to satisfy her longing to own one on her man-made lake? Buy one and have it shipped? Why of course not! she has one built. From marble.

This next pic is our guide, Michelle, with the two adoptees. This charming picture would not have been possible had our son not protested vehemently when I tried to put him back in his stroller after a potty break. He insisted on pushing. Which is fine and all except he can't see to push it straight and has to stop and check every change in the feel or color of the pavement. It was taking forever. So Michelle told them both of the "big boat" and took their hands. On the one hand I was relieved—on the other I hate that he instantly obeys nearly everyone who speaks Chinese, even construction workers we meet on the street.

Today we went to the Summer Palace, a structure also build by the Chin dynasty, and to be honest, after you've seen one Chin Dynasty structure, you've seen them all. The beauty of the Summer Palace is in the landscaping, which is amazing. The lake is man-made and the longevity mountain is the dirt they took out to make the lake. Not the mountain below, the mountain the longevity structure is on. Every point you stop at has a beautiful view of the lake. It is simple indescribable.




No visitors except on party business. Dear old friends are excepted.