From China 03/29

**Edit: because I couldn't post in China I missed the opportunity to share about our touring day in Shanghai. I am adding this after the fact.

This was just a neat area on our way to YuYuan garden. It might have a name. But mostly it just felt unique so I snapped some pics and a video.

YuYuan Garden is a significant tourist attraction in Shanghai. Our guide said this is a very typical example of a wealthy master's garden. We were told over and over again how every detail is deliberate and a piece of art.

Nathan wanted this picture. He posed us and directed the photographer. This is the theater where the master would invite larger groups to entertain. There were many other areas for family members and small groups of friends to visit.

Our next stop was The Bund. This area allows a clear view of the city from across the river. There is a long walkway that follows the river and allows great photo opportunities.

If you want to see Nathan's great smile click this picture to enlarge it. We were having a great time.

This is a monument to the liberation of Shanghai.

We had lunch with our friends again. We all got a good laugh out of asking for water for our group and being brought this tiny bottle. We had empty water glasses. But this was all the water we were given...

After diner we decided to go out for ice cream and see some of the city lights. We ended up on a bit of a goose chase but did find a little convenience store with a Haggan Das freezer with little ice cream bars. While on our walk I discovered this for my mom:

Yay Nana! Mary Kay is everywhere.

I was unable to post a few pictures about our travel to Jinan previously. So, to catch you up, the day following our touring we traveled to Jinan to pick up Aiden.

Flat family rides the bullet train again!

We had three stops along the way. The last stop before Jinan was the same exact station we were in during Ty's orphanage visit in 2014. It was fun to see something familiar. Made me want to go say hi.

On the train I gave Nathan the iPad and we played a few games together. At one point he nudged me and said in Chinese, "heart" and pointed to me. Look at the green blob in the top of the picture. You may need to tilt your head to the right to see it. People, my boy presented me my first heart. I excitedly told my guide to explain to Nathan this is a continuing tradition in our family: to find and present each other with hearts. My guide gave me a funny look, but explained as I had asked. Nathan grinned and nodded.

We arrived at the hotel in Jinan with less than an hour to prepare for Aiden. The orphanage staff was bringing him to our hotel rather than meeting in a civil affairs office. I had asked that we make initial introductions in the lobby because our room was not big enough to accommodate a group and being crammed into a small space could cause some anxiety for Aiden without the emotions of meeting strangers and saying goodbye to his caretakers.

I prefer to be waiting on my kiddos entrance rather than them waiting on me. So I had planned to go down to the lobby 20 minutes before they said they would arrive. But we got a call almost 40 minutes early saying they were already in the lobby waiting for us.  We rushed down to meet them and Aiden was there when we stepped off the elevator. No chance to capture first greetings on camera.

Back to the original post about Aiden's gotcha day:

Well, my hopes of the internet issue resolving when I left town have ended. It appears I will need to limit my daily photos and send the posts via Brad. So, sorry the pictures will be sparse. There are so many I want to share with you. There is a lot of cuteness around here all of a sudden. 

We are officially 5 for 5 with amazing gotcha days. I was worried all along that Aiden would be my sensitive one who might cry or be scared the day we met. I could not have been more wrong. He was so ready and eagerly greeted us. 

The first picture I was able to snap of him. Back in our hotel room. He had already discovered the iPad. It's like little boys have a 6th sense.

Aiden understands everything that is said to him. And he is able to repeat almost anything he is asked to repeat. But he only speaks one word at a time on his own and he isn't really able to answer questions unless it is a one word answer. 

His orphanage and 'school' felt teaching him sign language would delay his ability to speak. So they never taught him to sign. Ever. I am sure there are many different opinions out there but mine is that sign enhances spoken language by preparing pathways in the brain for communication. I really believe the only reason Aiden is not speaking 'normally' is he has been trying to learn one of the most complex spoken languages for someone who did not hear prior to age 5 (because of tone sounds in the mandarin language) without first developing a foundation in a more complete language: sign. 

Aiden is incredibly smart. And the words he does use are crystal clear. My guide kept exclaiming: "I heard that perfectly!" So did I and I don't speak mandarin fluently. He has the ability to speak. He just needs an altered way of learning to speak in sentences. I cannot wait to get this boy home and plug him into a complete treatment and education plan. He is going to absolutely soar. 

As far as personality Aiden just makes me want to pinch his little cheeks and kiss him. First impressions of our boys have always been their best because they are charmers. But his best is so ooey gooey sweet I just wanna squeeze him. He was constantly sharing tonight. Constantly trying to be helpful. And, people, he is so cute!

I saw a tiny glimpse of Nathan's less-than-desirable side today. He was nervous. He left everything he knows today and got a new little brother within just a few hours. He could have used a day or two to process leaving his home town. Having my undivided attention these past days probably made him feel extremely threatened when he was completely lost in the room this afternoon.  Aiden came with an entire entourage (this boy was crazy loved by his orphanage) and every adult in the room was focused on everyone else but Nathan. 

These are just the women who came. There were also 2 men. It was a cramped hotel room for a while.

For a solid hour after everyone left Nathan was trying a little too hard to get my attention and be in charge of (boss around) his new little "sibling." After dinner things settled down for Nathan as we played games together. 

I don't want to make things sound negative at all. Nathan has still been wonderful. Both boys had a great day. But I can see the insecurities bubbling beneath the surface and that is a part of this process. I'll be curious to see how tomorrow goes with our first full day together. 

More tomorrow when I officially and legally have 8 children!

From China Tuesday 03/28

Internet is still down. Hubby to the rescue again! I'm hoping this might change in Jinan. 

Today's picture of the day is from our visit to Nathan's school. We were not given permission to visit his orphanage and instead took the opportunity to spend 15 minutes with his classmates and teachers. 

But let's rewind to the beginning. This morning Nathan took full advantage of his opportunity to sleep in and finally dragged himself down to breakfast with me at 8:00. The schedule the orphanage gave me says he gets up at 6:00. I'm sure he does. But not today! 

I remember Ty doing this too.

After breakfast we went to the civil affairs office to complete the adoptions. There was some brief paperwork (most of it was completed yesterday) and a funny little certificate ceremony where they presented us with our adoption certificates. 

But I enjoyed most the enthusiasm Nathan had when completing his "desire to be adopted" letter for the paperwork. It was nothing elaborate. Only one line. But there was no hesitation or question. He knew exactly what he wanted to write and signed with the date without direction. 

Almost a snuggle! I'll take it. With teenagers you have to sneak it in whenever you can... I don't remember recording before my adventure with pink eye. You can see my eyes are a bit swollen and red. It was the worst bout of pink eye I have ever had. It was fun to see the doctor in China though. Definitely a unique experience.

After the civil affairs office we went to the notary and back to the hotel. The guide took us to a Chinese restaurant and I was excited. Nathan was not. He told the guide he did not like the Cantonese food we had yesterday and he was having trouble finding something on the menu at this new Chinese place he wanted today. The guide asked Nathan where he wanted to go for lunch and he said the American restaurant we ate at last night. So Nathan and I got lunch without the guide and then met our guide again to visit the school. Glad to know he won't have trouble with American food...


Nathan was very eager to see his friends and say goodbye to everyone at school. We were only allowed a 15 minute visit during a break between classes. But Nathan was absolutely swarmed by his classmates during that time. His teachers all came to wish him well and they posed for pictures with him. A few of his friends came to me and tried to speak a few English words. Nathan was clearly very happy to be there and have the chance to say goodbye. 

We had to take the subway and walk quite a ways to get to the school and back. By the time we made it back tot he hotel it was dinner time. 

Flat family on the subway. They have been in a lot of subways...

Having spent the day out of he hotel room and on our feet I thought tonight would be the perfect opportunity to pick up some $1 noodles for dinner and just stay in watching a movie. But when I took Nathan to the store and asked him to pick which one he wanted he told me we should not eat them because they are very unhealthy. I tried to convince him but he would not have it. So we ended up walking to dinner after all. 

We met our friends again and they took us to a Mexican restaurant. Yes, I'm in China, but so far I have eaten very little Chinese food. Sigh. The Mexican place was great. It felt like home. But Mr. Choosy didn't like his selection and barely ate. I can't say I am surprised that Mexican cuisine did not impress him. But being the third strike of the night I felt bad for him. 

We went back to the room and watched a movie together before bed. But that was the extent of our day. 

Tomorrow we have some sight seeing planned. Hopefully the boy can find some food he likes.  

It has been another great day. Even despite the food failures and extensive walking Nathan has been super pleasant and fun. I am suddenly getting very excited and anxious to meet Aiden. Just two more sleeps. 

Gotcha day number 4

I can't post from China right now. But I can send an email to my amazing hubby and have him do it!!! 

Pictures maybe sparse until I can get an internet connection again. Sorry guys. 

Yesterday was 4 for 4 in the department of amazing gotcha days. Nathan was nervous and quiet. It's awkward when you are a teenager. But he is SOOOOO sweet! And he is teeny tiny like we thought. I want to smother him with mom kisses but I restrained myself. 

The social worker told us before he arrived how anxious he had been for me to come. She said he is so ready to go to America and have his own family. Squeezy heart!

The first thing he did after we met was present me with a gift. He proudly told me through the translator he has gifts for the whole family. He showed me Brad's gift too and I explained why dad wasn't here. 

Then he proceeded to show me everything he brought with him. He had two backpacks full. He has his own tablet. I was not thrilled at first but it turns out it doesn't have any games or apps on it. It was used for school and he was really good about not having it out yesterday. I did hear him play a little music on it while I was getting ready for bed. But he was super engaged with me, not the tablet, all day. 

The orphanage provided the most amazing gifts to me. They made him a beautiful photo book of pictures from the orphanage and pictures from when he was little. It's a full blown professional digital scrapbook. I also received several hard-copy photos from when he was in preschool. The cutest picture is his very first photo in the orphanage. He was a huge chubby chunker chunk! Not sure how he has become such a bean pole but man he was he a chubby baby. 

I was also given the best information I have ever seen from an orphanage in a 4 page printout of questions and answers. Every question I had prepared to ask was already answered in the packet. They even translated a note from him to me into English in the packet. 

On top of all of that amazing valuable information they gave us a b-e-a-u-tiful personalized stamp with Nathan's Chinese name. It has a hand carved goat on the top and a red ink pad. It is gorgeous. 

There was a second family with us picking up a little 3 year old from Nathan's same orphanage. He did great until we all started to leave together. He screamed for about 10 minutes. But that was the only tiny hiccup of the day. And it wasn't even my kid! 

Nathan and I played the day away together. We finished the puzzle. We played card games. We played multiplayer games on the iPad. We walked to lunch and dinner together. And we watched Tarzan in mandarin together. It was an amazing day!!

The other adopting family also has one parent home and one in China.  They are also picking up two children. And they will have a total of 7 after these two adoptions. We are not the only crazy people out there! The dad and two teenage daughters are here and they had already picked up their 13 year old girl last week. It was nice to have some friends for the day. 

This always seems to happen

I don't understand why it seems I must come down with a cold before meeting my boys. But I remember it happened with Jacob on our third trip. And I seem to recall having a cold with one of our other trips as well. But I digress. Here I sit with a full-blown head cold. Enter pouty face here.

I slept most of the night with some tossing and turning again. Only as I tossed and turned I noticed I was congested. Then I woke up this morning and felt like a truck had hit me. I made it through breakfast and ended up crawling back into bed for another two and a half hours of sleep. I slept so long I missed my opportunity to Skype with the littles before they went to bed.

I lounged about until about noon and then tried to motivate myself into some movement by taking a hot bath. The steam cleared me out a bit so I had some lunch and decided to get out of my room. Housekeeping provides two complimentary bottles of water each day. I didn't want to miss out on that. So I managed to drag myself out of the room about 1:00. 

After my dinner failure last night (the $20 buffet I barely ate at) I decided to try and balance out the meal budget by finding myself a bowl of noodles for dinner tonight. I have been eating food I brought from home for lunch and the instant noodles here are about $1. So off I went in search of a store.

The area surrounding my hotel is surprisingly quiet and, for lack of a better word, small. Our last trip to China seemed to include huge sky-rise buildings everywhere. This area of Shanghai seems much smaller and more home-y. 

It is Sunday afternoon. And I remember Kyiv being oddly empty on Sunday afternoon too. But I couldn't get over how quiet the streets were.

I finally found a store and collected my bottled water and $1 noodles. By the time I walked back to the hotel room I was exhausted. And it was probably less than a mile walk in total. Nothing frustrates me more than feeling weak and run down. Grunt. When I got to the room housekeeping was in the middle of cleaning and restocking so dragged myself back outside to the park to wait a few minutes. Too tired to walk around I just parked myself on the first bench and enjoyed some good old fashioned people watching.

Then it was back to my room for more rest. I didn't want to allow myself more sleep for fear of messing up my jet-lag progress. I must teach this body that night and day have switched. But I was so tired. I spent some time on the phone with Brad and played some computer games. Then I decided to mix it up a bit and start a puzzle. I brought three puzzles to do with the boys and I figure a head-start wont hurt. It was the perfect restful but engaging activity to pass a little more time.

I made it to the dinner hour. My noodles turned out being decent. I didn't love them but I also did not dislike them. For $1 it was a complete success.

I decided to make it dinner and a movie and watched the first half hour of Toy Story in Mandarin. After dinner I passed the time updating this blog post and planned to take a short walk in the park before a hot bath and bed time.

Here's hoping to a long and restful nights sleep that will fend off the cold. A girl can hope anyway.

Just one more sleep!

A Day in the Park

Today felt like a vacation. Except for the fact that Brad wasn't here. I rested. I played. I took a hot bath (oh yes, another one) I Skyped with the kiddos. And I soaked up the silence in my room. Sometimes a getaway can be oh so good.

Good morning in Shanghai! I actually slept well. Some tossing and turning. But no major interruptions. Yay me!

Breakfast was excellent. I grabbed a couple items that seemed to be popular among the Chinese who were eating there. The noodles were particularly yummy. The meat and veggies were good too. I still stuck to the American staples for the rest of my plate though. The kids will be so jealous to see that watermelon. 

I noticed this morning that my hotel is particularly interested in English speaking visitors. Why do I assume this? Each and every one of them has an American name on their name tag. The part of this that tickled me was the names are not exactly current. I was helped today by: Denny, Jim, Leanne and Truman. 

After breakfast I spent some time unpacking and prepping Nathan's backpack. I took time to Skype with everyone at home (I miss them already!) and took care of some emails. Then I decided to get out an explore a bit. As luck would have it my hotel is directly across the street from a fabulous park. Xujiahui Park was built on the site of an old rubber factory. The old chimney from the factory is still at the entrance to the park. It is beautiful. We did not have anything like this near our hotels the last time we were in China. I was on cloud nine. 

There are always groups doing various types of dance and movement. These ladies had fans. My favorite was the old grandma dancing with swords. I was trying to be discrete in my photo taking so I didn't get a picture of her. But it was awesome.

The park has a raised walkway through a portion of it.

All of the flowers were GORGEOUS.

This is the chimney at the entrance.

I love China. They do things we just wouldn't see in America. Like this portion of the walkway that is stepping stones over a little water fall overflow. No hand rails. No signs. No signing away liability. Everyone (old and young) just has to walk across the stepping stones. Americans are such babies.

After my walk through the park I went back to the hotel room for lunch. I planned to go out after lunch to see a museum. But then I realized the quiet. I so rarely get to just sit in the quiet. So I opted to stay in my room instead. By about 3:00 the jet-lag sleepies started to kick in so I got my exercise clothes on, pumped up my soccer ball (yes, I brought a ball and pump) and went back to the park to play.

I had seen this basketball court on my earlier walk and planned to go there. But it was slammed full of people by the time I returned so I had to just exercise in the park. I found a spot and started my warm up. I got into my usual routine and started juggling. After a while I noticed people watching me. I turned around and could not believe my eyes. There was a guy with a big camera taking photos of me. Ha! I was the only one in the park with a soccer ball. And I am, of course, a Caucasian woman. But apparently my juggling drew this guy's attention. He stayed and kept taking pictures of me juggling for a while before leaving. 

By the time I got back to my room there was time for a shower before dinner. I didn't see anything familiar on my walk today food-wise so I decided to just eat at the hotel. They (all of the international hotels we have stayed in) usually do a good job of catering to American-friendly food. And if I liked seafood I would have been just fine. The buffet tonight was all seafood: lobster, oysters, clams, shrimp, muscles, squid, sushi, etc, etc. The only ting I saw that was not seafood was pig feet. Sigh. This was not what I was hoping for. I found a plate full of things that turned out just fine (white rice, a single chicken wing, snap peas with some kind of meat pieces I could not identify other than 'chewy', some Asian vegetables I also did not recognize, a potato soup, and some fruit). The only thing I could not handle was the soup. 

After dinner I still felt sleepy so I want back into the park. I LOVED my walk in the park. Everything is lit up in the city. And the dancers are out. Everywhere I went there were big groups of people doing organized dance. 

Everyone in a matching jumpsuit knows every move with precision. There is a huge group of people in regular clothes who appear to just be tagging along. The don't get all the moves right but they still know most of them. Makes me wonder if you a required to reach a certain proficiency to be allowed to purchase a matching jumpsuit. They all wore white gloves too. There were about 5 of these groups throughout the park. They all had different matching outfits and different music.

As I continued my walk two little girls dressed head to toe in light up and glow accessories came running around a corner and gleefully declared something to me in Mandarin I did not understand. They were about 5 years old and I just missed some of their pronunciation. I smiled but didn't have anything to say. Then I heard clear as day from their father, word for word in Mandarin, "She can't understand you silly. She speaks English." I laughed and replied in English, "That's right, I do speak English." I didn't have the presence of mind to say it in Mandarin! Dang it. He ushered them along and I chuckled to myself as I thought of what I should have said in Mandarin.

Well, here's hoping I can keep my eyes open for just another hour or so and manage to pull off another full night of sleep.

To all a good night!

So much better in the rain!

I am here!

For some reason I could not wrap my mind around the fact that I was actually going to China today (or yesterday, or tomorrow, or whatever it is now). It just didn't feel real.

It still wasn't real yet.

Flat family getting to board another plane!

Then the wheels of the plane touched down in Shanghai and I realized: I'm in China!

Proof that clear blue skies do exist above China...

The flight actually left on time without any drama or changes. It was smooth and quiet the whole ride. I had the window seat and there was no one sitting in the middle seat of my row. The best part about that is my neighbor who had the aisle seat spent the entire flight sneezing, coughing and blowing her nose. I appreciated the extra space. However, she was super nice even though we never spoke during the 13 hours we spent in arms reach of each other. She even offered me her fun-size M&M's from our airplane lunch. She hadn't touched them with her sneeze-hands so I gladly accepted. Chocolate makes everything better.

Customs was interesting as there was an older gentleman who had probably had one-too-many on the flight and was arguing with the customs officials about why he had to stand in a line for customs when he was not leaving the airport, he was catching another flight to Beijing. Dude, that's not how it works. Please step aside and wait your turn like everyone else. As I shimmied my way past him a group of 4 custom's official supervisors who looked less than enthused greeted him. I didn't stick around to see how that worked out.

What is this!? Did I get off the plane at the right place? Drinking water in China? Where were you 2 and a half years ago when we were dying in the heat?

Once I had my bags I exited the baggage claim and looked for my driver. Piece of cake. He had a sign. However, he did not speak a word of English. I introduced myself in Mandarin and he said, "Oh!" but then held his cell phone out to me. Waiting on the line was my guide who could not be at the airport to greet me as he was meeting a second family at a different airport. He confirmed the driver was the right person to follow even though he couldn't speak English.

Then the best part of my entire day began: the drive to the hotel. It was probably a 45 minute drive. But we did not break 25 miles per hour. Not because of traffic. No no. The freeways were surprisingly clear. Not at all what I expected. Cars and buses blew by us on all sides. But we stuck to 25 miles per hour. I cannot figure out why. But my driver was going at the very least 15 miles per hour slower than everyone else. There were times it felt like we were crawling. I thought maybe he was slowing down to get off the freeway. No. He would accelerate back up to 25 or 30 miles per hour and then slowly wind back down to a crawl.

Maybe he is being paid by the minute...

Anyway, I don't know why I enjoyed this so much. It should have annoyed me after a long day of travel. But I had to fight back audible laughter almost the entire drive. It just tickled me to be in the center lane of a 4 lane freeway and be passed on all sides by every other vehicle on the road. Many honked at us. And each time I had to conceal my chuckles. It was the best drive.

The city was full of lights. Because it was raining I had a hard time getting my phone to focus through the car window. So I didn't get the bridge and many of the other buildings. This one was cool though. The rainbow lights slowly rotate around the building.

Once in the hotel I was greeted by this wonderful surprise. Even after a 30 hour day I made sure to eek out a few minutes for a hot bath before bed. Endless hot water. Such luxury.

I have one last thing to say: China is so much better in the rain! It is cold and wet. All of the inventions the Chinese people have made to keep themselves dry on the mopeds are amazing. I will get pictures later. But it was so fun to watch them all. And the restaurants on the way to the hotel made me smile. Chilli Fish Head Restaurant (yes, two "l's") was my favorite. Complete with a video playing on the big screen TV inside the window demonstrating a large butcher knife cutting the fish properly.

Oh, China, I think I've actually missed you.

More tomorrow!