The Roses and Rainbows are Fading...

We arrived in Guangzhou yesterday, and we're already feeling so much more at peace than we were during the latter part of last week.  But, I don't want to forget what it felt like to be in Zhengzhou for 9 days, so I want to write about it.  So, even though I'm a little late in writing it, here goes...

The first few days of being in Zhengzhou were so amazing.  There are no words to describe the joy we felt the day we got Kenan.  But by Wednesday the 27th, almost a week after receiving Kenan, we had had enough.  We were both longing for the United States with such gusto that I didn't know if it was even going to be bearable to stay here for 6 more days.

I loved Kenan from the moment I saw his referral picture, but even more so once I actually saw him with my own eyes! He was so handsome and snuggly and I just couldn't believe that God would entrust me with this gift that was so precious.  He bonded to me almost immediately, and he loved for Strider to tease him and play with him as long as he was sitting safely in my lap.  But, he didn't want to be out of my sight even for a second.  It didn't bother Strider at first- he was glad that Kenan had bonded with me- but after almost a week of not having Kenan like him as much as he liked me started to get to him.  And I can't blame him.  While Kenan liked me better than Strider, he would have sold me out in a heartbeat if a young Chinese girl would have offered to take him home.  And who can blame him?  Our baby has been through so much upheaval in the last week and a half that anything familiar probably looked pretty good to him.  But, a mother longs to be wanted.  And knowing that I had two little boys at home that loved me and missed me and liked me more than anybody else- except Strider- we're equal :)- made it really hard to like Kenan all the time.  I felt sad and disappointed and a little mad that he liked those women he didn't even know better than he liked me.  And of course those thoughts are irrational.  But, when you're sleep-deprived and America-deprived and other children-deprived, your thoughts can get a little bit out of control.  (Note: my three break-downs so far have happened at night- it's true that everything always seems better in the morning) 

When we took Kenan to the zoo this past Wednesday, a sweet young Chinese lady (maybe age 20) wanted to practice her English, so she was talking and walking with us.  Well, she started to talk to Kenan while he was in his stroller, and he reached up his arms, so she picked him up.  In my head, I'm like "Noooooo!!!  He's supposed to be bonding with us and you're going to mess everything up!!"  But, I tried to remain calm and so after she carried him for a few minutes, I reach to take him back from her, and he screams bloody murder.  He wanted to stay with her!  That broke my heart.  I just want him to see me as his mom so bad!  I had to walk away with him while he screamed for this other woman.  Over his screams, I'm trying to tell Strider to tell our agency representative to tell that lady that she has got to go!  So, she leaves us and life is ok again.  I've even got pictures to prove it! 

Strider and Kenan really started to begin to bond on this trip because there was a playground area and Kenan actually let Strider help him climb and slide and they had some good moments together!  Kenan's laugh is so contagious and he is so fun to play with.  He has such a sweet, playful spirit. 

The other thing that has been so hard about being in China has been the constant (and by constant I mean literally every single person that walks by us) stares and comments that we get.  We can't just take a walk and mind our own business.  When we first arrived, it was a little funny and not that big of a deal.  But, by the time we had endured it for almost a week, we were ready to punch some people out.  I'm glad that we are followers of Jesus, because it might have been a different story if we weren't. 

It's so disconcerting that no matter where we went, people would surround the stroller and talk loudly in Chinese as if we weren't there.  We have no idea if they were talking about the fact that we didn't have him dressed properly, that he only has one hand, that they just thought it was really weird that two foreigners had a Chinese baby with them, or something else entirely.  But, whatever the reason, we had reached our breaking point.  I should definitely have looked up how to say, "Mind your own business" in Chinese before we left.  But, they've probably never heard that phrase in their life.  They know nothing about personal space or personal business here.  I didn't realize what a blessing it is to go for a walk in my neighborhood without being the object of everyone's attention.  I cannot wait to get back to the U.S. and just be one in 315,000,000.   Only 4 more days now!

But, like I said, we are now in Guangzhou, our last leg of the trip, and it is so much better!  We can even order Subway or Papa Johns and have it delivered!  And there are Americans all over the hotel with Chinese babies!  The U.S. Consulate is located here in Guangzhou, so no matter where your child is from, every adoptive family has to stay here to go to their Consulate appointment.  It's so nice to finally be able to speak to more people than just our guide and the Wilson family- even though we are so so so thankful for the Wilsons :)  Breakfast and dinner with them each day has been a saving grace for us throughout this process.

Please continue to pray for safe travels for us as well as Asher and Mac and my parents as they bring them back to FL from NC.  And please pray for bonding to continue between us and Kenan.

I'll write another post a different day with more details about our experience here in Guangzhou.  We're going to travel to an island tomorrow that we've heard is similar to Charleston and hopefully attend a church with a bilingual service for Easter.  Hopefully, I'll have some fun pictures to post from there!  Thank you for coming along with us on this journey!  

Lots about Kenan! And the Aquarium too!

You've gotten to see a lot of pictures of Kenan, but I haven't gotten to write very much about what he is like.  So, here goes.  On the one hand, he LOVES to explore!  He wants to go outside every chance he gets and he has no qualms about letting go of our hand to go walk somewhere he wants to go.  The other day, we were in the lobby of the hotel and they have a revolving door going outside, and he just let go of my hand and took off towards the door.  He made it inside one of the little sections of it and it started turning, but I was able to jump in with him and bring him back inside.  But, he is completely and utterly scared of animals- and not just the kind that are alive.  Stuffed animals are totally scary to him too!  At least the upside is that Asher and Mac can just put their Monkey and Teddy next to the toys they don't want him to play with and I don't think they will have to worry about him touching them! :)

So, in light of this fear, we weren't sure how he would do at an aquarium, but we decided to give it a try since we have nothing scheduled for the next three days.  We did the paperwork for his passport yesterday, so we are just killing time here in Zhengzhou until his passport is ready.  So, us and the Wilsons- the family that is with us- braved an aquarium and were pleasantly surprised to find that he actually did ok.  When I would point out the sea lions, or some of the bigger animals, he would do this scared whimper and sort of lean his head back, but besides that, he seemed to enjoy being out and about. 

He is really fun and playful, but he is definitely really attached to me.  He likes Strider as long as I am nearby.  Kenan won't voluntarily go on a walk with Strider, but he does love to tease him.  Kenan will play peekaboo over the bed at him or put his foot out so Strider can get it and make funny noises to him.  Or he'll do his little look-at-me-noise when he wants Strider to pay attention to him. 

And we just discovered at naptime today that Kenan definitely would rather me talk in a low voice about anything until he falls asleep rather than sing to him.  He was being so fussy and crying and I knew he was tired, but he wouldn't settle down in his crib. I was singing sweetly to him and rubbing his tummy and thought he should like it, but in the middle of singing, I said to Strider that Kenan didn't seem to like my singing.  Now, whether it's singing in general, or just my singing, I guess we'll never know.  But nevertheless, Strider thought I should just talk to him in my normal voice, and the second I did, he immediately put his thumb in his mouth, and went right to sleep!!  I'm learning new things about my boy everyday! :)

                                     Strider and Kenan are watching the sea lion show (above).

This is Kenan's friend Annie- she is the newest addition to the Wilson family, who is traveling with us! We'll have to take a group picture of our two families with Vivian, our agency representative in Zhengzhou, sometime this week.

 

You may be wondering what this last picture is.  Well, if you remember from my blog post yesterday, the Chinese people dress their toddlers in split pants with no diapers on.  Well, this is what happens when your child has an accident while wearing split pants.  This was on the floor by the penguins at the aquarium today!

 

Zhengzhou Life

We are staying in Zhengzhou until this coming Friday- so we will have been here a total of 9 nights once we're at the end of our stay.  Zhengzhou is the capital of the Henan Province, where Kenan was born, so we have to stay here awhile until we get all of his hometown paperwork complete.  Strider, Kenan, and I ventured out on Saturday to a park near our hotel and snapped some photos and videos to give you a little taste of what we're experiencing here in China.  We are definitely the object of everyone's attention when we go out because it is so strange to see Americans walking around with a Chinese baby.  And we get chided by the Chinese grandmas sometimes because they think we're not dressing him warmly enough.  I don't think Kenan's arms or legs have ever even seen the sunshine.  My how that's going to change when we get back to Florida!

You have to look closely at this picture to see why we took it.  This little boy's hiney cheeks are hanging out- we see this everywhere!  Apparently they do this so it's easy for little ones to go to the bathroom- probably because they don't want to take off all those layers of clothing when they need to go!

 

 

They had this festival in this little park by our hotel.  One of the parts of the festival included all these people painting these figurines.  We took video of it because it was so interesting to see all these little kids patiently painting these figurines in the park.  There is even a Lakers one on the table. 

 

All these paddle boats are in the center of the lake in this park and there are always people out there paddling them around.

The park is actually quite pretty.  It's like a little oasis in the center of the madness of this city.  I'll post more pictures next time of what the actual city looks like.

 

 

And, of course I have to post a video of Kenan that we took yesterday while he was asking for more cheerios at our hotel.  He says, "mama" (because that's one of the only words he knows) and turns his head to the side when he wants more of something. 

 

We got him!!!

Well, it's been quite a day!  It started out pretty rough, but it seems like God has given him a peace about us.  That is such an answered prayer.  Please continue to pray that He will show Kenan that we love him and that he is safe with us. 

We got to the adoption registration office at about 10:15am and Kenan arrived with an orphanage official shortly after that.  He came right to me without crying at all, which made me sigh a little bit with relief.  I wanted some good pictures with him- and I didn't want him screaming in all of them :)  I started crying the moment the official brought him in.  I couldn't believe the moment was finally here that we've been waiting on for so long.  He really and completely felt like my son, and I can't wait until he views us like his parents.  We skyped Asher and Mac and they were really excited to see him and tell him hi.  Please continue to pray for family unity when we get back.

Before I get to the pictures, I have to tell you two things about what you are about to see:

1.  He has a crazy shiner above his eye and a major cut below his eye.  No, we didn't do it in our first five minutes of watching him.  Apparently, he fell while he was running in the park with a nanny at his orphanage yesterday.

2.  He has on a crazy outfit.  The Chinese bundle their babies up in these super puffy outfits- even bigger than snowsuits.  It was 65 degrees today, so my poor boy was sweating up a storm in this outfit.  Also sort of ironic is what is embroidered on his shirt.  It says, "We all love hands" and there is a picture of a hen on it.  Now, maybe they can't really read English (at least lets hope so), because that seems like a little bit of a messed up thing to put on a kid with one hand- just saying!  Or maybe, it's supposed to say, "We all love hens."  I don't know.  But, as soon as we got back to the hotel, we put him in some good old-fashioned American jeans and a t-shirt. 

Anyway, enough talking!  Here are the pictures!

 

After our initial smooth transition, he definitely realized something was up and he started crying and wanting anyone Chinese.  Once we got back to the hotel, he wouldn't let me set him down.  I couldn't even sit on the bed with him.  He only wanted me to stand and hold him.  It was exhausting.  Then, it was time for his nap, and he started crying when I sat down on the bed, but I just held him close and let him cry on me, hoping he would tire himself out and go to sleep.  He did, and slept for just under an hour.  When he woke up, he was not happy, but he drank a bottle and then ate a hard-boiled egg and a croissant and then started to play a little bit with a toy car we brought him.  It's been getting better since then.  We walked to Starbucks- you can see the pictures below- and he got out of the stroller and played and laughed with us.  It was so fun to bond with him and see him smile and laugh.  He played forever with the plastic little sign on the table by taking the paper in and out!

 

Last, but not least, he is asleep in his little crib right now.  He's been asleep for about an hour, so we'll see what the night brings.  Thanks for getting excited with us on this exhausting, rewarding and totally foreign adventure that we're on! 

 

Zhengzhou Day 1

Well, first of all, I want to put up a picture of George, our amazing tour guide while we were in Beijing.  We got to snap a quick picture with him before we left for the airport this morning.

 

It snowed last night in Beijing and when we woke up, everything was covered.  It was so beautiful so I wanted to share with you these pictures too.

 

We flew out of Beijing today and are now in Zhengzhou, which is in the Henan Province of China.  This is the province where Kenan's orphanage is, however his orphanage is in a different city than our hotel.  We are staying at the Crowne Plaza Marriot and it is very nice.  There is a pool and hot tub, which we hope to explore with Kenan later on this week.  We'll spend 9 nights at this hotel, so we will be spending our longest consecutive amount of time here in Zhengzhou. 

Celebrity Status, Forbidden City and Snow at the Great Wall!

So, before I begin telling you what all we did today, I have to share two things.  First, as we were standing at the entrance to the Forbidden City talking to George, Strider became quite the celebrity.  I was trying to concentrate on what George was telling us, but Chinese people kept walking by us and turning completely around to stare at Strider.  I guess they saw his shiny bald head from the back and felt compelled to get a closer look at just what this shaved head guy looked like from the front.  But, I couldn't help laughing because first one person did it, then another, and soon enough, the entire tour group of Chinese people were gawking at my hubby.  Now, we had heard that really blonde people and red-haired people were often stared at and grabbed for pictures, but no one warned us that bald-headed people got that reaction too!  But, the reason Chinese people felt completely comfortable staring is that it's not considered rude in their culture like it is in ours.  In fact, I think Strider even enjoyed it a little.  Maybe we can start charging people to take pictures with him :)

Secondly, you might be asking yourself why in the world our tour guide's name is George (he is Chinese after all).   We forgot to get a picture with him today, so I'll have to get one tomorrow when he takes us to the airport.  Anyway, we found out today that he went to the University here and majored in tourism management.  During his freshman year, his professor had the class go around and pick what each person wanted their American name to be from a long list.  Unfortunately, that day he was sitting at the very back of the classroom and by the time the list got around to  him, only George and a couple of other names were left.  So, he didn't have much to choose from, but he picked George and still goes by that name 8 years later whenever he's acting as a tour guide.  That sort of reminds me of when we got Spanish names in Spanish class in high school- but we didn't get to pick them- a teacher just assigned us the Spanish name that most closely resembled your American one.  Mine was Susanna.  I guess it might be a little difficult to make a Chinese name into anything even resembling an American name???

Ok, onto pictures!  First, we visited the Forbidden City.  This is where the Emperor of China used to live and conduct business.  It took 14 years to build it- from 1406-1420.  It was named the Forbidden City by the common people, because they were not allowed within its walls.  Each of the emperors lived in the Forbidden City until 1926, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown. 

 

When looking at the entrance, it looks like it's just one giant building, but that is a compete illusion.  It goes back so far!  It covers a space of 7,800,000 square feet, has 90 palaces and courtyards, and has 8,707 rooms.  Every time we went through one courtyard and building, it opened up into another one.  There are no words to describe how gigantic this place was!

                                               
This lion stood outside the front of the Forbidden City.  Nowadays, lions are in front of tons of buildings in China.  But, it didn't used to be that way.  The tiger used to the symbol of China, but a visiting diplomat from Africa a long time ago changed all that.  The African diplomat told the emperor all about how strong the lion was, so the emperor decided then and there that the lion would from now-on be the symbol of China- strong and mighty! And now lions are outside of all major buildings in China to represent the strength of the Chinese people. 

This is the outer courtyard and building where official meetings with government officials were held.  All the visiting government officials would kneel in unison in this courtyard and chant a few lines to the emperor about how great he was.

 Look at the tops of all of these buildings in the Forbidden City.  See, how they're all yellow?  Only the emperor was allowed to wear yellow or use yellow.  So, the common people could see these yellow buildings and they were reminded of how great the emperor was.

 These two buildings are the middle hall and the last hall.  The emperor would go into the middle hall after conducting official business and have hot tea.  Then, he would go into the last hall to get out of his ceremonial clothes.

This is the emperor's official living quarters.  However, he often slept in different rooms around his palaces so no one (except his most trusted eunuch) would quite know where he was- he was worried about being assassinated.

                                   One of the emperor's sleeping rooms.  See all the yellow.

 

 This was positioned right outside the emperor's sleeping quarters.  It has jade in the middle and has a bronze rectangle around it- and the bronze used to be overlaid by gold.  Jade is the highest valued stone in China.  It is equivalent to how diamonds are viewed in the U.S.  This cut-out circle in the middle was a reminder to the emperor to always be on the top of his game.  Sort of like a bulls-eye on a target. 

                   One of the emperor's other sleeping rooms.  Not really any yellow in this one.

                                                 
                                                         The empress's sleeping room.

 

One of the courtyards within the Forbidden City.  They pulled these stones out of the lake and arranged them for decoration in the courtyards.

 

 

Our next stop today was the Great Wall of China.  I was not expecting to take an intense hike up these stairs next to the wall.  I thought we were just going to take a picture of a level wall.  Boy, was I wrong.  We climbed and climbed and climbed, staircase after staircase after staircase and still didn't quite make it to the top.  Strider could have kept going, but I was so out of breath, I thought I might die.  Did I mention it was snowing??? It was so beautiful, but it was so cold today.  If I could have stopped and rested, I might have kept going, but I was afraid frostbite would set in if we stopped for too long.  We Floridians definitely didn't prepare to hike in a blizzard!

 

Some parts of The Great Wall of China were begun as early as 7th century BC, but little of that original wall remains.  More sections were constructed and joined together after that, the most famous of which was built under the First Emperor from 220-206 BC.  He constructed the wall to keep the nomadic tribes in Mongolia from attacking the rice farmers in China. 
                                                        

 

 

                                                        View from the almost-top!


Next, we visited the Jade Factory because of how important this stone is in China.

                                                            This is a pile of raw jade.

Below are the steps to make the happiness ball- a symbol of happiness and harmony for the family over generations.  We bought a happiness ball for our family to display.  Ours has three layers, which represent the three generations of our family that are alive today.  And, there are twelve holes in each layer to represent the twelve months of the year.  Also, there is a dragon and phoenix carved onto the outside of the ball, which represent the emperor and empress respectively.  The carvings are so intricate, but it's so hard to capture how much workmanship goes into these with just a picture. 

 

These are the first four steps- but they're listed from right to left.  1.  Raw material  2.  Round Shape  3.  Drill holes  4.  Separate layers

 

                                                       5.  Draw a picture  6.  Carve

 

 

This is a carving station at the jade factory.  There are no schools for people to learn how to carve jade.  Fathers just passed down the skill to their sons.  However, now that not as many men want to be jade carvers, fathers can now teach the skill to their daughters too.

 

Completed happiness ball.

 

These are jade bangles.  It's customary for a man to give the woman he wants to marry a jade bangle to symbolize his true love for her.

 

These are other carvings at the jade factory.  Jade comes in all kinds of colors, as you can see from these animals.