A New Normal

We made it home last Wednesday night unscathed.  After 26 grueling hours traveling from Guangzhou to Shanghai to Chicago to Home...just grueling.  All in all Zijing did well.  She didn't like having to put her seat belt on at the end of the big leg and started her whimpering, but she came out of it fairly quickly.  Both girls slept a good bit thankfully {must be nice}and were pretty pleasant in the long run.  

We were greeted at the airport by a small group of friends and family, so good to see familiar faces; especially Jack....thank you all so much!  We got home and Bern cooked burgers at 1:30AM; they were SO good.

So now we have a new normal; two girls to get to bed, get teeth brushed, fed, etc.  Abigail lapsed right back to her underwear wearing, sheet hugging, couch laying self and Zijing is so far going with the flow.  She was dressing up Barbies, doing their hair (even with a hand challenge) and seems happy...just like normal.  Life is good.

UPDATE: Reality Check

I am having some struggles with my sweet girl. She definitely prefers Baba which is still okay, but she has taken to actually shunning me at times, dirty looks and all.  Abigail goes back to school tomorrow and it will be mostly she and I as Bern will be hunting, so....we'll see!  Lots of alone time with drs. appointments and such coming up before we immerse her in school {a whole 'nother concern of mine}.  So thats the story from Home.  Lots of pics to upload, but jet lag and a chest cold have prevented ANY sort of physical exertion here.  This too shall pass!

We've Hit The Great Wall

To quote my husband...its time to get home to our own beds, a GIANT burger (Jack, have some burger thawed cuz dad's firing up the grill no matter what time we get home) and all the comforts of home.  There is a bit of intestional "stuff" running through everyone as well (no pun intended), so looks like we will pass on the suckling pig for dinner :(   Olivia has adjusted pretty well, she finally had a bit of grieving instead of her nervous laughter and she is catching on to our English.  The hardest thing for me is when she talks in my ear in bed and expects me to answer...I feel like I am robbing her of something so special.  We are going to look for some mandarin speaking folks to help us as well as an ESL tutor for her.  She was in first grade here as best we know and she speaks Mandarin AND Cantonese, which is amazing...smart little cookie.  With her size, we could put her into first and try it or even K but I'm just not sure...we'll let the school system do their thing. 

The guys are going "across the road" later, into "NO RESERVATIONS" territory, where is Anthony Bourdain?  Not that they will eat anything...just sayin'

SISTERS!

 two things she loves...FOOD and Hair clips...oh, three...BABA too!

and speaking of FOOD, check out the white tiger swimming...he may have been hungry as well?!

Yesterday...

We went back to the medical place to have Olivia's TB test checked and she got the all clear.  That was a concern because if it was positive and then her XRay showed positive, we'd have been stuck waiting for a 30 day quarantine...well, thankfully that wasn't the case at all!  Then Connie, our guide, took us to the Pearl market and then the Jade market.  When we came over in 07, I had purchased some beautiful pearl strands for each of my kids, either for them or for their wives on their wedding day.  I needed to pick up another strand and accomplished that.  I could have had a strand of Mikimoto pearls for 1/3 of the price, but we didn't go THAT nice.  Bern helped me pick out a little pearl ring for myself and then we looked a jade.  Jade has three classes, A, B and C.  We can't tell the difference between them, but to the Chinese, Jade is like our diamonds.  I didn't find anything I needed as we shot that wad back in 07 too!  Then we all went to the Guangzhou Restaurant, where we had a traditional Cantonese lunch.  It was very good but not adventurous enough for Bern...By the time we did all that, dinner was an afterthought and the girls had cupOnoodles in the room!  We had Tsing Tao!  Yummo!

Busy Day!

We started out early today and headed to the US Consulate after our umpteenth trip to the breakfast buffet here at the Victory.  Bought done with THAT!  The process has changed a bit since 07 but the end result is the same and it went surprisingly fast.  There was one little glitch, here comes the cringe factor...when going through security where you put all your stuff on the conveyor belt, our little ZiJing went and put her hand on the belt and it sucked her middle finger of her left hand, the one she does everything with, into the belt.  The guard saw it and stopped the belt, but they had to reverse it to get her finger out.  Can you say OUCH!?  I know it throbbed and it continued to swelll...poor dear, she sobbed and sobbed until she threw up on baba's shoulder...nice.   She finally calmed down once we got outside and saw our guide.  A bandaid later and it was off to the Safari Park.  Now mind you, her finger is not broken but she may never let me look at it...

The park was huge and very nice but after feeding the giraffes, seeing the beautiful white tigers in captiviy :( and walking for what seemed like HOURS (2 1/2), we left early, found our driver and headed back.  Can I just say that ZiJing talked to our driver the.whole.way.home.  She must have been hard up to hear some Mandarin, it was sooo funny.  Bern tipped him extra for amusing her...btw, his name was "Jack"...figures!

Tonight we are joining some other folks for a traditional hot pot dinner with our guide, we are looking forward to some yummy stuff!

A word from Baba

The most difficult thing we have experienced is Zijing's attachment to me.  It really upset me the first few days that she seemed to be stuck to me like glue.  I have come to accept all her attention but see how much it upsets Wendy.  Please pray and add words of encouragement to Wendy and pray I will stop stressing about it as we know time will change things. 
Ba Ba

A few pictures to pass the time

Visit to the SWI

Today we made our way to ZiJing's orphanage, Dongguan Children's Welfare Institute.  It wasn't a requirement but we had visited Abigail's and felt the need to have that closure for the girls.  We took an hour and 1/2 trip there and spent about 2 hours visiting with one of the assistants.  We got to visit the babies, which was very difficult. They wouldn't allow me to take any pictures inside but suffice it to say, there were many of them and they so needed loved on.  The amazing thing was our little girl, she went from crib to crib, loving on them...kisses and touches for all.  You could see how compassionate ZiJing is, she will be missed there if she was allowed to do that with any frequency.  We were moved to tears by these little angels, and Bern prayed a covering over them...This particular CWI houses approximately 800 children, most of them special needs.  That is just one city in this province; there are many other orphanages throughout China.  Sigh*

While we were there, we did take pictures outside, there is a beautiful statue of a mother and child.  I'd post pictures except that our battery died in the camera and guess who didn't pack the charger????  :(

When we got back, Bern and Zach went for a walk and found a Sony store; luckily they had my charger.  Thank God!  So now I have a charger with a China type electrical plug....Bernie promised he'd upload our boatload of pictures tonight so I can post them....I know I keep saying that....sorry.

Dinner was at Cow and Bridge tonight, its a Thai restaurant on Shamian Island.  Last night we went to a traditional Cantonese restaurant and had pigeon...yes, pigeon.  It's a local delicasy and they can have it! Actually it was small with not much meat, but we had to try...the braised pork was excellent as were the other sides we had.  We want to go back before we leave and do the hot pot in the middle of our table, with our guide...we'll need help on that one!