The zoo in Guangzhou

Will was not to into the big animals that moved around but he liked the giraffes. He was still pretty camera shy while we were in China.

Just had to share the second picture, we have to go to China to find out their is a deer species named after David. Who likes to hunt deer.

This was looking at some of the Asian animals. Will is a mouth breather and so his mouth often is hanging open. He also really didn't know what to think about all the different animals.

He was not happy because the camel had been walking towards him. He did not like many of the big animals unless they stood still. I think he thought the animals could come and get him. He did enjoy the plants and the people.

Mandarin Garden hotel

We stayed in this hotel from Monday till Friday afternoon in the capital city of Jiangsu province.
The hotel was considered a "5 star" by Chinese standards. It was a nice, but somewhat older hotel. It did have alot of things to do near by. I was amused that we were staying on the executive floor. The next picture is of our camera shy son. We stayed in room 1015 in Shanghai as well. I liked that we had a door bell that the staff did use if they came to our room. The buffet was good and the service was very good. It was the easiest meal of the day and we tried to eat as much as we could. Some days Will would sit in the high chair some days it was my lap. But he ate well everyday.

Pictures from the hotel in Nanjing

We had brought a small car (red) and plane (blue) that had Will's name on them and he liked playing with them. He laughed alot with us in the hotel room and liked jumping on the bed as well.

The beach ball was a great item to have and packed easily. We just had to make sure it didn't hit the lamps to hard. Will like to hit it across the bed to his baba and to roll it on the floor anytime we were in the room. He was very interested in playing and this was the best interaction we had with him. He was always willing to play.

Doctor's appointment

Will did not like this trip to the doctor much more then he liked the one in China. He was okay in the waiting room, but when we started to take off his clothes he started to cry and scream. He will be 30 months old on Monday.

He is 36 inches long, (a yard stick as the Dr. said), 28.88 pounds in just his diaper. He is not only on the American chart for height and weight but at 50% for both height and weight. The Dr. was impressed with his height and weight for living in an orphanage for the first two plus years of life. The Dr. was very low key and quiet with him, he started with reviewing the information we had for him and our answers to the developmental questions they ask at each well child visit. He thought the not eating many vegetables or crunchy fruits might be cleft related and that the feeding specialist at the crano-facial team could help with that. He said it would take a little while for him to pick up the language, and that the Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) on the cleft team would be a good resource for what was learning a new language and what was cleft related. After the exam he said he was in good health, he does have lots of cavities.

We have chosen to just redo all the immunizations on the catch-up schedule the CDC recommends, (see this web site http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/child-schedule.htm). They also drew blood to redo all of his blood work. He will not get the Hep A and B vaccines unless he does not have the antibodies in his blood stream. So hopefully that will be two less vaccines he needs.

We have learned that what he does not like about the Dr. visits is taking all of his clothes off, so hopefully his cleft appointment will go better May 20th.

First day home

Boy does it feel good to type those words. Sleeping in our own bed was more comfortable than China. Unfortunately Will showed off his very good gross (big muscle) skills by climbing out of his crib twice. The first time was shortly after we put him to bed. David went to check on him after we heard a thud on the monitor. He was greeted by Will walking around the bedroom. So he brought him downstairs and he fell asleep on him. We took him upstairs when we went to bed, he is staying in our room for right now. We put him in the crib and laid down to go to sleep. We hear a thud and then he was standing on my side of the bed, so he slept in our bed for the night. Went well till 4 am and he was awake for the day by 7:30am.

He did pretty well today, he still prefers his mama to his baba. He played with the toys, ate all 3 meals in his chair. He did get upset while I was up showering and managed to need a new outfit and so did baba. He still does not like baths, although he will play in the water in the sink. He does not like to be in high places to have his diaper changed. Was not fun on the plane as he had a death grip on one arm and the edge of the changing table. He still does not like it but is not crying as loud or holding on so tight. So some progress.

HOME AT LAST!!!!

WE ARE HOME!!!
We made it through customs and immigration without any problems. Will is now officially a citizen of the United States. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed tonight. The beds in China were like sleeping on a set of box springs with no mattress.

Stay tuned for additional details and pictures from our trip.

Goodbye China, Hello Home!!!!

We are at the Airport Hotel in Shanghai and are about to head down to the Airport for our flight home. They had free Internet here so we decided to make one last post from China. The Consulate visit yesterday went well and all the paperwork is in order. One last step to go, getting through customs in Atlanta. Shouldn't be much of a problem though.

USA here we come!!!

It is now Tuesday morning in Guangzhou. We go to the U. S. Consulate this afternoon to pick up Will's visa and then fly to Shanghai. We will not get to the hotel in Shanghai until around 11:00 pm and then fly out tomorrow so we probably won't have time to post any more updates.
Here are a few more pictures:

The pictures above are in the "Swan Room". A play room set up at the White Swan by Mattel. It has lots of toys. The yellow trays along the wall had legos in them. Will consolidated all the legos into the one on the end emptying each tray one by one.

The pictures below are from the Guangzhou Zoological Park. We went with the other family from our agency who you can see in the second picture. Molly, our guide is in the front leading the way. The third picture is one of the performers in a show at the Zoo.

Happy Easter From Guangzhou

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Easter. HE IS RISEN!!!!

pictures from Saturday afternoon

The picture on the left is of Will in his borrowed stroller. When he first sat in the stroller he screamed and screamed. We took the stroller back to the hotel and let him explore it. He decided it wasn't so bad. He likes to ride in it now. The first two pictures are taken in our hotel the White Swan.
The next three pictures are from Lucy's restaurant that serves a wide variety of food and drink, including iced tea, congee, soft scrambled eggs (for the toddlers).

Visa photo and medical examination

We met the other family in our travel group and our guide Molly on the first floor of the hotel. The other family is from Florida and adopted a little girl. We walked to the photo shop to get their visa photo's taken. Will started to cry as soon as he saw the stool and background. When I set him down in the stool he started to twist around and to scream. I had to hold him facing forward with one hand and use the other one to keep his head looking forward. They need a full face photo with both ears showing. We have a crying visa photo, to go with the crying passport and family day picture.

The first photo is above the back part of the medical clinic. We were the first group to arrive at the clinic. David filled out the paperwork, 5 questions and a signature. Then we had to see 3 different doctors. The second picture is of his visit with the Dr. for medical and surgical. This is the only Dr. that looked at his medical records. The picture below is of the same Dr. checking him out, he cried the entire time. He was found to be healthy.

The next photo is of him getting his temperature taken

he did not have a fever. He was measured and weighed. He was a few centimeters longer than the table to measure him so they took a measuring tape to determine how much longer he was than the table.

The last photo is of the ENT checking him out. The hearing test was hitting a key on a keyboard and seeing if he turned toward the sound. We waited for the other family and then we walked back to the hotel.

Flying from Nanjing to Guangzhou

Our flight was suppose to leave at 7pm, didn't take off until 7:35. Will does not like to be buckled into any kind of seat. So when I buckled him in before take off he screamed and cried and turned red. As soon as we were airborne, I undid his seat belt and put him on my lap he was happy. So I decided for landing to skip the seat belt, no crying and their was a gentlemen in the row in front of us without a seat belt.

We collected our luggage,was meet by a representative from our hotel and got to the hotel by 10:45. Our rep Molly meet us at the check in and gave us what time we needed to meet her in the morning 9 am for a medical exam and visa picture. So by the time we got to sleep it was 11:30.

The last of the paperwork in Nanjing

After our sightseeing in the morning we stooped at the Burger King for lunch. Then we headed up to our room for Will to take his nap and for our guide to call saying she had the last of our paperwork.

Will will mostly sleep in the crib, but it is very short and the mattress was set pretty high so if he didn't want to stay in it he could get his leg over the railing and climb out. So a few naps and one night he slept in our bed. Unfortunately for me his favorite place to sleep is lying on top of me. He does not feel very heavy when he lays down on me and so it is not so bad. He lays pretty still if he is laying on mama, but if he lays between us he moves around alot. Today was one of those days that he was not going to sleep in the crib. So we had a nap together of about an hour and a half.

Our guide was to call the room around noon to let us know she had gotten his Chinese passport, the notarized and translated copies of his birth certificate, abandonment certificate, and adoption certificate. We never got a call but she came to the room at a little after 2 pm with all of his documents. We got 3 copies of each notarized document, a letter saying it was a notarized copy, and for the translated documents that it was a true and accurate translation. We put these in our document envelope in the backpack to make sure we had them with us on the plane.

Our guide said she would send the bell boy up at 3:15. So the wait continued, unfortunately Will only slept about another 20 minutes. So we had packed everything up and were waiting in our room. It is not a large room, the biggest advantage is it faced a main road with lots of vehicles, motorized bikes, bikes and people going by and Will loves to watch everything happening outside the room.

Well 3:15 passed and no bell boy came, so David would go look(not steeping all the way out of the way out of the door) in the hallway to see if the bellboy was coming, and then Will would try to close the door on baba, laughing as he did it. This "game" lasted for about 15 minutes. David said "I thought she said 3:15", and we knew we were suppose to leave the hotel at 4 pm. So we decided to call front desk to ask for the bell boy. The bellboy came up and loaded all our luggage. We brought a duffel bag to help us stay under 44 pounds per piece of luggage for the in country flights. So we went downstairs with our luggage, checked out and waited for our guide and van driver. The guide arrived at about 3:45 running in the door and apologizing for running late. We said it was fine and we loaded the van to head to the airport.

Last day in Nanjing

On our last day in Nanjing we went for a walk in the area around our hotel. The area is called the Confucian Temple area as the center of the area has a temple honoring the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucious. The area is like a giant flea market with lots of little shops and street vendors. We bought some traditional chinese children's outfits at one shop.

Here are Lore & Will in front of one of the many statues in the area.

Below are some examples of the fine dining options in the area around the hotel, to be fair we tried each one.

We also tried the Noodle restaurant you can see here above Burger King

After walking around and shopping we toured the Confucian Temple:

The statue of Confucius in the temple.

Lore & Will at the entrance to the temple

Lore and Will on the bridge over looking the Quin Hai river just outside the temple.

Another view of the river

More sightseeing from Nanjing

After touring the city gate castle we went to the Nanjing museum. The museum had a lot of artifacts from the Ming & Qing (pronounced Ching) dynasties. Here are a few pictures :

Sightseeing with Will - Thursday 4/9/2009

The picture at the top of the blog is from the Zhonghua Gate Castle of Nanjing, part of the city wall they are working on rebuilding it as much of it was destroyed during the Japanesse invasion of 1937. Savor our adoption guide took us here and gave us a detailed history and explanation of the wall. Today she said she taught Kindergarten for four years, before she started with the adoption agency.

The picture at the top-is looking through all the gates as if you are leaving the city of Nanjing. The area between each arch had caves for the soldiers defending the city to hide in.

The second picture is looking down the stairs from the top of the wall. I don't know how many stairs we climbed, but it was a lot of stairs. Will made it up most of the stairs, he fell one time, but did not cry. When he was comfortable with the task he would go ver quickly. If he wants to be picked up he stands in front of you and puts his arms up.

The third picture is from the top of the wall facing the wall. Will is looking at another little boy who was with his mom and grandma. Will would look at everyone but not talk.

The last picture is of Savor our guide, Will and I looking at an arch at the bottom of the wall for the year of the ox, sponsored by Kia.

Pictures from adoption day

The picture on the left is takes up almost one entire wall in the office, the opposite wall is all windows, the entry to the office is two glass doors and glass panels, the other end of the office opens to a conference room where the family day picture is taken. He had to have his passport photo retaken as it has to be of his head including both ears, facing forward. It took 10 minutes and lots of crying to get one good picture.

This is his ayi/nanny showing how he likes to sit on people's lap, with his legs outside your legs. He went right to her and would have nothing to do with us while she was their. It is good that he is so well attached to her.

Picture on the left shows he is getting tired of the adults talking. I was asking questions about his speech. He speaks a dialect Kushan dialect of Wo, common to his hometown, so he had a hard time understanding our guide and the people in the Civil Affairs office.

His nanny said he could talk using several words, ex. good morning momma (what he called her), when I asked how many word he knew she said she was not sure, then she said he knew a good amount. She then stated that all the nannies loved him because they could ask him to go get diapers for another child and he would go get diapers and bring them back. She said he was spoiled and loved by all the nannies.

I told her we would take good care of his and I knew it was hard for her to leave him. She said it was hard to leave him and asked us to visit with him, when he is older.

We decided not to visit the orphanage on this trip because he is so attached to her, it would be hard for both of them. The orphanage gave him a jade charm of a dog as he was born in the year of the dog, as is David. They also gave his sand/dirt from the orphanage. The last thing they brought was the piece of cloth that was tied around his wrist when he was found. He was found at 6:30 pm on 10/23/06.