We call the street next to our hotel the pet street. All the shops along it sell different pets. They set the containers and cages of animals out on the sidewalk/street. There are many turtles and fish but they also have birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, mice and hamsters. Nora loves looking at all of these things. Dana really wants a Chinese turtle for her birthday. She wants to name it Lucky, Snapper or George. Clara and Dana want to get Corbin and Aiden white fish with red heads (the girls call them exploding brain fish) for their birthday. Don’t worry, we are drawing a line at foreign pets. I am not sure a turtle or fish would make it through customs.

Early on, we were given the routine and schedule that Nora is used to. Wake up around 6:30 to 7, take a bottle and eat breakfast a little while later. At noon, she has lunch and them goes down for nap. Another bottle when she wakes up from nap. Dinner is around 6:00 and then a 3rd bottle and bedtime around 8:00. Since having her, we have interjected what I refer to as a designated ‘crazy time’ into the evening. This is a clothing optional time of singing, music, games, bed jumping, and few consequences.

There has been a bit of trial and error as we have gotten everything fine-tuned. The first night, Linda rocked her and gave her a bottle. When that was done, we put her in her crib. And she SCREAMED. Probably nothing too unusual for a 2 year old, but we haven’t been at this stage of parenting for a while. She calmed down after 5 minutes or so and fell asleep. We learned that they give the bottle to her in the crib. When we do this, she just sits down, drinks it, and lies down to sleep. No fussing or crying.

Nap time too. No real fussing or crying. She just knows the drill and does what is expected. Give her a bottle and she chugs it down. When she wakes up, she just lies there and waits for us to get things going. It really is just about the ideal that most parents strive for. She knows the routine, what is expected of her, and complies pretty easily. I must admit, it’s pretty great.

But, then I consider the environment that caused her to adopt these behaviors. We visited the orphanage. It was brightly colored, very clean, music was playing, children had toys to play with and were interacting. The nannys were caring, devoted, and did all that they could for the children. But this was still institutionalized care. There were 7 nannys in rotation to serve 30 children in her room. There is an amount of efficiency that must be kept up.

The kids need to be pretty independent. They need to eat and drink quickly. They need to be moved along to the next person / area. With 30 kids, crying and fussing won’t get you any extra attention. There is only so much to go around and it is already accounted for.

While I appreciate the habits and behaviors that she has developed, I must also acknowledge the challenges that were endured to get to this point. We have some ground to make up, but we are starting from a great point. And we know and appreciate all of the help and support that is surrounding us!

Yesterday we explored Guangzhou a little bit. We needed formula so we headed out on a 10 minute walk to the grocery store. Then we took a detour to explore adoption island. Guangzhou is where all Chinese adoptions take place and there is a little island nearby. The land is surrounded by a canal and a river. There are walking bridges from the city to the island. It was settled by England and definitely has a more British colonial feel to it. We only walked around for a bit so we need to explore more today or tomorrow.

Nora update: She decided she likes pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, bananas and dancing to Trolls Get Back Up Again

Dana update: Dana is collecting chopsticks from all the places she goes. She likes all of the food!

Clara update: Clara likes trying all new kids of drinks, especially peach smoothie like drinks with red beans.

Friday was a day of travel for us. We left the hotel at noon and had to pick up passport things for Nora before heading to the airport. Our flight was delayed two hours and it was stormy so we were told to stay buckled the entire flight. The turbulence wasn’t too bad and Nora did a great job being buckled in her seat for the 2 and 1/2 hour flight. She only threw one fit and cried on the landing. Which I thought was a win since she was never on an airplane or buckled in before. A friend from Alaska told me (who flies with her little ones) just find a little thing to entertain them for the next 30 seconds and then repeat. 🙂 And fortunately for us Nora has not had many experiences so any little thing amuses here. I think she played with a couple wipes and a paper cup for 20 minutes! We looked through all the flight magazines and emergency evacuation cards. She ate lots of snacks and colored with crayons for the first time.

We made it to our hotel around 11 pm. Everyone was quite exhausted and slept in. Then Nora and I left for her doctor’s appointment and visa picture appointment. Nora had to have some routine adoption check ups and a TB test, which she did not like but only cried for a few minutes. Then she kept touching her band aid and saying ouch. When we got back to the hotel she showed everyone her band aid and repeated ouch over and over.

We are now in the city of Guangzhou. This is in southern China. All China adoptions are processed through this city. The weather here is much like Florida. It is very humid and it was 80 degrees today. We have a pool on the roof of our hotel, which the girls checked out with Brad, while Nora and I were at the doctor. This city seems more modern than X’ian. At night it looks like Chicago but in the day it does not remind me of the USA. There are many vendors selling all kinds of dried fruits, veggies, noodles and tea. We are here until Nora’s visa is processed and her TB test results come back. Hopefully all will be finished up by Thursday morning and then the plan is to drive to Hong Kong (3 and 1/2 hour drive) Thursday afternoon.

Thursday we were able to visit the orphanage where Nora lived. For privacy of the orphanage and kids that live there I am not going to go into a lot of details but we were glad we could see where she had been living. She was attached to a Nanny in her room and we got to meet her and exchange information so that we can send her pictures of Nora. The orphanage has 800 children living there. This orphanage is mainly for babies and kiddos that have special needs. Health care is very expensive here so if a baby is born that needs surgery or specialized attention many parents cannot afford to take care of them. Also, in China up until two years ago you could only have one child. The law changed about two years ago and now families are permitted to have two children. Though the salaries here make it difficult to afford two children.

When we went to the orphanage we decided to not take Nora back into her classroom. We thought it would be hard since she was so attached to her Nanny to take her back to visit and then pull her out again. So, Clara and I went into the orphanage first and Brad, Dana and Nora stayed back in the van with our driver. We took a tour and then switched so Brad and Dana got a chance to see inside. Nora had two rooms. A sleeping room with cribs and a play room with toys and a large TV. There were 30 children in her room. Each Nanny was in charge of 4 kids. The Nanny said Nora was a favorite. She would give snacks to kids who were crying to try and cheer them up. Brad asked if she had any boyfriends and the Nanny laughed and said that yes there was one boy in particular that Nora liked the best. They often played together.

There was also an outside playground and Nora visited there in nice weather and loved the swings. Nora seems much more advanced than her classmates with her physical movement. She was in the 2 and 3 year old room and there were kiddos who were not even crawling yet. She can run and walk up and down steps holding on to your fingers. She can hold a balloon, drop it and kick it. She can throw everything. Even when you don’t want her to. 🙂

She is learning so much every day. She likes us to sing Old Mac Donald to her and she will say Mama eeee i eeee i oh. She is learning how to say more and cat, dog and fish. She is trying to hum twinkle twinkle little star and she now asks for hugs from all of us by holding out her arms really wide.

She has such a routine. I am sure it is from living with 30 kids. She is a great sleeper. She goes to bed at 8 pm with out a fuss. She takes a nap from 12:30 to 2:30. She falls asleep right away. She loves to suck her thumb. They said she was up at 6:30 am but she has been sleeping in until 7:30. She probably is sleeping more because we are on the move so much.

She eats so much. She will not stop eating. We have to limit the amount of food she eats or I think she would burst. I was nervous to give her things with nuts in it because I wasn’t sure if she would have had nuts before and our guide said not to worry because kids don’t usually have allergies to things and she would be fine. The lack of allergies here is a curious thing to me since allergies are so prevalent in America.

Here are a few photos of the orphanage. We weren’t allowed to take any with kids in them for privacy reasons so we couldn’t get any pics of her play room.

Today we drove about an hour south east to see the Terracotta Warriors. The trees were all blooming and things were much greener here.

1974 a farmer discovered some terracotta pottery and ancient bronze weapons when he was digging a well. An archaeological team uncovered over 8,000 clay soldiers and horses in large pits under the ground. In 247 BC, the first Emperor of China, QinShiHuangDi ordered these life sized clay statues to be created so when he died they would be part of his burial. They think the Emperor ordered all of this to be started when he was only 13 years old.

Each statue has detailed art work carved into the clay. Even their faces are unique. Some look young and some were even made to have wrinkles. Weapons were also buried in the pits with the soldiers. They are still digging pieces up and putting them together. The builders also used color on the warriors but when the clay is dug up and the air and light hits them the colors fade. There was only one soldier out of the 8,000 that was completely intact.

Huan Huan is Nora’s Chinese name that the orphanage gave her. It means happiness. She is doing really well adjusting to the Coulson family schedule. She is just learning new things left and right. She loves to mimic the girls. Anything they do she wants to try, except if it has to do with water. She did not like her bath last night. The girls went swimming today and she watched intently but did not want to go near the water. She has some spoons and containers that we have been feeding her out of and Dana taught her how to flip everything over and play “drums”. So that is a fun game now. She also likes to “cook” by stirring up pretend soup in her bowls and feeding it to her pink stuffed bear that the hotel maids gave her.

Nora had never brushed her teeth before and I wasn’t even going to attempt that in China but Dana showed her what to do and popped the tooth brush in her mouth and now Dana is in charge of brushing her teeth each night. Dana also gets credit for teaching her how to drink from a sippy cup. In the orphanage she drank three bottles a day. She had never experienced a sippy cup. We were showing her what to do and she thought it was fun game. She would put the cup to her mouth but wouldn’t actually drink. But last night Dana popped it into her mouth and she drank! Now she is a pro at drinking water. Clara learned how to mix formula and knows how to put Nora to bed.

Nora rides well in the van (some children from orphanages get very car sick because they have never ridden in car before but she hasn’t gotten sick) but she has never been buckled. In China children don’t use car seats. So her first experience with a buckle will be in the plane on Friday on the way to our next city in Southern China. We have stocked up on lollipops and m&m’s for the plane ride. (I’ve been told do what you need to do to survive the plane rides. So don’t judge my parenting skills from international traveling. 🙂 ) Nora loves watching the fish in the hotel fish tank and she is mesmerized by birds if she catches them flying in the air. She was not outside very often so all these things are very new to her.

Nora mimics new sounds every day. She says beep beep when she hears a taxi horn. She says ding dong when the elevator dings. She says bye, hello, mama and baba. She tries to mimic words like car and please. There are weeping willow trees everywhere here and they are really green right now. She was trying to mimic us saying willow. She loves to be tickled and chased. I heard her laughing in her sleep last night. So cute!!

She is definitely a two year old when it comes to little fits. If she is mad she will throw things and scream but if you distract her or ignore her she can turn it off as quickly as she turned it on. She also hits at me. She doesn’t do this to anyone else. So I am trying to learn how to tell her not to hit in Chinese. Other than that she is doing wonderfully.

She loves to be outside walking around the city. We rode over an hour today to the terracotta soldiers and she did great. It was really busy there and many people walking and pushing around. She even missed her nap but still did really well. She just went to bed a little early tonight. It is so fun seeing how much she is learning just in a few days. She is very behind on her speech but we were told that is very normal for a child living in an orphanage. She can kick a balloon like a champ and throw things very well. She grabbed a pen and paper yesterday and went to town scribbling all over. Clara wants her to be a lefty and tries to get her to color with her left hand. Our guide said that Nora probably never colored or held a pen/marker before. There is so much to learn and we are all just trying to figure each other out but everything is going really well so far.

As was explained, Ba-Ba (or something that sounds like that) is what the Chinese say for Daddy. So, we have a different author for this post and it may not follow the timeline of the previous ones, but I wanted some time on here as well.

International flights are always interesting. In my experience, after a few hours, I like to go to the galley at the back of the plane where all of the food carts are. It just gives me a chance to stand for a while and stretch my legs. This proved to be a popular place to hang out on this flight. On a flight to Beijing, everyone has an interesting story to tell. The guy from West Virginia worked at a packaging company and was travelling to check on a supplier. He had a few beers, was talking louder than needed, and was occasionally spilling a bit as he talked with his hands. The school administrators from Connecticut recently set up a magnet school in Beijing. They were downing red wine and wanted to hire Linda. One awesome stewardess was bringing us plates of cheese and grapes from first class. It was a true business (class) up front, party in the back type of flight.

The stewardess was very curious about our adoption process. She was anxious to become a grandmother, but her daughter was struggling to have kids. She asked how difficult the process was. Not being one to get too worked up over things, I explained that the waiting and uncertainty was difficult. We could agree and acknowledge that it is expensive and a shame that it costs so much.

Reflecting on everything that we had to go through, yeah, I guess that it was a long, difficult process.

Even though the first few hours with Nora were trying, that is all that it took. After meeting her and bringing her into our family, it was all worth it. By the time we got back to the hotel with her, after seeing her first smile, seeing her with Clara and Dana; I had trouble remember the difficulties of the past 2+ years. I know that they were there, but they very suddenly seem so long ago and not as bad as I remember.

Sunday before we picked up Nora (who we call Waun Waun) (her Chinese name which is spelled Huan Huan) (we aren’t sure how to switch over to Nora. She does answer to Waun Waun so that is what we are going with for now 🙂 ) we went to a haggle market. They sell all kinds of food, goods, clothes and trinkets. They ask high prices and you are to go back and forth on the price all done in yen (Chinese money). We were told to go down 70 percent of the asking price but we aren’t the best hagglers, plus we are trying to convert they yen price to dollars so it can get confusing when you are haggling. Clara refuses to haggle. She just wants to give them the first price they ask.

I knew the food here would be different but I had no idea how far from American food this would be. I have not seen one fortune cookie or an egg roll yet. Brad tried to go to Pizza Hut and get a pizza one night. It is a little tricky when the menu is in all Chinese. Pictures are our friends! The closest to a regular pizza he could find was duck. He didn’t tell us what the “pepperoni” was on the pizza until we were almost done. So we tried duck pizza. It was yummy. The haggle market also had some very unusual treats. Fried crab on a stick, fried squid on a stick and lots of nuts, dates and fruit. Dragon fruit, pomegranate, jack fruit, mangoes, agar plums, oranges, persimmon, pineapple, melons and apples round out the fruit. The vegetables I can’t even begin to name. We have determined there are many dishes with eyes. Whole fish, shrimp, and rays and Dana likes to add potatoes (eyes get it!). In the grocery store they sold whole fish on ice. I guess you just put a fish in a bag and go. We also discovered smoke ice cream. I can’t believe they don’t have this in the US. I want Brad to sell this at his Slate Stand at ALF. They are these colorful cold crunchy things that when you bite into them cold vapor comes out of your mouth like smoke or in Brad’s case he likes to try to get it to come out of his nose. This was the best!

We have been in China 7 days already! The time is flying. We are learning how to read Celsius or convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. Clara’s favorite outside temperature is 23 degrees Celsius. It has been been between 65 and 75 degrees this past week. I have learned to mix formula, which I never have done before. It is an easy process but can be a little confusing when all the directions are in Chinese. We also bought diapers, which has been a while for that too. We accidentally bought pull ups. Again all packaging is in Chinese so it is a little tricky. 🙂 We also learned how to convert yen to dollars. 100 yen is about 15 dollars. Even the girls are getting the hang of the money exchange. The time difference has been super easy to convert. 11 am here is 11 pm in PA. This city of X’ian is the third largest city in China. There is an ancient wall that surrounds the city. At night it has lights all around the top of the wall. There is a moat that surrounds the outside of the wall. There is a bell tower and a drum tower. The bell tower was used to chime the hours to let the people of the city know what time it was. Tomorrow we are going to tour the Terracotta Warriors and Thursday we are visiting the orphanage.