Category: China

We all slept until 8 am because we were so tired after such a crazy day. Then we were scrambling like mad because we had to be ready to leave by 9 am. We all got dressed really fast and headed down to the breakfast buffet. We needed to eat before Amelie’s medical exam. Several other families got in much later than us on Friday so we were all in the same boat trying to scarf down some food. We met up with our guide in the lobby and then loaded into a little bus to head to the island for the exam. Notice the Santa Claus hanging up in the background.

There were quite a few other families there, but it wasn’t near as busy as when we adopted Nadia. We saw the family we met at the Novotel and saw their new daughter. I took some photos of the exam room doors and then it was time for me to wait in line with Amelie for her exam. She was NOT excited about being poked and prodded and having her hands and feet checked out. The doctor was very abrupt, but he has to see so many kids that I don’t think bedside manner really matters.  Then we had to see the ENT where they checked her ears and squeezed things to make sounds on each side of her head. Our last line to wait in was the height, weight and temperature room. They told us that she weighed 22 pounds (she was dressed) and I can’t remember the height. She didn’t have a fever so they sent us on our way. Here is what she thought of waiting in line.

Then all the other families had to have a TB test done on their children so we just waited around for them to be finished. Amelie didn’t need to have one because she is under 2 years old. Ningxia did a test on her and sent the results with us, but that didn’t really matter. While we waited, Mike had Amelie in the carrier and Nadia on his shoulders and started singing songs with them and swaying back and forth. Amelie enjoyed it and would hold out her arms and swing them back and forth. In those little moments we see her opening up more each day.

After the exams the families went to drop off laundry at one of the shops on the island. Our guide didn’t tell us we were going to do that so I didn’t have anything ready. The van took us back to the hotel and we just had lunch in the room with some rice we brought from Ningxia. Then it was nap time for everyone. After our nap we headed down to the club level to see what they had for dinner and to visit with the other families here to adopt.

After eating we headed down to walk around the pedestrian shopping street where our hotel is located. It looks awesome at night. There are a ton of shops and restaurants and lots of stuff to look at. Mike took a quick photo with his phone and plans to take some better pictures one day this week. We got some ice cream at McDonald’s and then headed back to our room. My heart was made happy to see a Papa Johns and I knew we would be back to eat there.

Amelie warmed up to all of us a lot more on Saturday. By the end of the evening she was chasing Nadia all over the hotel room and yelling “Jie Jie!! Jie Jie!!” That screaming was so much better than the temper tantrums. She had a couple of meltdowns all directed at me, but I told Mike that she doesn’t know I already have one strong willed child so I am ready for this stuff. She smiled and laughed a lot more with us which was a delight for our ears. Nadia was so excited that she wanted to play with her and chase her around the room.

Amelie decided just about the time we were settled in at the Yinchuan airport waiting to leave that she was comfortable enough with me to show us another side of her personality. TEMPER TANTRUMS. Complete with throwing her water  cup and food at me and flailing around like crazy. The flight to Chongqing was chaotic because of this. She did sleep for half an hour, but her behavior was amazing. By the end of the first flight we were positive that she was placated at the orphanage. This made her description in her paperwork make sense and the behavior of all the nannies on Gotcha Day. “Give her what she wants and she will stop that piercing screaming.” They made us get off the plane in Chongqing for about 15 minutes while they cleaned the plane and Amelie took this time to wig out on both Mike and I. It felt like everyone in the airport was staring at us and she was throwing things and screaming. We got on the plane for the next flight to Guangzhou and more screaming and screaming. I am sure that her ears where bothering her when we ascended and descended. Poor Nadia had the hardest time dealing with the screaming and burst into tears herself at one point and I didn’t blame her.

Amelie’s behavior was so much like the most spoiled toddler you have ever seen in your life. I won’t go into any more details, but it was safe to say that our day of travel was HARD, HARD, HARD.

Once we arrived in Guangzhou we put Amelie in the stroller and the airport seemed to distract her. Our guide Grace was waiting for us outside of security and when she said, “Hello, I am Grace with Bay Area Adoption” I wanted to give her a hug just for saying something familiar. As we rode through Guangzhou to our hotel my spirits began to lift because the city looked so cosmopolitan. When we got to the Holiday Inn Shifu and the guy in the check in booth spoke to me in English I wanted to sing the Hallelujah chorus. Then we opened the door to our room and I said, “Praise Jesus!” Smoke free, big and a clean carpet. Here is my reaction after walking through the suite.

We are on the executive level and it includes internet, breakfast and access to the club level where you can get snacks and drinks all day for free. They have a happy hour with food like the Novotel in the evening. Our room even has a tiny kitchen, but the refrigerator doesn’t work. I am just thrilled that the girls have a place with room to roam around and we don’t have to worry about the filth of the floor.

View from our room.

I want to start by talking about Nadia. A lot of people have been messaging me and asking me how she is doing. She is under a tremendous amount of stress just like the rest of us, but being 4 it’s been hard on her. On the second day she said, “I can’t wait until she is Cade’s age, then she can play with me.” Cade is the little brother of a friend of her’s who is 5 months younger than Amelie. Nadia was really expecting her to play and that has hurt her feelings. Nadia’s answer for dealing with this is to pretend she is the Green Goblin from Spiderman and throw bombs at people. She has been really aggressive and angry and can’t stand when Amelie screams. But on the flip side she is so sweet and wants to “help sissy” know that everything is okay. Nadia has actually burst into tears at the littlest thing but then she tries to make it better for Amelie too. Thanks for your prayers for her.

Amelie has been more like a 12 month old. We went to the store and looked through all the rattles to find the perfect one for sound and for her little hands to hold and she loves it. We have quite a few “baby” toys at home that I think she is really going to love and will learn from as she catches up developmentally. We can tell that she is super smart, but she is super wobbly when she walks and has almost zero trunk strength. And I am not sure how to explain it, but when you pick her up she doesn’t move her legs to grab onto you like other kids, rather she just flops about.

This is the lake in the park we walked through and people just walked across it and played around.

We got up Thursday and had the morning free to do what we wanted. It was the last day of the Spring Festival and the firecrackers started at 6 am. No kidding, you could hear them going off all around the city all day long. We went down to breakfast at 9 am and that was a mistake! They don’t refill anything so we had to make do and decided we would be early the next day. Amelie has a love of the white part of boiled eggs. I couldn’t get them peeled fast enough and she would beat her hand on the table for more. We went back to the room after breakfast to grab our coats and head for the grocery store. It was SO COLD, but nice to get out for a walk. We got Amelie a little nap and then Tony wanted us to meet him in the lobby again at 2:30 to go back to the notary’s office to read over all the translations to be sure they were correct. Nadia said, “oh no! More paperwork!?!”  Once we looked over everything at the notary Tony took us back to that park we went to on the day before. It was much warmer in the afternoon, but Nadia was pretty worn out so we didn’t stay out too long. It was all full of people celebrating the end of the Spring Festival.

I snapped this photo just for Bubba and Laura – this was the sign in front of the World Of Warcraft ride at the little amusement park.

This is how Amelie has looked most of the time we have had her.

Here are some photos from the square we walked around.

We took the girls back to the room for a nap and then Tony picked us up again at 6 pm for dinner at the same restaurant as the night before. It was fantastic once again. Tony told me we were so easy because we wanted to go to the same place twice, but we were happy to go where we knew the food would be great. Here we are after dinner.

Here is Nadia being the Green Goblin.

Here is Amelie coming out of her shell when the switch was suddenly flipped with her.

Now as I said earlier there were fireworks and firecrackers going off all day. It was dark when we finished dinner and there were fireworks being set off all over the city. We got back to our room and all 4 of us looked out the window for a long time at the fantastic display. I decided this was a good way to spend our last night in Yinchuan after a very stressful week.  Nadia kept saying, “COOL! AWESOME! Mom, these fireworks are so COOL!” Of course at 12:30 am when they were still going off all over the city I was really wishing that the celebrations would end. The good thing was that it didn’t keep the girls awake. The last day of the spring festival is the Lantern Festival and the little dots in the photo below are balloons with lanterns in them. There were tons of them going up all night.

We got up on Friday morning and went straight to breakfast. Then we came back to the room and started packing because Tony was picking us up at 12:30. I got the girls both a bath and dressed and all of a sudden Amelie wanted to play with Nadia. They were in the bathroom banging on the walls like it was drums. It was so cute! Amelie saw Nadia do it and then wanted to do it too. Then she was saying, ‘Jie jie’ over and over and over. Nadia was so excited that I thought she was going to burst. Tony was late and came running in and said he had just gotten our passport for Amelie. We were finished checking out and then Tony told us that he had to go to the orphanage and the police station twice trying to get it. He found out that the machine that makes passports was broken. Tony was really worried that he was going to have find a way to get her on the plane without it and overnight it to Guangzhou so we could finish our adoption paperwork. Praise the Lord he was able to get it at the last second. Then he said he was going to take us for dumplings before our flight since it was going to be a long day of travel. The place that he took us to was fantastic!!!! Amelie ate 7 fish dumplings before I had to cut her off. Then she kept banging on the table and looking at me like “why aren’t you giving me more?” I was having visions of her puking on the plane and no one speaking English.

We headed for the airport and said our goodbyes to our driver for the week Mr. Li and to Tony. They were both wonderful and Tony was a true professional getting everything done. Nadia thought was was great and was always wanting to know where Tony was taking us next.

I want to let everyone know that we only recorded 6 minutes of our gotcha day with Amelie. She was so hysterical  that there was no point in continuing the video, but we did want to share this with you and encourage you to watch all the way to the end.

Amelie slept 12 hours and then was up for 3 hours and then slept for 2.5 more hours in the morning. Mike and I were discussing that it’s so sad to see a 20 month old who is depressed and fighting off a cold. We were out in the afternoon to pick up our documents at the notary and when we got back to the room she took another 90 minute nap. Most of the morning she was just wrapped up in herself with the wall around and not communicating with us. Then we opened up a new snack and I had barely started to move towards her with it and she started dancing around on the bed and snatched it out of my hand to eat it. I sat down next to her to eat some myself and she grabbed one right out of my hand as I was about to eat it so she had one in each hand. She was eating them up and wiggling around and starting to smile. We are going back for more of those tomorrow before we fly to Guangzhou. Then at some point in the afternoon she said 2 things to me which was really exciting. I have no idea what she said, but it was a delight to hear her voice.

Tonight we went to dinner again at the same restaurant in the same private room and it was like a switch flipped with Amelie. She didn’t want to eat but she was just playing and having a good time like any other kid. If she saw us looking at her she would look away, but then she would forget herself and start having fun again. We rode back to the hotel and got her in her jammies and she started to play games with us. I started to tickle her for the first time and she was belly laughing so loud Mike came in from the other room. He got the camera going and it was so fun.

After she played with me, Mike was about to squeeze a packmate shut for me and Amelie started to play a little game with him. She would “help” him put something in the bag and then throw herself backwards onto the bed smiling when he clapped for her. It made my heart so happy to see her interacting with Mike without suspicion for at least a few minutes of fun. I know it made Mike feel good too. We have made some real progress today.

The final surprise came when I was brushing her teeth tonight and dropped the toothbrush into the sink. She looked down at it, looked back at me, threw her arms up and said, “Uh OH!” I laughed because Mike has said that to her about 100 times in the last few days each time something falls or she drops something, trying to draw her out. So her first English words/phrase was “Uh OH!”