food

We haven't gone too far afield to this point, but we have had some interesting experiences.

Thursday for lunch, we went to McDonald's between some of our office visits. As most parents can attest, this is not usually the first choice of cuisine when dining with our children, but since it was already after 1 PM, it was actually pretty satisfying. Not exactly like Mickey's at home, but close. And we spent about $11 for all 4 of us.

Wednesday evening we went to a Chinese restaurant near the hotel (the description sounded funny to us too - a Chinese restaurant near the hotel? Isn't that like saying the Baptist church in Dallas, or the lake in Minnesota? But that's what we're calling it). Since the menus were in both Chinese and English, and pictures were included for most items, we were able to function without our guide. We still ordered some "losers", and also ordered way too much food, but our total bill was still about 350 Yuan ($50+) for 12 of us - 6 adults and 6 kids, so we're definitely going back there! We stayed relatively safe - chicken, beef, shrimp, broccoli, rice - eschewing the chicken feet and exotic seafood.

A delivered pizza and a lunch in the hotel restaurant have been adequate and only to be repeated in the future for expediency, as doubtless they will be. Breakfast each morning has been very good at the hotel, with lots of options, and lots of things for Seth to point to to have. The only thing he's refused to this point are fruits, I think. A bit odd, especially given Shiyan's snack advice! He's definitely a carb man like his sister. So maybe we'll start with fruit by itself today.

Josie

Whatever my expectations were of how my lovely daughter would handle this trip, they have been exceeded. To this point, she has been marvelous. She pushes Seth around in his stroller, and wants to help at every turn. She plays well with him and the other children, and has often acted more like 12 than 7. She has slept well all but one night, and has adapted well to the (somewhat minimal to this point) changes in food presented to her. Yesterday in the pool, she held him and bounced him around most of the 45 minutes were there. JieJie (big sister) and Didi (little brother) are a funny pair to watch. Somewhat reminiscent of Schwarzenegger and Devito, if only in stature.

Two nights ago, after putting Seth in his pack-and-play (does that give you an indication of size?) and doing lots of tucking in, kissing, I love you's, and zaitian jians- see you tomorrow, K and I were headed out into the hall as is our normal kids-to-bed-in-the-hotel custom (where we've been repeatedly harassed for loitering in "public areas"; whatever). I realized then that no one had done Josie's normal bedtime routine with her - tucking in, praying, kissing, etc. "Normally" she would have been quite unhesitant to remind us of this oversight, but she seemed to sense that we were spent and that she just needed to go to sleep on her own. I came back to her bed and apologized and cuddled with her for a few minutes.

I truly cannot imagine being over here without her.

Other Activities

Tuesday afternoon, we went to a large IKEA/Walmart sort of place (Wal-Zhang-Mart, according to Mr. Cox). A well-intentioned stop by our trusty guide, but not exactly stress-free. The place was teeming with people, and Shiyan took us first to the toy section. Think about that for a minute. 8 kids who just that morning had left the orphanage, had probably not seen so much as a Dollar General, were ushered into a place not as exquisite but every bit as expansive as the Toys R' Us in Times Square. Beautiful. We managed to control the damage, buying some Play-Doh (which Seth of course was not interested in waiting until after checkout to open), the a-fore-pictured stroller, some bottled water*, and some pajamas**.

*More unsolicited advice from Shiyan as we lugged 3 cases of water to the checkout: "don't buy that much, what will you do with it when it is time to leave Beijing?". First off, the cases of 12 bottles cost 7 Yuan = 1 Dollar, so a little undrunk water left at the hotel for the next guest would not exactly rock the scales of benevolence, and second, we're already into the 2nd case, so case #4 appears to be in our future.

**Obviously there was no luggage delivery by that point, so a little sleepwear was desired to complement the 2 outfits we did have. Seth got the short end of this stick, as for all its vastness, Carrefour did not have much for a 4-year old in the way of clothing. For 2 nights and 2 days, he's worn the same outfit he showed up from the orphanage in, or nothing at all.

Wednesday morning, we had a more leisurely shopping experience, as the 4 of us walked on our own to a supermarket a few blocks away. It wasn't nearly as busy, and we enjoyed trying to decipher what things were by observation and from their packaging. We bought (we think) some cookies, bread, jam, soup, and apples. Ok, yes, I think we have now confirmed all that was as expected. As elsewhere, we got lots of looks from people observing these 3 white people with a Chinese child. Seth's chattiness is much noticed by others. He'll say something, which of course we don't understand, and Chinese people around us will often chuckle and smile at us. Oh, to know what he is saying! Take me away from these Crazy Americans!! I want to buy this! Why aren't you listening to me!? I've told you a thousand times....!

Wednesday afternoon, we had a lovely time at the park. 5 families and Shiyan took cabs (12 Yuan - someone should send the US Cab industry a memo) to a large city park called Longtan (the Dragon, I believe). We're hoping to go back at least once to get some more pictures of the lovely landscaping, bridges, and architecture. Seth and Josie, or course, weren't as interested in that, as the rides and playground. All the kids had fun running around and doing a few rides. One mom who had brought bubbles became quite popular, as that turned into a 30-minute activity.

Thursday afternoon when we got back to the hotel, our luggage was finally there. K got very little sleep Wednesday night after we got a (mid)-night phone call (despite my efforts to warn the concierge not to call our room and that we would just come down in the morning to pick it up) saying, we thought, that the luggage had arrived. But alas, when I went down in the morning it was not there. After some mangled English on his part and Chinese on mine, it was determined the bag was still at the airport here. My efforts to extract delivery were unsuccessful, but Shiyan's were not. So today (Friday), we finally get to see if we brought the right sized things for Seth! Delivery also enabled Josie, Seth, and I to have a swim before dinner yesterday. I should have brought the camera there; he enjoyed that a great deal. Josie held him most of the time in the water, and by the end he was jumping off the side into my arms (Yi, Er, San!! = One, Two, Three!).

Notary

Here we are at the notary office for the second time today.

Pictures in the Park part 2

We went to Longtan Park this afternoon. There was a little ride area for the kids, and lots of room for everyone to run around. Some beautiful landscaping too.

Pictures in the Park

Who He Is

Guy's a tornado. It might be tough for us to keep up with him for the next 14 years. Chatters more than the other 7 kids combined. Has real quickness and acceleration, especially in parking lots and crowded places.

He's also a charmer. He's also told whoever might be listening that his mama is very pretty, that he wants to be a good son, that he is happy being with us, and that he wants to please us. So that's why say he's a charmer. It's either that, or the Bethany-hired guide is really good at creative translation!

Today he bounced frequently from his tornadic events to several quiet moments of contented play by himself, with Play-Doh, the doodler, or the camera.

There's much more to say that I will surely try to do over the next several days. But for now, I'm afraid the 9 hours of sleep I've gotten since Saturday morning are rendering my intellect fairly jumbled.

Here He Is

Over three years time, when you've chosen this path of adoption, and you're convinced God's hand is in it, and you have endless opportunity to imagine and wonder, you process a thousand versions of what this day is going to look like, the day that was August 4, 2009. These versions variously feature exhiliration and wailing, exhaustion and adrenaline, joy and angst, order and chaos.

The real thing looked nothing like the fictional thousand. Not because any of those imagined elements were missing. Every one, present in spades. But I suppose for one I didn't fully transfer my mental image from infant to toddler.

The van from the orphanage showed up around 10am. 8 kids for 7 families. The youngest 5 all came in together, 3 boys and 2 girls. As expected, I didn't know which one was Seth. Eventually one of the ladies called "Lu Yongzhan" and he nervously approached us. At that point, a seemingly unimportant $1.99 Target pick-up became a lot more relevant than expected. We gave him a little doodler - one of those magnetic write-and-erase toys, and he deemed that a worthy guarantee of our trustworthiness.

With all the cameras rolling and flashing, it certainly makes sense that a kid would get intimidated. Seth was not the only one who exhibited hesitation today. Indeed, many were far more skeptical. Seth took the cameras head on- our two in particular. He took several dozen pictures and shot several segements of video. He found settings and features we never knew existed. So for the 2nd day in a row, my brother Joel gets some sort of relevancy points, as it seems Seth may have the techno-gene.

The Sought

Here's the boy we're waiting to meet. Lu Yong Zhan. Soon to be Eric Seth Yong. It's hard to believe this picture is almost a year old already! Hopefully we'll recognize him when we meet him at the hotel on Tuesday. And he us. We've had encouraging conversations with 2 families who returned home a week ago who adopted boys from the same orphanage where Seth is. They were both well-prepared for the transition, and have taken well to their new surroundings.