Trip Day 1: Pediatrician Office and Airport

How should one fill the day before a late evening flight and everything else is taken care of? Sapphire took care of that one. At 9:45am she took a hobby horse stick and bopped a wooden wall hanging sitting securely on a door lintel.  The wooden plaque plunged into her hairline, leave a deep wound that would require 6 stitches. By the time I got down the steps she was crying, asking for a band aid, as if that would fix it. Meanwhile, her daddy was collecting her shoes.

Jasper rushed her to the pediatrician, and I finished getting ready and made it in time to hold her down for the stitches. This is the second time I've had that honor. There was a lot of screaming, but she didn't struggle.






Pearl was *very* distraught about her sister's pain. I think she broke out in hives over it, if I've identified the hives properly. Ruby no sooner saw her post-op big sister's new band aid than she slapped the sticker the receptionist gave her onto her own little forehead. It was pretty cute!

Once she got home, she was fine and in need of a princess dress. 

I, however, felt a great deal of stress to finish everything that needed to be done before I left. My husband was very helpful in being supportive and keeping the kids busy. After returning home twice because I had forgotten things, I headed south to Dulles, and realized that this was the same route we had traveled last August to meet Ruby. This time, however, there was not an enormous snarl on the DC beltway, and I made great time. Remembering the stress of that drive, I realized that at least this trip did not see me traveling to meet a complete stranger and convince her to love me, and then, regardless of my success, lug her back across the ocean.  That was one pessimistic way of looking at that trip before we met Ruby; of course we were greatly blessed during that trip.

In comparison, this is all very easy. So now I'm on my way to Reykjavik for 2 days of touring. I hope to post photos of what I see there. 



Finally, here's a photo of Pearl's mini collection, proudly displayed at the Collinsville Library's mini museum for all to see. If you can't quite make out what she is showing, they are plant tags. She love small things.

The Newest American Citizen

The total travel time to get home was 28 hours, door to door. We are very happy to be at this particular door now!

My husband did ask our last guide, John, if he'd come along home with us to tell us what to do and prepare us for every day's events like he's done for the last week.It has been nice to have a personal adviser to make everything run smoothly. 

The prayers worked. Ruby had a sudden, surprising bout of airsickness, which I fielded pretty well, but only because my husband saw the signs a moment before it happened. That was during the landing of the first of our two flights. At our long layover in Beijing, she got to play on two different indoor playgrounds.

The second, longer flight, was much better than expected. Since she is under two, we opted to get only a lap ticket for Ruby. There weren't many extra seats on the plane, but we were able to switch with a woman and get a row of three seats, which made all the difference.

Ruby spread out to sleep, often in the oddest positions. She tends to wake crying often when she is only sleeping lightly, but then she hit the deeper sleep for several hours. We had only one tantrum on the long flight, which was a huge blessing, though we are getting used to them. We were tallying the tantrums for fun, and I think we reached seven during the whole extra-long day. They didn't get us down, and they were totally understandable since everything was new and strange to her.  One passenger said he felt like throwing a tantrum too.

Ruby became an American citizen while standing at the Passport Desk. The officer whistled while he stamped her paperwork, then he greeted her to the United States. She was pretty dopey at that point, swaying sleepily in my arms.

Being strapped into a car seat for the first time ever at age 23 months is a shock, but she got over it pretty quickly. Her exhaustion helped with that. The drive home was smooth, and we got home at 11:30pm Wednesday, fourteen and a half days after we left.

When we got home we found a wonderful surprise from our church family.  We'll wait to open the presents when the girls arrive with my parents tomorrow afternoon.  Thank you so much for your supportive gifts and all the love that comes with them!

The house also looks cleaner than when I left, so I wonder what elves gave us that present. I imagine a Nana elf was in charge.

I woke Ruby up to bring her into her new home. She's been exploring.  She's been reading. I look forward to the time when she realizes that this is not another hotel room, but her permanent home. 

Foster Center and Hohhot--We're Getting Close!

We had a big surprise this morning when we woke up. Pearl skyped us to tell us she had lost her very first tooth just five minutes earlier.  This is a big deal. She's noticed several of her friends with gaps, and she wanted one badly. We were so glad we could share the moment with her. Those are jewels on her forehead; she had just come from a party at her aunt's.

We left our hotel early to visit the foster facility that has taken care of Ruby since she was just three months old. We got to tour the house and meet many of the staff there. We met the nanny in charge of Ruby. They arrange it so that one woman is in charge of three children, teaching them bonding through a family setting. This will be a huge help for us as we bond with Ruby. We also saw her little room where she had slept, and the crib she slept in before that. We met her night nanny, the woman who is on call all night to handle the needs of 13 children (!!). We also met the house mother, who gave us a precious life book showing pictures of Ruby since she came to them in December of 2010. The life book has journal entries about Ruby and her baby steps, everything you'd want in a baby book, she has, which is *very* unusual for a baby from China.

You see the photos of all the children the home has helped in the background. They only have 14 at a time. Grace, Ruby's nanny, is with us here.  Several of the children there when we visited were being treated for club feet; I could see the braces or casts.  The founders sponsor these surgeries themselves as their own spirit-filled ministry to needy children. 

It was so exciting to be there. We both got a little teary looking over the lifebook with Grace and one of the staff who spoke English. We took many photos and a video to help Ruby remember later.

After that emotional encounter we headed to the airport and flew to Hohhot on a quick one hour flight. Getting off the plane we immediately noticed a difference: the sky was blue, and we could see it. The 21 million inhabitants of Beijing and all their cars and construction fill the sky with smog.  Hohhot is a city in a valley surrounded by mountains, and the sky looks like the sky over Shippensburg.

We were picked up and taken to the hotel which is VERY fancy. Nothing was planned for the afternoon, so we left our bags and went for a walk through the city. We found a park filled with families enjoying amusement park like rides. One ten year old girl shrieked and jumped behind her father when she looked up and saw Jasper next to her.  We were told not many Westerners come here, and I guess her reaction testifies to that. The benefit to me is that people keep telling me I'm beautiful, which I don't mind at all. Some even take my picture sneakily as I walk by!

We found a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet and worked our way there. We knew we wanted to try hot pot, but ordering was a big challenge. We just wanted the waitstaff to choose for us, but they didn't seem to understand, so we muddled along.  We ended up with this collection of raw chicken, mutton, and greens, plus two warm sodas. The broth in the middle has two flavors, blindingly spicy and just fine. I ate from the latter.

Hohhot is a rapidly growing city. We passed the old cultural museum which is four stories tall. Brenda, our facilitator, told us this used to be the tallest building in Hohhot until twenty years ago. Now 30 story buildings shoot up all over the city, and we're in one of them.  This is the capital of Inner Mongolia.

Tomorrow we'll while away the morning and anticipate 2pm (2am Eastern time) when Ruby finally makes her appearance.  We learned at the foster home that she is very physically active and not very verbal. They say her lip and mouth are in great shape, but I wonder if the repaired cleft palate has affected her speech, or her hearing, or if she just needs more one on one attention that she could get in a group home, no matter how good it was.  We learned about her strengths too, like her brightness, her advanced physical progress (sounds like Sapphire!!) and her empathy for the children around her. The nannies said that if she saw someone in need, she'd respond. She'd feed the younger children or get them a toy they wanted, or try to help them if they were crying. These all sound like sweet characteristics!

This is her little bed, which she is probably missing now that she has been in the Bayan Nur SWI for the last few days waiting for our arrival.  Soon she'll be sharing a room with Sapphire.

We also learned that she knows these songs in both Mandarin and English: 'Twinkle Twinkle,' 'If You're Happy and You Know It,' and 'Jesus Loves Me.'

We are so grateful for the love and care her nannies gave her for so long. What an amazing calling they have!

Oh, and the VBS closing starts in just one hour from when I'm posting this, but I'm not sure I'll be able to stay up until it is over (since we are 12 hours ahead). My heart and prayers for a great worship are with you!

Longest Day Ever

Jasper suggests I stay up as long as possible now, but I just want to sleep. We left our home at 6am Aug 8th and made great time going to Dulles until we hit serious backups around DC.  We had to veer into the city--and we were getting nail-bitingly close to eating up all our buffer time sitting in traffic.  We finally found some clear roads south of Silver Springs, and then we were fine.

The flight was long, but I really appreciated the new style of movie watching. I had bout 40 movies to choose from. We watched Hunger Games and the newer Sherlock Holmes movies, which were entertaining. I got a little teary at 6pm PA time when I knew VBS was starting without me. I listened to my mp3 player with the VBS songs and imagined the kids waving their arms gleefully to the music.  I'm glad I got to be there two nights.

Fourteen hours is a long time to be in a plane!! And I couldn't help but think about what the return flight is going to be like with a 23 month old on our laps.  We had just about no leg room as it was, so I think it could go very badly. The last long flight will take off at 8 in the evening, so let's all pray she sleeps! I also plan to scout out an empty seat and stake it out, if possible.

David, our facilitator, was at the airport to greet us, which really made me feel secure. We are not his usual clients. He said we're much younger than most adopting couples, and we carry less baggage.  He took us to "refresh" at our hotel in Beijing. Here's the room.  

 Then we went to a Wigar (not sure of the spelling--they were in the news last year) restaurant that serves an oil company near our hotel. The head chef makes dishes from the company's native Xinjiang Province where the Muslim Wigar's live.

 This is a lamb dish over what David called a "pizza."  It was round bread, but otherwise not pizza like at all to me. I really liked the mutton. Then there were green beans like you see at buffets at home, but these had about 20 times the flavor of those green beans.



The dish below is Kung Pow Chicken, sort of spicy.

 Then we said goodbye to David and began a little stroll to stay awake. Our hotel is alongside the moat that used to surround old Beijing. Our hotel is in the oldest part, the center of the city. 

 And we came upon a fragrant market selling tofu, lots of peaches, veggies, fish, meats, and all sorts of things. 

 Tomorrow is a big day. We'll go to the Badaling part of the Great Wall, and we'll see the Summer Palace (a palace girls!) and an acrobat show in the evening.  So we're doing just fine, and I can't wait to fall asleep!