Passport in Hand

My husband and I take our marriage vows very seriously, and yesterday we added a new one for the first time since we were married eight years ago: never trick your spouse into eating the meat of a strange animal without first getting her permission. We ordered a huge hot stone bowl of soup with boiled turnips, lasagna size rice noodles, and very tender beef, or so I thought. Later it came out that it was donkey meat, and he had known it all along. I was ok with this particular animal, but we saw the need for a new rule nonetheless. Ruby ate it happily too. I imagine the Neffs' donkey would have been much tougher. Here's she's eating a sugar-crusted sweet potato.

Ruby and her daddy had a breakthrough in their relationship last night too. I got her to sit in the bathtub--it seems she had always showered over a tub while standing, so she didn't want to sit. Well, she soon saw how much fun it was to splash and play with soap in the tub. Jasper took over as lifeguard and only pulled her out when she unfortunately tried to use the bar of soap to wipe water out of her eye.  She let him put her jammies on, and then they played and romped and tickled for half an hour. This morning she was shy of him again, but maybe not as much as yesterday morning.  I'm sure the prayers are helping!

Today we visited the Hohhot police station briefly to pick up Ruby's passport. Her little passport photo is so cute! Then we went to the enormous, new Hohhot museum of Inner Mongolian culture. It contained rooms focusing on the prehistory of the land, dress, weapons, animals, and mineral extraction.  I liked seeing the life-sized dioramas of Mongolian life from long ago. They also had a whole room dedicated to Ghengis Khan (they pronounce it "Chengis Can"). He is their big hero, and they have many traditional stories about him. Ruby saw some of it, but she also slept in the baby sling that draws a lot of stares when we walk around with it!

Ruby doesn't look Mongolian to anyone here, so she is probably Han. She doesn't come from the provincial capital of Hohhot, but from a farming region several hours west of here where they grow sunflowers and melons.

I'm hanging out in the room while Jasper sees the last of Hohhot's sights this afternoon and Ruby naps.  We saw most of the interesting buildings our first day here, but there was a pagoda we missed then. Having a nearly 2 year old does change things, and I'm reminded of the parenting skills that have grown rusty in our house: daily naptime scheduling, temper tantrum management, and the ability to redirect and distract. Ruby does not like to hear "no", even when it is said gently and for a very good, that-lamp-might-fall-on-you kind of  reason. At least we know she understands us! I'll ask for prayer now that the infrequent meltdowns come at manageable moments during the rest of the trip and that she soon learns to handle "no" better.

Ruby has a happy shoulder jiggle. We noticed her doing it when she tastes something new that she really likes. She'll sit there and bob her shoulders up and down, smiling as she chews.  It doesn't happen all that often, and we feel like we've hit the jackpot whenever she starts doing it.

Ruby loves seeing photos of herself and her sisters (so do I). Soon they will be in photos together.
 

Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

After breakfast we left for our grassland tour. We drove through the mountains and up to the flat grasslands plateau north of Hohhot. Brenda explained that it was pretty much impossible to see authentic Mongolian pastoral culture because real herders move around and they are so deep in the grasslands that they are inaccessible to folks just making a day trip. So instead we made for a type of cultural reservation where people present Mongolian life in a permanent, bus-trip friendly way. We had our own car and guide, though.

The Mongolians of Inner Mongolia seem to parallel the Native Americans' lot, at least from their own point of view. They led an animistic, nature-loving nomadic lifestyle until the Han, the dominant Chinese ethnic group, began moving into the area of Inner Mongolia in the early 1900s. These Han brought knowledge of farming that the Mongols did not have, but they also brought a greed for the land, and quickly burnt out the land with overgrazing. Now former yurt-living nomads are paid by the government NOT to herd sheep, since large herds contributed to desertification of the grasslands.  So they get to live on their land, but they can't use it like they used to. I'm not sure what the Han story of this economic/environmental conflict is.

We enjoyed  a light meal on the raised bed of one permanent Mongol dwelling, sort of a restaurant. The bed is like a three foot high counter covered in oriental rugs, and it is hollow so that they can make a coal fire beneath it during the brutal Mongolian winters that pretty much trap folks indoors for months. They gave us salty milk tea in little bowls (which we sort of liked if we added lots of sugar, but only once it cooled off a bit and you got down to the bottom where all the sugar was). We tried the raw millet in our tea too--the vegetable-less Mongols' one source of easy fiber. I even put the rock-hard cheese in the tea to soften. It was like an extremely hard cheddar after 30 minutes of soaking. Ruby loved the shortbread-esqe biscuits and gobbled them up one after the other. She slurped up the salt tea too. The girls eats anything. Maybe I'll give her a chicken foot tomorrow at breakfast!

We walked around their compound afterward. They had some permanent yurts on concrete slabs for their customers to enjoy tea in, but none was the mobile, teepee-like yurt that herders traditionally use. Some chickens pecked a the dirt, and we saw a sheepfold with the owner's twenty sheep. Then the butcher arrived, threw a live sheep out of his pickup truck's bed, and began slaughtering it right in front of us (and the other sheep!). He was just making a delivery and we happened to be there to see it.   I wasn't ready for this level of authenticity! I walked Ruby away. Jasper watched as the butcher pulled out the heart of the sheep first, then finished it off. I could appreciate the precision of his butchering, once it was dead. The man barely bloodied his hands during the whole process, which was fortunate, since he answered his cell phone in the middle of the job!

We drove past a sunflower field stretching to the horizon. The sunflower butter I put on my toast every morning may have come from that field. Beekeepers with dozens of hives dotted the roadside too.

Ruby handled the long car ride very well, though she did get antsy. No car seat to hold her in, mind. She got very still and nervous when, after an especially painful bump into my stomach, I suggested Daddy hold her. This seems like an ironic threat, and we wonder if we will ever use it to calm her down--"sit down or Daddy will hold you!"  She did make some progress with Jasper after he fed her lunch bite by bite while I held her. She doesn't mind touching him a little bit to play, but she has to warm up to get even to that stage. We think it might take seeing how much fun her big sisters have with their daddy before she'll really attach to him. His patience is amazing (but I was well aware of that long before this).


Some advice we've received about raising a child born in China: don't hire a Taiwanese tutor, because she will teach the child to resent her birth-country; don't feed female children (or grown up women) ice-cream or anything cold, because it accentuates menstrual cramps; don't feed children in an outdoors breeze, even if it is a balmy, gorgeous, 75 degree day. I'm just passing that on.

And here's a medical question: Ruby briefly broke out in hives just around her mouth after our trip. The inquisitive lady selling chicken on a stick told us it was because of the heat and humidity (once again, balmy, 75 degrees, and no humidity here to my senses). I think it might have been the thick, strawberry-yogurt drink she chugged down in the car and got all over her face.  Would that be possible? a mild strawberry skin allergy? The rash is gone already.

I'd just like to add a brief mention of thanks to our family and friends who are so supportive. I feel blessed and loved even though we are so far away from home.

Getting to Know Each Other

After all the excitement of yesterday, I guess we needed some down time.  We had a nice breakfast, and Ruby ate a good bit, occasionally offering to share with me. As usual they offered chicken feet, noodles, rice, dim sum, rotisserie lamb, and salty milk tea for breakfast along with the normal Western fare. I'm a little less adventurous at breakfast now; I just want comfort foods.

At 9am we went to the hotel meeting room for some official paperwork.  Two other families were there, one from Michigan and one from Washington. I held Ruby on my lap and played playdough while Jasper handled the paperwork. I teased him that it was his turn now, after I completed all the other forms over the last 18 months. After we signed each paper, we had to stamp our thumbprint in red ink over it. It took about 90 minutes.

So far these pictures show her on my lap, because she spends a lot of time there. She hasn't warmed up to Jasper as much, or at all, really. He's handling it well, but I know he'd like to start making friends with her too.  Right now she sort of edges away from him if she has a choice, and he won't force it.  Ruby and I are great friends though. She looks up at me with her big eyes as we walk along holding hands as if she wants to see if everything is alright.

She fell asleep on me when we returned from a walk throughout the hotel (it was raining outside most of the day here), and she slept for three hours in her crib. It felt a little odd to have come all the way to China to sit in a hotel room for most of the afternoon while she slept.  We have HBO and several English sport channels (of no help to us!), but the English movies are usually horrible.  We lucked out when A Few Good Men came on, and then I took a nap.

We tried the pool, and I think I taught Ruby the word 'water.' We had to wear the swim caps. She likes to splash!

We went out to dinner then and she ate so much I was a little concerned she'd pop. She ate dumplings and rice and mushrooms and beef and fried chicken (just like nuggets, only in stick shape), but she really loved the broiled lamb T-bone. Lamb is a big dish here. Tomorrow we might see some sheep as we take our grassland tour.

We tricked Ruby a bit by turning on the tv to distract her, then I shimmied her up to Jasper who popped a bottle of warm water (that's what they give babies here) into her mouth. Experts suggest encouraging some regression, like giving bottles, to help the adopted child experience some more baby-like stages with her new parents.  She sucked at it for a while before she realized how close she was to him and turned away, but she fell asleep like that, so I guess it is progress.  It's the closest he's been to her yet. Prayer for her to see what a wonderful daddy she has would be a big help.

Now a note on Chinese pastries. I am always shocked to see Chinese buffets in the States fill a whole table with those tasteless pastries that only novices try.  They are horrible. They make me want to write to the Chinese Buffet Confederation and beg them to save money and food waste by cutting them from the menu. I have long wondered if the pastries are the Chinese restauranteurs' attempt at pleasing the American palate, or if they are a replica of real Chinese food. Well, now I've seen those same cream puff style desserts in bakeries here, so I know the answer. We try to sample bakery offerings whenever we can. I always hope to find red bean paste filled things, but it is always a gamble since we have no idea what we are buying. There have been some disappointments, but others are tasty.  These three had coconut, sesame, and date fillings. A total strike out. 

And an update on Pearl and Sapphire, who we talk to via Skype nearly every day. They are well. Sapphire is too busy to talk to us other than to shout "hi" and "by-I-love-you" as we sign off.  Pearl is more constant, but I think it is partly because she likes seeing herself make faces on the screen. They are having a fun-filled day with their aunt and uncle today. They won't want to come home!

The Last Wait

I've got 50 minutes until Ruby gets to our hotel lobby, and I've finished the Hobbit, my 'comfort read', and I thought I'd at least write about our morning trip around Hohhot since later today the focus will be about our new arrival.

We experienced a very crowded, elaborate buffet breakfast at the hotel this morning. Then we took a cab to the big Buddhist temple in town. It was built in the 1600s and is really pretty big. We heard some monks chanting and saw people spinning prayer wheels. We explored temple after temple for a while, then headed into the market nearby. There we found some items that required a little haggling.

When we turned around to go back, we saw a red cross rising above the old one story shop fronts, so we tracked it down.  The pastor was eager to practice his English on us, and we chatted. He said the church serves 1500 people and grew out of the ministry of a missionary who arrived in the 1920s.  It was heartening to meet devout believers here in Hohhot. They gather for prayer at 6:30 ever morning and worship for two hours.

You see the sheep decorating the wall behind the "choir loft."  That's because the people here love sheep and mutton, and it jives with the image of the Great Shepherd.

Writing has helped a little, but I've got 40  minutes to go. We were supposed to get her at 10am according to the original itinerary, but then there was some transport issue with roads being out because of recent rains, so they had to put Ruby on a train. Then we heard 2pm, and most lately our facilitator said it would be 3pm.  The waiting is hard. I keep trying to compare it to the wait in the hospital when the other two were on their way. I'm not sure how it compares, but it is all I know.

I fell pretty jittery; of course, that might be the two cups of cappuccino I had at breakfast.  I pray things go well. I've prayed a lot during this trip. We're pretty sure she'll be nervous of Jasper--he's tall, bearded, and strange looking. The babies at the foster home started crying when he came in, which is not a great indicator of love at first sight on Ruby's part!  My expectations keep veering in all different directions, as they have done for months. And soon we'll see how this starts, which really doesn't have tons of bearing on how this will turn out when I'm 80 and she's 49.

30 minutes to go.

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!

A Tiny Disappointment

I received an email from Ruby's foster care center that she will be leaving for Inner Mongolia to begin her part in the paperwork (she has to have a passport photo taken!) on the same day we fly to Beijing. This means we won't get to see her in the home she's known for 20 months of her life. This is disappointing. I had hoped that we would get a chance to meet her in surroundings she felt comfortable with, so that when we met her again in Hohhot, it would be less of a shock to her.

Not only that, but the idea of her going through 5 days of transition even before the big transition to come with us is distressing.  She'll be leaving her only home to go to an orphanage, and after several days there she'll be handed over to us.  One bright spot is that a nanny from Beijing who she knows will stay with her the whole time in the orphanage until we meet her.  The woman in charge of her home assured us that they won't leave her alone with strangers. That is a big relief, at least.

This is a tiny corner taken from a photo of a little girl who spent most of her 3 years in the Social Welfare Institute that Ruby will be at for those five days. I've cropped out the other little girl (who is going through her own massive battle for health with a new, loving family who writes about her here) to focus on the cribs and the suggestion of a bright mural.  I wonder if Ruby will be in this room or will stay somewhere with her nanny. 

We will still go to her foster center in Beijing to meet Grandma Li, her caretaker.  We will be sure to take lots of photos.

We're back home after a few days away (a visit to the Renaissance Faire and our parents' homes), and we're looking at the final stretch before we leave. Jasper will have some busy errands on Monday, and I want to bond with my luggage and make sure they are all at their best. I'd also like to finish painting the porch so that Ruby has a pretty house to come home to in a few weeks!