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Jet Lag Bites

This is literally the first moment I've had to myself in six days or so. Since we left the hotel in Beijing, I've either been up with Nico or sleeping. He's been slow to switch over to Canadian time, which means he sleeps from 7 pm to 2 am and then gets up and wants to party. Sometimes I can get him back to sleep, but not always. He is so excited about everything here: the new toys, new people, and especially the chance to move. When he toddles around holding my finger, he is constantly laughing and chuckling to himself. So he sometimes gets mad when I try to rock him down in the middle of the night--he'd rather stay up and boogie.

Lia is now mostly sleeping through with a few wake-ups. Thankfully, that has meant Shawn is getting more rest, because he was back to work yesterday.

The flight home was good: we actually departed early, and the children slept about half the 12-hour flight (Nico was laid out across my and Oma's laps, since he didn't have a seat). I really appreciated the on-demand inflight entertainment system (Rachel Getting Married was a highlight). We arrived in Toronto and Nico's entry to Canada was smooth. Under a new citizenship process, he became a Canadian citizen in China, and then travelled on his Chinese passport with a Canadian facilitation visa. We now have to apply for his citizenship certificate, and after that will get him a Canadian passport. So we got to skip the long immigration line at Pearson--sweet!

We waved to Shawn's dad who was there to pick up his mom! Too bad we didn't have time to stop for a visit, but we had a connecting flight to Ottawa. What a relief to arrive at our own little home again.

Of course, the jet lag fun was just beginning, but we have had some enjoyable moments: a trip to Ascension where Nico got a very warm welcome; a stroll along the canal for some Beavertails; a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Gresik. Tonight we will enjoy our community's pancake supper.

The winter cold is making it harder to adjust to the new time zone; I think if we could spend more time outside it would be easier, but Nico *loathes* hat, mitts, and snowsuit and screams and fights the carrier, so that makes me reluctant to take him on outings at the moment. Hopefully spring will come soon.

So our adoption trip is complete. I'm still pinching myself at having this little boy in our home. And thanking God for naptime.

Last Days in Beijing

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We've reached that point in the trip where we are ready to go home. We've still enjoyed some great sightseeing, food, and company in the last few days, but we'll be glad to sleep in our own beds again. (And we've made a mental note: next time pay the extra for a suite! Having only one room has meant very difficult bedtimes.)

Monday we visited the Canadian Embassy to apply for Han Kun's visa. Everything was in order and Lily was able to pick up the visa this afternoon (Wednesday). So all our paperwork is complete in the nick of time!

In the afternoon Shawn's mom did a rickshaw tour of the hutong, and then we went for a walk and early dinner.

On Tuesday Shawn and I took the kids to the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. As we entered the Giant Panda exhibit, Lia shouted, "Oh my goodness! Pandas! In China!" Too cute. We were amused to see the specimens of common squirrel, skunk and raccoon--imagine having to visit a zoo to see animals that root through our trash at home.

Shawn's mom spent Tuesday morning at Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Tuesday night we were excited to get a visit from Ma Rui, the guide for Lia's adoption trip! We talked about how the families from our group were doing (we travelled with 20 families to Jiangxi province two years ago). Ma Rui was surprised to hear that Na Fei was back in China so soon :-) Then we all went to a nearby restaurant for peking duck. Scrumptious. Han Kun ate four bowls of steamed egg! He sure likes his food.

Today (Wednesday) we walked around the Olympic buildings: the Bird's Nest, Watercube, and Indoor Stadium.

This is probably our last post from China. Thursday we spend the morning packing, check out of the hotel, and catch our flight at the Beijing airport at 7 pm. We're gearing ourselves up for the marathon flight and hoping the kids sleep a bit on the plane.

We want to thank everyone for your thoughts, prayers, good wishes, and comments during our trip. It means so much to us, knowing our friends and family are cheering us on and following our journey. We have felt connected to all of you even though we're so far away. And we look forward to introducing our new son in person! He really is a gem and we are privileged to welcome him into our family.

Playing around in the hotel room

Temple of Heaven

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Sunday morning we finally got to sleep in, and the children snoozed until 7:30 am! Loverly. In the afternoon we chose a short outing to the Temple of Heaven (it's quite a luxury to have total control over our itinerary). The air was nippy but we enjoyed the stroll through the grounds and the ornate buildings. Then as we left by the East Gate, we discovered a host of people doing informal outdoor recreation activities: skipping rope, singing, playing cards and hacky-sack, and dancing. Oma cut the rug with a very chivalrous gentleman (no, not me).

Last night we confronted the limitations of our tiny hotel room. The Jianguo Garden Hotel where we're staying is a luxurious five-star with fantastic breakfast buffet and beautiful design and furnishings, but the lodgings are cramped. We dearly miss our expansive two-bedroom suite at the Mandarin Garden in Nanjing.

We got Han Kun to sleep at 7 pm, but then Lia started shrieking when we tried to put her down at 8 pm, and woke up her brother, who rolled around on the bed while Lia continued to shriek intermittently, and everyone was up until 9:30 pm. Good thing we have nothing to do with our spare time except read, blog, and try to tidy up our postage-stamp quarters.

The Great Wall

Yesterday we had a chance to spend a cold yet sunny morning visiting the Great Wall. Since we've been before, our driver took us a little further afield to a different section at Badaling. It was fun thinking what a difference two years makes. Last time, Lia was just a baby, sleeping all the way up and down in my carrier. This time, she was running around on her own steam. Makes you appreciate how quickly time flies.

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Valentine

"You belong to love as wheels belong to roads, as grapes belong to the blossoming of taste, as corn belongs to crows, as shadows belong to the ache of heat, as happiness belongs to the capricious pangs of the soul." --Wolff Bowden

I am blissed out on my son. His skin is as soft as batts of silk. His adorable feet turn out when he walks. His hair and eyelashes curl gently at the ends. His eyes make the shape of birds.

He is like a treasure box, every day revealing some new jewel: on Monday I heard his laugh; on Tuesday he turned his face to me for kisses; on Wednesday he taught me how to put him to sleep; on Thursday he took wobbly steps toward me; on Friday he waved.

I've fallen for him hard. Kitschy songs are making me cry: "So I'll be there when you arrive/The sight of you will prove to me I'm still alive/And when you take me in your arms/And hold me tight/I know it's gonna mean so much tonight." (A prize for the first commenter who can name that tune!)

I'm a goner for my firecracker little girl too, but with her the love came slow and gentle over months. This is infatuation, pure and simple. I can't get enough of him.

So many good signs of attachment: he gazes into my eyes while I feed him, he crawls to me and pulls himself into my chest and chuckles, he cries when I leave his sight, he doesn't want anyone else to hold him.

Happy Valentine's Day, my son. I love you.

[A note about his name: up until Adoption Day, we mostly called him Han Kun because that's who he was--his name hadn't changed yet. For the last week, we've still called him Han Kun because that's what everyone else here calls him and that's the name he responds to (pronounced properly in Mandarin, where "Kun" becomes a high cooing "Kwen"). Also because he hasn't become Nico yet. We want to let the name grow on him gradually. We did this with Lia Na-Fei too, and it felt right.]

Han Kun

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Zhongshan Ling and the Nanjing Massacre Museum

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Yesterday morning we had a chance to go up into the mountains to visit Zhongshan Ling, the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Dr. Sun was the first president of the Republic of China and one of the leading organizers of the movement that led to the ousting of the emperor and the creation of the modern republic of China in 1911. The memorial was built in the 1920's and was designed in a style which combines Western and Chinese elements, reflecting Dr. Sun's influences in his ideas for the new republic. The slogan over the entrance gate reads, "The World Belongs to the People," one of his famous political slogans.

The memorial is set on the slopes of the beautiful Zijin Mountain (Purple Mountain) in the midst of sycamore and plum trees. As you can see from the photos, the plum blossoms are just beginning to burst, giving us a glimpse of spring before we head back to winter in Canada! The weather has been gradually getting warmer -- over 20 degrees today -- and we've been able to walk around in our shirt sleeves. It's a struggle to keep Lia in a jacket to avoid the ire of the grannies we meet out walking (who are still dressing their kids in winter clothes), as she insists on stripping down at every chance she gets. This girl's internal temperature is 5 degrees warmer than everyone else.

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In the afternoon Oma and I took a taxi to the Nanjing Massacre Museum (or, The Memorial Hall for Compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression). It's located in southwestern Nanjing, on a burial site for many of the 300,000 victims killed by the Japanese during the six weeks following Nanjing's capitulation on December 13, 1937. The museum is very impressive, and features stunning architecture and works of art to commemorate this black spot in human history. Along with a large collection of photos, videos and artifacts, they have retained a section of the burial ground that was recently excavated--a very sobering experience indeed.

Lianyungang SWI Visit

Wednesday morning we woke at 5 am and prepared to travel to Lianyungang Social Welfare Institute (SWI). We had requested this visit through our adoption agency, and were so happy when it was approved. Lily, our guide, arranged a minivan to drive us there. It was a three-and-a-half hour trip along a major highway, and the kids did great, napping and playing with toys and books. We arrived at the orphanage around 11 am. As soon as we got out of the minivan, some older women, residents at the SWI, called down from their balconies, "Han Kun! Han Kun!" They recognized him right away and were excited to see him.

Our first stop was a room filled with cribs, maybe 40 beds in all. They showed us Han Kun's crib, and then a woman named Bai Yue came over. She was his "grandma" in the Half The Sky program, which sponsors caregivers to give special attention to children in orphanages. When Han Kun saw her, he reached for her, and I brought him out of the carrier so she could hold him. We took pictures and someone showed me the big stacks of cloth diapers they use for the babies.

I had almost no chance to look around the room, and really, I didn't feel I had a right to. I was focused on Han Kun and Bai Yue, seeing their last moments together.

Bai Yue put Han Kun back in my arms and we left the children's room. But when I looked back through the windows, I could see she had taken her glasses off and was wiping her eyes. "She's crying!" I said, and I started sobbing myself. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for her to say good-bye to this sweet baby she's cared for so many months. She came back out of the room and we just looked at each other and cried and hugged with Han Kun between us. I couldn't speak to her but we shared this sadness woman-to-woman.

Then she took Han Kun into the playroom and stood him on the floor, holding on to a little bar and looking into the mirror. When she called his name, he would look at her. Then she turned him towards me and he held out his arms and stumbled towards me. I don't know whether he was happy to come to me, or just happy to be taking steps, but it was good to see. We sat on the floor for photos, and Bai Yue said, "Mama. Jie jie (big sister)." I was so glad she had a chance to tell him that we were his family. I was also relieved that Han Kun didn't cry when we left Bai Yue--because he is starting to attach to me? because he is an easy-going kid? because he is used to several different caregivers? Impossible to know. But he wasn't distressed when we left.

Afterwards, Lily told me that Bai Yue was also saying, "Good child." What an understatement! In only three days we've learned that Han Kun is affectionate and joyful. He loves to play, and smiles and laughs often. He sleeps soundly and has a great appetite. He is almost walking and quite adept with his hands. All of these things tell us that he had great care at the SWI, that he felt secure and loved. He is solidly built, with full cheeks and chubby legs, and the orphanage staff told us with pride that the children from their SWI are known to be big and well-fed.

As part of the Half The Sky program, Bai Yue has prepared a lifebook for Han Kun, with snapshots and reports about him twice a month. We also got a CD full of photos and some video. As you can imagine, these are priceless! We can't wait to read about what our boy was doing in his first fifteen months (it's all in Mandarin, obviously, so we will need to get it translated). But we can see the images--a photo of Han Kun when he was a newborn!

Our visit to the crib room and playroom were a blur. I don't think we spent more than ten minutes there. Then we were brought to a meeting room and served some fruit. I peeled tiny oranges for Han Kun and was glad to have something to do with my shaking hands. We presented some gifts for the nannies--I had knit a silk/wool scarf for Han Kun's nanny, which went to Bai Yue, and the staff told me it was wonderful that I had made something for her with my hands: "From the heart," they said.

Then the orphanage staff wanted to take us out for lunch. (I keep saying "the staff" because I don't have anyone's name and I'm a little fuzzy on their positions. The SWI director and the director of the children's department, who brought Han Kun to Nanjing on Monday, were not there--Lily said they were away at an emergency conference. So we were hosted by three other women, one of whom was also introduced as the director of the children's department. I will try to get more details from Lily. One of the women chose Han Kun's name, which is an important thing to know!)

We went to a small restaurant close by. They wanted to feed us local dishes, some of which were rather spicy! We ate wraps with crunchy noodles and hot peppers, soft bean cutlets dipped in spicy sauce (Han Kun ate three of these, minus the sauce), sweet fatty pork, duck blood soup (I ate several of the dark poached rectangles before Lily told me it was blood!), baby clams, and whole breaded fish. I had Han Kun on my lap, so the woman next to me kept filling my plate. At the end they said I didn't eat enough, but I was stuffed!

Then we went to a department store. We wanted to give the orphanage a gift, so the women chose clothes for the children and we paid for them. They wanted some nice outfits for when they took pictures of the children to send to the China Centre for Adoption Affairs. One outfit was for a three-year-old boy who will be adopted next week! I know about this boy through an email list for families who've adopted from the LYG orphanage, so I told his mom the news. Their blog is Wen Love Calls.

Finally it was time to say good-bye. We had spent about three hours at the SWI, lunch and shopping.

The next leg of our trip was a visit to Han Kun's finding place. I don't want to write too much about this, because we feel it is a private part of Han Kun's story. I will say that we found the place after travelling some rough roads, and the people in the area remembered him. Many thanks went to Lily and our driver, who took a lot of trouble in helping us get there. People were reluctant to give us any information at first: "The baby is gone! You cannot find him." "No, he is here!" Lily said. Once they heard that Han Kun was being adopted and "going abroad," they were happy to help us and eager to see the baby again.

The drive home was difficult because both kids were tired and stressed, but we made it and were so thankful to have the chance to see what we saw and meet who we met. No doubt these stories and photos will be an important connection for Han Kun.

Any LYG parents are welcome to contact us for more details about the SWI and our trip there. Our email address is listed in the sidebar.

[We have a few photos to add to this entry; we'll try to upload them tomorrow, our last day in Nanjing! Friday evening we fly to Beijing for the last stage of our trip.]

Nanjing's Lantern Festival and Xuanwu Lake

Every night (and early morning), fireworks have been exploding above the city skyline all around our hotel in celebration of the Lantern Festival. Throngs of people have been crowding the streets throughout the day and night wearing colourful, flashing lights, often carrying lit lanterns. Here's a few pics of the squares and alleyways of the Confucius Temple next to our hotel.

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Yesterday afternoon after the kids' naptime, we took a taxi across town to Nanjing's beautiful Xuanwu Lake, situated at the foot of Mt. Zhongshan. We walked through the beautiful Xuanwu Gate, across a causeway to one of the lake's five islands where we visited a bird sanctuary and fed the peacocks. Very pleasant.

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Evening fun

Han Kun has quickly shown us that he loves to laugh and play, much to everyone's delight--especially his big sister. We caught a few moments on tape tonight, which you can view here (click on each video for a larger view).

Shanghai & Zhouzhuang

As promised, here's a video of our first few days in China. Due to the size of the file, it's taken me a few tries over the past couple days to upload it over our slow hotel internet connection. Enjoy!

He's Here!

Today is one of those momentous days when you think, is it really today? Like a graduation or a wedding, this one day we looked forward to for days and weeks and months, waiting and imagining and planning. And it's today. This moment . . . we meet Han Kun.

After I spent much of the morning with Lily getting our money changed at 3 banks(!), we drove over to the Jiangsu Registration office and waited. After about 10 minutes of waiting, watching another family receive their son, we spied the orphanage directors approaching up the lane. After they all entered the office, we crowded around Han Kun, cooing and smiling at him, and then Lia leaned over and gave him a big hug. After a bit of paperwork, Ali was quick to scoop him up in her arms, which made him cry a bit, but he quickly settled down and snuggled against her chest, clutching her sweater the same way Lia did two years ago.

Since we were on our own, we only had to spend a bit more time in the office finishing up paperwork and making our donation to the orphanage, before we took a family photo and headed back to our hotel. After we got back, I went out and bought some formula and rice powder so we could make up a bottle. This kid's an eater! He had to figure out the bottle a bit, but once we cut open the nipple holder (with much resistance when trying to remove it from his grasp!) he was able to drink it all up. He's now sitting on the floor with Ali, while Lia shows him all her stuffed animals, and tries to teach him how to play "ghost" under her blanket.

We'll write more tomorrow, but the Internet connection is in our bedroom and the children must sleep.

Outside our window, fireworks are exploding all over the city for the Lantern Festival. No, wait, they're exploding for the beautiful boy finally in our arms.

Here's a video of some of his first smiles. A few more pics and another video are available on flickr.

Eleventh Hour!

I'm shaking with excitement right now -- the bellman just delivered our Notice of Travelling to China for Adoption!!

Lily and I had been on the phone and computer for an hour, trying to figure out where the package was. The tracking number wasn't working, the Purolator number didn't work in China, I got my mom in Kingston to call and the Purolator office was closed until 7 am North American time! Lily was just on the phone with her boss, trying to contact our adoption agency to get more tracking info on the package, when the hotel room phone rang.

All I got was "Concierge . . . UPS . . . coming to your room." Unbelievable! We're scrambling to figure out where this envelope is and suddenly it's here in our very hands! We hugged and jumped up and down!

Thank God, what a miracle. We are due to meet Nico Han-Kun in three hours and for the first time there's no doubt, it's happening! The appointment is at 2 pm local time, 1 am EST Monday morning for those at home. Can't wait to introduce you all to our son!

Zhouzhuang

Click here for a slideshow of the day's photos, or here to see all our photos on flickr from the trip so far.

Another video will be posted soon.

Grandpa Hugh

It was a shock to get word from my parents that my Grandpa Hugh died on Saturday. He was my mother's father (in Mandarin, my waigong). He was in his eighties and had been in and out of hospital lately, but still . . . The most upsetting thing for me is that we will miss the funeral service, which is planned for Wednesday in Windsor. To be so far away when my family is gathering to remember my grandpa's life and say good-bye to him . . . this is painful.

Minutes after we connected to the Internet and downloaded my parents' email, my sister Melody popped up online. We were able to do a video chat by Skype and it was such a blessing to see her face, hear her voice and cry with her. I want to write something here about my grandpa, to give a sense of what he was like, but I can't do him justice in this stolen moment (Lia is tearing up the hotel room, building forts with the couch cushions and jumping on the bed). What I can do is link to these posts written by my aunt Susan that give a wonderful portrait of him.

Healings Chapter 1
Healings Chapter 2 - My Dad

Death and new life so close together. I have butterflies in my stomach because Lily, our guide, is meeting with an adoption official at this moment to see about our situation (the original Notice of Coming has still not arrived). We have no idea whether we will meet Nico Han-Kun tomorrow as planned.

I am comforted to think that my grandpa is reunited with his beloved wife Marjorie, who died twenty-two years ago. February 7, the day he died, was their 61st wedding anniversary. I will be thinking of them more than ever on whatever day we adopt our son.

Good-night, Grandpa Hugh. I love you.

Shanghai from Sky, Sea, and Street

Click here for a slideshow of today's photos.

Bit of a rough morning: we goofed on Lia's sleep re-education yesterday, and let her nap too long in the afternoon. So she was bouncing around our hotel room for many of the wee hours. I think the aroma of rice crackers will forever be connected with a darkened room and an alert little girl asking for stories about Cinderella told by her half-conscious parents.

Today we joined a group of Chinese tourists for a day of sightseeing in Shanghai. Very different from being with our big busload of adoptive families on the last trip! We got a fair bit of good-natured attention as foreigners with a Chinese child.

We went up the Oriental Pearl Tower for a bird's eye view of the city, and then wandered through the Shanghai history museum looking at scenes from the agricultural and colonial days. Lia was rangy and overtired but between us we managed to keep her contained (we have a new hip carrier, a Scootababy that's very comfortable). Then she fell heavily asleep on the bus around 11 and snored through our visits to the jade store and the knife store (the guide got a nice commission on sales to his tour group members).

Next stop was a boat trip on the Huang Pu River, to get another view of the cityscape. We all went to the open top deck--the 15 degree weather feels balmy in comparison to Ottawa! Music blared as everyone got busy with their cameras, and we started to get pulled in to snapshots with members of our tour group! I've heard of this phenomenon before, random strangers wanting to take their picture with the foreigners, but the reality was odd and lovely at the same time. We're noticing so much casual interaction between strangers on the streets--our guide Lily will ask anyone passing by for directions or information, people will stop us and want to chat. In Canada it would seem weird and intrusive but here it seems natural and gave our day a very communal feeling.

We lunched at a small Chinese restaurant on chicken and sweet-and-sour pork. We ate downstairs, away from the rest of the group, supposedly because our food was better! Lia is getting quite good with her training chopsticks, and finished half the plate of pork. We wandered the shopping streets of old Shanghai before joining our group for a stroll on the river walkway along the Bund, a strip of colonial buildings. Lia ate candied fruit on a stick. Shawn took some photos for a pair of Asian girls from Denmark. We watched illegal vendors run away when the police came along. Then we piled into a taxi for the ride back to our hotel.

I ended the day quite happy. It seems like we've turned a corner on the jetlag: I didn't feel horrible this afternoon, and Lia only napped an hour and will hopefully sleep through tonight. So for the first time since we boarded the plane I feel like we can actually do this: take care of Lia and sleep enough and have a good time. I'm glad we came a few days early so we could adjust before meeting Han Kun.

Speaking of, our agency received our Notice of Travelling to China for Adoption (formerly the Notice of Coming) on Thursday morning. We need that original notice to adopt Han Kun. The agency has couriered it to our hotel in Nanjing and we are praying it arrives before Monday. You're welcome to join us :-)

Day 2 - Jetlagged in Shanghai

Click here for a slideshow of our China pictures so far.

After an early morning flight to Toronto, we met up with Oma, Opa and Uncle Kevin outside International Departures at Pearson--it was great fun to be able to visit with the latter two before Oma, Ali, Lia and I boarded our long flight to Shanghai. The flight itself was pretty uneventful; Lia sleeping about a third of the time, with the rest spent watching movies, reading books and playing games. A pretty smooth trip, all-in-all.

In the super-huge Shanghai airport, we met up with our guide, Lily, and drove one hour into the city. After checking into our hotel, we found a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant across the street to grab a quick meal--which was excellent--before falling into bed around 8pm CST. That's when all the fun began. Lia had a night terror about midnight and, after some consolation, calmed down and perked right up, ready to get on with her day. For the next few hours, it took a concerted effort on both our parts just to keep her in the bedroom, let alone in her bed. She finally settled down after Daddy threatened to call the front desk and have a crib sent up (won't be able to use that one for too much longer!) and we all slept fitfully until morning.

Since we weren't up for anything too involved today, Lily arranged a short walk over to a local Buddhist temple, followed by a quick tour of the shopping centres near our hotel. We've decided to extend our stay in Shanghai by one day, so tomorrow we plan on joining a city tour, followed by a trip out to a traditional village the day after, before heading over to Nanjing by train on Saturday night. One of the benefits of being on our own is having greater flexibility to adjust our schedules as we go! Plus, we're loving having a guide to ourselves this time around. Lily is lovely, and Lia is totally taken with her, constantly grabbing her hand and pointing out every interesting thing she sees.

This afternoon's schedule includes naptime and a search for a powerbar so we can keep our laptop charged.

Day 1 - Ottawa to Shanghai