All About Jack

As promised, it's time to talk more about Jack...

When he is happy or just waking up, he is a total cuddle-bug.   He will look up at me, grin, and then bury his head in my chest.  When asked by one of us, he will give a big, sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.  (Will claims he gets the most kisses, which is ironic considering Will's food-sharing aversion.)

When he is playing, he will look over at me and smile this big toothy smile.  Overall, he has a really easy-going personality.  He likes to play with the stacking cups/balls, the Elmo radio that someone gave us when we had Ben, and anything on my Kindle Fire. If he is concentrating really hard he sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth.

He is a charmer.  He flashes that smile at people, and grins extra wide when he is doing something he knows that he shouldn't.

He has some stranger anxiety going on, especially for adults.  If you see us out and about and he shakes his head no at you, he wants you to keep your distance.

When he is cranky, it is because he his either hungry, or he wants to GO!  Go out in the yard, somewhere in the car, out to the mailbox - he doesn't care, as long as we are going somewhere. If he sees someone at church with shoes and a jacket on, he will forget his stranger anxiety, grab their hand, and try to leave the building.  If he does this to you, you probably shouldn't encourage it, even though it is totally adorable and you will want to follow him anywhere.

He likes to eat. Anything.  He definitely has preferences - cereal, raisins, rice, noodles - but he will eat just about anything.  Today he has eaten Cheerios, raisins, turkey, noodle soup, a pickle, grapes, potato chips, watermelon, bread, and half of an apple.  Plus a bottle.  And it's only 4:30. He is getting a nice, round belly:)

He loves all of his siblings, but Will is the most patient with him, and therefore the one who usually ends up playing with him.  We call Will the Baby Whisperer.

We are all trying to teach him how to go "boom" down the stairs.  My niece Bri taught my boys how to do it when they were little, and now they are teaching Jack.

We have tried to introduce a few signs, but they haven't caught on yet.  It is still very early.

Even though it is very early, he is already trying really hard to repeat our words.  In China he was trying to repeat "hat" when Tim put one of the stacking cups on his head. Yesterday when he finished his lunch he said, "Ah Gah!" which sounded an awful lot like, "All gone!"  Today I was telling him about socks and he made the short O sound.  Pretty impressive for someone who just entered the country a week ago.

He is now sleeping in his room with his sister.  Tim or I will lay down with him until he falls asleep, and if he cries out (which has happened every night so far, several times) we go to him and lay back down with him.  He is responding pretty well to this, and we are all sleeping more than we were a few days ago, even if we do wake up confused about what room/bed we are in. The pack and play was not working well, and our bed isn't big enough for him to windmill between us all night.  

Bonding and attachment are going well.  We move forward, then back, then forward again.  But he is definitely more attached than he was a week ago, which is more than a week before that, so I am optimistic about that.

I have spent most of my time this week on the phone making appointments.  In the next couple weeks he will see an IA pediatrician, a dentist, an audiologist, a plastic surgeon, an early intervention coordinator and an evaluator, a speech and language pathologist, and quite possibly an ENT.  I have called the insurance company and am trying to coordinate them with all of these care providers so that they will let us be seen (why does no one take my word for it that he has insurance?).

He is amazing.  I am falling for him so quickly.  Everyone around him is completely smitten.  Just wait.  You will be too:)

Day 13 (& 14) Home

Possibly one of the greatest travel ideas ever is the airport adjacent hotel.  Are they overpriced?  Yes.  But there is something wonderful to be said for stepping out of your hotel room, walking down the hall, and checking in at the flight counter.  Especially when you are flying out of Hong Kong and it it takes almost two hours to check in, go through security, and go through customs.  By the time we got to the plane, it was mostly loaded.

The flight was smooth and on time, but that's about all you can say positive about a 14 hour flight.  Oh, and the movies were good and mostly appropriate for the children.

The last leg from Chicago was also smooth and without incident.  Unless you count Jack screaming for most of the hour-long flight.  He did great on the big plane - all the kids did - but the last leg put him over the edge of his I'm-so-tired-I-just-want-to-cry meter.

We got home safely, stuffed some Chick-Fil-A into our faces, took baths, and went to bed.  We had decided to put Jack in a pack-n-play next to our bed for the first few nights so we could comfort him if necessary.  It didn't take long for me to realize that it was going to be a loooong night.  We ended up putting him in bed with us simply because it was faster to pat his back and put him back to sleep than any of the other alternatives.  Jet lag does not make for patient parenting.

After being up half the night, he ended up sleeping until 1pm.  The rest of the day he was in a fairly good mood, and he eats really well, but after dinner it was clear he was ready to crash.  I kept pushing him to stay up longer, in hopes that he would sleep through the night.  We shall see how that works out for me.  I keep dozing off at random times myself, so I understand how he feels:)

I know it looks like he is upset in this photo, but he was really excited about throwing every single Little People doll we have across the room.  His smile face and mad face are pretty similar, but he was laughing and saying, "Ah!" over and over again (short a sound, not ahhhhh) which is of course his favorite noise. 

I have to give one last thanks to all the people who have prayed us through all of this.  Jack is doing very well (I hope to write about that later, when I have had enough sleep to do more than simply write down what happened each day - for now, see Tim's blog), and I have gotten to focus on him because I have such a great support system.  Mom and Jacob took care of the kids, Tara and Vanessa took care of the blog, and when we got home I found that Christa, Tia, and Sarah had been at work in my kitchen, buying me milk and freezing meals.  (Yummy chicken pocket thingies, btw.  Will says I must make them for him again sometime.)  I cannot thank all of you enough.  You're the best!

Day 12 Guangzhou/Hong Kong

There isn't a whole heaping lot to tell from Tuesday.  We slept in, took a cab over to Shamian, and did a little shopping.  Those of you who know me well realize how ridiculous it is that I spent significant time shopping for three days in a row.  I loathe shopping. But we have a tradition in our house of giving Kate a small gift from China on Kate NaNa Day.  It's never a huge deal, but I needed to stock up so I would have a similar gift for Jack for the next 18 years. 

One of the shops we went to was Susan's Place.  On Shamian, all of the shops are named after whoever runs them - well, their assumed English name, anyway.  There is Jenny's Place and Amy's Place and Michael's Place and... you get the idea.  Susan's husband is Dong.  And he is hilarious.  He immediately drew in Jacob and Tim and started telling them stories and pouring tea for them, and the longer they talked and drank, the longer Mom and I shopped.  Brilliant strategy, I tell you.  I walked out of there with things I didn't even know that I wanted, because Dong never stopped talking and pouring tea.  I finally started sending people out of the shop, one by one, to get us out of there.  They really were delightful, but very savvy. 

After a Cantonese lunch on the island, we headed back to the hotel to finish our packing.  At 4:30 we loaded into vans and drove to Hong Kong.  Did y'all know that you still have to use your passport and go through customs to get in and out of HK?  I sure didn't.  And so I did not think it was a big deal when we pulled out of the hotel (me and Kate and Jack in one van with another family, and the rest of my family in the other van) that I carried all of the passports.  Thankfully someone else figured out the problem before we were out of Guangzhou, and they pulled us over to get the passports from me.  Immigration disaster averted.

We arrived at the Regal Airport Hotel, exhausted but safe, about 3 hours later.  There was internet in the lobby, but I was not motivated to go that far for you all.  Sorry about that.


Day 13 is coming...

Day 11 Guangzhou

Today was our consulate appointment.  We were up and out early to make it on time.  Thankfully Jacob stayed at the hotel with the boys, while Tim and I did the paperwork.  Mom and Kate came along for moral support and pearl shopping later on.  The oath and paperwork took only minutes, and we loaded back on the bus and went shopping.  We have the entire day free now, and have nothing to do until 4pm tomorrow.  Don't worry, I am not claiming boredom.  I am very happy to have this down time.  Everyone but me and Jack are at the park playing.  We are thinking of ordering out for dinner.  Tomorrow I will try to finish up shopping in the morning before leaving Guangzhou at 4:30.  From here we go to Hong Kong, and then fly home on Wednesday.
 
Jack is in a great mood today.  He has now changed his mind about bananas and loves them.  He is also nuts about Raisin Bran, but only if it is from his Daddy's bowl.  He really doesn't want them from his own bowl.  He has giggled and carried on all day today, playing in front of the mirror and lifting his shirt for zerberts.  Right now he is napping - have I mentioned how easily he goes to sleep?  He fusses for about 3 minutes and then he is out like a light. 
 
I haven't taken a single photo today - no cameras are allowed in the consulate.  So today it is just me, being happy about our down time. I don't know when I will post again because of our travel, but I will drop by for an update if I have a chance. 

Day 10 Guangzhou

I know my blog has been less than warm and fuzzy lately.  I apologize for that.  The truth is that when I am hungry and/or tired, I can get really obnoxious.  And I will take everyone down with me.  At one point yesterday, Will suggested I needed to eat something because I was being mean to him.
  
Nothing like being taken down a notch by your 7 year old. 

Anyway, I got a full eight hours last night and then ate an enormous breakfast this morning, so today has been much better.  We met up with our group and headed over to the church on Shamian Island.  It was a lovely service in both Mandarin and English, so we got to understand what was going on.  Some of the songs were in English, but honestly, it was such a beautiful thing to listen to praise songs in Mandarin that I didn't mind at all not to understand all of the words.  The congregation has been there for twenty years, and it was standing room only - probably 250 people.

Then we headed to Lucy's, the American restaurant that caters to adoptive families, and then did some shopping.  I was expecting everything to be closed, but there were still quite a few businesses that were open. For dinner we decided to return to the island to shop a bit more and eat at the Italian restaurant.  Yum.  That's all I can say about that.

I haven't said much about Jack lately either.  He and I are still figuring each other out, which I am sure will be a life long process.  But I know that he is super-sweet.  He loves hugs and kisses.  Loves to put his feet in my face.  He has a crazy appetite and will eat until you leave the table.  Today he prefered his Daddy, but still let me hug and kiss on him.  If he is happiest when he is eating, then he is second happiest when he is running.  He is already getting more steady on his feet, and he ran around the playground like a mad man today, full steam ahead.  He is going to keep me on my toes.

His cleft lip repair looks great, and the cleft does not appear to go all the way through the gumline.  The cleft palate is pretty wide though.  He has some trouble hearing us in a crowd, but seems to hear us in the hotel room ok.  We are still trying to watch him and figure out exactly the extent of his hearing loss.  I am eager to get him to an audiologist.

He has spent the last couple days unhappy.  I'm not sure if it was the lack of sleep, or if he is finally grieving a bit, or a combination of the two, but he seems better today.  Which I am very thankful for.  He has a pretty happy disposition, so to hear him cry and not be able to offer a snack or drink or toy to make it all better is hard.  But that is part of parenting, right?  Mom and Dad can't always fix everything, but we do the best we can to love and to guide. 

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us.  Today was so much better than yesterday.  Tomorrow is the consulate appointment. If the paperwork is all in order, they will process his visa by Tuesday.

Night:)

Day 9 Guangzhou

(Please check in on Day 7 later today.  My friend Vanessa has volunteered to help out posting pictures, so hopefully we can get that working again.)

The short version of today is that we made it safely to the hotel.  Keep reading for the longer version...

After I wrote the Day 8 post, I went out of the VIP lounge to use the bathroom.  When I returned, there was a group of men standing outside trying to get in. The glass doors were locked.  I went to the front of the crowd and stood there trying to figure out if I should start banging on the doors or just wait on them to open them.  The staff was standing on the other side and could clearly see me, but they obviously didn't want to open the doors.  After a few minutes of this, a couple of people needed to leave the lounge, so they opened the doors and I hurried inside.  About a dozen men followed me in and got through before they locked the doors again.  Several people tried to jam the door open with their feet or water bottles.  It was a little scary there for a moment.  The guide who was there got his family in and then spent some time trying to get the third American family in so that he could keep us all together.  Every time they opened the door people tried to get in, but it calmed down a lot after that. 

All I can say at this point is that when people have been waiting for a flight for 6 hours, they get very agitated.

The guide let me know that the plane that was supposed to be there at 12:30 hadn't taken off yet.  I later learned that there was a big hail storm in Guangzhou preventing take-off.  I settled in to get some sleep at that point, with Tim staying awake to monitor things.  At 2:30 I woke up to find that they were going to board us at 3:00, but when we got to the doors of the plane, they wouldn't let us on because we hadn't gone through security the second time we got tickets.  We had stayed in the boarding area.  Only at that point we didn't know what the problem was, so I just started praying they would let us on the plane.  Finally a security person who spoke English came and explained they had to check our passports to see if we matched our boarding passes, and then they let us on. 

And then we sat on the runway for another hour.  For those keeping score, we spent 11 hours at the airport before we took off at 4:30.

We made it to the hotel about 7:30, with enough time to eat breakfast, shower, and brush our teeth before getting Jack to his medical exam.  Jack was not a fan of the doctors' office.  He was exhausted from spending the night at the airport and less than cooperative. 

And then we crashed.  The only other thing we have done is eat dinner.  Jacob and Mom and the kids have had a bit more free time and went to the pool after waking up.  I hear it is lovely.

Tomorrow is church and shopping on Shamian Island.  I am looking forward to going back there, but Alison says that everything is moving off of the island and that many businesses have closed.  Still, I think it will still be a peaceful place to walk around and relax. 

We are staying at the China Hotel Marriott.  Very fancy schmancy.  And jam packed with adoptive families.  Everyone who used to stay at the White Swan now stays here apparently, although I think there are still people who stay on the island at the Victory.  I would have loved to stay on the island again.

I am way too tired to tie this up in a neat bow.  Sleep time for me:)

Day 8 Photo Dump

I will update about Day 9 in a little while, but I wanted to try to load the photos from Day 8 first. 

My dear friend Tara, who has been my backup blogger, has had a family emergency.  Her dad has had a heart attack, so everyone join me in praying for Dub.  Obviously she needs to focus on him for awhile, so the pictures may be more sporadic. Thank you, Tara, for doing such a great job!