Pictures

1 Week!

Today marked our one week anniversary as a forever family and it's amazing to me how resilient kids are.  Livvie is getting more and more comfortable with us every day and the awful grief she had the first few days is almost non-existent.  She still has her sad times, but the pain seems less intense and much shorter lived.  I've heard many families say that kids usually attach or favor one parent over the other at first and boy-oh-boy has that happened in the last two days Livvie has decided that she only wants "ma-ma-ma" and gives Cale the stink-eye when ever he comes near her.  If I won't hold her she sobs until I pick her up (not fun in 85 degree heat and 100% humidity!).  She doesn't want anything to do with Cale (unless I tell her No for something, then she tries to tun on the charm for Daddy...which we've made it clear is NOT going to work).  So for the time-being, it's all mama, all the time.  Let me tell you, I'm looking forward to below zero temps, just so I don't have to haul her around in the heat anymore.  I'm a stinky, sweaty, frizzy-haired mess!!  

 

Today we went to the Safari Park which is a HUGE zoo in Guangzhou.  Very different than zoos in the US....all the animals are very close up and they really don't have much fencing or security.  We got to see a lot of cool animals, but overall it's pretty depressing because the animals are cooped up in tiny enclosures and hotter than heck.  Lucky had a blast and I think it was his favorite part of the trip so far.  Livvie was scared of pretty much every animal, so she really didn't enjoy it.  We're thinking she is not going to be too fond of Penny when we get home.  She definitely has a fear of animals.

 

Lucky is living on PB&J sandwiches and Cale and I are living on Subway.  We've had turkey and ham subs every single day and Lucky eats PB&J for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Livvie will eat anything, so she's been the most adventurous eater out of all of us.  We go to McDonald's every few days, but ordering is really tough with the language barrier and you only get 1 packet of ketchup with your meal....yep, just 1 sad little packet.  We tried to get more and they won't give you any.  Everything is very, very rationed her, food, electricity, water, napkins.  Even toilet paper - in the public restrooms, you have to bring your own or you're out of luck.

 

Talk to you all soon!!

 

 

Little Stinker

The kids are napping so I figured I better do a quick post so you all don't think we're in a Chinese prison somewhere.  Sorry it's been two days, but we were moved to a new room and it doesn't have wireless Internet.  So to blog, I need to go down to the bar on the 3rd floor. 

 

I don't really know where to begin to explain how things are going.  Things are better in some ways and worse in others.  Livvie's grieving has definitely gotten better and she is much happier overall.  She is a silly, funny little girl.  She's not crying when she wakes up with us and mostly just crying at bedtime.  And the girl LOVES to eat!  She can pack away more food than I can.  And she will eat pretty much anything (big change from our picky little Turtle).

 

But on the bad side, we are starting to see more of her true personality and are learning quickly that she was spoiled rotten by her nannies.  She is used to getting what she wants, when she wants and if she doesn't .... meltdown city!  When we first got her referral and the paperwork said "she is sometimes obstinate", we laughed and thought it sounded cute.   Oh boy - not so cute in person.  Stubborn, Stubborn, Stubborn.  And she is already trying to play Cale and I against each other when one won't give her what she wants.  We constantly have to leave restaurants, parks, stores because she doesn't get what she wants and then throws a fit.  We know things will get better with some consistency and routine, it's just going to take time. 

 

Here's what we know so far:

- She's a girly-girl.  When I give her the option of pants or dresses, she will always choose the dress and bright socks (sound familiar Annie?)  She also loves makeup and has to play with all brushes when we get ready in the morning.

- She loves to sing and babble.  Developmentally, I would say she acts like a 1 1/2 year old (which has been tough since 1 1/2 year olds get into EVERYTHING!!)

- She LOVES to take baths and play with the stacking cups in the water.  She laughs and laughs when we let her splash us.

- She's picked up on sign language like crazy.  She knows the signs I taught her for "more", "eat", "drink", "potty".

 

Overall, things have really improved since the first day, she's started to trust us and I think is slowly starting to realize we're not leaving.  We're so looking forward to getting home and getting back into a routine.  I think she'll really blossom with some structure...it's tough to set any sort of routine living out of a hotel.

 

Day Three- The Black Sheep

Livvie had a good day, but has a really tough time when she wakes up in the morning and from naps. Those times seems to start the grief over fresh for her. But we had a HUGE break through tonight with her right before bed. I gave her a bath and found out she loves to have the faucet running a trickle to fill up cups. She filled her stacking cups over and over and was actually having honest-to-goodness fun doing it. She was smiling and giving the cups to me to pretend drink out of. Turtle came in to say hi and the little fart took a cup and splashed him with water. He started laughing and then she did too...it was the first time they've had any interaction together. They ended up splashing back and forth about 10 times and then I got her out of the tub.

I took her in the bedroom to get ready for bed and I could see it in her eyes she was starting to go to that "grief" place. I had grabbed some baby lotion and started putting it on her and all of a sudden, she wanted to help to. I would rub one leg and she would do the other, then I would put lotion on her foot and she would do the other foot. And then the best part, she wanted to put lotion on me too (which was huge in the interaction dept!!!). Once lotion was on, we got Minnie Mouse PJ's on (thanks Annie!) and she pointed to the bed (I was shocked). We laid down and I sang about 100 versus of "hush little baby" to her and she fell asleep without one tear. I wanted to jump up and do a happy dance!!! And by the way, you can make up some pretty interesting lyrics to hush little baby when you have to sing 100 versus and the person you're singing to doesn't know any English. I was singing gibberish by about verse 30 and just making up words. And Annie - just for you a couple of versus about Llama Drama :)

And boy oh boy are we going to have Llama Drama....we we're waiting at a govt office today for our passport interview and to help keep the kids occupied we brought a small set of wooden blocks. There was a very old (probably very expensive antique) coffee table and we were letting the kids build block towers on it. Livvie's tower fell over when she put a block on it and she got so mad she actually tipped the ENTIRE table over on the floor. It happened in the blink of an eye and then she was inconsolable upset because we reprimanded her. Let's just say we magically were next in line for our photo and interview and when we were done, our guide said "let's wait outside for the bus, very old, important furniture in here". So I think we were the Black Sheep of the American adoption community today. :)