Pictures to go with forever family day post

Tim signing paperwork for the adoption during our visit to the Civil Affairs Office.













Wen Jia Si Di being held by one of her nannies.


















Oh, my aching arms! Here I am holding sleeping Esther in the hotel lobby while Tim and our guide checked in.













Trying to nap with Esther in the Ergo.

out-of-order update # 2 (finally!)--forever family day

The day of April 20th started early for us, as we left the hotel at 5:15 AM to catch an 8 AM flight.  However, jetlag woke us up even earlier than we needed to be awake, as it had been doing ever since our arrival in Jinan.  So we began our day with sleep deprivation.  In addition, I had had a dry little cough ever since our first day in Jinan, which I had thought was a reaction to the pollution.  By Sunday, however, I was congested enough to realize that I actually had a cold.

We didn't have any trouble getting to the airport on time, but the alert security staff caught us trying to sneak yet another potentially dangerous substance onto the airplane: a mysterious white powder (aka baby formula).  So, for the second time in three days, I went through the routine of going back out through security to check our carry-on bag with its offending substance.  (As someone pointed out later, it probably did seem a little strange that we had powdered baby formula but no baby.)

We discovered, en route, that the flight wasn't straight through to Kunming, but actually made a quick stop in Chongqing.  We got a substantial snack on both legs, and this, in addition to the granola bars we had munched for breakfast, was all the food we ate that day until dinner.  Neither of us slept much on the flights either, so you can imagine the shape we were in as we approached Kunming!

As we began our descent, I craned my neck around the passenger next to me to look out the window.  I received an impression of very green mountains, terraced far up with rice paddies, and startlingly red earth.  As we got closer to the city, I could see acres of construction sites: six-story apartment buildings, just like the outskirts of every other growing Chinese city.  The air as we approached was turbulent, and I got the distinct impression that many of our fellow passengers were first-time fliers.  At one point I heard a loud collective gasp as we lurched into a particularly dramatic air pocket, followed by exclamations and relieved laughter as the denser air at the bottom bore us up.

After getting our luggage, we were met by our guide (holding up a sign reading "Welcome Linette McDaniel family"), who whisked us off to our van.  The driver's wife and preschool-aged daughter had accompanied him as far as the airport, and our guide mentioned that the little girl was adopted.  That was interesting to me, since many Chinese still believe it's best not to tell small children that they're adopted.

We drove straight to the Civil Affairs office, an apartment which has been converted to office space.  I actually didn't realize until just before we walked in that that was the place; I thought we were making an intermediate stop.  We asked Leo, our guide, if he would be willing to video our first meeting, and he agreed, but then when we walked in she was right there, being held by a nanny.  One other woman and two other men were also there with Esther Si Di.  (One of the men was a director of the orphanage and the other I assume was the driver; I'm not sure who the other woman was.)  I didn't recognize Esther at all, but I knew she must be the one because she was the only baby in there.  By that point, between exhaustion and the shock of suddenly coming face-to-face with a new family member, I was pretty dazed.  I had thought that they would hand her to us right away, but it seemed that we had to sign some papers first.  So we took turns signing papers and interacting with Esther while her nanny held her.  I felt pretty awkward interacting with her, because I wasn't sure what she would think of us and I was conscious of all the interested eyes on us.  Once when I smiled at Esther she smiled back, and the orphanage staff exclaimed, "She likes her!"  At some point I handed over the photos of two Kaiyuan alumni that their parents had entrusted to me to deliver to the staff.  The nannies and director looked through them with interest and discussed which children the photos were of.  (I didn't have their names written in Chinese characters, so there was some confusion, but I think they finally got it figured out.)  When Tim and I were both busy signing papers, Esther's nanny talked to her and bounced her on her hip, and I could hear Esther laughing.  It was clear that they liked each other and had a good relationship, which made me feel good about the care Esther had been getting in her Social Welfare Institute.

Finally Esther's nanny handed her to me, without much warning.  Esther didn't act at all bothered about being handed off to a stranger, although she wasn't thrilled either, just seemed to take it in stride.  I pulled her stuffed giraffe toy out of the diaper bag and tried to interest her in it, but she wasn't very interested.  The director asked me (in English), "You like?  You like?"  I thought, "Duh, I didn't do mountains of expensive paperwork, wait 13 months and travel halfway around the world to NOT like her!" but I just said yes.  Then we had to do more paperwork--we took turns holding her--and then suddenly our guide said that the Kaiyuan folks hadn't had any lunch yet so why didn't we finish our paperwork tomorrow when we came back to sign the final adoption papers.  So, as abruptly as that, everyone Esther knew walked out the door, leaving her with us.  She got very solemn, but still didn't cry.

In the van on the way to our hotel, I sat with Esther in my lap and Tim sat next to us.  Esther grabbed his thumb and held on tight while she looked out the window.  I could see her little eyeballs going back and forth as she watched the scenery go by.  I stroked her head and was surprised by how coarse her hair felt compared to the baby hair of my siblings.  (But now her hair is soft and smooth, so maybe it was just the shampoo they used?)  When she started to fuss I pulled out her giraffe again and she sucked on its horn for a few minutes, but still didn't want to play.  By now she was hanging on to Tim's thumb with one hand and my finger with the other.  Then I tried to distract her by pointing out the things we could see out of the window.  That sort of worked, but in the end she fussed herself to sleep in my arms.

Esther didn't wake up when I climbed out of the van at our hotel, so I held her sleeping in my progressively more aching arms as we checked in, ordered a crib, and got all of our luggage up to our sixth-floor room.  There I laid her ever-so-gently on the bed, where she promptly woke up and started wailing.  She got up on hands and knees, laid her head on the bed, and rocked back and forth,  crying, with her head turned away from me.  Every once in a while she would turn her head to glare at me, then look the other way again.  After some time (looking back I'm guessing it wasn't a very long time, but it sure seemed like it) I concluded that she wasn't making any progress towards going to sleep.  The director had told me (when I asked) that she hadn't taken her noon nap, and I knew from the schedule they had given us that she normally slept from 12-2, so I knew she must be tired.  My poor arms had had enough carrying for the day, so I put her in the Ergo carrier and walked up and down with her until she fell asleep again.  Then I lay down on the bed, Ergo and all.  I wasn't going to risk waking her up this time!  I was so tired myself that I closed my eyes and ignored the rest of the world, even the staff who came tiptoeing and giggling into the room to set up the crib.  I didn't manage to fall asleep, but I stayed there for an hour or so while Esther got some semblance of a nap.

And since this entry is getting pretty long, I think I'll save the narrative of the rest of the day for another entry.

Linette

Oh, baby! What can I do?

There is a song that was popular when I was in high school that had the title line as part of its refrain.  I've been hearing that line in my head a lot the last couple of days!

Yesterday we went to the doctor for Esther's first American physical.  She checked out fine except for her weight, which we already knew was off the bottom of the chart.  (She is 27 inches long and weighs 14 pounds, 8 oz.)  The pediatrician didn't think there was any great cause for concern about her weight as long as she gains well from now on, but recommended that we feed her formula three or four times a day instead of the one nighttime feeding she has been getting, in addition to the solid foods she normally eats, so that we can up her calories.  Esther is a huge fan of her bottle, so I'll don't think the new regime will be difficult to implement.  (However, I may need to give her smaller feedings--last night she had an eight-ounce bottle before bed and another in the middle of the night, and she completely soaked her diaper and needed her pajamas changed both at her nighttime feeding and when she got up in the morning.)  After her session with the doctor, Esther got two injections and a tuberculosis skin test.  She did not, of course, enjoy the experience, but she was mostly in a better mood by the time we came home and put her in her crib for a much-needed nap.  An hour and a half later, she woke up VERY unhappy.  She cried unless I carried her, and screamed when I offered her baby food, even sitting in my lap (she did, at least, consent to drink a bottle).  I thought it was probably a reaction to the vaccines, but couldn't check the paperwork the doctor had given us while I was carrying and comforting my poor baby.  (This is when that song started running through my head!)  I have seldom been so glad to see Tim come home!  (And once again, I'm SO grateful that I'm not a single mother!  Hats off to women who have to do this on their own, but it sure is easier with a teammate!)  So Tim carried Esther and got her calmed down a little bit while I got a couple things organized.  We were finally able to get most of a jar of baby food into her by turning on a baby Mozart video and letting her zone out in front of it while she absent-mindedly opened her mouth for the spoon.  Then we gave her an early bath (which inspired some smiles!) and put her to bed.  This morning she woke up fussy again, with a fever, and very ambivalent about eating--she acted like she was hungry, but then would start wailing after a few bites.  It did make me realize how out-of-sorts she must have felt our first few days together, because her behavior this morning when she was feeling so bad physically was very similar to her behavior then.  Poor baby!  After a dose of baby acetaminophen and a very long morning nap, she woke up feeling some better and wanting to eat.  She just woke up now from a two-hour afternoon nap and she seems to feel fine.  Yay!  Unfortunately she still needs to get three more doses of these shots.  So I guess we'll be going through this at least three more times!  She also has a bunch of labwork she needs to get done in the next few days.  I'm not looking forward to that, either...

Linette

photo bloopers

Esther's arrival is going to be announced in church on Sunday, both in the bulletin and on the screens during the announcement time. So we had to choose a picture to send in for her announcement. We really like the one of her laughing at Daddy (posted in an earlier entry), but I didn't think it was appropriate for a formal portrait to feature a purple sock behind her left ear. So last week we had a big photo shoot to try and get a good announcement picture. We didn't quite manage to get the picture we were hoping for, but we got some hilarious outtakes. The following are my favorites:

















































































This family portrait is the picture we finally chose. Don't we look happy together?? :-)

recent developments

I'm not sure how long I'll have to type before little one wakes up from her nap, but it's been so long since I wrote anything that I thought I'd at least try for a short post.

First of all, thanks everyone for your comments! We didn't get to read them until we got home from China, but we really enjoyed seeing what everyone had to say.

Esther is pursuing new gross-motor skills with single-minded passion. She now crawls with confidence, pulls herself up to a standing position, balances in a standing position while holding on with one hand or leaning her tummy against something, and (her latest accomplishment) collapses from a standing position into a sitting one instead of falling straight backwards. A few days after we got home, I tried her in her little chair at the table for the first time (instead of buying a high chair, which takes up a lot of space and keeps the child somewhat separate from the table, we had bought a little seat that hooks on to the table). I wasn't sure if she would be able to sit up in it, since she wasn't sitting very competently when we got her, or if she would tolerate being strapped in, but lo and behold she loved it! I gave Esther some chunks of ricecake (not the fried kind that the McDaniel clan like for breakfast, but the puffed-rice kind that you can buy in a grocery store) and she happily gnawed on the parts that stuck out of her fist while allowing us to eat our dinners simultaneously and in peace. What a lovely moment! For the first couple of days she would stick her whole fist in her mouth and cry when she tasted fingers instead of ricecake. After that she figured out how to open her fist against her mouth to shove the ricecake in, and once that skill was mastered, she easily transferred it to Cheerios. Now that she can get a whole fistful of food in her mouth at once, I have to give her smaller pieces of ricecake, and only one at a time, because she wants to shovel everything in at one go. We've also discovered that small cubes of tofu make excellent finger food. She still has eaten everything that we've given her, but I think we finally discovered a food she didn't like. When we gave her some little cubes of soft cheese she ate several, but she ate them very slowly and made a funny face after each one. And she left several uneaten, which is unusual for her.

Esther is now sleeping well at night (waking up once for a bottle), and has started (usually) falling asleep without crying about it. Maybe that's what the orphanage meant when they said she had good sleeping habits? I had thought they meant that she was a sound sleeper, which she is. It's not clear yet whether she needs two naps a day or just one; she goes back and forth about it.

She pretty much stopped babbling the first week we were back, but the last few days she's been babbling again with a vengeance. She'll even whine in syllables! I don't know if she was so busy working on standing that other skills fell by the wayside, or whether she was reacting to the change in language environment, or what. But it's fun to hear her "talking" again.

There are certain things that Esther isn't allowed to do--like grab Daddy's glasses, pull Mommy's hair, stand up against the glass door to the VCR cabinet, or hold the spoon I'm using to feed her--but for the most part we've just been physically restraining or removing her from whatever she isn't supposed to do. So last night was, for me, our first real experience of discipline. We've been bathing her in her inflatable duck tub inside the big bathtub, and last night she decided she wanted to pull herself up on the side of the big bathtub and stand up in her bath. That's something I REALLY don't want her to do and I want her to know that she's not allowed to do it. So I put her back into a sitting position, looked her in the eyes, and said sternly, "No!" And repeated the process several times as she kept trying to stand up. The first few times I told her no, she grinned adorably. When she finally figured out what I meant, she whimpered a bit, but then moved on to another activity. I'm sure we'll repeat this whole procedure for several baths to come, but I hope eventually she'll internalize the fact that she may not stand up in her bath. At least I'm pretty sure she got the message!

Speaking of whimpering, I just heard a little noise from her crib, so I think I'll sign off here and get ready for naptime to be over.

Linette

Out of order update # 1: Jinan

I'm finally getting around to narrating our trip, before I forget all the details! So in this post I'll write about the first few days of our trip, before Esther.

Arriving back in Jinan felt, in some ways, like coming home. I'm so glad we got to live there! Nonetheless, there were some things that I had forgotten about living in China, or that struck me with fresh force.

I had forgotten the intensity of the smells, both good and bad. As we walked past a sewer grating near the apartments where we used to live, I suddenly remembered how I had gotten accustomed to holding my breath in certain strategic places, without actually thinking about it. Of course I had gotten out of the habit, so maybe that's why the smells seemed so strong!

I had forgotten how alert one has to be when crossing the street. I was actually a little unnerved for the first half a day, and then I got back into the swing of things. As we were walking home from dinner our first evening in Jinan, a motorcyclist sped unexpectedly through the small gap between us and the sidewalk that we were about to set foot on, and I barely blinked.

I had forgotten what it felt like to stick out like a sore thumb. Again, though, after our first half a day I stopped noticing that people were staring at me.

Somewhat to my surprise, I didn't have any trouble readjusting to the density of people. The crowds in the supermarket didn't bother me at all. This was probably the hardest thing for me to adjust to when we first got to China, so I guess in that way I've changed permanently.

I hadn't forgotten how good Shandong food is. When we came down to breakfast the first morning and saw the breakfast buffet lined with celery in white sauce, peanuts with salty lotus root, and other foods I hadn't tasted since returned to the U.S., I was ecstatic! One of the things we really enjoyed about our Jinan stay was eating!

And, most importantly, we hadn't forgotten how much we enjoy being with all our friends in Jinan. Three days felt far too short to spend time with the people we value.

Our first day we mostly spent with our foreign friends in Jinan. It was SO NICE to be able to talk to them in person, to ask questions that we wouldn't ask over e-mail, and to find out how things are really going. And everyone is doing so well! It was a real delight to hear their stories of this past year. We were especially pleased to hear that several of our acquaintances who had been interested in studying the Bible last year have now become believers. In the afternoon we joined the Christian foreign teachers for their regular prayer time. We were really touched by their prayers for Esther. I remember thinking at one point, "With all the people around the world who are praying for her, how could she not do well?" (And indeed, she is doing very well!) Afterwards, we went out to dinner with a number of the foreign teachers, also a regular Thursday tradition. Unbeknownst to us, the dinner was also a baby shower! The Wrights brought pink heart-shaped balloons and a yummy cake, and we were given (as a group gift) a number of children's books with pinyin (Chinese written in the Roman alphabet, so we can actually read it!), two outfits (one red with traditional Chinese designs, and one with pink bunnies and the logo "When you have a special riend[sic]"), a traditional red envelope with money in it, and a card signed by everyone. What a special surprise! We have already been very grateful in a practical way for the two outfits--based on the weather forecasts before we came to China I had brought mostly warm-weather outfits for Esther, and then ended up needing to keep her in long sleeves most of the trip, so the two extra sets of warmer clothes were exactly what I needed for her!

If I were writing a separate post for our second day in Jinan, I would label it "Adventures in Missing the Appointment." Having lugged our computer all the way to China because we knew our hotel had internet, we couldn't get our computer to communicate with the hotel's system. The Wrights were kind enough to let us drop in to their apartment and use their computer anytime, but of course we didn't want to drop in when we were wide awake at four in the morning. So at one point I had told a former student of mine that I would be free before nine AM, but then I needed to check my e-mail to find out whether I was going to meet with one of my classes at nine AM. So when Margaret made a special trip over to the old campus to meet us at our hotel, I was over at the Wrights checking my e-mail. :-( And the contact person for the class I thought I was going to meet at nine hadn't gotten my e-mail at all. There were plenty of other mix-ups too, like the time I was trying to meet the sophomore business English class during their break, and the student I was with from another class called the junior business English class, who happened to be in the same building at the same time, to tell them I was on my way to meet them! Anyway, in the end I managed to see at least a few students from most of my classes, though many of the meetings were all too brief. It was especially fun catching up with the students who are seniors this year and finding out what they're going to be doing next year. Esther Si Di was, of course, a main topic of conversation, but Tibet and the Olympics also came up several times. I thought one student put it well when he said, "Maybe the government was wrong to be so secretive about what is going on in Tibet, but the Olympics belongs to the common people, not the government, and they feel hurt that other nations want to boycott it." It always fascinates me how each class (in the Chinese system every university students belongs to a class, and students in this class take most of their courses together, recreate together, and often live together, so they form very significant relationships) has its own personality. One class waxed nostalgic about how my visit reminded them of their carefree days as freshmen, while another class wanted to compare inflation in China and the U.S. and learn more about the subprime mortgage crisis. I wish I had had more time to spend with all of them!

We also spent time with other Chinese friends. Again, it was so much nicer to catch up with their lives in person than over e-mail! I spent one afternoon with Poppy, looking at her pictures, updating our blog in her dorm room, and going shopping. She helped me pick out some Chinese children's music for Esther, and then bought it for her as a gift! I have been played the CDs for her the last few days, and she seems to like them. I mostly don't understand the songs, but I can catch a word here and there. I also bought some baby formula to take with us to Kunming, and some Shanxi vinegar to bring back with us to the U.S.! That is the kind of vinegar most prized in Shandong, so we had developed a taste for it, but we can't find any to buy here. I had been going to look for CDs with several Chinese pop songs that we like, but I forgot. On Friday night we had dinner with Tim's colleague Zhaojun and his wife (their son was busy preparing for an English competition), and then on Saturday we went over to their house for a while before coming back to our hotel to meet several other friends. On Saturday night Poppy and her boyfriend took us out to hotpot for dinner. We had a nice time, and enjoyed meeting Wang Bing properly.

I could write in more detail, but I suppose that at this point the details are far more interesting to me than to anyone else! And anyway, it's late, and my little alarm clock is likely to be up at six in the morning if not earlier. So I'd better leave the description of our Jinan trip as it stands and go to bed!

Linette

More pictures!

Laughing at Daddy.


















Chewing on a plastic lid--this is one of her favorite "toys" right now.













"Oooh, Mom, can I hold that for a minute??"














Tim says this picture doesn't like like her--and I suppose it doesn't, because of the angle--but I think it's sure cute!

Pictures!

I've figured out how to post pictures! I'll just post a few for now, since it's late and I'm tired. But these will give you a taste of what Esther looks like!


This is Wen Jia Si Di with her nanny shortly before they gave her to us. Notice how much more hair she has than in her referral picture! We didn't recognize her. Also note that she looks happy--we didn't see that kind of expression too often during our first days together, although she would have brief periods of grinning and giggling.













Here is Daddy giving Esther a bottle, several days later.


















Smiles were rare the first few days, but Jasmine Lee got one out of her!

















Esther really wanted to help hold the umbrella.

hell hath no fury like a baby whose food is "all gone"

Well, things are settling down around here.  Esther has been sleeping less during the day and more at night; Tim was feeling well enough this morning to go into work (although he still has a nasty cough and a sore throat); and I actually managed to run a load of dishes and a load of laundry this afternoon!  Maybe I'll be able to function as a stay-at-home mom after all!

One of my goals upon returning to the U.S. was to get Esther on a more nutritious diet.  In China, I figured as long as I filled her tummy at the right times, it wouldn't matter if she missed a few nutrients for two weeks.  (We did give her some table food, which she really liked, but with our erratic schedule and frequent changes of location, it was hard to consistently supplement her bottles of formula and rice cereal.)  Esther's referral information had included the line, "When she sees food, she wants to eat."  We decided in China that it should have read, "When she sees food, she cries until you give it to her"!  It took until the end of our stay there before she could anticipate a bottle without crying about it.  Now she usually doesn't cry, but she leans forward, tense with suspense, and pants hungrily until the nipple is in her mouth.  Then when the contents of the bottle are gone, she cries.  At first she cried a lot, but now it's more cursory, and occasionally she won't cry at all.  I think she's finally decided that she can trust us to feed her again when she gets hungry again!  Anyway, since we've been back in the U.S., I've been trying to give her solid foods during the day and only give her bottles at night.  So on Saturday I introduced a number of solid foods.  Let me tell you, this child truly likes to eat!  At one point I was feeding her a mashed banana.  I remembered hearing that bananas can cause constipation, so I only mashed half of it, and I didn't have anything else handy to feed her when the banana ran out.  Well, when she swallowed the last bite and realized there wasn't anymore, she was outraged!  She threw back her head, arched her back, and shrieked in fury.  It took some doing to get her calmed down.  Later, she threw the same performance over a jar of baby food.  (Now I've gotten smarter and always have Cheerios handy to pop in her mouth when she finishes something else.)  Her grand eating total for Saturday was: two jars of baby food, half a banana, a little more than one egg steamed with milk, a bottle of rice cereal, two small bottles of diluted juice, and an unknown amount of stars (aka Gerber graduates "puffs").  Not too shabby for a fourteen-pound child!  Perhaps not suprisingly, she went on to produce something like eight dirty diapers in 24 hours.  Now that her initial eating orgy is over she's consuming food less extravagantly.  She's taken to eating a few bites eagerly and then bursting into tears.  But if I give her a few Cheerios she'll then happily go back to her original food.  Strange child.  She continues to be really sensitive to other people eating.  If I sit on the floor near her to eat, she'll not only watch me intensely the whole time, but try to climb up me so she can get into my bowl.  At least she's stopped crying every time I eat!

I may have written earlier that instead of sticking things into her mouth to check them out, she'll stick out her tongue and lick them.  This is still mostly true, but she's unfortunately discovered the uses of teeth.  This morning she chewed the tag off a toy, and then shortly afterwards chewed the tag off one of our suitcases.  I thought I had gotten all of it out of her mouth, but when Tim was playing with her a little while later he discovered that she still had some pulpy paper stored up in the roof of her mouth.  Oops.  I've caught her trying to chew other things apart on several occasions today, so I'll have to pay close attention to what she tries to put in her mouth!

Linette

We are home!

We had a great flight--we had upgraded to the economy plus section so we could get a bulkhead bassinet seat, and that section was practically empty.  Tim got a row of three seats all to himself, and Esther and I had the bulkhead all to ourselves.  I ended up putting her down on a blanket on the floor, where she slept for the majority of the flight, and I lay down in the rest of the space and got a little shut-eye myself.  All of our ears did fine on the trip, but Tim was feeling sicker than he had up until that point.  He is still very sick.  He says he's finally discovered the secret to overcoming jetlag: if you don't feel well, you can sleep all day and all night!  So I have been on baby duty since we got back.  I'm still a little sick myself, so I've been sleeping whenever Esther does.  She is continuing to sleep like a champ, which is great!  I hope tomorrow I'll have enough energy to stay up during one of her naps so I can get some unpacking done.  She has been really clingy since we got back, which is probably a great sign for our relationship, but it makes it hard to even go prepare a bottle when she cries every time I walk across the room.  She also hates anyone eating if she's not eating, so I ate my lunch today with her glaring at me, crying mournfully, and generally making it clear that I was being a neglectful parent.  At dinner she didn't cry, but spent most of the time trying to climb up me so she could get into my bowl (I was sitting on the floor next to her).  She's definitely going to be a climber.  She's not very successful at it yet, but she's got the drive.  And now I'm going to get some sleep while I have the chance.

Linette