When Sophie Grows Up...

I have been wondering the past few days about what Sophie's life will be like in the future and what she may end up choosing to do with her life. I would guess that most parents have these thoughts and plan on how best to provide for their children so that they can meet their goals. I have put together this little blog to help other people visualize some of the things I have been thinking about.

Perhaps she is going to grow up and become a pop star. Her personality is such that she seems to excite people everywhere she goes. She loves to perform by smiling, repeating the words "ba ba ba", and bouncing around to music. She also has great hair and seems to love her Leap Pad musical center. I bet she could bring a lot of joy to people's lives if she became a pop star.

Sophie seems to know how to get what she wants and she has found some interesting ways to lead her mother and father to what her needs are. I think that she might become a good leader, maybe even president. There might be some political wrangling to be done but I am sure it will be a different world when she is old enough to be president.

Whenever we ask for something from Sophie, she seems to give it to us. She also enjoys showering people with hugs and kisses. These are all very saintly qualities. Perhaps Sophie is going to grow up to become a saint. The outfits are not as exciting as those that she would wear being a pop star but I think it could end up being a very fulfilling profession. How proud everyone would be, watching Sophie go from country to country doing good deeds for people in need.

Sophie loves to babble. I bet Sophie would be a great talk show host. You know, in this profession she might have the best of both worlds. She could talk and talk and also look to her "giving" nature and do nice things for people like give them cars and stuff like that. I bet she'd be a great talk show host.

Some of my co-workers have told me that I have to counsel Sophie out of becoming an architect. I haven't seen any innate architectural abilities in her yet but I wonder what it would be like if she followed in my shoes and became an architect. It would drive her mother crazy but it might be cool. We'd have all sorts of interesting conversations about spaces and building details and use fancy architectural jargon. I bet she'd be awesome – we could even get her some cool glasses to make her look the part.

-Chris

A full night of sleep, not too far off?

Hopefully we turned a corner last night. This is the first morning that I am up and the two girls in my life are asleep (it is 6:15am). This is probably better for Ileana than for Sophie, as I don't think Ileana has had any decent sleep since we got home. Sophie only woke a couple of times last night and they were both brief.

I have had the job of waking Sophie from her nap when I get home from work. Yesterday was the first day that I felt her wrath. She treated me like a stranger all through dinner and even screamed when I tried to kiss her. She was well behaved, just a little cold to me. It was very unSophie-like. This only changed at the end of the evening when I fixed her bottle. A warm bottle will get you everywhere, I guess.

Her bonding to Ileana is going very well, as she is very intent on letting Ileana feed her and watching Ileana's every move when she is in the room. If Ileana dares to leave the room, she puts up a bit of a fuss. Typically, she is very easy to calm down.

Sophie has taken to Cheerios. She didn't really like them when we first introduced them but now they are a must as part of her snack schedule. Princess seems to like them as well – though I think we need to place a net around Sophie's high-chair or we'll end up needing to up Princess' insulin dosage.

The second visit to the pediatrician was yesterday. Sophie had her blood work. Ileana was heartbroken, as she had to hold Sophie while they took 4 vials of blood from her. She said that Sophie screamed and screamed. Perhaps that is why Sophie is so tired and sleeping well – I don't think that we can do that every day just to keep her on schedule though.

Yesterday was a perfect day, weather-wise. Blue skies, high 70's, nice breeze. Today looks like it will be the same. Hopefully Ileana and Sophie will be able to take the walk to the lake that they have been planning for each day but have been unable to do.

-Chris

July 26th - The Adjustment Continues

Well, we have been home for five days and I feel like we are still out of synch with the rest of the world. Sophie is still sleeping off and on during the day and at night. I think that yesterday she had about a 4 hour nap in the middle of the day and then slept from 8:30pm until 1:30am and then she was awake and asleep about every hour or so after that until I got up with her around 5:00am. Ileana has been getting up with her when she gets up at night. I have been a bit selfish, getting my rest so that I can work during the day.

Sophie went for her first pediatrician appointment today. The doctor seemed happy with her weight and heights but noticed that she had an ear infection. Sophie seems to like Dr. Lum a lot, particularly when he chatted with her in Chinese. She had no bloodwork or shots today but will be going back either tomorrow or the day after for that. I have a feeling that those visits will not be as pleasant.

I am working full time now. I wimped out and went home early yesterday at 5:00. It seems that I am completely out of energy by 2:00 in the afternoon. It seems like I am almost back to "normal" and I don't anticipate any problems for tomorrow. Ileana is partly off work, doing some things for her office when she has a chance during the day.

Our house is a bit trashed. Between our collective exhaustion, me working, and Sophie keeping Ileana busy during the day, a build-up of toys and makeshift sleeping areas are appearing in just about every room.

Sophie has been eating well and at her doctor's suggestion, she is having her first bottle of whole milk tonight. Hopefully this will go down well. She eats at her high chair with Ileana and with cat "Princess" close by. Princess doesn't get scraps from us but seems to enjoy anything that falls from Sophie's tray.

-Chris

Working Through the Second Day of Jetlag

We just finished our second day home and we are all still dealing with the jetlag. It feels like China today in Chicago, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Perhaps this is why Sophie was in such a good mood. We wen t to our garden and dug up some garlic and then took a trip to Babies R Us. Sophie did well in her car seat but I don't think she likes it very much. We finished our day by ordering in dinner for the third night in a row (this night it was due to the heat and not the tiredness).

Our days have been a bit of a blur. It seems that between 11:00 and 6:00, we all feel like sleeping. I have been drinking quite a bit of coffee to stay awake but still took a 4-hour nap today. Sophie has been temperamental and woke up very early again this morning (4:00 am).

Sophie's Aunt Kelley and Uncle Chris came over last night. Sophie crashed right after eating dinner with Aunt Kelley. Sophie is adjusting to things pretty well but I think she is having a bit of over-stimulation. She loves her saucer and as completely overjoyed when Princess walks over near her. I am not sure that Princess has the same sentiments towards Sophie.

Tomorrow, I have my first day back at work. I have a personal goal to stay awake until at least lunchtime. I guess we'll see how it goes. Ileana will also have her first day alone with Sophie. I think that they are going to have a lot of fun.
-Chris

Working Through the Jetlag

We tried to keep everyone awake until 9:00pm last night and barely made it. Sophie fell asleep in her crib with no problem but woke up intermittently in the night. She was easily placated by Ileana at about 1:30am but once she was up at 4:30am, she was up for good. Sophie, Ileana, and I slept most of the day away. We have tried to keep each other up as much as possible but it is very difficult. The unpacking has begun and settling back into home life is underway but getting over the jetlag is not going to be as easy as I thought.

Ileana introduced Sophie to cottage cheese for lunch and made her some noodles and sweet potato. Being asleep and awake so off and on, it is hard to keep track of when and how much each of us is eating. It will be tough trying to re-configure our schedules but we'll figure it out.

Aunt Kelley and Uncle Chris will be coming over later for a visit. Hopefully they'll bring along some food. We have eaten almost everything that Kim and Stacy had left for us and the energy to cook anything beyond the veggies and noodles for Sophie is just not there.

As we thought, the phone has been ringing off the hook. When we are awake, we answer it. Otherwise, we have been trying to sleep through it. I imagine that most of the parents that arrived from China over the past few days are going through the same things us but I am sure that they are just as glad to be back as we are.

Sorry this is a photo-less entry. I'll try and get some photos of Sophie in her room tomorrow.

-Chris

Home at Last

Our final moments in Asia were spent in the Hong Kong airport – what an incredible building. After the 14 hour flight, we arrived home today at about 2:30pm (Chicago time). We were there greeted at O’Hare by our friends Kim & Stacy.

The flight from Hong Kong was long but Sophie couldn’t have been better. We traveled with our friends, the Lahsins and Regina & Joe even convinced a gentleman to give up his roomier seats for us so we could sit near` them during the trip (Thanks Regina & Joe!).

We are so glad to be back. We are glad it is great to be able to see more than 20 feet in front of your face and the relative coolness is a welcomed relief. We are pretty much zombies right now but we hope to stay up until our usual bedtime and work through the jet lag.

I hope to continue the blog for big events and to post pictures and stories now and then but I am not sure. For now, the China part of the blog is over. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it.

-Chris

A Brief Stay in Hong Kong

Today was an up and down day for Sophie. After a very exciting morning, we said goodbye to all the fantastic people that we have met in our travels and started our journey to Hong Kong. We approached our trip to Hong Kong with a bit of trepidation. My fears were all unfounded.

We were escorted to the Guangzhou East train station by Bob & XiXi from Harrah’s. The station was an incredible structure that looked like it was out of a sci fi movie. Our escorts stayed with us until the gates opened. Entry to the train was uneventful and was similar to doing so at any major train station in America.

We were joined in our journey the Shramm family and I hope they are in agreement that we had a pretty good time. You can tell by the photos that Sophie had mixed feelings about the trip. One minute she was happy and the next minute she was throwing a fit. I hope this was not a precursor for what lies ahead for the big flight tomorrow.

The train was great. If you are tall and need to get to Hong Kong from Guangzhou, I STRONGLY recommend the train. It was the coolest, cleanest, roomiest ride I have had in all of China – that includes any busses, vans, cars or planes we have been on. I didn’t think that the Chinese knew what leg-room was. I could go on and on about how I stretched my legs out and all but it would probably begin to sound perverse.

The only glitch in the whole affair is that you are leaving one country and entering another so you have exit and entrance forms to fill out and customs to go through. We were not stopped by customs (even with the huge number of bags we had). A funny thing happened with our exit forms from China though. Since they had Chinese passports, the baby’s forms were required to be filled out in Chinese. When Bonnie Schramm looked from the inspector’s station at me and said it, I thought she was kidding. What a hoot! I would love to know what our penmanship looked like to the inspector!

From the Hong Kong Train station, we were greeted by a very different world from the one we left. Everyone spoke English (even the cabbie), all of the traffic was on the left (like England), and the main currency was Hong Kong Dollars. There were luggage carts at the Hong Kong side for us to pick up our luggage. The cab ride from the train to the airport is about 40 minutes and it was about 5 minutes from the station to our hotel. The cabs are also relatively inexpensive.

I wish we were going to be here longer because it looks like an incredible place – kind of like Times Square multiplied by 100 times. A funny thing is that all of this excitement seemed to put Sophie to sleep. Tomorrow morning we leave for Chicago. It is hard to believe that this is it.

-Chris

Swearing-in Day - Day 15 (Thursday)

This morning was a morning of formalities. We gathered after breakfast for our “Red Couch” photo. It was very calm and collected, the babies behaved themselves remarkably, and no fathers elbowed each other for a better shot. That previous sentence is a complete lie.

After taking the red couch photo, we gathered as a group and had a large Harrah’s photo taken and people posed according to orphanage. The photo of the mothers and babies (and some dads) by the waterfall is of the Shangrao Orphanage group. Finally, Ileana and I posed for a picture just before the swearing in.

The final piece of the adoption is when we all march over the consulate and swear that our paperwork was truthful and correct and this makes our adoption official. The gentleman that did the swearing in the U.S. was very nice. Sophie celebrated by passing out and hs been asleep in her bed since. She is officially “ours” and when we set foot on American soil, she will officially be an American.

We are in the middle of packing and had to buy one more piece of luggage to get all of the items we purchased back home. At $15 a bag, we should come to China of our entire luggage. Hopefully we won’t have to leave too much behind.

We pick up Sophie’s visa at 3:30 and immediately board a shuttle to the train station so that we can train to Hong Kong. We have had mixed reviews of the trip so those of you that may be adopting in the future, you may want to stay tuned for the next blog to see what was good and bad about it. Goodbye Guangzhou – our next blog will be from Hong Kong if we have internet access.

-Chris

Final Evening in Guangzhou

This was it, our last full day in Guangzhou. The blogging will be coming to an end soon. We have tomorrow’s swearing-in ceremony and trip to Hong Kong and then our trip to Chicago. I will continue to write until I have gotten over the jet lag (and to try and catalog some of Sophie’s adjustments). I can’t predict how much longer I’ll have energy to write.

This afternoon and evening were nice. We took a walk with the Tolmans over to the Qingping Market. If you have not heard of it, it has the dubious distinction of where SARS likely originated. Let’s say that it has been cleaned up quite a bit in the last couple years but it is still pretty interesting. The first photo of Eric, Kristi, Ileana, and the girls is on Sha Mian Island. The second is of Ileana and Sophie at Qingping. Note that there are some radical differences. The pictures probably speak more volumes then I could write here.

The market is a great place to get all sorts of things. Most notable are the items needed for medicinal purposes. Note the dried beetles and scorpions or, if you prefer, you can get the scorpions live. The Chinese will dry out anything and throw it in a tea and call it medicine. I was trying to convince Eric into going halvsies on a big garbage bag full of dried starfish to give everyone and home for souvenirs. I think he liked the idea but I don’t think either of us could have figured out how to bargain with these guys.

Our evening was spent with a small group taking a cruise in the Pearl River around Guangzhou. I advise that if anyone is going to Guangzhou, do not take the cruise that offers food. Please, go to dinner and then take the later cruise. The food was insane – if you could fight your way through a horde of locals to get some. I have video to prove what an insane mess this was. I think people actually thought the food would run out and the whole ship would starve to death (forgetting that it was only a 2 hour cruise).

Sophie would not eat anything and had a bit of a melt-down. Ileana took her up on deck to see the lights of the city, where she fell asleep in Ileana’s arms. Check out the difference between how Mia Gabriel handles bad food (note the disgruntled yet patient look on the face) Sophie on the other hand, crashes after a 15 minute fit. She did not wake up until we got back to the hotel.

I am not sure how much I will get to write tomorrow – hopefully I can add something tomorrow night when we get to Hong Kong – that should be an interesting trip via the local commuter train. Either way, we love China and would love to see more of this incredible country but we also miss our homes and our friends and can’t wait to get back.

-Chris

Last Full Day in Guangzhou - Day 14

We just got back from a jam-packed morning and early afternoon. We are jamming out to Leo Sayer on the wonderful musak that is piped through the rooms. Sophie knew this was going to be a very special day so she dressed in her new outfit that Ileana bought her at a local store.

One of today’s highlights was shopping for pearls. We went to a mall with about 500 stores, all specializing in sales of pearls, jade, cut glass, and other gemstones. It was overwhelming but Sophie loved it. They brought out strand after strand of pearls, you chose which ones you liked, and then they were hand- strung to the size you wanted. We bought Sophie her first strand of pearls (to be given to her at a much later date).

After a quick lunch, we decided to take a self-guided tour of a Buddhist Temple called “Six Banyan Temple”. It was a very beautiful place. The campus consisted of several small pavilions, each with remarkable Buddha statues in them. The largest of these Buddhas was cast in 990 and is over two stories tall. At the center of the complex is the “Flowery Pagoda”, a nine story tower. I took the walk to the top of the pagoda and got a great view of the city.

From the top of the pagoda, you can see how extensive the roof gardens are in the city. Every rooftop has something going on. Our guide told us that either you pay extra if you live on the top floor or the roof area is rented by other people in the building. Most of the roof area is used for gardening. It is all so interesting.

When we got back to the White Swan, there was quite a bit of chaos. The entire staff of the hotel (200 or so people) was flanking a red carpet. This was all at the door where our cab was arriving. When we got inside, we were informed that the Primer Minister from Vietnam was arriving (he is the somewhat obscured gentleman circled in the pic – boy would I suck if I were a photojournalist). Pretty exciting stuff though. Unfortunately, his press entourage made it impossible to get up into our hotel rooms for the next half hour and I can’t imagine that the rest of our stay will be very pleasant with this guy here.

Things have been a little chaotic in Guangzhou. It is an incredible city but I doubt many of the adoptive parents ever see much of it. It is very easy to spend your time here without leaving Sha Mian Island. If we had another day here, we would definitely venture out more. Part of the chaos is due to the large group of people from our agency. It is also tough because we were so close in Nanchang (all on the same floor, all on the same tours), that we all seemed to know what was going on at all times. It is not quite the same here. Luckily, all of the important stuff – the consulate appointment, check-ups, paperwork, visas, etc. are all going very smoothly.

-Chris

Evening - Day 13

Sophie had her first play date today. Sophie met Julia Lahsin and Michal & Kenna Tolman to play in the “Swan Room”, a playroom that is full of toys. Sophie had a great time and mom and dad had a chance to catch up with their friends from Beijing.

The entire HFS group met for dinner at the Cow & Bridge, an excellent Thai restaurant a few blocks away. In usual tradition, with the Tomans and the Lahsins, we ordered way too much food. It was nice to finally see the entire group – we filled most of the restaurant. With 23 babies total, I would hate to have to clean up after that bunch.

After two successive nights of slathering herself with her dinner, we felt that Sophie needed a bath. I am sure you will all enjoy the pictures. She really enjoys her bath. This whole ritual is going to be so much easier once we are home! Only three more days and we are on our way back. It is all a little hard to believe.

In case anyone has been watching the news, it looks like we will miss typhoon “Haitang” as it is hitting land much further north. We are getting a treat of some nice winds to keep us a little cooler in the 100 degree weather. Unfortunately, the people in the province we just left (Jainxi) will be suffering from heavy rains for the next couple of days. They were already pretty much flooded when we were there; I can’t imagine how it will be once the tropical storm passes. Either way, we are well and this should have no affect on our travel plans.

-Chris

Examination Day - Day 13

I am starting to think that this little place on Sha Mian Island is not China at all. The experience here so far is very different from anything we have experienced elsewhere in China. The streets are beautiful and tree-lined and the architecture is all very “western”. The island was once a trade center for foreign countries, so many consulates and foreign companies were historically located here.

The White Swan is too much. It’s not the Four Seasons but it is pretty nice. The bathrooms are great – with these radios that play over-orchestrated versions of pop songs and classical music for you in the shower – the Bach and Beethoven sound good but when something by Air Supply or Lionel Richie comes on, it is just too much. Today we woke and had a very grand breakfast buffet here at the White Swan. Our table overlooked the river and it was quite beautiful.

I may not have mentioned this before but the Chinese streets, regardless of the smell and sometimes shocking sights are very clean. There are people cleaning the streets constantly. While sitting at breakfast, we noticed that it is same with their rivers. There was a one-man boat with a person going back and fourth in front of our hotel cleaning up any debris he saw with a long net.

Ileana and I spent our anniversary (and the anniversary of sending off Sophie’s paperwork) getting Sophie’s visa photo and taking her for her physical exam. She was not in the mood for either today. She was fine when she was in mom and dad’s arms but the minute she had to be handed over to someone else, she lost it. Her visa photo (as does her passport photo) depicts a very unhappy baby.

The physical exam was pretty quick. There were three “stations”. All of the parents waited in a central room and as space opened at each station, you brought the baby in for the exam. One room was for sensory perception. Another room was for height and weight (72 cm and 7.2 kg – or almost 29in and 16 lbs.) She is one of the skinniest girls of the bunch. I guess we have to try and get her eating more. The final room was for heart and breathing. This last room she liked the least. All of the doctors were so friendly and were very gentle with the girls.

After finishing the exam, the girls were all treated to shopping spree. Sophie was bought a new outfit for her “red couch” photo. When we arrived back at the hotel, they had changed all of our bedding and had installed an air purifier in the room to get rid of the smokey smell – a major improvement.

Sophie is having her nap right now but has a play date at 3:00. We can’t wait. Oh, we just had a knock at the door and were delivered Sophie’s “White Swan” Barbie – a one of a kind Barbie given to all the girls that stay here. She has received several nice things from her province, orphanage, and the hotel along the way – I think we need to buy another suitcase.

-Chris