Pajama Party

Catching both kids smiling...

...and looking at the camera...

...is a pretty good reason for a blog post.

Don't ya think?

A Note from Me

Dear Ch*na,

I've been here a week now, and there are a few things I think you need to know.

1.)  I <3 your food.  Every meal I eat here makes me want to stay forever.  Even Li'l Miss is starting to like it.  She asked for duck for breakfast yesterday.  Seriously.  Please teach someone where I live to make steamed dumplings.  And if they could sell them for $0.40 like you do, that would be simply awesome.  Thanks.

2.)  TP is not optional.  Nuff said.

3.)  The fact that all your signs are written in Chinese and English is oh-so-convenient. I love that we could ride the subway ourselves on our very first day in Beijing.  It's so easy to find things.  Plus your translations make me laugh.  Like the sign at the Great Wall that said, "No Naked Flames".  Or the one outside our hotel pool that says "Disinfected Pond".  Or this one.  (I promise I resisted the urge to pull out my matches in the fire-forbidden area.  Truly.)

4.)  I'm not three months pregnant.  I swear.  Wearing this stinkin' money belt just gives me a lovely little pooch.  Everywhere I go.

5.)  Those lines in the road?  And those red and green lights?  They're kinda' important.  Really.  I'd get a lot less carsick if your taxi drivers would at least take note of a few of them.  And I'd feel better about my kids not being in carseats...or wearing seatbelts.

6.)  Paper products are really not that expensive.  You could be a little more generous with your paper towels and your napkins.  Especially your napkins.  Eating with a four-year-old and a two-year-old usually necessitates the use of one or 200.  And the kind that are a little thicker than Kleenex are nice.

7.) Thank you for my son.  He's incredible.

Hugs,

Tonya

And since you all came for pictures, here you go...

He's Ours!!!

I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to our son, Isaiah Matthew.

Our Gotcha Day was awesome.  Isaiah cried a bit when his nanny left the room, but he let me hold and comfort him.  He's curious, ticklish, and loves his big sister.

The nannies said he has been doing very well.  He eats everything.  (Something we quickly discovered at lunch.  Bean sprouts.  This child likes bean sprouts.)  They said he has been attending preschool at the orphanage for two or three months and is well-liked by the teacher.  The nannies said he is healthy.

He understood everything our guide said to him and wasn't scared by our trip to the gigantic supermarket after we left the orphanage.  He's very curious.  He says baba (daddy), mama, and jie jie (big sister).  When we got back to the hotel, he and Li'l Miss played for a while and really enjoyed each other.  He likes the toys we brought, especially the stacking cups.

He's a lot bigger than I thought.  I was scared for a minute that the 2T clothes I brought were going to be too small, but I think they will work.  This boy's daddy is going to have to carry him in the Ergo, though.  

It seems unreal that Isaiah is finally with us.  He and his big sister (aaahhh...big sister! :) are upstairs napping now.

Alright, I'm going to run before the internet kicks me off.  Thanks so much for praying for us today.  We can't wait for you to meet Isaiah in person!

Our Trip: What Day is It???

Yesterday was a long, not-so-fun day.  We spent the morning at the Summer Palace in Beijing.  It was rainy and FUH-REEZING.  Needless to say, Li'l Miss was not too excited about looking at traditional Chinese architecture in the 40-degree drizzle.  The rest of us weren't exactly thrilled either.  That being said, the Summer Palace is pretty incredible.  And I'm sure it would be a lovely vacation spot...in the summer, that is.

Jeremy was super excited to eat at KFC for lunch.  The rest of us had a yummy Chinese meal with Ping, the world's best guide.  After lunch, we headed to the Southern Beijing Railway Station to catch our train to Shanghai.  That was a whole new adventure.  The station was huge and very modern.  There were people everywhere; it felt a lot like a big airport in the States.  

Someone (who asked to remain anonymous) was studying her camera on the way to our gate and managed to get completely lost.  Ummmm...how do you find a lost family member in a Chinese railway station?  No cell phones.  (Moment of silence for our lost iPhone here.)  No English-speaking security guards.  It was a very scary 67 seconds.  Thankfully, we tracked down said lost family member and made it to our train in plenty of time.

I've decided that bullet trains are my new favorite way to travel.  They are clean, spacious, and very quiet.  It was almost completely silent as we whizzed along at 304 km/hr.  (That's about 189 mph for those of you who are metrically challenged like I am.)  My mom, Jeremy, and Li'l Miss took a long snooze on the train, while I read.  The 800-mile trip from Beijing to Shanghai lasted less than five hours.  One of our agency's guides met us at the station and took us to our hotel.

Shanghai is an impressive city.  The skyline is incredible, a mix of modern skyscrapers and historic buildings.  Our hotel is in a great location, close to everything (shops, restaurants, famous sights).  

By the time we arrived at our hotel, I was seriously regretting my decision to skip naptime on the train.  I was super tired and hungry and pretty much grouchy and miserable.  Jet Lag Girl is not nice after nine hours without food.  My sweet family accommodated my demand request to take a walk and look for a restaurant.  Unfortunately, finding a restaurant at 9:00 at night in an unfamiliar neighborhood turned out to be a bit of a challenge.  After unsuccessfully circling a few blocks, we settled on a grocery store.

Everyone but Jet Lag Girl was very happy strolling the aisles of the grocery store, stocking up on all their favorite snacks: jelly, milk, yogurt, etc.  Jet Lag Girl just wanted something hot and proteiny (that's totally a word).  When my mom and I got to the check-out, Jeremy was wandering in some distant aisle picking out Lay's potato chips.  We checked out without him, so he had to go to the back of the line.

At this point, I totally lost it.  (Serious lack of sleep and protein going on here.)  I think I may have actually stomped my foot and said, "I'm starving" before stomping out of the store.  (Yes, I know, I'm thirty-two years old.  Jet lag is nasty, I swear.)  I sat down on the front steps of the grocery store, tore open the bag of custard buns we'd picked up, and ate the whole thing.  (Actually, I ate all but two...which I ate as soon as we got back to the hotel.  They looked so lonely all by themselves in that big bag.)

Today has been much, much better.  I actually slept until after 7:00 (yay, me!).  This morning we got a map of Shanghai and headed to the Bund (a famous historical area of Shanghai).  It's within easy walking distance of our hotel.  We walked along the Huangpu River and took in the Pudong skyline: gorgeous!  It actually feels a bit like Chicago.  And they have Starbucks.

Right now Li'l Miss is napping, our giant stack of dirty clothes is in the washer, and I'm sitting quietly in the lobby.  Our internet connection has been pretty unpredictable.  The VPN I downloaded to access Facebook only works occasionally, so my posts might be a bit sporadic.  I'm going to end now so I can try to post some Beijing pictures while I have a good connection.

Before I go, some of you might be interested to know that we pick up our son tomorrow morning!  We're meeting our guide in the lobby at 9:00am, so we should see him for the first time between 9:30 and 10:00.  (That's 5:30pm Sunday in California and 8:30pm EST.)  I promise to post pictures as soon as I can.  We unpacked this morning, and it was so fun to pull out little boy shoes and little boy clothes and little boy toys.  So exciting!  

And, no, he doesn't officially have a name yet.  But he will soon. 

Our Trip: Day 4

Li'l Miss is playing with her iPod and being supervised by her sleeping daddy, so I'll have to keep this short.  Here's a bullet point version of our day.

1.) The Great Wall is A.MAZ.ING.  As we walked, we all kept saying, "I can't believe we're really here."  It was incredible, and Li'l Miss loved it.  She walked the whole way (about 3 km) on her own and didn't even complain about the stairs we had to tackle at the end.  I'll have to post a picture to do this part of the trek justice, but let's just say that ladder is probably a better description than stairs.

2.) Losing your iPhone at The Great Wall = not so A.MAZ.ING.  Yup, Jeremy lost his phone on our way back.  Our guide tried really hard to help him track it down but no luck.  Jeremy thinks it fell out on the cable car we rode back from the wall, and our guide said an iPhone would be scooped up pretty quickly here.  Major bummer.  No more free texts with WhatsApp. :(

3.) We had much better luck eating out with our guide.  He joined us for lunch today, and it was yum. All five of us had soup, rice, drinks, and three main courses for about $12.50.  I just polished off the left-overs for a late dinner.  Mmmmmmmmm...so good.

4.) Jet lag is so not my friend.  My jet-lagged body could sleep anywhere, and my jet-lagged mouth is pretty sassy to anyone who tries to keep me from doing so.  This conversation may or may not have actually taken place today: "But, honey, I want to lay down and sleep on the sidewalk.  Don't make me get up and keep walking.  Pleeeeeeaaase let me close my eyes.  Just for a second.  Only a mean and horrible husband would expect me to stay awake right now.  I'm TTTTTIIIIIIRRRRRREEEEEEDDDDD!"

On that note, my bed is calling me.  Tomorrow we're headed to the Summer Palace in the morning and then to Shanghai in the afternoon.  I can't believe we're getting so close to meeting our Li'l Man!  Three more days!

Our Trip: Day 3 (Well, Sorta'...)

Yes, I'm cheating on my day numbering again.  Don't judge the girl with jet-lag.

 

We're off to The Great Wall in half-an-hour, so I have to keep this short.  Unfortunately, the Wifi at our hostel doesn't want to cooperate with our laptop, so I'm only able to post from the shared computer (which means no pictures).  Hopefully we'll have a better connection in Shanghai.  I will track down good Wifi for Gotcha Day pictures; don't worry.

 

Yesterday we ventured out on our own in Beijing.  I was so excited that we were able to find our way around.  The subway is super easy with signs in English.  You can get anywhere for about $0.30 - seriously!  We visited Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City.  There was a lot of security because of a government event.  It was a bit unsettling at first, but we quickly discovered that the crazy hoard of policemen pretty much ignored us. 

 

The Forbidden City is big...really, really big.  We walked and walked and walked and walked.  It's beautiful, but also big.  Li'l Miss was a rockstar there, too.  Everyone wanted a picture with her.  I'm not kidding.  Old people, young people, kids, EV.RY.ONE.  Some people came right up and asked; others just casually inched as close as they could toward us and then started snapping pics.  Li'l Miss liked it for a bit and then got overwhelmed.

 

We walked home and stopped for lunch along the way.  We found a Chinese fast-food place.  It was okay, but I'm looking forward to more authentic food.  We were going to be daring last night...but then Jeremy voted for McD*nalds.  Really.  Our second real meal in Ch*na, and we ate at McD*nalds.  Total cultural immersion fail. :)

 

The jet lag is getting a little better.  We actually slept until 5:00 instead of 3:00 this morning.  Maybe we'll make it past 6:00 tomorrow.  I am thankful that we were able to come a few days early to adjust before we pick up Li'l Man (which is on MONDAY MORNING, by the way).

 

Alright...off to convince my child that she needs to wear more than her Cuddl Duds to The Great Wall.  I will figure out a way to post pictures soon.  Promise.  

 

We are having an awesome time.  Thanks for praying!  

Our Trip: Day 2-1/2

So while I technically missed Day 2 (due largely in part to the 16 hours that vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean), I'm going to cheat and call this Day 2 since it's still Wednesday back where we started this adventure.  I meant to post last night while it was still Wednesday in Beijing, but, after 23 hours awake, I was seriously struggling to think straight (and to keep standing up :).

We had a short flight from SoCal to San Francisco.  (Yes, friends, I survived the tiny plane.)  Then we hopped on a 747 for a 12-1/2 hour marathon over the ocean.  All in the all, the flight went very well (United Economy and all).  I knew we were going to survive when the first movie on the schedule was Ice Age: Continental Drift.  My mom and Emma popped on their headphones, and the first hour-and-a-half flew by.

Funny story here...after about 15 minutes of intently watching Ice Age, Emma was happily curled up with a blanket and her lovey.  My mom suddenly turned to me and said, "This movie has a lot of music but not much action."  Ummmm...that'd be because Channel 8 was eighties music, not the Ice Age soundtrack.

Between Ice Age and the fact that a four-year-old can sleep very comfortably on the floor in front of the seats on a 747 (drop the tray tables and you've got a really cozy sleeping spot - just sayin'), we did pretty well for the first five or six hours of the flight.  About Hour 5, you're starting to think that you've accomplished something and traveled really far...then you realize that the really far you've traveled is about the same as the really far you have left to travel.  

With three hours left, we were all ready to get off the plane.  At that point I shoved my child under seats and told her GO TO SLEEP suggested that my sleepy girl take a short rest to help time pass more quickly.  We all fell asleep for a little bit and then we landed.

Our guide was waiting for us at the gigantic Beijing airport.  (We LOVE Ping.  He's awesome.)  He drove us to our hostel, where Li'l Miss and I had our first adventure in public potty-ing.  (She just had-to-go-right-that-second-before-we-could-check-in.)  There was a western-style toilet, but no TP.  Along the wall were three holes that I thought were Bidets. Not so much.  (I know, I know, three Bidets for one toilet is probably a bit excessive.  We're taking serious get-lag here.)   They were definitely squatties, and a young Chinese lady definitely came in and used one while Emma was finishing up. 

Our hostel is really cool.  (See, Heather, no worries.) It's right in the middle of an authentic Chinese neighborhood.  There are a bunch of young people here who very sweetly helped us drag in our pile of bags and laughed when Jeremy offered them a tip.  (Although I did hear a few muttered comments about the fact that we'd packed bricks.)  Everyone thinks Li'l Miss is a rockstar.  Possibly because we're the only crazy parents who choose a hostel when traveling internationally with a four-year-old.  

Our room is small, but clean and cute.  All three of us shared a king bed last night (which was oh-so-comfy), and my mom had a private single room.  Today we're off to explore downtown on our own.

I can't believe we woke up in China this morning.