The Jacksons in China: Day Eleven, Guangzhou

We're back on Blogger and Facebook and all that good stuff now!  Many, many thanks to our good friend Nanette who watched her email vigilantly for emails from us to post here.  Now we can take care of it on our own.  This will be a post of many parts, enjoy in chunks or one delicious, gluttonous gorging.

Whew... all is right with the world for now.  Jen is in the bath trying not to cough her guts out, the Marriott hotel world ad is playing on an eternal loop on the TV (she likes to fall asleep to music), the baobao is sleeping pretty soundly on our hotel bed, and the drivers out on the China streets are honking their little mechanical guts out, and I have some quiet time alone with the computer to update our blog and give you, the yearning masses, some more pictures.

First, a snapshot of where we are:  Guangzhou (gwahng-joe) is the city know more historically as Canton, and is very hilly and beautiful and full of trees and parks and we're not freezing to death when we go outside.  We're in the five-star China Hotel Marriott across the street from a Lamborghini dealership (I'm not joking).  There is a Starbuck's Coffee right in our hotel and a McDonald's right next door.  It is extremely posh and that makes it absolutely nightmarish for two brand-new parents of a feisty, sweet, grabby, extremely active little toddler.  Better keep an eye on that phone, low-level glass-top desk, finger-smashing sliding drawers, lower-cabinet minibar...  we're learning to adjust, though

Let me back up a bit add to Jen's statement from the other day...

But first!  Before you think this is another woe-is-us kind of post, I'd like to point out that things are generally much better with us and the baby right now.  My post from the other day about two steps forward, one step back... well, now these steps are gigantic.  We've had some incredible moments and some terrifying heartbreak, but things get better and better as we figure out what makes this adorable little girl tick.


The Flight

Back to the flight that was the worst of my life... I just want to add what was going through my head.  I can't imagine what it looks like to the good, working people of China when Americans come into their country and take their babies away, and the looks we get are mostly dependent on whether Nora seems happy at that moment.  On our flight, when I picked up our child who had been violently thrashing around, throwing her bottle (still leaking (thankfully just) water onto the Chinese businessman's coat,)  squirming, and screaming at levels that were painful to the ears, just to walk her to the back of the plane and change her diaper, I'll never forget the looks in a hundred pairs of Chinese eyes and the hurt I felt at what I imagined they were thinking, but a lot of that might have just been in my head due to my mental state at the time.  Maybe.

At least the flight was short, and apparently Nora wasn't the only one screaming.  Not that we would have known, of course.  I do need to point out that that marks (cue drum roll) KEVIN'S... FIRST... TIME... CHANGING A DIAPER... ALL ON HIS OWN!!!  Since Nora gets a bit squirmy, we usually tag-team the diaper swap, but that was my first go all by myself.  Hooray for me!  Mail my medal to China Hotel Marriott, 122 Liu Hua Lu,Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510015, China.

When we got off the plane, she was a completely different girl.  One of the things we've learned is that she's quite comfortable and soothed when we pick her up and carry her.  It was funny how she immediately went quiet when I stood up with her to go change her diaper.

Come to think of it, that's how this whole trip can be summed up:  one (sometimes painful) learning experience after another.


Guangzhou, Yesterday

Jen talked a little bit about this, but there are two huge reasons that we have to come here to Guangzhou, even though the adoption is "official" the day after we get her:  1) she needs to go to a medical testing station so doctors can give her a once-over to make sure all is on the up-and-up, and 2) she needs a U.S. visa to get home.  Yesterday we took care of that first thing.

We all piled onto a bus and headed for Shamian Island, where we stopped at a tiny shop to get a current picture taken, then over to the medical office set aside for U.S. immigrants to have the doctors take a look and make sure that the medical reports were accurate.

Got an adopted child?  Examine them here!

Our little CCAI group waits for the doctors to poke their children.

Then we had a bunch of free time to explore the island which is full of beautiful parks, waterfront walkways, and is just immaculately clean. It also has a Catholic church, which I didn't expect to see.  One thing I'd heard about China, though, is about how people tend to gather in public parks, and it was away from the high-speed world of Beijing and the brand-new world of Zhengzhou that I finally saw it happen.

On the waterfront park were gatherings of people of all ages playing badminton, practicing Tai Chi or Kung Fu forms, singing in a choir, practicing a sword dance, and generally enjoying the weather.  It was pretty incredible to watch.  We met up with Jim and Josslyn, two of our friends from our group, and talked about what America would look like if Americans got together to practice Kung Fu in the park everyday.

True title of this statue: "The Evolution of the Chinese Woman."  It might be just my imagination, but that last one looks just a bit Western to me.

Uh... I don't see a toilet in front of that guy, so maybe I'll just go in the bushes.

 Two (of many) dudes doing Tai Chi in the park.

Part of the waterfront park.

Random snapshot of the waterfront: words on the back of a girl's (maybe 16 or 17) t-shirt:

"CLICK FOR GREAT EXPERIENCE

CLICK FOR AUDIO TOURS

BE HOME BT MONDAY AFTERNOON"

The BT in there is exactly as it was written... I decided not to click the girl's shirt.  I need to find these shops where they are selling these fantastic manglings of the English language.

After the day's adventures on the Island, we hopped on the bus back and a couple of hours later had our big group dinner at the Macau Street Restaurant, which had really good food

I have to point out here that everywhere we've been in China we've had a local native Chinese guide to help us through absolutely everything from when to get on the bus to which restaurants are safe, and they've all been nothing short of amazing.  Cindy in Beijing had a vast knowledge of the history of ancient China, Yisha and Vivian in Zhengzhou guided us through getting our children and signing the paperwork (Yisha also taught me, while she was on the phone with the front desk of our hotel, that you should never, EVER make a Chinese woman angry).  Here in Guangzhou we have Grace and Maggie, also very knowledgeable about the process of adoption and the local history and culture.  It's been our guides all along who arrange most of these amazing group dinners.

Food at the Macau, like most of your better Chinese restaurants, is served family style, where the group just orders a bunch of dishes which are placed on a giant central turntable, which we spin slowly around, taking whatever bits of whatever dishes we want, until we're stuffed silly.

A ginormous sea of Americans with Chinese babies at the Macau Street Restaurant.

Learning and Leveling Up

Now, for a hard bit of reading: in the interest of blogging about our entire experience, leaving nothing out, I will relate that the night of our dinner at the Macau, on the way home I experienced a complete, sobbing emotional meltdown, built up by sleep-deprivation, sickness, and working through Nora's tantrums that afternoon... and finally triggered by losing one of Nora's shoes.  I just kind of lost it while walking back home, looking everywhere I could for that one tiny shoe, when I got home and Jen informed me that she had picked up the other shoe and stashed in the diaper bag.  I felt completely helpless, like I no longer had any control over my life with this small roller coaster of a girl.

Before you book your flights to come and give me a hug, re-read the note at the top, where I say that things have generally been getting better and better, bit by bit... as of tonight, things are good.  Not great, just yet, but good.

If you've ever played either a video or tabletop game in the role-playing genre, you know that your character starts the game as a complete nobody, with no name and no story, and eventually through your quests and battles you earn enough experience to reach your character's next level, where you are granted new powers and abilities.  Often times you reach a new level by fighting what's called in video-game parlance a "boss," or a really large and powerful enemy at the end of a dungeon or the top of the mountain.

A while back Jen and I decided that our lives were a bit like role-playing games, and we'd tackle a difficult day at work or a big project improving the home and say that we "leveled-up" in, say, home plumbing after I installed a dishwasher and an in-sink garbage disposal without any help.

This last week has been the biggest, most daunting quest, with the most intense battles of the RPG of our lives.  Last night Jen, after a difficult battle with the Creature Who Cries and Flails and Won't Go to Sleep, leveled up in a major way when by accident she discovered exactly how the ayis at the foster home must have put her to sleep.  Now, after her nightly bottle of warm formula, she goes right to sleep every time.  Jen gained the magic powers of Sleeping Without a Snoring Toddler On Your Chest.

We learned that Nora needs to feel like she has control over something, anything, but especially food.  We leveled up and gained the magic powers of Fewer Tantrums if She Can Just Hold a Cracker Everywhere We Go.

Last night, my meltdown was a huge boss battle for me: learning that her emotions are not my own, that there are deep wells of emotional distress that our daughter must work through, and things are going to go out of control now and then, but like Bruce Lee taught (we watched a documentary the other day), I must be water, taking the form of whatever situation I'm in, but flowing freely.

A hot shower and some alone time while the girl was out and I felt like a new man, with new Fatherly powers and abilities.


Enough Sob Story Already

Guess what else has happened?

 - This afternoon we had some Daddy Time to let Jen nap where not only did Nora run to me with arms extended, but let me put her in the baby carrier where we walked around the block (braving plenty of strange looks at the large, bald American with the Chinese baby) to a little grocery store where I bought an aluminum thermos for bringing hot water with us when we leave the hotel (it's awesome having a couple of not-first-time-parents around for these tips).  We looked at the fish in the big tanks at the fish market.  We gave them names.  Every once in a while she would flash that big grin at me and gurgle random syllables.  Remember three days ago when she wouldn't leave Jen at all?

 -  We went to the play room in our hotel, and she giggled while I threw balls around the room and we made towers out of Duplo blocks to smash down.

 - Jen was down working on some paperwork, I was in our room with Nora, laying on the floor, when she cackled, ran around the corner of the bed and full-body body slammed me, laughing the whole time.

 - One of our favorite wind-down activities is to have her take my hand and we go walking down the hallway...you just say "gei wo shou!" ("give me your hand").  She loves to explore and gives these happy little noises all along the way.  I discovered that she especially likes to find shiny surfaces like the mirrors next to the elevators here. There's an outdoor play area where I can let her run around without my hand.

 - As of right now, she's been asleep for a record first sleep of 3 1/2 hours.

Dang it, I love this little girl and her soft brown eyes and her adorable smile... she's just hard to get along with sometimes during this massive, difficult period of adjustment where we're still mostly unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar rules, but dang it, I love this little girl.

Good times at the Six Banyan Temple.

Final Note

Thank you all... we can't really thank you all enough for your prayers and faith for us.  We need it right now.

I'll write about today, tomorrow.  Okay?  Okay.