The Jacksons in China, Day Seven: Zhengzhou

Two steps forward, one step back.  Always two steps forward, one step back.

This will be hopefully short, as it's been a long, long day.  Fortunately,  we didn't have any place to be today, so it became rest at the hotel day.

Well, that's not entirely true.  Those who wanted to had the opportunity to go and visit the orphanages that their children came from, and there are two or three major orphanages in Henan province, so off people went to visit those orphanages.  The problem with us is that Nora spent most of her life thus far in the care of Eagle's Wings, a small organization that takes kids with special needs out of the orphanages and into a smaller setting so there are more caretakers and the kids can get the medical attention they need.

Our Zhengzhou guides cautioned us against going to Eagle's Wings for a visit, owing to the fact that Nora had such a close relationship with her ayis and seeing them may greatly impact her attachment to Jen and her ability to rely on a new caretaker.  It also sounded like Eagle's Wings was in the middle of  move to a better facility, so at best a visit from us would ben an unexpected interruption, so Eagle's Wings, thank you for taking such good care of our girl, and we're sorry we couldn't visit.

Nora is now giggling, laughing, playing and walking while holding Jen's hand.  She seems to be a classic tiger baby, strong-willed and a bit stubborn.  She is also plagued by some night terrors, and still wakes up in fits of panic.  She still clings to Jen rather tightly (Jen says she's our velcro baby) and won't stay with me longer than half a minute or so.  Our hotel has a small kid's play room, so we've been in there a couple of times to toss around balls or play with the stacking cups around other kids from our group.

It's wonderful to see so much of her come out of her shell some more... she plays with me more now, and she seems to think I can be fun sometimes.  She was fascinated that I could magically make music by blowing across the top of an empty bottle and kept handing it back to me to make the sound, then shoving the whole bottle top in her mouth to try to make the sound on her own.  She can be a very giggly, playful little girl.

At the same time, it's heartbreaking to see how hard she is still grieving for the loss of her beloved ayis and friends.  There's still fits of heavy crying and some screaming but she can still be comforted by Jen, which is a miracle.  Jen has done so much for her to help her through this process and I don't know how she does it.  We'll have some great play times with lots of giggling and playing with toys, then she'll be impossible to feed at night because she's squirming around, scratching, won't let go of toys or whatever she's holding on to, arching her back, and hoarding food in her mouth.  Tonight in particular was rough.

Always two steps forward, one step back, but the amazing thing is that we're moving forward!  As I write this, Nora has been asleep for over two and a half hours, and more amazingly, Jen has been asleep for an hour and a half herself.  Since I can't hold her, I've taken on the support role, making sure that food is ready, bottles are warm, pillows are in the right place, and shoes are tied.

All in all, things are going well and she is warming up to us nicely.  She is so stinking cute when she giggles that I want to do anything to make her do it all the time.  Jen is holding up well, but would probably like to be able to shower sometime soon... there is so much on her shoulders right now.


Some highlights from today:


 - For breakfast, I ate more fried lotus-seed cakes.  They are delicious.  The Chinese, however, are lagging behind in their omelette-making technology.  An omelette should never be over easy.

 - I set off in search of other food options that aren't expensive hotel food or the 7-11, and was so proud of myself for knowing enough Chinese to be able to enter a strange restaurant in an unfamiliar city in a foreign country and get us giant orders of fried rice and pork dumplings with seaweed... all for a whopping 22 Yuan, or about $3.50.

 - We realized today that we really don't have more than two toys for Nora, so like most other couples in our group it was time to make the pilgrimage to Walmart, which is only slightly like any Walmart in America except for the familiar logo on the bags and the doors. Lots of staring still, a couple of instances of finger pointing, but no rude comments this time.  We picked up a couple of assorted puffy balls, a knockoff set of "Happy Family" jumbo lego-like bricks, and an inflatable cartoon kid that has the weight on the bottom so they stand upright.  Nora immediately ignored all of the above except the zippered pouch that the lego-like bricks came in.  We were, characteristic of Zhengzhou again, nearly run down repeatedly by billions of scooters on the sidewalk.

 - Corollary note to the above:  on our first day in Zhengzhou, we were walking in a group to the bank when a woman in our group who has actually lived in China before told me that I was walking in the bike lane and I needed to move over, whereupon I was almost clipped by a ninja-silent electric scooter whizzing by.  Sidewalks in Zhengzhou are as wide as a car lane, but there is a marked path for bikes, and now scooters and little electric bikes, which freak me out because they make no noise..  These just zip by at high speed in different directions, then when you get to the intersection, it's the usual Total Chinese Chaos when cars, bikes, scooters, and pedestrians, are trying to go every direction at once.  This usually involves a lot of honking and yelling.  If you are a pedestrian trying to cross, you have to just steel your nerves, pick a lane to walk in, and own it, taking no prisoners.

 - Baby's first bath!  The reasons why we waited until today are poop-related and I will spare the reader the details here (this marks my official entry into Fatherhood).  But, her bath went well and it turns out that she really, really likes splashing.  We had to close the curtain part way.

Ups and downs... ups and downs... mostly ups.

Again, pics tomorrow.  Tired.  Need sleepy.