Never An Empty Nest: China = Family Unity...Ahem....Maybe

Psalm 127:3-5

Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Well, so much for blogging! This posting will be a composite of the last 2 days. When I started it, I was feeling all warm & fuzzy, so ahhhh in the mommy moment. I will start by telling how I felt YESTERDAY!

For anyone that knows our family and many families like our (which constitutes much of the USA now). There is always something going on, somewhere someone has to be. It's the American way of life right, busy. Well, here comes China and the start of a new life for our family. When we arrived, it was quite an adjustment period, TOGETHERNESS! It's not so much we don't like one another, on the contrary, we love each other dearly. It's just that we are not used to one another's company on a 24 hour basis. The kids quarrel (which is just like home anyhow), Tim and I feel one another out on different decisions, it was quite tense.

THEN....welcome Zander. It seems our whole separateness has come together in a family. We all have a common goal, him and him only. We laugh together, we play together, we eat together, we take walks together. No phones, only the Olympics for TV (when we can). We have adjoining rooms at our hotel and Carmen & Richie are in one room and Tim, Zander & I in another. Yesterday was perfect in the adoptive parent world.

We arrived at the Provincial Affairs Office and Zander was the first child there to greet us. He wasn't real crazy about seeing us AGAIN and waved bye bye to us. "Who are these strange people who keep invading my space?", his face seemed to say. He was holding tightly to his nanny and we didn't push it. We took him into the play area where the kids kept him entertained with his nanny while we did paperwork. Then when it was time we sat down with him and his nanny said her goodbyes and had to leave. Yesterday was the start of a 24 hour guardianship. The next day (today) we will go back and tell them, "Yes, we still want this child even after being with them overnight." and make it permanent.

Zander thoroughly enjoyed playing with us, eating his snacks & feeding his snacks. His favorite thing was to put food into his mouth, take it out and then attempt to feed you (Tim got his fruit snacks & Carmen his crackers) YUM! All to which we laughed so hard we had tears. After arriving back at the hotel, Zander & Tim took a nap (baba's favorite thing) and then later we went to the pool. Carmen did her workout and Zander was fascinated watching her go back & forth. He LOVES the fact that there is a man working down at the recreation area that gives away free watermelon and tomatoes, his favorite. While Tim had Zander, Richie and I attempted ping pong. We didn't know it was such a dedicated sport to the men sitting and talking, smoking, that we had to wait for them to be done in order to play, I mean attempt to play. Richie was doubled over laughing as the balls he hit would fly into the pool, out of the ping pong area or into the kitchen area.

After getting board there Richie decided to try his hand at running the treadmill, then weight lifting with the locals. Zander enjoyed watching while eating his cheerios and playing with ping pong balls.

Dinner was quite adventurous. Earlier in the day I had gone to Walmart with our guide to purchase a few things. On the way I saw a Pizza Hut that was close and thought it would be a good idea to eat there that evening. It was about 6:30 and the natives were hungry & restless. So we ventured out with our new stroller & new son. After crossing several VERY BUSY streets and not becoming hood ornaments, I conceded that maybe I was wrong in the proximity of Pizza Hut to our hotel. Thirty minutes later we found PH only to be told it would be a 20 minute wait, but wait we did because we weren't walking back yet.

The pizza was wonderful and the kids tried new drinks. Tim found out they have Budweiser in China and all was good. Zander does NOT like pizza, we ordered pasta and he went to town. Then we had a LONG trek back to the hotel and bed. Here are some recap photos from this day.