Home one week

I can't believe that we have been home one full week already! Where does the time go? The first couple of days home were a little bit difficult for all of us. Paul was very sick and got strep throat and Sydney and I couldn't seem to get over the jet-lag. Fortunately it didn't last long and we have fallen into a nice routine with sleeping now and Paul is feeling better.

Our flights home went very well and Sydney did GREAT! On the long stretch (flight from Tokyo to Detroit) Benadryl was our best friend. One dose of that for Sydney and she slept for about 5 hours on that flight. She is such a trooper. She did so good in the airports and with the mess in Detroit going through Immigration, Customs, re-checking our baggage, etc. she was an angel. We were a little bit crabby but she was happy as can be! I could use a lesson from her :).

Getting home on Wed. evening was the best feeling in the world. We were SO ready to be home. Some family and friends were at the airport to welcome us home and it felt so good to see familiar faces.

You know I have heard so many families speak of how their newly adopted children just seemed to have always been a part of the family and now I understand. Sydney is part of us 100%.

Sydney has done so well with all the many many changes that she has experienced over these last 2+ weeks. She goes to bed without a fuss and even sleeps in her crib. We put her in the crib next to our bed in the hotel while in China and continued it when we got home. We had thought that she may have to sleep in the bed with us, which we were prepared for as so many newly adopted toddlers have so many fears, but since being home 1 week she has been sleeping in her crib in her bedroom and doing great with it. Knock on wood that continues!

Sydney has yet to turn away any food that we have fed her. With her open palate she does need very soft foods but she still manages to mush up even foods that I never thought she would be able to eat. She eats everything, and I mean everything. It's hard to know when she is finished eating at her highchair as she hasn't turned her head away yet from the spoon or fork. She self-feeds OK, but usually needs a little assistance. She is drinking from a sippy cups at times but still really likes the bottle. The pediatrician is ok with this. Although Sydney is almost 2 1/2, she is much more like an 18 mo. old. Size wise and developmentally. She is tiny! At the rate she is eating though, I imagine she will catch up pretty quick :)

Sydney has bonded so well with both Paul and I. She loves people and will hold her hands out to be held or picked up. Here is a little rundown of her likes/dislikes:

She loves water
She does not like grass
She is a clean freak and loves to wash everything...her face, hands, highchair tray,etc
She does not like stuffed animals (I know, how weird!)
She loves balloons (thanks Luke, Auntie Rita and Uncle Georgie)
She does not like wind in her face but is getting a little better with it
She loves washcloths and wipes
She does NOT LIKE her bottle being taken away from her until she's good and ready
She loves to pretend cook
She wakes up happy everytime from naps and morning, always smiling
She is very cooperative with getting dressed and I can't tell you how wonderful that is!!
She is extremely ticklish and has an enormous belly laugh
She loves music
She likes to scribble
When going down for a nap or for bedtime she always babbles on for several minutes before quieting down and going to sleep. Once alone in her room she loves to "chat".
She is so tiny in the waist and tushy that most 12mo. size pants/shorts fall down!
She loves "pretty" things such as wearing dresses, bracelets and stuff
She loves her big brother Brandon
Lastly she is one very happy little girl

We are blessed 100 billion times over in having this little girl in our lives and it has been more than we could ever ask for.

Updates-Day 6 with Sydney Rose

I was hoping to keep up with daily postings but as you can see our time is filled with the joys and fun of toddlerhood! It has been wonderful!

We have done some sightseeing, a little bit of shopping, dined at KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut (our favorite cuisine) and braved the traffic and crowds in Jinan City, home of approx. 3 million!

We picked up Sydney's passport on Thursday pm. Yay! Friday was mostly a traveling day (Thurs for those at home). We flew back down to Guangzhou. Sydney's first plane ride and she did great. We changed our hotel plans and decided to stay at the same hotel that our fellow traveling family is staying at. We also upgraded to a suite, and may I say it is SWEET! We are staying at the Holiday Inn in Guangzhou. Our suite is huge and beautiful! We are loving this.

Today we had breakfast at the hotel buffet. It is very good and there are a lot of families staying here that have also adopted. We don't feel so much like "foreigners", no staring at this hotel. In Jinan we were the ONLY Americans there.

Today was also Sydney's medical exam. It went really well! She is 19.5 lbs and 27.5 inches. She did sooooo good. There were screaming babies everywhere. It was crowded and stressful and she held onto daddy's finger very tightly when sitting in his lap, but she didn't make one peep! Of course the doctor said that she is small for her age but we already knew that. He also cleared her to go home as her chickenpox is all scabbed up. What a relief!

We then walked around Shamian (sp?) Island. It is very quaint, safe, and we really enjoyed it. There are little shops everywhere, mostly with the famous squeaky shoes and little girl clothes. Oh my gosh, I was in heaven. Paul, not so much. We love it here. It is weird too because when we got here we were surprised to see how the hotel was smack dab in the middle of a very poor area. Right outside our very nice hotel there are streets with open "shops", one right after the other, with locals selling stuff. I couldn't even tell you what most of it was but according to our guide, Mary, a lot of it was medicine. It looked like buckets, bins, and big barrels of grains, dried food items. Hard to explain.

We are back in our room now for Sydney's afternoon nap. She has been napping everyday around 1pm to about 2:15/2:30pm.

It is very humid and warm here but no sun. All clouds and we did get caught in the rain for a bit on our way back to the hotel. It rains here a lot in Guangzhou so we hope to have one sunny day before we leave in 4 days.

We have to download more pictures and will post those soon.

We miss everyone so much and just can't to have everyone meet Sydney. She is such a sweetie and still very easy. She has had a couple of short-lived (like 10 min) crying fits when we take something away from her. She does not like that AT ALL! When she wants something, she wants it. Other than that, she sleeps well, eats great, smiles a lot, and is just such a blessing.

Brandon~We miss you more than words can say. I picture you playing with your little sister and you are going to love her. I think she is going to love Bella too. Good luck with baseball and I can't wait to hear how it has been going. I hear the "baby" from school was fun........NOT!

Thanks so much for the update Delores. It means a lot to us. Brandon (and Bella too) are very lucky to be able to spend this time with your family and we can't thank you enough. It brings me tremendous peace knowing that he is in your care.

Until next time thank you again for all your kind words and support. We love to get comments from all of you and it means so much.

I really DO like baths, really!

Damming Lake Visit

Good morning sunshine

Here is our happy girl this morning. She went to bed at 8pm and woke up at 6:30am. Slept "like a baby" again! She is such a happy girl and very smiley. She babbles a lot and sings sometimes. She says "la-la-la-la-la". She loves her little photo album that we sent to her while she was in the orphanage, she carries it everywhere with her. She has said "Ba-Ba" (which is daddy in Chinese) and said Mama today a few times when pointing to my picture. All we do all day is laugh, giggle, and smile at her. It's hard to believe she's our girl.

I forgot to post that yesterday we went to get our adoption certificate and she is officially OURS! We have completed the process and all we are waiting for is her passport, which will be delivered to us on friday. On friday we will travel by plane back down to Guangzhou (2.5 hr flight) and she will have her physical and then we will have her Visa ceremony. Also, her chickenpox are not too bad. We don't anticipate any problems with leaving here on the 23rd as originally planned. She does have a lot of them on her chest and back but they are starting to scab over.

I will post some pictures of the sights later.

Gotta go! Thanks again to everyone for all the comments. It is great to have a link to home.

Brandon-Sydney is going to be your best friend. The two of you will have so much fun together, I already know it. I call you again very soon. Love you LOTS and miss you. Hugs.

Backing up a bit

We have had such a hard time with blogger over here and getting our pictures to post so that is why it has taken so long to post pictures. I think we got it now! We have been pretty busy and pooped out so now I would like to take the time to "talk".
To back up to yesterday: Our day started with racing hearts and so much anticipation that I literally felt like we would bust! Neither of us slept much all Sat. night so we just gave up and got up around 5:30 a.m.. Yes, that's right Brandon, you heard Mom right, 5:30 a.m.!!!!! We made our way to the breakfast buffet at our very nice hotel in Jinan called the Silver Plaza Quan Cheng Hotel. We met our guide Mary and Russ and Angie there. Russ and Angie are another Lifelink family who's son Jeremy is at the same orphanage as Sydney. We ate what we could but this buffet at this hotel was much more "bizarre" for our taste (compared to the westernized White Swan). We were told to be at the hotel lobby at 10 a.m.. Our guide Mary met us there and so did the Kinzingers. We just stood around anxiously pacing the large lobby and then through the revolving doors of the hotel I saw a car pull up and a woman got out with a very little child in her arms. Then another woman got out holding another very tiny little one in her arms. I just yelled out, "That's them!" It just came out and Mary, our guide, who is the sweetest and has a lot of spunk, practically took off running outside the doors. In they came and Sydney was wearing a plaid dress with black leggings and little red shoes. She was tiny tiny. Paul went to hold her and she came right to him. Then I held her. We went into a conference room with the Director of the orphanage, 2 caretakers and our guide, Mary. Sydney was as calm as can be. She went very easily to Paul or to me. She smiled, she laughed, and she never cried! It was almost too good to be true! Little Jeremy was doing great too, calm and no crying.

Sydney Rose is just a tiny, little doll. She looked exactly how I pictured her, only smaller. She is very easygoing, smiles easily, and she loves to be held and cuddled. She is very curious about her surroundings and so far her favorite activity seems to be taking cheerios/fruit puffs out of a container one at a time and putting each one back in the container, over and over and over again. She definitely loves to empty out things and put them back in, like our luggage! Lol!

She still really likes the bottle and I had a Nuby sippy-type bottle with me and that is her favorite. I brought formula along with me and I am glad that I did. She likes the formula, juice, rice cereal, ramen noodles, congee (a Chinese rice soup with vegtables), instant oatmeal, cheerios, fruit and veggie puffs, goldfish, hamburger, french fries with ketchup, ice cream, and on and on and on and on! LOL! So far there isn't much she won't eat or can't eat with her open palate. She is doing great! She took 2 great afternoon naps for us so far and goes to bed for the night very easily. NO fuss, no muss. Is this too good to be true?
She lets us change her clothes and diapers without a fight and she LOVES the bath. We moved to a larger suite in our hotel tonight as we had no room for her to get around, or for us to either, and this room does not have a tub bath. We tried to have her stand in the shower stall with mommy and then daddy tried too later but she wanted nothing to do with that shower! She is so tiny that we could give her a little bath in the bathroom sink without too much trouble. She loves water and we are relieved about that! Peshtigo river, here we come.

She is extremely ticklish and laughs a lot. She is just the cutest little girl and we couldn't be happier. She took to us very well right away. She has great eye contact with us and looks for approval with her eyes when she does something good. These are good signs of attachment so that makes us very happy.

She does not like to share her toys, or anything else for that matter, with her friend Jeremy. Now that I think of it, she doesn't like to share period. She is pretty funny, when you try to take something from her, she hides it behind her back. She's got spunk, but she is also a very content little girl. She did cry for the first time when we took her outside to get our family photo picture taken around the corner of the hotel at this photo shop and it was a very windy day. As soon as the wind hit her face, even though a very warm wind, she started crying hard. She hid her face in my chest as I walked.

When she does cry, which has only been a few times so far, she gets the funniest look on her face. She looks like she is just smiling really big, with her crinkled up flat nose, but it takes her like 10 seconds to make a sound and then it comes out strong. A few times now I have asked Paul, is she about to cry or is she laughing??? How funny. The best example I can give is when we left tonight to get dinner at the buffet at the hotel. She was carrying around this little bag of sweet, Chinese crackers that our guide told us to get her because the kids in China love them. Anyway, Daddy (a.k.a. BABA) took the bag of crackers out of her hands gently and started walking towards the door so we could leave and she just stood in the middle of the room and I swear she looked like she was about to crack up laughing! Well, like 7 seconds later, she let out a huge, sad cry. Oh my gosh. That was her first big cry that we witnessed from her. I am sure there will be many, many more to come but it was just so darn cute.

We have mostly just spent our time bonding with her, and doing adoption paperwork and going to government offices. Tomorrow we are going to do some sight-seeing.

I definitely can't wait to come home and eat some real food. The Chinese people are wonderful and so polite. They also stare at us all the time with Sydney. We expected that so that hasn't been too hard to deal with. Wal-mart was crazy and wouldn't mind if we never went back there again. We are just really looking forward to seeing some sights, walking around (no more van driving for awhile would be GREAT! and only those who have been to China could understand this one!!! lol) and spending some time outdoors. It has been beautiful here in Jinan.

We are going to Sydney's and Jeremy's orphanage on Wednesday to bring some gifts, take some pictures, etc.

Well, I am headed off to join my daughter and tired hubby in the bedroom. They are both asleep and I finally felt good enough to post tonight. Jetlag kicked my butt! By the way, Sydney has been sleeping in her little crib in our room so far and hasn't needed to sleep with us in the bed. Of course that may change when we get home but we are glad that she seems to be OK with sleeping in the crib.

We miss you all so much. We also want to thank all of you for all your kind words and for your shared joy with us. We do love being here but I already am feeling a little homesick and we both look forward to getting home. Brandon, I miss you so much. I know you are having fun with the Konrads and with Gramps! Take good care of Bella. We love you like crazy and we can't wait for you to meet your little sister. She is going to crack you up!

Outside our hotel

and some more!

Finally some pictures

We made it!

This is going to be a short, somewhat "uneventful" post as I am dog-tired. We are in Jinan City, Shandong Province, where Sydney is just a short thirty minutes from our hotel. It is Sat. night here, 10 pm. Other than sleeping at the The White Swan Hotel last night and having breakfast this morning we pretty have been traveling 50 hours as of right now! I have unfortunately experienced quite a bit of motion sickness, either due to the 4 separate plane rides and crazy van driving by the locals, or the jetlag but I am off to sleep. We will meet Sydney in exactly 12 hours from now!!!!!!!

My baby has chickenpox!

I had to cut that last post short as I got a call from my social worker saying that our little Sydney has the start of chickenpox! She was informed of this from the CCAA just this morning. We had the choice of postponing our trip but NO WAY JOSE! Apparently the doctor was doing an exam on her and found 2 papules. Another little one from the same orphanage, soon to be son to the Kinzingers, just had the chickenpox and is now all better. They told us that if Sydney is still not over the chickenpox when it is time for us to come home they will not issue a Visa or let her leave the country until she has recovered/scabbed up. Well that's just the chance we are willing to take. If we have to stay longer, so be it. She needs her mommy and daddy to take care of her and now I REALLY can't wait to get there! Poor little thing. I imagine we won't be able to do much of anything but stay in our hotel room. Hopefully she will get over it fast. It usually takes 1-3 weeks to completely scab over and not be contagious anymore. I called the pediatrician and I have my list of things to get at the store for her. Most of it I already had but I need to get Calamine lotion and liquid antacid in case she has sores in her mouth. Oh please God don't let her have sores in her mouth. That will hurt. I pray that God will watch over her and that her caretakers will give her all the love and comfort that she SO needs right now. Hang on my little girl, Mama and Baba are coming for you.

We leave tomorrow

Even though we get closer and closer to getting Sydney as each day passes it still seems so unreal. Somehow it's hard to believe that she even exists. It's been almost 6 months since we first saw her beautiful pictures and 17 months since we started the adoption process. Tomorrow we begin our journey to our daughter and to Brandon's little sister. Everything as we know it will change and it is the most wonderful feeling in the world. We are so blessed. Sleeping has been really difficult for the last couple of weeks and especially these last days. I guess I am getting prepared to have a toddler! We leave tomorrow morning at 10am. As crazy as this sounds by the time we actually get to China we will have been traveling 21.5 hours. We have 2 layovers on the way. I think we will be pretty pooped out when we get in so hopefully we can get some sleep. I don't sleep well in an upright position, surrounded by strangers.

Packing up

We are still not completely done but most of the packing is finished. I think. We are leaving in 6 days........oh my gosh........6 DAYS!