a new normal??

We are slowly settling in to a new routine as a family. Lia's birthday passed with some big meltdowns and the refusal of a cupcake (which I ended up eating!!) but she has slowly come around to the joys of Moms baking. Who am I kidding, I don't bake, they were from Metro. The only baking these days is the add water and stir kind. Even the Easy Bake Oven is too much work for me. Around our house Brian cooks and I clean. So far Lia has been eating about 10 foods including pizza, eggs, watermelon but in the last 2 days has decided other foods are actually ok and sometimes even taste good.

We have been lucky enough to come home to lots of food from our families and my Mom did our travel laundry. Kuddos to any family who travelled on an adoption trip with more than one child to drag around!!

Lia has very quickly learned how to use a water gun and loves the kiddie pool. We are maximizing our time at home by Brian taking parental leave first as I only work part time so am home more anyways. We are receiving less threats to beat us up, instead we are now treatened with being bitten, especially when Lia plays tiger. What a crazy kid!! She loves to do stuff which makes us laugh.

This is one of my favourite pictures of Lia. She loves to sit on the counter when we are doing dishes, cooking (Brian that is) or tidying up the kitchen. We are now having meltdown free days and getting to know each other better.

Ups and downs

Life right now with Lia is moment by moment. She is such a great little girl but is having some difficulty with all the change. She has moments of tremendous sadness, we expected some difficulties but now that she is here and OUR LITTLE GIRL its hard. She is also having some temper tantums but at least she lets me hold her through them and she does calm down eventually.

She is getting better at helping us to know what she wants. We can now open the fridge and she will point to what she wants. She still only eats very limited food but at least she can pick (which we then hide medicine in, he he) She also loves to help Brian to drink his beer by pushing the bottle up so he drinks more. And of course, Brian  thinks this is great!!

She has started saying some english words like hello, Pickle Juice (our cats name!!), ears, baby, go, and of course she says no very well. She is a really funny kid. My Mom and Ami had cleaned out the bird bath in the garden yesterday and Lia decided to explore. Soon enough she was bathing herself in the water. I think if she could have climbed in, she would have.

She is our dare devil, loves to let go with her hands on the swings, stands up on the rocket swing. I feel more grey hair already!! Here are more pictures of the last couple of days...

Home at last!!

We are soooo happy to be home. The girls did great on the flight, they both slept for about 6 hours. It was nice to come home to family waiting for us at the airport.

We have had a quiet day. The girls and I finally made it to bed at 1:30am and then Brian and I were up at 5am the girls 6am. It was funny leaving Beijing at 6:00 pm and arriving the same day at 6:45pm.

Ami surprised us today and wanted to go to school so she went for a 1/2 day and then we all slept this afternoon. I have dug out size 2 clothing for Lia which fit better. I had them all out and ready to give away so I am for once glad to not be organized.

Lia is settling in well. She does not like the cat and speaks very loudly to them. I wish I knew what she is saying. She has probably not seen animals before???

Some things I will not miss about China are the really hard beds and the insane taxi rides. I will miss eating out great chinese food for under $15.00 for all of us.

Last post from China

We spent our last full day here in China at the zoo and more shopping. Seeing the pandas again was great. Lia loved the monkeys, Ami loved being with her new friend from another FOI family who are still here. We had a great dinner with our guide Fei.

This will be our last post from China. Its time to bring our general home. Soon she will meet her new army of loving family that she can boss around (and threaten to beat up!!). Brian and I both feel although she is turning 4 in just over a week she is much younger than her age. We will bring her home give her lots of time, patience and love and watch her grow. This has been a trip of ups and downs and have seen China in a new way. We are not saying goodbye to China but see you later. I am exhausted.

The picture of Lia in the pink dress was the day we met and the other 2 from the last couple of days. What tremendous change for our little girl. She will have many more firsts at home and there are so many things we want to show her. See you soon!!

---

Enter for a chance to get your town photo on Bing.ca! Submit a Photo Now!

Last couple of days.

We had a great day yesterday going to the Panjiayuan Weekend Market aka the dirt market aka the genuine antique market (wink, wink). There was everything from scrolls to jade to wood carvings. I picked up some clay tea pots, Brian some papercuts and Ami some crystal balls. Too bad Ami did not see the taxi cab breaking down on our way home in her crystal ball so we could have picked another taxi. Poor taxi cab driver did make it to the Jianguo Hotel where we stayed last time so we went to Pizza Hut for some air conditioning (hot hot day) and some lunch prior to finding another taxi to take us back to the hotel.
 
Lia has now decided she is not only going to beat up Brian but also Ami and I. She says it very playfully and we get such a laugh from her saying it. I think she should take karate, Brian thinks she needs tai chi.
 
Everything new Lia has to smell. She smells toys, clothes, Brians socks. She also smells us, a lot. Its really funny and she loves it when we smell her back.
 
She has starting doing this thing were she pulls me down, wraps her arms around my neck and crawls into my lap for a snuggle. Its so sweet, shes such a cute kid. She likes to be carried around when we are out which is fine with us, good thing she is only 28lbs as we have been out quite a bit.

---

Enter for a chance to get your town photo on Bing.ca! Submit a Photo Now!

Our Can Can

Our Lia has been called Can Can (prounounced tsan tsan) for the first 4 years of her life. It is very interesting getting to know this little person with likes, dislikes and who keeps chattering at us in Chinese.
 
We have heard her say what we thought was ta shi Baba to Brian which means you are Baba. Today we found out that she was actaully saying something different. We would hear her say it when Brian was being silly and tickling her or pretending to be a monster and what she was actually saying sounded similar but meant "I am going to beat up my Baba". She then slaps her hand on something hard, I guess Brian better be careful!!
 
Other interesting things about our daughter
 
-if you ask her for a kiss (something like ching ching in Mandarin) she will put her head on your lips. She has started giving kisses on the lips, but only spontaneous not when you ask
 
-the only fruits we have found she will eat is watermelon and what looks and seems to be a watermelon but yellow inside. So much for them saying she will eat anything, no veggies so far for this girl
 
-we have tried colouring with her but she does not seem to know how to use the crayons, she is slowly getting the hang of it
 
-she will feed herself only bits of finger foods, it appears that she has been mostly fed, which is not what we expected for her living in an orphanage. Maybe because there are only few children where she has lived they have been feeding her
 
-she will only pee if she has a piece of toilet paper in her hand
 
-she is very slow to wake, in the morning and from her nap, not good if we need to get somewhere!
 
Ami made her a beautiful crown today. Brian has decided Lia's nickname is going to be General Go Go because she makes some very good I mean business faces. She knows how to stamp her foot well!!

---

Turn down-time into play-time with Messenger games Play Now!

Back in Beijing, better late than never

We had our last day in Hangzhou yesterday. A quiet packing morning then we had to check out after Lias nap at 3pm. We were not leaving for the airport until 5pm so we wandered to the local childrens amusement park. For about $15.00 both girls went on lots of rides. Ami's favourite was the small roller coaster and Lia the swing.
 
Our plane was to leave at 7:50 pm, note the word was. The plane arrived late so we boarded about 30 minutes later and then we proceeded to sit in the plane. Sit, sit and more sitting for a total of 2 1/2 hours. Apparently we were not cleared to take off, Brian thinks the air traffic controller went out for tea, I think he fell asleep!! There was almost a mutany on the plane. We finally landed at 1:00am with 2 sleepy kids and too many bags to carry. Hainan airlines was so happy to have us fly with them they helped us to the front of the plane and then shoved the bags in our hands as we realized we were out at the farthest part of the airport. We took a bus from Tokyo to the airplane hanger. That was after our treacherous climb down the stairs outside with our luggage and sleepy children.
 
Thankfully, Yulins brother was waiting for us smiling at the airport at 1:30 am. He is so great, he even carried Ami up to our room even though she was awake at the hotel check-in. We love him!!
 
We took Lia to the Vista Medical Clinic, an international clinic this am as we still had some concerns and have more meds for our little peanut. She is such a trooper.

---

Look 'em in the eye: FREE Messenger video chat Chat Now!

more photos

---

Enter for a chance to get your town photo on Bing.ca! Submit a Photo Now!

the good and not so good

Adoption has been a wonderful way to build our family, very challenging and we are very proud of our two girls. With Lia, is has been more of a leap of faith with her part of China's Waiting Child program. We are trying to give her the best care we can with the little info we have and some of it has been contradicted since we have arrived. We spent 3 hours last night at the Childrens Hospital dealing with some medical issues which have arisen and needed to be looked at before they got worse. Our guide helped us tremendously and we got there and back pretty quick!! Lia has been a trooper through it all and still is a smiley happy girl. She is doing better but unfortunately we had to cancel our trip to her orphanage today as we needed to stay close to the hotel to manage her care. We are really really ready to come home.
 
Onto better things. We had a great day yesterday prior to our tour of the hospital. We went to West Lake and had a great boat tour. We did get swarmed (the first time that is) about halfway through when a bunch of people discovered we were on the top deck and more and more people came to take pictures of the white people with Chinese children. There were about 30 people (more during the second event) who asked us all sorts of questions about our girls. We have met quite a few people who have wanted to talk to us and have enjoyed our broken conversations but this was a bit much as there was no where for us to go when we had enough and the crowd was a bit too much for my comfort.
 
Our second swarming was at the hospital in the evening when I was trying to get instructions for Lia's care and over 40 people came out of all sorts of places to see us. It really made me feel like a freak show as it was the second time for the day.
 
Again, onto the better stuff. We went to a tea museum and had a fantastic time. We had a tea ceremony and both the girls had tea. Lia had all 4 kinds of tea, they must have been giving to her at the orphanage. That was a highlight of our trip which of course meant getting out the Visa card at the gift shop. We have some really nice items for Lia when she is older. Lia has started giving us hugs and kisses!!
 
We had a very quiet day today and are off to Beijing tomorrow. Both Brian and I have said we feel more comfortable in Beijing in all the places we have been in China.
 
Tonights thanks go to Sheri and Janice who are helping take care of our cats while we are away!!
 
 

---

Turn down-time into play-time with Messenger games Play Now!

more day 2 photos

 

---

Win a $10,000 shopping spree from Hotmail! Enter now Enter now

Happy Childrens Day!!

It is Childrens Day here in China and we celebrated by making our adoption of Lia official. We thought we were going to the Civil Affairs Office to just pick up some paperwork but we had a really nice little ceremony making our new family member officially ours. I did cry just a bit, it was really nice. The lady gave both the girls a stuffed panda.
 
We then had to run around to 3 other offices to do different stuff, register her paperwork, passport etc. I have never had to give so many fingerprints and sign my name. I dont even know half the stuff I signed!!! Maybe we will get home to no house or car or cats or maybe we agreed to stay here for another 3 weeks!!
 
Lia is doing well her second day.Lots of smiles and laughter. She is usally following either Brian or I around. She loves the birds in the lobby, elevators and a new little toy kitty from the McDonalds happy meal.
 
We slept ok last night. Ami was almost on top of Lia and in her usually horizontal across the bed postion. We moved our 3 super sized single beds into one and it is bigger than a king so we all have lots of room. Except Lia who has to now sleep with Ami!!

---

30 days of prizes: Hotmail makes your day easier! Enter now