Tid Bits

Things that I want to document, just wanting to keep it real for those who are about to take this journey and those who are considering adoption.  Being prepared for or expecting the worst and prayer are the two best advice tips I can give when taking this journey.  The second is that the first day or two are typically the worst both for the child and for yourself mentally.  Know that most often, after a few days or by the time you leave China, the child is different than the child you met on gotcha day.  Time, love, and patience does allow for healing and learning.

Tonight's ordeal:

 

Little man had a melt down for about an hour this evening, not even sure why. He had his pants down scratching his rear, I pulled them up and the fit began. Needless to say, that nixed me from going to the restaurant with the other families for dinner. I did sent my three teens because they were ready to flee and try something different. I just asked that they bring me some food back. We shall see what three teenagers think their mom likes...lol.

Victories and destruction on the move...

Baby Babble video for Esther was a success!!! She did a lot of repeating!!! Xavier could of cared less. 

Little man tore the vinyl off one of the office chairs in the room, guess we'll see if the Hilton will charge us. Ugh - can't take your eyes off of him for a second. And I've got multiple eyes with me.

He attempted to do it to the other chair just a few hours later. I'm not even sure how he is getting the holes started to pull on in. He is total destruction on the go. Seriously going to have to put things up and out of his reach everywhere we go.  Giving my husband the heads up to begin preparing at home. Likely going to have to put locks on the cabinets. 

On the bright side, he has picked up on the ASL signs for "more" and I worked on "eat" and shaking his head yes. We are also working on the sign for "book".

Those are my myriad of thoughts for the day.  Tomorrow is a free day, going to have to find something to go out and do.  Maybe we will visit the mall across the street.  

April 28, 2016 - Esther's orphanage visit

Today started out the same, getting everyone up and moving to hit the breakfast buffet.  I thought I might loose a few pounds while here but with this awesome buffet of so many options, I'm not sure if that will happen or not.

At this point I was praying we made the right choice.

Car ride=nap time, again!  You know he's sleeping hard when his finger comes out of his mouth.  Otherwise, his finger is in his mouth much of the time he sleeps.

This building has been Esther's home since she was about 18 months old, which is when she was found.  I cannot fathom the added heartache of having your child for that long and then for whatever challenging reason have to give her up.  She had to have been loved.

In this picture, we are being led to the rooms she spent most of her days in.  

This orphanage houses about 600 children.  We were told it is currently being updated and that the floor she usually stayed on was being painted with murals.  We know that she was part of the Half the Sky program; therefore, I will be contacting them when we return home to get whatever growth and development information they have on her - excited for these glimpses into her past!

We arrived right before lunch time.  We met most of her nannies and some of her special friends- one of whom is a 13 year old girl who is wheel chair bound - I try not to think about the fact that at 14 China deems you aged out for adoption.  With so many children in the orphanage, she likely isn't even paper ready.  We also got to meet with a little girl who was hosted last summer and who's family will be traveling to get in about 2 weeks.  The poor girl began crying while we were there and when the nanny asked why, she said she wanted her mama.  My heart broke for her, I told the guide to let her know that mama and baba were coming soon.  

My heart broke for all the children there who will be left behind, we saw 30 of them in that room, who will never know a mama.

Esther was very quiet during the entire visit and kept a straight face.  I began to wonder if we had made the right decision. I'm sure she was wondering if we were leaving her.  Though she never shed a tear. Then after we headed back down to leave, we saw a glimpse of the girl we know and a grin crossed her lips.  She knew she wasn't being left behind and I am so glad that we chose to give her this opportunity for closure.

Stress makes you sleepy.

Zhengzhou to Luoyang

The terrain heading to Luoyang was much different, it was mountainous.  I thought is was a beautiful drive.  Zhoukou is south of Zhengzhou and Luoyang is to the west.  Luoyang seems to have many tourist sites and is know as the place where Peonies originated. Unfortunately, they were not yet in full bloom.

]

Sorry, couldn't resist this!

We drove through four of these tunnels, if I counted right.  

These are homes.

Zhengzhou to Zhoukou

The scenery going to each of the orphanage cities was drastically different.  As were the cities themselves.  Instead of explaining, here are many of the pictures I took yesterday on the way to Xavier's orphanage city.


The trip to Zhoukou was field after field of what I would guess to be rice fields.  In the midst of those fields would be villages.  I would presume these are where the workers lived.  These fields are taken care of by hand, you could see a person here or there working in them.  Zhoukou was very trashy but in the midst of it, we saw a church being built with a cross standing high on top - even our guide was amazed.

 

I know this is blurry but there was trash all over.