Becoming a Family

It has been a wonderful, crazy, joyful, stressful few weeks at home with Zane!!!  It is hard to believe we've been together for almost 7 weeks, yet it seems like forever since I've had a full night's sleep (ha, ha!).

Zane is adjusting beautifully and is bonding well with us.  He is a smart little guy and has been testing the boundaries, of course, but its sooo fun to see him learn something new!  He's clearly understanding a good bit of what we say to him, as he will follow simple directions like  "Please put this in the trash", "Find your juice" etc.  He's speaking a little bit of English...more with coaxing from us, but a few words he'll use on his own...first one being "Mama", then "Baba", and then later "Suna" (our dog)....actually it's "Una", as he doesn't get "S's" out!!!  It is hilarious to hear him say "Una, it!" instead of "Suna, sit!"  We were driving down the road the other day and heard him get very excited in the backseat.  Monte asked "What's he saying?"  I figured out that he had spotted a cow and was saying "Cow, Moo, Moo!!!"  What proud parents we were at that moment!  :) 

We've been keeping him busy going to fun places, meeting with friends/other children & experiencing new things in the USA!  He's gone to preschool a couple of times now, to get him prepared for when Mama goes back to work (part-time) in November.  His teachers are wonderful and he seems to be doing really well there. 

Zane will have some surgery in January - 4 different specialists will work with him during one surgery time (yay!)  Thank you God for our clinical coordinator who can work this all out! 

Monte has been such a wonderful daddy.  We realized that Zane was starting to bond a little more to me (since I was with him at home every day), so Monte has picked up the night-time routine most evenings and that has helped a ton!  It gives me a little break and they are creating some special daddy & Zane memories.

God just continues to show me how blessed we are to have this little boy in our life!  Even when I'm half asleep, rocking him back to sleep in the middle of the night, I remember how short this time is, and how quickly he will grow up and not want me to rock him to sleep anymore....  So, I'm cherishing each moment as it comes!

Jet Lag

We're home!  What a trip!  It is wonderful and strange to be home again.  Our home will never be quite the same!  Definitely it will be much noisier :) We are a little mixed up on our days and nights, but we'll get there.  The plane ride was an experience.  Thank the Lord for play-doh, raisins, and sleep! Zane did sleep about half of the trip, which was so helpful.  We had several melt-downs....but we survived.  He does not like the seatbelt AT ALL.  We made it all the way to NC only short one suitcase (which promptly arrived this morning).  After the experience on the plane, we were dreading introducing the car seat for the drive home (no car seats in China).  For some reason, the car seat didn't phase him?! 

Both sets of grandparents were there at the airport to greet us: My mom (lao lao), my dad (papa Bu), Monte's mom (grammy), and Monte's dad (paw paw)!!   Some good friends who live in Gastonia, Amy & Mark & their  beautiful kids also came out to bring our car and take some arrival photos (Mark is an awesome photographer:)  So it was a joyous (though late) arrival!  When we got home, the house had been completely decked out by wonderful friends from church!!!  We had balloons and welcome home posters all over the house and a whole kitchen table full of food and toys!  What a surprise - the "Lion's Den" kids at church went all out!  I can't wait to introduce Zane to them all!!

It has been such a joy to share some of our experiences with so many friends and family this way.  While we are not talented "writers", we hope the things we have shared have been fun for you to read & to see a taste what we've been experiencing.  We'll get more pictures uploaded tomorrow & I'm sure Monte will put together some more video clips (he's the video editor of the two of us!) 

God is so gracious and good to us, we are incredibly blessed.

On the way home!

We are sitting at the Hong Kong airport with our sleeping Zane (wish he could have waited a few more minutes for a nap!! :)  

Our flight out is delayed, but we should still make it in tonight.  

Time to board!

Thank you all for your prayers!

The last hurdle

We are on the home stretch of our time in China!  Today we have the last step before we can come home:  our US consulate appointment to get Zane's visa. His TB test was negative - yeah!  We did have one little girl in our group with a positive skin test, and we all had an anxious morning praying for that family.  Fortunately her chest x-ray was negative.  There have been a couple US families detained in China because of this new requirement for a TB test right before they leave the country. 

 

We continue to fall in love with our little boy.  Even when he has a "meltdown", I can usually smile to myself and empathize with the stress he's under in this transition and all the stuff he's gone through in his short life.  He seems to understand us more and more, but is not really vocalizing any English yet.  He does get frustrated when we don't understand him…he tries to point to what he wants & it is trial and error until we get it right…. or we have a little temper tantrum!  Fortunately, they usually don't last very long - just until we can distract him onto something else.

 

It has really been a team effort with Monte and I. We are taking turns doing the different things for Zane that serve to "bond" us with him.  It's been fun just to see a couple little things that are already better for him.  When we got him, his skin felt extremely leathery and dry & for a couple days he was constantly scratching himself.  We immediately started doing lots of baby lotion after his bath & that has been a sweet bonding time.  Now his skin feels like it should…plus he's not scratching himself anymore!   He does seem to be bonding to us.  We got our first "kisses" from him Sunday!

 

It's been a really busy week with appointments or other activities every day.  That's made it somewhat difficult to have a set schedule.  Poor Zane has missed his nap a couple of days and had brief sleeps on the bus…. but when we get back to the room, he's had just enough sleep to pretty much defeat naptime…then he starts nodding off at dinnertime!!!

 

I'm attaching a photo at True children's home where Zane spent a little time after his surgeries.  We are standing in front of Zane's old crib!  He didn't act like he remembered much as he was very young when there, but it was still special to see it.  We also got to meet other special needs children currently being cared for there.  They are so precious!  It was much nicer than I imagined & has a really low  (2 to 1) child to caregiver ratio. The orphanages are more like 6 to 1.  

 

So we have gotten more info re: Zane's story!  In addition to True Children's home (which provided his surgeries and initial foster care), Another foundation called Pearl River Outreach also helped our little boy by funding another foster family to care for him after he went back into the orphanage's care.  So, basically, he spent most of his life in 2 foster homes.  It is obvious that he's had great care.

 

On Sunday we got to visit a Cantonese/English church service.  It was open to anyone, which was surprising to us.  They had translated several popular contemporary songs into Cantonese.  It was such a blessing to sing "In Christ Alone" together in two languages (Zane's and ours!)  The speaker talked about the grace of God....which was special to me because Zane's name means "God is Gracious".  We met a man from Zane's home city of Zhanjiang, who was very enthusiastic about our English name choice for Zane...this was made us feel very good, since it is something we thought and prayed about very seriously.

We have loved visiting China, but are getting tired of living in a hotel room.  We are ready to come home & get into a more normal routine! 

 

Blessings to you all!

Zane chopsticks video

Fatherhood

After four days of fatherhood Carmen insisted that I write something for the blog.  She said, "Our friends and family want to know what you're thinking.  You have a way with words that keeps people interested, I'll just check the spelling…" I said, "What do you meen I yous spel chek?"  She answered, "Sometimes you outsmart it."  I haven't decided if that is a compliment or not…I guess it is.  Today is day five of this new lifestyle for all of us and I've found myself questioning my sanity in making this decision and other times overjoyed with my new son.
 
Knowing how much he's been through already in his first two years of life, he actually impresses me as much as he has me knocking my head against the wall.  One minute I'll be asking myself, "How do you get crayon out of carpet?" the next minute notice how he has to take his shoes off once he enters the room.  He takes my socks off even and stuffs them into my shoes.   During his first bath I couldn't fathom why it was so fun to thrash around in the tub.  (glad the hotel bathroom has a drain in the floor outside the tub.)  But then the first time I took him to the potty he demonstrated how he's already pottytrained!…mostly.  After seeing some impressive footage on America's Funniest Home Videos I had been imagining what feeding time might turn into with a two year old boy.  Again I was awestruck with his dexterity as he utilized a pair of chopsticks to feed himself.  There's a short video clip of him skillfully taming some ramen noodles.   He does it to scrambled eggs too.
 
Today was day six for our little trooper as we went to get his medical examination and vaccinations.  He probably felt like a human pin cushion as the nurses concluded all five inoculations.  They tenderly placed little butterfly band aides over each shot location as they finished.  If they had been tattoos you'd thought he was into body art.  The two doctors we saw confirmed that he had all body parts accounted for and in good working order.  I found it ironic that the ENT doctor was actually blind in one eye…As I put my wallet away I walked out of there feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted in more ways than one.  We were all glad to have that behind us.

Strollering around!

Ni Hao, from Guangzhou!

We've had a great couple of days!  Yesterday we received the adoption decree and applied for Zane's passport. For now we are just waiting... So in the meantime, our guide Rosa has taken us grocery shopping and sightseeing.  The grocery was quite different!  It was kind of like a Wal-Mart, except it took 3 floors.  There were these crazy escalators that your shopping cart hooked onto that took you to each floor.  We bought a stroller there & have been more mobile ever since!  Zane loves going out in the stroller!  We took a long walk yesterday around a few blocks.  It is a very busy city of somewhere around 10million with people, cars, and bikes everywhere.  I was amazed to see two very young children walking without any adults around...then we saw more & more children as school let out.  Imagine allowing a 6 year old to escort a 4 year old around New York City!!   There is construction everywhere...they are building skyscrapers everywhere you look. What is fascinating about it is that all the scaffolding is made out of bamboo. 

Today we went to a beautiful Chinese garden with many Koi ponds.  Zane loved watching the fish go crazy when he tossed them food. Then this afternoon we went swimming at the hotel's pool!  What a treat after a hot, hot morning!  The pool required swim caps, which we didn't bring with us....so we bought some there.  Aren't we precious? 

So we continue to learn about our son - foods he likes/doesn't like, what gets him cranky, what helps soothe him.  He is surprisingly prone to sharing (mostly food) with everyone.  When we give him purell or brush his teeth, he insists that Monte and I both join in as well. Yesterday am, he started calling me "mama" & has that down pat!  He's calling Monte something we can't distinguish, but we know he's referring to Monte when he says it. He's said "daddy" a few times, but not as clearly as "mama" (Mama is what he would have called his foster mom, too).  He's also saying "ball".  He understands "no"! (He doesn't like it, but he understands it!!).  He waves and says "bye" to everyone whenever we leave a place. 

We are a conspicuous family, for sure.  We get lots of stares and questions. One night our waitress actually left to go find someone who could speak english so she could ask us questions about Zane.  A man in the elevator gave us a beautiful "blessing", and then said that "he" was a "lucky man" - we weren't sure whether he was talking about Zane or Monte, but either way, they are both blessed to have each other!!!  I'm sure that this will be similar in the US as well, so I guess we had better get used to it!