We met the director of the CCAA!

Just a quick note. When our group went to the U.S. Consulate for our searing in ceremony we found a great surprise, well actually two. First, the director of the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) was there that day! This was his first visit to the Consulate in three years. He was introduced and he observed while we all promised... whatever it was we promised. I could not understand the woman on the very distorted microphone. Anyway, the second surprise was that one of the members of our group had a diplomatic card and was allowed to bring her camera into the consulate. Normally you can't bring anything in, no cameras, no cell phones, etc. Our guide said "bring passport only, nothing else." then she added "oh and your new child." Anyway, they took a picture of our travel group, and I guess because we were adopting an older child the director was particularly interested in talking to us. He didn't speak any English and we very little Mandarin so not much communication happened but it was clear he was pleased. Here are the pictures.

Tonya (for J, C & D)

Maaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Daniel is a precious child. He has a happy countenance, he is funny too (I think). His physical antics are funny; his facial expressions are obviously trying to communicate humor. He certainly cracks himself up! I wish we knew what he was saying. It’s amazing, his ability to adjust to our home, our family and still have such a wonderful countenance in the midst of what must be very stressful. Don’t get me wrong, he is often frustrated when he doesn’t understand, and he expresses that also. Usually these expressions come in the form of a whinny loud “Maaaaaaaaaaa” from the other room. That usually means he feels his sister has wronged him. (picture on the top right is at the Texas State Fair).

The other day he was giving me a hug and kiss and he whispered "wo ai ne" (I love you) in my ear. We say this to him every time we get a chance and he has been responding in kind for several weeks. Anyway, I guess he wasn't convinced I heard him so he repeated it over and over "wo ai ne, wo ai ne, wo ai ne" about 50 times, each time getting faster and pronouncing it a little less clearly. Now normally this would melt a mothers heart, and I don't mean to be cold hearted, but here's what it sounded like to me "wh i nny, wh i nny, wh i nny", and with a smile on my face I thought, "yes dear, you are whinny, and I love you too."

The almost constant sibling rivalry is something I had not adequately prepared myself for. He looks at Cosette’s room, full of 6 year accumulation of “stuff” and he is jealous. I totally understand. He has a lot of toys of his own, but it certainly does not compare to Cosette’s stash. There is a struggle between the concept of owning and sharing. The toy is Cosette’s, but she is required to share it. An example of our struggle is the bath toys. Cosette was an only child for 6 years. Everything that was for a child was hers, I get that. So now the rules of the game have completely changed. We have two and Daniel wants to play with the bath toys, of course. Well, Cosette is convinced they are hers to control. When not supervised she doles out toys one at a time completely controlling what he has and when. Obviously not ok. It’s an adjustment for all of us!

While Cosette is at school we do normal stuff. Often he will sit and color for 20 minutes at a time (great attention span for a newly adopted child). We work on language building every day; leap frog, flash cards, picture books, writing the alphabet, etc. and he loves all of those activities. He struggles with spatial skills; puzzles are clearly completely new to him and he is just starting to understand that the pieces make a picture. We need to get a few more puzzles for him, ones that will capture his attention. He’s currently working at age level 3-4 with puzzles. We play outside a lot, too; swinging, jumping on the trampoline, swimming in the inflatable wading pool, riding the bike, etc. Of course, we also have to do laundry, wash dishes and go to the grocery store. He is a good helper, loads and unloads the dish washer with me; helps put his clothes away, etc. He is learning so much every day.

We are slowly doing better on the issue of food. At first we were struggling to find foods he could enjoy. I would cook things I thought would be familiar and he would reject them outright. I forced him to take a bite a couple of times. If he doesn’t like it I’m not forcing him to eat it at this point, but he is learning that he really might like things even when they look unfamiliar. He likes plane yogurt, with a teaspoon of honey in it, anything made with beef; bananas, eggs in any form, shrimp and of course rice!

This morning after breakfast he came over to me and gave me a huge hug, kissed me on the cheek and said "tank u ver we match" (thank you very much). At bed time he wants us to stay with him until he falls asleep, but after that he sleeps peaceful alone in his room.

Sometimes I find myself tired, and not wanting to jump, run and resolve one more time. There is a reason why God made our bodies to birth children in our 20’s and 30’s. At 40, chasing a new kiddo around, similar to a toddler who is exploring his world, is exhausting. By the time my two are in bed around 8:15 I crash completely. I’ve slept better then I have for years! I guess that’s good, right.

I’m researching books on helping manage sibling rivalry. Any tips are welcomed. I prepared for a lot of things, but somehow neglected to prepare for this issue.

Dear God, I thank You for the gift of this child to raise, this life to share, this mind to help mold, this body to nurture, and this spirit to enrich.

Let me never betray Daniel’s trust, dampen his hope, or discourage his dreams. Help me dear God to help this precious child become all you mean him to be.

Let Your grace and love fall on him like gentle breezes and give him inner strength and peace and patience for the journey ahead.

We are off to church in a few minutes. Be blessed friends.

Tonya (for J, C & D)

Home alone with mom

We have been home sense Friday afternoon and they have been fun and exhausting days! The flight was anything but fun. Although the kids were amazingly well behaved, all three of my travel companions were sick on the ride home. One threw up, another threw up and had diarrhea. John was nauseous had stomach cramps and fever. I think I slept for about 30 minutes before I realized how sick my crew was and stepped into “nurse-mom mode.” The worst was one child’s runny poo all over the seat and clothes! We now own one of those plane blankets because it was all I had to put around the no longer messy child after I cleaned them up and washed out the pants in the plane bathroom. Believe me, no fun!

After 23 hours of travel we finally arrived at DFW. Our friend Julie met us at the airport. Daniel was so excited about going to the long awaited “new mamas house.” One suitcase didn’t make it to Dallas. After a brief conversation with United they found the bag and guaranteed delivery between 6 and 10 p.m. Ok, let’s go home.

Once we arrived home, Cosette exuberantly walked Daniel through the house, explaining what was what, whose was whose, etc. It was fun to see them both so excited. Daniel loved “new mama’s house”. He was especially excited about his room. Several times he confirmed with me that these toys were indeed for him. This bed was indeed his; these clothes were actually for him, etc. The excitement in his expressions were priceless. Periodic gasps of excitement peppered his giggles and smiles. What fun!

Our good friend and neighbor, Jackie had prepared a crock pot with chicken cooking for our dinner. That was a wonderful blessing. Thanks Jackie! Another friend Julie had grocery shopped for us, filing our otherwise very empty fridge with milk, eggs and other necessities. It’s great to be loved!

Language - a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols.

Several people have asked how we are communicating. I must admit it’s frustrating and difficult, but we are communicating. It’s a hard thing to describe. He points and rambles on in Mandarin. I recognize a word, or simply figure out through gestures or context. Another method is simply to get him to show me. We do a lot of walking around pointing at things. Generally our language is a strange fusion of grunts, grins and words, both Mandarin and English.

Over the weekend our goal was to stay awake during the day, and to sleep at night. Simple right? Well, not quite as simple as you might think. In order to facilitate this goal we did our best to pack our day with activity. Shopping for groceries, playing in the back yard, unpack suitcases, do laundry, etc. We even went to church on Saturday.

We hadn’t planned on taking Daniel to church for several weeks, but we were bored, falling asleep and thought “why not”. We didn’t really plan on leaving him in class either, but when we got to Cosette’s classroom he seemed willing to go so we tried. Cosette took his hand and they went together. We picked up a pager so they could contact us immediately if Daniel needed us, then we walked around the corner and waited just to be sure he was ok. He did great! The teacher indicated that Daniel had a great time, joined in with the actions to the worship songs and was all smiles. He was definitely ready to go when we picked him up just an hour later. He grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go.

On Monday morning Daniel (and I) had to face some harsh realities. Dad was off to work and even more difficult, Cosette was going to school. When John kissed and hugged each of us to say good bye for the day Daniel protested a little. Then later when he noticed John’s truck was gone we had a few tears. Then we loaded up the car and headed to Cosette’s school. Daniel was glued to me while we got Cosette settled into class. When we walked out of the building he was relieved UNTIL he realized Cosette wasn’t coming with us. He was devastated! He cried all the way home saying something about his “jie Jieh”. It was sweet but heart breaking. The rest of the day we had a lot of fun playing but still he would periodically ask about “jie jeih” with a distressed voice. The morning of day two Daniel came out of his room with his backpack on ready to go to school. Again we had tears when he realized Cosette was going to school and that he was headed home with me once again. Day three was a little better, at least no tears.

Daniel and I have filled our days with normal “stuff”. We have sorted laundry, had a blast washing dishes and gotten dirty sweeping the back porch; generally just done life together. Yesterday when we played dress up Daniel put a tutu on my head like a wig.

In a few weeks Daniel will start kindergarten and I will be going back to work. We will continue to adjust and eventually find our “new normal.” Keep us in your prayers. God’s grace is sustaining us, his love is filing our hearts and his blessings continue to encourage us!

Tonya (for J, C & D)

We are home at last!

Friends and family, we have arrived safely back at home. Daniel only slept about one hour on our 12 ½ hour flight back to the states. He kept asking if we were almost there yet in pantomime; and I kept pantomiming back that it was going to be a long, looong, looooooong trip home. I was able to use language to tell him that we were landing in America as we approached San Franciso. He was soooo excited! He traveled pretty well considering the long trip and the fact that he was a six year old boy confined to an economy class seat. But when he understood that we were on the final leg from San Francisco to Dallas he did even better. He was a real trooper!

When we first met Daniel and showed him pictures of our house and his room, he asked a lot of questions about the number of toys he would have since he could see a lot of toys in the picture of his sister’s room, but not in the picture of his room. We tried to tell him he would have plenty of toys, but he still seemed skeptical. He is skeptical no longer! He has been playing almost non-stop since we got home. The three veteran members of the family woke up at various times last night due to the readjustment to Texas time and nearly always discovered Daniel awake and playing quietly with his new toys. So far the comprehensive set of Home Depot tools and the larger vehicles for action figures are the big favorites. However, there are a lot of toys that we haven’t let him see yet just because we didn’t want to overwhelm him.

As I was typing this a delivery came from our church. They sent us a beautiful welcome home arrangement of fresh and chocolate covered fruit! I must go partake! Thank you Gateway!!! And thank you all for participating with us in this exciting adventure. We quite honestly could not have completed this journey without your support. We so value your friendship and your support; and we look forward to introducing each of you to Daniel.

John (for T,C and D)

Good bye from China!

Well it’s raining today so John is trying to coral the kids in the other room while I pack. Later today, at 2:45, is our consulate appointment. After that we are going to dinner with the Gu’s. Hopefully we will be back to the hotel and in bed early because tomorrow is a very long day of travel. We leave the hotel around 5 a.m., fly from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, transfer flights and get on the 12 hour flight Hong Kong to San Francisco. Finally, after immigration, we will fly home to Dallas around 4 p.m. on Friday. Please pray for us as we are confined in a small space for 12 plus hours with two very energetic young children. I believe we are as prepared as we can be.

Each time we travel to China I am reminded how beautiful this place it is, how welcoming the people are and how much we love both.

Thanks for following along with us. We will let everyone know we are home safely on Friday evening or Saturday morning. After we are home, we will post periodic updates on the kids. Check in as you like!

The Eisenhauers are saying good bye from China!
Tonya (for J, C & D)

The end is near...

We have the privilege of being in China during the Autumn Moon Festival. Primarily this is a time to be with family, to enjoy being together and go out to eat together. Snoopy’s parents invited us to join them and some other friends for dinner. We had a lovely night, except for that Daniel’s poor manners and Cosette’s absolute exhaustion from the previous day’s trip. It would be the understatement of they year to say the kids were difficult to manage. The restaurant had a glass wall overlooking the Pearl River and Guangzhou, so we were able to watch the moon rise over the horizon. There were toasts to the new moon, to friendship both new and old. It would have been a lovely evening if I was not so completely consumed with the kiddos.

Guangzhou and more specifically Shaman Island have changed a lot in the 6 years we have been away. The most glairing change is in the prices of things! Everything is very expensive, it seems even for western standards prices are high. John and Daniel went to dinner at our favorite restaurant on the island, Cow and Bridge, while Cosette and I were away. They shared an entrée with two bowls of rice and drinks, for $40 dollars. Prices in the stores have doubled and tripled also.

We have now joined the travel group from our adoption agency. There are six other families I believe. They have been together as a group for the majority of the trip. There are several girls close to Cosette’s age in the group and Cosette quickly made friends with a few of the girls. It is nice for her to have some English speaking friends for a few days. Unfortunately, Daniel was jealous and clearly felt left out. You can understand, she has been his companion and friend for the past two weeks and she was suddenly gone, leaving him alone with mom and dad. I’m sure he was confused also. On the bus Cosette sat in the back with her friends while Daniel sat with me. Periodically he would look back there and yell “jie jieh” (big sister). It was sweet to see him concerned about and miss her.

Yesterday was another outing, this time to a safari park where we road a train through a wildlife park, watching all the animals from all over the world. It was nice that we didn’t have to walk in the intense heat. It’s between 95 and 100 degrees here during the day with high humidity. After we got of the train, we walked to the Panda display. This time there were a dozen or more pandas to see. Again, a highlight for Cosette. We got separated from the group for a while, which was evidentially stressful for the group, but we were enjoying our selves.

Today, Tuesday, we take Daniel to his medical exam. The U.S. government requires this, not sure exactly why. Then we work on paperwork for the U.S. visa. I’ve filled out all our forms, but the guide needs to double check everything. Tomorrow the forms are taken to the U.S. Consulate so Daniel’s entrance visa can be issued. Thursday we have the official searing in ceremony. If it’s like last time, the big group is asked to all raise their right hand and promise to parent our children, and some other things I don’t remember. No big deal. Friday we head home! Our trip home will be long and grueling. We leave early on Friday; fly from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, collect our bags and transfer to our international carrier, United. We then take the 12.5 hour flight to San Francisco, transfer again and fly home, arriving about 4 p.m. Friday afternoon at DFW finally! We will be glad to be home. This has been a very long, tiring, expensive, difficult trip. It has also been a very wonderful, fun and exciting trip. We will be happy to be home.

Thanks for following along with us.

Tonya

Zhanjiang SWI... blessings from Heaven!

Well, I want to say that words fail me as I try to describe the events of today, but I’m going to describe it so that wouldn’t be entirely true. It was amazing, incredible, unbelievable, spectacular, moving, intense, emotional, wonderful, surprising, miraculous, mind-blowing, remarkable, astounding, inconceivable, fantastic… just a few words that come to mind, but they still aren’t quite right. Cosette and I are both going to need some time and space to process today’s events. Perhaps I’ll write more about my thoughts and feelings another day. For now I’ll do my best to simply describe the events of the past 24 hours.

As we prepared to leave Liaoning we asked Maggie, our guide, to explain once again to Daniel that Cosette and I would be leaving the following morning, Saturday. That we would go to Cosette’s orphanage and return the next day. This was not the first time we had told him, but we wanted to be sure he was not surprised. He was sad at first and resistant, then as he began to understand that John would be staying with him, that our big suitcases with all Cosette and my things would be there with them he began to accept it.

The flight from Shenyang to Guangzhou was relatively uneventful. It was fun to experience Daniel’s excitement over flying. Everything was new and exciting. Mama cha, Mama cha! (Mom look!) was repeated about a 100 times. We arrived in Guangzhou around midnight Friday night. The kiddo’s were wound up, we had a crib in the room instead of cots for the kids and it seemed we had about a dozen other problems with the room, but we were so exhausted we couldn’t think straight so we asked for the cots and told the guide we would deal with the other issues in the morning. By the time the kids were asleep it was after 1 a.m. Yikes, I thought, I’m going pay for this tomorrow. BTW – John was amazing today. He sat between the kiddo’s on the plane and basically took care of them the entire trip. It was a great break for me.

This morning Daniel woke up first. He was surprised and scared when he woke up. He couldn’t figure out where he was and he started crying at the top of his lungs. Poor little guy was really scared. Of course, I collected him and took him to our bed to try to calm him down and get back to sleep. Well, the first happened, but not the second. He and I were both operating on about 5 hours sleep!

We had arranged to have lunch with Snoopy’s parents (Snoopy was our exchange student who lived with us for 10 months back in 2007). They came to our hotel and directed us to a private room for an amazing banquet. There was course after course of amazing food. Plenty of things I didn’t recognize, and things I did too. What a wonderful extravagance! After the meal, we collected our suitcase, said a quick good bye to Daniel and John and were whisked away to the airport. Mr. Gu (Snoopy’s dad) is clearly a man of significant influence because we were treated like rock stars. We used a private entrance to the airport, waited for our flight in a luxurious room, had the security process done in that private room, and were served tea and treats while we waited. Then when it was time for the flight, we were driven in a private van to the side of the plane where we boarded the plane from a private entrance. Amazing, and beyond first class!

After the 45 minute flight we were met by a contingent of SUV’s that drove our group, now about 10 or so people to the orphanage. I video taped much of the drive, not knowing when we would turn a corner and be there! Good thing John is a great editor, we will need it! Anyway, we entered the orphanage grounds where some of the elementary children seemed to be putting on a performance. We stopped and watched for a few minutes. There were at least a hundred people there milling around the courtyard so when suddenly someone introduced the two people next to me as Cosette’s foster family I was completely thrown. These too, standing here watching? “Yes”. Well, I immediately started to tear up. Imagine! These are the hands that held my princess; the loving voice that sang to her; the arms that held her; the eyes she looked into trustingly for 12 months! What to say? How do I start to tell them the depth of my gratitude? How do I convey to them what a gift they have given me? My head was spinning. Fortunately, we were invited into a conference room inside to talk, so during the 5 minute walk I had a chance to collect my thoughts.

Cosette seemed shy and a little un-engaging. I believe it was just too much for her. How does she process what she was experiencing? If it’s putting me in a tail spin, imagine how she was feeling? I simply can’t!

Once in the conference room and seated, I was able to have a conversation with her foster mom and dad. I asked many questions, they told stories of her babyhood, they gave us a picture of their family, including Cosette, during the time Cosette was living with them. Both moms cried, her foster dad’s eyes swelled with tears several times but he held back. It was… words; help me with the words… a miracle! In the picture above and to the left you see Cosette's foster parents seated next to us. We had prepared a book of photos for them. Pictures of Cosette over the years. We put our phone number and address in the book in several places, hoping they will contact us again. We have no way of contacting them, this is not allowed by the orphanage.

Mr. Gu (Snoopy’s dad) had an schedule, so fairly quickly we were whisked off again. This time to go to Cosette’s finding spot, Potou hospital. At the hospital we took pictures, had a look around and finally went to the maternity ward. Mr. Gu said something about perhaps Cosette was born here so he wanted us to have pictures in that area and with the nurses. It was good to be able to go there. So many times, nightly for many years, we told Cosette her story before bed. We would tell about the hero’s her birth parents were to have found a way to save her life by bringing her to the Potou hospital where people who know how to take care of babies would find her and take care of her. Now we were standing in the very spot where the “crowd of people” reported they found a baby, my baby girl, Cosette! It’s all a little more then I could take.

As we walked around the courtyard, through the corridors of the hospital and drove through the surrounding streets I couldn’t help but think “does she look like any of these people?” “Could any of them be aunts or uncles, cousins or sisters?” She and I talked about that a little. I don’t think she was quite ready for that conversation.

At dinner and then later in the hotel as we talked about the day she asked me quite a few questions. She is really working on putting it all together in her head. She was clearly exhausted physically and emotionally and wanted me to stay in bed with her as she fell asleep. She wrested her cheek on top of my hand, holding tight to my arm. She is clearly feeling things she is unable to articulate.

An amazing day! I’ll post a few pics. For the fellow Zhanjiang parents, I’ll post more pictures tomorrow. We did not tour the orphanage, so I probably didn’t get a lot of pics that would be of much interest to anyone other then our family.

Feeling blessed beyond measure!
Tonya