Fake Birthday

Since Byron's class celebrates birthdays with special snacks from home and Byron and others have summer birthdays, his teacher allowed us to bring in a snack for him and he got to celebrate today. We created quite the distraction when walking in at story time (oops!) and the gang was excited to eat at Byron's table with him. In the name of keeping it real, I realized when we were all done and walking to the car that I had forgotten to bring Ruth's lunch as I had promised when I didn't have time to make it this morning. We ran over to the late lunch drop off area and left her juice boxes, chips and fruit snacks for lunch. It felt like a mom-fail but I am pretty sure she will be ecstatic when she gets home to have gotten such junk food for lunch! Ha ha.

The best day ever!

Byron proclaimed yesterday the best day ever. He learned to kayak up and down the beach of the St. Croix all by himself. You can see our friends and us here taking kids on the kayak. It was amazing weather and so nice to be outside. We also got our first family photo taken since June arrived home. It only took us 7 weeks!

The triplets

Aka the three stooges, three musketeers, three amigos... we could go on. These three are quite the crew. Almost the same height, similar developmentally, three different ages and hair types. June and Marcus are almost like long lost twins. Marcus wants to do everything with June. For the first 6 weeks June was home, Eli was grouchy every waking hour. He was feeling displaced though I kept assuring him that he was still the baby of the family! After that 6 weeks, Eli turned a major corner and most of his grouchiness left, for which we were ALL THANKFUL!

Easter Egg hunt

Pretty much everything is a first for June at this point. She has been taking it all in stride. It helps that she can just watch what her siblings are doing and she does it, too, no matter how crazy it seems!

Home

Going back and catching up on some major events since we got home from China. These are from the day June met her siblings.

Come on ride the train.....

One of the best decisions we made was to use the metro in Guangzhou. You can find a great website/app here. It doesn't require internet to use it while in country. Riding the metro, especially to get back and forth from the Garden to the China hotel is the way to go. We felt very comfortable, even at 9 pm, because you literally walk out the hotel doors and straight into the metro station at both hotels. The metro is very busy at all the hours we rode (9 am-9pm) and that also helped us feel safe. Dorothy and I decided we'd do a photo tutorial in hopes that some other families would be emboldened to use the metro and save some cash! (at $1 a ticket, it beats a cab or driver by a ton)

Step 1. Walk out your hotel and down into the metro. You will see ticketing machines. They only accept relatively crispy 5 or 10 yuan bills or 1 yuan coins.  Most places you want to go will cost 5-7 yuan per person.

Step 2: Choose English on the touchscreen and look on the map for your final stop. We were headed to Zhongshanba, where there are a lot of children's clothing malls. Then to the right of the screen you can choose how many tickets you want. It will calculate your cost. 

(Yuexiu park is our starting point from Marriott China Hotel on Blue Line 2. To go to either the Children's Markets or the Garden, you will be going North to the Red Line 5 and changing trains at Guangzhou Railway Station.)

(below is your instruction cheat sheet on machine) 

Step 3: insert $ and gather change and green tokens at bottom of machine. 

Step 4: scan your green token on top of turnstyle. and have the most responsible adult  KEEP it until you arrive at your destination.

Step 5: head down the MASSIVE escalator, which will have the color of the metro line you are boarding. Remember not to do any karate with other passengers (see photo below)

Step 6. When you reach the bottom of the escalator, you will know which side to board by knowing what stop you need to change trains to reach your final destination (in our case, it was the Guangzhou Railway Station). The direction the train is going is clear by the starting point on the map above the boarding doors (Yuexiu Park- location of Marriott China Hotel) and the bold-faced stops to come, whether it was to right or left of original stop. 

You are supposed to wait to the side and wait until people exit to board (see yellow arrows) but this is China and everyone just pushes everyone else and gets where they are going. 

When you are on the train, you can track your progress by watching the blinking lights. 

 Step 7: Changing trains is not too bad. You will get off at your change stop and see signs for how to get to the other metro line. In our case there were clear arrows to get to Red Line 5. You will not need your token at this stop. Just follow the arrows up and down stairs and escalators until you get to another set of trains.

Step 8: remember to look at the signs above the trains in bold to see which direction the train is going again. At Guangzhou Railway Station, you can take one train to the Garden (Taojin stop), or the other train to the Children's clothing markets (Zhongshanba stop). 

 Step 9: once you arrive at your destination, often you will be able to determine which door (Letters A, B, C, D) to exit by reading this sign. Each exit takes you to a different side of the street. If you end up at the wrong one, it's not a huge deal. You just cross the street above ground. Or you can come back into station and take the other exit. You won't need to enter the paid zone to do this. 

 Step 10: as you exit, deposit your green token in the slot and walk through. Congrats! You did it!

List of useful stops: 

- Yuexiu Park (China Marriott Hotel) Blue Line 2

- Taojin (Garden Hotel) Red Line 5

- Chen Clan Academy (beautiful historic home/museum) Yellow Line 1

- Airport South (GZ airport) Orange Line 3 

- Hanxi Changlong (Chimelong Safari Park shuttle bus) Orange Line 3

-Zhongshanba (street full of children's markets within 5 blocks) Red Line 5

Here is a list of places to explore in GZ with their corresponding stations. 

An update on real life and how we will need help

I'm sorry I have been MIA. Here's a quick update on what we have been doing and how you can help when we get home.

 

We have gone to Shamian Island. Here is my buddy Celeste, her pumpkin Ezri, June and I by the Pearl River. It's been overcast and rainy. Lots of rain at night and in the morning, and some during the day. Yaya doesn't like thunder so that's been waking her up at night.

I have lost all decision-making capacity at this point, so Dorothy has stepped in as Sherpa, food-decider, chief bargaining officer and Starbucks delivery lady. I told her today I am just so tired that I would have cried all week long if she wasn't here! For those of you who know her, you know that none of these roles is a stretch in any way. :)

First French fries thanks to auntie Dorothy.

Several people have encouraged me to share the REAL life version of the trip as opposed to just beautiful smiley pics. I am happy to be really really real about mothering and adoption as most people who know me in real life will attest. I simply haven't had the time or energy to blog since Andrew went home to be with the other kids and I traveled to Guangzhou. (I hated the Jinan airport by the time Friday was over.) I was doing great for the first 11 days of the trip and now I have crashed. I am tired and don't feel so great and as I mentioned above, I have lost the ability to make decisions. You try having to choose for yourself and a picky child you just met for every meal for weeks from zillions of choices while strangers sit around observing. I actually dread going to the breakfast bar every morning because it completely overwhelms me (though the majority of the food is delicious). Yaya, like many children, will eat things one day and spit them out the next. Consequently having to get food for her is a daunting task.

I would love to show you her stinker faces because she doesn't smile all the time, but the girl loves the camera and totally cheeses it up as I am sure you have noticed! She hasn't been parented, so naturally, having someone tell her no doesn't make her happy. Life at an orphanage is predictable and regimented so every day now she is having new experiences and needing boundaries set continually because her environment is constantly changing these days. I can tell its unsettling for her and I have not seen much of peaceful June since Thursday. Other people may think she is happy on first glance, but I know enough about her behaviors now to know she is not calm inside. So while we are not dealing with blatant resistance most of the time, thankfully, she definitely has her guard up and wants life on her own terms. Who can blame her, really? Which brings me to the topic of when she comes home.....

Because we are all experiencing a huge shift in our lives and it will be forever changed for all of us, we are going to need some time and space when we get home to move toward the new normal. We definitely need to know that people are there for us (and you guys have been SO ENCOURAGING on this journey. Like amazingly beautifully supportive and helpful) but we won't have the presence of mind to tell you what kind of help we need. So please please don't tell me to call you if I need anything. I won't remember and I won't call. I can't even decide what food to eat for breakfast right now, remember? We will need meals or gift certificates for take out (see Facebook group for link), we will need prayers, we will need people to come take our other kids for a play date so they can get a fun break from the crazy new normal, and we will need people to help us help June.

The best way you can help June when we get home is by helping her figure out that mom and dad are mom and dad. We ask that others please not feed her or accept hugs from her or pick her up because she will be figuring out healthy interaction with adults and that she shouldn't be seeking comfort from just any old person on the street. In China, any adult woman besides mom is often called Ayi (auntie) as a sign of respect. June only calls me Ayi about 50% of the time currently, which is a great improvement from day 1. But still, she would be helped if people could reinforce that I am this NEW kind of person in her life, called Mama. A great way to help her with this is to say things like, "your Mama will give you a hug" if she is reaching to be picked up or "your mama will give you food," if she seems interested in your food. I have done this for other adoptive moms and their kids, and it's not too hard once you are used to it. The more people we have reinforcing the idea of family for June, the better off she will be. Thanks so much for taking this to heart and for the many ways you have loved June and our family so well already.

Three more sleeps til we get to come home!

 

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