The Girls

Coming Home

Last Days in China

xx

White Swan Express

Here we are back at the White Swan! It's wonderful- evoking incredible , deeply beloved memories. It's great to be back here again with Xing Xing showing her all the places we went together the first time, strange in that while there are similarities to our first trip, it's more different than the same. I am grateful to feel so much more experienced as a parent, so the terror of the first trip is not present. The White Swan is also irritating-the surcharges are still outrageously astromonmical and annoying. Still the views are fabulous, Shamian Island is so much fun, the breakfast bar is American in its content and excess, and we are having great fun as a family. The night scene is spectacular! The shopping is fabulous! There are playgrounds and rides. The walking areas are green with plantings and lovely; the European colonial architecture is graceful.

Today was our day for An Lin's visa photo and the medical examination. She hated it only slightly less than her sister.

Our family continues to bond. Here are some pictures of Jie Jie and Xiao Xiao, and, finally, of An Lin and her Baba.

Farewell Nanning

This evening we are leaving Nanning for Guangzhou where we will be taking care of the immigration paperwork for An Lin at the American Consulate. We will be sorry to leave this beautiful green city. We have enjoyed our stay with our routine of a morning outing, then back to the hotel for some lunch and relaxed play time, then a walk in the beautiful park behind our hotel before dinner. Nanning is lovely and relatively relaxed by Chinese city standards. Our wonderful Holt escort Yolanda has been kind enough to take us on some great outings. We have visited the Zoo which is also a beautiful park, the Guangxi Provincial Museum where we saw some mountain minority girls singing, and visited a farming village about one and a half hours out in the spectacularly beautiful countryside. All the excursions were wonderful and the last was my favorite as we talked to many people, mostly mothers with their little children. I was yearning for my medium format camera, but even our little digitals ran out of juice, so I was forced to rely on Xing Xing's Fisher Price, which yielded some interesting results. Here's a photo montage of our stay.......

Settling In

Our evolution as a family is progressing. An Lin is settling in. We are learning more about our new daughter. She goes to sleep more readily now, reaching for her mother to hold her. Wonderful!! She continues to delight us with her affectionate and fun loving nature and to amaze us with her cleverness. She observes everything! Yesterday An Lin brought me my glasses and pointed to my face that I should put them on. She gets out her new shoes each morning and brings her sister hers. She has figured out the DVD player, the lighting console at the hotel... She walks quickly with gusto for the next adventure, asking her mother for the Guilinese equivalent for "uppy" when it suits her. We have also seen the down side of her orphanage survival skills: last night she flew into a rage at dinner when she didn't get what she wanted immediately. It is clear that this worked well for her in her previous life where there was competition for food and attention. It's more than a little unsettling to witness as her new parents! Sleep deprivation has caught up with me and I'm not functioning so well today. Xing Xing is having fun, but sometimes struggling with sharing her mother. I want her to feel completely loved and secure, but it is sometimes hard to give her the type of attention she is looking for while carrying An Lin. The attachment books counsel fostering the connection with one parent at a time, so I'm it for now. An Lin is pretty much at ease with Chris, but I have to be in sight. I am happy with how the attachment is progressing except that I can't be "off" at any time. Small price to pay!!

It's Official!

Today at 10:00 AM we signed all the papers for the Chinese government and the Guangxi Zhuong Autonomous Region that made An Lin officially a member of our family. We agreed never to abuse her or abandon her, to love her forever. We were asked what we thought about education. We replied that college was in her future! The official was mildly concerned about us as An Lin was in the middle of a meltdown during the official interview, from her evening caregiver first monopolizing her at the government office, then departing abruptly. We were also asked had she been crying all night? We showed photos of her playing and feeding Mama. The official relaxed after we responded to her question that, yes, we had experienced this kind of reaction before, with our first daughter. (Xing Xing, of course, had expressed her rejection more vigorously!!!) We were not worried..... As before I choked up thanking China for the privilege of parenting these beautiful girls. After that emotionally draining start to the day we had a relaxing morning with the girls playing in our hotel room. An Lin is incredibly curious and observes everything. I just had to show her twice how to start her sister's Barbie "computer" for her to get the hang of it. Xing Xing is being a great big sister, most of the time being exceedingly generous. An Lin was given three new dollies, very similar to ones that Xing Xing has, but, of course has decided that she prefers Sally, Xing Xing's doll from her Aunt Mary who has seen a fair amont of wear and tear! We received an incredible gift from the orphanage: An Lin's file from the beginning including the records from her participation in the Half the Sky Little Sisters Program. We were thrilled to receive this priceless information. The file contains many photos and An Lin loved looking at it, pointing to herself and saying her name. (She also loves to look at the photos on the computer, pointing to each of us and identifying us.)An in likes to imitate her sister. When the two of them were having fun in the bath, she dumped a cup of water on her own head following Xing Xing who was rinsing her hair. She is a fun-loving child! An Lin is quite content to wander around the hotel room checking things out. She is delighted with her new toys and any thing else we have given her, like her new purple hair brush. We went shopping with Yolanda our wonderful Holt guide in Walmart(!) and An Lin vigorously indicated she would like a particular pair of squeaky sandals. When those didn't come in her size she let out a large bellow that had the three adults scrambling to find a substitute. Later, when it was time to go to dinner, she quickly went to get her new shoes then chose one of her sister's jackets to wear and brought both to her mother to put on. I can see we are in for it!!!