Some Improvements

Maimie with her plastic bacon

Looking inside the chocolate milk container

Maimie is doing so well. While we acknowledge some developmental delays, we also are seeing steady improvements with her in every area. Her little legs didn't seem very strong when we met her, but now she loves to stand unsupported. She can cruise around furniture and walk holding our fingers. Over the weekend, she started taking steps unassisted, with a record of 3 steps so far. She thrills herself with her ability and just laughs and wrinkles her nose at herself. When she gets ready to walk, she closes her eyes as though she can't bear to look.
Her language is not coming as fast, but we are seeing some changes. She can say, "mama". At first she said it, but didn't relate it to me. This past week she started holding her hands up to be picked up by me while saying it. Sometimes she looks over at me and says it. She tries to say "dada", but the open palate makes the sound come out sounding a little different sometimes. She seems to understand when we shake our heads no and say "no". She actually stops doing what ever we tell her no about. She tries to say "hi" but is having trouble relating it to a wave. She knows her name and gives her attention to us when we say it. Sometimes she pats her chest when I say it. She knows her tongue and sticks it out when we ask her where it is.
Maimie eats most table foods mashed a little or cut up. She generally eats until we stop feeding things to her. She is drinking mostly from a cup, but occasionally from a bottle when I'm afraid she isn't getting enough. Her formula requires a tablespoon or so of rice cereal, as she chokes on thin liquids. Food occasionally comes out of her nose, but usually only if she sneezes.

Maimie at the play kitchen Mikaela and I repainted for her

Maimie is adapting to her environment and to all of the members of her family better each day.
She absolutely loves music and dances when she hears it. When her sister and brothers play the piano, she wants to go see which one is playing and then dances around. One of our favorite Maimie tricks is her monkey mouth. She purses her lips and sticks them out so funny. She tries to make a serious face, then bursts out laughing. What a ham!

Happy girl

Maimie Cam

Maimie

Cake Echo gave us (from Maimie) on Valentine's Day right before her US Consulate Appointment

We're home and doing well. Sorry to wait so long to post. We came dangerously close to missing the Hong Kong to Chicago flight, had to be split up for that 14 hour trip, and I sat next to a young guy ( early 20s?) who wouldn't make eye contact who must have been lamenting his luck at being stuck by Maimie and me. The flight was sleepless and uneventful except for Maimie knocking a bowl of warm noodle soup all over Mikaela's lap with about 10 hours left to fly and no change of clothes in the carryons. Upon arriving in Chicago, we had to wait in an immigration line, look for our luggage (2 of 4 pieces were missing), and wait in another immigration and a customs line. By the time we found the United counter, we had 30 minutes to catch our flight to Peoria. We were told there was no way we could make it. OK, I broke down and cried then went off on the women a little. There were no flights available the rest of the day, so we had to finally rent a car to drive home. We had no sleep, no food ( who could stomach the plane food), a Taurus (for 6 people, a laptop, 4 backpacks, and a trunk of suitcases and a stroller!!!), and no carseat. The traffic was so bad, it took us nearly 5 hours to drive home from Chicago (normally a 3 hour drive). I'm really not complaining, though. Honestly, that was really the only difficulty we even had on the whole trip.

We are glad to be home, but miss China so much. It was truly an amazing place to be and so dear to us as the place we met our daughter. We feel so blessed by this experience and humbled that God chose us to be Maimie's parents.

You Tube Issues

It's been reported that some have had issues playing our YouTube videos. Just returned to work and gave it a whirl from my work computer and noted a couple glitches.

1) Seems as though the first time I display a page containing a video it takes a bit to display the video content i.e. the video is just a white back ground. If I wait perhaps 30 seconds the content eventually displays.

2) Also, seems as if every time I attempt to play a video I've not played before, the video just sits there i.e. doesn't play. I found that if I click it again it will play.

I didn't experience these glitches using the Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer (Microsoft's browser). btw, just a browser pitch here. Firefox displays our blog content way faster in general and plays videos much better. Some would say Firefox is just a better browser in general, although I've found in the past there are some sites IE deals with better than Firefox.

Firefox can be found at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/. Just click the "Download Firefox Free" link and select "run" in the dialog displayed.

The first time you access content containing YouTube videos with Firefox you will have to click on the "install plugin" icon and install the Flash plugin. Very easy to do, like two clicks and perhaps 20 seconds and you're finished.


I'd be interested in hearing other experiences with regard to problems playing our videos as I'd like to address them hoping to post more in the future.

Thx
Steve

Heading Home

We're sitting at the McDonalds in the Hong Kong airport. About 1.5 hours till departure. What a fantastic experience and what a great God in providing us a wonderful daughter, a safe trip, and a guide second to none in Echo. See you all back in the States.

Steve & Monica

Macaroni

Clip below of Maimie trying what is probably her first macaroni ever. She seems to like it.



On a more important note. I think we misinformed a few folks, including Mike and Vickey (our rides home) that we'd be coming back on Saturday. Looking at the tickets again we realized we'll be coming into the Peoria airport on Feb 16 Friday at 2:06pm. Mike, Vickey perhaps you could post a response letting us know you got this message.

Thanks
Steve

Red Couch Photos

Here's a photo of the kids playing in the Mattel playroom at the White Swan.



We attempted red couch photos today. Maimie was not so happy, so we picked out some of her better poses to share.





Here's one of the whole family taken by an innocent American bystander from Utah.


All 4 Monday kids, which we have been told by many many Chinese people is "too many children, very big family".


The beautiful White Swan indoor waterfall (view from our breakfast table).


It is now Wednesday afternoon. We leave for the US Consulate for our appointment soon. Happy Valentine's Day!

Medical Exam

Maimie's medical exam. I don't think she enjoyed it. (Steve)

Open Market

We met a Christian couple (Todd and Wendy) from the States in Nanning and ran into them again in Guangzhou. They took us to an open market where we saw a lot of interesting stuff.

Scorpions



Snakes and beetles











Turtles










Cats (not good times for Tabby) and Chickens...



Catch the men sorting sea horses toward the end of the video...

Sixteen Months Old Today

The Monday kids in the hotel lobby in front of a giant pig decoration for Chinese New Year (year of the pig).

A huge ship carved from jade in the hotel lobby.

Today Maimie turned 16 months old. She had her first taste of ice cream this evening before bed and made some hilarious faces when it hit her top teeth. I think we have some video, but I don't have time to post it this evening. Tomorrow we take Maimie to the medical clinic for her medical exam. We have plans to meet with a couple we met in Nanning, Todd and Wendy and their adoptive daughter, Elizabeth in the afternoon for an outing and dinner. We shopped a lot today, but came back with very little. I felt overwhelmed with the high pressure sales that was going on in all of the shops and ended up putting off the inevitable.

This is one of our rooms at the White Swan.

Here is a view out of our hotel window.

Guangzhou

Peoples Park in Nanning City

Maimie the movie star

In front of the Nanning Zoo

Kids with Echo in sunflower patch at zoo

Today was mostly spent traveling to Guangzhou. We left shortly after breakfast to meet our driver and Echo to head for the Nanning Airport. It was somewhat bittersweet to be leaving Maimie's province. We have so enjoyed the experiences in Nanning and will never forget this wonderful region. Maimie did so well on her first plane ride and managed to sleep for nearly the whole hour of the flight.
The White Swan is all I imagined and more. What a neat hotel to be able to experience for the last half of our stay in China. We will take some photos tomorrow to post. It's situated in a nice quiet area of Shaiman Island. There are all kinds of lovely shops that I hope to patronize soon and often. This evening we ate at Lucy's for some cheeseburgers and french fries and fried chicken strips and onion rings. It tasted great after missing lunch due to our flight being delayed. As the evening grew dark, we walked along the Pearl River looking at all of the lights and decorations. We are finding out that more people speak some English here than in Nanning. It should make things much easier over the next few days.
I did find out some interesting information as well. Guo Zhen's nanny told me that she had been fond of one of the other children. She said his name is Guo Zhong. (Mo in Wisconsin, I hope you read this!) He has a bilateral cleft, and has not been repaired yet--I had Echo check for me. How sweet that I've spoken with his mommy to be!
Last evening, Maimie had her first bath that didn't include weeping and gnashing of teeth. She actually splashed and didn't want to be taken out of the tub.
She has 4 bottom teeth and 2 top. One of the top teeth is crooked and just as cute as can be. Also, she is cutting at least one more tooth on top. She has drool on everything all of the time. Her little feet are so cute and fat that they look just like Flinstone feet! I wish I would have brought some pink nail polish for her little toes. She is just starting to let Steve and the boys interact with her a little bit. Everything she does is just so cute and marvelous and amazing. We see more of her personality each day and she is so onery. She smiles continually and makes us all smile too. We just can't get enough of her--she's absolutely edible, as my friend Dana would say.

Nanning Frogger

Decided to take a bit of video crossing the street. Monica had said earlier this week that crossing the street reminded her of the video game frogger. This one was nearly game over for Joe. Not quite but interesting.



(Steve)

The Monkey King

Thought perhaps the folks back home might enjoy some Chinese TV programming. Monica thinks this program is "The Monkey King".

(Steve)

Last Day in Nanning

It's Friday afternoon here. We're so happy to be seeing so many interesting sights while here in Nanning. Yesterday we toured Qing Xiu Mountain. It was such a lovely area. The weather was a little cooler and humid with fog. At the top of the mountain we viewed a temple. It was so strange. There were several large statues. There were large carts with incense burning. Fruits and flowers decorated the altars in front of the statues. We saw one gentleman come in the open temple area, grab a fist full of incense sticks, and wave them 3 times in front of himself with a half bow.
Down a little farther, we stopped at a Thai pagoda. It had beautiful tiles and carvings. It symbolized the good relationship between China and Thailand. The vegetation was just amazing. It's such a neat tropical climate with unusual plants and trees, many of which have chinese characters carved into them.
The next stop was a huge 10 story pagoda. We climbed to the very top up a winding staircase. The kids counted 220 steps. What a workout, but the view was so worthwhile.

Today we spent more time at the park. It is so beautiful and we had many performances to see today. We have been spending a couple of hours each afternoon in the hotel room watching The Waltons dvds while Maimie naps. The kids just love them now, and the only English channel is National Geographic.

Maimie Playing

Here's a little video of Maimie playing on the bed. She's such a cutie!

She's Ours!

Yesterday, Tuesday, we met with a Chinese official who interviewed us and then a notary public who also interviewed us. At the end we received a certificate of adoption for Maimie. She's really a Monday.
We met with her nannies and the director of the orphanage again, and they attended the first interview. Before we left, they gave us a gift for Maimie. Some photographs of her we hadn't seen and a beautiful box with a tiny bracelet in it. Such a treasure!

We enjoyed some great fried rice for lunch and a rather long, warm walk in the park. The weather has been nice every morning and warms up to around 75 degrees. We're going around in our tshirts every day and having people comment that we aren't dressed appropriately and laughing. Honestly, everyone is wearing long sleeves and jackets.

Maimie continues to be so pleasant other than some sleep/wake difficulties and a tummy ache.
Today was spent at the zoo. Much different than our zoos. There are 10 or 15 of each animal in every exhibit. You can nearly get close enough to touch many of the animals. We watched one of the animal shows that came complete with dancing bears in tutus, bicycle riding monkeys, and a tight rope walking goat.

Interviews

About 8:40 in the morning we left to do final paper work. We had to meet and be interviewed by a couple different Chinese government officials. To be honest I don't remember their titles (I'll update this post later after I find out).

The first interview was the most significant as it actually was the interview and ceremony where Maimie officially became ours. I'm going to try to recollect the questions.

We walked into a austerely furnished office with a large, black desk positioned prominently at the center of the room. On the desk was a small flag stand featuring both the Chinese flag and the flag of the Soviet Union. The official, a young women probably in her early thirties walked into the room and seated herself behind the desk. Monica and I were seated immediately in front of the desk. Maimie's nannys, the orphanage director and Echo were standing to our left slightly behind us.

She asked a number of questions:

1) Why did you decide to adopt a "special" (referring to Maimie's cleft condition I believe although she's quite special for a variety of reasons) girl?

While for us God's leading through this process played a huge part in our deciding to adopt I decided to focus on the more human, tangible aspects of our motivation and answered that "we loved kids and wanted to give a girl with a need a great life."

2) Will you ever let her disease effect your love for her?

No

3) Will you ever abuse her?

No

4) I see that you both work. How will you find the time for all your children and this new daughter?

Wow a probing, insightful question indeed. We told her that Monica stopped working after the birth of our first child (Mikaela) and now stays home. She gave us a big smile said "good" and busily wrote some notes.

5) Are you happy with your new daughter?

Yes, very.

6) Are your current children accepting her?

Yes

7) Do your children live "harmoniously" together?

"Ummmm,errr,aahhhh.....yes".

Actually our kids do get along well for the most part. However, a conflict did break out immediately upon return to the hotel over who got to hold Maimie more.

8) She said "education is important", will you promise to educate her?

Yes, our community has a wonderful school.

9) Why did you decide to adopt a child from China?

"We've always admired Chinese culture".

I wanted to say more but I didn't think the account of how God led us through a number of experiences and circumstances that finally culminated in a Chinese adoption decision would connect with her so I stopped at that.

She then concluded by pronouncing the adoptive relationship to be complete and I believe wished us a happy life/family.

(Steve)

Miscellaneous

Below is an official Chinese document related to our adoption process. Notice the foot print. During the document signing process I had to leave a finger print or two. So I rolled my thumbprint, you know like they make you do at the department of homeland defense. Our Lifelink guide, Echo, said I left my print like a criminal LOL. Man I'm taking flak 7000 miles from home.



This was interesting. We saw the following sign a couple hours before gotcha hour. GuoZhen being Maimie's Chinese name.



Another interesting circumstance for which I didn't get a picture. As we rode the elevator down immediately after having gotten Maimie, I looked down and the elevator floor mat contained one word "Monday" written in English and Chinese. Must have known we were coming.

(Steve)

New Friends

The Chinese people here are so kind, accepting, humble and willing to speak to total foreign strangers. We went to a local park that was just beautiful. Nanning is in the subtropics so boasts some really beautiful plant life, palms, flowering trees etc... As we walked through the park we were quite the item drawing a great deal of attention. People were performing traditional Chinese vocals, playing instruments, and practicing tai chi.

We were watching the following group of ladies dancing and they invited us down being quite excited to meet us. One lady spoke some English so we muddled by.



Mr. Lee below spoke with us a long time. He is studying painting and English at a Nanning University. He is a retired electrical engineer from a local power plant. He told us that Nanning's population is about 6 million a, in his words "small city".
Later I checked the web and the population is about 6.3 million in a region about 181 square miles in size. If my math is right that's about 34,000 people per square mile. Mr Lee has a new grandson living in the area. We hope to meet him again in the park as he visits every day.



As we spoke to Mr. Lee a couple young girls walked up and struck up a conversation with Mikaela. The girl nearest Mikaela name is Kiky, she is in college and spoke English very well.




(Steve)

More Gotcha

What an unbelievable experience. God has been so good to our family. Looking back while we were frustrated at times we can see the hand of God guiding and directing our every move. Here's a little video of without a doubt one of the most memorable moments of my life.



Maimie has been so easy going and sweet (takes after me I think), eating and sleeping well. We'd expected the worst (i.e. a very upset baby) and God provided the best.

Gotcha Day

What an incredible experience! We arrived at the Civil Affairs building at around 3:00pm with Echo to meet Guo Zhen. We were taken into a room with many nannies and directors. There were about 5 babies in all. No other families were in the room and all of the nannies were trying to see who we were and which baby was ours. Guo Zhen was seated on the lap of her nanny between 2 other babies and their nannies. We didn't recognize her because she had changed so much from her 6 month photo. Also, we were amazed to find that her cleft lip had been repaired in December. She even has a little bit of hair now. She didn't make a peep and came right to me. She was wearing a little winter coat and boots with a long sleeved tshirt and heavy pants. She smiled a little and played with the buttons on the legs of her pants. Her nanny was so animated and sweet with her, calling us mama and baba. She never once cried and readily took the teething ring of keys we gave her. She just kept looking up at us with those beautiful brown eyes. She has been so easy going and tolerant with us all evening only crying a few times, and usually when I tried to put her down or give her to someone else. By bedtime, she was very comfortable with us...smiling big and allowing Steve and Mikaela to hold her and feed her congee.
The photos are: 1. Gotcha! 2. Guo Zhen with her nanny. 3. The end of a long day. 4. First hold by big brother, Jacob. 5. Being held by Mikaela while Joseph tries the bottle.
Thank you for all of the emails, we read them all but are unable to send replies due to the internet service we are getting here.

Getting ready for Maimie

The boys fell asleep yesterday on the ride from the airport to the hotel. They were so beat! Our guide, Echo, was amazing. She was so friendly and efficient. It was nice to be in such good hands. She even went to get us some pizza hut pizza for supper when we were too tired to walk to find it. The boys slept through supper despite our failed attempt to sit them up and force them to eat. Mikaela and I ate, showered, and went straight to bed at 7:30pm. We all got a much better night's sleep and everyone was up by 5:ooam or so. Our hotel serves breakfast in a large dining room. They had so many things to choose from. Salads, fruits, rolls, muffins, bacon, sausage, congee, noodles, potato patties, rice flour pancakes with pork, spring rolls, and cool juice. We all drank a ton, so happy to have something other than room temperature bottled water. The boys grabbed chopsticks and dug right in. Mikaela, Steve, and I opted for a fork and decided chinese food tastes great that way too. A large table near us had 4 or 5 adoptive Dutch families and their beautiful babies. It seemed so removed from us. But I guess tomorrow we will be the main attraction struggling with our little one at the table. And that brings me to our photo. It was so odd to walk into our hotel yesterday and see a beautiful little pink crib with pink pillow and blanket. We can't believe our day is finally here. It is about 9:30am here and we meet Maimie around 3:00pm. The kids are wild and need to get out of our rooms, so we are heading out to a park for awhile.

Nanning at Night

Nanning at night from our hotel window.

In Nanning

We're in Nanning. One hour plane ride, 40 minute drive. Here's a bit of the ride....



Nice hotel and Echo (our helper and guide) is the best.

Fun with Bumble

Culture and miles may separate us but kids everywhere (including Nanning China) love to hassle the man in the blow up suit.

Breakfast at McDonalds??

OK, so we're not too adventurous. We're sitting at a McDonalds Cafe in the Hong Kong Airport. Yes, Joseph is indeed in heaven. Mikaela says "hi" to Lydia and Happy 13th birthday! Jacob is hoping to bypass the airplane food for the rest of the trip. He was starving at the hotel last night. It's Sunday morning here at 8:00am even though it's still Saturday at home. Steve asks for someone at the big yellow "C" to give our blog address to Calvin. We are very overwhelmed and exhausted. I have had a total of about 3 hours of sleep since leaving on Friday. Please pray for us to adjust to everything and get some sleep tonight so we will be prepared for Miss Maimie tomorrow. We feel so much support and love from everyone. Please continue to pray that God will keep his hand on our family and especially on little Maimie as she prepares for her long bus ride to Nanning tomorrow. We hope to have internet access at our hotel in Nanning and will download photos as soon as possible.