Cavegirl

Lillia is entering toddlerhood. In The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Dr. Harvey Karp describes toddlerfication as a process in which infants gradually emerge from their monkey-like, protosocial state. First, they develop into early caveman-like Australopithecoids who agree, in general, that it is better not to poop in the eating area next to the fire or in the part of the cave designated for sleeping. Next comes Neanderthal and Cromagnon stages with their slowly advancing social skills and better abilities to control their primitive impulses ("use your INDOOR voice when biting the dog, dear"), and, eventually, the tykes develop into little village people. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny on the social as well as the biological level, and soon together we all sing "“YMCA"” while performing silly dance moves.

But whether or not androgeny truly recapitulates philosophy, Lillia has developed into a little cavegirl. She chews her food carefully and sputters out between her lips what she has stored in her cheeks, forming multicolored designs on the kitchen floors and walls. She has developed a finely-tuned sense of personal ownership, acknowledging that Mommy's purse is hers to empty and Daddy'’s paper is hers to tear and eat, and responding to limit setting with howls of outrage.

We still love her, of course. More than ever, really. Even when she screams about the unfairness of not being allowed to play with glass or sharp objects, or not being allowed to play with goose poop in the park. I'’m dealing with the shark patrol conundrum by only sticking my finger in her mouth when absolutely necessary, like the other day when she decided to bite off a piece of a crumpled aluminum foil ball that I thought was safe to let her play with.

Anyway, more pictures:

Me and Lilli with Elayna and mom Judy from our travel group to China. We are at the CCAI 12th Annual Reunion. There were many parents, lots and lots of kids, booths representing international schools for immersion Mandarin bilingual education in Denver, dragon dancing entertainment, and loud, LOUD music.

Jason, our excellent guide and translator in Guangzhou, was visiting the US for the first time.

Singing Happy Birthday at Lillia's first.

Birthday Cake!

Molding cake into a more interesting objet d'art.

Her Caveness.

Spatterart with yogurt and cantaloupe.

Hanging out with Tani and mom Sally. The dowry is still being negotiated.

Love to all,

Tom

Shark Patrol

When Lillia bites, she bites hard. This is not an unusual event in the life of a one-year-old though it caught us by surprise.
***
Act 1, Scene 1. Enter Lillia, stage left, crawling about living room floor as her slightly addled older parents watch her in deep admiration. Lillia moves about floor in Roomba fashion, putting shoes, pens, magazines, objets d’art and other interesting items in her mouth, complaining bitterly whenever they are taken away or placed out of her reach.

Suzanne: Oh look, Tom, Lillia is kissing mommy’s toes.

Tom (laughing): HO HO! It appears that our daughter has developed a cute new foot fetish.

Suzanne (screaming): Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!
***
Act 1, Scene 2. Naptime in the Nursery. Tom is holding a smiling, laughing Lillia as the nap turtle plays a lullaby in the background.

Tom: Oh, how sweet. You want to give daddy a good night kiss.

Suzanne: Tom, I’d be careful if I were you…

Tom: Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!
***
Act 1, Scene 3. In the bathroom.

Suzanne (warily): One of us has to brush her teeth.

Tom: Or so the dental police would have you believe.

Suzanne: Look, we have to do this. And she only has seven of them.

Tom: Which she uses to quite good effect.

Suzanne: Tom…

Tom: Suzanne, you’re the one who saw her gnawing on the kitchen cabinets this morning. I swear the girl is developing a dorsal fin. I’d be afraid to go in the water if I came across her at the beach.

Suzanne (louder, holding Lillia): TOM!

Tom (with finger toothbrush in Lillia’s mouth): Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!”
***
The books say that this is a stage (yes, all the world's a stage) that she is going through, and to overreact is to provide reinforcement. So Suzanne and I are keeping it cool, wearing shoes and long-sleeve shirts and re-enforced gloves, watching for signs of her dorsal fin receding.

I will continue to update this blog as long as I have fingers left to do so.

Tom

Godzilla

Every night, around 9 o’clock, Lillia decides it is time to become Godzilla and rampage through Tokyo. In a way it makes sense, given the deep-seated animosity between China and Japan stretching back to the Sino-Japanese war. Still the transformation is intense, with Lillia growing an impressive tail and green scales. And her roar is quite convincing. She needs help getting going, and we have not actually let her destroy Tokyo yet (Suzanne and I both feel quite strongly that current trade disputes need to be worked out through normal channels), but when this little girl is ready, not much will stop her.

Dancing

Lillia and me dancing; she lets me lead.

Telluride

Tom here. Suzanne, Lillia and I are up in the mountains visiting out friend Cynthia in Telluride. What would otherwise be a seven hour drive became a ten hour drive with the squirmy one who-must-be-obeyed requesting frequent breaks. Lillia was up late last night, waking frequently crying, not wanting to be put back down. It was probably a combination of altitude (Telluride is at 8975 feet) and discomfort from her diaper rash. But adding a nystatin cream to her usual barrier ointment seems to be turning things around quickly in terms of the rash, and as far as the altitude goes, we will be back down soon.

Lillia likes driving when all four windows are rolled down and the wind blows past her car seat. She holds her arms out as if she is flying and smiles.

Two photos from the trip.

Lillia and me on the telluride gondola.

Lillia and Suzanne, with camel.

Some Thoughts on China

Suzanne here. It’s hard to believe we got home from China just over a month ago. It seems like ages. Time seems to slow down when you’re watching someone change from day to day--learning how to eat Cheerios, sprouting new teeth, taking her first few steps with her hands held.

So I just wanted to mention a few last things about the China trip before it gets buried in the landfill that is my brain.

First of all, we had a blast in China. I’d been there three times before, in the early to mid-eighties, and these trips were all very interesting but I would not call them enjoyable. Back then the people were not terribly friendly. As a single white person in out-of-the-way places, I would often draw crowds of slack-jawed gawkers, but smiles were rarely returned. Things were very different this time. Whenever we were away from Shamian Island, where the hotel is, we wore cards around our necks that read, in Chinese and English, “We are from United States, we come to China to adopt our beautiful daughter. She is from Yangchun, Guangdong. We love her very much and will take good care of her! Thank you!” Whenever anyone eyed us curiously, we would show them the cards. This always elicited a warm smile and a thumbs-up.

This may seem trivial by comparison, but the food is WAY better. Those of you who know me know that good food is almost as vital to me as air and water. On my previous trips, I lost a lot of weight because there was just nothing worth eating. I remember getting a hankering for a cold beer in Guilin in 1981, and being unable to find one because refrigeration was non-existent. I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of China; Guangzhou is a special case, being one of the wealthiest cities in China and famous among the Chinese for its cuisine, but the food was terrific. We had great Thai and Vietnamese food as well as Cantonese. And you can definitely get a cold beer now.

But what made the trip most enjoyable were our wonderful CCAI reps, Maggie and Jason, and the twelve other families in our group. I’m always leery of group travel, especially in a developing country, and I kind of expected at least one couple to be stressed out and high-maintenance. But to my delight, everyone was really friendly, smart, funny, and relaxed. Unfortunately, our group is spread out across the country from L.A. to New Hampshire, so we won’t be seeing them as often as we’d like. But we’ll keep in touch by email and blog and occasional visits.


One last thing: In applying for her U.S. immigrant visa, we had to attest that Lillia had never been involved in espionage or terrorism. I’m sure you’ll all sleep better at night knowing this.

Feeding

Now that Lillia’s sleep schedule is on track, Suzanne and I have been working on food. Lillia was bottle propped at the orphanage: formula thickened with rice cereal, served hot, 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. The temperature was the first thing to go. I couldn’t bring myself to serve up a bottle for my daughter that was as hot as a cup of jasmine tea. She did fine on a 40 degree bottle (body temperature is 37 degrees Celsius) and did not sweat nearly as much. The excessive heat was probably a function of food safety. If I lived in Guandong province I would boil the tap water as well.

We continue to add rice cereal to her formula, though the practice is not without its detractors. The addition of cereal makes each feeding more calorically dense, but the density is from additional carbohydrates rather than adding a balance of proteins and carbs and fats. Some say that this may lead to a propensity for obesity later in life. No evidence of that here in America.

Her caregivers from the orphanage told us that Lillia also could eat steamed rice and congi (or rice porridge), but this of course did not add much in the way of variety to her diet. And with a maximum of one caregiver per 10 babies, it is a good bet that Lillia did not get much practice at eating table food, but is quite talented in swinging around a bottle.

Suzanne was horrified by the flavor of the baby food that was served in jars to Lillia on the was back to the States, and resolved to make her own. She has cooked up sweet potatoes and carrots and apple sauce which she has frozen and cut into cubes, that we then thaw and heat and serve as needed. We try giving Lillia small amounts 2-3 times per day, prior to her bottle and she is getting better and better at taking food from a spoon and swallowing, rather than pushing the food out of her mouth with her tongue.

Our pediatrician, blessings be upon her, has told us that we can switch to milk and widen her diet when she turns one year old. We are looking forward to this, but will avoid the peanut butter and strawberry sandwiches with oyster sauce for now in our bid to avoid food allergies.

Meanwhile, we place our ears up to her tummy nightly to listen for the sound of those tight junctions tightening, closing down the spaces between the cells of her gut where errant proteins can wander by and cause problems with allergies.

More Pictures:

Lillia, lounging on the couch.

Is mommy's nose edible?

Sunscreen makes excellent mousse.

In front of her blanket knitted by our friend Sandy.

Lilia enjoys dressing like her toys.

Doctors, Sleep, and Hats

We love our pediatrician, who is very competent and caring and warm. Still, Lillia does not like going to the doctor. Certain things she deals with well: the waiting room with its toys and wide-open carpeting, the crinkly paper on the exam table. She is less impressed by ear-cleaning and aural examinations of any sort, and by hypodermic syringe-wielding nurses (a tough job) with their so-called “immunizations,” and especially by 25-guage “butterfly”-packing phlebotomists, tasked to collect the seven tubes of blood called for in all her tests. During that massacre, involving two phlebotomists, two parents enlisted as human restraints, and one amazingly strong and limber little girl who was not going to go down alone or without a fight, we got 4 of the 7 tubes in three attempts and called it a day. The Hep B test will have to wait until next time.

Lillia also is not overly fond of going to sleep. It interrupts her play. When we first adopted her in Guangzhou, we had a crib in our room of course, but opted to sleep with her between us in our bed to try to increase bonding. Of course she cried when we turned out the lights, and then cried for the next hour, screaming something about stupid gwailos and being unable to find her toys in the dark. After a few nights of this and a significant amount of hearing loss, mommy and daddy thought she might do better in her crib, and she did. This is, after all, how she went to sleep for the first 10 months of her life. Still we spent several hours pushing her around and around in her stroller, as this was a sure fire way to lull her to sleep when all else failed. Once we were half-way around the world, jet lag took its incredible toll but she eventually did come around, and started sleeping when it is dark and playing when it is light.

Once Lillia does go to sleep, she is down for the count. Currently she cries for about 60 seconds before sleeping when placed in her crib. I am not sure how long she will sleep if I let her because we always wake her up after 9-10 hours to give her her bottle and to make sure she is still breathing. The girl sleeps like a cat. We try to get her to take 2 naps during the day for 2 hours each with varying success.

Ah, and then there are hats. The most fiendish of clothing devices, hats, mommy and daddy say, are meant to protect her skin from the solar flare that is the Colorado sky. Lillia knows better, feeling they are, in fact, an affront to her personal freedom. They get ejected from the stroller approximately 17 times per hour when walking with mommy and daddy. It is a good thing her sunscreen is SPF 45.

Despite this list of dislikes, we are certain that Lillia is the happiest little girl on the planet, laughing and smiling constantly (well, almost constantly), winning new friends wherever she goes. She certainly makes us happy.

Some pictures:

Lillia with her fiercy-face expression. Suzanne calls Lillia her tiger-lily when she is in this mood. I think that Lillia simply has the heart of a lion.

Lillia with her Aunt Betsy and her Uncle Henry on Easter.

Lillia and me in front of Suzanne's beautiful garden berm.

We send our love to all.

Tom and Suzanne.

Denver

Tom here. A quick post as Lillia is attached to me by Snugli and does not seem to approve of this whole blogging thing and wants to push the computer keys herself anyway.

We stopped in Walnut Creek for a few days on the way back to Denver to visit my mother, my brothers Greg and Jack and Jack's family, and many friends who were among our cheering section. Left my power supply plugged in at the White Swan, took a bit of time to track down a new one and find the time to buy it, then was without an easy internet connection.

So now I am home and have even less time (wonder why?). But will post a blog entry and some photos.

---ahh, peace. She is now asleep.---

The oath taken at the US Consulate was a mass affair with dozens of families where we essentially declared that the information we had provided authorities was essentially correct to the best of our knowledge. Dutifully attested to by the several dozen families in the room, we were released to return to our hotels and travel back to the States. I understand now, given the utilitarian nature of the room, reminding one of a DMV more than anything else, why we were told we needn't dress for the event. No photos here. Cameras were not allowed for security reasons.

A picture of the bus next to ours that was taking us back to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong, then home. Funny, that bus color really isn't "Yale blue."

Starting our flight back to Hong Kong. Lillia got quite a bit of sleep during the 20 plus hours of travel, in lap seat comfort. Suzanne and I on the other hand, were very much available for Zombie duty. Lillia made friends at every step of the way. It is amazing how babies can start a conversation.

Lillia in a new sporting coat for rainy weather that my Mom, her new grandmother, had bought her for the deluge that California was experiencing on our trip back through the Bay Area.


Two pictures of dad and grandma catching a few winks. Lillia had major problems adjusting to the new sleeping schedule and was often up until 3 AM or later. Guanzhou is more than half-way around the world and the jet lag was fierce. Sleeping at night is still Lillia's biggest issue.

Suzanne and Lillia at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek on a rare sunny day.

Lillia, decked out for a life of sunshine and back in Denver, on her way to the Botanic Gardens with Mom and Dad.

I want to thank my mom and my brothers Jack (and his family) and Greg, for their help during our visit, and also I want to thank all of our friends who visited us while we passed through Walnut Creek.

Lillia is sleeping as I write this and with luck will sleep through the night. More later.

Tom

Foundlings

Many events: A tour of Guangzhou including a stop at a local temple where the babies were blessed by a Buddhist monk, then the next day a trip with three other families to the orphanage in Yangchun, and a visit to where each of the foundling babies were abandoned.

Lillia was left in a cardboard box in front of the Yangchun insurance building; one baby was left in front of Middle School Number 2, one was left at Middle School Number 4, and one was left in front of the local hospital. Each of the mothers abandoned their babies in public places so that they would be found quickly, though this is not without risk, as abandoning your baby is of course illegal.

The Pearl River from our 11th floor room on a typical day. At least the rain has stopped.

Suzanne and Lillia in front of said window.

Lillia and Tom in front of the temple just following the blessing.

Us in front of the orphanage at Yangchun.

The insurance building where Lillia (AKA Chun Hua Lu) was found. All of the babies from our orphanage were named "Chun Hua _____". Her first name was randomly chosen from the dictionary, per her caregivers. They say there are just too many babies to do otherwise.

The three of us in front of the insurance building.

Chinese women who stopped at our bus to admire Lillia, who has apparently much to recommend her.

Landscape near Yangchun. There is a national geologic park there reminiscent of Guilin.

A sign at the entrance to our local park next to the Pearl River and the hotel. Many people in the park practising Tai Chi, ballroom dancing, singing, fishing (!). Not much spitting here but in other parts of the city it was very much a pastime.


Some pictures of Lillia and Tom at breakfast this morning.

Tomorrow (Friday) we are off to the American Consulate with all the other parents and babies to take our oath, then flying to Hong Kong and San Francisco on Saturday.

Love, Tom and Suzanne

More Pictures

Some more pictures, all here in Guangzhou, all at the White Swan Hotel where we are staying, except for the last, which is of us with Lillia's caregivers from the orphanage. Click on any image to make it larger.

Pictures of Lillia

Some Photos:

The Past 3 Days

This is Suzanne, writing on Friday night. Lillia is asleep. It's been hard to find the time to write, we've been so busy.

We are so in love with this amazing little girl. All the wonderful things they said in her profile are true. First of all, she is the most beautiful baby in China. She is also extremely adaptable. Each day just gets better and better. We got her on Wednesday, and that was a rough day for her, as she had spent 5 hours on the road from Yangchun. That day she was kind of a rapid-cycling bipolar. She would look up at my strange gwailo (foreign devil) face and cry and scream as if I had flames shooting out of my nose. After 10 minutes or so of this she would completely calm down and would be crawling around on the bed, playing with toys, babbling, laughing, clapping her hands, and flashing me the most winsome smile I've ever seen. Then she would suddenly lose it, shrieking like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo.

Yesterday was much better, with a lot less crying and a lot more giggling. She seems to be thriving on the non-stop two-on-one attention she's getting. She started taking a lot more formula (none of the babies fed well on the first day). She also slept soundly all night, though she does move around a lot. In the middle of the night, I felt little feet walking up my chest, and when I woke up this morning her head was near my knees and her feet were pressed against the pillow.

Today was better still. She accepted food from a spoon for the first time, and did a little cruising. She seemed absolutely delighted with us, smiling and laughing almost non-stop. She only cried when we were doing terrible things to her, like giving her a bath or handing her over to the pediatrician for a checkup.

We ate in tonight, as usual. Tom went out and foraged for food while Lillia exhausted herself with rambunctious play. By the time he got back, she had conked out.

More about our exciting life later.

Mei-Mei!

We have had Lillia now for a bit more than 24 hours, and she became officially ours today. It is hard to express in meaningful words how happy we are feeling. Instead here is a picture of us moments after receiving her.



More pictures when the web site stops acting up. Mei-Mei (her Chinese nickname meaning little girl) is healthy and transitioning well.

Love, Tom and Suzanne

The Trip

All trips begin with adrenaline and chaos. I spent the morning assembling the crib, replacing a stair rail to the basement, and fitting and placing the oak transition strip to the nursery. Being busy supposedly keeps you from going out of your mind, but in my case it wasn’t working.

Then came loading our suitcases for the last time. Looking for those camera cables to download images to the laptop, repacking the 7 pounds of See’s candy, seven gifts for officials with undoubted sweet tooths.

Then the car trip to the airport’s remote lot, with its dust-devils and loping coyotes, and its shuttle-bus driver who insists on stopping at every single pick-up point, whether there are waiting passengers or not (and chatting with all other bus drivers he comes across, a lonely socialite trapped in a world he never made).

Finally we make our plane: we flew economy via United to San Francisco, ate sushi at the airport and waited 4 hours, then flew economy again (First class, Business class, Underclass) via Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, somehow losing all of Friday the 17th to our trip and the International Date Line.

Hong Kong is a tremendously fascinating town with a true sense of public architecture and space. Its reminds me in some ways of San Francisco (where do you think that city’s Chinatown came from?) and in some ways of Tokyo (canyons made of buildings and individual structures sometimes the equivalent of visual screams).

The area of town that you walk through determines very much whether you feel you are in the first or third world: the skyscrapers in the central city (whether Kowloon or Hong Kong Island) give a gleaming sense of order and security that any business or government wants to project. Then there is the chaos of North Point, where butchers grab fat birds out of cages and slaughter them to order for customers, and freshly filleted fish sit on ice baths on display tables, their red hearts still attached, still beating (I have pictures).

But the day we arrived was Kwan Yin’s birthday, and we made our pilgrimage to two temples and asked for mercy from this goddess of mercy: mercy for ourselves, mercy for our daughter. There were hundreds of supplicants and even more coils and sticks of burning incense, driving the temperature of the temples.

We are staying in the YMCA on Salisbury Road, in a suite overlooking the harbor, upgraded because the room we had booked was not available. 200 meters away, up Nathan road, is Chungking Mansions, a huge chaotic structure full of flop houses, and cheap restaurants, and south-asian men selling cameras and knock-off Rolexes. Suzanne, my wife stayed there last time she was here over 20 years ago. Its only change really one of time—it is seedier and more decrepit. But no opium dens that I could find.

We found a noodle shop that probably can’t be beat near the corner of Canton street and Haiphong Road, and there is a smoothy shop around the corner that sells dragon fruit juice at HK$10 a glass.

Today we take a ferry to Macau and tomorrow a flight to Guangzhou, where the following day we will meet Mei-Mei for the first time.

Then life (everyone tells us) as we have known it ends and a new life (hopefully better, always hopefully) begins.


Suzanne, playing with her food.



Smokey temples in Hong Kong on Kwan Yin's birthday.


Suzanne, radiant, on our way up Victoria Peak.


Us in front of a temple in Macau.

The real news: we will meet Mei-Mei for the first time in less than 24 hours!

Tom

The Road to China

We have our travel papers and are leaving for China in just a few days, first stopping in Hong Kong (translates to Fragrant Harbor), then on to Guangzhou where we will meet Mei-Mei for the first time.

Gotcha Day is March 22nd. We will try to visit the orphanage if we can.

Pictures soon, we hope.

Wish us luck!

Tom and Suzanne

Thank You!

We want to thank everyone who has sent us their best wishes. No pictures today. Lots of forms to fill out prior to travel.

Love, Tom and Suzanne