Seasons Greetings!

Well, here we are at the close of 2008 and what a crazy-awesome year it has been. For starters: This has been the year of Tyson! This year we went from being DINKs (Double Income No Kids) to full-fledged, sleepless parents of a 4-year-old boy!  Tada!  In other words, we are the proud parents of Tyson Qiang Jacques, an amazing little boy we adopted from China in August.  That is easily the highlight of our year and all events since that wonderful day have sort of orbited around him.  It’s actually hard for me to remember what else we did this year since our lives so drastically changed for the better just a few short months ago. 

 First of all, we still reside in Virginia Beach in the beautiful home we bought years ago before the economy imploded.  I’m sure the value of our house had spiraled down to half what we bought it for but we aren’t planning on going anywhere soon so we should be fine. We attend a great church and have some great friends we love to hang out with.  Up until we got Tyson, Melissa and I helped run a twenty-something bible study for our church.  Post-Tyson we have not been able to get him to bed and be at the bible study at the same time.  We’re still trying to figure out how to make this work as some of our best friends on the planet are Tuesday night regulars at the study group.

On the business side of things, I was promoted this summer and (in addition to spending two joyous hours a day commuting back and forth to the peninsula) I now manage 3 PT clinics for Mary Immaculate Hospital.  So, instead of the headache of running one clinic with all its fun schedules, personalities and dysfunctions, I now have three headaches!  Or at least one headache that is three times worse…Awesome!  Actually, I am very happy in my job and I have the privilege of working with some fine people. The sense of accomplishment far outweighs the headaches.

Melissa is no longer an education coordinator for the emergency department at CHKD.  After we picked up Tyson she took a few months leave and she is now back “on the floor” as a nurse.  Her new position (which is really her old, old position) is flexible enough to allow her to spend most of her days at home with the little dude and only have to work one or two 8 hour shifts a week.  She is very happy with her new schedule.

So, back to the Tyson Adventure.  From start to finish, the whole process took 20 months.  I won’t get into the specifics of that arduous journey other than to say it was a rough road and the only reason we have a son now is because Melissa is an organizational savant who steered us through a complex paperwork jungle.  The short version is that after months of waiting, we received news in July that we would be traveling to China to get our son. We had applied for him way back in January and had been waiting for clearance to go get him from his hometown of Chongqing (pronounced chong-ching).  So, with about six weeks notice, we (Melissa, her mom and I) packed up and flew to Beijing, via Detroit and Tokyo.  It was a 27 hour journey each way – not anything I want to do again anytime soon.  We were in China a total of 15 days: three different hotels, three different cities.  We got Tyson on day 4, and spent the remainder of our trip getting to know this little wonder who spoke no English and had never had real parents – or a real bed, or his own toys, or his own clothes before.  He was one of over 600 kids in a massive six-floor orphanage in a city of 17 million.  And in one day, one moment, his destiny was changed forever.  He became our son. And we became a family.  And my heart clenches up just trying to write the words.  Our lives - all three of us - have been irrevocably changed for the better, for the best. 

Since our return to the U.S., Tyson has gotten a new name (it wasn’t Tyson in China in case you were wondering), a new citizenship and a new extended family.  He has met all of Melissa’s family in Philly – grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc.  He has flown to Atlanta to visit his Yi Mu – Melissa’s sister – and her family. He has been to NYC to visit my hip, Manhattanite sister.  And he is a regular fixture at Grampow and Nai-Nai’s – that would be my parents – who live just 3 miles away.

It has been a season of firsts for all of us.  Tyson is the first grandson to both sets of parents.  He had his first true birthday party (he turned 4 in September). He also experienced his first Halloween (he went as a turtle), his first Thanksgiving (he liked the mashed potatoes), and in a week he will experience his first Christmas.  He has no idea why we have a tree in our living room or why we strung up lights in the bushes outside; he just thinks everything we do is SO cool.

Tyson, little buddy, you have no idea!  We are just getting started!

So join Melissa and me as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and the birth of our family.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

The Jacques 

Holloween

New Words

Firetruck
Raining
Tired
Sleeping
Circle
I love you
Bye Bye
Water
Mater
House
Turtle
Sawyer
Baby

sorry so long

Hello to any blogfans that still might be checking this site. I'm sorry it has been so long since I last posted but the rigors of fatherhood and bosshood have been overwhelming and I just haven't had the umph or concentration at night to put all the things I should be posting on line. Nevertheless we are finally settling into something resembling a routine and I feel like our heads are finally breaking the surface. So, I will attempt to post progress notes at least once a week and hopefully a bit more.

Today commemorates the second week in a row that Ty sat through a full church service (well almost full - in typical Jacques fashion we arrived 15 minutes late for service - and when I say Jacques I mean just this small branch of the family tree not the whole tree - so, no mom I didn't mean you, dad or Erin). Anywho, he has managed to make his way through two services without too much noise or discontent. It helped that Eric used a banana as a prop during his sermon - that kept Ty focused for at least 5 minutes. The other thing about arriving 15 minutes late is that seating is a bit of a crap shoot. At the 11am service, being tardy means you get your pick of the back left corner (our typical stomping grounds). But the 930 service is a different beast altogether - there's no parking and no slacker seating in the back of the room. Instead, we got put into the megaslacker seating - right up front where your slackerness is displayed in all it's glory as you march down the isle during the singing and plop yourselves down next to some unlucky soul who now has the unfortunate fate of sitting next to the loud, Chinese kid who likes to smack his die cast Nascars together and make Mandarin commentary throughout the service. So, we've managed two weeks straight and that is a small miracle.

What else...well, Ty had his first doctors visit this last week. Poor Ty had to get six shots, four in one leg and two in the other. He worked himself up into a lather over those but really freaked out when they tried to take his blood - which they had to do in both arms and still couldn't find a vein. So, he had to go back the next day and have 'the pro' do it. And he was a pro and he did great. But that first day was quite a doozy and for the next two days Ty's legs were all bruised up and he was walking around the house like Frankenstein with a limp. It would have been comical if it wasn't so sad.

We did the annual Naval Air Show last weekend and it was AWESOME. Ty had zero problems with the screaming afterburners and near supersonic jet noise. He LOVED the Blue Angels and the tactical demonstrations of the fighter jets. He has been zooming around the house with his arms out making airplane sounds all week. See Picture Pages below for some great shots of us at the show.

Ty is beginning to parrot back many of our sayings and words. He probably doesn't know what half the things he's saying mean but he is picking up English. Yahoo! Each day he tends to key in on one word or phrase and repeat it endlessly. Today was "tired", yesterday was "sleeping" (complete with hand motions) and the day before was "it's raining" because, well, it was raining - a lot - that day.

Well, that's all I have time for tonight. I'll try to be better with the updates from here on out.

BTW, my little dude is AWESOME!!!

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

Week 1 Wrap-Up

Well, we are still here and some of you may be asking, "Where are the black holes?" "Where are the zombies?" It turns out this week's experiment was just a warm-up, a test fire to see if the old LHC is acting nicely. It turns out that the proton-melting collisions aren't scheduled until later this year, so we have a few more months until the singularities and self-propagating strangelets (aka zombie particles) turn our planet inside out. Until then, I'm going to blog about my son.

A few highlights of the week...no sleep for mom and dad, love the new booster car seat, mom and dad West came for a visit and Ty schmoozed his way onto a yacht.

Well, week one in the States was definitely a learning week for us. We had to really work on establishing a schedule for Ty and break him from some habits that got started while we were pent up in a hotel together for two weeks in China. Things like, we all don't go to sleep at the same time like we did in China, mommy and daddy need some alone time at the end of the day. So far this has eluded us but we are working on that. Most of the time if we can get him to sleep, one of us falls asleep in the process and it's lights out for mommy and daddy time.

Ty is still the picky little eater - American food just doesn't appeal to him. So we are stuck with hard boiled eggs, apple juice and ramen noodles; little dude kind of stinks.

Ty is really attaching to us - more Melissa than me - but he does seem to miss me when I go to work and he got pretty fired up when I was able to hang out all weekend. This is always a concern with adoptions, so the fact that he is bonding with us is key.

Ty loves his new booster seat for the car. He loves driving and he loves being able to see where we are going - the booster seat solves that problem for him, so he doesn't mind getting buckled in. This is in sharp contrast to China were getting to put on a belt took an act of congress. The bonus of the booster is that Ty has a tendency to fall asleep after 5 minutes in the seat. Works like a charm. Just tonight he was bouncing off the walls and driving Melissa crazy - so I took him out to the car and drove around on the interstate for a half hour. He was out like a light and Melissa got a bunch of stuff done around the house. By the time we got back he was ready for bed. Bingo!

Melissa's mom and dad came down this weekend for a visit. They brought tons of toys for Tyson; he was out of his mind with excitement. Melissa's dad got tot meet Tyson for the first time and we all went out to a local seafood joint on the water and watched the boats come in as we ate. Ty was fascinated and never failed to point out a boat going by - he didn't miss a single one. After dinner - well his dinner - he dragged dad out to the dock to look at the boats in the slip. Then he came in and dragged me out for a second look. He was so excited about a particular yacht that the owners invited him aboard and let him sit in the captains chair and play with the throttle. It was a lot of fun and Ty got to see run around pretty cool boat. Pretty cool for a kid who had never been outside his orphanage in China until three weeks ago.

Well, those are the highlights; I'll spare you the lowlights. They aren't that interesting. Until next time.

The End of the World as We Know It...

Tomorrow a bunch of international theoretical physicists will power up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a $10 billion, 17-mile long super-conducting super-collider on the France-Swiss border and sling a bunch of electrons at each other at light speed to see what happens. The theory is to re-create the big bang in miniature by slamming electrons together at the speed of light and seeing what spills out of them. The project has created controversy because no one is quite sure what happens when you do this. There are several prevailing theories as to what will happen when we turn the LHC on. (1) We will unlock the missing pieces of sub-atomic and astronomical physics and/or get one step closer to creating a Unified Theory of Everything. (2) Nothing will happen and all that time and money will have been wasted and there will be some pissed off physicists. (3) The LHC could create a black hole - or several black holes - that could eat the planet, the solar system or the galaxy. This theory is best represented by the following youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzugu39pKM&feature=related

That's right, the physicists think it's possible that one or a bunch of black holes could be spawned by the machine as a side effect of the experiment but they will probably be microscopic and disappear very quickly -they think, at least they are pretty sure. And they are really excited about the cool graphics their computers may come up with if they aren't sucked into a singularity - so that's got to be worth the risk, right? And these are really smart folks, so certainly they know what they are doing right? I mean, when have scientists ever been wrong about their theories right? So we'll be OK. I'm pretty sure of that.

But what no one seems to be aware of is a fourth option and I can't really believe that no one has come up with this before now. I think that the LHC could start the zombie apocalypse popularized by the sci-fi movies Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and Resident Evil. I mean this is a no brainer for me and I feel like it is my duty to make the world aware of our impending doom. Black hole, smack hole, we're talking extinction of the human race by zombification (funny that the spell checker didn't recognize zombification as a real word).

So, here's a few pointers. Nowhere is safe, just safer. Always shoot for their heads, they will keep coming if you just sever a limb or two...or a torso. And last, swords never run out of bullets. So, you've been warned (and prepared). And really, if the first two options happen then we've got nothing to fear. If the third option happens, well, you can't stop a black hole - not even light can escape a black hole. But the fourth option - that would be the zombie armageddon - you can do something about that. Run for your lives!

I'm sure some cool things happened with Tyson today but I've been too busy making tin-foil helmets to keep out the cosmic, black hole death ray particles.

Blog you later...hopefully.

The Beach

Today we took Tyson to the beach - well, back to the beach b/c yesterday was his first day at the beach but I was too exhausted to write about it. Yesterday, he was Mr Adventure - today, not so much. He couldn't get enough of the surf and sand yesterday and it was a very cool moment when he saw the waves for the first time. His eyes got wide with wonder and he practically dragged me into the surf. No fear. Within minutes both of our shorts were soaked and he was laughing at the way the sand felt on his feet. Then he sat down in the dry sand with my mom and played for over an hour - completely covered in the stuff.


Today it was a different story - we went back to the exact same spot on the same beach and he looked at the water like he'd never seen it before. When we tried to set him down in the sand, he freaked out and screamed like...well, like a little girl! He ran away from the incoming waves and started crying, hiding behind Melissa's legs. He even tried to stop the waves from coming in by yelling at them in snuffly Mandarin. To no avail - you can't stop the tides, son. So, it was back to the jungle gym - and the drawing board - for Tyson and the beach. BUT we do have pictures to prove that he isn't a complete wimp.

Today was my last day of freedom and recovery - tomorrow it's back to the salt mine, but Melissa gets to stay here and domesticate our son. He's a wild man but learning things every day. He's picking up new vocabulary words daily and has been behaving himself better than he ever did in China. I think the new digs, new duds, new toys and consistency have been a big help. We don't have to tell him to sit during a meal nearly as much as we used to - only a dozen times or so per meal which is a BIG improvement. The down side is we are having trouble finding food he will actually eat. So far he will only eat the dumplings my mom got him at a local Asian grocery store. Today he had three meals of dumplings and the bag is shrinking. It wasn't for lack of trying - today alone we tried cooking 2 types of Asian noodles, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, sticky rice, lasagna and yogurt, to no avail. We'll keep trying but it certainly makes meal time interesting.

On the other hand, he is mesmerized by the TV, particularly cartoons. So far, Ni How Kai Lan and the Backyardigans have gotten the biggest response but pretty much anything on Nick Jr is fair game. My DVR has a new occupation - baby sitter - JK. Anyhow, it will be interesting to see how Ty responds to one more of his entourage leaving him tomorrow when I go off to work. Only Melissa will be left to do his bidding. More to come on that front.

Tomorrow I'll blog an update on Ty but will also probably touch on the new supercollider in Europe that may end the world on Wednesday. Can't wait until tomorrow to find out about the black hole that may swallow us all? Just Google "LHC"; you can't miss it. Until tomorrow...maybe.

Safe and sound

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you all know we made it home safe and sound last night. It was one heck of trip 28 hours of travel without rest - we were delirious by trip's end. Melissa and I wanted to thank all of you who showed up at the airport last night in support. Sorry the little guy wasn't in much of a mood for receptions but us adults truly appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to come see us home. It was a very nice homecoming. My parents had restocked the house with all kind of good food including rice and dumplings from China; so far it's the only thing he will eat. Poor kid keeps trying American food and splitting it out - he's going to go from solid to vapor in two weeks if he doesn't convert soon.

Tyson loves his new home and toys but is a little skittish on his new room. He was wired for hours once we got home, running on pure adrenaline. We really had to calm him down to get him to sleep. Thankfully, we have a toddler bed in our room that he was willing (with coercion) to sleep in - for a few hours. Then it was into bed with mom and dad and we all slept for hours and hours. In fact, we all slept until one in the afternoon and could have slept more but that would have put us really off schedule. So, we are trying to muscle through the rest of the day and get another good nights sleep tonight - trying to get on Eastern Time.

So, thanks again to all who wished us well on our return journey. We made it. More to come on Ty's adjustment to his new home (and name).

Farewell China

Praise the Lord, we made it through the US Consulate with a happy, non-meltdown Tyson. We got there very early and a bunch of other groups trickled in over the next hour. It took forever to get everyone in the room and ready to go. The actual oath ceremony would have been a big letdown if we hadn’t been forewarned it was going to be a non-event. It took all of two minutes. But, the big news is that Tyson now has a visa that allows him to enter America with his Chinese passport. As soon as he sets foot on US soil he becomes a US citizen and his China passport is null and void. China does not allow for dual citizenship. So Hui Qiang will officially become Tyson Qiang Jacques in about 36 hours if all the flights go well. His reaction to being in an official looking building with a bunch of white grown ups and little Chinese kids was night and day compared to the medical visit of less than a week ago. He has really attached to us and had no fear this time around.

So, tomorrow we are up at 430am and on the road by 530. Yay! It’s definitely an Ambien night. Hope we can get the little guy down by 930 without too much fuss. It will be interesting to see how things go when Melissa’s mom parts ways with us in Detroit. Ty won’t even go down the elevator to the lobby without his full entourage of three attendants. I’m sure he’ll be asking for her all the way home to Norfolk. Nai Nai get ready to fill some big shoes. Then again, he may be so exhausted from our trans-pacific flight he won’t even notice. Time will tell.

So this is the last posting I will do from China. Next time I’m logged on, we’ll be on American soil. Thank God for that. China has been awesome but we are exhausted. Life back in the States promises to be full of new challenges but we are ready for them. I can’t wait to go back to work!!! Melissa is going to take a few months off work to get Ty all settled in. We need to get him assessed by the international adoption doc and at some point get the cleft palate team to look him over. We’re not planning on getting the surgery for few months – the surgeons suggested we work on bonding with him for a few months before we put him through the trauma of a (possibly multiple) surgeries. One of the adopting parents here is an ENT back home and he took a quick look at Ty’s palate. He says the cleft is fairly narrow and should repair well. That would be great.

(Tangent here - Ty just counted to ten in English with the help of Lili who has craftily stacked Skittles on top of coins on top of cups to make ten piles. Whatever it takes…our son is a bilingual genius!)

I would be remiss in my last posting from the PRC if I failed to mention our guides, Alison and Susan. They are two wonderful Chinese citizens that work for our adoption agency; I simply can’t say enough great things about them. They are building up treasures in heaven for the amazing and selfless service they provide us wayward travelers. Every month they give up significant time with their friends and family in Beijing to live on the road with the travel groups that come through China. They have been with the group (and away from home) since we arrived here 2 weeks ago – for those of you back home that have felt the length of time we’ve been away through this blog, you know how long it’s been. Well, they do this at least once a month with a different group of trouble makers every time. And let me be the first to say that the people in our group haven’t been saints. We’ve had A LOT of special requests, various side trips and whiners – one couple took their newly adopted kid to Beijing in between Nanching and Guangzhou, missed the marathon paperwork session and still didn’t have their visa paperwork ready for the ceremony today. Needless to say they’ve required a lot of individual attention to get caught up – and Alison and Susan have been all smiles all the way through it. Almost no one is flying the regular pathway home – they are detouring through Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing – all trips that have to be arranged and monitored by those two wonderful souls. I guarantee that AHH isn’t paying them enough for all the stuff that they have to put up with. So, if you two are reading this – we love you and can’t thank you enough for taking such good care of us in China. Our trip was made PERFECT by your hard work.

In returning home, there are a few things I am looking forward to most. My own bed is the first – the beds at both the Marriotts have been the best hotel beds I’ve ever slept in but they aren’t mine. The next thing is, believe it or not, salad and fresh veggies – we’ve had to be very careful with the foods we’ve eaten here – so raw veggies and any fruit you can’t peel have been out since Tokyo. The next thing is American TV – and my DVR. Even CNN and CNBC here are run by the Brits out of Hong Kong. Melissa says she can’t wait to see Tyson in his own bedroom – I told her that was like answering “The Bible” as your favorite book. Boo! Makes me look shallow for longing for my pillow and Buffalo Wings. Her revised answer is Diet Coke – the Chinese don’t believe in it. Mom is ready for her bed and her white noise machine to help her sleep through the night – the 220 voltage here fried hers the first night in Chongqing and she’s had to muddle by for 2 weeks now. Tyson says ‘eschwela!” whatever that means.

So, pray for travel mercies and guardian angels on our wings all the way home. I’ll see many of you soon. Can’t wait!

See you later…

Homecoming

Hey all. Lots of people have been 'threatening' to meet us at the airport when we arrive with our new package. So, here's the down and dirty on our travel for Friday, Sept 5th. Our flight into Detroit (NW26) is supposed to land at 1:35pm local time. (Sue, I know you probably can't worm your way thru security but I wanted to at least let you know when we would be there.) Flight to Norfolk (NW1770) departs at 5:17 and arrives in Norfolk at 7pm on the dot.

A word of warning - Ty is very shy around new people and has proven he is capable of melting down at the drop of a hat. He will be tired and cranky (I'm sure all of us will) but I don't want that to stop any well wishers from coming. Just be prepared that he may not be on his A game (or even B or C game). It may sound crazy but we are going to try to upgrade to business class on the long flight from Tokyo to Detroit - they have reclining seats and I wouldn't be eating my knees for 12 hours. We haven't spent as much money as we thought we would over here so it may be worth it to buy the upgrade. Keep your fingers crossed it's not an arm and a leg - an arm we will do but we need that leg to get us around the airport. He doesn't like the taste of Benedryl so we may have to slip him a mickey - he refuses to eat teddy grahams anymore b/c the 'test mickey' (aka disolving b-dryl strip) we gave him was hidden in a teddy graham sandwich. Barring that, there's always the option of a Screwdriver - avail for the low price of $5 from you friendly flight attendant. Uh, just kidding...kind of.

OK this isn't the official daily post - just a quick itinerary update. I'll blog a little more later.

Waiting Game

Well, there is not much to post from here today. We had to wait in our room from 1030 to noon in case there were problems with the visa applications. There wasn't, thank goodness. Then we put Ty down for a nap - he was a real stinker last night and didn't go to sleep until after 11pm - and Melissa and her mom took a cab back to Shamain Island to finis up shopping. Ty slept most of the time and was awake with me for a while and didn't panic when he realized Melissa wasn't there. This was a first for him - normally he flips out. So, Ty is finally getting used to being alone with me - that's good.

We still haven't been able to transition to calling him Tyson yet, he only responds to Hui Qiang, so we've got some work ahead of us back home. But, when you are trying to stop him from running into traffic or from destroying one of your DVDs - calling him a name he doesn't respond to doesn't do the trick. And to be honest we spend most of our days trying to stop him from destroying something or another - so he gets called Hui Qiang A LOT!!!!

The dinner cruise by ourselves went very wll last night. Very pretty view of the city - lots of lights like Vegas. All the bridges and buildings are lit up. This place is so much cooler than Chongqing. Anyhow, Ty didn't jump off the boat or break anything - just peed on himself trying to do the standing up thing - he really is terrible at it. No aim whatsoever and that's by loose, men can't hit the toilet standards. So, I think he has now peed on every outfit he owns. Sweet! We've been doing lots of laundry in the sink at night.

I gotta go , dinner is in 5 minutes. Sorry so short but nothing to report here today. Except Kung Fu Panda in Mandarin isn't nearly as funny. The translation for "there is no fee for awesomeness' doesn't even make sense. Something like 'why celebrate grace and beauty when you are full of it' What? Are you just making up things that sound good in Chinese. You're telling me there is no Chinese equivalent to the word 'awesome"? 5000 year history or not, that's just pitiful.

Anyhoo...blog you later.

In case you haven't noticed, the fat people are melting!

I just thought I'd paraphrase from Mathew Perry's character in Fool's Rush In; it perfectly summarizes our last few days out of doors here in Guangzhou. Today we hit up the Guangzhou Botanical Gardens and the Chen Family Academy/Temple under an overcast sky and 175% humidity. I woke up, looked out the window and immediately began to sweat from every pore. The sweating continued through the morning and the amazing Cantonese lunch we had at a local restaurant (no AC). It was one of those hole-in-the-wall, locals only kind of places and we were the only westerners in there - all 25 of us. We are quite a sight for these Cantonese folks, a whole parade of sweaty white people with their Chinese babies.

Our guide told us that June and July were the real hot months and that we were lucky we weren't here then. She then said that it was "stuffy and humid" in those months - implying that it was not stuffy and humid now. Yeah right! I said Africa hot a few days ago but this is something all it's own - this is Asia hot - tropical face-melting hot. And all the smoking does not help - as if breathing weren't hard enough already, everybody smokes EVERYWHERE. Non-smoking sections of restaurants are normally five tables in the corner right next to the 30 tables full of smoking men. You know when you are in a restaurant and get that whiff of smoke and you do the quick look around to figure out where the smoke is coming from? Well, I find myself doing that about 40 times a meal - it's reflex, even when I know every male within 50 feet of me is puffing away.

Tyson continues to be a challenge and a blessing. He is really doing quite well considering his whole world is upside-down and his mama and baba keep talking to him in a strange language and get mad when he doesn't do as he's told. But then again he knows he isn't supposed to stand up on the chair at meals - and yet he does it about 70 times in a singe meal. We tell him to sit in English and Mandarin, shove him back down and two seconds later he is up, turning around or trying to vault over the rails. Everyone else here has a little one that they can pick up, bundle up in a papoose or in a stroller and scoot around from place to place. Tyson insists on walking everywhere on his own - which is great in certain ways. No one is asking us if his legs are broken because he won't use them - ehem Lydia - but he walks SO SLOW. Meanders really. There is no straight line with this kid. It's like herding a cat. We just sort of aim him in the right direction and block him from walking into traffic. If he wants to go someplace we are hard pressed to get him to go a different direction. He will tug and tug and pout and scream something that sounds like "eschwela!" - but no one, including our guides, know what it means. They suppose it's something in the Chongqing dialect that Beijingers don't know. I know what it means though - it means "Stupid Americans, let go of me!"

We've been trying to discipline him by withholding the things he loves for a short period of time when he acts up. We can't beat him since we signed a paper from the agency saying we would never use corporal punishment. Anyhow, what else do you do when your four year old sits down in the street in front of an oncoming bus b/c he's being a brat and doesn't want to do whatever you are telling him to do? I mean after you drag him to safety by any means necessary? The instinct is a hiney swat, right? Makes sense to me. Oh well. The other way we punish him is to make him sit in my lap with my arms around him - from his reaction it is pure, bamboo under the finernails torture! Two minutes of that and he is a blubbering, repentant mess - at least for the next 5 minutes. Then he forgets we have the ability to make him miserable and he acts up again. The good side is that I am getting lots of lap time with my son - bad side is that we are conditioning him to view daddy time as punishment. Uh, can we rethink the corporal punishment thing again? Just Kidding! (in case anyone from the agency is reading this) Hehe...

So, tomorrow our guides are going to the US Consulate on our behalf, so one of us needs to stay in the room from 1030am till noon. I think the women want to go back to Shamain Island to do more bargaining for more stuff. Since there is a 50lbs weight limit on the bags instead of a 44lbs and we can check in two bags instead of just one, well, all bets are off and the ladies have been shopping freaks. Melissa loves the bargaining but even she admits that it takes FOREVER to get anything done. It can take an hour to make it through a tiny little, hole-in-the-wall shop full of nick-knacks. Meanwhile I'm using every move in my arsenal to keep a 4 year old entertained - and barring that, just to keep him from running into traffic or from stealing a knock-off Tellatubby or from trying on every pink thing in a store. I swear that kid was subjected to too much estrogen for four years and I have a lot of testosterone reprogramming to do. We are working on high five and knuckles - bro moves, you know. He's not catching on - we need Sawyer Coates to show him what's what. Instead, he refuses to wear the boxer briefs we got him - likes the tightey whiteys and the girls underwear he was wearing the day we got him from the orphanage. Ugh. Mental forehead slap! I thought I had him with Kung Fu Panda - but he lost interest pretty quick. Another mental forehead slap! We'll continue to work on that.

Speaking of which, KFP is my current favorite movie out there right now. It's got everything a good movie needs: animals dressed as humans, sweet fight scenes, no love story whatsoever, a good life lesson, a great bad guy, plenty of kung fu and the wushu finger hold. The only thing it's missing is snipers, but it does have crossbows which is almost as good. And ninjas, it's missing ninjas but that would be just plain silly since ninjas are Japanese not Chinese. Duh. Anyhow, it's destined to be a classic. To all my male friends, it's a must for your DVD collection. Best line: in response to the question "how can we ever repay you for this?" Po the Panda replies, "There is no charge, for awesomeness!" And that about sums up how I'm feeling about the little guy - he's full of awesomeness - and even though we were charged a lot for him - he's worth every yuan - er penny.

So that will have to be all for today. Tonight we are going on a dinner cruise down the Pearl River to see the Guangzhou skyline at night. It's going to be just the 4 of us as all the other families weren't interested in going. Anything to keep little dude entertained. And speaking of food, remind me to tell you about what wimpy eaters we have in our group. Not an adventurous one amongst them - well maybe a few - but mostly soft American stomachs with no spirit for food! We are definitely the "live to eat" crowd in our group!

Until next post, blog you later...

Little Guy's Big Day

Today was the little guy’s birthday. He turned four in America and the rest of the Western world. He already turned four here in China at the Chinese New Year - that's the tradition over here, everyone gets a year older on the same day. He had birthday cake for the first time as well as his second ice cream cone ever. It was a very eventful and exhausting day.

We started out with a marathon shopping expedition to the jade and pearl market. Let me just say that spending hours in a 6 story mall with no air conditioning waiting for every woman in our group to finish shopping was hell. At one point a mom asked me if that was sweat on my shirt or if I had dumped a water bottle over my head to cool off. It was sweat, by the way. Trying to keep a rambunctious 4 year old busy for all those hours was double hell. We went up and down the escalator at least sixty times; up one side, down the other. Hold on to the rail, watch your step. Over and over again.

Next we went to the DVD store to buy educational videos and other stuff. Got a decent copy of Kung Fu Panda for about $2 – these were supposed to be the legitimate DVD’s and not the bootleg copies that you can buy in every 7-11 across the land. We’ll see.

We did lunch back at the hotel and then went for a walk in the park near our hotel. We aren't staying on Shamain Island like so many other travel groups have. Instead we are located in downtown Guangzhou, across the street from the city park. It’s kind of like Central Park in NYC but bigger and hillier. It has all kinds of paths and statues and stairs and stairs and stairs. We saturated another pair of clothes just getting there and gave ourselves dehydration headaches on the way back. Tyson was so tired that he could barely pick up his feet and actually let Melissa carry him. He never does that.

We got Tyson to settle down for a nap while we ran around and got together his birthday party. Our guides had already asked the hotel to make Ty a cake. We blew up balloons and brought in dinner and sang happy birthday about eight times. He really got excited for the cake with the candles and we blew them out twice. He had three pieces of cake and we were worried about him vomiting from all his overeating. I don't think the kids ever had cake before and all that sugar made getting him to sleep a bit harder - but he's out like a light right now - thank God.

At this point we are in a holding pattern – waiting for our paperwork to clear and for the consulate appointment this Thursday afternoon – then we are outta here. Definitely getting tired of hotel food and being confined to a hotel room most of the day. The hotel is lavish and in a great part of town but it’s just not home. And having to run down to Starbucks every night just to get internet connectivity is getting really old. We are in the home stretch now and we’ll be fine – but the clothes are getting dirty, we’re running out of underwear and we’re ready for that 13 hour flight back to Detroit.

Melissa and Mom send their love and Ty would to if he knew what we were talking about. Happy Labor Day Everyone!

Meltdown #2

A second meltdown occurred today in Guangzhou; this time the epicenter was at the White Swan Hotel. It occurred during the legendary ‘red couch’ photo session. That awesome gold, dragon-embroidered, kung-fu outfit that Ty picked out yesterday? Yeah, well today he decided he didn’t like it so much. In fact, he disliked it so much that he threw himself on the floor and went hysterical. So, for a second day in a row he went ballistic. There’s something about the larger group that just throws him off – he panics and there is nothing that will soothe him. Even after we extracted him from the situation and had him alone on a different floor he wouldn’t calm down. So, we are the only family to ever come through Guangzhou with an adopted child that didn’t get the legendary ‘red couch shot’. He was a perfect angel the rest of the day – well not really but he was a perfectly normal 4 year old kid for the rest of the day: dancing, flushing things down the toilet, talking snuffly Mandarin – normal kid stuff.

Speaking of which, tomorrow is Ty’s 4th birthday. Too cool. And for his birthday we’ve given him a billion toys and a forever family and are taking him to America for the rest of his life. At least that’s what I say. Melissa says we need to wrap something for him…like the adoption certificate! Wait, that’s me again. We’ll do something special I’m sure. I’ll let you know what we come up with tomorrow.

Where was I…oh the meltdown. So, while everyone else went to a church service at a beautiful 19th century church , Ty was status post tantrum and still fragile so we missed the service. We went to Starbucks instead. And let me tell you, we’ve been pretty adventurous on this China journey, but there is just something comfortable about a Starbucks. And it’s not just the air conditioning…The coffee tastes like Starbucks. And the soft jazz and sofas and smell of ground beans can make you forget for a moment that you are in the middle of a completely foreign country that is actually located several million miles closer to the sun than Virginia is. Your sweat drenched shorts and shirt can dry off a bit and your son can flirt with the Chinese girl across the room by giving her Skittles and running away. Ah Starbucks.

After a long time chilling out at Starbucks, we met up with the group at a Cantonese restaurant that had a live fish market out front. All the usual fish market stuff was there – lobster, grouper, clams, sandworms, snakes, water beetles, tadpoles, frogs, eels, silkworms, etc. It was awesome and disgusting. I’ve included a few photos.

Grandma Lili had a breakthrough this morning: Ty ran to her room and gave her hug AND a kiss. This was a never before moment. He’s been a turkey to her a lot this trip so, it was a big deal that he voluntarily ran into her arms. I feel like we are breaking down boundaries every day, even if he has had a few meltdowns. He is talking more and more and getting more adventurous. But also more resistant to going to sleep. Last week he was on his best behavior, now that he knows we can’t take him back he is pushing it. Nevertheless we LOVE him.

Today Ty learned the words ‘bus’, ‘car’ and ‘van’ and learned how to tell them apart with at least 70% accuracy. He’s also learned to count to four about half the time I prompt him. He had his first ice cream cone ever today as well. McD'd soft serve. We know b/c he had no idea what to do with it. We had to show him how to lick it and when he got down to the cone he kept shoving his nose and lips down into the cone to get at the diminishing ice cream. When we showed him that he could EAT the cone his eyes lit up in wonder! A bowl you can eat - what will they think of next? But best of all, today Ty learned how to pee standing up - thanks to a full ladies room and a low standing urinal in the men’s room at McDonald’s. I've never seen a kid so excited. He immediatly ran out side and had to tell his mom what a big boy he was - in Mandarin so I had to translate. Now he does it every chance he gets and struts like a proud peacock afterwards. It is really funny. That’s my boy!

Well, I just left Melis and a finally sleeping Ty to post this. In Chongqing we were on the Executive Floor and had free internet. Here we have to pay for it (not); so every night I have to schlep down to the Starbucks in the lobby to boost their free wi-fi. If our posting or e-mails slow down, it’s b/c of intermittent connectivity…or the folks at Starbucks have gotten wise to me.

I do want to thank all of you who have been encouraging us through your emails and posts on the blogs. They mean a lot to us and have kept us in high spirits. Every night Melissa and I make a point to run down our list of things we want make sure get into the blog. This thing has taken on a life of it’s own and we appreciate the support. Tyson will be able to read these posts some day and laugh at what a booger he was and see how loved he was from afar before he ever met any of you. So, thanks a ton for all the prayers and warm wishes. It is so nice that this little orphan from a country across the globe (and a few million miles closer to the sun) has such a great ‘fan club’. He is a lucky boy indeed.

Blog you later...

PS I've been sitting in Starbucks for the last hour trying to upload pictures but the server is acting reall S-L-O-W. So no more pics tonight. Too bad b/c I really wanted to post the bucket of worms picture we got - and Ty's first cone. Maybe tomorrow.

Nuclear Meltdown in Guangzhou

This just in…we have confirmed that there was a nuclear meltdown today on the Shamain Island section of Guangzhou, China. The permanent damage is still to be determined. The source of the problem seems to be a little boy who did not want to get his medical examination. More to follow as the details become clear…

Yup, you guessed it; today Tyson lost it and lost it big time. First full blown tantrum. And it happened all of a sudden: one minute we were on the bus from our hotel with the rest of the families from our travel group, the next we are trying to get his visa picture and he goes radioactive. He continued to go berserk through a second attempt to photograph him (his visa pic is a classic slobber-faced, mid-meltdown shot) and then intensified his protests when we went for the medical exam. There was no soothing the poor little guy. We have no idea what set him off, whether it was all the new families around us with new kids, the new setting or something about the medical facility that made him think of the orphanage but he was irrationally inconsolable. At one point I had him hugged to my body with both thrashing arms in my hands and Melissa and the doc were trying to keep his thrashing legs from kicking the doctor in the junk. The exam took FOREVER – he must have been screaming, drooling, kicking, biting and scratching for over an hour. I’m being told by my wife that it was really only 40 minutes or so, but it seemed like HOURS. I’m sure this is what it’s like to have an inconsolable infant who can’t tell you why he’s so upset. Thankfully the tantrum was short lived. He was back to top form within an hour. And we proceeded to shop, shop, shop. Melissa is a tiger at the bargain table. She is relentless and is willing to walk away. Nobody’s hiding from her or anything like that but she does drive a hard bargain.

Melissa would like to make a public thank you to everyone who gave her a sticker book at the shower as well as the creators of play-doh. Without these two miracle toys we never would have made it through Tyson’s first plane ride yesterday afternoon. He is still getting used to sitting with a seat-belt, so keeping him seated through take-off and landing was a real chore. We didn’t incur the wrath of the flight attendant but we were ‘this close’ on about four occasions. The 4 hour trip to Tokyo will be challenging and I have no idea how we will manage the trans-pacific flight. Seriously dreading that. He is so mobile and sitting still is against his nature. Um, how much benadryl can you give a kid in a 24 hour period?

Tomorrow is the traditional adoption picture at the White Swan Hotel – all the families dress their kids up in traditional Chinese garb and take a picture on the “red couch” at the hotel. We got Ty a gold, dragon-embroidered kung-fu outfit that he picked out himself. He’ll probably refuse to wear it tomorrow morning but he’ll look awful funny standing there in his Diego (or Kung-Fu Panda) briefs while all the other kids (mostly girls) are showing off their new keepow’s.

We’re trying to settle him down now for the night so I should go. Lots of love to all our fans out there. We’ve still got almost a week to go, so keep the prayers up. More developments to come….

This place is just like Seattle…

…but hotter. And grayer. And without the good coffee. Well, there are a few Starbucks nearby but you get the idea. Today is our seventh day in Chongqing and today is the seventh consecutive day of rain, fog and oppressive

humidity. It’s cooled down quite a bit since we got here but the 125% humidity ups the gray factor significantly. Everything is moist, nothing is ever completely dry, just more dry than it was before. But today is our last day here, so hopefully our seasonal effectiveness disorders will clear up in Guangzhou.

It occurs to me that I have talked a lot about what we are doing with Ty and not a lot about him as a kid. So, here’s what we know so far about the new addition to our family. First of all, we don’t call him Tyson yet b/c he doesn’t know Tyson from a hole in the wall. He only responds to his full name, Hui Qiang (pronounced quickly as one word “we-chong” but with the slightest hint of an ‘h’ in front – hweechong. Everyone at the orphanage, including his classmates called him that. It is the first time we have heard of an orphanage doing that – maybe because he is a boy they do things differently. We’re not sure yet how to may the transition to Tyson – we are thinking of starting with Ty Qiang (Tychong) in Guangzhou and transitioning to Tyson after he her gets home. One thing at a time.

The Diego briefs and the Kung Fu Panda briefs all fit fabulously. The boxer briefs we are trying out today. We’ll get back to you on that. He is about 40-42 pounds but it’s hard to weigh a moving target so that’s our best guess – so no 5 point restraint needed. We’ve been training him to wear a seatbelt – something our driver and guide (and the whole country) find curious. Here they pile 2-3 kids and the wife on motorcycle without helmets and don’t think twice about cutting off a speeding bus.

Tyson is a very happy kid – he has a joyous heart and wears it on his sleeve. He is full of fun and laughs, always goofing around, running around, making silly faces. He’s got a whole catalogue of facial expressions and even though we don’t understand him vocally, his intentions and needs have been crystal clear. He says some phrases repeatedly and we’d love to know what he is saying. If only someone here spoke Chinese, we could find out what he is saying, but our translator hasn’t been very forthcoming with that info. An constantly asking him to translate for us gets annoying. So there are somethings he says that we just don’t understand.

His first English words “no!” – not on the survey. I wonder where he picked that up from? Aside from his name, it’s the number one thing we end up saying to him. That should give you an idea of the time we are having with him.

He loves to see himself in pictures and on video – what kids doesn’t? – and he shouts out his name every time he sees himself. In fact, he is sooooo smart. Going through his learning books he can match up color and look at pictures of things and go find them in the room. He knows how to change the channels on the TV and correctly get the TV back to the DVD player setting. He can figure out how the computer and DVD player plug in and recharge. He remembers where everything is in the hotel, knows how to operate the elevator and whether we are going up to eat or down to the lobby, and when he sees pictures in the hotel literature of the pool room, executive lounge, front desk or our bedroom he squeals with delight and points. He recognizes the places he has been and hose he hasn’t. He is very independent in the happy room and bathtub, getting dressed, cleaning up after himself., etc. We were very worried about his physical and mental development as institutional life tends to diminish this in kids. But, praise the Lord, he seems to be doing great. Time will tell we know, but he seems like he is very smart to us. When he feels like listening, he follows directions very well. He is doing so well, in fact, that we are wondering if he got a little extra attention at the orphanage because he is a boy and they just don’t have many of them there.

In fact, the only place the little guy seems to be behind is with his speech – which he can’t help b/c the cleft is a physical impairment he has had to learn to work around. Considering that obstacle, his vocabulary and pronunciation is pretty impressive. For those of you who don’t know, Ty has a cleft palate that is unrepaired – something we will remedy in few months at CHKD back home. He has a hard palate but his soft palate is wide open all the way back making his nasal cavity and the back of his mouth one, big, open space. He has no soft palate to close of his nose when he swallows and when he tries to speak air rushes out both his nose and mouth – creating a nasally sound kind of like a little trumpet. Certain sounds tent to honk more than others based on how the human mouth makes those sounds. So, even the Chinese have a bit of trouble understanding him as the subtleties of the language seem to get lost in his nose. One other thing, he can’t use a straw – that requires creating a vacuum in your mouth by closing off your nasal passageway and inhaling. So, the Diego sippy cup (flip top straw cup really) that he loves so much is useless. It took two tries for us (and him) to realize that wouldn’t work – air just rushes in his nose when he suck on the straw. So, we’ve found he is very good with a plain old cup, since he’s had to use one his whole life. So, considering that formidable obstacle , he is doing really well. He is able to eat anything we’ve given him – his teeth work just fine and his eyes are bigger than his stomach. He like to cram food in his mouth – but we imagine this will dissipate once he learns that there is no limit to the food. He’s already figured this out with drinks; the first day we got him he must have drank a gallon of water with the obvious and previously documented consequences. Now that he knows there is water aplenty, he has slowed down a trifle.

So, we went to the Chongqing Zoo, which was actually a really great zoo. We had heard that the zoos here tend towards the anemic and disturbing, but Chongqing is reputed to have a pretty good zoo. The whole city is in the mountains so the zoo is pretty hilly; this adds to sense of size as every exhibit is kind of set apart on top of a hill or around a rocky outcrop. We saw elephants and hippos and tigers and giraffes and kangaroos and of course the Giant Panda. There were a ton of the Pandas. The one pic above shows that my arm is all that separates Tyson from a ten foot drop into Panda pit. Not so much on the safety here. Thankfully there was glass separating us from the Tigers, or Ty might have jumped in to play with them. The place was bigger than we were able to get to (missed the aviary and who knows what else) but our guide is always in a hurry. Guess that happen when you visit the same place over and over again for a living - but seriously a little more time would have been appreciated. Today we fly to Guangzhou - the last leg of our trip. His first flight - this ought to be interesting.

I'll update later if i have time.

A Visit to The Orphanage

Tonights post will have to be short and sweet. Ty got us up at 6am today and we haven't stopped since. Today we did two important things - one, visited the orphanage where Ty grew up the first four years of his life and two, went shopping at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart won.

We actually went to Wal-Mart first and our guide made the mistake of telling Melis and Mom that they had plenty of time - he may be married but he isn't very savvy when it comes to the fairer gender. Telling those two that they had plenty of time in a place like Wal-Mart is like handing them a blank check. After just a few minutes of watching them dart from books to electronics to toys to DVD's to luggage and his eyes started to glaze over. And then he began to hurry them along! Big Mistake. Don't hurry the West women when there is bargan shopping to be done - especially after you've already made the mistake of telling them not to hurry. We got a suitcase for Ty's new stuff and filled it with all kinds of books and toys. There was one toy aisle - that's all, but it had all the stuff we needed to keep Ty busy for at least one more afternoon. The biggest hit by far were the stacking cups (thanks again Ash) that we couldn't find anywhere stateside. Little dude LOVES them. They went everywhere with us today including the hotel pool and the bathtub. We also picked up some candy and toys for the orphanage. We also got a copy of Mulan in Mandarin for $1.50. Can't top that!

We then took Ty back to see the orphanage and it went well. Let me clarifiy that - it was a mortifying experience for Ty but that's a good thing in the long run. He got real quiet the moment we rolled up the long driveway to his old home. He made sounds of recognizing where we were. He got sullen and pouty as we got out of the car and by the time we made it upstairs to the hall where his bedroom was he was pretty terrified. When he actually saw his old empty bed (crib actually) in a room full of other kids in their own cribs, he went balistic. He was truly upset to be back there and was terrified that we would leave him. We were able to comfort him but he never truly perked up until we got back to the hotel and he knew were keeping him. I knew it is tradition for us to visit his old home and give gifts to his caregivers but I was uneasy going into the meeting b/c he had done so well bonding to us that I didn't want anything messing with that. Well, it worked to the contrary - we are 100% sure Tyson would rather be with us. Melissa was crying, Tyson was crying (having crawled into her arms which is really something since he never lets us pick him up b/c he is Mr Independent) and I was sweating a lot so it kind of looked like I was crying (from every pore on my skin). It was actually very powerful to see how upset he got - it was a huge confirmation for all of us.

We finished the day with a quiet afternoon at the hotel and intoduced him to the hotel pool. It took a while but he eventually let us take him into the water and he had a blast. I think we will be revisting that pool everyday we have left here - he didn't want to get out for dinner. It was a great, low key afternoon and a nice conclusion to a somwhat chaotic day. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo!