Our 1 Month (almost) Update

What an amazing difference with each passing day. Aubrey has really made herself at home here and has made remarkable progress since coming home.

While she still has her moments, as all 2 year olds do, Aubrey's generally in a great mood these days. She and Becci have fallen into a comfortable routine and she loves to be Mommy's helper, cooking, cleaning and especially shopping. She actually asks to go shopping, she says "Mamma Chopping"

We've had several nice visits over the last few weeks, including meeting all of her Grandparents at one time or another.

Pop and Grandma Sue came for a visit a few weeks ago. Aubrey took to Grandma Sue right away, as all kids do.

"Grandma Shu"

The following week, Meem came and spent a few nights, bringing a car load of goodies for both kids. It's amazing how quickly Aubrey will connect with people when she meets them here at our house. She was hugging and giving kisses to Meem within a few hours of her arrival.

"Meem"

Becci's Sister in Law, Sheri put together a great shower for Aubrey and Becci. It was fun for all of the Aunts and Cousins to meet Aubrey, and she did great. I think she likes getting presents..not sure, but it's a hunch.

She and Aaron have been doing some more bonding lately. Aaron has been trying more to engage her in play and they've had some really funny sessions together. Best of all, Becci has started taping Aubrey's arm into the forward position and we are already seeing results. She can sqeeze her arm towards her body when it's taped, even holding a napkin or paper towel there. She is so proud of herself and loves to show us how she can move her arm.
Bits of English are starting to come out more and more each day. Some of her favorite words are Yogurt (big surprise), Drake, later, up, shopping, yuck (from her favorite book, Yummy/Yucky), "there you go" (a personal favorite), "it's OK" (she says OTAY), and the occasional "More Please".

Besides what she can say, she can understand a lot of what we say and has also become quite the actress, acting out scenes from the day. She also loves to dance and sing. She has been singing along with the hymns at church, and sometimes by herself during the sermon. ("Aubrey! shhhhhh!) For dancing, though, she prefers loud and funky.

Here are some more random cute photos:

Update: Our First Week Home

Sorry, we've been bad bloggers since getting home. As you can imagine, we've been a little preoccupied since we got back.

We've now had a full week home with Aubrey and what a difference a week has made. The first half of the week was really tough. Aubrey's temper seemed to be getting more and more volatile as the week progressed, but the second half of the week has been signifigantly better.

We also had a lot of fun this week as Aubrey has been meeting lots of new people. She seems to do better in small groups at home rather than out in public with lots of people.

Aubrey meets her snowsuit

Last Sunday, we took Aubrey to Church for the first time. She did extremely well, making it through the entire service, playing quietly with a few books and doodling on the program. Everyone at Church was excited to meet her we were beaming with pride to introduce her.

Becci had been considering asking someone from the hospital, maybe a resident doctor, who spoke Mandarin to accompany us to Aubrey's first doctor appointment. She didn't know who to ask, but we really wanted someone to help interperit for Aubrey what was happening. Can you believe that at Church, the Pastors wife came up to us and said, "I'd like to introduce someone to you. This is May Ti." It turns out that May Ti just arrived in town the day before to do an affiliation at the Robert Packer Hospital, in Physical Therapy, part of Becci's Dept, and will be here for about 10 weeks. Though she's from Malaysia, she speaks Mandarin and was willing to go along to Aubrey's appointment. Divine intervention was in full effect that day.

Even with May's help, for which we can't thank her enough, Aubrey's appointment was rough. She did alright until we had to lay her down on the table for Dr. Ahmed to examine her. That's when she went into full defense mode and flipped out. Dr. Ahmed did his best to examine her, but we eventually had to take her to a different exam room to calm her down. The good news is she is very healthy, and the Dr. has determined that "She's a fighter!"

Aaron returned to school on Monday and was treated to some wonderful surprises. His class threw a party to celebrate his return and there were cards and presents for both him and Aubrey. We all walked over to the school to pick Aaron up on Monday and when the kids saw Aubrey it was mass chaos. She handled all the attention pretty well, but had a meltdown after a few minutes. She's weirded out on us at the school pretty much everyday, but Becci is timing it so she gets there just in time to meet Aaron then scoots right out and she seems to be doing better with it.

Score! leftover cupcakes from Aaron's party

Her pretty dress from Sister Anne and Aaron's class that she had to try on immediately

By midweek though, Aubrey started to level out some. She's had good days all along, but her breakdowns were more frequent and severe earlier. Now she seems much more willing to let things go without a fight and is exhibiting more typical levels of toddler disagreeability (my word). She will still throw knock down tantrums, but further between incidents, Thursday was completely tantrum free, and seems to recover much quicker.

Her vocabulary is growing, too. She's been starting to call me Daddy occassionally, we're getting sporadic Thank you's and Your Welcomes, she's working on ABC and 123. Every now and then she'll pick up a word that she seems to like and use it a lot for a while, like "later" or "No, no, no", today I got a super clear "stop it" and after playing a DVD bingo game, she said Bingo a bunch of times. We are also hearing "Apple", "up", "down", "Grandpa" and "Dow Jones Industrial Average" (not really)

Becci has been very busy altering Aubrey's clothes, and has developed the technique for shortening her left sleeve. Most mornings, Becci will dress her, then take out a pair of scissors and cut the left sleeve off of her shirt, which Aubrey thinks is the funniest thing ever. She seems to really enjoy watching Becci sew and seems very happy to have shirts that don't impede her arm from being out. She's also discovered that she loves pigtails. We had a few nice visits this week. Our good friends Jodi and Tom stopped by. Wendy and Tammy from the studio and Tammy's son Chris came over for a while last weekend and got the full debriefing on our trip. We also received a wonderful visit from my Grandfather, Pop Pop as Aaron and Aubrey know him, and my Aunt Joan. They brought some great presents for the kids, including a handmade doll crib along with the doll and some beautiful hand made outfits for the doll that Joan crocheted herself. Aubrey is smitten with the doll and squeals everytime the doll opens it's eyes.

Her favorite activities at home so far are swinging on the swingset, but it puts her to sleep everytime..., playing in the toy kitchen and the real kitchen. She loves to help set and clear the table, and will spend an hour washing 3 or 4 dishes in the sink. She also likes to help cook and helped make brownies yesterday.
We're feeling very encouraged by her progress the last few days and can't wait to see what happens over the weeks to come. Stay tuned...

We're Home!

Sorry for the delayed post. We've been working on getting ourselves over the jetlag and it' s been a rough adjustment for all of us. We've managed to get about 75% back to the right side of the clock, falling asleep at like 6pm and waking up at 4 or 5am.

Here's the recap of our voyage home:

We started with a 2.5 hour flight from Guongzhou to Beijing at around 11am that went really smoothly. Somehow, we were booked into business class for that flight, and we really enjoyed the extra space. Aubrey did pretty well with the seatbelts until landing time, but otherwise it was the smoothest flight of the return voyage.

Next, a 4 hour layover in Beijing. We killed time at the Starbucks and just walking around until boarding time

So long china

Finally it was time to board and we got settled in for the long flight. Luckily, we were on a flight that was 75% empty, so everyone got to stretch out. We used the entire center aisle for Becci and the kids and the two side seats for me, so we had bunches of room. The flight was 13 hours long and the kids were able to sleep for more than half of it. We also flew back through 13 time zones, so we actually landed in D.C. at the same time we took of from Beijing. In D.C. we cleared customs and Aubrey became a U.S. Citizen, then on for one more 1.5 hour flight to Binghamton.

Hello U.S.A.

Becci's parents met us at the airport and Aubrey made it clear immediatley that she was going to be Grandpa's girl. She immediately let him hold her and spent the next few days on his lap. We headed back to Becci's parents house and started loading in the needed luggage. Without thinking, I put Aubrey down on the floor where she was quickly greeted by a big kiss from Star, Becci's parent's Golden Retriever. She wasn't expecting anything like that to say the least and she freaked out. We had never seen her so scared and were concerned that she may have a serious aversion to all dogs forever. Luckily, after a good nights sleep and some cautious interactions, she seems to have no fear of the dogs now.

Before bed, Aubrey enjoyed a bath and let Grandma read her a story. We spent the whole day Thursday at Becci's Parents place. We love spending time there (we actually like to call the place our favorite Bed and Breakfast), and Aubrey seems to love it there as well.

Grandpa doing Bolioliolio Tickles

Aaron caught up on his couch potato-ing

Aubrey definitely has a great sense of humor and loves anything bodily function related. Her favorite toy at Grandma and Grandpa's was the yodeling/burping beer mug brought back as souvenier by Becci's Aunt and Uncle (Hi Sharon and Dale!)

Friday morning after breakfast, we pried Aubrey off of Granpadpa and headed home. We couldn't wait to put our travels behind us and get settled in. Upon our arrival home we were greeted by some very thoughtful gifts and well wishes from our amazing friends at the studio.

Our awesome welcome home banner by Wendy

Aubrey had a good exploration of the house and got to see her room for the first time. She immediately fell in love with one of the Chinese outfits given to her by some friends at Becci's work, and had to have them on. Then the tea parties started...

Drink this

other tea party guests

Then it was time for a serious going over of the toy area. Some favorites included dress up, the piano and of course, the whoopee cushion.

So far, so good. We're trying to get on some kind of a schedule and are starting to try for naps. She took one today after an epic battle, but she needed it badly. We are sooooo happy to be home and look forward to getting around to see everyone. Thanks to all of you who followed along and sent messages. We'll continue to post stuff here as time allows, but mostly we'll be busy raising two wild children.

We'll see you soon!

Our Final Day in China

Today was our last full day in China. We were scheduled to meet our guide Kelly at 2:45 pm today, so we had the morning and early afternoon to ourselves. We had lunch at the cafe down the street from the hotel and enjoyed the view of the Pearl River.

Aaron helping his little sister...such a gentleman

China is all about the old and the new

I was flirting with Becci here...

Aaron checking out some Tai Chi

We traveled by tour bus along with about 2 dozen other families to the American Consulate in Guongzhou to finalize Aubrey's exit paperwork. After a short wait, we were all asked to stand and take an oath that all the information we had provided was true, and that was it...she's ours forever. She will actually become a U.S. Citizen as soon as she touches U.S. soil, sometime tomorrow in Chicago. It was unexpectedly emotional to recite the oath and come to the realization that we've made it. Aubrey is officially and legally our daughter now.The Smith's outside the Consulate

the Smith girls on the bus afterwards

We really wanted to celebrate our last night in China with some traditional Chinese food in a nice restaurant, but circumstance conspired against us. For whatever reason, Aubrey was cranky around dinner but we decided to try anyway. The restaurant that was recommended to us just seemed unfriendly and Aubrey was restless, so we left after only having tea...45 Yuan for tea, we actually ate for entire days on this trip for less than that.

A short walk to burn off some energy and we wound up once again at the Thai Restaurant. The food is excellent, inexpensive and it always happens to be in the right place at the right time, so why not? Tonight was very good with Green Curry Shrimp, Roasted Duck (a favorite with the kids) and water spinach. Not all of us loved the water spinach

Finally, it was back to the hotel for the traditional Red Couch photos. Adoptive families that stay at the White Swan all do this..dress the kids in traditional Chinese outfits and takes photos of the kids as a travel group and alone on one of the many red couches in the hotel. Aubrey was just in love with her red dress and shoes from the moment she saw them. In fact, we thought we might have to let her sleep in them, but she forgot about it after bath.Enter the Dragon

Aaron, Aubrey Chen and Bo

How cute is this?

Our Family

After the photos, we bid farewell to Allison and Bo, our travel partners for the last several weeks. We wish them all the best and hope to stay in contact. Becci and I...mostly Becci got us all packed and ready to go. We purchased two additional suitcases while here. One to replace Becci's that came apart on the trip over and one for souveniers and presents. We are all super excited to get going..even Aubrey was talking about the airplane ride tonight. I don't think she realizes that it's over 20 hours start to finish on three seperate airplanes, but whatever...it'll be great to be home.

Some final thoughts on our trip

This truly has been the journey of a lifetime. Most importantly, we have our Aubrey now and we can begin the process of blending together as a new family. Overall, we greatly enjoyed the time here, China is an amazing and interesting country. Like anywhere in the world, you meet all kinds of people. We encountered a few people that would be considered rude by any standard, but met many more people that were friendly, gracious and generous. Some stand out in our memories, like Mona, the Nanny that placed a frightened Tian Chen in our arms for the first time and tearfully prayed with us for a safe and happy life together. And Apple, the angel we met on our last airplane ride that soothed Aubrey the entire flight. And our guides in Beijing (Grace) and Guongzhou (Kelly) were more that we ever hoped for. They are so patient with the kids (and parents) and we are thankful that we had the chance to meet them. We exchanged many smiles and laughs with people, caused a few scenes and even created a few crowds as people gathered to see Westerners with a Chinese child. Aaron was like a big deal here, getting countless photos taken with giggling Chinese mothers and their children.

China is so big with so many people (1.3 billion) that it's impossible to say that you've seen in all or that you understand the people in such a short visit. Imagine being from another country and spending a week and a half in Detroit (Shiajiazhung) then a week in Los Angeles (Guongzhou) and then trying to decide what the U.S. is like.

A quick thanks to Becci's parents, Bob and Ruth for taking care of Drake for us while we were gone, we can't wait to introduce Aubrey to Drake (and Higgins, of course, the family cat) Also thanks Wendy and Tammy for taking such great care of the studio while we were gone, we couldn't have done it without you.

We'll post some updates once we get home..thanks for sharing our journey with us and we'll see you soon.

Jim, Becci, Aaron and Aubrey

The Market...Like Wegman's With Scorpions

Today we visited the local outdoor market, one of the largest in Southern China. It's like a combo shopping district/flea market/street fair that runs in sections. We started in the herbal medicine section which stretches for several blocks. Along with every type of root and dried flower imaginable, there was also lots of animals and sea life in various stages of deadness/driedness used in traditional medicine.These scorpions were alive for maximum freshnessNext was the Pet and Pet Supplies section:

Aaron making friends with a giant chicken

After the market, we spent some time hanging out at the hotel. We discovered that Aubrey share's her Mommy's love of boots. Becci bought Aubrey a doll in traditional Chinese dress that she seems to really love. I'm the Momma

For dinner, we headed back to the Thai place, Cow and Bridge. Actually, we were hoping for something different, but Aubrey was starting to fall asleep, so we quickly settled on Thai, but not before she conked out as we were sitting down. It worked out pretty well though and we enjoyed one of our most peaceful meals in weeks. Me trying to chew quietly

Aaron and Squid

Bedtime was awesome. After baths and a snack, the kids settled into bed pretty easily slept soundly. Actually, the entire day was great. Aubrey is getting more and more at ease with us, and we're developing a better level of communication through gesture and bits of both languages. She recognizes some English already, like "shoes" and loves to say Hello and Hi. She is the giggliest kid and loves to rough house. She never gets tired of being tossed around and just squeals with laughter when she's having fun.Tuesday we head to the US Consulate along with about 30 other families to have Aubrey sworn in as a U.S. Citizen, our final step before coming home. We will be leaving China Wednesday Morning, so there's only one more post from China. Thanks to everyone who has emailed over the last few days, it's great to hear from home. If you haven't yet, please drop us a quick note, we'd love to hear from you before we leave. The link for email is at the top right of the blog.