Better late than never......

One good thing about living in Siping is that we are the only ones who recognize Western holidays, so we can celebrate on whatever day we choose. The Halloween costumes came in the mail a little late this year, so we just trick-or-treated a few nights ago. In case you are wondering, we only go to the other English teachers' apartments. It would have been interesting to see what a local would have thought about the Grim Reaper, Iron Man, and Snow White knocking at their door asking for candy. Actually, it isn't much stranger than them burning play money for their dead relatives to spend in the afterlife.
Lucy took her first train ride last week. She and I went to Beijing with a teammate for the day and we took the night train there and back. We saw a friend there who asked Lucy what her favorite food was and she said, "McDonalds!" Spoken by a true Clements kid.
Many people have commented about how Lucy will be a tomboy since she only has boys to play with, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon. Yesterday Lucy and Will both had a purse on their shoulder heading out to play in the hall. A little while later Daren told me that they were ballroom dancing. What is wrong with my kids?

These last few weeks have slipped away without me updating the blog. We have kept pretty busy doing school, watching movies, and playing (and playing and playing.) Lucy and Will discovered some old sunglasses, so they spend alot of time looking cool.
Lucy is doing well learning her alphabet. Her English is really coming along. Each day we put stickers on her word tree when she learns the English name and then she repeats all the words to me. I noticed today that she was saying the names without even looking at the pictures, so I guess she has them memorized in order now. That sorta defeats the purpose of the exercise, I think. I may have to rearrange the stickers when she is asleep tonight and see if I can trick her up.

Before it is too cold......

Winter weather will hit Siping in the next few weeks and stay until May, so we are trying to get the kids out as much as possible now. We took a walk to the pond on our university campus and Katherine took these pictures.
Lucy said her first English sentence on Friday. We were walking to the market area and she said, "No school tomorrow...yippee!" At first I was really proud that she was able to put those words together, then I worried that maybe this was the first indication that she was going to be an academic slacker. It is probably more of an indication of what a mean teacher I am.

Photo Shoot!

I asked Katherine to take some photos of Lucy yesterday in her sweet little Southern Belle smocked dress. She was so excited when I pulled out the new dress and hair accessories and then she really hammed it up in front of the camera. I thought she was going to be my little clone because she can't carry a tune or throw a ball, but now she has the photogenic thing up on me.
By the way, aren't those dimples cute!

4 weeks together

It is hard to believe that we have been a family of 5 for 4 weeks....in some ways it seems like longer and in some ways shorter. Honestly, the first 3 weeks at the Holiday Inn shouldn't really count....I get light-headed even thinking about that hotel room.
This past week has had its ups and downs, but I think we may come out on top in the end.
Lucy's English is really picking up. Today at the grocery store, Will walked off in the opposite direction and she said, "This way!" She also says, "cool." So now it is official....her English is better than my Chinese.
We have found that going out with Lucy almost attracts more attention than the boys do. The problem is that the Chinese try to talk to her and we really don't know most of what they are saying which is not in our best interest. I guess that is part of raising a child in her home country when it isn't your home country....confusing, at best.
Our teammate, Mark, brought a Build-a-Bear back from the states for Lucy and she really likes it. She makes sure she has it when she goes to sleep at night.
So, we have cut paper and washed dishes.....that pretty much wraps up what there is to do in Siping.

Trying to settle in.......

We have been back in Siping for 5 days now and we are trying to establish a new normal routine. Lucy is adjusting pretty well so far. She is doing great during our home school time. We only do about 2 hours a day and we take about 30 minutes of breaks during that time! There is only so much you can teach someone who doesn't speak your own language......I bet she is thinking the same thing about me.
We watched about 5 hours of Brady Bunch DVDs today. Lucy really likes Cindy. She laughs out loud at some of the episodes. I'm sure Lucy wonders why she got stuck with us instead of an awesome family like the Brady's. I use to wonder that, too until I realized how screwed up they were in real life.
We are finally discovering things that Lucy won't eat (no comments on my cooking please.) She cannot stand the texture of oatmeal and she doesn't like tuna fish, either. I finally made her some ramen noodles after she turned down the tuna fish. She slurped those down, literally.
Nothing much else to report here.....we are basically just staying home and working on family dynamics. I understand what the expression "2 steps forward and 1 step back" is all about now.

Home Sweet Home..........

Siping has never looked so good! We made it back safe and sound on Saturday evening. Lucy enjoyed her first airplane ride although the lady in front of her probably didn't....unless she enjoyed her seat being kicked and the tray table going up and down 1,000 times.
Lucy was very excited to see her room and she has meticulously looked over every toy and game in the house. The boys have done really well playing with her today. She and Will discovered that they can play a pretty good game of badminton in our tiny living room.
Daren will start back teaching tomorrow and we will begin home school. I have no idea how that is going to work out and I can't say that I'm looking forward to it, but maybe it will be nice to get into a routine of some kind.

2 more days!!!

In 2 more days we will (finally) be returning to Siping. I'm sure Lucy thinks that we live at the Holiday Inn. Today we went to the Guangzhou Consulate with about 100 other families and signed another document and took an oath that we are who we said we are. Now we just wait for Lucy's US Visa to be delivered to the hotel and we will be done with this place.
I hate to admit that the highlight of Guangzhou has been the Western fast food....McDonalds, Papa Johns, and Pizza Hut. When you live in Siping, you only have KFC and that gets old quick. There is a restaurant called Lucy's (coincidentally) that claims to be American food and we have been there several times because the atmosphere is nice, but the food is far from great. My enchilada was actually a burrito with cinnamon tasting chicken and no cheese...yuck.
Anyway, enough about food. Lucy is doing pretty well. We met 2 other families today with 6 year old girls and after comparing notes and observing, I see that those guys are in about the same boat as we are. This will be a long process for everyone involved.
Lucy also thinks that she has gotten a year younger since we got her.....the Chinese say that a baby is 1 year old when she is born, so Lucy has been taught that she is 7. Today, I asked our guide to explain to Lucy about the age thing. Lucy was not happy with us. She still insists that she is 7. I guess we will work on that one later.

Well, the storm came which has kept us in the room for the past 2 days, so not much to report here. We have watched lots of DVDs (thank goodness for those), played UNO, made jewelry, dressed barbies, fixed hair, and colored.....then only 20 minutes had passed!
I think we are going to have a sore-loser on our hands and no, it's not Daren this time. Lucy does not like to lose and she doesn't mind showing it. She also likes to rub it in when she does win. I guess she is a deadly combo of both Daren and me. Poor thing. She may never make a friend.
Jude is such a good helper with Lucy. He makes up games to play and tells her the rules in Chinese. She will do whatever he says. I have to remind him to try to speak a little English to her, too. Will just keeps wondering if she knows that we are going to be her family forever. I have to remind him that she is just getting to know us and probably thinks this is all temporary. It would be interesting to know what her little brain is thinking.
One week to go.....however, I just realized that our little Chinese apartment is not much bigger than this hotel room....oh well, one day at a time.

Just trying to adjust.......

We have had a few days of just trying to adjust to one another. It hasn't been exactly smooth sailing, but we hope we are making process. We are all missing home....whether that be Siping or Arkansas and we are so ready to get on a regular schedule.
We still have 9 days to go here in Guangzhou with pretty much nothing to do. We have heard that a typhoon is suppose to hit, but we already have one little typhoon on our hands, so we aren't too concerned about another one!

Guangzhou is HOT!

We barely survived the heat today as we toured the Safari Park in Guangzhou. It was a nice park, but the heat here is crazy....alot like Arkansas in the summer! I guess living in the cold of Northern China has turned me into a whimp. We saw some cute pandas and the only pair of twin koalas in the world. The kids enjoyed it, but they were as ready to leave as we were.
Lucy is doing well. She is content as long as she is eating, watching TV, or doing her Barbie's hair.
I noticed yesterday that she never complains about watching movies in English and she doesn't really bother the boys' things. She is pretty possessive of the things that we sent to her while she was in the orphanage. She came to us with her things in a big blue bag and she will occasionally take inventory to make sure that it is all still there. I am sure that it will take some time for her to understand that no one will take her stuff away from her now......because Jude and Will could really care less about "girl" stuff anyway!
She is still eating like a horse....she eats 3 times as much as the boys. I am not sure if she just has a big appetite or if she is making up for lost time.
We have 1 whole week of downtime now where we don't have any appointments or plans. I am not sure how that is going to go, but my guess is pretty slow. We did find a nice indoor play place a few blocks away where we can waste some time, so that may be our new hangout.

As we predicted, Lucy was a trooper for her medical exam. She told the nurse that she wouldn't cry when she had her 2 immunizations and TB test, and she didn't. We are pretty sure that her toughness must be her way of coping with this transition...or maybe she is Supergirl, who knows. We have had a few pretty major meltdowns in the past week, but we think she will probably need to go through that to learn to trust us.
After we got back to the room after the shots, Lucy began to scratch below her ear where the tumor is and after a few minutes it had whelped up pretty big. We called our guide who contacted the doctor and we were advised to just watch it. After an hour or so it finally went down. We are anxious to get that checked out once we get back to the states.
We have been watching lots of DVDs in the room and Lucy always picks Go, Diego, Go. Jude is so tired of preschool DVDs, but atleast Will still enjoys them.
Lucy just fell asleep while coloring a picture of Diego....I know coloring makes me sleepy, too.

Touring Lucy's orphanage

Today we took a 2 and 1/2 hour ride to Lucy's orphanage. She jumped out of the van, ran up the steps and showed us everything herself! She immediately told one of the workers that she wasn't there to live, just to play for awhile then she would go back with her mom and dad. I think they may have gotten her age wrong...she must be 16 and not 6. Anyway, one of the orphanage leaders gave us a very short tour. The orphanage building is huge and there are 150 kids there and 250 in foster homes, but we only saw maybe 5 rooms. The few kids we saw were asleep. Lucy got to see a few of the nannies and she was quick to tell them that we were her new mom and dad. We were able to ask some questions about Lucy and saw her file which contained a baby picture of her and the name of the person who found her, but we were not able to keep the file. There was an extra little baby picture attached to the back of one of the pages in her file....and yep, I swiped it. Daren was really embarrassed when he saw me trying to gently peel it off the page, but no one was looking. I think Lucy will be glad to have atleast one baby picture of herself one day.
Tomorrow we go for her medical exam and the dreaded immunizations. Some kids receive 7 or 8 shots! OUCH!!!!!

Wow....3 kids is alot!

Daren and I are exhausted! Lucy can really be a handful....she has worked over every piece of electronic equipment in the hotel room....the TV, clock, camera, computer, lights, remote control, cell phones. She is so careful with all of her new things, too. She folds her clothes perfectly, makes the beds, washes the bowls and spoons, and makes sure that nothing is out of place. She brushes her teeth every chance she gets and must have atleast 4 hair barrettes in at all times.
She has not stopped eating yet. I'm sure this must be her way of coping with the changes. She always wants food in her hands and she will fuss and fuss if we tell her that she must be full.
Our little bit of Chinese language has helped us understand most everything she says. I'm sure she wonders why our Chinese tones and grammar are so bad!
Jude wrote the ABC's for her today and she copied them down and did a great job. I think she must have been taught that before.
I think the transition has been a little harder on Daren and me than it has for her! Jude and Will just do their regular day to day activities and seem to be adjusting to her fine. She hasn't really opened up to them much yet.
She now calls herself "Lucy" and says "OK"....sometimes the dreaded "OK le" which always drives us crazy when our students add the Chinese "le" to OK!
We are planning on going to Lucy's orphanage on Friday with another family that is here with their little girl who is from the same orphanage. We have debated on whether this will be a good idea, but it seems like it usually brings closure for the little ones.
I hope we can find a playground or something around here pretty soon because this hotel room is getting smaller and smaller.

Lucy Day!

We finally have her! At 2:30 today we met Lucy for the very first time. The room was crowded with other families getting their children and Daren and I were so nervous we didn’t know how to feel. Then, we saw a little girl standing with 2 adults and we thought it was Lucy so we asked our guide and she said it was her. We all ran over to see her and Daren videoed while I knelt down and she said, “mama.” I thought I was going to lose it, but I managed to compose myself. She had a bag full of the things we had sent to her and she showed it all to us. She didn’t shed one tear!

Since then, we have gone grocery shopping, played in the hotel room, and gone to dinner and now she is asleep and she still hasn’t shown any signs of grieving. We are so happy that she is doing so well, but we are still waiting for reality to set in for her.

This little girl can EAT! She has snacked on everything she can find. She ate a peach all the way down to the bare seed. She is very thoughtful and wants to share every bite of food with us. She calls us all by our Chinese family names (Mama for Mommy, Baba for Daddy, Gege for Big Brother, and Didi for Little Brother.) She is learning that her name is Lucy and she will say it then laugh.

Jude and Will are doing well, too. They still can’t believe that she is finally here and neither can we!

We received an update!

I opened my email this morning to find 4 new pictures of Lucy and the answers to some questions that I had requested from our adoption agency!

• She has grown 3 inches and gained 4 pounds since December. I plotted her weight and height on the US growth chart and she is 40% weight and 8% height which is probably average for Southern China.
• Her closest friends are Long Heng Fen and Long Guang Zhen who live in the same foster family as Lucy.
• She is not a picky eater, but loves snacks.
  
• She is a good student and a sweet girl who everyone loves very much.
• She likes to be comforted by going shopping!

We are now awaiting Travel Approval which is the last step for international adoption. Our best guess is that we will travel to get Lucy around the 2nd week of August. This wait is excruciating!!!!!

Lucy's room is ready!

I have always loved bunny rabbits, so Lucy's room theme was a given from the start. It took me a while to find the things that I needed, but considering it is almost all bought in China I think it turned out pretty cute. I asked an art student at our university to watercolor 3 Beatrix Potter prints for us and it only took her about 45 minutes each to finish them! I have tried to take my time preparing her room because I knew that once it was completed then all I would have to do was wait. So, now we just wait. We are still hoping that we will travel to pick up Lucy in July, but I won't be surprised if it ends up being August due to another slow down in adoption-related government stuff...ugh.

Here she is!

This is Lucy Corinne ZiFang Clements! She just turned 6 years old on May 13. Her Chinese name is Long Zi Fang. Long is her family name, it is the name of her orphanage and all of the children at her orphanage have this same family name. Her first name is Zi which is a white blooming Chinese tree. Her middle name is Fang which means fragrant. We have chosen to keep her first and middle Chinese names as her 2nd middle name. Her English first name is Lucy. This name is special to us because both my grandmother and Daren's great aunt are named Lucille. Corinne is name that I have always loved.

Lucy lives in the Longgang Orphanage in Shenzhen, China. We live in the very north of China and she is in the very south, so we are really no where near her right now. We have never talked to her or seen her in person because this not allowed with international adoption. We have sent her 2 care packages with lots of clothes, toys, and pictures of us. Hopefully, she is being prepared for her adoption. Jude and Will are so excited to meet their sister....Will has already decided that he will be the one to teach her English. They both talk about her all of the time and may be more anxious to meet her than we are....although, I doubt that!

Lucy has a tumor on her cheek that we think is a result of a blocked lymph node. We really have no idea how serious it is because the Chinese translations that we received were very sketchy. I have contacted an expert in the medical field who deals with this type of tumor and we feel like it shouldn't be too much to worry about.
Lucy is described as out-going, talkative, and energetic with a ready smile. We have requested an update with new pictures from our adoption agency and I will post those if and when we receive them.

The Long Wait

We decided to begin the adoption process in October 2008. It took a few months to find an agency which would accept expats and deal with the extra paperwork that entails. On December 31, 2008 we were officially approved by Great Wall China Adoptions to move forward with our adoption. We spent the next 5 months collecting the mountain of required paperwork. Most of the documents had to originate from the states, so our friend Marilyn took on the huge responsibility of collecting those documents. We also completed our home study during this time. By June 2009 we had officially turned in our dossier to China and begin waiting for our Log-in-Date which is an important date in the adoption world. We were notified 4 months later that our Log-in-Date was September 3, 2009. Now all we had to do was wait.
Because we live in China, we were given an expedited status. This meant that we would receive our referral in half the time as the usual wait; however, by this time the China adoption program had drastically slowed down its rate of referrals. It was estimated that we would wait at least 3 years for a healthy baby girl.
In November 2009 we made the decision to adopt an older child. It wasn't a hard decision to make. We immediately told our adoption agency that we were open to adopting a little girl, age 5-6, with a minor special need. Two months later on January 25, 2010 we were matched with our daughter. We received Prior Approval to adopt her on January 29 and our Letter of Acceptance on March 22.
Our I800 was approved by USCIS on May 14. We are finally on the last leg of our wait! We hope to travel to pick up our daughter from her orphanage in Shenzhen, China around mid-July.