Monday, November 30, 2009
WE'RE ALIVE . . . BARELY

Parenting two children is tough. We are in the crash course of multiple children parenting with yet another to come…Look out!

I never knew you could be so exhausted. Between the short nights and extra work before we left, the jet lag and now two needy girls, we are both wiped out. It is especially tricky since Sophie cannot understand us and the guide cannot understand her attempts at Mandarin most of the time. We may need a lot of sign language for a long time to help her language transition. Meanwhile, it looks like tomorrow may be a challenging one as we expect to be beginning timeouts with Sophie…She is very headstrong and is testing her boundaries significantly. Stay tuned…grin. Meanwhile, they are both snoring away 15 minutes after they are tucked in, especially Sophie.

So we realized that we forgot to tell you so many things yesterday and I am sure we will do so again today but here we go…First, Sophie is clear on her TB test…Hurrah! One kid down, one to go! Next, Sophie needs hearing aids at least. The orphanage needed to keep hers for other children. So, anybody need cabinets? Finally, the children’s director from the orphanage and the head ayi were very happy to see us, to see Amalie and to see Amalie’s hearing aids. They said “Thank You” several times for adopting our girls and helping them to hear. They talked with us for about an hour…What an unexpected blessing! We even have an email address to send our pictures to now instead of relying on the mail.

Okay…On to today. We had our best weather yet with the least amount of air pollution…YES! As you can tell from the pictures, both girls love their daddy and want him to pack them everywhere. Poor Daddy! It causes issues if one or the other is with daddy and the other is watching. Tears for Amalie, grumpy yelling from Sophie…YIKES! I found myself in correction mode, comforting mode or in the paperwork mode a lot today and usually at the same time.

We did all of the adoption paperwork today at the Civil Affairs Office. The officer remembered us from last year and was happy to see us. She saw Ted and said “magic” and of course required a trick which Ted complied too. She said she would never forget us and even showed us pictures of her son.

After lunch we decided to do something fun and headed to the Beijing Aquarium with the girls. It has grown quite a bit since our visit last year. They had a dolphin and seal show that was cool. We explored the rest of the aquarium, stopping for ice cream at the “my feet hurt/too tired” point and then we made it home without too much of a meltdown. We saw something amazing as we left. Two men were flying kites higher than Ted and I had ever seen. Imagine line reels that look like small bicycle wheels and a kite so far up you almost can’t see it and you will start to get the picture.

We stayed in tonight for dinner and Amalie enjoyed eating at her “hotel home” for a change. The girls hopped in the tub and then in to bed. Surprisingly they love to share the bath tub. Ted stayed up for about half the post to try and make sure I remembered everything, but now he is snoring away too. I guess it must be my turn soon…pretty funny considering it is only 9:15, but then again we were awake at 5:00 except for Sophie.

Blessings To All,
Brandy, Ted , Amalie & Sophie