Day 14 of our Journey To Kai!

April 11, 2006

Before I finish entering all of today's postings, I did want to publicly respond to the poster that said he kept waiting for me to stop complaining and to start appreciating my son's birth country.  I do not have an email to respond to, therefore I shall do it here.   First of all, this journal is a journal of my personal feelings of this entire journey so that Kai will someday know.   As to how I feel about his birth country, it has NOTHING to do with my feelings about the inconveniences that I am accustomed to.  The land, people and the history of this beautiful land are amazing.  I have been here for over two weeks now and have yet to meet someone who has given us an unkind word or showed any hostility towards our leaving with one of their own.  If you go back and read previous postings, you will see how I clearly say that it is a land and culture that I hope he is always very proud of.  Kai will never be American.  He is Chinese American and we will always instill that in him until he is old enough to make his own decisions.  There are no words to thank the people of China, his birthmother, the orphanage workers and many others involved in this process for the gift we have received.  I take nothing for granted.  Missing air conditioning, foods that I  am accustomed to and being tired of living out of a suitcase, is a very normal feeling.   I am sorry if you are taking my postings to be an insult to the Chinese people and this country with more history that I can ever take in, those were not my intentions, BUT....I will NOT apologize for posting to MY son my true feelings about how this journey has been.   Have a blessed day!

Ohilda

OK!  Now on to our 14th day of our journey!   We were going to sleep late today, but our little Emperor had different plans.  At 5:45 he was bright eyed and bushy tailed, and how could we ignore that huge grin.  So, there we were.  Laughing at his antics, when I realized that my right eye was really hurting and the light was bothering me a lot.  I hopped in the shower thinking that it was just way too early and I needed to wake up.  By the time we went down to breakfast, which I must admit was wonderful, my eyes were tearing and I could barely keep them open.  Our first thoughts....PINK EYE!!  Oh Lord, something else to deal with.  We continued on with breakfast.   Everything everyone has said about it was true!!   What a spread.  Kai loved his congee, but got to a taste of French toast, shrimp, fresh fruit and so much more!  I think his little tummy was going to explode, so I just decided to stop feeding him.  Mom had to walk me through it because I was peeking at the food by then.  When I sat at the table, Scott said that I HAD to go to the clinic.  I didn't really argue because it was getting bad...and fast!   So, we finished breakfast and headed to the White Swan Clinic.  I knocked on the door and a female doctor answered.  She told me to step to the back which was a small examining room.  Another female doctor/nurse came in wearing a white coat and they both shined a flashlight into my eyes...as I barely kept it open.  Then they went back and forth in Chinese.  The younger woman looked at me and said, the doctor says you have an infection.   She prescribed two different sets of drops....one for the really bad eye and one for both, along with a couple of Chinese herbal medicines.  I'm not real sure what they were for, but I felt bad enough to follow the plan.   We paid our total of $10 US, and gathered up my little bag of medication and went back up to our room.  I am not kidding one bit that within 2 minutes of putting in the drops, I could open my eyes.  It was amazing!!!!  They still hurt and I had to wear sunglasses, but I could actually open my eyes.  Holy cow!!!   The medication needs to be repeated every 2 hours for 6 days.  After that little adventure and relaxing for a little while, we dressed Kai in his authentic Chinese outfit, including hat with braid and all.  We headed to the 2nd floor of the White Swan to take the famous red couch pictures.  This is an ongoing tradition for adoptive families and now something that agencies organize.  We had five families there with their children, since a new family had just arrived in the morning and had received their child that same day!  The children looked beautiful.  Our little Emperor, who has quite a personality now, sat next to the beautiful Miss Fei Fei and made sure she knew he was boss!  Oh my gosh, this tiny little peanut could have been easily decked, but Fei Fei just looked at him in bewilderment as he carried on in his improvised Chinese.  I did have to step in and tell him to "Be Nice!"   A reminder he is hearing quite often now.  But he did look so cute pointing his finger and saying whatever gibberish he could come up with.   All the families took lots of pictures and then we went down to stand in front of the waterfall to take our group picture there, which included all of the family members.  We are quickly approaching the final days of our journey to Kai.   Being that the humidity is outrageous outside, we had all discussed going swimming.  Well, with an eye infection, that was out of the question for me, but Kathy had mention her kids wanted to, and so did the Eller girls.  We first went to the Swan Room, a room sponsored by Mattel filled with play toys for the children to enjoy.  Kai is really coming out of his shell.  He is bravely taking 2-3 steps at a time and crawls like a pro!  I love watching him bloom.  Everyday it is something new.  He spirit amazes and inspires me.

After playing in the Swan Room for a while, we came back upstairs so Amanda could change into her bathing suit, while Kathy went back to the hotel to grab their suits.  I thought I would go ahead and lay Kai down for a nap while Scott played a game on the computer.   The next thing I knew.....an hour had passed by.  Both Kai and I had fallen asleep.  I'm pretty exhausted and long for my bed at home.  I woke up and my eye was beginning to hurt again, but nothing like it had been in the morning.  Scott, Mom, Kai and I decided to explore the areas of the White Swan we had not seen.  It is truly a BEAUTIFUL hotel.  The foliage in the lobby surrounding the waterfall is just breathtaking.  Kai loved watching the Koi fish swimming in the pond.  Then we went outside to see the pool area, and walk on the banks of the Pearl River.  We saw barges carrying loads of sand going by.  Amanda was with Kathy and her children at the pool having a grand time.  She was a bit disappointed that Kai wasn't going swimming, but he is just getting over his cough and there really wasn't a need for him to go.   The pool area was lovely, with flowers blooming, including impatiens and rose gardens and of course, the beautiful waterfall at the pool.  This place was definitely worth packing up again for!  The service is unbelievable.  You are catered to constantly.  We are very happy here.

After the swim and the walk around the grounds, we decided to continue shopping.  We also gathered up some laundry and took it to the corner store.  They assured us we'd have our laundry by 3 pm the next day, and the fees were very reasonable.  We did lots of bargain shopping and I picked up a few special things for Kai as he gets older.   We were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the room and decided we would call Danny's Bagels.  It's an American shop off of Shamian Island that makes great western dishes for delivery only.  We've heard lots about it and definitely wanted to give it a try.   I ordered a meatball sub, Amanda a cheeseburger, Mom a garlic bagel with cream cheese and Scott a chicken parmesan.  An hour later it arrived!  YUMMY!!!!!!  It was awesome!  Tasted just like home!   We went to bed with full tummies dreaming about home cooked meals.  :)

Tomorrow....we have our swearing in at the American Consulate and then we're heading home!

With love from China....

The Bombardier Bunch