Lullaby for Luke

Our flight left China at 1:40AM on Friday morning, and we arrived home at 9:40AM on Friday morning.  I wish it was only an 8 hour flight away, but it was actually about 24 hours of traveling with a 12 hour time change.  Traveling with a toddler that we just met 2 weeks ago, we braced for the worst.  However, yet again, we were pleasantly surprised.  He did GREAT!  He slept through the majority of the long 14.5 hour flight, really just waking to eat, and the next flight just happily played.  (I highly recommend a magnetic drawing board and magnetic building pieces as traveling companions for toddlers - compact and quiet).  Once we landed at JFK in New York, and we handed the sacred brown envelope known well by all international adoptive parents to the customs officer, Luke was officially a US citizen!! Proud US Citizen When we arrived at RDU airport, we were greeted by the best welcoming party imaginable.  Many of our closest friends ha...

Tuesday, October 24th and Wednesday, October 25th Visa application is pending!!  Yesterday we made an appearance at the US Consulate in Guangzhou to apply for Luke's visa in order to fly home.  It was surprisingly easy (thanks to all the paper work done on the front side) and the "interview" conducted by the immigration officer was much less intimidating than expected (oh, all the expectations we had going into this have been wrong...).  So with that last appointment, we were 48 hour, the time it takes to process the visa, away from being able to leave the country. We found ourselves trying to stay busy for 2 days in order to pass the time.  Yesterday we walked. And walked.  And walked some more.  Just exploring the city.  We walked a few miles down to the Pearl River and then walked along the river for a while.  Once our attempt to eat dinner down by the water failed (we opened the menu only to see sea urchins and sea horses and decided w...

Monday October 22 nd and Tuesday October 23 rd Boy oh boy does this one have his mama’s heart wrapped around his finger already.   Yesterday Luke said “mama” out loud for the first time.   He’s known who I am from day one, but I’ve never heard the words “mama” until today.   And boy did it melt my heart!   He does this thing when he gets excited and wants to tell or show me something - he will tap on my leg or arm saying “Mama. Mama.”   It is then usually followed by pointing at something and some other phrases that I don’t understand.   I’m not sure if they are actual mandarin words or just toddler babble.     It doesn’t really matter, I probably couldn't focus much after the “mama mama” anyway.   ( Don’t tell Kanhka, but I think he’s actually becoming a mama’s boy!) When I’ve told people we were adopting from China, the automatic response was usually to assume we were adopting a girl.   If I mentioned from the start we we...

Saturday, October 21st There was no official blog post from Friday October 20th because we spent most of the day packing and traveling, and because we had a rough night Thursday night which left us all tired Friday.  Kanhka and I woke up to the sound of Luke getting sick in his crib around midnight Thursday night/Friday morning.  This resulted in a 4 hour cycle of clean the baby, change the bedding, wash the clothes, and repeat.  You could tell the poor guy felt terrible - his tummy was rumbling and he could just not settle - but he never cried.  He just wanted to be left alone in his crib.  I'm not sure if this is a product of his orphanage life or just his personality, but he did not want to be held and comforted.  If we tried, he would just arch his back and point to the crib.  We think we all probably ate something bad since Kanhka and I didn't feel quite right either, but luckily we never got sick.   Even more of a blessing though, by the m...

Thursday, October 19th Today was the first day that we didn't have to be up and ready to head out of the hotel at a certain time, and boy did we enjoy it.  We took our time waking up, Luke got a bath, and then we FaceTimed home.  I am so thankful for technology....the ability to be able to see your kids who are literally halfway across the world is priceless when you are gone for 16 days.  And we've been lucky enough to talk to them at least once if not twice a day on most days. Dinner and a play date with Jamison.  Making silly faces for Luke. Leaving Eliana and Miller at home was hard, and the part of this adoption trip I dreaded most.  We had never both left them for more than 2 nights in a row and this was for more than 2 weeks.  But for a number of reasons, we decided to leave them at home...they are young, we didn't know how Luke would react, we wanted to bond with him, etc, etc.  While everything has gone beautifully with Luke...

Wednesday, October 18th This morning was sweet. And joyful.  But also hard.  Really hard. Hope Haven You see, this morning we were able to visit the orphanage where Luke has lived since he was a newborn.  All previous interactions with orphanage staff, the Gotcha Day and Adoption Day, took place in a government office.  A visit to the orphanage is not guaranteed, and in many cases the adoptive family never gets to see where their child was living.  Some families don't even want to go for various reasons.  However, we have been praying for this place and the people who work there for a long time, so when we had the opportunity to go, we were excited.  With the visit today, we saw those prayers had truly been answered.  Luke had clearly been well taken care of and loved immensely. Luke's orphanage, Hope Haven, which is part of the Social Welfare Institute in Xianyang is about 45 minutes away from Xi'an where we are staying.  When we a...

Tuesday, October 16th We have to wait a few days in Luke's home province for his passport to be issued, so we spent today sight seeing.  Xi'an is considered one of the four capital cities of the ancient world (along with Rome, Athens, and Istanbul) and is the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, so their is plenty to see.  Today we saw the Terracotta Warriors.  I wont bore those of you who don't care with the details, and I'll refer those of you who do to Wikipedia or some other more reliable historic source, but it was definitely neat to see. Most of you reading this could care less what we did today and are more interested in how Luke is doing.  The short answer is GREAT!  He is coming more and more out of his shell and his personality is st arting to shine.  We not only got lots of smiles today, but big ol' belly laughs too.   He is feeling comfortable around Kanhka and I, and Kanhka would be glad for me to report that he's finally got his ...