Author: Mia

  • Surfing

    Surfing

    Little Man rode another great wave of grief this afternoon, after an abbreviated morning excursion to Shaimann Island to shop for souvenirs. We can all get pretty frustrated at our lack of language skills to understand each other. After trying everything else we could think of, we laid him in his crib where he almost immediately settled down…

  • Blame It On The Rain

    Blame It On The Rain

    This morning Guangzhou greeted us with great big gloppy drops of liquid sunshine… good thing 4 out of 5 of us are native Oregonians. It’s no secret that I adore a good downpour. We opted out of the scheduled group shopping tour, instead exploring the immediate neighborhood and nearby park, just the five of us– sans umbrellas…

  • First Flight

    First Flight

    I fear I sounded a bit like a whiny princess in my last post about leaving Zhengzhou. To be clear, I realize that we are not here for vacation, and any “hardship” we endure is absolutely worth it to bring home our precious son. For the record, we regularly pay good money to sleep under the stars[camp] and I have…

  • Guangzhou Bound

    Guangzhou Bound

    This evening we received Little Man’s Chinese passport, so tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou for the last leg of our in-country adoption journey. I’ll be honest, I don’t think any in our travel group will miss Zhengzhou all that much. It’s hot, it’s smoggy, and it smells. It’s a working man’s city, leaving the glamour for the likes of Hong…

  • Celebrating Tantrums

    Celebrating Tantrums

    In the adoption world, we celebrate strange milestones. We celebrate when our child cries after we leave, because it means they missed us. We celebrate when we get to change a poopy diaper, because it means that their system is finally regulating after a week of major stress. We celebrate when they bonk their head while playing, because they…

  • A New Normal

    A New Normal

    This morning Little Man woke up grieving. He has lost all that was familiar to him and is probably realizing that this little field trip, while fun, is not temporary. This is very normal, he just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. It’s especially hard that as we work to establish our new normal, we are lacking any semblance of a…

  • Cocooning: China Edition

    Cocooning: China Edition

    We were prepared that Little Man might awake this morning with no recollection of what had happened the day before, that we might have to start all over. We didn’t. He woke up (at 4am, both he and Little Sister fell asleep around 6pm last night) and was his bright little happy self, seeming to recognize us…

  • Gotcha

    Gotcha

    My heart might actually burst. Of course, I’m biased, but he really is the most amazing kiddo. Our Little Man was one of three kiddos already at the Civil Affairs building when we arrived there this morning, which we did not expect. He was in pink overalls, so I didn’t actually spot him right away,…

  • Ni Hao, Zhengzhou

    Ni Hao, Zhengzhou

    After an early morning departure and short flight from Beijing, we arrived in Zhengzhou this afternoon. It’s been a long day of logistics and settling in, in anticipation of the culmination of our trip here: Meeting our son. We are exhausted and heading to bed soon, but tomorrow morning is the moment we’ve long been waiting for. We’ve packed…