There's No Place Like Home

We've been back for 1 1/2 weeks now. Things are going even better than I had hoped. Ke Xin is a delight. She is a happy, spunky, determined, independent little girl. What a joy to have her as part of our family!
To catch things up, we left Guangzhou (at 5:45am) and headed to Hong Kong back on July 10th. We spent the day there before heading to Newark on the 11th. This was because of how the flights lined up. Looking back, I REALLY wish we'd just flown back to Beijing and done the long leg of the trip to Newark that day. What little we saw of Hong Kong (around the airport) was beautiful. It was like pictures of Hawaii with mountains, water and lush plants. We went into town with Tiffany, Eric and Justin, looking for lunch. There was nothing around the hotel (a new and very beautiful Marriott) because it sits right next door to the airport. We'd heard there were all sorts of food options at the mall close by, but it was all the typical Chinese stuff. After walking and walking and sweating, we ended up at a Pizza Hut (how depressing). And most of their offerings were fairly exotic. I was tired, hungry and simply out of patience. And I was dragging two little kids and Debbi behind me. Debbi and I decided then and there that we would head back to the hotel, just cool off and hang out and order room service for dinner. Even tho we knew it would be crazy-expensive. So we hung out in the hotel and went swimming with the kids, watched TV and napped. And all the while, I knew most of the other families were heading home. Jealous! The next day we were up and off to the airport. Hurrah!!! The kids did great, GREAT, on the plane ride for 15.5 HOURS. We landed in Newark and headed for Immigration. What would happen? What would it be like? A very nice fellow glanced at our passports, stamped them, walked us to a seperate room and congratulated us, then left. Another man looked at our "brown envelope", ripped it open, leafed thru the pages for about 2 seconds and then said "OK - good bye". Wait? That's it? Well - that was really easy, but also sort of disappointing. We were herded thru the Newark airport like cattle and got to our new gate with time to spare - like 4.5 HOURS to spare. The kids and I were hungry so we found MacDonalds and Ke Xin had her very first junk food meal in the USA! Most of which ended up on the floor (we cleaned it up). How traditional! By the time the flight from Newark to Atlanta was ready to leave, Debbi and I were so tired we almost fell asleep at the gate. Both the kids had snoozed alittle on the plane and caught a nap, but we hadn't and we were not happy campers. We'd been up for close to 24 hours and it was an ugly picture. The flight to Atlanta was blessedly short and all that kept us going was the thought of seeing our men and sleeping in our own beds. Mark and Duff met us at the top of the escalator in Baggage. I didn't get a picture of Mark and Ke Xin meeting for the first time because things happened so fast and I was just so glad to be home I wasn't thinking of my camera. And by that time we'd be up for OVER 24 hours. If we were to ever do anything like this again, I would totally skip Hong Kong (an expensive waste of time), get the long leg of the journey done the first day and then do the short flight the next day. Hind sight is always 20/20...
I figured that Ke Xin would be guarded with Mark for the first couple days. Wrong! He was holding her and she was giggling before we even made it to the car in the airport paking lot!! He teased her all the way home and she loved every minute of it. I was just trying to keep my eyes open. She roamed around the house and investigated everything, and seemed totally at ease, except with the cats and dogs. They were the only thing that upset her and she was truely scared of them. Otherwise, it was like she'd always been here. She played with Olivia and sat on Mark and watched TV. They ate blueberries and had a ball. We finally pooped out at 2am and hit the sack.
Since then we have been catching up on our sleep and settling into a routine. And we have even been potty training!! We finally figured out that if we don't put a diaper on her, Ke Xin will let us know when she needs to go potty. She'll hop on and even wipe herself! If she's in pull-ups, she'll change them herself without saying a word.
She's now doing great with the cats and dogs. We were worried about that since she had such a fearful reaction to them at first. But now, after 1 1/2 weeks, she chases the cats and she figured out that if she yells at the dogs they will run from her! We let her watch them with us, without letting them get too close to her, and I think she figured out they were not going to harm her.
She and Olivia do great together. Actually, Olivia has had more trouble adjusting than Ke Xin. This surprised me since she'd always done so well with the foster children we'd had in the house. She'd gotten fairly defiant in China and that carried on after we got home. She has been very jealous from time to time, very argumentative and very clingy. I am trying to be understanding of what she may be feeling. But at the same time, I have told her that I won't tolerate any bad behavior. So, we have had many melt-downs and time-outs. But things were much better today. Maybe we are turning the corner. We'll just have to take it day by day. She doesn't behave badly with Ke Xin, just with Mark and me. So she really is being a good big sister. Ke Xin follows her and mimics everything she does. She wants to hold Olivia's hand when we are out walking and she gives her big hugs. It's all very new. Their relationship will develop over time. We just have to have patience.
Ke Xin does not talk very much. She has started mimicing things we say, but I think the other sounds she makes are baby talk, even by Chinese standards. She loves to sing to herself, too. But, she is very expressive with her face and gestures. There's a lot going on in her head. She knows what's going on around her. And she's not afraid to let you know what she wants. She gets her message across with pantomime and hand signals. And when she is displeased or angry you are left in no doubt as to how she feels. She really likes to stamp her feet. But she's also very easy going and very happy. She loves to play tricks and get games going. She loves being physical, so rough housing makes her laugh out loud. She's alot of fun!
When we first came home I planned for Ke Xin to sleep in her crib like she did in China. That was not what she had planned, tho. So, she is sleeping with us. But, she IS sleeping. Once she's down for the night, she sleeps thru the night. I've heard stories of sleep deprived parents that had me worried, so I consider her sleeping thru to be a true blessing. The first week, she would be furious at bedtime! She screamed and cried and kicked her feet for quite a while. But now she's used to the routine. She'd climb up on the bed herself if she was tall enough. She rolls around for a few minutes and then she's out. This is another time when Olivia's jealousy peeks out, so she has ended up in our bed a few times, too. The more the merrier. This, too, will work itself out in time. She's still bonding to us so we'll be patient. She's a good little sleeper, so we have nothing to complain about!
When I first met Ke Xin, she had no use for me. She preferred Debbi and Olivia. I didn't push her. You can't force someone to like you. Now I am happy to say that she will come to me and give me hugs. What a great thing! She's the same with Mark, so I think we have something good going on here. She seems genuinely happy and at ease with us. She likes to hold our hands and sit on our laps. She is definitely a sweetie! We are very lucky!!!!!