Beijing

We've been in Beijing for three days now and what bliss. After a rather long day of travel, that included Elan's first flight, during which time she squirmed for three hours non-stop, we arrived to be told we'd been upgraded to a five star hotel. And when your whole world is a hotel room this is newsworthy! An added bonus, the hotel is in a very central location! Another newsworthy fact after ten days on the outskirts of Guangzhou with nothing (and we mean nothing) to do but hang out in your room and the hotel lobby. Our time in Beijing also comes with three pre-arranged tours. We've seen the Summer Palace and Great Wall so far and tomorrow, weather permitting is the Forbidden City. Mommy and baba have loved the tours, Elan not so much. She's finding all of this extremely difficult and has become prone to tantrums and is sleeping badly. We're glad our time in China is wrapping up soon so we can get her home and into a stable routine.

Today we wrapped up the final bit of paperwork - a doctor's appointment and the submission of Elan's visa so she can come home with us. Yay!

The E Challenge

It's been a challenging few days. Elan has started to attach to us but with that has come lots of tears and testing us. We've all become a bit tired of living out of a hotel room and roaming the grounds outside, weather permitting. We're counting down the hours until we leave for Beijing and really, really looking forward to a few days of touring! We'll update again from Beijing.

The Birthday Girl

Elan turned one today and celebrated with her yeh yeh, mama, ah sok, goo jeh, baba and mommy (that is: grandpa, grandma, uncle William, auntie Deborah, dad and mom). She enjoyed eating her cards, smashing her red envelopes into her cake and playing with te grapes on the cake. She's never had sweets before so the cake itself was a mere sideline...here are the pictures from the last couple days.

It's me (E) again!

Well, it's official. The honeymoon period is over. After an amazingly easy first 24 hours together, E hit us with several bouts of diaper exploding poo and a few rounds of spitting up yesterday. And last night a new tooth started coming through. Our hotel room was a shrine to the laundry gods - every spare inch of hanging space was covered in drying baby clothes.

Today started off well. E woke up and when she saw our faces broke out into her big beautiful smile. Then the fussing began again. We think the trauma of what's happened is really hitting her now. She's doing a terrific job adjusting but the curiosity with everything she displayed two days ago is giving way to nervousness at anything new.

She is still the queen of stacking cups and has great fun with the yellow ball gramma bought for her. Unfortunately Sophie the teething giraffe has been classified as ass by E who wants nothing to do with her. She's a champ with her bottle, eats up all her congee, has taken quite a liking to Cheerios but says no to any form of fruit and veggies.

Alive and Kicking!

It was raining here yesterday - a Vancouver kind of mist that seems impervious to umbrellas - so we spent the hours leading up to meeting E in our room watching CNN and the traffic below our window.

When we arrived at the government office the babies were caught in traffic somewhere in the city. They arrived not long after and then we had the odd experience of being in the same room with them but not being able to touch or hold them until our paperwork had been verified. So we spent several minutes snapping pictures and talking to her while she sat in her nanny's arms.

When they finally put her in my arms it was overwhelming. I can't describe the emotion. I just let go and cried. And there were E and baba as cool as can be!

She's been an amazing trooper, handling what can only be a confusing and scary experience for her with spirit! Last night she wouldn't eat but spent lots of time playing with her stacking cups. This morning she downed a bowl of congee and then demonstrated her crawling skills while we filled out the forms and answered questions that officially made her ours! She finally took a bottle around noon. She's gota bit of a cold- we thought she was active already - but after some meds today she really got going, smiling and laughing and playing with a ball and her stacking cups. She has a great attention span and boundless energy!

More soon!