Guangzhau!

Being in Guangzhau has been wonderful! I didn’t realize how much I missed having the freedom to go outside of the hotel and walk. The area around the hotel is very “westernized”, peaceful, clean, and much less crowded. There are a variety of restaurants and lots of small shops….and yes, like Megan said, a Starbucks!! Oh, and most of the workers speak good English (at the hotel and the shops and restaurants). We did a lot of walking today, outside in the nice 70 degree weather!! Last week, Nanchang was in the 50s. So we welcome the comfortable weather!

Most of the adoptive families stay at the While Swan Hotel (where we are at) and it’s been sooo encouraging to meet other families. We’ve met at least 3 Christian couples today (well, one was traveling alone while her husband was staying back with their other 5 children…4 of which are adopted). We didn’t realize how much we craved Christian fellowship until we got a taste of it today (and only after 1 week of being by ourselves…we are pathetic). Hearing their experiences, having the common bond in Jesus, common bond in adopting, common bond in our passion to help orphans (and I don’t just mean adoption, here..)…it’s been wonderful!

(Guangzhau at night...right outside our hotel)

This morning, Abram got his picture taken for his passport/visa and then had his medical exam.
We got there at a decent time and were out fairly quickly. Tomorrow is a free day, which we plan on going to the “Safari Park”( a zoo, where the animals are in there natural habitat). It cracked me up that our guide tried to explain the difference between the city zoo and the Safari Park and the bottom line was always…” Zoo has one Panda, Safari has 10 Pandas”. So, she convinced us….we’ll go see 10 pandas. :)
After walking about, going to the park (it was so nice to have a park!!), and playing at the children’s room (here at the hotel), we headed out for supper. One of Jeff’s co-workers, who adopted from China 6 months ago, suggested a good Thai restaurant. So we took his recommendation and it was so good! The Sweet and sour chicken with cashew nuts was fabulous. The only thing not fabulous was eating out with a two year old….have I mentioned how stressful it is to eat out with this little guy?! I could do room service, but it’s very expensive here and Abram is such a messy eater that it leaves our room a complete mess! As much as I love not cooking these past few days, I can’t wait until I don’t have to take him out.

This evening we watched part of the Disney movie, “Cars”.I bet Jeff that we would get through 30 minutes of it and have to stop because Abram’s attention is very short. Jeff said, “no, I bet 15 minutes”. Unfortunately Jeff was right.

After yesterday being such a rough day with Abram, we wonder how much he identifies himself with us and sees us as Daddy and Mommy. We had so many wonderful moments with him over the past week, but yet, I feel like he might walk up to anyone and reach out for them at any time. Today, he hasn’t reached out for anyone but us, but he’s so unpredictable…like I’ve said, there’s still so much to know about him. Please continue to pray that Abram will continue to identify himself with us. We realize that bonding and attachment doesn’t happen overnight and we don’t expect it to. It would be nice to see progress and I’m not sure how much progress we’ve made.

Abram continues to struggle going down for naps and at night time. We’ve been singing the same 3-4 songs over and over. These are the same songs that we sing the most often with Chase and Aubrey. He’s crying as I’m typing…I take that back, he’s screaming (yes, I’ll go comfort him). Usually he has to get to that point of screaming/crying before he finally will fall asleep, it doesn’t matter how much we rock and hold him before that. Ok…he’s finally asleep after fighting it for 1 hour (and yes, he was tired). Thankfully, once he’s asleep, he sleeps well.
Though Abram might be a 2.5 year old, it actually seems like he’s 18 months old. I don’t say that to be critical of him or that I’m disappointed. To some degree, I expected him to be delayed, but not this much (yes, it could be worse). His walk is a toddle, he’s very clumsy (I feel like he’s an accident waiting to happen :)), his speech is delayed (which is fine, since he’s going to be learning English now), and he seems to be delayed with his fine motor skills. It’s been almost a week that we’ve had him and in that one week, he went from not being able to drink from a cup and swallow (without most of it running out of his mouth and him coughing….remember our luggage was lost and along with it were the sippy cups), to figuring out the timing of swallowing and taking in more liquid into his mouth. He’s doing pretty good with the sign for “more” and is catching onto “please”. Also, I think he’s beginning to recognize his name. I told Jeff that we should start to work with him with the stairs (he can do it, but he’s not very balanced) and see how much progress will be made by the end of this week. It will be so interesting to see how much progress will be made in 3 months, 6 months….one year from now. I have a feeling that he will be growing by leaps and bounds.

Right now, he sleeps soundly and we are so thankful that we have him, he’s ours. Jeff and I get to love on him and hold him. We noticed the 2nd or 3rd day that his cheeks weren’t as clear and were a bit bumpy. I commented on it and wondered, out loud, if his face wasn’t use to being kissed so much!! Honestly, I think that’s why his skin isn’t as clear right now, for as much as we’ve kissed those cheeks!

Love,

Jeff, Chelby & Abram

(fun morning hair)

(first taste of ice cream)
(This picture is for Chase! - my 2 John Deere boys!)