Celebrating The Year of the Dragon

After celebrating Chinese New Year five times without our daughter, the celebration this year was a revelation to Gary and I.  Seeing the festivities through Natalie's eyes made it so much more fun for us.  The Year of the Dragon is considered to be the luckiest in the cycle of 12 zodiac years.  Considering that it is our first full year home with Natalie it definitely feels very lucky to us.


Natalie was too excited to be still for photos.


The celebration we attended this year was an international one - not just Chinese.  We got to sample many different cuisines.  Natalie's favorite thing was the noodles - surprise!  Her second favorite was a Korean rice cake which you will see her holding in the video at the end of the post.


The event took place on 1/20/12...exactly two months after the date we arrived home from China.  It is amazing how much all 3 of us have changed during that time.  Gary and I are both wrapped around Natalie's little finger and delighting in all of her smiles and laughter.  We, like most parents, think she is the most amazing child in the world.

Natalie has come so far out of the shell that she was hiding deep inside when we first met her.  She still wants Mama and Baba close by (which is a sign of good attachment), but she is becoming a little more adventurous and more friendly to new people.


Natalie's very favorite part of the evening was the entertainment section that featured Irish Dancers.  The edited video below is more about Natalie's reaction to the dancers than the dancing itself.  I'll have to make another video of the full dances.  They were so fun to watch. Natalie definitely thought so - she was clapping, cheering and at times doing her own little jig.  At the very end of the video you can hear Natalie shouting "Yay!"

From Noodles to Pasta

While we were in China one of our nicknames for Natalie was Noodle Girl because noodles were one of the few things we could get her to eat.  Now that we are home she eats almost everything we do.  I thought that whole wheat pasta would be too different from ramen noodles, but as you can see she loves it.  She also loves oatmeal, chili, all green veggies and even wild rice & mushroom soup!


She is learning to use a spoon and fork, but it is a messy process.




Yummy in my tummy!

My Favorite Things: Food, Friends & Fun

Let's phone some friends to meet us at ZaZa's for pizza


Oh look...they're already here.  Mitch and Donna came to play with me during dinner.


Mitch and I made up a fun game of passing pieces of cereal back and forth.




After I ate a bunch of yummy pizza I got to try my first gelato.  It was ok, but a little too cold for my taste.


Then I made up a cool game where I went from Mama's lap...
to Baba's lap.  I must have gone back and forth twenty times in just a couple of minutes.  I like to help my parents sleep well at night by making sure they are all tired out by bedtime.


Donna played peekaboo under the table with me.


We had lots of laughs together.


Mitch and Donna, I hope we get to play together again soon.  Love, Natalie

To Market, To Market to Buy Little Shoes

Thursday our group went to a Chinese flea market which was a very fun experience.  The quality of the items sold there is very high and the price very low.  Our main mission was to find some shoes for Natalie as the few pair we brought were too big for her.  We found three pair along with a couple of toys for her to play with. Her favorite toy is a little cell phone that plays different music and animal sounds when the keys are pressed.








We had a delicious lunch and great conversation at the "Luminous Restaurant".






Natalie LOVES noodles...


She slurps them up like a pro




Some of our friends and fellow adoptive parents:


This baby gives the meal a big thumbs up!










Back at the hotel wearing her new shoes

A Day of Much Needed Rest

Yesterday the only appointment we had was with a doctor who gave Natalie a checkup. He came to the hotel, so we ended up staying here all day yesterday. All three of us had a very relaxing day and some time to get used to being a family.

The doctor said that Natalie has an upper respiratory infection so we are treating her with two different types of medication. I think it's already starting to help. He also said that she is underweight, so we are focusing on feeding her calorie dense food and plenty of protein. We were told by the orphanage director that she still drinks formula and were given some of the exact same kind they use at the orphanage. However, Natalie has let us know that she wants nothing to do with the formula or with a bottle at all which is fine with us. At 21 months she can eat solid food just fine. She loves steamed eggs, noodles of all kinds, rice, bread, tofu, cereal and yogurt. Her very favorite thing in the world to eat is the organic yogurt drops that I brought with us from the states. We only have 1 bag left so we are saving them as a special reward for her after she takes her yucky medicine. It seems to be working because she cried pitifully last night when we gave her the meds, but today knowing she would get the yogurt drops immediately after she took the medicine like a champ.

That reminds me... I have to say a few words about what an amazing baby Natalie Wanhan is. She is so cooperative with everything that we do. When it's time to get dressed for the day she lifts her arms to get her pjs off. She pushes her feet into her shoes and her arms through her sleeves. She is the most patient child I have ever met. She waits for us to feed her each bite of food without getting upset or fussy. She loves to play with her stacking cups and will offer them to you freely to get you involved in play with her. She also loves to trade items back and forth with us. When she awakens in the middle of the night she may start to cry - probably in confusion wondering where she is - I reach over and rub her forehead or her tummy.  She is immediately reassured and falls right back to sleep. When it's nap time she wants to cuddle and will fall asleep lying on my chest after less than 5 minutes.  She loves to be held or to sit in our laps.  Also, I have to brag on her and tell you that she is potty trained.  We are keeping her in pull-ups for a few more days just to make sure, but so far she has not had a single accident - even at night.

Last night we had a hilarious and wonderful experience at a Japanese restaurant here at the hotel.  When we arrived we were swarmed by not one, not two, but Three servers!  They would not let us look at the menu for even a few minutes by ourselves and let us make a decision about what to order.  Instead they wanted to review many different options with us even though only one of them barely spoke English.  We tried to explain that we eat seafood but no other meat. Finally the chef came over to "help" us decide what to eat. He spoke the best English of the four. We were so overwhelmed with all four of them speaking at once in multiple languages that we just agreed to whatever they thought was best. It turned out to be fantastic. When we saw the large number of dishes that kept being put on our table we were nervous about seeing our bill, but in the end the meal was very inexpensive. Everyone was so nice to us and to Natalie. They were truly happy to see how much we all enjoyed our meal.  We are having a lot of encounters like this and are enjoying the people that we are meeting in China.    

By the way, our chopstick skills are getting quite good.

View from our hotel window

Adoption Day

Tuesday was the day Natalie officially became a part of our family.  It was a hectic day of traveling from the registry to the notary and from there to some kind of police station to get Natalie's picture taken.  After sleeping for only about 1 hour the night before the whole day was pretty much an exhausting blur...so hard on all 3 of us.  We ended the day at a department/grocery store called Rainbow where Gary and I, in our sleep deprived state, proceeded to unknowingly break several of the store rules.  Looking back it was pretty funny that our store trip mostly consisted of us being chastised by groups of Chinese people.  I may write more about it later because it was an interesting experience, but as usual I am pressed for time.  

The best parts of Tuesday though were Natalie legally becoming our daughter - although she has been our daughter in our hearts since the moment we saw her picture - and getting to spend some more time with her orphanage director.

Natalie in her highchair at the hotel restaurant breakfast buffet which offers at least 50 different Chinese and American choices.n  I think she was making her mad face because there was a pause in feeding her the yogurt.


Bread sculpture in the restaurant


Our group getting ready to leave the hotel to go to our appointments...babies everywhere :)


Mama and Wanhan headed for the bus.


A few shots of the beautiful Crowne Plaza which is a 5 star hotel that we would never be able to afford if it was located in the U.S.  We have felt quite spoiled here.  The staff is so kind and helps us with things we need for Natalie.








Natalie with the Director of Shangrao Orphange in Jiangxi Provence.  This lovely lady has known Natalie since she was 1 day old.


She and I spent about an hour together. Sitting together and communicating in a combination of sign language, Mandarin, English and laughter, we had such a nice time.  I have a video of her playing with Wanhan that I feel so grateful to have.  She told us that Natalie's normal demeanor is very calm.  Yay!  Although I would love to hear some belly laughs from our sweet girl...someday soon I hope.  The director gave us an open ended invitation to stay with her in her home anytime we want to visit Shangrao.  She has such a deep, genuine love for the children.


She and I took turns holding Wanhan.  When Natalie would reach her little arms out to come back to me it made my heart melt.  The director told Natalie to give Gary and I both kisses which she sweetly did.  I think it was helpful for Natalie to hear and see the director refer to Gary and I as "Mama and Baba".