Shades of Red Chief

My son catches people's eye wherever he goes, whether he's laughing delightedly and jabbering away as he takes in the sights or screeching and throwing a fit.

The other day, we were in a shop on Shamian Island, and Asa kept pointing to a mannequin and saying the same thing over and over again.  I asked the shop keeper what he was saying, and she laughed and said "He wants to know why she isn't talking.  And her hands are no good!"

When we took a trip to see his orphanage and meet some of the people who cared for him for the first years of his life, he stepped out of the elevator and proclaimed, "We are here!  I am a little, handsome boy!"  Life with the wee man is never dull, for sure.

Yesterday afternoon was one of the most memorable of the trip.  We were on Shamian Island again.  For those who don't know, Shamian is an island formed by the Pearl River.  It is home to the hotel that used to be where all adoptive families stayed, so has all kinds of shops on it that cater to adoptive families.  It's also beautiful and peaceful.  We like to walk there from our hotel and shop and relax.

So, anyway, we were there with Asa in his stroller.  He's mostly potty trained, but when we're going to be out for long periods of time, we put a diaper on him in case we can't find a bathroom when he needs one.

Here's Asa outside a shop--Jordon's--on Shamian.  By the time we got to Jordon's, he was getting pretty tired of sitting in a stroller, so he got out, and I asked the girls to watch him while we did a bit of shopping inside.  A few minutes later, Cayanna rushed in and said she that she thought Asa needed to go to the bathroom because he was taking his diaper off.  I ran out to find pants down, diaper shed and my son peeing in the lovely flower boxes that line the walkways.  Well, I should say he was peeing in the flower boxes, in the air, on his shirt, on the walkway, and as I got closer, on me.  The kid has horrible aim.  There was nothing I could do at that point but shield him--sort of--from the stares of passers-by.  Then he loudly proclaimed that he needed to "lei shi" as well.  Well, that was NOT happening on the walkway, so I grabbed him, streaked into Jordon's and found the next-door bathroom--a squatty potty in sort of a janitor's closet with a sink and a shower in close proximity.

I helped him use the bathroom, and as I was standing there trying to clean us both up after the whole debacle, Annika turned on the faucet to wash her hands and accidentally grabbed the wrong nob.  Yep, the shower came on instead, drenching me from the waist down.

So, how was YOUR afternoon?

Asa's Giggle

Watch this and be delighted.  This is my son, Asa, shortly before his adoption was finalized today.  He is hilarious, smart and charming with a healthy dose of naughty thrown in.  We love him to pieces!

Long Flights and Little Brothers

I'll try to catch everyone up on our trip so far.  The flight was the easiest international flight I've taken.  We flew out of Las Vegas at midnight, and, as a result, slept for about half of the longest leg of the journey.  We breezed through customs and immigration and as we walked out of the airport were met with a throng of people all holding up signs and yelling.  We found a sign with our name on it and went with our guide, Bob, a jovial man probably in his mid-twenties who learned English by watching TV--Friends and Desperate Housewives are his two favorites.

Our hotel is above a pedestrian thoroughfare called Up and Down Number Nine Street, and after we checked in, we wandered through the shops.  Guangzhou City is home to thirteen million people, and to a gal from rural Southern Utah, (The entire state of Utah has a population of not quite three million) it seemed like nearly all of them were on the thoroughfare that evening.  I forget how much my family--two Anglo women and two Chinese girls--stands out here.  People are intensely and openly curious about us and point, stare and converse about us.  Last night, we ate at the Guangzhou Restaurant which is right across the street from our hotel, and at one point we had four members of the waitstaff standing about ten feet away from our table all ogling us, pointing and laughing.  We are a novelty for sure!

Anyway, we wandered the shops, ate food from street vendors--strawberries skewered and dipped in boiling sugar syrup, fish ball, and corn on the cob.  They were all pretty tasty, but I'm sure the corn had been dried and reconstituted.  It was chewy.  We forewent the squid on a stick, sweet and sour water snakes, and something that I'm nearly certain involved entrails.

We met Asa yesterday afternoon at the Civil Affairs office.  Every single picture I have of Asa up to this point shows a sad, forlorn little boy, so I wasn't expecting the boy that walked over to me with the Cars backpack that I'd sent and some kind of mangled treat in his hands.  We sat on the floor, and I started blowing bubbles that I'd brought with me.  Yeah, they were a huge hit!  He first smiled and tried to pop them and progressed quickly to full-on belly laughs within probably five minutes of meeting him.  The orphanage worker told me that he's very smart, outgoing, happy, and everyone who meets him loves him.  That's for sure!  He's charming, busy and mischievous to the core!  He also speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin and not a word of English.  When I asked what kind of food he preferred, they said candy.  They're not kidding there; he absconded with his treat bag that was supposed to last for the whole trip and started going down on the more sugary bits.  He also put the hurt to a foot-long piece of sugar cane.  He did eat eggs, rice and veggies for dinner though.

By the time the day was over yesterday, he was testing his boundaries pretty seriously.  (That couldn't have had anything to do with the amount of sugar he consumed.)  He threw his chopsticks (which he uses fairly proficiently) across the restaurant and pitched a screaming, kicking, no-holds-barred fit on the sidewalk of the pedestrian street when I wouldn't let him bring home a yapping electronic dog with glowing eyes from one of the shops.  Yes, people stared.  A lot.  It's all good; we are pros at being intensely examined by now.

Now he's asleep in bed.  It's 6:40 a.m. here right now, 4:40 p.m. MST.  Today we complete the adoption--I fork over some more money, sign some papers, and he is no longer a ward of the Chinese government but a Davis instead.  Yeah, that paperwork was definitely worth it!

(More pictures later.  We're having some downloading issues.)

How We Got Here

A year ago, my friend, Stefani Ellison, turned my world on its ear when she told me that China was soon opening their adoptions to single parents again.  She even had the file of the boy that she thought would be perfect for our family.  Oh, he was a cute little guy, and I fell in love with him.  Obstacles that I thought would make another adoption impossible became non-issues.  I was on board.  Ready to go.  Then, days before China made the official announcement so I could begin the paperwork, another family began the process to adopt this same little boy.  MY little boy.

I told Stefani I was done; I didn't want just any old boy; I wanted that boy.  She didn't listen, a fact for which I'll always be grateful.  She sent me four more files. 

I halfheartedly glanced through them, and, what do you know, looking out at me from the snapshots was the face of my son, Zhang Chuan Yi, born October 26, 2007.

I dived into the paper chase to bring him home.  It's a process best suited to people who are far more left-brained, have a longer attention span and more patience for bureaucrazy (That was a typo, but it's way too accurate to take out.) than I.  Don't get me wrong.  I understand that the multitudinous steps in this process are ultimately to keep kids safe and get them placed in suitable homes, and I am grateful for that.  I appreciate that chaos would reign and kids would suffer if this process were not in place.  However, it's still at times reduced me to a state of wild-eyed hysterical giggling or left me ready to hurl large objects around the room/through windows.

Here's an example of what completely addled my poor right brain:  A couple of months into the process, I had to send in a completed form to a government entity.  In looking at two different sets of instructions from two different sources, I found that one said I was *only* to use black ink in filling out said form.  The other was just as adamant about using blue ink.  I called the 1-800 "help line."  Had a lively conversation about ink colors; talked to two different "helpers" and their supervisors.  No one could agree on ink colors, but they did agree that if I didn't do it correctly, it would be sent back for me to redo.  Got off the phone and spent an hour or so huddled in the corner humming, giggling and biting my fingernails.

Ultimately, what made the paperwork process doable and well worth every application and form and phone call was the fact that it wasn't about ink colors; it was about a little boy who needs a family, a little boy who looks entirely too sad in every single picture that I have of him.

If you're thinking of adopting internationally, and it sounds too daunting, trust me, if I can do it, you can too.  Oh, yes you can.  I'll even help you.  Just don't ask me what color of ink to use.

We're on the last stretch now.  We--Mom, my girls and I-- leave Las Vegas bound for Guangzhou, China on Friday, March 23 to bring home my son, Asa David Chuanyi Davis.  Asa, you'll soon have a mom, two wildly-excited older sisters and two grandparents who can't wait to love you.  See you soon!

In the Beginning...

Welcome, friends and family.  This blogging business is new to me; I've never had any strong desire--nor aptitude--to blog, but since the girls and I are leaving in about three weeks to pick up my son from China, this seems like the most efficient way to keep everyone up to date while we travel.  And who knows, this may actually grow on me.

After about three attempts, I uploaded and placed this picture of my son, Asa David Chuanyi Davis.  This grainy, black-and-white photo is the latest one I have of him, and it's nearly a year old.  I still haven't figured out how to center justify the sunset photo at the top of my blog.  Grrr...   Any suggestions would be appreciated.  We'll figure this out sooner or later, dangit!