Newsflash!

Well, it's a first. Lanhua allowed me to take some video of her and mama doing their best rendition of that "Snow White" song, "I'm Wishing." The world did not end. I repeat, the world did not end.

Enjoy!

A Picture Equals...How Many Words?

Well, it's been a while since we've posted last. Mea culpa. Scout and I have been crazy busy and have lots to report on, including Lanhua's first visit to Disneyland with some new cousins and aunts and an uncle, as well as a paint-fest to help her Aunt Tina and Uncle Andrew move into their new place.

But until we get it together and actually post about these events, I thought I would post a bunch of photos from the past several weeks...these should be good for at least 10,000 words!

Wo de jia.

Had a great weekend, culminating in a wonderful Monday morning. Yes, I actually wrote those words together: “Monday,” morning,” and “wonderful.” I’ll explain soon enough. First, though, a quick look back over the weekend.

On Friday night, I took a crack for the first time at making sweet and sour pork. Found a couple of recipes online, and sort of combined them – took a bit from this one, a bit from that one, etc. – and, well, just went for it. I was a little nervous as the recipe calls for deep frying the pork (required for s&s pork) which I have never before attempted, and also because it is a very common Cantonese meal. Thus, I fully expected Lanhua’s standards to be pretty high when it comes to this dish. Would I blow my first attempt at this paradigm of Cantonese cuisine? Well, I’m happy to say that I didn’t – it came out surprisingly well, and lo and behold Lanhua mowed it down! Very, very happy result (both with the actual success of the cooking as well as Lanhua eating so much), although I must say the kitchen looked like a disaster area afterwards. It also took me nearly 2 hours. Hopefully, I’ll be able to streamline the process in the future.

After dinner, we played a favorite game of hers – it’s a portable “board” game called “Airplane” or “Flight” (we’re not sure which), and although at first it was strictly by what we call “Lanhua Rules” to ensure that she does not lose (example – at random points in the game, Lanhua gets to roll the die 2 or 3 times in a row), she now plays pretty much by the rules and will take a loss with grace (well, ok, maybe not grace; she is fiercely competitive and does not like to lose).

Also on Friday night, Lanhua made her first phone call. Well, mama made the call, but Lanhua took over from there. All week she had been dying to see her yay-yay again (that would be grandpa Andy), and she insisted that we call yay-yay on Friday night. Pam made the call, got Andy on the phone, and then handed it over to Lanhua, who proceeded to chat amiably and excitedly in Cantonese. It was so cute. Poor yay-yay; he had no idea what his new granddaughter was saying to him, but boy was he happy that she wanted to tell him anything. Truly a priceless moment.

On Saturday, we headed over to grandma and grandpa’s house (or Gigi and yay-yay, as they have christened themselves). Andy had a brand new soccer ball ready for Lanhua, which she loved, and the afternoon was spent hanging out, playing, and chowing down on some hot dogs and a yay-yay specialty: popcorn. To give you an idea of how enamored Andy is with his new granddaughter: he let Lanhua paint his fingernails with some new nail polish give to Lanhua by Gigi.

Saturday night we discovered that Lanhua had a far more favorite use for her new soccer ball: as a basketball. The girl is crazy about dribbling. I had noticed it before on a couple of occasions, but that night she came up with a new game: how many consecutive dribbles can you do without messing up. It soon became clear that she has spent some serious time dribbling a basketball. Not only was she easily reaching hundreds of consecutive dribbles, she was doing so switching from hand to hand: a hundred with her left hand then a hundred with her right, then back to her left, etc. Seriously, the girl has mad ball-handling skillz! Now I just need to teach her a nasty cross-over… (Of course, now we’re thinking basketball camp…)

Sunday we went bowling! Some friends of ours, Lisa and Tom, offered to meet us for an afternoon of bowling with their daughters Rachel (age 9) and Allison (age 12). First up was some sushi at Poway Sushi Lounge (excellent…we’ll definitely be going back), then on to Fun Bowl! There was a bit of a wait for some lanes when we arrived, so the girls hit the arcade, which, as every adult knows from memory, is also great fun. Rachel and Allison were awesome! (The first thing Rachel said when we arrived at sushi was, “Hi Lanhua!” Super sweet, and even though Lanhua was at first a bit shy and her usual inscrutable self when first meeting new people, I’m guessing the greeting from Rachel made her very happy and feel very comfortable.) The girls really made Lanhua feel welcome. The bowling itself was a great success (although I think Lanhua struggled a bit more since these were regulation-sized lanes, as opposed to the shorter lanes of East Village Tavern, so her ball was usually barely rolling by the time it reached the pins), and of course for Pam and I it was great fun to hang with Lisa and Tom. We’re very much hoping that there will be more such get-togethers in the future with these guys (and I know of one in particular, and that’s to watch Allison in “The Philadelphia Story” – she was auditioning for the part of Dinah today…hope it went great Allison!)

Sunday night was pizza night followed by another “consecutive dribble contest” (which Lanua naturally one), as well as some games of Airplane. The highlight of the night, however, was Pam and Lanhua doing some drawing on Lanhua’s dry-erase board. First, Pam drew a picture of me (curiously, I look an awful lot like Curious George…), and Lanhua. Then Lanhua asked her to draw a picture of herself. And then Lanhua took a stab at drawing one of our tabby cats, The Woody Show, who was curled up next to her. Lanhua drew Woody’s head, and mama helped her add the body. After the portraits were complete, Lanhua began to label each drawing both in English and in Chinese. Very cute, and she was very intent.

It wasn’t until this morning that I took another look at the family portrait and noticed something that made our day. I noticed that at the top of the 4 portraits she had written something in Chinese, and under it written, “Wo de jia.” I asked Pam if she (Pam) had written this, and she replied that Lanhua had. Pam thought that she had been trying to write “Wedel.” Not so.

“Wo de jia” means “My home.”

Well. As you can imagine, Pam and I both lit up like Christmas trees when we realized this. This is the first indication we’ve had from Lanhua that she views this new and crazy situation for her as a “home,” and the first time she’s associated herself with it. A very small thing, maybe, but for us? As big as it gets.

I think it’s going to be a great week…

(Attached are some photos from the weekend (a fave is the one of mama and Lanhua apparently practicing for the circus on our bed)…including the family portrait, which we may have to get framed!)

English, Grandpa, our dog Milton and promising progress

Today marks the 1 month anniversary of Lanhua's arrival in the United States. Looking back, it's difficult to imagine that our early days together in Guangzhou were spent less than 6 weeks ago. Life has changed so dramatically for all of us!

I'm hoping that the title of today's Blog Post summarizes the spirit of the past month. With each day, we learn something new about each other, our family, the English language and ourselves. It's an incredibly challenging, happy, frustrating and amazing process. We're so fortunate to have this wonderful (most of the time) child in our lives. Once again stating the obvious: Everything has changed in ways that we never could have imagined.

Our communication challenge continues (as expected), however we've experiencing significant daily improvement. Lanhua communicates more effectively with us and we're improving in our ability to communicate with her. She isn't speaking English yet, but clearly understands a good amount of basic vocabulary. Next week, an ESL tutor named Al will begin in-home bi-weekly tutoring sessions with Lanhua. I see a long-lasting friendship in our future with Al. Steve and I felt a positive vibe as soon as we met him. Hopefully, Lanhua will feel the same.

Lanhua still seems to enjoy going to school each day and has made friends with some of the kids in her class. She's developed a huge crush on her Grandpa (aka "YeYe") and has grown very close to our youngest dog, Milton (in photo). In the upcoming weeks/months, we hope that more of our family and friends are able to meet Lanhua and join us with her continued introduction to this new life. Cheers!

That's How We Roll

This past weekend was, as has been the norm lately, fun, busy and continuously elightening.

First, on Friday night we had dinner with some friends of a mutual a friend (and, hopefully, soon to be our new friends as well) by the names of David and Cindy. The mutual friend, Xianjun (and old lab-rat colleague of mine from my Idec Pharmaceuticals’ days), suggested we get together with David and his fiancé because they both speak Cantonese. After David and I exchanged some emails and spoke on the phone, we decided to have dinner together. Both David and Cindy are interested in helping Lanhua adjust, and they figured what better way than to be available to give advice on Cantonese cuisine, aid in translation and just generally be there should Pam and I (or Lanhua) ever have any questions or problems.

We went to China Max on Convoy, a place recommended by them for excellent Cantonese/Hong Kong-style cuisine. It was excellent! David and Cindy are wonderful people; kind and generous (which of course was no surprise, since they had eagerly agreed to help out two complete strangers with a newly adopted 9-year old girl!), and it was a real pleasure to have dinner with them. Unfortunately, Lanhua was in an exceptionally shy mood, and although she was clearly fascinated by China Max and the customers (all of whom were pretty much speaking Cantonese), she was very reluctant to engage when David or Cindy tried to get a conversation going in Cantonese. However, I have a feeling the next time we meet up with David and Cindy, she will be much more gregarious.

Anyway, thank you David and Cindy! Truly, these are the types of people that epitomize our philosophy of “It takes a village to raise a child” – complete strangers happy and eager to lend a hand with our beautiful Lanhua. Really, does it get better than that? (For those of you who know Pam and I well, you know for us that the answer to that question is “no.”) We are very much looking forward to more of this wonderful couple and getting to know them. (By the way, they are getting married in June – Congratulations!)

Saturday was a re-enactment of that epic struggle; that jaw-dropping philosophical conundrum that legend has it sent no less than Kurt Godel into his bedroom for a week straight, anxious and pulling at his hair (while at the same time trying unsuccessfully to get answers from good friend Al Einstein):

Chinese New Year festivities v. bowling.

The day started out with the best of intentions. Although no San Francisco, San Diego does in fact have a Chinese New Year festival downtown, and this year it was set for this past weekend. All last week, Pam and I have been planning on taking Lanhua down to experience the festivities and a bit of Chinese culture here in sunny San Diego. We invited various friends and family and thought it would be a great way to show Lanhua that a small piece of her home country was here in her new home as well.

So, Saturday morning we were up and about and ready to hit downtown – Pam and I were excited about the adventure, and of course Lanhua had no idea of what was coming. After a morning session of indoor “hide and seek” (Lanhua’s favorite new game) and after Mama helped Baba change the bandage on his hacked-up right hand (I took a very nasty fall on a recent lunch-hour bike ride), we piled into the car and headed to what we thought would at the least be a culturally interesting trip for our little girl.

Well. The “festival” was of a much smaller scale that we had hoped – some arts and crafts booths, a main stage with various enacted Chinese stories unfolding, the typical food booths you see at such fests (although with an “Asian” touch), etc. Our best friend Tandora met us– this was her first encounter with Lanhua, and we were very excited about their first meeting – and Aunt Tina and Uncle Andrew also met us. But within about 30 minutes, we had experienced the whole of the “festival,” and Lanhua was clearly bored. (Actually, from the moment we had arrived she had expressed little interest. In retrospect, her boredom is fairly clear. Something along the lines of: “Wow. Impressive. Umm, you do know that I just came from China, right?” This was most likely combined with the typical mien of a 9-year old that I have experienced before with my 9 year old nieces and nephews: “Hello. This is BORING…”)

So, what to do? Both Pam and Aunt Tina came up with the same idea: bowling. Naturally. Because that’s what you do when the attempt to expose your newly adopted daughter to her native culture goes awry – bowling. Obviously.

Fortunately for us, downtown San Diego has a great bowling place, and so we headed there not knowing how this would work out. And, as often is the case with Plan Bs, it worked out better than Plan A – she loved it. I snapped a few pictures, but it’s really impossible to show how much she loved bowling. Soon she was pretty much taking over the bowling for everyone, and taking charge of assigning who was to bowl next and with which brightly-colored ball. And of course, her smile was constant. It seems fairly certain that we will be hitting Kearney Mesa Bowling this week at some point. Too early to talk bowling league?

So, the lesson for the weekend? When it comes to the question of an appropriately-suited cultural event and/or experience versus hitting a local bowling alley, the answer is clear.

Pretty easy when you think about it, actually.

That's My Daughter

Ba-ba checking in. That’s Cantonese for daddy. Since Pam has taken the lion’s share of keeping this blog updated (ok, you got me; “share” implies that I’ve pitched in…I haven’t, it’s been all Pam!), I thought I should finally take a crack at an update. So, here goes…

To begin with, the title of today’s entry comes from a song. Before we left for China, Pam’s colleagues at BrainCells, Inc. (no, it’s not the name of a company from Steve Martin’s movie “The Man With Two Brains”) threw us a congratulatory lunch. It was great fun, and very, very thoughtful on the part of all of Pam’s great friends at work. During the lunch we were treated to a little mini-movie (courtesy of David Miller – thanks David!) replete with images of Lanhua (surreptitiously hijacked from Pam’s computer – that’s the benefit of being the company IT guy) and humorous quotes regarding parenting. And the soundtrack for the little movie was the song “Daughter” by Loudon Wainwright III…so catchy and so perfect (thanks Jill!). It was terrific.

So for the past two weeks this earworm of a song has been playing in my head, and I still can’t believe it actually applies to Pam and I. The first two weeks in Guangzhou were a blur and somewhat surreal; Pam nailed it with every one of her entries. It was so overwhelmingly emotionally and so…what’s the word?...unbelievable…that it was hard to comprehend that we actually had a daughter. That this little girl was now legally our responsibility and that the paths ahead were so infinitely varied and awesome as to be literally mind-boggling was, I think, a bit much for us (or at least me) to tackle in Guangzhou. It was like we were babysitters with an extended contract. But ever since we’ve arrived home, everything that Lanhua does seems to hit that specific neuronal (that’s for the BrainCells crowd) “play” button, “Daughter” starts to unreel in my head, and it sinks in, deeper each time: that IS my daughter! And nearly every time I’m overwhelmed anew.

Now for you parents out there, I’m sure this is very familiar and probably old-hat by now. So, I hope I’m not boring you with the obvious. But for Pam and I, who not very long ago at all were despairing at the possibility that we would ever be parents…well, it’s been nothing short of life-affirming. This little munchkin, this little ball of cuteness, this crazy mix of wonder and mischief (and boy, she can be trouble with a capital “T”) is allowing us the insane privilege of entering her life and caring for her. And Pam and I could not be happier.

Anyway, I promise to start holding up my end of the bargain and posting more often to relieve some of the pressure off of mama. I definitely want to make a point of giving a huge and heartfelt thanks to all of our friends and family, both close by and distant, for their unbelievable support, kind words, and warmest of wishes. (A special shout-out to the Hull family – Tim, your recent email choked me up; it was, as a Jewish friend would put it, a mitzvah. Thank you.) We will continue to keep this blog going as long as Lanhua keeps things interesting. So, what, that takes us out for another 30 years or so? (By then I’m thinking “blogging” and “Facebook” will be passé; we’ll just send you updates via telepathy.)

As for today’s photos…the first is my favorite. Lanhua took it while we waiting in the hotel lobby for our ride to the airport. She was so nonchalant about the whole thing – “Yeah, America, adoption, etc. Big whoop.” – yet I have to think she was at least a little nervous. She snapped this picture of her feet. I love it, not only because her shoes are so cute, but because I have the very special privilege of knowing and loving what’s connected to those cute little feet.

The second is of her first attempted bike ride with Pam. Crazy…9 years old and never ridden a bike before.

And the last is of Lanhua running crazily through the fields of Stinky Island, where we take our dogs for walks.

Yep, that’s our daughter….

PS As for real-time updates, yesterday afternoon we purchased roller-blades for Lanhua at her insistence. I foresee Lanhua’s first genuine, American bruises and/or scrapes on the way…

PPS By the way, Lanhua does have a face – honestly! She is just so good at hiding it from the camera!

Some More Photos