mAyA'S so called life

Where did everyone go?

2007-02-23T13:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.4happyfamily.com

Merry Xmas from Maya and Elmo

2006-12-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

9.0718474 kilograms

2006-11-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

This means that our little Maya now weighs as much as our cat, but more importantly, this means that she weighs 20.5 pounds and we can turn the car seat around. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation, if the child is 20 pounds and one year of age, the seat can be turned around.

No big deal just another milestone. C took Maya to the doctor today for her checkup.

Election Day

2006-11-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Did you vote? To let you delve into my inner dork political self I will let you know something about me. I have always loved politics and the process for creating laws and everything that ties into it such as the media, precinct captains and the Chicago political machine.

Some people have their fantasy football teams or their roto baseball leagues and so forth, but I found something that seems more tangible to me and that is my Fantasy Congress league. It works like fantasy football; you pick your senior and junior members of both chambers and you accumulate points for how far their bills make it.

I came in 27th last year out of 100, so I am hoping to improve better.

My All-stars:

Yes, gotta go with an Independent from Vermont as a selection(and yes I know this is his last term; I need to change that). I am thinking of making some baseball cards with key stats and so forth, but then that would only cement my true dorkness.

In Maya news; she is cutting her 6th tooth, is up to about 12 words and she is walking about 66% of the time. I think by T-giving she will be near 100%. I am hoping that she will be able to cut the grass by next Summer.

The Polymer Paradise

2006-11-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

Plastic.

When did the Toys-R-Us giraffe stick its head in the window of my family room and throw up an ocean of primary-colored plastic playthings? My house has become a safe-for-two-and-under wasteland of toys that take up every nook and cranny. We are still trying to keep order so all of our (my) things are slowly being pushed into a two-foot by two-foot patch in my closet that is beneath the toys that we have not brought out yet for Maya.

Did I mention what we bought our little darling for Xmas? I am too embarrassed to even describe it so here is a link. Go ahead, I will wait right here until you get back.

I know I am my own worst enemy. What were we thinking? OK, for those of you that are link-challenged; we bought Maya a 5’ by 5’ by 3’ inflatable ball pit and 200 plastic balls. It is made by a great little company called Landfill’s Nightmare. I may moan about this, but I am secretly excited to see her in it and that is what Xmas is all about as a parent, right? Toiling at jobs so we can get excited about toys that our kid may or may not play with in the end.

I can fully appreciate the war stories that have been regaled to me by my elders: The Cabbage Patch incursion of ’82, the Battle for Furby Hill and this years conflict for Elmo TMX. With this holiday season approaching, I am finding the transformation is almost complete to a full-fledged parent. If I am in Target and I see one of these Elmo dolls I will shiv every last one of you for a chance to give my daughter something that I think she wants, yes, the cardboard box. Trite, but true.

Sorry for the meander. I wanted to talk about the toys in our house. The ball pit is now going to be beside the giant plastic fish, the miniature playhouse, the two cars and the Dora couch. Maya loves her fish. It is built as a rocker and she likes it when I push her around in it across the carpet. She has smaller toys that she plays with (and yes books and toys that don’t make noise and educational stuff so please don’t call DCFS) but I want to focus on the larger items that she really has grown fond of in the past couple of months.

The miniature playhouse sings lights up and has two volume settings for loud and nervous breakdown. Yes, looking at Maya you can see the size of this thing. Also, based on the sign you know who bought her one of her favorite toys. Maya loves this thing and I keep telling her that with a house come responsibility and I plan on making a toy little coupon book for her second mortgage. Learning how to spend beyond one’s limits is never too early.

Well, as an American, she has the house now she needs the two cars in the driveway. Our neighbors and relatives each bought us battery-operated themed cars. One is a Disney princess theme and the other is a fairy tale theme. Again, Maya loves these things, she hits all the buttons that make all the noises and activates the flashing lights non. Wait, let me rewrite that sentence: Maya loves these things, she hits ALL the buttons that make all the NOISES and activates the FLASHING lights NONSTOP.
Another lesson learned. People do not care about what you want when you have a kid; it is all about what makes the child happy.

I call this one the estrogen cruiser and its twin sister (not pictured) the pre-life crisis mobile. Disney is evil, evil, evil. I am terrified when I see the 6 sisters of the Disney clan motoring toward me and my little girl smiling an evil grin as she is slowly assimilated. This thing sings songs and has little sayings like: “Under the sea, la lala”, “One day my Prince will come.” and “Buy more Disney licensed merchandise” Whoa, sorry.

Last up is the Dora couch. This is Maya’s altar. She has voluntarily kissed this piece of fabric more times than she has me. She will kick back and watch Elmo on it or just pull it out and straight lounge not letting her hectic day get to her. As you can see by the picture below, she is not the only one that knows how to get her relax on.

So, no point to this post really; just providing another interesting glimpse into our so called lives. For Xmas this year I am thinking about imposing the airline rule on all presents that they must fit inside a certain box to be allowed entry into our house. Right, I know, I know, I am the guy that bought 25 square feet of inflatable fun. I guess we are all suckers at heart and will do anything to get that little smile.

Halloween

2006-11-01T06:18:00.000-08:00

Halloween went well. Maya woke up from her nap a little late and was a little fussy. We put her in her costume and dropped her in the wagon and pulled her down the street to show off to the neighbors. We went to just a couple of houses, it was pretty cold out and we had to swaddle her in two blankets as we went around. Finally, we ended up at a little neighborhood restaurant with C’s Dad and a couple of the neighbors. Pictures below. (Click for bigger version)

Before going home we swung buy our favorite little pub by our house with the neighbors to trick or treat. It is a Tuesday and empty so we had no problem taking them in there (so no calls to DCFS) for a few photo ops. It is a little blurry, but the guy in the middle is the owner.

Michigan

2006-10-31T19:33:00.000-08:00

We got back from Michigan yesterday, we were there to visit CÂs Uncle and I ran the Grand Rapids half marathon (2:00:46). Yes, that is 47 seconds over where I wanted to be, but I will take it considering I have only run three times in almost the past month. It really is a love/hate thing; I despise running, but I like the feeling of accomplishment and letÂs me do things like eat a bag of Halloween candy (more on that later).

It was a really nice time up there. We were able to sethingsgs from the other side of Lake Michigan and actually slow down a little. I took off of work a little early on Friday and we traveled up there with the kid in tow and a car packed full of Portillos (the family are addicts like us), one suitcase for C and I and then the rest was packed with everything Maya. It is ungodly how many things a 15-month old needs. (yes, Maya turns 15 months tomorrow)

This is Courtney's cousin Sarah who came back home to school to hang out with us.

We actually took the time and relaxed while we were there. We went for a nice scenic drive and hung out at the house. I woke up early and left the house about 6AM to drive to Grand Rapids; which is about an hour away. There were about 1800 people running. I took it really slow and ran well for the lack of training. I came back to their house about noon and we watched the bears play. It was one of the most stress-free weekends I have had in a while. Monday was spent cleaning and doing yardwork.

Getting bundled up to go out

Many people have asked me why I run. I do not have a really good answer, like I said, I would rather do most things than run. I like to exercise, but my body is not the Kenyan marathon type. If you ever saw me run, you would be worried. The problem is that I like to eat and drink. We make the same mistake every year and buy 2-4 bags of Halloween candy around the middle of September and then graze constantly. Being home on Monday we (I need to drag C down too even though it is 98% me) finished off the last of the goods so I had to run to the store and buy more. Granted, we get maybe 3-5 trick-or-treaters, we always have the hope that we will be deluged. When they come to the door we overfill their bags with treats like they are our own dysfunctional kids. I run so I can do these things, especially with Xmas around the corner and I need to put on a blubber layer for the Winter.

There are two schools of thought on the whole candy thing:

C: "Oh, you are so cute. That is a precious little ladybug. Here is one for you."
K:"I paid $5 for this little bag of individually wrapped M&Ms...so...Dance Monkey!"

Seriously, what happened to the joke telling? You need to work for it. Just because you slapped on some eyeliner, put on a black turtleneck and called yourself the emo Grimdoesn'ter doesnÂt mean I need to give you the goods. You need to work it. If it wasn't for Courtney I would turn kids away because their costumes just are not good enough. Come on, wearing your weekend football uniform does not earn you candy. I would give some kid all the candy in the house (except the secret stash) if he/she came dressed as something original and told an off-color joke or at least one with a few expletives in it

This is from C's Aunt's surprise birthday party that was at a Greek restaurant. That is not a stripper in training, it is a belly dancer. Maya castanets castinets. C is on the right.

Sorry. End of rant. Maya is going to be a witch this year. A good dainty witch with a sweet little hat and a little plastic cauldron for candy. No warts. No fake nose. No eye of Newt. We do have our 6-month report back to China coming up and we need to send pictures to our social worker, I wonder what they would think of our sweet little girl dressed up like a guardian to the gates of hell. Witches can be good right? I guess they can be if they have matching black tights, cute little shoes and an angelic disposition. More tomorrow.

More of a stutter...

2006-10-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

But the ruling on the play is that, yes, this is her first step and we actually caught it on tape. She has been standing for a couple of days now and we were lucky enought to see her do this little shuffle step which she repeated a couple more times.

Greetings from Down Under

2006-09-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

For the past week I have been in Australia for work. I am leaving today and still screwy on time, but I am finally able to update. Sydney is extraordinary. It is amazingly clean and the people are extra friendly. Everyone thinks I am Canadian and when I tell them that I am American EVERY single person goes on a Bush rant.

This is the view from across the hotel. The entire lakefront is a park with gardens and all sorts of wild birds. Even from the hotel you can hear the parrots and other exotic animals.

I had some time the first couple of days to run around the city and do some sighseeing. The downtown area is super-touristy, but it has some amazing views. The following shots are from around the harbor.

The second shot is the Sydney Harbor bridge.

Almost tried a kangaroo steak last night, but decided not to at the last moment. That's about it for now. I have 24 hours of travel in front of me and I need to finish packing and so forth.

It has been hard leaving home. C told me that Maya was calling for me from the top of the stairs, it nearly broke my heart. I have not been away from home for this long and it has been pretty hard, but I will see them in about 27 hours.

OMG!! It's a new post

2006-09-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have been ignoring the world with all the exciting details of our (so called) lives. You have missed out on amazing stories like the mice and spiders in the house, the Labor Day party and Maya's milkshake; not bringing all of the boys to the yard, but leaving a fecal pudding in her car seat in from of Blockbuster. (Yes, there is a reason why the pads are washable)

I also want to introduce my new Internet friend that is actually in China getting her daughter right now. I know, I know, weird Internet friends and so forth. She is probably some 400# Scandinavian dude with a fetish for mulch horror stories. But she is real. I swear. Her name is Lori and her husband John live in Colorado and they seem to be decent folk. In typical K&C fashion I forgot the web address of our blog and had to google it and came across her site. The discovery process was something like:

-Hey they use blogger too.
-Hey there is another Maya blog.
-Hey they are adopting from China also.

So I sent her a cease and desist E-mail to keep her from naming her girl Maya. As parents we like to think of our unique snowflakes as being such, but unless you are calling your kid Funkatronic or something like that (Hmm...Funkatronic... probably not worth checking with Court) you will not be unique. Just kidding, but I did send a warm and heartfelt congratulations and good wishes for their upcoming journey.

Please drop them a comment on how adorable their baby is and follow their story if you like: http://www.mayalives.blogspot.com/

Now with the cuteness:

Yes, that is out little Maya standing up on her own accord and yes that is our little Maya settling the debate that Hoosier is learned behavior. She was wrapped in a diaper soon after this picture took place. We are already teaching her that it is "OK" to have a couch on the front porch and to eat pork rinds for dinner.

She is really getting around now. Her crawling has been amazing and she has been pulling up on anything that she can get her hands on. I think she is going to be a rock climber; between her super kung-fu orphanage grip and her fearlessness from being swung arou....er....played with in an assertive manner she will be climbing like crazy in no time. Also, she is only happy feeding herself. We put chicken and veggies and blueberries on her trough..I mean tray and she dutifully shovels it in bite after bite. It is kind of nice to be able to eat ourselves.

Summer has been winding down; we hosted a party over Labor day weekend and invited the neighbors up and down the street to come and bring their kids.

We did not realize that there were going to be 24 kids swarming like a horde of undead locusts at our house. Thankfully the day was nice, it was outside and no one broke threir arm (like someone did two years ago). We did a Mexican theme, had tacos and provided the kids with two pinatas which they took to like LAPD to Rodney King.

I am trying to get back into the blogging thing, I just feel that my world is a little mundane to track. I go to work, I take care of the kid and I do dishes. (How come none of you told me that there would be this many dishes?) My goal is to write more often but I need YOU, my reader to leave me an anonymous or not comment on what you would like me to write.

Yes, this is a copout and shows that I am lazy, but I am not just here to amuse you, this is a particapatory exercise. No matter the content, I swear that the first five comments (I am assuming each reader will leave 1) will become a theme and I will write about it; no matter the embarrassment from my past or how boring I might think it is; this is your chance to make a selection.

Otherwise I will have to choose something from someone else's MEME or even resort to Maya's milkshake story. Hope all is well and thanks for checking in while I have been lazy. I am trying to get better.

Before and After

2006-08-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

You say it's your birthday....

2006-08-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing a little navel gazing during the past couple of days; not the typical free-time, transcendental sort of pondering, but literally looking at Maya’s belly button. It is hard to believe that this little flap of folded skin nurtured her for 9 months. Normally, I write my more introspective entries in another location, but I wanted to copy and paste this here.

Today is Maya’s birthday and both Courtney and I have thoughts that drift to Maya’s birth mother. A year ago today this unknown woman in a small Chinese village gave birth to our amazing little girl. Her navel tells the story of the connection she had with this woman half a world away. She is the woman that carried her to term, possibly hiding her, possibly torn by thoughts of giving her up or even thoughts at one point of aborting her under the heavy constraints of China’s idea for family practice.

On this special day how can we not be so thankful that she made this unbelievably hard decision to give her another life. This woman, this saint, kept Maya for two days before leaving her in front of the You Xian Hospital with formula, a change of clothes and a note that is our only tangible connection; besides her belly button.

What happened during these two days? How torn was she on the choice she had to make. Did she have family pressure? Did she name her? When she left her in the little bundle outside the hospital did she hover and wait to make sure someone picked her up? One year ago today May was born into this world in a small village in China to a woman that loved her so much to bring her into this world and loved her enough to give her up in the hope that she will have a better life.

My mother taught me that a way to honor those in our lives that are no longer with us is to burn a candle in their absence. It is a small token of appreciation and remembrance but it is something that we feel obliged to do. We will never forget the woman that gave so much of herself, so unselfishly, to provide us with a daughter. Tonight we plan on burning two candles; one on the cake we will soon be pulling out of Maya’s hair and wiping out of her neck folds and there will be one burning silently on the table as a beacon directed a world away providing thanks for the best gift we will ever receive.

Much Ado

2006-07-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

With the holiday and everything else we have been pretty busy lately resulting in the neglect of this site. I can't guarantee it is going to get better but hopefully these pictures will suffice for now.

Maya's bottom two teeth are really coming in now and we think she said Da-Da over the weekend. Also, though messy, she has been feeding herself with a spoon.

She is still super happy and every day she does something new that amazes us.

One-Month Anniversary

2006-06-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that we were given the amazing gift of our daughter 4 weeks ago today. We are astounded how at how far she has come. In the beginning we were very concerned for her. She seemed so listless and distant. It is hard to believe that we were so concerned about attachment disorder and it is so hard to belive we started on our China adoption path nearly 20 months ago.

Maya now appears happy and well adjusted and is getting used to her surrounding. I never thought how quickly your heart could surrender to such a little person.

Please enjoy this video below of our happy little Hunanimal or click this link for a larger view.

How to be humiliated in the privacy of your own stall

2006-06-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

I hate my cell phone for one reason.

It's not that bad of a cell phone. It makes calls and receives calls. It flips and stores number. My problem is that it takes pictures; mostly of my pocket when jostled.

I was in a public restroom today crowded with people dropping trou. (We're all friends at this point, right?) Wouldn't you know it my phone takes three consecutive pictures, of my pocket of course. Unfortunately, judging by the silence in the bathroom the loud click-click camera noise was heard throughout.

Public restrooms are not good places to take pictures; especially unintended.

Journey to Maya (part 3)

2006-06-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

Need to catch up? Check out Part I and Part II

***Note from the Management
The following entry contains descriptions of functions that may push the comfort zone of some friends and family members. Please proceed at your own caution and you may need a cup of Clorox to wash some of the images out of your mind. K.H.

Also, I know that Maya is already home and still doing quite well, but I feel that I need to finish the entire story to give you the description of how she became our daughter.

The Shot
So we had the syringes, the vials and the knowledge to proceed with trying to give Mother Nature a little nudge. The information provided by the clinic was a user-guide telling us when and what was supposed to be used. During the first week we were to use the smaller needles that boosted the egg count.

These weren't so bad, the needles slid in with ease and as long as I didn't think about what I was doing it wasn't that bad. We had out nightly routine before bed of ice, fill the syringe and then inject. During the week we had to drive in super early to the clinic so the technician could monitor the follicle growth. Everything was proceeding well. C's insides were filling up nicely with a dozen or so well-formed candidates.

The technician told us that everything was proceeding nicely and we were on track for the trigger shot. The next week or so was business as usual as we continued out countdown to the big shot. To remind you, the trigger shot what is used to shake the tree so that all of the ever-increasing eggs would be delivered for action.

It was Wednesday night I believe we were trying the first shot. All day we had uneasily joked about what we were going to do that night. I told her that I had been drinking caffeine all day and my hands were just shaking with excitement.

We went to bed early that night. C showered up while I went to the fridge to get the needle and vials. I sat in the bedroom with a washcloth of ice, the two vials and the BFN (Big Freakin' Needle) . C had gotten out of the shower and was in the bathroom with an ink pen drawing a circle on her butt for the landing zone of the BFN. I took the first needle out and used it to suck up the prescribed amount of liquid and injected it into the second vial and let it mix. I changed the needle to the BFN and I was ready for action.

In Part II I really tried to do the BFN justice, but let me reiterate the size of this thing. If you have seen the movie Pulp Fiction, remember the scene where Uma was OD'ing and she had to have her chest plate pierced to inject the adrenalin to the heart? Well, it wasn't that bad but I was probably just as nervous as the guy in the film.

C came out of the bathroom and I could sense the fear from her.

K: You ready?
C: No.
K: Want the ice?
C: Yes.

I gave her the ice and she held it against her skin. This shot is intramuscular (hence the BFN) which meant I had to pierce her butt cheek and sink it in to the hilt of the syringe.

K: Let me see where I am doing this.
C: Right here.
K: Whoa!

C wasn't 100% sure where she wanted the shot. She knew it was going to be sore tomorrow and she wanted to get it right. Her cheek looked like the interlocking rings of the Olympic Games.

K: Uh, which one?
C: This one here. (She pointed to the middle ring.)
K: Where's the pen? I want to X out the other ones.

We were ready to do this. She stretched out on the bed and started fake hyperventilating in anticipation. I started real hyperventilating. I tapped all of the bubbles out and listened to C groan.

K: Ready?
C: Do it.
K: You sure?
C: Do it!

I plunged the needle deep into her skin and it is a sensation I will never forget. I could feel the metal work its way into her cheek. I did a quick check for blood in the plastic and then pushed the plunger in and pulled the syringe up and out all in one motion. I then almost threw up. In the bathroom we have a hazardous waste bin that we put all the spent needles. With all the vials and needles and medical directions our bathroom was starting to look like a Skid Row that smelled like Bath and Body Works. I composed myself, grabbed some tissues and came back into to check on C. She was still lying on her stomach while I dabbed some of the blood that came out of the injection site which was starting to swell and was still pink from the ice.

K: You good?
C: I think so.
K: Let's go to bed.

The Cup
After the trigger is processed, the next step is well, pollinating the flower. Obviously, we have relied on science up to this point so it was no different that the process would be clinical, unemotional and quantifiable. With most normal couples, this would be the case but this is us so we had an interesting journey to produce a specimen.

First, there was the cup; small, translucent and plastic. It came with a sealed protective lid and a label on the side so that I would remember that it was mine and not the cream cheese left in the fridge for Sunday morning bagels.

I tried to explain to my friend Clay what I had to do. He knew the process somewhat but I needed a little guy time to fully talk out the hesitance that I was feeling. Our conversation went something like this:

K: Hey, Clay. Have a second?
C: Sure, what’s up?
K: Well, you know all the shots and everything that we have been going through since we’ve pulled the goalie (our hockey analogy for trying to start a family)
C: Yes.
K: Well, it’s go time.
C: What, do you mean?
K: It’s time to produce and get it going?
C: You need advice on getting it going? Well, Kevin, when two people really love each other they sometime take their relationship to physical level
K: Come on, asshole.
C: Man, I was going to say maybe that was the reason you have been having problems.
K: Seriously. I need to produce a “sample” for the clinic.
C: OK.
K Well, I have to do it in a cup…in the car…while driving.
C: …. (muffled laughter)
K: I don’t know how to do it—well I know how to do it, but it is a little weird for me.
C: Come on, it can’t be that bad. Just take the cup in one hand and use the other to produce.
K: I am not sure I can do it.
C: It’s easy. You take a firm grip of that cup and you say: ‘Cuppy, you are a naughty cup, you bad cup. You little environment wrecker of post-consumer waste and trash.’ And before you know it you will be finished.
K: Uh, thanks Clay.

Really, he was very helpful in making me feel like a complete idiot, just what friends are for in the low times. Thanks Clay – When I look back on the beach that is our friendship I am sure there will only be one set of footprints in the sand.

So, the big day came (sorry) and C and I found ourselves in the Saturn in pre-rush hour traffic crusing down Highway 94 with a brown paper bag, a sterilized plastic receptacle and me and my dignity riding shotgun. Like a Domino’s the specimen had to be there in less than 30 minutes or I would have to do the ‘Walk of Shame’

Sidebar –
Check out the diagram below. The back of the clinic was setup with two probe rooms for ultrasounds, a specimen collection center and what we have coined to be the ‘Room that Has No Name’ or Jehova, depending on how sacreligios I was feeling that day. In between Jehova and the specimen collection area there was a string of about 25 seats side by side on both walls of the room. These chairs were almost always filled with women waiting for ultrasounds.

(Click for larger image)

The RHNN is where fresh specimens were collected. I have not actually been in this room, nor did I want to, but from the glimpses I had into this forbidden chamber I could make out a TV, some nudie magazines, boxes of tissue and a couch (leather of course) . The only sign on the door was one that said “Absolutely No Admittance when Door is Closed” – translation HEY EVERYONE THE GUY THAT IS ABOUT TO COME OUT OF THIS DOOR WAS PUNCHING HIS CLOWN.

As you can see above, the ‘Walk of Shame’ consists of opening the door and carrying your little brown bag holding your plastic cup holding your baby juice across the 3-mile long passageway of women who do not feel sorry for you (remember they are getting the shots and the probe) and depositing it in the waiting hands of a small trollish woman.

Being who I am whenever I would see this poor unfortunate soul traversing the dark divide I would:

a) Shout ‘Dead Man Walking’
b) Slap him on the back and say ‘Good job, soldier’
c) Gross everyone out and try to shake his hand
d) Say, “I feel your pain, my man, I just call her Cuppy and buy her dinner later”.

As you can imagine, I did not want to subject my fragile ego to such conditions so I took the high-road by sneaking in my specimen quietly. Don’t get me wrong, my benevolently, sinister nature wanted to have a little fun by making others outside the dreaded door feeling uneasy instead of my self.

I imagined a situation where instead of meekly going about my business I would leave the door cracked open just slightly, ajar enough that all the people in the waiting room could catch partial glimpses of movement. I would then get on my knees in front of the couch and start bellowing in my best Tony Little infomercial voice:

“Yes! Yes! Come on! Whoo! Who does that cup work for! Yeah, come on cup!”

I would then rhythmically slap the leather sofa every few seconds screaming more and more intense language punctuating every exclamation with a slap or a verbal “Whoo!” After a good 4 -5 minutes of this booming language I would be silent. I would then crack the door open and stick my head out a little bit dramatically wiping my forehead with a tissue.

K: “Courtney, could you come in here for a second?”

Of course this is my scenario so my wife would actually come in and help me replay the entire scene, but in reality, I know she (or I) would never be able to do this. For the grand finale I would fling the door open and with cup held high triumphantly march to the specimen collection door looking into the faces of every woman in the waiting room making them shrink behind their Cosmopolitan magazines.

Yes, there was a lot of time to daydream waiting for the tests…

Back to the car-- We didn’t say a word as we drove through morning traffic and entered the toll road. Neither one of us was awake yet and neither one of us wanted to really talk about the manner at hand (pun intended). Remember the specimen had to be there in less than 30 minutes for optimal results.

We did not have a set place to start the process so under normal traffic conditions I was supposed to begin right around Willow Rd. In fact I tried to convince Courtney that if this worked and we had a girl we would have to call her Willow.

K: Come on, Willow is a great name and think about the great story she could tell her friends.
C: No.

We passed the designated overpass and I tried to go to work. At 19 not much more than a stiff breeze could get a guy going; in the mid-20’s maybe a little visualization; now that I am in my 30s, sitting in a Saturn wearing my conservative work attire and fondling a plastic cup with one hand and well you get the idea. I was a little bit at a loss and wish I would have taken some sort of little blue pill or bought a copy of ‘Hot Teenage Disposable Cup Monthly’ for the trip.

C could tell I was feeling a little flat (pun intended) and I could see the concern on her face.

She had not had coffee yet that morning so she was not really interested even though her heart was in the right place. Besides, the Saturn is a manual transmission and that is just one too many stickshifts to have to contend with in the early morning especially without caffeine coursing through your veins.

I won’t go into the gory details or descriptive verses of my little polyfluorocarbon tryst; but I will say this – Courtney was very helpful actually. I never realized how low to the ground our Saturn was until she started yelling:

C: Truck on the right!
C: Passing a semi!

You get the idea. We both adjusted our speed to be able to give myself the privacy I needed and I was able to be done and cap the cup by the time the off-ramp was approaching.

Because my specimen was coming from off-site, I was able to go to the woman in the front desk and just hold up the brown paper bag and she wordlessly pointed the side door where I could sidestep the ladies waiting for an ultrasound and make my deposit…again. (Man, this stuff writes itself)

Unfortunately, the first time wasn’t that easy. I had forgotten to fill out the label on the side of the specimen cup as well as the label I had to hand in to the medical tech. So, yes, in front of a room of women with a pen that barely wrote I had to try and write out all 13 letters of my full name on a label on the side of a specimen jar. Crimson-faced I turned in my jar and retreated out the door in which I came with my metaphorical tail between my legs.

Yes, this was hard to write and difficult to convey and I know you all will never try to embarrass me with this information because, like Clay, you are my friends. In the end though it does not really matter to me because “Ha Ha” the best part now is that whenever any of you drive past Willow road you will now have to chuckle thinking of me and my cup.

At some point soon- Journey to Maya (part 4): Things get a little more serious

Trip to the Doctor

2006-06-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

So the three of us took a happy family trip to the doctor's office to get Maya checked up. Overall, she was fine. She weighs about 17# (which is 4 less than our cat I am embarrassed to admit) and everything is progressing quite nicely.

Yes, she screamed like a baby when she was poked and prodded, but she quickly returned to her now normal happy self when left alone. Well, she also had to be re-vaccinated for everything. The Dr. Recommended that everything be redone because apparently the vaccines abroad have the potential of not being refrigerated or administered properly. She wailed and screamed until her face turned crimson and her body shook, poor girl- C and I could barely watch her in pain. She recovered quicker than we thought and thankfully showed no real signs of fever or other characteristics of the shots.

Today she ate some good solid food persisting of banana rice porridge which she ate with a quickness. She has been sleeping well, laughing and been overall a happy baby. We are even at the point where we are wondering if there is something wrong just because everything has been absolutely perfect this week. We have been home one week and the last four days have been as smooth as can be.

Maya gets checked out for her TB test tomorrow and I was given a special job by the doctor. It consists of a bag of three vials and a bag of over-sized popsicle sticks. And what do I get to do with these implements? I get to scrape poop out of a diaper. Yes, exciting as it sounds it is for medical purposes and not for our entertainment. I need to play dung beetle and scrape it into the liquid-filled vials until the solution rises above a label line. This is for some sort of test, unless the doctor likes to collect these things.

The next step is to get the blood tests completed. Babies don't mind having their blood drawn, right? Wish us luck.

Wheels

2006-05-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

So it has been a long time in the works; we knew that we need to get a new automobile, but we were afraid to admit that our next purchase is going to have to be more "family-oriented". To me, this means able to withstand crushed cheerios, repel puke and generally have the capability to cart around a kid and all of her schwag like I am a roadie for a KISS concert.

Now, we are not car people, but we both avoided conversation about the impending asteroid crashing through our atmosphere of perceived coolness. We always joked whenever we would see one of these Mom-mobiles with bumper stickers and safety shades and infant load times that would rival the geriatric buses to the casinos. Now it is our turn to buy something to handle a kid and two dogs and the every day support requirements of a 10-month old.

We had three choices that we considered:
SUV
Station Wagon
Mini Van

SUV
The popular choice these days. It comes equipped with standard car features, can ride like a car and does not have the pariah stigma of the other two choices. Can come with four-wheel drive for those tough suburban obstacles such as mall parking. The gas mileage is crap, but it lets you cram all kinds of kids and stuff into a large area and most importantly, you still look socially cool tooling around town.

Station Wagon
Somewhat old school. It is sort of dorky, but the clean lines of today's models are a far cry from yesteryear's ideal of tweed jackets with leather elbow patches. The station wagon is a little more utilitarian, not as popular, and still allows the user to retain some sense of coolness.

Mini-Van (Post-apocalyptic dorkmobile)
It is hard to admit, but this particular vehicle makes the most sense. It's is big, versatile and can transport kids, crap and the bitterness of forgotten youth if you fold down the rear seats. To me, mini vans signify the acceptance of being a parent. I am sure by kid #2 most people own a similar vehicle, but it seems with kid #1 most people think they can still be the hip and sophisticated people that they feel they are. (This is the same feeling that goes into remission and causes the mid-life convertible to bought around age 43)

After considering the two choices (Courtney wouldn't consider the third) we ended up with a nice station wagon to bridge the divide.

Back in the saddle

2006-05-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

OK, we are home and feeling nearly fully functional. The last couple of days in China were hellacious. We were antsy to get out of there, the mold at the white swan hotel was ever-present and we were tired (yes, even C) of shopping. The area around the White Swan hotel is the biggest tourist trap of over-priced goods. It is like a Chinese Branson (Well, I have never been to Branson but a Chinese Branson sounded funny; especially that Asian guy that plays the fiddle--er violin)

(This picture is from the traditional 'red couch' at the White Swan. These were all the babies in our group)

We picked up some squeaky shoes, a Mao watch, a Mao lighter that plays the Chinese national anthem when opened and various other items for friends and family. We decided to follow the adoption community route of buying Maya 18 gifts from China to celebrate the day we met every year. I will detail these in another post some time, but they include everything from engraved chopsticks to pearl earrings to a Buddha statue with incense for when she is exploring her enlightenment when she is 16. Even though I belive most people this age already feel enlightened.

(We did not see one car seat and it was common for the kids to ride Britney Spears' style in most of the cars. This scooter was going about 30 MPH)

So we packed all of our stuff up in one full suitcase and had another one full of stinky clothes and pukey bibs and headed to the airport. The first flight was from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. Maya was awesome the whole way and the flight was uneventful. HK was absolutely beautiful. It looked somewhat like Hawaii, but from the airport you could see this huge metorpolis area. We said good bye to some people in our group and boarded the flight to Chicago.

This was a 14-hour flight flying back over the Arctic. Maya does not like to fly over the arctic. Leading up to this trip we were worried about this flight home. There were about 6 couples that had adopted that were boarding this flight. At the gate, as we all converged, you could see the thought process washing over the business travelers and the tourists returning home:

Wow look at all of those whiteys with the Asian babies
Hey, they are entering our gate
The flight is 14 hours
Babies don't like to fly 14 hours
NIMBY

There is a new movie coming out called 'Snakes on a Plane', I am sure that 'Babies on a Plane' could be a good sequel.

Maya did well at first. She was a little fussy, but hung in there. We were able to get her to sleep for about 4-5 hours, but she woke us as evil Maya. I have coined a special phrase for her when this happens based on the province in which she was born. When Happy Maya is deprived sleep, hasn't eaten and is sick of sitting she turns into: Hunanimal, the beast from the East.

She was inconsolable. We tried placating her with every tool in our limited parenting tool box. We really tried to be respectful of the people around us watching the movies or trying to sleep. Every time she cried for a couple of minutes we would stand up and walk to the back of the plane. I would bump people's arms and step on their feet as I went.

For the final four hours of the flight I was strapped into the Snugli (male-humilitation pouch) with a restless, groggy baby going in and out of slumber. The idea was that C and I were going to take shifts, but right when we were supposed to switch Maya dozed off. So I stood by the lavatories that about 45 people had been using for 10 hours in the back of the plane. Luckily, there were scores of people that had hundreds of questions about adoption even though my eyes were closed and I was methodically rocking my pissy child standing in such a position that the fourth and fifth quadrants of my back had become fused -- knowing that if I moved I would wake the baby.

Normally, I have no problem being a patient representative of the International Adoption community but after the 10th look of confusion and wonderment I jsut wanted to say:

"No, she is biological, Asian features skip a generation in my family lineage."

We landed at O'Hare and sleepwalked through customs. The three of us were directed over to immigration with our paperwork so that Maya could officially become an American citizen. With great pomp and circumstance the Immigration official welcomed us with open arms beaming with purple mountain majesty and waves of grain. Hundreds of years of American history were represented in his government issues uniform and the process of our daughter becoming one with the melting pot of the greatest civilization on earth went like this:

Agent: (Chicago accent) "Youse the Hoffmann's?"
K: "Yes."
Agent: "Here's ya stamp. Next."

Can't you just smell the majesty? With that one red-ink stamp our daughter became a US citizen. Now, we still have to apply for her passport and social security card, but based on her immigtation Visa she is now a US citizen. We are traveling to PA for a wedding next month so it will be interesting to see what happens when we try to use her Chinese passport.

After getting our luggage we pushed through the International terminal doors to be greeted by the beaming faces of my Mom, Ken and Rob. They were not interested in us at all, they obviously wanted meet the star of the show. By this point Maya was pretty slaphappy and gnerally in a good mood. Courtney and I had been up for about 32 hours straight and we were in total preservation mode.

They helped us with bags and we fought through traffic home.

Being gone for even two weeks yo notice a lot of the gradual changes that take place in the Spring. A lot of the plants had grown uncontrollably, construction had continued and there was a stack of junk mail the size of the Enron briefs. M,K & R really helped out picking up the house and being generally supportive. We can not thank them enough.

The first night was hell, after being up for so long Maya slept for a couple of hours. She woke up and freaked out. Totally understandable given the new crib, location and life. The first couple of days we zombied around the house. We both felt bad about not giving more attention to the family, but thankfully they understood. Being jet-lagged Maya was having a hard time adjusting, but when awaked she was what has become her normal happy self.

This is the second day in a row that she has slept through the night, meaning we have slept through the night. As I type this I can hear her cooing over the baby monitor and it is an amazing and fulfulling sound. Every day she sows us a new facet of her personality and she really is growing more and more into her own little person.

Fading

2006-05-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

We are all feeling sinusy. The new hotel we are staying at is full of mold and the weather outside is a pair of 90s as in temp and humidity. It is like swimming in an armpit of a Bavarian Housefrau. We have been shopping like crazy and I have been popping Sudafed. All three of us are sick of living in one bedroom.

Maya actually gave C a couple of kisses and things are doing well. We introduced her to ice cream tonight (from a store associated with the hotel; a pint of freaking Hagen Dazz cost 90 Yuan which is about $11, for perspective our group dinner consisting of 8 separate dishes and unlimited beer and tea in a nice restaurant cost us 120 Yuan- assholes) and a restaurant we ate at served steamed egg which she had in the orphanage so she freaked and chowed down. I am sure I will get that one in the diaper tomorrow.

Sorry to be so infrequent with the posts. We are just buying time until we get out of here. We got our adoption Barbie that everyone in the adoption community freaks on, but so far the White Swan hotel has been a bust and we miss being in Changsha. Our little group has bonded and it is like the end of Summer camp and we are all going our separate ways; or even more apropos it is like the movie 'The Breakfast Club' and we are all wondering if we will talke to each other in the real world. Of course, here I am doing my best Anthony Michael Hall impression and writing the report for the group...

Blogger still won't let me upload picture and I am too busy to fuss with the video camera. We have most of our kickknack crap packed up and we are ready to et out of here. Mom and Ken and Rob are meeting us Thursday so we are looking forward to hanging.

Tomorrow is Maya's swearing in as an American citizen at the consulate; no pictures though and then we leave on Thursday. Our flight leave Guangzhou at 8:30 and then we leave Hong Kong at 12:45 PM getting into Chi-town around 3 or so. I am really hoping they didn't screw up and forget to book the extra seat we bought for Maya. I will have to make sure Maya projectile vomits on the person if they do.

I am not sure if I will update until I post a recap with pictures when we get home or even after K,D & R leave. Hope all is well with all of you and look for our continuing story in a couple of days.

Breakthrough

2006-05-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

It is amazing what a couple of days can do to change attitudes and mindsets. I am proud and happy to report that I am a father to a happily giggling, animated and most important – huggy 9 month old. It is Friday and Maya has found us. Courtney picked her up out of the crib and she grabbed on to her as if to say “Wow, you are still here.” From that point on that day was really special. We could play with her and make her laugh and she was babbling uncontrollably. She even said her first word though it was in Chinese:

Maya: Gabagabagoo
Chinese to English dictionary: Pan-Asian military dynasty from the 3rd century or alternate meaning, slang for crapped oneself

So things have been well in China going into the weekend. We saw an academy from 1000 years ago and we had some more great food, but most importantly, my daughter smiled at me. I have formula dried up on my clothes, I have cleaned waste out of folds where I never knew people’s skin could ruffle and I have watered down my vocabulary to Blah Blahs, goo goos and da das, but for the one instance that there was actually recognition and acceptance in my daughter’s eyes, it was all worth it. It is amazing how a 9-month-old girl can reduce you to a literal babbling mess. I have known this kid for less than a week but she has become weaved into the fabric of my soul like I never though possible.

I step on toys in the shower, I freely share and describe the consistency, smell and weight of her bowel movements with other parents. Maya had a poopsplosion that almost ran over her diaper and it was a cause of celebration. What the hell is happening to me? Courtney and I now go to be at 9PM at night and tiptoe around this little person. We share a glass of beer in the bathroom so as not to disturb our little princess. It’s like she is the presidential nuclear football and we are constantly keeping her out of harm’s way.

When she is tired and cranky, she tends to revert back to the orphanage ways as a built-in self-defense mechanism, but al-in-all she has been rebounding tremendously. She has been releasing toys after a few seconds-dropping them on the floor (lucky me) and she has been screaming and laughing when she sees herself in the mirror. We still have a way to go with her. She is bonding with C more than me, which is to be expected, but we are taking it slowly.

Courtney has learned one word in Chinese that she has been repeating with abandon – SHOES or chiezen (hell I can’t pronounce it; don’t expect me to spell it). Maya has already had 4 pairs purchased for her. We are buying 18 presents for her to celebrate the coming anniversaries of our becoming a family. These gifts range from pearls to chopsticks to T-shirts and toys.

I wanted to provide an update of how we are doing. Tomorrow I will try and upload some video of Courtney getting mobbed by Chinese tourists at the academy wondering what the hell a whitey is doing with one of their nation’s daughters. All in all, we are doing much better and progressing quicker than I ever imagined. We wanted to thank you all for the great wishes, it means a lot to us that you have enjoyed our journey. The response has been so great that I am considering keeping this blog around so you can watch our little family grow.

(Well, blogger.com is being bitchy and not allowing me to upload pictures from here. I will try and add them tomorrow.)

Thursday

2006-05-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Today we went to an embroidery business and silk manufacturer. Dropped some cash on knickknacks and just kind of walked around. The embroidery was pretty interesting and painstakingly beautiful. We got to watch a group of women practice their craft which was pretty interesting. The picture of Mao below is actually all thread and thousands and thousands of stitches.

At the silk place we saw how cocoons were turned into silk which were turned into goods which were turned into purchases by C. Just another day. We are missing home, but still enjoying the sites. Maya was great as usual. She actually gave us a breakthrough day of smiles and a couple of laughs. We hit the playroom and let her slobber on the toys. We think she may break a tooth soon. We might try to hit the pool again tomorrow.

We have made great friends with a lot of our travelmates and went out to dinner with aq bunch of them tonight. They split us into two tables for spicy and non-spicy. The food here is amazing. It is only as weird as you want to make it. We have had sausage and eggs for breakfast and we have had glass noodles and sushi. The food tonight was spicy, spicy, but so good when washed down with a local beer.

We came back and gave Maya her bath and Court is tucked into bed with her. We read that if they sleep together it promotes a better level of bonding so I will be sleeping on the other single bed Ozzie and Harriet style.

Random Thoughts

2006-05-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

We got here on Sunday and the Dolton Hotel is pretty amazing. About 80% of the Hunan adoptions come through this hotel to finish their paperwork. Like the hotel in Beijing this hotel only has single beds. Stiff-as-oak single beds. We checked in and our tour guide, Michelle (they all take English names to make us feel comfortable) took care of everything as usual. Changsha is comparable to a Houston or Miami. Pretty big, but not one of the major cities even though it has almost 10 million people equivalent to New York.

Our first destination was to a local store where we could buy water. Remember, we can’t drink the water or use ice or eat anything that does not have a shell like watermelon so we have to use bottled water. She took us on a trip to a store called Wacko where we purchased everything we needed including formula and were able to piss off the locals by invading their stores. As usual, we were a walking tourist attraction. An even slightly over-weight Chinese person is about as rare as a Chinese person in Des Moines.

What else can I say. Lays potato chips come in flavors such as Cucumber and Fried Chicken Wing (which we both purchased and is illustrated to the right; though kinds hard to see) Knock-offs of every major label brand are everywhere. My show junkie of a wife can pickup every popular shoe brand for $3. Beer is sold in vending machines. It is perfectly acceptable to spit in public even when surrounded by strangers. Chinese people have no sense of personal space and will get right in your face and check you out like it was no big thing. Chinese food here is so not like what it is in the states. I have actually been eating it everyday for a week and have only gotten a little tired of it. The cities we have seen are absolutely beautiful, urban and a little weird. Chinese traffic is polite but insane. There are parts to animals I never knew existed that could be turned into soup. Chinese laundry service rocks and they give more care to your old paid of ripped up boxers than your dry cleaners do for your favorite dress shirt.

China is host of the 2008 Olympics. These are the mascots and when their names are put together it spells out “Welcome to Beijing” Construction is crazy. There are cranes everywhere. A guy in the biz said that it is hard to get concrete in the US because everything is being routed here to get ready for the games.

Here are Chinese versions of current movies. They play the actual movies with English but have Chinese subtitles.

More observations later.

Side Excursions

2006-05-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

So, Tuesday was a banner day. We have this brand-spanking fresh baby in the Snugli (or as I call it; the demasculation pouch) and our trip for the day was to a baby boutique and to China’s only Walmart. The boutique is one of those places where you go in and chuckle at the over-priced clothes and maybe, maybe find something cool that you can eke into a meager budget. In reality, you are just paying for the bag with the name when you pass the gift on to the recievevee.

Well the Yuan (Chinese currency) trades at 8 to 1 for the American dollar. So what costs 200 Yuan rings in at a cool $25 American. This knowledge is dangerous when loaded into my wife. It was like the Matrix, instead of loading helicopter instructions into her brain the currency table made her see shopping in a brand new light. A couple of outfits and toys and books later we had our purchases bagged up and ready to go.

On a side note, it is interesting how the Chinese handle lines. They don’t. No matter the store you buy things in when you want a purchase you give it to the staff and they give you a receipt. You take the receipt to the central cashier and pay for all of your items there and then bring back the slips to show that you have paid. The line to pay is non-existent. We were a group of quite Americans waiting politely in our queues as native Chinese would just walk in front of us and out tame ways. More than once we were butted in front of and just took it; after all we were strangers in a strange land. The whole time I was thinking try this on a Saturday afternoon at Target in downtown Chicago and see how long you last.

We got back on the bus and headed to the one and only Walmart. We piled out and were ready to show this pseudo-communist nation what being a Capitalist entailed. We were sheparded to the top floor and told we had to work our way down. We rode escalators to the entrance and were met by the customary greeter, Instead of the gray-haired AARP member you would expect we were “announced” as we walked into the store by a young and stylish (including the blue vest) woman that said things that I was unsure of to their meaning.

Again, as we walked into the store we were stared at with reckless abandon. I am sure it is not everyday that you see 20 Americans with 10 Chinese babies in Snuglies; all having different body types, hair color and mode of dress enter the store. C and I walked in and picked up a few items of clothes and some toys and basic necessities such as water and Chinese Hello Kitty knockoffs and of course wine and beer. Like page 232 of Dr. Spock states: “the best remedy for a long day of abandonment issues is a nice cold Tsing Tao beer”.

Walmart was, well Walmart.

You would think the story would end here at the aisle after aisle of mass-produced cheaply-created goods, but no my friends and gentle readers there is so much more. This was a super Walmart and it had what I can only describe as a deli. A deli so wonderful and exotic that words can not do it justice so I borrowed some pictures from a fellow traveler to try and explain the story.

Now imagine the zoo in St. Louis or Chicago or any other location. Think of the reptile house or the aquarium where couple take their kids on the weekend and feign interest to the 100 year-old turtle named Timmy. “Look kids, Timmy is older than your Grandfather. Oh, how precious and generation spanning!”

Turn the story to China and imagine Timmy in a small aquarium where you can purchase his organs and flippers and shell and that is China Walmart. Obviously, this is weird to us Americans, but this is culture, tradition and dinner to the majority of the Chinese. I came to the conclusion that this is something that I can not process, but I am OK with it for others.

The other big tank I saw was full of Bullfrogs. In the background, you can see the stained remanants of the glass from where these little guys were purchased. I saw a woman point to a bullfrog, like you would have a pineapple cored at Schnucks or Jewel and the attendant promptly cut it in half and harvested the specified organs and legs for the consumer. Yeah Walmart!

Not only were there turtles and frogs in abundance, but you could buy giant dried squid, minnow, living fish, eel, crabs, snakes and other creatures of the sea. Land animals were not immune as well. There was plenty pieces of poultry with heads, oxen, snake and rat to make a nice Tex-mex chili.

All in all, it was freakishly disturbing, pungent and cool as hell. Seriously, there is a whole separate supply chain for Walmart that you may have never wanted to imagine. I am so glad I saw it. The fruit section was equally as intense with fruits and legumes that I never even knew existed.

We checked out to stares and wonderings of many people. At this point our agency had given us a sign to wear around our necks stating that we were there adopting a baby and pumping dollars into the Chinese economy. Most people had no problem coming up to us and grabbing our sign and reading it. They, male and female, would then touch and caress our kids in such away as to generate an Amber alert back in the US. We have become accustomed to this and now expect it every time we are in public..

We checked out and waited for the rest of our group. C bought a pair of $15 sunglasses in a boutique adjacent to Walmart. The locals freaked and treated her like she was Oprah giving her a matching case while two women waited on her. Again, $15 to us is 120 Yuan to them.
This was a great experience and part of a different culture I was really hoping to see. Now excuse me, I have some ostrich jerky to eat.

Recap

2006-05-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

It has been three days now and you are probably wondering where the hell the updates have been. Let me say it has been a very crazy 72 hours ever since we received Maya. We both wanted to thank everyone for all of their great comments it is great to see such support.

Well, I am assuming you have seen the video; so you can sort of see what we went through at the actual moment of meeting her. That morning we were obviously super nervous. C actually was picking up the room after herself which was a true sign of nervousness on her part and I had three 3-foot pterodactyls perched in my gut and occasionally flapping their wings.

We, a group of about 20, boarded the bus and made our way through early morning traffic. When we get on the bus we are treated like rock stars everone around stops and stares and takes pictures of us. I feel like the 90s version of Van Halen (not rock star enough to be the Diamond Dave version, but close enough). It is pretty amazing the tension and anticipation on the bus. Everyone has all of this baby gear, but no baby.

Up the stairs and intot the government affairs room we were ushered and all of the babies were waiting with members of the orphanage. We lined up and all tried to pick out which one was Maya, but were unable. One family in our group is of Chinese ancestry and the father of a person named Jeff went up to the caregivers and asn asked which baby was which according to their Chinese names. About 30 seconds after that we were called over to show our passports and were handed Maya. As you could see in the video, we were idiots. I do not remember the whole sequence of events.

We all oohed and ahed for a while before we were loaded back on the bus and sheparded to the hotel for a couple of hours before we went back to do the paperwork in the afternoon. I will be hinest with you, we were scared when we received Maya because something seemed just a little off. She was indifferent to everything and sort of sat there with her tongue sticking out.

Neither one of us said anything, both trying to keep an honest front; but we were both pretty concerned about our daughter. Her motor functions seemed good, her hearing, her sight, everything seemed to check out, but that was part of the problem she seemed "checked out" herself.

At 1 o'clock I left Court to go to a hotel conference room to begin the preliminary paperwork. At this point we were shown the note that her biological Mom left with her and we were given one original item of clothing that was placed in the box in which she was abandoned. We had until 3 to decide whether or not we were going to keep her. Of course we were going to, but like I said before; we were both a little concerned.

We packed up and headed back to the civil affairs office on edge. We completed the paperwork which included a Maya footprint and K&C thumbprints. Each station involved signing our names, providing an envelope and providing a gift-- which we did. We paid the final notarization fee and now in China's eyes Maya is officially our daughter.

We left the office and came back to the hotel still freaking out about everything in general. Maya was still aloof and showed no interest in us or anything around her. We went to dinner with some of the other families and talked about everything we were experiencing. That night was pretty uneventful, she woke up at 2 like the orphanage said she would and we gave her a bottle and put her back to sleep without issue.

The next day we started noticing big-time attachment issue cues. She would not look at us in the eyes; if we tried to look her in the face she would scream uncontrollably. She would hold on and not let go of items we put in her hands which is apparently a symptom hoarding in institutionalized kids. Overall she was a happy baby, rarely cried and just sort of sat there entertaining herself. She would rather be by herself in the crib than with us. This still is a part of the problem.

From what we have read and from what some other people have told us is that institutionalized kids are fighting for the attention of a handful of workers. The loudest and most persistent kids get the most attention and therefore develop quicker. Maya was pretty complacent so we are thinking that she soothed herself to sleep often in te first months of her life. Again, this is armchair child psychology, but appears to fit the bill.

On Tuesday we went to a baby boutique and Chinese Walmart. (I will detail our excursions in another post) Maya was hooked into the demasculation pouch as we walked around. Again, she was a quiet and seemingly happy baby, but paid more interest to the teething toy than she did us. We still hadn't had a smile, a laugh or even a poop. She just kind of hung out with us as we chauffered her around.

On Wednesday it was still more of the same. We stayed in that day because she was still having a really hard time. Every time we look at her she would go into a fit of rage. We fed her, and bathed her and played with her but she still did not really acknowledge our existence. Going into this whole adoption, we knew that there could be a chance that she may be stunted in her development; we read about it and talked about it but it still has taken us by surprise.

Today, Thursday, was somewhat of a breakthrough day for us Maya gave us a boatload full of smiles and even a couple of giggles and seems to be reacting better to our care. She missed her morning nap and skimmed her afternoon one so she was very grumpy and we spent the afternoon consoling her as she raged with arched-back crying. I never realized how heart breaking this type of crying is until you hold this little 17# miracle in your hands and feel her taut like a bowstring and screaming with such abandon that it tears your soul into little pieces. The strength and brutality of these little lung screams is so intense and so crippling that I can only hope they are cleansing in their fervor.

I realized today how much I love my little daughter and how much more I love my wife. We have made some progress in the abandoment issue front, but to to see how C held her through torrent after wave after reckless abandon coming from her our little girl's heart was quite amazing. My wife is an excellent mother. She has been on the job for less than a handful of days but she has taken things in stride and has been trying to make everything fluid and stable as she can for Maya.

I wish I could wrap up this post by saying that everything is great and we are bonded and perfectly attached. But we are not, we have a lot of work to do, more than we may have expected, but we will move on. It is amazing the things that can come out of pure love. At the core of your system and relationship with a child there is a connection that is inherently unseverable and pure in its nature. Until this week I have never fully inderstood the lengths a parent will go through for their child to make sure that he/she is OK. The worry, the hope, the fears of live are always surmountable if their is base love.

We have a long way to go and I know the travel will be rough, but I know I am ready and with the love of C we will do this and Maya, Courtney and I will all be better people for it. I/we can not even convey how much your warm wishes mean to us. China is an amazing place full of many great things but we are ready to come home to our family and friends and the support that is there. Sorry for going into cheese mode, but it has been a hectic and emotionally draining week for the three of us.

Maya Video

2006-05-16T00:38:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if this is viewable with both sound and video. Someone please let me know via E-mail or in the comments. Thanks!

Maya Hoffmann

2006-05-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Changsha

2006-05-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

Last night we tossed and turned. Today was a travel day. We are now in Changsha in Hunan province. The hotel here is pretty amazing and the room is on a non-smoking floor. Our entire group and a couple of other people we have seen are all situated here. It appears that the hotel is trying to gain slice of the adoption business pie. We are on the 31st floor and the 30th floor is a playroom. We have seen other non-Chinese-Nationals with Chinese babies in the hotel and you could feel the collective group swoon when they came by. As I type this we are about 19 hours away from meeting our little one. When we walked into our room we say this:

Yes, we both did a double-take. While the bags were being rounded up we headed downstairs for lunch and had a burger and some pasta. I love Chinese food and I have been eating it non-stop but I feel as we get closer to Maya we have been yearning for more comfort food. Damn Nesting mode.

We are about to walk around the city with our group before we have a final dinner with all of the other couples. We are trying to get a tour of the orphanage but it does not look like it is going to be possible. We have learned that Hunan is one of the poorest provinces in China. A lot of the other kids that are adopted are given care by foster families before being adopted. Our Hunan babies at the You Xian orphanage are not so lucky and I fear that because of this Maya may have more bonding and attachment issues, but we will see.

At about 9PM in Chicago we will meet Maya. I hope you all will be thinking about us at this time. When you get up in the morning hopefully we will have pictures and possibly video (if I can figure out the camera). Wish us luck, because after the next entry we should be three!

The other pictures are of a guy we saw on the street fixing an electrical line (poster boy for OSHA) and the other one is the view from our hotel window.

Field Trip Day

2006-05-14T01:26:00.000-07:00

One thing I forgot to say about flying here was that we flew through the North Pole. It was really interesting to see the snow formations. Everything was so desolate and peaceful.

Yesterday was tour day in Beijing. We started off in Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Stepping off the bus we were swarmed and hustled by the locals starting off asking 400 Yuan ($50) for an “official” 2008 Beijing Olympics baseball hat.

We walked around and saw the big picture of Mao that is repainted every year. We had a lot of Chinese people taking pictures of our group. It really is funny how much we stand out; not just because we are mostly a bunch of whiteys, but because of the way we are dressed and our mannerisms. I saw a handful of people snapping pictures and a couple of people using video cameras.

The square was mobbed with people want to go inside to see Mao in the mausoleum. We were approached quite often with people selling various goods, but we were told to just ignore them and keep on walking which we did for the most part. The vendors were very persistent and would follow us for 4-5 minutes continuously pitching us.

We then walked into the Forbidden City which is a series of courtyards and temples where the emperor lived. The first couple of chambers were interesting and ornate, but by the 7th or so near identical space it became pretty redundant. One nice thing about being tall in China is that I can stand over the crow somewhat. From a couple of instances that I have observed the people tend to push and get shovy in crowds. It is all done in a very polite manner; but if this was tried in the States I am sure people would be saying things and confronting them a lot more. I was able to take the picture below by standing in the middle of the crowd and just planting my feet and raising my arm up.

After the Forbidden City we took a bus to the Friendship store where we had lunch and browsed through all of the items. This place is a state-sponsored (I believe) store that sells all the things anyone would want to take home from China including tea, rugs, figurines and 5-foot-tall terra cotta soldier statues.

We headed off to tour the Great Wall next. The Wall itself was pretty amazing and afforded us a nice view of the country-side. We made it up about 2/3 of the way and agreed that it was not going to be worth it to go all the way and have to come back down. The steps ranged from 6” to about 24” in height. Both of had hearts that were pounding on the way up and legs that were shaking on the way back down. It was a well-kept tourist section of the Wall, but it provided a good glimpse at the magnitude of the whole structure.

I finally used my first squat toilet, well, used it like a urinal. It really is no big deal. Coming down from our long journey off the wall, C had to go and I can't imagine the pain she must have felt when trying to bend down.

After all of the horror stories and wives’ tales; China is not as bad as everyone thinks. Sure, we can’t drink the water eat fruit that does not have to be peeled or have ice in anything; but I have not found it to be true that we have to use holes in the ground for the bathroom, that there are dead animals hanging everywhere and as a whole is a scary place. Let me caveat this by the fact that we have only been doing tourist things in a group, in a controlled environment but all in all China is not as bad as people may think for visiting.

The people, the buildings and the general mentality that I have come across (again, I have been here 4 whole days) is very group like. People tend to dress alike and both cities I have observed are functional and practical instead of being ostentatious and attention-seeking. If the US is a peacock China seems to be your common backyard brown squirrel.

Saturday Morning Update

2006-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hello from the future. We slept well getting up at about 4 so we are almost back on our sleep schedule.

Had a weird dream last night. I went outside from our hotel in China to see this beautiful little park that was well manicured and full of picnic benches. It was coordinate off by a string of Chinese lanterns and at the center of this location was a trailer that served food in bowls and on sticks. All of the families were eating contently. The trailer was set like a 50s diner and had Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" blaring from a tinny speaker. The two Chinese women serving as waitresses were wearing poodle skirts --no roller skates though.

I walked into the park and I was carrying a Chinese to English dictionary and deciphered the name of the restaurant to mean:

"Animals that Americans keep as pets"

The last thing I remember was running around yelling: "Soylent green is People!"

And yes, I feel stupid for having such stereotypical dreams about China. The food is definitely exotic by most American tastes but they eat their U-Don Noodles with two chopsticks just like us.

Other musings include everyday items and their Chinese equivalents:

We were rushing through the airport and I grabbed a bottle of what I thought was water for the bus ride to the hotel. I opened it and took a long swig and realized it was way too sweet to be water. What I grabbed was a bottle of Gatorade-equivalent.

Yes, that is Pocari sweat I am not sure what a Pocari is, but it produces some decent juice and I now feel like I have my full day's supply of Ions. A frustrating part of Internet access is that many sites are not accessible here. I can publish these posts for you all to read, but I have no idea how they look when posted. Only by the comments left yesterday on the blog I know that it actually made it out there. The link was supposed to be to a Wikipedia article on the sports drink, but I am unable to access it.

Bare with me if it looks funny or the formatting is wrong, I am flying somewhat blindly. It should be an adventure to see if I can get the video working later. Comments that are left are moderated by me before they go on the site. This is so people don't clutter it up with spam ads and plus I am notified via E-mail when someone leaves something so I can check it out right away. I am having problems accessing this now, but they are E-mailed to us as they are left and are much appreciated.

This next picture is of beverages in the fridge:

That is Sprite, Coke and Diet Coke. Again, no major revelation but it is interesting to see how items are presented differently. It is nice to place the clueless tourist for once. I snicker at some of the things people take pictures of in Chicago and here is me taking pictures of soda cans.

One of the most interesting things about these can is the tops:

That's right, old-school pull tabs.

Well, we are waiting for the breakfast buffet to open at 6:30 and then our tour leaves at 8:30 to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Our guides tell us we will be gone all day so it should be interesting.

Like I incoherently said in my entry yesterday we are just trying to get out arms around another country but our thoughts are drifting to Maya in two days.

In Beijing

2006-05-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

Well we made it. We have had 5 hours of sleep in the last 48, but we are here. It is a little after 7PM here (6 in Chicago) and HBO is playing some old Johnny Depp movie with Chinese subtitles. The flight wasn't that bad, all of the monitors were not working so there was no movie. We made it through customs without a issue and we were debriefed at the hotel for our weekend happenings.

We both are mainly freaking on being in another continent and haven't even gotten around to the fact that we will be parents in a couple of days. Tomorrow is the big tour day; seeing the wall and so forth. We had dinner in the hotel and it was interesting to see how in their cuisine they use every beak, neck and part imaginable.

We went out searching for drinking water earlier (The water is needed for brushing out teeth and day to day consumption.) and decided to sit down and people watch by a bus station. As expected, we were actually the people that came to be watched. It is very interesting to stick out like a sore thumb and not look like the majority. We walked around a little bit and came back to the hotel for dinner.

Our room is nice. It is actually two double beds. The room smells like the day after the world series of Poker. The ghost of chain smokers past hangs in the air and on the sheets and permeates everything in here. We are tired so it doesn't matter. The beds are are rock hard and sit low to the ground. I am just tall enough to hand off the end, not fit in the shower without ducking and overall feel like I am at some cruel McPlayland where everything is just too small.

C is in the shower right now and I am finioshing up so that we can go to bed and hopefully be on a normal sleep schedule by over-extending ourselves today.

More tomorrow if time allows.

One day to go

2006-05-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it is almost that time. We are packed from the most part and we are both trying to wrap up loose ends before we get out of here. Our final itinerary was mailed to us yesterday morning. I procured all of the new bills we need for the trip and we are silently entering into general freak-out mode.

I have spoken (E-mail) with people who are in China right now and it is hot and shirt-sticking-to-your-back humid. My hair will be doing the flip in all the pictures we upload. Hopefully, we will get time everyday to let you watch the journey as it unfolds. C went to the doctor today and she has an ear infection. She was given drops but we are going to try ear candles, heard they work well. It is silent right now; I’ve been starting to say my good byes but the reality of our situation hasn’t completely implanted itself to my head. It is a low hum, like Nyquil. My sister called me today; which was nice, people keep asking if we are ready; I don’t think we ever were or ever will be. C’s work people through her a little impromptu get-together on Monday downtown. Things are moving along…

I am really hopinf that we will get to see the hospital where Maya was actually left. Also, we are hoping that the note she was left with will be given to us at the orphanage or when we receive her. Last week we were mailed her finding ad. In China when a baby is found abandoned the orphanage is required to post a description and picture of her when found. This has given us a picture of her when she is about 3-5 days old. I will post it and the translation of the ad when I get a chance.

I’ve included links to the hotel and other sites where possible. While we are in China we will be 13 hours ahead of CDT.

Beijing
Plaza Hotel
Phone: 0086-10-67353366

Date
Time
Events
05.12
2:25pm Pick up Family #5 Hoffmann (2) with UA851 and send to Plaza Hotel
05.13
8:30am Sightseeing Tour to the Great Wall, Forbidden City and Tian An Men Square
05.14
7:55am Families fly to Changsha with CA1343

Changsha
Dolton Hotel (The English link seems to be out of commision)
Phone:011-86-0731-4168888

05.15
10:00am Meet babies at Civil Affairs. Do relevant Paperwork.
05.16
10:00am Shopping for babies
05.17
9:30am Sightseeing tour to YueLu Academy
05.18
9:30am Sightseeing tour to Countryside.
05.19
3:30pm Get passport and Do INS Form
05.20
9:30am Sightseeing tour to a museum
05.21
8:10am All fly to GZ with CZ3375

Guangzhou
White Swan Hotel
Phone: 011-86-20-81886968

05.21
9:30am Pick up family with CZ3375, and send to WS hotel.
05.22
10:00am Taking babies’ visa picture and doing medical examination for the babies. Sightseeing tour to Chen families’ temple in the afternoon.
05.23
9:00am Guide goes to American Consulate to hand in families’ documents.
05.24
3:00pm Families go to American Consulate for interview and get visa in the afternoon.
05.25
8:25am Hoffmann family to Hong Kong to Chicago

MulchMania

2006-05-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

So I had this really long post all queued up yesterday and of course the hosting site lost it so here I am starting over. It really is painful to have to rehash. I have been horribly busy lately and I do mean the term horribly just because between work and home and getting ready to travel I have not had an opportunity to take a sustained breath much less update everyone else on what we have been doing. I have had Journey to Maya (Pt III) written and ready for editing for some time; hopefully it will simmer in its own juices and be ready to go before we leave.

For starters:

5/11 Chicago/Beijing UA851 Lv. 1230P, Ar. 225P on 5/12
5/25 Hong Kong/Chicago UA896 Lv. 1245P, Ar. 222P

That's right, hooked up and logged in. The flight is 13 hours long, and they are both direct. We have a short jump from Guanzhou to Hong Kong on the 25th, but then we settle in for the long flight home. C has gotten almost everything packed for Maya and we will finish ourselves this coming weekend.

An exciting aspect of our homecoming is that my Mom, my step dad and brother Rob are all coming up to help us when we get back. They are amazing for meeting us at the airport and helping us transition to parenthood.

So this past weekend; instead of lugging 60 bags of mulch out of Home Depot; we decided to finish our front and back yard landscaping by having mulch dumped in our driveway and we would wheelbarrow it to where it was needed and dump. So, I am on the phone with the Mulchwoman and she starts asking me all of these questions:

MW: So how much do you need?
K: Uh, a backyard's worth?
MW: Seriously?
K: Do you measure it in...uh...wheelbarrows?
MW: No, sweetie, it is in cubic yards

OK, picture yourself male talking about male things (math and dirt) and tell me you would not be intimidated not knowing the answer. Now, think about your back yard, cut it down to about 20% coverage 2 inches deep and then convert that mental picture into a cubic yard.

So, like most guys (and women) in this situation I came up with the obvious response without a instant of hesitation:

K: OK, how much does it cost?
MW: Which one?
K: The backyard stuff.
MW: Have you done this before?
K: No, I just want mulch.
MW: Well we have the red, brown, gold, sticks, half blend, premium blend, clay...
K: Hmmm. That is interesting, all those choices. What is the premium blend?
MW: That's a semi-fine brown texture perfect for edging and general purpose gardening.

Now, this woman was getting way into the description. I could just picture her at home in her climate-controlled mulch room with her aged oak and cypress barklets (yes, that is a mulch term) creating a gentle bed for slumber while the musty vapors of aroma hang like pinecones in mountain tree stand.

So, as with many things I do not understand I made the decision based on price knowing that I can convince myself that I like it and I ended up getting 8 cubic yards.

Mulchwoman's instructions were to put a tarp out on the driveway for the drop zone. I did as she instructed and went to work. C and I take the commuter train downtown most days. That night we came home and were walking toward the house when we could smell the premium richness of Mulchwoman's personal stash before we saw it.

We turned the corner and the tarp was gone. It was completely covered in an avalanche of tree dumpings. It looked like tree around the driveway vomited on our asphalt. NOw, trust me on this, unless you are opening your own state park consisting of miles and miles of trails, you do not need 8 yards of mulch. From what I remember of the tarp it now looked like a postage stamp compared to the mound.

The best part? Yours truly put the tarp for the "drop zone" right behind our car, yes our only car. The car that does not have four-wheel drive capability to go over or a scooter-sized footprint to get around it. It was completely mulched in.

So, didn't think about it that night or the fact that we were due up in Wisconsin that afternoon to see friend’s of ours. The next morning I pulled the snow shovel out from the shed. (Actually it was still sitting on the back porch, I know it’s now May, we strive to keep a little bit of Cape Girardeau wherever we go) I tried to scoop it up, but it wasn't really cooperating. Mulch doesn't really move like snow, it does o nt compress as cleanly or want to be lifted easily. It's like when you are sitting at the dinner table and you try to use your knife to pick up the wine bottle.

After a couple of hours I had made a little progress but not much. My next-door neighbor is a super brain and a mechanical genius that used to be an engineer. His back deck is actually on a cantilever system so he can lift half of his back porch up to get into his basement. (This is the same guy that I have the Xmas light wars with every year -he doesn't know we are competing)

The neighbor brought over a pitchfork. I thought these only existed in movies where they are chasing monsters like Frankenstein or Dick Cheney. He brought it over and of course I refused thinking there is no way this could be better than my snow shovel. He knows what he is doing, he did the siding by himself on his own house. I refused it a second time as required by the manly code but quickly agreed to the third offer. He gave me the tool and walked away shaking his head; I tried to convince myself that he must have water in his ear.

Well the pitchfork sank into the pile and made the work twice as fast. I was able to get the pile down to only covering half the driveway and with a little effort could squeeze the car out. By the end of the day I had calluses all over my hand and I never wanted to pitchfork anything ever again.

We went up to Wisconsin and had a great time hanging out with friends, drinking New Glarus beer and playing with the Test Kid. When someone really knows what they are doing with BBQ, it is so phenomenal. We had ribs that had been smoking for 4-5 hours. She is pregnant and he was on sinus medicine so we actually went to bed at a decent hour. We got up and left fairly early stopping for groceries on the way home; something to eat to fuel me through the pile.

The second problem with the mulch is that me, being the super genius that I am, made the drop zone right in the middle of the driveway. In my bravado I thought it would be no problem to knock this out over the weekend. C's Dad and a friend of the family both park in our driveway during the week and walk to the train station. My pile’s position only left room for one person to park. I was duty bound to finish this before the day was over.

Then it started to rain.

Wet mulch is ungodly. It should serve as a literary metaphor to describe other unfortunate events:

She collapsed in his arms, breathless; bosom heaving waiting for his sweet lips to kiss hers and quench her thirst and tempered desire with one soft caress. He hesitated and spoke:
"Damn, woman, you are as heavy as wet mulch, but you have nice barklets."

For the next couple of hours, in the rain, I forked mulch into the wheelbarrow, pushed it 30 feet into the back yard and dumped it. I repeated this process about 42 times until I ended up with the pile below. In this picture you can see the mulch and see our backyard. Keep in mind I have already used about half the pile and only have about 1/3 of the yard to go.

I am open for suggestions for what to do with the rest; the more creative the better. I am thinking about building a huge nest in the backyard and creating some paper machie eggs to freak out the people on the train as they go by. Well, said train is pulling into the station and I need to get the yard ready for round two of Mulchmania.

Getting locked in

2006-04-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

We were provided our partial travel itinerary today:

Depart U.S. on May 11, 2006
Arrive in Beijing on May 12, 2006
Tour on May 13, 2006 (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, etc)
Fly to Changsha, Hunan on the morning of May 14, 2006
Meet Maya!- May 15, 2006 (upon confirmation with the Beijing office)
Fly to Guangzhou on May 20th or May 21st
American Consulate appointment- May 23, 2006 at 9:00am
Depart China- after 9pm on May 24th or anytime May 25th

This means that we get to meet Maya the day after Mother's Day! We need to have all of our travel finalized by Friday, but these are the pretty firm dates.

As for the fingerprints, I contacted our local Homeland Security office and they assured me that our fingerprints and everything else is up to date and we are all locked in. They are resending our case just to make sure everything is in order, but we were told that we have the paperwork that is needed. Hopefully tomorrow we will know more.

Packing and travel

2006-04-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

So we spent this past weekend packing Maya's suitcase for the trip. It is still bizarre to me to be handling these tiny little clothes. This girl is already better dressed than me. We bought a pack of those space savers to throw all the clothes in and roll up to squeeze the air out of to gain space. They work pretty well. We have also jammed in toys and food and other things that we might need for her. We even ordered a medical kit yesterday of all the common things that first-time hyper-freaked parents think that they need.

We find out tomorrow when we are traveling. We believe it will be around 5/5, but we will have our consulate appointment tomorrow in which all travel is based. It is hard to believe that we will be with her in about 4 weeks. I have been cramming on the parenting books.

One snag we may have hit is that China has not received out fingerprints yet. When I get home tonight I will triple check that they are not expired and I have to call the CIS tomorrow morning to try and figure this out. We have already received the paperwork showing that we are golden, but we want to make sure that everything is in order before we go so as not to hold anything up.

When I talked to the adoption agency rep today she did inform me that our orphanage qualifies for wiring funds over. This means that about 60% of our adoption expenses can be send electronically and will not have to hang around my neck as we travel.

I am hoping that I will have more news tomorrow on how all of this pans out.

Getting ready for travel

2006-03-29T06:30:00.000-08:00

We were transferred to the Travel team at our agency this past Monday. They told us to go ahead and apply for our Visas and put a travel date of May 15th on the application. This means that we could travel a week before or after this time approximately. Still not sure when we are going but it looks like May. My work is OK with me taking three weeks off (2 for travel and 1 for acclimation) but I am sure I will be working a little bit from home.

We have been buying baby stuff left and right. Holy cow diapers are expensive. I took a poll at work on cloth diapers and I was pretty much laughed out of the office. We cleaned out our cupboards and put in some of the baby food and bottles and things that we purchased. Still really weird. For intra-China travel we are only allowed one suitcase each weighing no more than 44#. Now, for those of you that know C understand the boulder I am pushing uphill here. She could fill both suitcases with shoes for a weekend trip so we are going to have to economize.

This past weekend we bought a 4-pack of the bags that you rollup and squeeze the air out of to save space; hopefully these will work. The recommendation is to pack super light and have your clothes laundered while in China. There is always the option of buying inexpensive clothes there as well.

We are sending our care package off to the orphanage tonight. This will include a camera so that the care providers can take pictures of Maya, the other babies, the people who take care of her and her orphanage. There is also a service that provides a news clipping service that reads Chinese newspapers for finding notices. By law, the orphanage has to take a picture of the kids and place them in the newspaper. This will provide us with a picture of Maya when she was younger.

A brief recap of the referral process was that 64 of the 90 were "misplaced". About 30 of the misplaced ones were found (we were lucky enough to be in that group) and the remainders had to have their pictures regenerated and only received the one small photo that is attached to the file.

What we are most distraught about is that of the original 26 referrals that were delivered without issue; it appears that they were able to turn their paperwork around quick enough and they are actually leaving tomorrow. So, yes, if our referral wouldn’t have been lost we may have been boarding a plane Thursday. We are bummed, but we are plodding through.

Influenza!

2006-03-27T19:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions.

A little over a week ago I woke up about 1 AM with major stomach extension. I know, I am 33 now and all the tubes and pills I used to make fun of now have ended up in our medicine cabinet. I grabbed some Gas-X and tried to get comfortable back in bed. You know how you toss and turn and never really fall asleep; well that was me until about 3 AM when I started getting the familiar tickle.

It's amazing how quick you can make it to the bathroom when you have to toss your cookies. Unfortunately, this case was literal. We had made some Duncan Hines that night and that is
all that came up. It was total toe clenching retching for about 20 minutes complete with two dogs freaking out at the noises I am making and sniffing my butt at the same time. Not recommended. I felt fine afterwards and even planned on going to work. I grabbed a couple hours of sleep and woke up feeling abysmal. Court took my temp and it was 102. (I know Mom, I will get a flu shot next year)

I spent Monday morning between lying on the couch and lying on the bathroom floor staring at the grout. Took Tuesday off too for good measure. When we get sick in our house we take care of each other, of course, but we also avoid each other without trying to be rude so we can avoid getting ill.

Courtney had a girls' night planned for Friday of that week and she was taking special care to avoid me while trying to be helpful. It was Wednesday and she thought she made it, but my germs caught up with her. She left work early and took the train home. The station in which we commute is your typical high volume train station. She grabbed a juice and a water from a kiosk when she got the tickle herself.

She ran into the public bathroom and apologetically pushed aside a mother and her daughter to get into the stall and unload, most likely cursing my name. Now a major transportation center's public facilities are not the cleanest place and the world and because of my germs she was sprawled on the bathroom floor touching and hugging the porcelain. I scrubbed her down three times with industrial-strength solvent before I would touch her.

Sadly, she had to spend a dizzy 90 minute commute home with a little vomit in her hair. We ate soup for 4 days straight and I still can't even stomach the thought of home made cookies any longer.

Referral!

2006-03-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

Introducing Maya DaoLiang Hoffmann! More to come soon.

Click the picture for a larger version.

Lady Luck

2006-03-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

WooHoo! So we are on the right side of fate for once and our referral was in the group that was recovered in New York. DHL rerouted it and we received a phone call and E-mail today saying we are one of the lucky ones. Our package will be delivered some time tomorrow.

In the mean time we were E-mailed a picture of our daughter that was scanned by our agency. I can not post it yet because I have not looked at it. Yes, that is correct, a pixelated picture of our daughter is mere finger clicks away from being viewed and I have not opened it yet. Courtney made me promise her that we will look at it together on the train tonight on the laptop. So, we are taking the 5:25 train and we will view our daughter for the first time around 5:30 or so.

I will get the picture up when I can!

Another Update

2006-03-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

The courier, DHL, was able to locate 38 of the 64 missing documents and these have been re-routed to our agency and should be there by the end of the week. Hopefully they will turn them around quickly and we can have our paclet and picture by this weekend.

That leaves 26 families without a picture and still hanging on for more info. I am not sure if this will screw up our travel time, we were hoping for the first two weeks of May, we will see how this is going to affect it.

Our agency just informed us that they should have these tomorrow afternoon and I am expecting they will work their butts off to make it happen for the 59.375% of families that are going to get their referrals from this batch.

C is off today, she has her Uncle's family in town and we are heading out for some well-deserved margaritas with them tonight. More information to come.

More Maya Info

2006-03-04T08:16:00.000-08:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks for us, but things are starting to calm down before they are going to be ramped up shortly. Work has been crazy for both of us. C has been out of town and we have barely had time to breathe, much less provide an update about Maya.

Our referrals were sent in one large package containing two smaller packages. One of the smaller packages fell out and was lost. Our agency has been scrambling to locate it to no avail. They contacted their people in China and have been trying to regenerate the documents for us. They have pieced together information for us and have sent it out piece y piece this week.

We were given the following information about our daughter so far and we can expect a picture next week hopefully. We have a daughter! She is in the You Xian county welfare institute in the Hunan province. Her name is You DaoLiang. You is her last name and she is described as healthy with a birthday of 8.1.05. It is so amazing to actually have pertinent information and makes everything so real. We now know her size information and of course, being a weekend C is out shopping for clothes for her.

When we had the province breakdown outlined in the map below C just knew that she was going to be from the Hunan province; this is where hot peppers are grown and the food is spicy. The girls born there are known for their "spicy" personality and are supposedly firecrackers; again another reason why C thought she was going to be from there.

This is information from when she was 4 months old:

Weight
14.3lbs

Height
23.44inches

Head Size
16.35inches

Yes, that is a Hoffmann head! I do feel sorry for all the women in my family that had to pass watermelons out of their bodies. It is funny that they looked at pictures of us when matching our baby. They probably took one look at my noggin and knew they had a match. The following is the other information we received regarding out daughter.:

Growth Report on You Daoliang
You Daoliang, female, was found abandoned at the gate of the Chinese Medical Hospital by a passerby Zhou Meiyun on Aug 3rd, 2005. Daoliang has round face and thick black hair. She wore in red clothes, and there was milk formula, bottle and birth note together with her when being found. Zhou Meiyun, the finder, reported this to police station on the finding day and than sent her into our institute.
Her birth note said she was born on Aug 1st , 2005. Our doctor did a check up for her, and she was 19.5 inches tall, 8.58 pounds in weight, her head size was 13.79 inches and chest size was 13.40 inches. She had fine skin, and her skull, eye, nose was functioned well. Her limbs motion and Nervous system were functioned well. She was a healthy newborn baby. We named her You Daoliang. You, is after You County, Dao means leader, and liang means ridge. We hope she could be adopted by a good family, and has a happy life.
Daoliang is very cute and active. She is growing well. Two month old, she liked stretching hands and legs, sometimes, kicked out her quilt. She had some facial expression at that time. Daoliang could follow moving objects. She felt happy when being amused and cried when feeling sad.
Three month old, when in crib, she likes putting her hands out of quilt, and then tried to grab nearby toys. When you passed by, she would look at you and make sound. It seemed that she wanted to talk to you.
Now, Daoliang is over four months old, and she is developing very well. Currently, she is 23.44 inches tall, 14.3pounds in weight, her head size is 16.35 inches, chest size is 16.15 inches and feet size is 3.15 inches. She is not cutting teeth. She likes touching or grabbing things. Daoliang is curious about her surrounding, and sudden sound could catch her attention. When lying on crib, she likes playing with pillow and quilt. When lying on stomach, her hands could support body and at the same time, up her head. She can use her hands well. When feels happy, she could make some simple sound, like ÂaÂ and ÂyiÂ. She is very active and cute.
Following the Children Immunization Plan, she has been injected the following shots: BCG, Poliomyelitis, PDT, and Hep B from Aug, 2005-Nov 2005.
Her appetite varies according to her age. The first three month, she only had milk formula, and took it every two hours, each time 70ml to 90ml. From three month old, we add some rice cereal into her milk formula. She took one bottle every three hours, totally eight times a day. Four times milk formula, 120-140ml each time and four times mixed rice formula and rice cereal, 140-160ml per time. Additionally, we fed her cod-liver oil, calcium pill and vitamin three times. She drinks water two or three times a day.
Daoliang formed a health routine as lives in -group. She sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:30am. She takes 2 two hours naps at daytime, one at 10:00am, and one at 2:30pm. She is a sound sleeper. She wakes up when being fed at midnight and when the diaper is wetting. She likes sleeping in dark. She pupus one or two times per day, usually after breakfast or after noon nap. Normally, She pipis every two hours everyday.

Prepared by You County Welfare Institute
Dec 5th, 2005

We are both ecstatic that there was a note left with her and we hope to get it when we make out journey. The note leave no doubt to what day she was actually born and hopefully we will get to visit the site that she was left. Below are pictures we believe to be her orphanage and were taken from this site http://www.geocities.com/sandrapeffly/YouxianSWI.html:

More updates to come!

So, it's Wednesday now and where is the picture?

2006-03-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

I am sure you are asking this, as we are asking this as well. Apparently, from our agency only 26 of the 90 referrals actually were delivered. Our agency is trying to keep us calm by providing absolutely no information at all.

They tell us that they are in constant contact with Beijing, but they have provided no real explanation if the second package was not delivered, delivered to the wrong location or even lost. We are hanging in there, but getting frustrated daily. I will update this as I know more.

Her picture is on the way!

2006-02-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I posted, things have been very crazy lately and they are about to get even crazier. We were informed last Friday that the referrals have been mailed from China. This means that we will get to see her for the first time shortly.

Our agency sent out notice that 90 referrals have been delivered. The hope is that they will get to the agency on Monday, the agency workers will then call us and give us Maya's foster name, orphanage name, measurements and other pertinent information. After the phone call they will then E-mail one picture to us. The following day we will receive a fed-ex package with additional pictures, more information and forms we need to fill out to send back to accept her as our daughter.

Of course, we can never do anything the normal way. C has been out of town visiting a friend from college in New Jersey before she has a client dinner Monday night. So, this means that we are going to be apart when the actual picture comes. There is a chance that our agency won't E-mail the picture out until Tuesday. If it comes on Monday I made a promise that I won't look at it until Tuesday night when we are together again. The things you do for love.

Click on the picture to see a bigger version of a map illustrating where the referrals came from in China. There are 90 kids and these are the provinces in where they are located. C thinks we are going to Hunan. We will hopefully find out tomorrow!

Journey to Maya (Part 2)

2006-02-08T06:40:00.000-08:00

Need to catch up? Check out Part I

After a couple of calls and lookups we settled on a place called FCI Chicago. They specialize in fertility issues and were located downtown as well up North by us. Best of all they took early morning appointments which were conducive to our work schedule.
We entered the office, nervous of course, and we were greeted by about a dozen raised heads that did a quick scan of us checking to see what our story was. In this place, in particular, it seemed to be populated by Gold Coast trophy wives and hardcore professional women that put off having kids hoping that medical science can give them the boost that they need. It was part WASP nest, part Business Leader Convention. The average age seemed to be around 40 so we were about a decade younger than most people that were there.

I checked with C later and she agreed with the feeling that we were being judged negatively because of our age. We both felt that these women (and I do mean women; I was almost always the only male there throughout) seemed to think that we hadn't suffered the way had, which may be true, because up to that point we had hardly been trying to conceive.

We were finally called into the inner sanctum to meet Dr. Moises. (The weirdest part of the situation is that his colleague actually helped Courtney's Mom conceive 3 decades prior. It's a pretty small world.) He was sitting in his office surrounded by files and folders and papers and in typical geriatric fashion he was complaining about his computer when we walked in. (Why older --sorry seasoned-- people can't get computers is going to be another topic sometime) He welcomed us in and asked us to sit. Moises looked and sounded like Telly Savalas, you know, Kojak.

M: "So yous all wanna conceive, huh?"
K&C "Yes."
M: "Yaknow yous came to the right place?"
K&C "Yes."
M" "Who loves ya, baby?"

Good guy really. He told us about the procedures and the shots and what to expect and everything else. C was hung up on the shots. This woman turns into the biggest quivering blob of traumatized panic whenever she has to be poked with a needle. She really is a HUGE baby.

K: "I'll hold your hand the whole time, it's going to be OK."
C: (Sob)
K: "Really I will be here for you."
M: "That's right buster, you will be there for her because you need to give them to her."
K: "Dammit."

I am only a little better than C when it comes to shots. Immediately, the thought of inserting a thin needle and piercing my wife's skin made me nauseated. I am sure I turned pale but I kept a strong appearance and told her that my palms were only wet because it was sympathy sweat.

Moises finished up and called in his lead person to walk us through the actual steps and process of administering the shots..

(On intercom) "Hey, where's my blondie?" (Seriously, he said this into the intercom.)
In walked a petite, obviously blond, obviously annoyed, woman. Moises was an older gentleman and seemed to stick to old-school observations on women in the workplace. Moises was a great doctor, but he had no clue on how to run an office and that is where Julie came in. The way she worked him was fantastic though.

"No, Dr., the yellow papers go in the magenta folder. You have processed them so they can now move on to the waiting rack for review."

"Oh, that's my blondie"

She looked at us and rolled her eyes and we chuckled. She then looked at the piles of paper on his desk and glared. You know how you have to talk to some people really slow and succinctly to make sure that they understand that Wednesday is creamed corn night and Thursday is prunes; not the other way around. She really was a fountain of patience.

Julie took us into a room for training. She took out a series of increasingly larger needles and two little pads for practice. She explained to us the drugs that we were going to have to use.

I have no idea what the technical term was for these so I will try to explain them the best that I can. The first drug came in two vials. One contained a simple saline solution and the other one contained a substance that looked cakey like what is on the faces of the traders when I am walking past the Chicago Board of Trade on my way to the train.

She showed me that you take 15(?)CCs of the solution and then inject it into the powder and shake until dissolved.

K:"You know, Courtney, just like in our meth lab."

The bruise on my shin went away in about a week. I swear that no one has a sense of humor any more. Julie looked at me funny and then started talking to me really slow and succinctly.

The second shot was called the trigger. She told us that based on our counts we would be told how much would be used when it was time to use it. She picked up what looked like a Slurpee straw and said that this is what we were going to use for the trigger. I saw a Discovery channel show where they were trying to give medical attention to a rhinoceros and used a stun dart to bring it down. Let's just say that this could have given a T-rex a nice 3-day vacation.

J: "This one is not sub-cutaneous"
K: "Uhhhh"
J: "It's intra-muscular"
K: "Errrrr"
J: "In the butt muscle?"
K: "Gotcha"

The scariest part is the motion in which it had to be inserted. Think Freddy Kruger, think Jason, think any serial killer. In a stabbing motion (her term, not mine) you must lunge this 22" needle almost to the hilt, check to make sure no blood entered the chamber and then plunge this viscous liquid deep into her body and finally pull it out prepared with a alcohol swab to douse the opening. That's right stab, lunge, plunge and remove. If you do notice blood in the chamber, you are not supposed to push the plunger in, you must remove the needle and start over with a fresh needle. You only get two chances. Don't even get me started about the sidebar on the air bubbles that have to be flicked out.

Now I am thinking my wife is terrible with shots and I always sucked at throwing darts. She can't stand knowing that pain is coming. She sat in our bedroom for 3 days working up the courage to pull a band-aid off. I can't imagine OJing her with a needle only to say, "Whoops, baby, I need a do-over."

To better explain the process, the first shot was given nightly (NIGHTLY!) and built her viable egg count up. By the end of a "cycle" C was the walking Chicken. She literally would have 12 eggs in each of her ovaries. That's 12 eggs, normal people have, maybe 2. She walked around, her sides killing her, eggs practically bursting out of her ovaries. She would even list to one side like a drunken frat boy when coming down the hall.

We had to come into the office every other day for an ultrasound to track the growth progression. This routine consisted of waiting in the office, waiting in the back portion of the office and for me waiting in the inner office while Courtney changed into her paper lingerie.

I tried to make small talk with the technician, but it was always awkward. I don't think she was used to dealing with many guys.

K: "So is that the part you rub over her stomach?"
T: "No this is insertable."
K: "Oh. Why are you changing that rubber wrapper on the wand?"
T: "Because you touched it."

After about ten days of shots and we had clearance from the doctor’s office we had to bring out the trigger. This is a one-time, magic bullet solution that activates all of the eggs and makes them ready for action. As you can imagine this needle was the size of a Crayola marker.

We were ready to put our plan into action and see if we could actually play doctor, not in the biblical sense.

Stay tuned for Part three: “Why Maya was almost named Willow”

Just in time for the weekend

2006-02-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the gap in the posting, but I have been fetal-position sick after a hectic work week. C, loving as always, gave me her cold on Thursday just in time for the weekend. So after busting my ass the past week for work I became ill just in time for the weekend.

Hopefully more posts this week.

Washout

2006-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Check your sump pumps people. C and I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon helping friends of our ours carrying furniture out of their basement. It is amazing how water can ruin everything that accumulates in your basement.

To make matters worse she has health issues as it is that can be severely aggravated if she comes in contact with mold. It is amazing how a $2 piece of pastic can cause this much damage and heartbreak when it fails.

Long Run

2006-01-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

I started training this week for marathon number 8. Depending on how China travel works out I hope to do the Bayshore Marathon in Northern Michigan. C's Aunt and Uncle live in Muskegon and we would stop by there on the way up, again, if it all works out.

Four days a week is my normal schedule with a long run on the weekend. I have been running since December after taking the Summer off. The weather was nice this morning and I headed out for a nice quick six miles. Unfortunately all of the snow from last week had not melted yet and it was some of the worse terrain to run on.

There are three options available for me to run:

1) The street. Not so bad when I run before work during the week, but a long run on the weekend can be terrifying because some people are morons and don't give you space. I haven't had people yell at me or throw things, but I've heard stories.

2) Des Plaines River Trail path. This is my favorite place to run. It is a path that follow the Des Plaines river through protected wetlands and savannas. It is absolutely beautiful when the weather is good. You only have to deal with moron cyclists that all think they have one testicle.

3) Treadmill. I hit this when the wind chill drops below zero. Very monotonous and scares the hell out of the dogs.

I try to take the camera with me when I go and that is where these shots are from. There is a lot of wildlife including deer and coyotes.

The path was horrible today. It is hard to run on packed snow and mud because it the terrain is very uneven and slippery. I am really going to feel it tomorrow. It wasn't icy enough to need the yak trax, but I could have used some help.

I am trying for a 9 minute pace but the snow kept me at 10:20. Oh well, it was nice to be outside for a bit and listen to some music.

The picture to the right is about as hilly as we get it in Illinois. You can see how crappy the running surface was today. I really miss the hilly and diverse topography STL.

We are taking it easy and going out to dinner with some friends tonight. C is going some projects tomorrow for Maya's room and I am doing some work and hopefully some writing.

Arrrgghhhh. Why can't I dress myself?

2006-01-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

Two things:

Over Christmas at the in-laws I was always carve the turkey. I accidentally cut the foil that the bird was sitting in and all the juices leaked out and ran down my legs and I didn't realize it until the pants were ruined. Henceforth the term turkey pants. C's dad lent me a pair of khakis and everything was cool. (Besides the weird feeling of wearing someone else's clothing. I don't know why, but this has always creeped me out.

Flash forward today to the morning ritual in our house getting ready for work.

K: "What color pants go with this shirt?"
C: (Exasperated)"Bring them here."
K: (Meekly displaying pants)
C: "Either brown corduroy or khakis."

C has dressed me for as long as I had to be business casual. When I worked in Jeff City she actually flew in and attached post-it notes to all of my ties and shirts. Every night I would come home and carefully re-attach the paper to the clothing so as not to mess it up. I know, I am really pathetic. After all these years the only thing I know is that brown shoes get a brown belt and black shoes get a black belt and most every work shirt can be worn with khakis.

We were in a huge rush to the train this morning (we always are when Courtney is riding in with me) and I grabbed a pair of khakis out of the closet and threw them on without thinking. As we were making our mad dash, Courtney looked at me and chuckled.

C: "What are you wearing?"
K: "Khaki's, like you said."

You can see where this is going, I grabbed my father-in-laws' pants and threw them on without thinking. No big deal right? What I failed to mention, though we are about the same height his legs are about 4 inches shorter than mine. I've already had two people ask me at work today if I dressed my self and "Where's the flood?".

Just another Friday. I usually have the camera, but not today so you will have to settle with the picture to the right for a visual. (As I look through my cataract-covered fashion eye I actually noticed that his shoes and belt actually match)

Have a good weekend and look for the Journey part 2 and possibly 3 this weekend. I am just finishing them up.

Trying not to get our hopes up, but...

2006-01-24T07:11:00.000-08:00

The paragraph to the left was taken from the CCAA web site. This is the government agency in China that processes adoption requests. I will go deeper into the process later, but basically your file is slid through a slot in the door and you wait 6-47 months (that's a slight embellishment) and you listen to 367 rumors and eventually you are matched up with a child.

Basically what this means is that all paperwork that has been submitted through 5/13/05 has been processed and the families have been matched with children. We were logged in 5/17/2005 so we hope this means that we are next up for the next batch of matches in hopefully 4 weeks (but it could be longer). I will write more on the entire process later.

Two months until Spring

2006-01-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

When I first moved to Chicago I had a thin coat purchased from JcPenny on my Mom's credit.

I told Courtney that I knew what cold was and that my non-insulated coat would be able to outheat a Northern Illinois winter.

We lived downtown at the time and the first sub-30 wind chill ripped a layer of skin from my face when I would come around the corner of every high-rise.

We had a friend that cross-country skiied to our apartment. (Well she had to walk across the streets and it probably would have taken her less time to walk.) The wind off the lake was amazing and terrifying because of how cold it was

The coat lasted until the weekend and became known as the Fall jacket because I took it off one day after work and it could literally stand on its own it was so stiff.

Friday night we were supposed to get 2-5 inches of snow; which is typical for the time of the year. We ended up with 13. My father-in-law has a T-square in the backyard to track these things.

It is that thick water-logged snow that breaks your back when you try to shovel it. My neighbor from down the street was driving home and stopped and laughed at me for not owning a snowthrower. Part of me sincerely enjoys the exercise. A snowthrower feels like you are cheating nature no matter what my back says later in the evening.

I shoveled the back patio off for the dogs and to make a path to the grill for Sunday dinner. The dogs love the snow and haul ass for 10-minute intervals and then sleep for hours- content.

A guy up the street must have gotten a new snowblower becasuse he generously did almost the entire sidewalk on our side of the street. I was shovelling the driveway and secretly wished he would take a righ-turn and help me out but he didn't so I resigned myself to the exercise.

The night before we had been at a friends' house throughout the snowstorm and we drove home to find that the plow had built a wall on the street at the entrance of the driveway. It took two trys, but we were able to burst through the wall of snow and beach the car about five feet past the sidewalk.

We have actually had more than 30+ days of above-normal tempatures and the wind has been pretty dormant, but I am ready for Spring.

As you can see, Courtney is much better with the camera than the shovel but at least she kept me company.

Two more months until Spring and it was over 60 degrees in St. Louis last weekend.

All thanks to a tire

2006-01-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

Weird situation for me this past weekend. A friend of ours was having tire issues late on a Saturday afternoon when most places were closed. She was coming into our town from Wisconsin to see family and to watch the Bears crush the Panthers. (I am a sports fan, but to pay that much money for tickets seems a little ludicrous; even the tailgate parking was going for $200 a spot)

She drove down on Saturday and was able to get into Sam's club Auto around 2-3 for the tire repair which was supposed to last about 3 hours because of the weekend wait. Believe me, I would not want to spend this amount of time in a Sam's Club for all of the 5 gallon jars of mayonnaise in the world. C was explaining this to me about the big car shuffle and how she was going to drive and her friend was going to drive and so forth. You know how you can tell when your spouse or significant other is prepping you? She had the speech in her head and was laying out the argument guiding me down through the wooden rails that lead to the slaughterhouse doors.

C: "Blah* blah blah tire."
K: "OK"C: "Blah blah blah Sam's Club."
K: "Gotcha"
C: "Blah blah blah 2-3 hours."
K: "No problem."
C: "Blah* blah blah She needs you to watch her kid."
K: "What? Wait what's going on?**"

*Blah - every instance meaning a concise and complete description of events transpiring that have been edited for this format not because the author was not listening"
**ensuing argument omitted for fear of creating documented proof to fuel future arguments.

I've watched kids before for 30-second intervals, nothing like this, but I knew it was something that was long overdue and would give me a glimpse into this whole parenting world. I came back from an afternoon run to be informed that the he (I will call him "The Kid" from now on -Damn weird Internet perverts) was sleeping and that the they were going to leave once I showered.

With last second advice and the smell of fear washed off of me I assured the Mom that everything was cool and that my cell phone would be connected to me like a pacemaker in case of trouble or a really full diaper.

C: "Raised eyebrow" (You going to be OK?)
K: "Shoulder shrug" (I think so.)
C: "Smirk" (You know he is going fill his diaper)
K: "Cautious smile" (Please hurry)

"The Kid" was asleep in the other room with the door closed and the fan whirling. I was in the family room with the TV on low tuned to something non-offensive so as not to damage his sleeping psyche. The dogs were on the couch as usual. Time ticked slowly.

K: (to self) "Shit was that a sound?"
TK: (in other room) "..."
K: (muting TV) "Shit, shit, shit - I thought he was going to sleep the whole time. You have the cell phone, relax. Don't call or they are going to laugh at you. Prove that you can do this. They think you are this hot, intelligent hunk of a caring man and you don't want to ruin that perception.
TK: (muffled cry)
K: (muffled cry)
TK: "...Momma?..."

I jumped out of the chair and took a deep breath before opening the door. Lying on the bed was this cute little moppet rubbing the remaining sleep out of his eyes. He turned and looked at me with half-drawn eyes and in the cutest little voice spoke.

"Hi...Kevy, where's Momma?"
"She went to replace the damaged tire at Sam's Club."
(Wait, wait stupid, it's a kid, they don't understand complex terms)
"I mean, the car is broken and she went bye-bye to fix it."
(Great now you are going to retard his growth by speaking down to him)
"She went bye-bye?"
(Damn it, he's starting to cry a little. Quick, moron, think of something. What is the one thing your experience with kids has taught you.)
"Hey, "The Kid" do you want to watch a movie?"
"OK."

Now, I know that the bait and switch has been used since caveman times to quell the desires of unhappy kids.

Grog: "Grok, no cry, look rock"
Grok: "Yay."

Really, I understand that TV is not a babysitter, it should only be used in small doses and infrequently like another common parent's helper --Valium.

"The Kid" really is a well-adjusted 30-month old and smart beyond his years (months). Now that I broke the seal, he was ready to sit down and relax in front of the tube.

K: "Hey, "The Kid" what do you want to watch?"
TK: "Elephants"
K: OK, let's see what we have in Momma's magic bag. (Fumbling) Hmmmm. no elephant's in here what do you want to watch?"
TK: "Elephants."
K: "There are no elephants in here, let me call the video store (wasn't going to say I was calling Mom, yep already three minutes into babysitting and I am lying to the kid.")

M: "Is everything OK?"
K: "He wants to watch elephants."
M: "It's in the laptop. Everything OK"
K: "No problems."

Another lesson learned, a kid is not your client. You do not have to cater to his/her every desire. I pulled the DVD out of her laptop and loaded it up. It was a Baby Einstein movie (movie?) about animals that have these really creepy puppets and music and montages intertwined with very bright and distinct color sets. Market share for these videos seems to be equally divided between babies, toddlers and the college demographic.

Placing a couple of pillows on the floor I set up a little relaxation lounge for his viewing pleasure. The video was playing but "The Kid" still looked confused and unsettled. I asked him what was wrong and he just seemed out of sorts. I tried to guide him to the pillow but now he was just looking directly at me as I sat in the big blue Laz-E-Boy (really that is how it is spelled).

He stuck both his hands out toward me. At first I thought it was in a accusatory manner, like he was pointing at me telling me I was a bad caregiver. As I was reaching for the cell phone something clicked in me and I realized that he wanted me to pick him up, no he wanted to sit with me on the chair to watch the movie.

Reaching down I picked him up and put him between my legs on the chair. He settled right in and relaxed against me in a way that I haven't seen since I had my last double treatment of wine therapy. Here I was on a chair watching a video with this little person and I wasn't screwing him up at all. The excitement that was inside of him was amazing; we screamed out the name of each animal and identified rain and flowers and colors.

K&TK: "Clouds!"
K&TK: "Zebra!"
K: "Moose!"
TK: "No, Kevy that's a caribou."
K: "Right, I know."

Kids are smarter than you give them credit for; also TK's Mom later told me that if she had $1 for every time they watched this DVD she could be majority owner in Baby Einstein Holdings Inc.

So there we sat, the footstool on the chair extended, both of us had out legs stretched out as he sat in the crook of my lap. We moved our sock-clad feet in time to the music and screamed out the names of everything he knew and I was feeling like I was seeing these things for the first time.

Then it hit me. Here is this little boy completely dependent on those around him to feed, clean and educate him. He seemed so content sitting there pushed up against me for comfort. So innocent and trusting and loving without a fault and he was just being a kid. No cares (his pants weren't filled yet) no worries and completely satisfied in the moment. He wasn't worrying about the job or the bills or any other of a million nuisances, he was just in the moment and I was glad that he invited me there.

I had my first realizations that I think I can do this. Maya will be here in a couple of months and she is going to be MY daughter, MY responsibility and probably the best thing to ever happen to me. I know that babies don't just poop rainbows and puppy dogs; there will be a considerable amount of work involved and a lot of strenuous challenges, but spending time with "The Kid" really made me realize that I am in store for an amazing journey. One that I am looking forward to taking.

On a side note, after 3 hours of waiting (and shopping) C and her friend went back to Sam's Club to get the fixed car. Unfortunately, for some strange reason when the two of them get together some weird quantum worm hole rips through the time/space fabric of the universe and they enter a place called loony world. So after all the hassle and waiting (and shopping) they returned to find out that the repair guy was missing a key part, namely the rim from the damaged tire that was sitting in a fix-it shop 60 miles away in another state. (She eventually got it fixed the next day)

The Boomerang Factor

2006-01-12T03:09:00.000-08:00

My Mom likes to tell me the story about a visit we took to JcPenny's when my sister and I were younger. Apparently, as a matter of coincidence, both my sister and I had black eyes at the time. You don't need to call DCFS, I am sure we gave them to each other. In the store we were screaming our heads off and demanding that our parents by us something or another and of course they refused. My sister and I didn't like this so in the wisdom of youth we start screaming "Daddy, don't hit us again," or something to that affect. Of course my father walked out of the store absolutely mortified. For the record, he never laid a finger on us.

This leads to reason #37744 to freak out about being a parent. I have heard stories recently about raised eyebrows in stores when Chinese children with non-Chinese parents start to make a ruckus in public as kids are wont to do. I can just see Maya having a meltdown in the middle of Target and starting to scream, "I want my Mommy!" as I am trying to drag her out of the store to calm her down.

With my luck I am sure I will be arrested for kidnapping my own daughter. Some suggestions are to always carry around family pictures, get Maya a state ID at a young age or even shrink and laminate the adoption certification. I guess what goes around comes around.

Neti Pot and Nursery update

2006-01-09T02:18:00.000-08:00

Here is a glimpse into out weird little lives. C and I have both been having sinus issues lately. Nothing like headaches thankfully; just small problems breathing easily. We both generally try stay away from OTC drugs when we can and try to find a more natural remedy if possible.

(Sidebar - I had to ask a pharmacist to get Sudafed for me last month. What is going on with this? It seems that Walgreens considers this dangerous? Sure, I can understand if I was buying it buy the case, but I don't even get carded for beer anymore. I would love to doctor up a sign and replace the existing one that said "Meth Lab supplies (please see pharmacist)". It is pretty funny that the Mormons at Walgreens keep the greatest threats to our society behind the counter: Sudafed, high-end razor blades and condoms)

She gets those magazines that are great for rainy days or contain 101 ways to put the sizzle back in the sack. This one was called Ladies Home Cosmopolitan Redbook Journal and Gardens or something like that. It contained an article touting the Neti pot. This is a small ceramic teapot that you fill with water and saline solution, insert in your nostrils and pour into your sinuses.

Usually the ideas she gets from the magazines are well received (see the 101 ways above) but I was a little skeptical on this one. Actual conversation (embellished for humor):

C: I think I found something that my help us breathe a little easier.
K: Winning lottery ticket?
C: Can't you be serious for a second?
K: Sorry, I am listening.
C: It's called a Neti pot. It's like a little tea kettle that you stick in your nose and you pour lukewarm water into your sinuses and it comes out the other nostril cleansing your nasal cavity.
K: ???
C: Seriously.
K: So, let me get this straight, you want me to pour hot salt water up into my brain through one nostril and let it ooze out the other one?
C: Right.
K: So, it's like a nasal douche?
C: I guess so; you go first.

I am used to being a guinea pig for her to try the things that she is unsure of trying herself. This one made me a little nervous so I did some research and found this:

Yes, it is as cool as it looks and it works exactly as described. We went to Whole Foods (do you think there is a Neti Pot store?) and shelled out $15 for the special nasal cleansing container.

My sinuses were pretty full that day so I had my doubts that this was going to work. Part of me wondered if C was just seeing if she could get me to do something ridiculous.

We came home and followed the directions by filling it with lukewarm water and 1/4 tablespoon of salt. I stood in front of the kitchen sink and put the spout in my nostril, I have to admit it was a nice and snug comfortable fit. It is one size fits all by the way.

Before letting the liquid flow I looked at C and she looked at me with this piece of ceramic wedged in my nose and of course we both laughed and blew bubbles back into the pot.

C: You sure you want to do this?
K: Why not?
C: Maybe we should do this in the bathroom where the neighbors can't see you.
K: Naw, it's not like it is the first time they have see us doing something odd (remind me to tell you about the gorilla vest story some time)

I tilted my head back and felt the water enter my sinuses, but nothing came out the other end. So, I just stood there looking at Courtney looking at me in expectation. All of the sudden, drip, drip, drip.

C: Ewwww. Move the dishes!

And then it flowed through; a steady little stream of mucosa water. I could feel it doing it's magic and dousching my head out. It felt calming and a little surreal. I had the taste in the back of my throat like when you swallow water at the swimming pool. I blew my nose and I seriously could not believe the difference. I had Courtney fill it up and I did the other side. After blowing my nose, I felt great. It really did work and the neighbors never even saw what was going on.

Nursery update:
We had a little bit of time yesterday to work on Maya's room. C hung her letters on the wall. We had a hard time deciding which way to position the letters. You know me, I just wanted totally straight, even and centered and C wanted to give it a dose of flair by making them undulate or descend. We ended up hanging them in a way that covers the most nail holes and other imperfections so we don't have to touch up the paint. Such is life. Thankfully her name isn't going to be Elizabeth or something similarly long. We have the furniture moved in and once we get the blinds up (we need to purchase them first) I will take more pictures of the completed room.

Does anyone know how to work a pack and play? While she was doing the letters I put our together. No problems setting it up, it looks cute and everything, but I was unable to collapse it. I know I am just not doing something right, but I am afraid to break it. If this is the most I have to worry about regarding parenthood, I think I will be OK.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

Wow! Your responses have been overwelming. If anyone else wants to drop us a line you can do so by E-mail.

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to post anything new. We took it easy over an exteneded break and sort of caught up on each other and decompressed.

I promise to have Part 2 up shortly; I just took some time off of work and I am trying to catch up with it and I have been neglecting my greyhound website duties, but I promise there will be more coming soon.

In the mean time here is a picture of our 20# cat:

Baby Bling aka Maya's Nursery

2005-12-26T16:51:00.000-08:00

C and I debated over the theme for the nursery for days. First I wanted to do a casino room (slot machine diaper genies, roulette inspired crib bumpers - you know classy), but she wanted to have something a little more traditional. We decided to ponder it for one week and then bring our "A" ideas to the table for discussion.

I scoured the Internet and spent hours in the library looking for the perfect idea when it hit me like a load of bricks- a vision, an epiphany of the grandest scale that had to be nurtured to fruition. After flipping through some of my old scrap books I was reminded of a simpler, more honest time in my life. Where my friends and I laughed and sang songs and never had to worry about money in greater than $1 denominations, the best idea since the wheel, sliced bread or Sudoku:

"Tijuana bachelor weekend"

There was no way this idea could lose. We went out to a fancy dinner on Friday night each carrying our idea printed on a slip of papers in a sealed and notarized envelope. We waited until we each had finished our second White Castle and then slid our envelopes across the table.

I opened hers: "Paper Dolls"

She opened mine: "Tijuana Bachelor Weekend"

I won't go into details of the extended discussion we had that would rival some UN peace talks, but we talked it all out and made a compromise that would incorporate the best of both ideas. We would use "Paper Dolls" and I would apologize for making all of this up.

In reality, over Thanksgiving weekend we attended our first baby shower thrown by my Aunt Ann and hosted by my cousin in her house in Missouri. Nice place, beautiful event and I couldn't believe how fast all of the guys left me.

We received a lot of great stuff from all of my family, stuff we need, stuff that was unexpected and some pretty amazing items that will receive instant heirloom status.

First off was this blanket made by my Aunt Ann. You heard me right, she made this with her two hands:

I can't even imagine the hours it took to make this. We both feel so incredible to be related to someone that would take the time out of her life to create something so intricate, beautiful and amazing.

The second item I had to show was a little bench that was hand-painted by my sister. I never knew that she was so talented. Growing up, I thought she only good at creating trouble. :) Again, another beautifully created items that Maya is going to love and means a great deal to us.

The final person I wish to thank is my Mom. She created the amazing piece below over a long period of time. Again all by hand (I don't mean she hand ginned the cotton, but you know what I mean.) Another beautiful piece that we will surely cherish for all time.

The picture does not do this justice if you look up close at the hand stitching that goes into creating this item.

For everybody that was there and everyone else that bought us items, wished us well or sent us positive thoughts, we can not thank you enough. Our friend Jessica even tried to set me right by giving us a Cardinals jersey for Maya so she won't become tainted with the Cubs mediocrity, You are all truly amazing individuals that we are gifted to call friends and family.

The nursery is still ongoing, but I've inserted a couple of other pictures of our progress. I will give the grand pictorial tour when her room and the play room are completed.

Journey to Maya (Part 1)

2005-12-23T08:20:00.001-08:00

Today is actually a big day for us; an anniversary of sorts. It was one year ago today that Courtney and I submitted out adoption application to the Great Wall China Adoption agency.

So how did we get to this point in our lives? C and I both wanted kids and we had started to try about two years before we submitted our application. We weren't really pressing it, just thinking that if it happened, great, if not there is no pressure we have plenty of time.

After multiple attempts and failures Courtney suggested that maybe introducing a third partner into the picture would help things out. Of course I got excited until I found out that the partner's name was Twinlab's ovulation cycle detector and response kit. It was as sexy as it sounds. Basically it was a packet of strips that reacts to your urine stream (hers not mine) and would indicate when the ovulation would occur or was occurring. They made for great foreplay as you can imagine.

In addition to the Twinlab Courtney went to her OBGYN at the time and she started her on a Clomid cycle to help increase her fertility. Of course at this point we laughed about how easy it was going to be and that we would be "that" couple with triplets and a third mortgage. This didn't work out so well, the OBGYN was a dud, the chlomid wasn't working and I got my first glimpse of what happens when you jiggle a woman's hormone levels (more on that later). Not pretty or advisable.

We were both starting to get a little freaked and had a little wine therapy and discussed what could be the problem as we cobbled a mental checklist of possible explanations.

Including:

Tighty whitey constriction was not an issue (just boxers no unfinished basement)
I had an America's Funniest Home video moment with a tennis ball in my formative years, (doubtful, but possible)
The tick incident (If you already know about it keep your mouth shut, if you don't I may tell some time if you share an equally embarrassing story)
Three hours of commuting a day with a hot laptop (Hmmmm if this was the cause I wonder if I could expense the adoption to work)
Were we tracking ovulation correctly (Yep, have the strips and Courtney has good aim)
Were we doing it right? (That's the final question the OBGYN asked. "Believe it or not," she said, "this is an issue for some people." I wanted to play stupid and see if she would bring out the anatomically correct dolls so I could make up some crazy position to illustrate in great detail what methodology we were using, but I played it straight.)

Courtney had her own concerns as well and we both felt like we had run into a wall and didn't know where to turn. Eventually we turned to the good book for answers....

Read more in part two: The Good Book- Unicare's HMO/PPO Guide to what you can and can't afford for infertility treatments (vol II)

Forgot to put this on the registry

2005-12-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

Some great stuff on this site. The Bacon Band-Aid lets you fix any boo-boo with the flavorful smoky power of bacon. And that's right, you get a free toy with every purchase. Hopefully it is a set of scratch-and-sniff stickers. Get all 20 entries in the breakfast meat collection.Mmmmm is there anything that bacon can't do?http://www.accoutrements.com/products/11476.html

Believe me, we don't hate you

2005-12-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

Courtney and I just had two of our cards returned to us. It appears that the address labels fell off but the return labels stayed stuck so we in affect mailed it to ourselves. (Or is this a caftily sneaky way to cover our butts for people we forgot to send cards to? Hmmm. Just kidding.)

Anyway, if you live in St. Louis or the surrounding area and a friend or a family member received a card and you didn't, we still like you, we just had crappy labels. Sorry!

First Post

2005-12-11T18:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks for visiting! Courtney and I are glad to see that our Christmas (or holiday) card made it to you. Our goal for this site is to keep you up-to-date on our adoption plans, provide pictures and throw out a few comments and conversations complete with bad grammar and poor spelling.

First, I wanted to thank my brother Rob for making the DVDs. If it did not work for you, let me know. We were only able to test a handful trying to get everything done.

I know a lot of you are curious about how we ended up on our "journey to Maya" so I will be covering that in a couple of parts. It has been a crazy ride and I will provide more information soon. This site will continue to change as I have time to make it look better and add new things.