two weeks and two days later....

as the adoption came closer to fruition over this last year, i made my plea to the universe. "ok," i said. "you gave me the whip-smart firecracker i asked for last time. this time, could you make it someone sweet and easy?"

it sort of freaks me out. but fuxiang seems to be exactly that.

so far she's a happy-go-lucky kind of gal who is content just to dangle from your hip and look around. she went from screeching in fear of those two black bushy dogs on saturday (which must look like grizzly bears to someone so small) to hugging them on sunday to letting nelson kiss her all over the face on monday ("CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!" i screech.)

she's a bit of a velcro baby, but more because it doesn't seem she has been made to walk very much, rather than out of insecurity. she understands cantonese and mandarin, and responds very well to the mandarin instructions we give her despite our bad chinese (i'm saying "where's the baby?" in that video -- please, native speakers, don't bother to correct my pronunciation; xia is all over that!) 

my fantasies of a modern international von trapp family remain alive... fuxiang really adores music more than most babies i've seen (and i've sat through a LOT of music together classes with munchkins over the years), so i'm eager to indulge that.

i took her with me to vote today. this, i said, is a very important day in america, and in about 16 years, you'll be able to do it too. now, we just have to work on this being-president thing!

very hard to believe that she came into our lives only two weeks and two days ago. it seems like forever -- take that as you will!

sat: heading home

one last spin through the play park, one last swim in the pool...and our second adoption, which we started working on when xia was exactly fuxi's age six-and-a-half years ago, was done.

we were nervous and elated and cranky and pissy -- and we managed to laugh at ourselves (and one another) a good bit. at least this time, neither jeff nor i screeched, "don't let the baby fall off the bed!" only to find that baby soon, indeed, managed to fall off the bed. (though fuxi did slide into the space between the bed and the wall on jeff's watch at one point, and while he got a bit tense, she was completely nonplussed and was extracted without incident... by mama.)

i dream of a day we can take the girls back to china and live for a year. luckily, we're so old that we may be able to do that after we retire -- and before fuxi is out of high school...!

the 12 hours from hong kong to los angeles weren't as horrific as they could have been, based on the train debacle... but they were not comfortable, and the big people did not get very much sleep. (i did finally get to see "the artist," which is an awesome movie, as the little one squirmed.)

and then, there it was. the brilliant afternoon sunshine glittering over the city of angels. the air was crystal clear and downtown la rose majestically against the mountains... the ribbons of highway tied into bows made my heart leap a bit. we presented all our paperwork to the good immigration folk, and fuxi was soon admitted as an american citizen. welcome home.

our adventures weren't exactly over: know that there is wally park, and wally park express.

when we finally made our way back to the car, we buckled fuxi into her brand new car seat (i managed not to pinch her chubby little legs with the belt buckles) and were off. we had to stop to get an oc register of course, which happened to take us near an in-n-out burger, which required us to introduce the girls to the quintessential socal meal.... seriously, we don't do burgers much, but that one tasted pretty good.

dogs were all in one piece and extremely happy to see us -- thanks to melissa and kristen and diane for looking after them for us.

now, the real adventure begins.

thurs night & fri: bumming around hong kong

so a little bit more about that glass of chianti.

the international scene in hong kong is overwhelming... the mix of asia meets middle east meets africa meets europe is electric. which is why it wasn't embarrassing to duck into the italian restaurant with the (asian) acoustic guitarist crooning. check out our new, and very musical, daughter! (who ate spaghetti with fingers that may conduct an orchestra one day....)

on friday, we took the star ferry across the bay and went shopping for tea in the old parts of central...

we let the girls run around at the play park in kowloon (note to self: make sure fuxi takes off the rubbery-soled squeaky shoes before descending the slide)...

we happened across many hipster weddings....

 we enjoyed the view from the window of our room (!!)

and we went swimming in the rooftop pool, where you could see skyscrapers in the distance....

and then claimed our spots on the "walk of stars" in kowloon to watch the skyscrapers on hong kong island blink and blaze in a coordinated-to-music laser light show. seriously. it happens every night at 8 p.m. it's sort of like the disney fireworks show....except with, like, an ENTIRE CITY.

and here are some travel co. shots that give you a better view of the lights.... trippy.

thurs: boating in the park, train to hong kong

so, thursday tuned out to not be the most peaceful of days from a sibling-rivalry standpoint. cure? boating on the lake in the chinese park, of course!

first, after the "so let's look at the evidence behind the 'this has ruined my life' claim" chat (which we had on a planter outside a guangzhou subway station, and which our prima dona soon admitted was just her "being dramatic"), we tried a paddle boat, in an effort to get out some of that negative energy. unfortunately, xia, who needed it most, couldn't really reach the pedals. so i wound up pedaling the four of us around myself (i needed the exercise).

and since she was frustrated that she couldn't power the boat, xia begged us to take one of the ELECTRIC boats out, so she could pilot. we had some time to kill. sooooo.... well, suffice to say xia enjoyed it far more than fuxi did.

and then some posing in front of the giant red lantern at the park's entrance....

and then, we packed up, checked out of the marriott (where this day of the dead display was as close to halloween as we got) and headed to the train station, where we did some chinese homework with the help of maggie, one of our guides, and then dealt with a very squirmy and unhappy fuxi on the two-hour trip to hong kong. 

fuxi SCREAMED at length on the train, which was pleasant for everyone, and really made us look forward to the 12-hour flight home. the good news was that i had hotwired us a room at the intercontinental grand stanford in kowloon, and jeff cracked upon check-in and upgraded us to a suite -- so the kids had their own room. things were suddenly a lot brighter! kowloon was hopping... dinner at a great italian restaurant where a guitarist played songs like "baby, if i live without you, i live without loooooooooooooooooooooove...." i needed that glass of chianti.

wed.: u.s. consulate, pearl market

so wednesday was our big day at the u.s. consulate, where we raised our right hands and swore that everything we have written down in our homestudies and other mountains of paperwork is true ... the last step before they slap that visa in the baby's chinese passport that will make her an american citizen as soon as she touches down on american soil.

we got the gals matching chinese dresses for the occasion.and of course, we reminisced... we had run out of diapers the morning of xia's consulate appointment back in 2005....in desperation, we put a swimmie on her, but it leaked, and jeff went through the oath-taking ceremony with pee-pee on his pants leg. 

no such misadventures this time. chinese adoption has fallen so precipitously that the room we took the oath in last time was about 10 times the size of the one we took it in this time. no pictures allowed in the actual embassy, so here is a series of squirmy shots from the downstairs lobby. (note fuxi moving in to plant a big kiss on xia in the last photo!)

as if that wasn't enough excitement, we soon headed to the pearl market with about a dozen other families. guangzhou is a big gem center, apparently. we skipped the pearl market last time -- but, well, we were suckers this time. we bought a strand of subtly-colored white, pinkish and grayish pearls for xia, and a strand of brighter pinkish pearls for fuxi. i'm sure they'll fight over them when they're teenagers.

dig my ham xia wearing the pearls in this shot!

the pearl market is really a mall that is, seriously, about 7,000 floors high....

and then you exit to "shopping street" which is very cool, but which you search for sit-down chinese restaurants and find only jewelry shop after jewelry shop after jewelry shop.... until you give up and just eat the gelato.

life could be worse.