Good-bye Shenyang, Hello Guangzhou!

I am trying to remember that sometimes we have to get through pain to get to the joy waiting for us. Carson had told our guide he was nervous about flying. Keith bought him a book showing all the different parts of the airport and loading the plane, etc. Isn’t my husband a smart guy for thinking of looking for that at the bookstore in Shenyang?! As we were sitting to take off, Carson was quietly crying. I put my hand on him for comfort. It’s hard to know what acceptable affection for an 8year old is and I don’t want to embarrass him. As soon as we started taxiing, he sat up and watched it all through the window.
It was a four hour flight and about halfway through, he again started to cry. This was a more violent painful cry and I am guessing that he was realizing that he was leaving his home. How scary must that be?? I was in tears because I knew I couldn’t help. He started to look in his pockets, and mine, getting very frantic. We thought we would have to get a flight attendant to speak to him in Chinese and find out what was wrong. I finally realized that he might want the phone number to our guide and his foster mother. Once I showed him that we had them, he put them in his hands, folded his arms on his tray table and went to sleep.
When we arrived, he was perfectly willing to slip his hand in mine as we navigated the throngs of people getting on the tram and our in the next terminal. I think the highlight of his trip so far is riding the luggage cart with his baba! Baba may be a big kid himself since he kept doing little spins and other things with the cart while we waited for the luggage. After we loaded up we met our guide with Carson now firmly entrenched on the luggage cart I was pushing. I was in heaven. I felt like we looked like a normal, happy family with a little boy having a good time. Do you know what that felt like? Better than the grande single mocha that I am seriously missing! Finally, we weren’t the family that other adoptive families were looking at thinking, “Thank heavens that isn’t us!”

Driving down the ramp to the White Swan Hotel was like a dream. I truly felt like we were coming home. It was the first familiar moment on the trip and Carson was enjoying the view. He also likes our guide, Elvin, a lot. We got settled in the room and ordered some dinner. I really lucked out. I spilled a little ketchup on Carson top cover. So, he refused to sleep in it and took my bed. So, I didn’t have to sleep in the concrete bed!!! You BTDT people know what a coup that is! My hope is that he has now commandeered my bed and I get the rollaway for the rest of the trip. On our lat trip, our then 16 year old daughter Hilary was with us. I offered to pay her $100.00 to have her rollaway. No dice. Maybe we should have spilled ketchup on it!

This morning was the medical exam. Carson had a blast. Each child has to go to several “stations” to be examined. ENT, vision, height & weight, etc. we had a scary moment when the doctor read the form we filled out which said that he was healthy but then we answered yes to whether he had ever been hospitalized. He spent one week in the hospital for a circumcision so they were saying that our answers didn’t match. Little did we know that a circumcision is related to special needs! He also wanted to know if our home study addressed this. Of course it didn’t because that knowledge came much later. Our guide did some speaking with the doctor and everything was ok. This was a nice doctor who joked around with Carson a lot. Carson measured the doctor’s head and he told us that even by Chinese standards this was a naughty boy. I’ve come to the conclusion that when the Chinese say “naughty” they mean mischievous.

We had 1.5 hours of paperwork after that. Only one parent was to come and Keith said we were going to rock, paper, scissors for it. You know it’s bad when you are begging to do paperwork instead of being with the child! I won! When I came back, Carson finished up his dvd and we went walking. We walked around for awhile and found a restaurant, the Darling Coffee Fort, where we had lunch. The ladies there gave him the what-for when he ordered a dessert and no lunch. He finally ordered rice with egg. They took his books away when he wouldn’t eat and made him sit up. Although I am not a fan of other people disciplining my children, I am now a weakling. Keith is right behind me. It was actually a very restful hour until I had to use my frst squat toilet of the trip. When you gotta, you gotta.
We walked to the play area (after a chase up three flights of stairs of an apartment building to bring him down) and Carson played for more than an hour. He is a master of the monkey bars. He may not have ever had so much time on equipment because his hands were getting blisters and he wouldn’t quit. I absolutely loved watching daddy lifting him up to the high bars and doing the teeter-totter with him.
We went to Jordan’s Place where we had bought some beautiful things and a suitcase three years ago. He actually remembered me. He was great with Carson. I think his personality gets him lots of sales. His son is Carsons age so they had a great time together. He translated a lot for us and we really are seeing that Carson is a clown and has a great sense of humor. We bought a wooden Chinese checkers set since Carson said he knew how to play. We’ll see if that is what the marbles get used for or not. He also picked something out that I know we will be sorry for. It is a little bird in a bamboo cage that chirps. And chirps. And chirps. I told you we are in a weakened state. We’ll see if the bird meets an early demise. Jordan also wrote Guo Zhou incharacters for us and we asked him to give us the Chinese meaning for Carson. Get this. Car means easy. Son means fresh. Easy has not yet applied but fresh certainly has.
With all said up to this point, it would be easy to assume that we are not bonding with our son. Quite the contrary. I have often been drawn to the children in my work that are the most challenging. Carson has a pull. Those eyes, that warm little hand slipping into yours when you don’t expect it, the snuggle that comes from somewhere that I can’t see, the laugh he has that can bring you to tears when you see that he is really happy; that is Carson. He is depending on us in certain moments. Those will increase. He is loving us. That will only get stronger. He is a Crossley, plain and simple.