How to tell if your baby is suffering from Jet Lag...

The following pictures were taken over the course of about 90 seconds:

Back Home!!!!

We made it back. Jet lag is a bad thing.
We left GZ Friday night on CS at 9:00 pm. Am did a good job spending the last of our Mao money at the gift shop in the airport so we left China with only some of the Monopoly type yuan worth less than dimes and nickels. I counted a total of 14 babies in Premium Economy and atleast another dozen in coach. It was like a flying daycare. Very funny. There were a few screamers but all in all, the babies (and bigger brothers and sisters) did really well. We landed in LA at about 5:00pm and did the immigration and customs dance for about an hour before making our way out. Not too bad here. The baggage claim was a bit of a pain as the area is very small and there are a lot of people and luggage on a Boeing 777. Syd was very good all the way through. She slept for maybe 7 or 8 hours on the plane and didn't fuss too much at LAX.
We spent the night in LA at an Embassy Suites that was close to the airport. Other than having to wait 30 minutes for the shuttle it was wonderful to stretch out in a sutite and have a good breakfast the next morning. We ran into a couple with their kids the night we arrived who were enamoured of Sydney(I can't blame them) they were on their way to a vacation at Club Med,I think, and they were so sweet... they bought us a round of drinks on the sly after they left:)
We flew back to Houston at noon on Saturday and were met at the airport by my parents, Kyle and Spencer and a bunch of our good friends(Cricket-documentation queen, Cindy, Sarah, Desi, Maddie, Daniel and Cindy's newest foster girl( can't remember her name but she sure is cute!). Also, last but not least...were Heather and Ricky who are next in line to get their referral. We can't wait to return the favor when they come home.
Here's a bit of good advice - Before you leave, borrow a friends baby or something to properly setup the size of the straps in your carseat. We didn't do this and couldn't get Syd strapped in properly. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the things in the parking garage so we had to drive home with Syd strapped halfway in and Anne Marie holding her other half down. Not fun- Sydney does NOT like to be restrained, so the car seat is a BAD and horrible MONSTER to her and she screamed until she passed out. Thankfully it's only a 20 minute ride. We got home to a house filled with welcome home posters that Spencer and our friends Cricket and Cindy and her kids put together. Very sweet. There were also tons of red ribbon strung around the house...AKA, The Red Thread... and red balloons.

Syd met the doggies for the first time and was a little upset with them. Ok...maybe a lot upset. But, she warmed up quickly though after a few face licking sessions. We had a quick dinner and Kyle and Spencer took turns helping out with that.
She got the tour of her new home and spent some time playing in her room before bed. Did I mention that jet lag REALLY stinks? It's worse for babies. At least grownups know why they're tired. Take an 11 month old who is is in totally unfamiliar surroundings and has no idea why the sun isn't out when she thinks that it should be and it's a very bad thing.
It's Monday and Anne Marie is running on about 6 hours of sleep since Sunday. Syd is a good sleeper, just at the wrong times. She's wide awake and ready to go at 3:00am. Hopefully this will get better over the next couple of days.

This has been such a wonderful experience. The three weeks in China were totally unforgettable and we are soooo happy about Sydney that I have tears in my eyes just trying to think up words to describe it. The families that we traveled with will be forever in our hearts. We'll sort out the pictures in in the coming days and email everyone the pictures that we have of them and their newly expanded families.
We will continue to blog here, especially all our new milestones as a family of 5!!!
I wish we could have posted every pic we took while we were there, but I think the PC would have exploded and we would have missed a few tours! Until next time...
PS..
Thanks to everyone for all their support and encouragement in listening to the gripes and complaints... to anyone reading this who is waiting... it is OK to gripe and complain, you will get your referral and when you experience the gotcha moment, you will not think back on anything you thought was so important at the time of the gripes! It will all make sense and fall into place when you are holding that long awaited baby in your arms for the first time.
AM, Joe, Kyle, Spencer, & Sydney!

Last Full Day in Guangzhou

Hi all,
back again. This will probably be our final post from China. Tomorrow we have a late check out at 3 pm since our China Southern Flight doesn't leave for LA until 9 pm... Yippe...Sydney's bed time...should work out perfect for a while, but we are all going to be so messed up for a few weeks...UGH! Today we did the swearing in ceremony at the Consulate. All I can say is that I really hope that they do away with this part of th process...it is really silly. getting all the families, babies, everything together with only diapers, and some cheerios(as you can't bring anything into the Consulate) only to go up 5 escalators, to sit in a room, show your passport and some guy ( he looked like a lounge singer) come out with a microphone and asked everyone to repeat three lines...done. He disappeared into thin air and we were all give the babies visa, then back on the bus... is this REALLY necessary? Can't we ask Don Ho to come to the WS and do it there, they can knock off several hundered families at a time doing it this way, heck, I will even pay for his cab fare and lunch! So silly. Anyway, we also went to a market that is off the beaten path of the "local" shops in Guangzhou. Not the horrible street fair one that everyone here has told us about, but another type. This one has some pretty gross stuff out for sale. Tiger Legs they were selling for the claws(you can pick the claw you want and they would cut it off for you)...UGh...a monkey skeleton, snake skins, dried bugs, embyos of some sort(maybe bird?)...and of course all the fungus you could want. The people down this small street were not too keen on taking photography so we had to go undercover a little. It didn't work very well as the video was of people's behinds...LOL but we did get a little of it. We also bought some pearl jewelry here..yes real. I bought 2 necklaces(one black one pick with white smaller ones surrounding the pink in a daisy shape) and a pair of earrings for 35 yuan...that is less than 5 US Dollars!!! If I would have known I could get these prices, I would have never bought anything from the Pearl factory in Beijing. Don't get too excited though, these pearls would probably be of the lowest quality and bottom of the barrel, but they still looked great and we tested all of them to make sure they were real and not plastic. We went to Second Street restaurant for dinner tonight and it was EXCELLENT. Big Juicy Ribeye with broccoli and potatoes, french onion soup(not the best but still good), and bananas flambee...yummy! Sydney had a bowl of Spaghetti with butter and chicken in it, I couldn't shovel it fast enough. She also sampled the soup, and daddy's custard( hated that for some reason, spit it back out twice!) She was good in the restaurant tonight. Another good recommendation when you get sick of going to Lucy's to eat. We got back to the hotel at about 9 or 9:30 pm and she played for a little while until she went to sleep. The cough was better today for sure after dosing her with Dimatapp this morning and Benedryl this afternoon. We wanted to see if the benedryl hyped her up or if she would get drowsy in case we needed it for the plane ride..drowsy won! We have a pretty easy morning tomorrow...nothing to do until 3 when we leave...except pack of course. we are buying another suitcase for our purchases. The "POLO" suitcases they have here have a great name on them but don't be fooled, these are one time use only cases that usually fall apart if they make it home at all...scarey , isn't it?
We will shop tomorrow for the last time...spencding the Mao money has been a lot of fun...yuan goes so far compared to our USD. We may be able to post again from LA when we get to Embassy Suites on the 16th, but I can't promise :( Then we leave the next morning for Houston TX...home Sweet home. We will probably look like Zombies when we get off the plane, but you understand! We hope to have her dressed in something really special when we get off the plane, BUT we shall see how that goes. Can't wait to see everyone!
PS How cute is this picture of Sydney sleeping? Can you say Angel? I just took it before I finished the post.

Day whatever...almost done! Guangzhou :City of Haggling

Well, here we are again...does this trip ever end...or do we just live here forever? Was up early today as Syd and I(AM) did the blessing at the Buddist Temple. It was only about 20 minutes away and there were only 5 adults and 3 babies who braved the temple :) I thought the temple and the whole concept was beautiful. It was worth the trip to me. We went in and the smell of incense is overpowering-enough to make you gag( Catholic Palm Sunday mass has NOTHING on this place). There were these pagoda style incense pits everywhere and lots of temples with giant statues of various gods. There was the daily "service" going on when we got there and it was pretty crowded. They do a whole lot of bending and bowing and have little red cushions to kneel on. The music was mesmerizing and I definitely need to find me a cd of that...great relaxing tub music. The "monks" or whatever they are, were floating around everywhere. The temple we went to had three statues in it, one for past, one for present and one for future. This is where we did the blessing, which consisted of a monk banging on this very cool sounding ball thing...Sydney was in a trance :) This actually made her happy, which for before this she was not too happy at all. We will have better pics of this later that Susan our guide took as we had the babies and could do the pics and hold the babies at the same time. We bought some incense and burned 10 of them for Sydney which is a good and lucky number I guess. I bought a little double budda statue with their arms across each others back...Budda Buddies( sounds like a new breakfast cereal!!!) Ok, back on the van. We got back to the hotel and daddy had slept until 9:30 today when I was up at 6 or 6:30 to be ready and done eating by 8...that is ok...my turn tomorrow! Syd continues to do ok, but she has come down with some type of new dry cough and her nose is on double slime duty. It is running so bad that it is raw from blowing and wiping it. Hint to those travelling...if there is any way to compactly pack puffs plus tissues...do it, your nose and the babies nose will thank you for it. Sydney also got a bit of windburn yesterday and her cheeks were bright red this morning...worse than the day we got her. A little of the Aquaphor took care of that though. The famous red couch picture was today as well...oh, and the consulate appt...but we don't have much to do with that. The whole scene of trying to set the babies up was really funny...but even funnier... the expressions and faces of the parents trying to make the kids laugh, look at them, stop crying...whatever, was priceless. Hands were waving , toys flying, sounds I have never heard humans make to try to get the babies attention. Sadly, we only got a couple pics of it and no video. Surprisingly Sydney was very good again for the picture and did not cry at all even though the babies around her were screaming. She wore her new blue silk dress, complete with white ruffle butt tights and her black squeakers. After that I went shopping with Luanne and we had a great time at a coffee shop near the WS. This was the equivalent to our Starbucks...I had my usual mocha , but had to settle for it iced...yes folks...still consuming ice with no problem at all. We did some more pre-requisit shopping this afternoon and dressed Syd in her santa's helper outfit for our Thai dinner together at the Cow & Bridge. It was awesome!!! Highly recommend it to anyone who likes Thai, just make sure if you order something like the fried rice that you ask for the meat to be well done. We ordered pork fried rice and the pork was still a bit pink and undone. That is one meat I will not mess with not being cooked enough, especially not here, so we sent it back and they cooked it up a bit more. We also had duck skewers and shrimp cakes and our main dinners...again, way too much food with lots going to waste. You could feed a country with what is thrown away at meals here. XiXi is great...she took Sydney for us tonight so that we could eat in peace :) She is usually a chow hound and happy to sit and eat whatever we have. BUT for the last 2 days has not been very happy at meal time. It could be the new cough she has, it could be that her nose hurts, it could be that she doesn't feel the need to stuff her face all the time as the food will keep coming, it also could be that she does not poop every day and boy when she does...they are like boulders! My money is on the poop and cough. She can't even sit down when she is going! That HAS to hurt her belly to hold that in and she has been VERY gassy lately too. We have tried prunes, apple juice, suppositories, we even looked to see if there may be a "problem" physically...nothing works. We are having the opposite of what we have heard...no blow outs here, just boulders. As for being a spicy girl... boy does this kid have some spice. If she doesn't get what she wants, you will know it, as well as your neighbors and the rest of the hotel.
We came back to the hotel and hung out with Elizabeth for a while...had a lot of laughs. I miss everyone very much...especially My Kyle & Spencer...I can't wait to see you guys :) only 3 days left! The 17th is right around the corner. Thanks also to everyone who is posting and emailing! I am reading all the messages but it is hard to write back to everyone...so much to say, so little time...have no fear... I have VISUAL documentation for Cricket and everyone else. Up until the sickness started we were averaging 200 pics a day so there is TONS of that and TONS of video too...it slows down near the end of the trip...you understand as it is hard to do that with the baby, but we are trying! Cindy S & Cindy J...hi Guys!!! Cindy J... you never gave me the sizes and colors of the robes did you? I can still get them...I figure they would be about 15 US dollars, probably less. Let me know ASAP! Kim... I DID find some stuff for you at the jade factory :) Everyone else... we can't wait to be home!
I am going to upload some pics of the WS and today, but they won't be "inside" the journaling as I let Joe clean up the HTML for me...can do that tomorrow. We have our swearing in tomorrow and free morning and night. I want to do the River Cruise here, it is not expensive and looks wonderful...the boats are gorgeous.
Talk to ya'll later
AM, Syd, and Joe