Emily and Sydney at Halloween

Emily and Sydney dressed for Halloween and headed out with Mommy to visit a few houses in our neighborhood. They returned home with baskets of candy and clamor to eat it after every meal. They had a wonderful time!

Before going out trick or treating, they attended school and, while there, changed into their costumes for the school's Halloween parade. The individual photos below are from school, while the two of them together was taken right before trick or treating.

Emily's Adoption Video

A couple who adopted their first daughter at the same time we adopted our first daughter and who traveled with us in our travel group have started a video production company that creates adoption videos for those who adopt children from China. The name of the company is Red Thread Stories, and you can visit the company online at RedThreadStories.com.

We recently utilized their services to create adoption videos for Sydney and Emily. Each video is 10 minutes long and features both still photos and video from our adoption trips.

Torrie, who edits and produces the video, used the creation of Emily's video as a case study. Visit the Case Study to watch the video. The online version is only slightly shorter and different from the version she provided us. We may attempt to rip both movies to our own server for friends and family, but we'd really like you to visit Red Thread Stories right now to see the amazing work they are doing for adoptive families like us.

We are tickled with these videos, and we recommend the services of Red Thread Stories enthusiastically.

To Israel and Back

Our blog is taking on the identity of relating milestones in our life with Emily, which I suppose is the natural progression of an adoption blog once the actual process of adopting the child has occured.

This particular milestone offered me (Daniel) an opportunity to attend my high school reunion. I attended the American International School in Israel (AIS) from 8th to 12th grade, graduating there then returning to the United States for college. The school held its first ever reunion -- billed the Grand AIS Alumni Reunion -- July 1-3, 2006. I had closely as class of 1988 representative with a classmate who lives in Sweden, so we both felt a need and desire to attend the reunion. For the record, the reunion was fantastic. But this blog is not about me!

We decided to attend the reunion as a family, so we took Emily on her first overseas flight since returning with her from China to Tel Aviv, Israel. We were in Israel June 30 - July 10, which placed us in Israel during the hostage crisis in Gaza but saw us depart a day before the crisis with Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon. I am pleased to say we felt, and were, completely safe through our entire visit in Israel, which included both the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas.

Emily and Sydney were good company for one another on the flight to Tel Aviv. We flew through Newark in order to get a direct flight from the U.S. to Israel; we figured a lengthy layover in Europe might be more difficult than a longer direct flight. Since the flight to Tel Aviv was overnight, the girls were tired and slept relatively well on the airplane. Sydney had her own seat, but Emily flew as a lap child. This made mommy and daddy a little cramped and hot, but Emily did pretty well.

In Israel, we stayed in Herzlia Pituach (a northern suburb of Tel Aviv) four days, then stayed in Jerusalem for four days. We returned to Herzlia Pituach for two more days before departing. The reunion happened on the first three days of our trip, so we had seven days to tour. Not much to tour an entire country with two kids, but enough for me to return to the country I call home and share it with my family and our close friend, Marnie, who joined us from Germany to help take care of the girls.

While in Israel, Emily had painful teeth. Her two-year molars are pressing into the gums now, as are two canine teeth in the bottom front. She was drooling like crazy, running a fever, and had a runny nose for most of the trip. We think her throat was pretty sore, too, as a result of the drainage from all that drool. So she was miserable for parts of the trip, but overall she seemed to have a good time and charmed people everywhere we went. She disliked riding for a long time in our rental car -- it sounded different from our car, and the car seat was not nearly as comfortable -- so the trip to and from Jerusalem from the Tel Aviv area included moments of screaming. But we were traveling with a 1 1/2 year old child -- what did we expect?

Emily and Sydney were troopers as we toured the Old City of Jerusalem with the stroller. Certain portions of the Old City were quite challenging with the stroller -- I lost a decent amount of weight pushing the stroller through the ancient streets that were never made for strollers or wheelchairs. We spent most of our time in the Jewish Quarter, if for no other reason than it was largely stroller-friendly. The girls rarely complained about the hot sun, about going all the time, or about eating strange new food. In fact, Sydney discovered that she really likes hummous and pita, while Emily quickly gained appreciation for shwarma meat, turkey and chicken especially. And Sydney found out that the cheeses in Israel are just amazing!

As we discovered with Sydney, we re-learned that, given appropriate adaption, one can tour another country with small children. We certainly had to compromise on some things -- we were unable, for example, to make it to the northern part of the country -- but we were also able to take our touring more slowly, giving everyone time for naps in the afternoon and calling our nights early so the girls could go to bed.

We all managed to overcome jetlag quickly, which has always been my experience -- jetlag is always worse coming home. And in general, I must admit that coming home was a rough experience, anyway. The flight was a daytime flight, leaving Israel at noon, so much of our journey to Newark was spent with the girls awake and squirming. Our flight from Newark to our airport was cancelled, so we had to reschedule for a later flight to a nearby airport. TSA officials in Newark were neither kind nor courteous, and we were both pretty fed up with just about everything by the time we boarded our last plane home. We finally returned home around 11:30 PM on July 10, exhausted but pleased to be home -- and confident that we will return to Israel again as soon as we can.

Emily Goes to School

We've enrolled Emily in the same school Sydney attends. It's basically daycare at Emily's level, but the school uses organized and free play to teach lessons and skills, starting with motor skills and continuing to the affective and cognitive domains. Sydney has flourished at the school, and Emily appears to love it, too. The two girls attend two days each week, which gives Mom and Dad a much-needed break two days a week. Since I work from home, the two days the girls attend school become major work days - I have found I can accomplish amazing things in those hours!

We've received Emily's passport, which means that our next step is the state-level re-adoption petition. In this step, we petition our state to accept Emily's adoption as a U.S. citizen. Although Emily is a U.S. citizen, she does not have a U.S. birth certificate. And since she has no Chinese birth certificate, only a declaration of abandonment, this lack of a birth certificate will become problematic later in life. Since the state government, and not the federal government, has authority over birth certificates, Emily's U.S. citizenship certificate is recognized as legal proof of identity only by the federal government. Once the state accepts our petition, Emily will be issued a state-certified birth certificate that indicates her birthplace as China. The re-adoption petition process is lengthy and convoluted; for Sydney we hired a lawyer who appeared to do little more than run papers to the county courthouse, so for Emily we plan to file the papers ourselves and save a load of money!

Receiving Emily's passport is important as we have an overseas trip planned. No longer can U.S. infants and children travel on their parents' passport - children must have government issued identification as well for overseas travel. I thought this decision to be bone-headed until I realized the rationale behind the decision - too much trafficking in children worldwide. I will gladly pay the fee for our daughters' passports if it will help reduce the proliferation of child trafficking.

Emily is doing extremely well, and we are very proud of the way she and Sydney now interact -- entirely and completely as sisters!

Adjustments and the Coming of Spring

Spring is here and our family continues to mold and adjust itself to being four instead of three. The time has flown since coming home with Emily. Daniel and I are still trying to completely understand how life works with two children in the house but I think we have finally gotten a handle on it.

Emily continues to adjust well to being home and with the family. She is a loving and kind soul -- and a bit fearless. She will hug and "hold on for dear life" one minute and be ready to leap into danger the next. She will be our adventurer in all respects.

Sydney loves being a big sister and is dishing out a healthy dose of sybling rivilry. She is more methodical than Emily and completely understands how to gauge any attention methods available to her. Sydney is immensely intelligent and has remarkable verbal skills -- defined -- she talks up a storm!!! I see her sitting in Katie Couric's chair someday (well, her old chair at the Today Show.)

We have been enjoying the time since China to introduce Emily to family and friends as well as having some time alone at home with her. We continue to travel and will be going together as a family to Israel this summer to attend Daniel's high school reunion. It should be a fun (and challenging) time. We'll post photos upon returning.

Happy Easter and Spring to everyone.

Deborah, Daniel, Sydney and Emily

Hope and Sorrow

Two recent newspaper articles have offered conflicting perspectives on adopting from the China. The first appeared March 12, 2006, in The Washington Post: "Stealing Babies for Adoption." The second appeared March 23, 2006, in The New York Times: "Adopted in China, Seeking Identity in America."

"Stealing Babies for Adoption" offers a sobering glimpse into the potential for corruption that accompanies the Chinese adoption process. Although we feel confident that the China Center for Adoptive Affairs and the orphanages involved in our adoptions provided us compelling documentation to dispel any hint of corruption, we have certainly heard of others' experiences that were neither as positive nor as thoroughly documented. We now understand that, as a partial result of the cases described in this article, the CCAA has slowed down the adoption process so adoptive parents are once again waiting up to 18 months between submission of their dossier to China and receipt of the referral. Given the possibility for corruption and the sums of money changing hands throughout the adoption process, I hope this increased time provides CCAA, orphanages, and adoption agencies the opportunity to thoroughly and diligently research paper trails to ensure the children available for adoption are not the victims of a family-destroying theft.

"Adopted in China, Seeking Identity in America" reveals the developing sub-culture that adopted Asian, and particularly Chinese, children are creating. What an interesting, and potentially confusing, period Emily and Sydney will enter as they begin to understand and, we hope, appreciate their Chinese roots. What part of their Chinese culture will they retain as they grow up thoroughly American? And how much of their Chinese heritage should we as parents work to instill and provide as they grow older? I reflect a little painfully about the possible harassment and discrimination they may experience as they grow up Asian in America. The article warns parents to share and face racism in America openly and head-on, and I think that advice is wise.

Road Trip: Spring Break 2006

Part of adopting a child, and I guess part of bringing any child into a family, requires family visits to show off the new baby. A couple of dear friends and family members had not yet seen Emily, so we hatched a wild plan: to visit friends in Jacksonville and family in Georgia. The plan started with an idea Deborah had to use an unused airline ticket for her to take the girls to see our friends in Jacksonville. The original idea was to give Dad a little "alone" time without the girls over a long weekend.

But Dad got just a little jealous about the whole thing, perhaps even a little nervous about letting the girls out of his sight. And, frankly, he simply did not want to miss anything. So I suggested that we all consider going down to Jacksonville for the weekend. Not so fast, however, was the response from our travel agent - the trip would cost little to nothing for Deborah and the girls, but adding my ticket would turn the trip into something a little more expensive than we were prepared to pay.

Not to be deterred, Deborah and I conceived a brilliant plan: over my spring break from the University of Richmond, without classes to encumber my schedule, let's take a road trip to Jacksonville to visit our friends, then to Albany to visit my parents, then to Cedartown to visit my grandparents and uncle, then return home a week later. And all of this with two little girls, one age three and one age 15 months. Brilliant!

And to top it all off, we decided we should start our journey the very same day Deborah returned from hosting my sister and her huband's baby shower in Louisville! So we planned the journey. We consulted our maps, printed directions, even did an online TripTik at AAA.com (pretty cool, really, but turns out the directions were a little outdated). We decided to drive half-way on Sunday, March 5, then arrive in Jacksonville Monday afternoon. We'd then travel to Albany to visit my parents on Wednesday afternoon, stay until Saturday morning, then head to my grandparents' home in Cedartown. We'd then return Sunday; we'd stay somewhere along the way if we needed to, but we'd hope to make it all the way from Cedartown to our home in one day.

So we set off to visit our Jacksonville friends, Jeff, Leslie, and their adopted daughter Isabel. Sydney and Isabel were from the same orphanage in China, so they are great friends and love to spend time together. We left at 3:30 PM on Sunday and arrived in a hotel in Fayetteville, NC, around 10 PM that evening. The night was rough as the girls both fell asleep in the car, then awoke fully to check into the hotel and remained awake until after 1 AM. Monday morning, we set off around 9 AM and arrived in Jacksonville around 4 PM, tired of riding but otherwise pretty happy.

A note about long-distance travel with the girls: turns out videos are good, but movies don't yet work for them. The girls' favorite videos were Baby Shakespeare, Barney, and The Wiggles live concert. We've nearly learned all the words to every Barney song, understood all the silliness of the Wiggles, and we just about understand what these Baby Einstein products are all about. The Baby Shakespeare video, though only 25 minutes, emerged as the favorite of the entire trip, so we heard it over and over and over. After five or six times, it starts to sound really good and soothing!

Our visit in Jacksonville was wonderful. Sydney and Isabel had a wonderful time, while Emily enjoyed the attention Jeff and Leslie showered upon her. Sydney loves to play with other friends, and Isabel really is a wonderful friend for her. We thoroughly enjoyed our brief visit, and we look forward to more opportunities for Syndey and Isabel to get back together.

Wednesday, we traveled to Albany, GA, to visit with my parents. We arrived Wednesday afternoon, so we joined Mom and Dad for Wednesday Family Dinner at their church. This gave my parents a long-awaited opportunity to show off Emily and Sydney to their friends in the church. We enjoyed our traditional Southern fare and the girls thrived and flourished on the attention (and the dessert).

While visiting with Mom and Dad, we enjoyed a pleasant surprise: my Aunt Faye and Uncle Furman (my dad's sister and her husband) stopped through Albany on their way from Birmingham to Tampa. Faye and Furman had just returned from a year and a half of mission service in Hawaii, running a Baptist camp and conference center, so they had not yet visited Emily and had only seen Sydney a couple of times. We were able to enjoy a couple of meals together, and a little shopping, before Faye and Furman continued their journey. Faye and Furman are my godparents and have always offered me my home away from home. They mean a great deal to us, and the girls seemed to really enjoy getting to know their great-aunt and great-uncle a little better.

Saturday morning, we arose early and hit the road for Cedartown, GA, where my mom's parents and her only brother live. Nannie, Papa, and Benny had yet to see Emily, so we wanted to be sure we took advantage of the opportunity to visit with them for a few hours. Cedartown is about 4.5 hours away from Albany, so we only gave ourselves the afternoon to visit. But my grandparents are nearing 90 years of age, so a brief visit that doesn't tax them too much is normally a good idea. Sydney and Emily slowly but surely attached to them and to my uncle; Emily more quickly than Sydney. Importantly, we were able to get good photos of Emily and Sydney with Nanny and Papa. These precious moments needed to be captured for the future, and we are so pleased to have spent the time with them. I think the entire trip would have been worthwhile just to give Nanny and Papa and opportunity to meet Emily and see Sydney again.

Sunday morning, we hit the road to return home. We remained unsure about whether we could make the trip home in one day from Cedartown, but we decided to try it. Turns out the choice was a good one. Although we were certainly tired of riding - especially the girls - and if we heard Baby Shakespeare one more time we might have lost our marbles, we were able to get home at 9:30 that evening, 13 hours and 675 miles after we started out. We all collapsed into bed Sunday night, exhausted but able to sleep in our own beds and awaken in our own homes to re-establish our normal routine.

The journey took us 1,920 miles from Virginia through North and South Carolina and Georgia to Jacksonville; back into Georgia to Albany and Cedartown; then back through Tennessee to our home in Virginia. We saw beautiful country and spent time in the car talking, laughing, singing, and enjoying (most of the time) our own company. We loved seeing our friends and family, and we are very glad we took the trip. We imagine this was the first of many family road trips we will make in the coming years.