This is a short video of our visit to the Xi'an Children's Welfare Institute where Shen used to live.

A number of the bloggers I read had reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (complete with spoilers) up within days of it coming out. I bought my copy back on July 21st when it first came out but that was the week before we left for China, so we were more than a bit busy back then and Tina wouldn't let me I couldn't finish it before we left. Once we got back I picked it back up and got to the end. So now for my review:

It was fine.

I don't know if living in China for 2+ weeks and completing an international adoption in the middle of the book kind of lessened it for me, but I just didn't find it all that much when it was over. I'm glad I read it, but I'm still a bit perplexed by all the attention these books have gotten. The Harry Potter books are good, and any writer that can get kids to line up at midnight for a book certainly deserves credit, but there are a lot of really great books out there that don't get any recognition. Still it was fun to be with these characters one last time. I read the first book with our son Cameron when he was 11 - the same age as Harry in the first book - that was way back before there were any movies, or mass-marketing, or even a second book. That's part of my love for the series - having shared it with Cameron over the years. Cam also pointed out to me what is probably the most glaring problem with the last book, that Rowling gets to within 50 pages of the end and suddenly has to stop the action and have one character explain what the entire meaning is behind everything that's gone on for the last 4145 pages of the story. But I did finally finish the book.

Now to tie this into the theme of the blog, here's a picture I took of the first 6 HP books on display in the little department store we shopped at in Xi'an...

*Post China Debriefing Entry #2

When I chose the graphics I used to build the header image for Shen's blog I didn't realize what an important landmark the Bell Tower is in Xi'an. It stands in the center of a larger roundabout that you cross using brightly lit subterranean passageways. You have to pay a fee to enter the Bell Tower, as you do most significant historical landmarks in China. Since we had the boys in strollers we weren't able to explore too much of the building because of all the stairs. But on the evening we chose to visit, we happened up into the tower just in time to take in a bell-ringing performance. The musicians played a number of traditional pieces then ended with "Auld Lang Syne", it was quite surprising to suddenly recognize the melody being played!

This is a video of a dance piece I captured using our new digital camera. There are other clips on YouTube of performances at the Bell Tower, but this one is shot at night, and the room was darkly lit, it made it feel very romantic. Shen and Kai both really enjoyed seeing it, and we felt very lucky to just stumble upon it.

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers.
It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.
Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.
~Maya Angelou

Kai and Shen at work...

This is where keeping multiple blogs presents a problem. I felt it was only fair for Shen to have a unique record of his adoption as Kai did, but now that we're home our experiences aren't truly unique to one boy or the other (or the other or the other). I wanted a Shen's blog to be a gift to him when he is older, and I intend to convert both the boys blogs into books for them, the books will be different from, but based upon the blogs. So now I'm back to writing on "Stinky Mouse". Over the next several weeks I want to focus on two things: the experience of raising two children adopted internationally as toddlers/pre-schoolers, and expanding a bit on our experiences during our trip to adopt Shen. Now that I'm home and have good bandwidth and no "Great FireWall" I intend to post more videos and images from our trip. Though technically these might seem to belong on Shen's blog they are going here on "Stinky Mouse".

I'm a bit bummed about the lack of video we have from this trip. When we adopted Kai, Cameron handled the videography for us, and he was great at it. We have tons of video from that trip. On the plus side, we had a much better camera with us this time, and we got much better photographs of the trip, so I guess it all balances out.

Here's a video clip from the noodle buffet we went to in Xi'an. It was a tourist place, but the noodle chef was fun to watch and the noodles were truly excellent. When he would bang the noodle dough on the table it was so loud Kai would cover his ears...

Well, we missed it actually. Ben turned 17 the on the 2nd to last day we were in China. Fortunately he has a grandmother and aunt who love him and helped him celebrate a bit while we were gone. When we got home we invested in new tires for his car and took him out to dinner at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants. Tina made him wear the sombrero while the waiters sang Happy Birthday to him. He was a very good sport about that as you can see, and both his little brothers tried on the hat too...

Last night was night 3 with the new bed arrangement, and things seem to be working out okay! It's a much better arrangement for reading bedtime stories and singing lullabies, as there's room for me and both boys in the bed at once. We have eliminated naps, as the boys are still sleeping in late. Kai has had some bouts of restlessness early in the night, which is different for him, but it hasn't been extreme. Last night he did come into our bed for a bit, but that has always been the normal pattern for him, and he didn't fuss when I carried him back to his own bed after a half hour or so. Shen sleeps like a rock - straight through the night.

Here's a funny Youtube video you may have seen before, but it certainly does a good job of capturing the battles of bedtime with young children...

Who needs sleep?
(well youre never gonna get it)
Who needs sleep?
(tell me whats that for)
Who needs sleep?
(be happy with what you're getting
Theres a guy whos been awake
Since the second world war)

--Barenaked Ladies

Before we brought Shen home, the plan was that he would sleep with Kai in his room. Well, it would be "their room" now. We felt a little guilty about not having him in with us at first like we did with Kai, but because he's a bit older, would have Kai with him, and we have pretty much got Kai out of our room (at least for most of the night) it seemed the best way to go. So Tina bought a matching toddler bed for him and set it up right next to Kai's. Here's a picture that kind of gives you an idea of the setup...


This was actually pretty great for getting Kai used to the idea of "Little Brother" coming home. Tina put pictures of Shen up over the bed, and it created a concrete space for him in Kai's world. Well we've been home two nights now, and it's not working. Kai has actually had as much trouble sleeping as Shen. The jet-lag is wreaking havoc with their sleep cycles, and when one of them is up they're both up! The arrangement of the two toddler beds prevents us from cuddling them in their own beds, and requires we take them into ours. I don't mind that too much, but our bedroom is only big enough for a queen-sized bed, and there's just not enough room for all four of us to actually sleep in there. So after two rocky nights, we went and bought a new bed. We put the new mattress set in our room, and moved our old bed into the little boys' room - replacing the two toddler beds. This is much better for bedtime as we can lie in bed with them to cuddle for stories and songs, and if we need to, one of us can climb in with them to comfort them without having to cram four bodies into one bed. We'll see how it goes.

Here's a picture of the two boys in their new bed together...

For the last two weeks while we were traveling in China to adopt Shen we've only been updating Shen's Blog. Now that we are home, we are moving the posting activity back here to the Stinky Mouse site!

The 15th was a really long day. We boarded a jet in Guangzhou at 9:00 AM and got off the last plane in Seattle at 5:30 PM that evening: 30 hours later. Our three checked suitcases had gone MIA; last seen at LAX (which remains my least favorite airport on the planet) when we cleared them through customs and put them on "the transfer belt". All three airports we used in China had our bags waiting on the carousel by the time we got there. At SeaTac on the way home we dawdled on the plane and took our time getting to the baggage claim area. When we got there the attendant at the desk said it would be another half hour or so before the bags would appear. So we went to see if we could get something to eat. All the restaurants at SeaTac are behind the security checkpoints. There was a Starbucks and a wine bar that had some upscale snacks. By the time we got a table in the wine bar place we had less than half an hour before our shuttle bus to Marysville left so we bailed and headed back to the baggage claim area. No bags. I double-checked with the attendant again and she told me all the bags were off. So I had them file a claim. They needed a description of the bags, and asked if I could identify an item in each one: Let's see, they're full of clothes and junk from China. I put yellow duck tape on them, but wouldn't you think that big white label they tape to the handle with my name and a barcode number would be enough of an identifying mark? I know this guy behind the counter didn't lose my bags, but 30 hours of air travel and airports makes it very hard for me to be civil with the lost luggage people. I am so glad I don't have his job, as he had a line of people who all looked as happy as me.

So we abandoned the bags and ran to catch the bus, thankfully it was running late or we would have missed it. An hour later we met my mother, sister and nephews in Marysville with our van. We were starving at this point so we went to my mom's to grab a bite before making the last hour drive home. My mom and sister both got a kick out of meeting Shen. He made himself right at home - ate watermelon and played with toys - flashed his naughty grin and charmed them thoroughly. We then loaded the boys up one last time and headed home. Ben and Cam and Brittni all met us at the house. Shen was more than happy to meet his two older brothers, he gave hugs all around and even roughhoused with them a bit. We finally got the little boys in bed around midnight and followed them directly. I cannot tell you how good it felt to be back in our own bed. Really, it was so, so good! I never slept in China the way I have slept the last two nights - it's like the sleep of the dead. And then impossible to get up in the morning.

We did have to get up though as we needed to collect the luggage from the local airport (turns out it wasn't lost, they just couldn't unload the plane in under 2 hours). And we had a doctor's appointment for Kai. He had broken out with a strange rash on his hands and feet. Turns out he picked up "Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease". Considering how he touched pretty much everything in China, we took him to visit two orphanages, let him play in the Swan Room and he's a devout thumb-sucker, we feel lucky he got off so easy. This also explains the fever he had the last couple days in Guangzhou.

The second night home we put the boys down in their room at 8:00 PM. They went to sleep easily, but were up at midnight as if they had had a good nap. We struggled to get them back down, but ended up with them in our bed for a couple hours before we could slip them back into their own beds asleep. They were down again at 8:00 PM tonight and we're hoping we'll get a full night out of them. Shen is a good sleeper so we're confident this is only a temporary setback as we recover from jet-lag.

Shen is settling down a bit as he gets his bearing here at home. His eating has slowed down and he has less out-of-control moments. Transition times are hard on him, but we aren't able to give him fair-warnings in Chinese. As he learns the rhythms and gets better English skills we're sure this area will improve as well. He and Kai get along as well as any pair of 3 and 4 year old kids I've ever met. They require a lot of supervision, but they are really enjoying one another. I think Kai is truly as happy having a little brother as he thought (and we hoped) he would be.

Here are a few last pictures from our trip home...

Kai and Shen killing time in the airport watching The Monkey King on the DVD player. This was one of my best finds in China, Kai loves Monkey King and doesn't mind it's only in Chinese with no subtitles...


Eating noodles at the Hong Kong airport - check out the chopstick action...


Kai before take-off in Guangzhou. I love this photo as we didn't pose it, he asked for the safety guide and started looking through it.


Here's a photo from his first flight with us two years ago...


Shen meeting Cam and Brittni...


Kai and Shen playing in the backyard sandbox...