Saturday…starting at 12:30 AM

I was finishing up a blog update when the hotel room phone rang. It was one of the case workers at the adoption agency. She wanted to check on Zoe…at midnight…so I’m very glad I was still up…and the rest of the family didn’t have to join in on the conversation.  I explained everything I’ve updated you all on in the blog, including the differing opinions on diagnosis…said she was considerably better than the first day we got her…and listened to her concerns.  Again, had to do some more convincing that it was not better for her to “get better” before traveling…there is no getting better here. I also explained that another doctor friend at home thought it 99% unlikely that she’d had a heart attack based on the fact that she was out of the hospital in 3 days…a physically impossible thing for a healthy child, let alone Zoe…but she talked at length about blood clots and such…which our friend said is also extremely unlikely.  She wanted to know the emergency plan for on the plane should anything go wrong. This was the first practical idea during this whole process, but I refused to leave that up to the doctors we’ve seen over here. I’ll be contacting her doctor at home to figure out that plan. The most beneficial part of the late-night interview was the warning to check that we had enough meds to get us home. Crud. No dice. So…guess what…they’re getting their wish…we will have to see a doctor tomorrow in order to get her prescription because they don’t do refills. Again…awesome.

Not to be deterred, we set off bright and early…in Eva-land…9:00 am…gasp…for the kids’ first trip to the zoo. Our guide asked them about it…Zane said he’d never been but that his favorite animal was the elephant. Duh…lame. That’s like answering, “J*sus!” in SS class.  Anyway, we knew when he was coming unglued seeing an animal statue, this was going to be a hit. And let’s face it…we needed a hit about now.  They both seemed to really enjoy it…we enjoyed watching them…our guide laughed at all of us the whole time.  Zane cared as much about his freedom when let out of the stroller than he did the animals. Zoe didn’t want any part of being close to any animal. We did pay to hand feed the giraffes…which they each did…once. Then they just pushed Chris close enough to feed them while they watched.  It was pretty hilarious…that…and the fact that the pr*acher’s kid is a clepto…kept swiping everybody’s else’s leaves to feed them…or just blatantly stealing them from the worker. Would be so sad if it wasn’t so impressive that we’re the only ones that even noticed! He’s got mad skills.

Of course, what’s any trip to the zoo without ice cream and balloons? So we headed over to the food to grab them a treat, but Daddy pulls up short when he sees the 400 on the sign. Umm…no….not gonna do it. Now it’s Chinese money, but that still amounts to around $8 for this frozen snack…that they’ll take one lick of and likely dump down their shirt. He just keeps saying, “400?!? I can’t believe it’s 400!” He can’t bring himself to do it. At one point, he starts pacing. No joke. You can be sure the whole time, Zane is yelling the same thing over and over again, “I WANT IT!!!!!” No doubt, kid, but your dad’s in a moral dilemma here. Pipe down. My input…”well you’ve got to get something…we’re over here now!” I’m sure that was just what he wanted to hear. The word you’re looking for is “helpmate.”  Finally he uses his skill in finger numbers with the clerk to ask again…yea…that would be 4-even. Crisis averted. Zoe still only took one bite…Zane did indeed dump it all over himself…but it was cheap…so we’re good. We also got them each a balloon sword…they didn’t care…don’t judge…again, cheap.

Funniest part of our trip: before we left I popped them out of the strollers for a quick photo opp in front of some pretty flowers.  They were both wearing the shirts they got from the orphan’s home they were leaving…so cute. These two will NOT actually look at the camera if they know you want them to…you really have to fake them out. We get one just standing there, and then get Zane to put his arm around Zoe…so sweet. So I thought it would be cute to get him to give her a little kiss on the cheek. Scrapbook moment, I tell you. So we tell him to give her a kiss.  Yea…should’ve specified…because next thing we know, he’s gone in for full frontal lip-lock!!! We were seriously laughing so hard…he’s like…”what?!? I did what you said!” Incidentally I was prepared for the peck pic…as it was, I got the back of his head as he just about sucked her face off. Still will be an awesome blackmail shot…J Daddy said, “She ain’t your girlfriend anymore, dude…she’s your sister!” Big adult chuckle. Then he adds, “…we ain’t from the SOUTH!” Perfect. Way to ruin a perfectly sweet moment.

During naptime, Momma got to walk out of the room and find an authentic Chinese nail salon.  They still talked about me, I’m sure…they just were more discreet.  Side note to anyone who’s ever gotten a pedicure with me: ya know how I tend to hem-haw around about what color, what design, what whatever? Well, I now have a whole new respect for any foreign nail tech who’s ever had the trauma of Eva…because all my “what do YOU think?” and “I have this idea in my head” comments all came back to bite me.  I said the first thing, and she responded, “I show you nail book!” Oh my ever-livin’ word. It was like the JC Penney’s catalogue of nail designs…and she gave me two. Never again. On my big toe’s honor…I will just paint them black from now on…although there were some really cute designs on the 6 pages of black polish designs….

Afterward, we set out to try and find the kiddos some clothes that wouldn’t fall off of them…seriously…even Mr. Mouth is a shrimp…and Zoe could wear American Girl clothes…heyyyy now…anyway, he’s 3 ½…she’s almost 3. We bought 2T and have had to roll the pants and sleeves 3 times…and the pants still fall down. Anyway, we walked over to the shopping place our guide told us about…closed. UGH.

K…we’ll try the restaurant she recommended…so we walk the 4-5 blocks, whistling as we walk…HAHA….2^nd floor…no elevator…familiar theme over here…apparently most kids use their legs here…lazy Americans. SO…we hike up the strollers like we’ve grown accustomed to doing and find our way to the top. Our plan was to do the point and grunt method of communicating that we’ve been using thus far…has served us well in our 17 years of marriage too. But the waiter wanted to argue…we’d point…he’d shake his head.  Now you’d assume that meant they didn’t have what we wanted…noodles…in a Chinese restaurant…but after a good while, the noodles did, in fact, appear…as did the dumplings. Not so much with the fried rice…maybe that’s a no-no…noodles AND fried rice…idiots. SO he did what he thought best for China. We never did get some bottled water. That was not to be. Gotta admit, if one more person said, “Tea?”, somebody was gonna get hurt. It was only the power of the pedicure that kept me down. I mean…come stinkin’ on…”bottled water.”…”tea?” That’s just about as bad…though not quite…as me asking if they have Dr. Pepper, and some moron with no taste buds replies, “Yes…Mr. Pibb!” Uh…no…thanks for playing. Speaking of insanity…which I was, in case you missed it…how have the chopsticks kept a stronghold on this country to date?!? I. don’t. get. It. As I mentioned, we get our bowl of noodles to share and set about to divide it up…which would be great except it’s like ONE CONTINUOUS NOODLE!!! Dude. open the box and throw them in the water…little salt…they don’t grow back together!!! Save yourself the time and headache!!!!! So we have our one noodle and try to cut it with these useless wooden and/or plastic matchsticks!!!  Seriously…you could bungee jump with this magic noodle…no breaking this puppy.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you both of us tried for a good 3 minutes together…to no avail. So…we did what we see everybody else doing…leaned over the big bowl…together…how romantic…and bit it off with our teeth.  I wanted to hurl, but that just wouldn’t do…again…plus, I’m 100% sure they were watching us out of the corner of their eye the whole time…laughing.  After our dumplings were finished, we sat around waiting to pay…no one wanted to return to “that” table…for a while.

We hoofed it back to the hotel but had to make our nightly visit to 7/11 for Pepsi and peanut M&m’s…Daddy added a slushie to the mix…if you ask me, he just wanted to see the kiddos get a brain freeze if we’re basing that on his reaction when they did.

All in all…good times…baby steps forward…just wishing so much that our other kids were here with us. I hate that they’re missing all this get acquainted time…hate that the new kiddos will have to take a while to get used to our “old” kids…new experiences are always better when they’re shared…and I just all-around miss being around them. I’m grateful we’re going home even earlier so we can be a family together again…and I’ll get some reinforcements. J