Kim's Mom Comes to See the Girlies

Kim's Mom (Mrs. Hoppin, Bud's wife) came to see the girlies shortly after we arrived home. It was fantastic - they loved her and she helped us get into a routine that is still working today. In fact, at this very moment (8:11 PM on a Saturday) they are asleep and will probably sleep until 7:30 AM - they eat when they are supposed to, take a 2-hour nap at 1:00, Kim takes them to the park twice a day, and they are for the most part quite happy. The best thing ever was getting them into a routine, and Kim's Mom helped get that routine going.

I don't really have anything funny to write, but below are some photographs that you can enjoy if you want to. Also, Kim's Mom has some really good photos from the trip, so we can send you the link to www.ofoto.com if you want us to.

Kim's Mom with the girlies in Central Park

Kim's Mom with both girlies

Sally on the blanket in the park laughing goofily

Kim with Amelia, who is very happy about something (I think she just deposited something in her drawers)

Jenny Leaves (And We Are In Deep Doo-Doo!)

So Jenny decided to leave, which she thought was the right thing to do but I was not so convinced. Sure, she spent 3 1/2 weeks making our bottles, carrying our crap around China, telling us what to do, and talking us down from the ledge about 21 times, but I thought she should spend a little more time here until we either figured out what to do in every situation, or until they graduated high school. Either way.

But she left and so Kim and I had to figure out how to do all this by ourselves. Actually, that's not exactly how it went down, as the skateboard punks would say. I actually had to go to Canadia (motto: Our Bacon is Weird) for a 'business meeting' - basically going up to a bank in Toronto and pleading with them to buy my software so that I can afford to pay for college and diapers and kid's music to go onto our iPod (my expenditures in this area are much larger than Kim would like).

So I had to go to Canadia on Friday the 6th, and Jenny was planning to leave on the 5th. This would mean that Kim would have had to put the kids to bed, wake them up the next morning, change their diapers, feed them, bathe them, put on new diapers, get them to the park, get them home from the park, feed them again, change their diapers, get them to take a nap, get them up from the nap, change their diapers, play with them, take them for a walk around the neighborhood, change their diapers again, get them back home, feed them dinner, play with them some more, change their diapers, make them a bottle, and get them both to bed. All by herself.

So clearly this was less than optimal, and so I convinced (begged) Jenny to stay until Friday so that my lovely and talented wife Kim would not have to do all this herself. Not that she is not capable of doing all of this by herself if I am out of town, but she wasn't quite ready. So Jenny stayed an extra day and saved our buttocks one more time.

By the way, this is really boring. Sorry.

Below are photos from Jenny's final week with us in NY - at the risk of sounding like a Hodges sister, I am so thrilled that she came to China with us, so appreciative of everything she did, and was so pleased that she got to be with us as we became a family. She was absolutely just perfect - never frazzled, always calm when we needed it, took care of things that we didn't even know about, and completely involved in helping us bond with our girlies. I was even moved to hug her a few times, although in my defense I was suffering from a ridiculous lack of sleep.

On to the photos:

Photo of Sally lying on the floor

Jenny trying to give Amelia a smooch

Jenny and Amelia in the park

Amelia looking not so happy

Jenny and Amelia in the park

Jenny and Mike passed out from being ridiculously tired.

There is a story about the photo above, so if you will permit me I will tell it. If you know Kim, then you know that she has these theories. These are things that she has decided are true and no amount of fact or logic will convince her otherwise. She has theories about the effectiveness of deodorant, ways to improve the quality of breezes, how to place dishes in the dishwasher (this one is shockingly incorrect), and many others. The point is that once she decides something, there is nothing that will change her absolute belief in the truth of her theory.

The reason I am telling you this is that for the first few nights we were back, the girls would simply not go to sleep. We figured out later that they are doing this thing called 'teething', which means that teeth are spontaneously popping up into their little heads, which hurts really bad.

Who knew about this? My sister D;lozasjdf, who has a ton of kids? My mother, who had a bunch of kids back when they didn't have medicines, so she used to give us spoons full of castor oil whenever we cried, so of course we never cried (especially me - I was a little angel).

What, you couldn't maybe mention something about the teeth deal? Come on - a little help please. Crikey!

Anyway, people knew aboot this but no one bothered to tell us. Even Jenny didn't know (?), but I guess Jake and Elijah were born with all their teeth already so she didn't have to deal with it. So what we didn't know was that our delightful girlies were having spontaneous teeth eruptions and were in miserable pain, so of course they wouldn't go to sleep.

Now back to the theories - since we didn't know about our girls suffering from unwanted teeth violently and suddenly slicing their way through their precious little delicate bleeding gums, we could not figure out how to get them to go to sleep. We tried many approaches, like going in the room and saying "Please go to sleep" and other similarly creative ideas, but nothing worked. Kim decided early on one evening that the way to get them to sleep was to pick them up and bounce up and down until they fell asleep. That worked once, so it seemed like a good approach to me.

Then, however, over dinner she spent between three and four minutes reading a report by a baby sleep therapist (seriously, we have friends who found someone whose job is 'baby sleep therapist' and probably paid thousands of dollars to help them get their baby to sleep, but I won't tell you their names because I don't want to embarrass them) (OK, it was Gene and Stacie) (I didn't meet the 'baby sleep therapist' but I am pretty sure she is a big hippy. Who has a job called 'baby sleep therapist'? I am going to go out on a limb and say that you probably have to be a bit left of center politically to pursue a job in the baby sleep therapy industry. Not too many former Marine fighter pilots or John Wayne fans taking 'baby sleep therapy' courses in college).

So Kim briefly read this report about how to get kids to sleep, and she decided unilaterally and suddenly that our new approach was to let the girlies figure out their own way to fall back to sleep. In other words, let them keep crying. And crying. And crying.

This was on a weeknight and I had a bunch of exciting banking software sales-related conference calling (AWESOME!) to do the next morning, and since Kim forgot to mention her new philosophy to me, I thought we were going to do what we had done before - go in, hug them, sing them a Carpenter's song (I blame Jenny), and do whatever it took to ensure they did NOT cry for 8 hours straight.

But Kim had a new theory and so our lives were about to change for the worse. Kim's theory required us to let them cry forever, and since we have two of these goofy baby monitors, we got to hear them screaming in stereo. I was amazingly tired and since Kim was not accepting suggestions, I figured I would take a quick snooze on our orange chair. Jenny had a choice between staying up, listen to screaming babies, and trying to figure out what Kim was doing, or also taking a snooze. She chose the snooze.

So Kim took a photo of us both passed out from exhaustion. This photo (I forgot that I was even talking about a photo) was taken about 3 AM. We were up about an hour later dealing with screaming babies once again.

In Kim's defense, even though she made this decision based on a quick read of a report by a hippy baby sleep specialist and didn't exactly ask my thoughts on the matter, the girlies have now learned to fall back to sleep on their own without hugging or bouncing or another rendition of 'Please Mr. Postman' (what have I become?). When they do wake up and have a bit of a cry, they go right back to sleep, and they currently sleep about 11 hours a night.

So Kim's theory ultimately proved to be valid, but not without much pain and misery on my part. That was a very long explanation - I apologize.

Sally and Amelia in the greatest inventions ever (better than Penicillin and lightbulbs and the assembly line and Hostess Ding Dongs)



Jenny doing baby push-ups with Amelia in Central Park

Our Friend Maria, the Italian Baby-Food Chef

Our friend Maria, who lives downstairs, decided that she was going to be our girlie's official baby-food chef. She has been cooking them fresh vegetables, soups, homemade applesauce, and various other foods that our girls love.

Lucky for the girls they have not been relying on us to cook for them, or else they would be eating tacos and drinking margaritas every night.

The photo below is our good friend Maria in the park with Sally. (By the way, Maria is from Italy, and the day this photo was taken there was a family from Italy sitting right next to us. Maria didn't know them, which I thought was weird. They were speaking Italian and everything).

July 4th with our New U.S. Citizens!!

My Great-Aunt Arlene (and my daughter's Great-Great Aunt!) bought our girlies these patriotic Red-White-and-Blue outfits that were perfect for July 4th. Of course, for whatever reason, it didn't occur to us to take too many pictures that day, so this is the only one we have. But they looked very cute and we spent much of the day in the park.

The picture below is us in front of our building.

Finally in New York with Our Girlies!!!

We got back to New York on Wednesday night and are exhausted. I already put some of this in an email but will repeat it just because I am too lazy to write anything new or clever.

We left our hotel in Guangzhou on Wednesday at 6 AM, which is 6 PM Tuesday night NY time, and we got home at 9 PM Wednesday night. 27 hours of travel with kids, but it wasn't so bad - we upgraded so we had big business class seats, and Amelia slept almost the entire time. We were going to get a picture of Jenny holding the babies and the diaper bag while sitting in a middle seat in Row 48 next to two big fat dudes, while Kim and I sat in Business Class drinking champagne and enjoying our complimentary hot towels and foot massages, but we never got around to it. In case you were wondering, we all sat together - no middle seat for Jenny, although she did get flirted with by a businessman in the aisle seat next to her.

I did not got a picture of it, but for a while Kim and Amelia were sleeping in the same seat, Kim on her side with her arm draped around Amelia's head, and Amelia sprawled out (she's a sprawler) on her back - it was the perfect visual for the end of the trip. We were very nervous about how long it would take for the girlies to bond to us, but at that point on the plane I was certain that they already knew that Kim was their Mommy (Crikey - did I just type that? We are parents!!!!).

Stacie and Gene Corcoran, along with DeYan and Laura, met us at the airport and brought us home. I thought I took some photos of them welcoming the girlies home at the airport, but I only got one - DeYan made a poster for them that says "Welcome Home".

Stacy O'Malley, with her kids and her Mom, surprised Kim at the airport and came to see them the next day. The girls needed a little time to wind down once we got home, but seem to already like our cats and the chandelier in their (formerly our) bedroom.

DeYan was very helpful once we got to our apartment, as it was quite frantic when we walked in - she is going to be such a good friend/big sister to our girls and she was so excited to meet them. I am sure they were excited to meet her too.

We are trying to adjust to the 12-hour time difference (the girls were up until 7 AM on Thursday morning and Sally slept no more than an hour in a row until aboot 2 AM - why didn't anyone warn me that this parenting thing would have an impact on my twelve hours of sleep per night?).

Stacy O'Malley, her mother, and her two kids (Austin and Taylor) came over, and we all went to Central Park for the first time ever with the girls.

Stacy O'Malley and her Mom with the girlies

Taylor and Austin with us in front of Belvedere Fountain in Central Park

Today (Saturday) our friends Howard and Nancy Moseson came in from far-off suburban New Jersey. Their brought their adorable kids, Sarah and Sean, and again we took the girls to Central Park - we are trying to get them into a routine, but so far our only routine seems to be allowing us no more than 20 minutes of sleep in a row (but they are very cute and happy, so we are OK with it) (Sort of).

The Moseson Family

The Mosesons were also kind enough to let us borrow their crib (Howard also put it together, which was quite nice of him) - we had hoped that Sally and Amelia would sleep in the same one but all they did was kick each other in the head, sort of like Ron (my brother, not my Uncle) used to do to me when we were younger (I think I was about 12). So we now have two cribs, two sleeping babies (for the moment, at precisely 7:21 PM on Saturday), and I am now going to have a glass of wine and fall asleep, hoping not to be awakened by crying babies.

By the way, we have these remote deals so that we can hear them crying or coughing if we are in the other room, but now I can't be certain if what I hear is actual crying babies or I am hearing phantom crying babies that aren't really crying. That's a ripoff because if I wake up and they are crying, then I have to wake up and deal with a screaming baby.

If they aren't crying, then I go right back to sleep until about 7 minutes later, when I wake up again wondering if I am hearing real cries or imagined ones. I find this to be completely unacceptable and I wish someone who has a ton of kids, like my sister D;lasdfkj, would have warned me aboot this. But no - she was too busy throwing cotillions for Natalie's graduation and causing her husband Joe to be beleaguered. But I am sure I will get used to the phantom crying, just like I have gotten used to snot and boogers and drool and fart sounds (I am kidding - I liked that even before I had kids).

I am now going to relax and pray to Jesus and anyone else that will listen that the girls sleep until morning. Below are some other photos (and a few videos) from our last day in China, our trip home, and our first few days in New York with the beautiful girlies.

Thank you and junk for reading all of this self-absorbed piffle and for all of your emails and messages. I hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure and our wonderful new family and stuff.

More Photos

Photos on the Famous Red Couch at the White Swan Hotel


Amelia is So Cute it Warms My Heart


So is Sally


At Belvedere Fountain in Central Park


Kim Feeding Sally in our Cool New High Chairs


A Couple of City Kids


Amelia and Horse

Kim with Sally in the Hippie Sling Gizmo Walking Home from Central Park

Videos

Mike with the Girlies

Video of Amelia in Central Park with the Hula Hoop Dude



Another Video of Amelia in the Park

And now, please enjoy this video of my new favorite song:

Home on Wednesday

We are leaving Guangzhou tomorrow morning (Wednesday) morning for a three-hour flight to Beijing, a 3 hour layover, and then a 14 hour flight to Newark. Kim has been packing for a while and I just bought two cool pieces of Chinese furniture - a carved wood trunk and a terrific shelf unit. I am bushed and we are heading to bed, so I don't have time to write much tonight.

Today was cool - we did pictures on the famous red couch at the White Swan (the kids were in their traditional Chinese clothes we had made), and then went to the US Consulate to take our oath that our kids will be good Americans and eat three meals a day and pay their taxes and stuff. It was very cool - our kids are U.S. Citizens the minute that we go through immigration in Newark. There is literally a line you cross once the immigration dude says you are OK, and at that moment, they are citizens. Very cool.

I must now go to bed, so here are four photos of the beautiful angels in their Chinese clothes (we were going to take one final Pink Baby/Plaid Baby photo right before our trip to the U.S. Consulate, but Sally decided to take a giant whiz on my shirt, so her pink pants weren't quite right for the photo - sorry):

The Girlies in their Chinese Clothes

In Front of the Waterfall

Amelia Relaxing

Sally on the Red Couch

And now, please enjoy the only existing photograph of Jenny with the girlies!!!

First Day Ever in the Pool

Today was sort of a waiting day with nothing official, which is good because it meant that we got to wander about on our own schedules. We went to Starbucks (YUCK), walked down a few side streets, did a little shopping (the food in Jiangxi is quite spicy, so whenever a Chinese person finds out the girls are from that province, they say "Ah, spicy girl" - it's quite funny), and best of all, went swimming with the girls.

I know that I will probably have many times with these girls where I say "This is my happiest moment ever", but taking Amelia and Sally swimming for their first time ever is, at least for right now, at the top of the list.

Amelia has not been particularly thrilled with the bath situation, which of course makes me think she might be part French (rim shot). But hilarity aside, she just hates getting in the bathtub, so we weren't optimistic aboot (as the Canadians say) her enjoying the pool.

It turns out that we were wrong - she loooooved it (should that be spelled 'loooooved', or 'lovvvvvved', or 'loooovvved'? I just don't know). She went right in with me and was as happy as ever. She even made motorboat sounds in the water (with her mouth, thankfully). I swam with Amelia, and then with Sally, and then with both. Sally put her face right in the water and blew out her nose (she's a natural!).

Swimming with the girlies was just terrific and while in the pool I says to myself, "Self," I says, "You may live another 100 years but you will probably never be able to do anything better than what you are doing right this second." So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

Here are a few more photos and videos from today:

The Only Toys They Will Play With - A Water Bottle and A Packet of Huggies

Amelia FINALLY went to sleep, so Kim decided it was the perfect time to
engage in some flash photography (Isn't she cute??)


Me with Both Beautiful Girlies (and a big goofy grin and about six chins)


The Happy Family in the Pool


Sally and Amelia Having the Best Time Ever!!

Me and Amelia in the Pool



Kim and Sally in the Pool

Buddhist Temple

Today (I think it's Sunday but who knows?) we went to a Buddhist temple, which was fascinating. The main area had three giant gold Buddhas and there was a Buddhist monk doing a ceremony there. After he finished he did a traditional Buddhist blessing for the kids - it was very cool and the monk arranged with the Buddha to ensure that our kids are happy and funny and good at some sport that will make them millionaires many times over.

Below are some pictures of us at the Buddha temple:

Big Buddhas

Our Adorable Twins Getting Buddha Blessings (with the rest of our group)

Monk on a Cell Phone

Warm Notice

We Finally Let Jenny Hold One of the Kids (I had to take a wiz)

More Photos from Today (Sorry No Video - The YouTube Takes Forever!)

A Turnip Truck (Well, Not Really a Truck)

Amelia With a Smile (and a Lot of Snot)

The Twins on a Chair (Sally is So Happy!!)

Two of My Three Favorite Girls in the World

Aren't They Both So Stylish?!?

Laundry

Don't tough Please

Mike, Jenny, Amelia, and Wendy (Our Very Excellent Guide!!)

Amelia Thinks I am Very Funny (I think I am balding and have a goofy chin)

Me Feeding Amelia

And finally, please enjoy this photo of chicken feet: