A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Yes, I know I haven't blogged this month. It's been busy. :) But a picture is worth a thousand words...

The weather at the beginning of September was beautiful - perfect for going to the park. We've discovered lots of parks and playgrounds near our house, including two great parks in Fairfax City. Hannah loves climbing on the playground and watching the other kids. It is also, apparently, essential to collect your acorns.

Hannah celebrated her first High Holidays this month. She did a great job at services for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She was in awe of the shofar and sat through all of the Yom Kippur service to see the Torahs and hear the shofar blown again. And, of course, she loved our annual break fast at Auntie Shana & Uncle Stephen's house - so much that she got to stay up WAY past her bedtime!

Even though it was in the low 90s, we made our first trip to Cox Farms. They have a HUGE fall festival - so huge that we only got to see a small fraction of it. Hannah had to wave hello to all of the cows and she insisted on going down the huge slides over and over and over...


The end of September brought back the summer heat - lots of 90 degree days and more time to spend inside. Even though we missed going to the playground, we still had fun inside (especially when our diapers arrived last week in a huge box!)

It was so hot last week that Hannah got a few more chances to go for a swim - both in her pool in our backyard and in her pool at Bubbe & Zaide's house. She also discovered how much fun it is to play with the hose!

Over the weekend Hannah went to her first concert ever. She had lots of fun dancing with Emily as we rocked out to Rick Recht at temple.

September also means the return of music class! And yesterday we went to a music program at the library in Vienna - Hannah loved when the teacher played the ukulele and passed out ribbons to shake!

Goodbye Summer...

Five Months

It is hard to believe that five months ago today Hannah was placed in our arms. It seems like she has always been with us - I can't even remember what life was like without her. And it's amazing how far she has come. Five months ago she was a scared little bundle of tears, wrapped up in four layers (including a sweater and a fleece jacket, even though it was in the 70s).And today she is full of energy - always on the move, growing like a weed, and making our lives just wonderful. :)(Yes, she is sporting a new haircut. And her squeeky shoes from China. Nothing makes practicing walking better than the ability to be noisy while doing it.)

Bracha Chanah

You know how there are days you dream about? Saturday was one of those. I've been dreaming about Hannah's baby naming since we sent our paperwork to China four years ago. On Saturday, we celebrated Hannah's baby naming. Our amazing rabbis gave our family the gift of a beautiful service as they gave her the Hebrew name Bracha Chanah and officially welcomed her to Judaism. She shares her Hebrew name with Mara's grandmothers - Bracha was my grandma's Hebrew name and Chanah was my Nana's Hebrew name (which is why she is Hannah in English). I only cried a little (which is a pretty big feat) and we were lucky enough to celebrate surrounded by family and close friends. Hannah did a great job with the ceremony and discovered that she loves Bubbe's kugel (made with Grandma's recipe) just as much as her mommy does. :)
We only got a couple of pictures of the day, but we were lucky enough to have our first set of family portraits taken a few days before. The photographer is a college friend and sorority sister of Mara's, and she did a fantastic job of capturing Hannah's personality. She has a few pictures featured on her blog here. Enjoy the adorableness!

It's Hard Out Here for a Penguin

One of Hannah's favorite toys is Penguin Bowling. It was a birthday gift, and it's adorable - 6 plush penguins (wearing bowling shirts, of course) and a ball to knock them over with. That is, of course, unless you are Hannah. She loves it when I set the penguins up for her, but when I show her how to roll the ball towards the penguins, she always gives me the same look. "Silly Mommy, I can knock them over way faster myself." She then giggles and takes off towards the penguins. Whap. Whap. Whap. Penguins everywhere. She also likes to throw them. Or some good penguin on penguin violence (when she knocks the penguins down using another penguin). We are constantly finding penguins strewn about the house.

She also uses the penguins to help her walk. With a penguin in each hand, she can take three or four steps on her own. It's pretty incredible to watch her, especially since just a few months ago she couldn't even sit up on her own.

Do We Really Miss the Snow?

The Washington DC area averages 37 90+ degree days a year. It's July 22 and we have had 39. And it's supposed to hit triple digits again this weekend. With the daily heat advisories we have been spending most of our days inside. So what have we been doing?

We usually start the day by taking out every toy we own....
We have been to the play area at the mall...

We play inside with Bubbe & Zaide...

But the most fun has been our music class each week!(trying to figure out the bells...this was Hannah's second choice for her musical instrument this week. Her first choice? ONE cymbal.)

(singing along)

(her favorite part of each class - the parachute!)

4th of July

We had a wonderful time celebrating Hannah's first 4th of July. We started the weekend with Hannah's first trip to the "big" pool (you know, the pool that has more than 4 inches of water in it). She LOVED it. Watch out Northern Virginia - Hannah will be beating your swim team in a few years (and your head lifeguard in 2028!). Of course, playing in the wading pool in our backyard is no longer as impressive, but that's ok. As soon as the heat breaks (got to love reading the weather forecast for the week in today's paper...100...100...100...100...going to be a week with lots of time inside!) we'll be back for more fun!

For the actual holiday we went to Mara's parents' house for their annual court picnic. We've been having picnics in the court since we moved to Virginia, and it was a lot of fun to celebrate with the next generation of court kids. Hannah loved playing with Nathaniel and Dylan (hard to believe that Mara babysat for Dylan's dad and aunts when they were little!)...so much so that she had to get back in the pool with them after she ate her dinner! She stayed up way past her bedtime, but not quite late enough to see fireworks - she fell asleep on the way home and slept through all of the fireworks that went off in our neighborhood last night. It's ok - we watched the Boston Pops celebration on the DVR this afternoon.

They Say It's Your Birthday...

What a week it has been! Hannah turned one on Wednesday and we have been celebrating all week. Mara even made a Sesame Street cake (hard to believe that it's been 4 years since Bridget and I took the cake decorating class so we could make birthday cakes for our girls!!). We had all four grandparents in town to celebrate, along with a few friends. It was total munchkin mayhem and totally wonderful. She got lots of cool new toys (and had plenty of friends to help her open them) - we are having so much fun playing with them this week.Hannah liked her first taste of cake, but she really liked playing with the icing. :)

In true party girl fashion, Hannah kept the party going with an "after-party" - Henry and Emily stayed to go for a swim in the pool. Even with the 100 degree temps, it was blissful to sit outside and watch the kids play.We've had a busy week as well. Monday we went to a retirement luncheon for Bubbe, and on Tuesday, Hannah and Emily had their first music class. Hannah wasn't really sure what to make of the class, but she really like clapping along with the songs and checking out all of the other kids. Grandmother & Grandfather Surridge came over to play on Wednesday (and Hannah got to have another piece of birthday cake since it was her actual birthday!). And we had dinner with both sets of grandparents on Thursday! No wonder Hannah hasn't slept through the night all week - way too much excitement!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! We had a great weekend and celebrated Chris's first Father's Day with two pool parties. One at Bubbe & Zaide's on Saturday and one in our backyard on Sunday. Hannah loves the pool - splashing is so much fun - and since it's in the 90s here in Virginia, we all had fun splashing along with her. In addition to celebrating Father's Day with the best Daddy & Zaide, Hannah also discovered the joy that is Bubbe's pancakes - she ate three pancakes for lunch!

these are a few of my favorite things...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens have nothing on Hannah's favorite things...

• Standing at the back door and saying hello to the backyard every morning after breakfast.
• Singing and dancing along with the songs on Sesame Street (current favorite is this version of 1 2 3 4 by Feist...the chickens make her laugh every time. :))
• Elmo
• The book Fifteen Animals, also known in our house as "the Bob book." It's a book about a boy who has 15 animals, each with a special name...14 of them are named Bob. We read it over and over and over again. If you start to read a different book while the Bob book is nearby, she will crawl out of your lap to retrieve the correct book. Hannah loves to help turn the pages and say "Bob" along with us.
  
• Food that she can eat on her own, especially peas, black beans, and melon. Grapes, pasta, and blueberries are yummy too. It's hard to believe as I watch her stuff food in her mouth that two months ago she couldn't feed herself at all.
• Standing up. Especially while holding onto the coffee table, her lights and sounds table (thanks Schreibmans for the best hand-me-down toys ever!), and Mommy & Daddy's knees.
• Playing in her "boat" (aka a large cardboard box). Today she was reading a book to her giraffe, Reginald, in there. Can't get much better than that.
• Playing with Bubbe & Zaide
  
• Getting into everything that she is not supposed to be in. And she is FAST. This morning, she was happily on one side of the living room, playing with her blocks, so I walked the six steps into the kitchen to turn on the radio. Quickly. By the time I walked the six steps back, she had crawled across the living room, pulled herself up on the coffee table, and had her hand on my coffee mug. 12 steps. So fast.
• Flirting with everyone. It takes us forever to grocery shop because everyone at Wegmans wants to talk to her.
• Splashing in her pool
• Shopping with Auntie Shana & Emily. The girls babbled at each other all the way through Fair Oaks Mall last week. Loudly. They apparently had a lot to discuss...politics, sports, the oil spill, Elmo...couldn't have been more adorable.
• Singing along with her CDs in the car. Our current rotation includes children's CDs by the Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants, along with a Sesame Street greatest hits CD. She claps and sings along whenever the music is on (and Mommy now knows all the words to some very silly songs).
• Making Mommy & Daddy laugh. :)
  

Happy Memorial Day!

Frying Pan Park

We had a beautiful weekend here in Northern Virginia, so Saturday we all went to Frying Pan Park. Frying Pan is a demonstration farm, and Hannah loved the opportunity to say hello to all of the new baby animals. Her favorites were the baby cows and the baby chicks! Well, that and the other kids - she REALLY loved looking at the other kids, especially the ones who were feeding the baby cows out of their hands! She also got to go to her first playground. She wasn't too sure about the slide, but she would giggle each time she got to the bottom!

Monday we had lunch with our new friend Clara. Clara was adopted from China a week after Hannah. Mara has become close with Clara's mother (along with a couple of other girls) over the course of the wait, and it was wonderful to go out with our girls in tow (and we just need the last of the April referrals to arrive so that ALL of our April friends will have their munchkins the next time we play!). The girls were so cute together - they liked talking and holding hands as we ate.

Hannah has also become much more mobile in the past few days. She is doing a modified crawl where she pulls herself with one elbow and propels herself with one foot (sort of like a modified military crawl). It's pretty impressive how fast she can move across a room, especially if she spots a cord to pull or a tiny bit of paper (or, a tiny bit of anything for that matter) to put in her mouth. (amazingly small, actually...getting her eyes tested is on our to-do list, but it hardly seems necessary...) Just how fast is she? She's crawled across the room (and been put back amongst her toys) four times since I started typing this paragraph. :)

Happy Mother's Day

We hope that you had as wonderful a Mother's Day as we did. I joked with Chris the week before that I have waited so long to be a mom that my first Mother's Day should be celebrated with a parade. No parade, but even more wonderful. Chris brought Hannah to temple for the Mother's Day service and to meet my Sunday School class, and we had a nice lunch with Mara's parents. And, after a much needed nap for all of us (since what Hannah thought I needed for Mother's Day was 4 am playtime) Hannah came with us to her first softball game (yes, we're still playing this season, but alternating weeks we play so that someone can stay with her). Best. Mother's Day. Ever. :)

Hannah is continuing to amaze us. She started clapping on her own today, and is working on both crawling and pulling herself up. She loves to pull herself up by holding our hands and bracing her feet on ours. And today we had a playdate with Henry - Hannah's orphanage-mate in China. It's amazing to see how much the kids have grown in the past month. They had so much fun playing together, and they are both far too active to get a picture of them both looking at us AND smiling. But you can see just how much they are both thriving in their new homes! (check them out a month ago in China here)

What a difference a month makes

It's hard to believe that one month ago we were in China, just having met Hannah. It's still sort of surreal - even after a month, it's hard to believe sometimes that she is all ours. It's amazing to look at the pictures from a month ago and realize just how far she has come in a month. When we got her, she couldn't sit up on her own, couldn't feed herself, couldn't reach her own toes, and couldn't fall asleep unless we sang to her and sat with her. Today she can sit up on her own - in fact, she is sitting up and enjoying Sesame Street with us right now (no real surprise that she loves it, considering how much Mommy & Daddy love Sesame Street, or that she is fascinated by Cookie Monster, considering how she eats!). She can also roll anywhere she wants (and VERY quickly...Mommy looked down for a moment yesterday and all of a sudden Hannah was under the dining room table!), and is very close to crawling - she gets herself up on one knee and rocks back and forth. Hannah still loves food, and can now feed herself (and is getting much better with the accuracy - she likes to grab food and just smush it against her face!). She is getting better with the sleeping, and likes to listen to her CDs while she talks to her taggie blanket as she falls asleep. She amazes us every day.
She's also quite a trooper. It's a huge transition for her, and she is handling it really well. She spent the first 9 months of her life with no real home...she was brought to the police station when she was first found, then at the orphanage for a few months, then in foster care (and perhaps in several foster homes - we don't know anything from this time), then back in the orphanage, then with us in two different hotels, then finally home. All the travel was hard on us as adults - it's amazing how well she is doing with all of the changes. We've been trying to keep a consistent schedule and keep our activities as "boring" as possible. The International Adoption doctor (who was fantastic) told us to try to limit ourselves to one outing/visitor a day for the next few months. And she's not too cranky about all of the doctor's appointments and bloodwork. (but please don't tell her that we've got three more this week!) Thankfully, the waiting room at the International Adoption Clinic (part of the Children's Hospital Specialty Center - a really great place!) has phenomenal toys (check out the cool wooden thing Hannah played with this past week!). And even though I have been horrible about taking pictures, Hannah has LOVED her playdates with all of her new friends!
Thank you for all of the kind words/emails/notes. I know I have not been great about replying to anyone in a timely fashion. With 540 new emails in my inbox (yes, seriously), it's taking me awhile. :) Oh yeah - we're still looking for the sender of the Red Sox Mrs. Potato Head...did you send it? Please email Mara - it arrived with no note, packing slip, or even a return address!

Diversity

Things here in the Surridge house are good. Hannah has slept through the night two nights in a row - this is totally a cause for a small celebration. Small, mind you, because with a full-night's sleep has come a total refusal to nap. But a full night's sleep has made us much happier adults, so that's a start. I am settling into my life as a SAHM (stay-at-home mom) nicely. Still trying to get the hang of things (ok, seriously - I have no idea how moms get anything at all done during the day - am I missing some sort of way to bend the space-time continuum? Did I miss the spot where they were handing out the flux capacitors?), but it gets better each and every day, which is all we can really hope for. The truth is that the most trying day at home with Hannah is better than any day I ever had at work, so I am still pretty darn happy. :) Yes, even after I took that picture...whoever taught her to stick out her bottom lip and go "ppbbbttt" better steer clear of me for awhile.

Being home (and having some sleep), I am starting to be able to reflect more on our trip and our experiences in China. One of the things that really struck me was diversity, or, the total lack of diversity. We're lucky to live in a place where diversity is just how it is - our neighborhood is full of people from a wide variety of countries and cultures, and schools proudly display the flags of all the countries that their students are from. We can drive less than 10 minutes and have Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, Egyptian, Korean, Lebanese, Greek, Thai, or even American food. Hannah isn't the only adopted kid on the block or at our temple - she won't even be the only adopted kid in her class. Our world is one where families don't all look the same - not only is it ok, but we love it. China wasn't like that at all.

I noticed it right away. Everyone looked the same. Outside from the tour groups (which weren't even all that different - some groups of American & Europeans, but mostly groups from other places in China), everyone is Chinese. Even in Beijing, when it was just me and Chris, everyone started at us; many pointed and laughed. It was harder for our travel partners; their 8 year old son was mobbed everywhere he went - people wanting to touch him and take his picture at all times. It's unsettling. One afternoon on our way back to the hotel, Chris was talking to our tour guide about cars (one of the few safe topics we found with him!). They were discussing how so many of the cars on the road were the exact same cars we have in the US, but they have different names. We passed one with a particularly unique name, and Chris told him that at home, that's a Fiesta. When he asked what Fiesta meant, Chris answered, and was immediately asked if he spoke Spanish. We tried to explain to him that we know lots of words and phrases in other languages, and he was stunned with our knowledge of other cultures.

In Kunming, we were even more of a sight - now we were toting a baby in a city with very few non-Chinese people. People continued to stare and point everywhere we went. All of us were stopped for pictures, even with our guide there to shoo them away. It makes me laugh a little to think that there are people in China with pictures of us in their scrapbooks, but it was still strange. Chris noticed that if he looked people in the eye and gave them a look, they would stop, but that didn't work for me. It was unsettling enough that we didn't explore Kunming as much as I would have liked. Don't get me wrong - we met some really wonderful people while we were there. I loved the man in the tea shop, who put down his bowl of lunch to serve us cup after cup of tea so we could try each one before choosing what to buy. And the waitresses across the street at Mama Fu's (yes, we ate several times at a cute little restaurant called Mama Fu's) could not have been nicer. I wish I spoke Chinese to tell them how much their kindness meant to me. But I don't think I ever need to go back.

People have asked me why I loved Guangzhou so much. After all, it was the end of our trip (so we were tired, home-sick, and ready to come home), there was construction everywhere, and we didn't see sunshine the entire week we were there. It wasn't that I loved Guangzhou - it was that on Shamian Island we weren't the only adoptive families, so no one pointed, no one stared, no one even seemed to notice. The shop owners cater to adoptive families - each shop is named for the person who owns it (Sherry's Place, Susan's Place, etc.), and they all love to coo over the babies. They want to know where they are from, and many gave us little gifts for Hannah to thank us for coming into their shop (the plastic rattle from the art shop is still one of her favorites). The restaurants all had high chairs and many had "baby food" sections on their menus (our favorite was a little place called Lucy's - so much so that we ate lunch or dinner there every day!). We could stop being so overprotective and just start being a family.

Now that we are home I appreciate the diversity so much more. Walking through the mall on Wednesday (yes, Hannah had her first trip to the mall with Auntie Shana & Emily - the girls had such a good time!) and through the grocery store on Thursday I loved that no one seemed to really even notice us. Yes, a few people stopped to comment on how beautiful she was (like I don't know that!) and Hannah flirted with the woman at the deli counter and the man waiting in line (so much that I know his name was Kevin). But no one has pointed at us and laughed since we have been home. So much of it is cultural - we teach our kids that everyone is different and that we celebrate that, while it seemed ok in China for people to stare and point. (and, for the most part, it was adults doing the staring and pointing...the kids just looked at Hannah like she was one of them, and the babies all gave her a look of jealously that she was being allowed outside without 4 sweaters) I admit, it turned me off a bit to China. But it made me even more thankful to live here in our corner of the melting pot.

One Week

It's hard to believe that we've been home a week. It's even harder to believe that a month ago, we were running all of our last minute errands, buying an extra suitcase, and packing to leave for China. Our lives have totally changed, but totally for the better.

Hannah is such a happy kid. She still loves to eat, though thankfully she has slowed down a little and is starting to understand that there will always be food here if she wants it. We have only found one thing that she didn't like (Gerber Yogurt Melts - our neighbor offered her one, and it's the only thing she has eaten in the past three weeks that she didn't like!) - you can make all the jokes you want about her fitting right in with Mara's family! :) We haven't got much of a routine down yet, though she has done a great job running errands (turns out she loved to ride in the cart at Wegmans) and looks forward to our daily walk down to the lake. (though she was more of a fan when it was warmer during the week - it was pretty cold today!) And we're sort of figuring out the sleeping thing. She slept for a straight 7 hours last night...only 2 short naps today, but still - we'll take progress wherever we can get it. :)

Jet Lag

I'm not going to lie - jet lag is kicking our butts. Big time. They say that it takes one day for every time zone you travel through to get back to normal, and it appears that we will need each and every one of those 12 days to get ourselves back on track. It's worst for Hannah - she has to transition to an entirely new life on top of the time change. Other than not sleeping (we're lucky to get 2 3-hour stretches of sleep at night, and maybe an hour or two nap a day...that's it...it stinks...), she's adjusting to being home quite nicely. She is such a happy kid, and loves playing with her new toys, making Mommy & Daddy laugh, trying new foods, playing with Bubbe & Zaide, giggling uncontrollably while in the jumperoo (THANK YOU Emmy for letting us borrow it!) and generally making life wonderful. She is unconvinced of just how much more fun it will be if she got some sleep, but hopefully she will figure it out soon. Otherwise, watching tv with Mommy at 3:30 am will continue for the foreseeable future!

For those who are close by and have asked when they can come by...we'll be ready for visitors in the next couple of days. Just call/email first so you don't catch us asleep. Also, if you were the wonderful person who sent Hannah a Red Sox Mrs. Potato Head...THANK YOU, but please email Mara - it arrived with no packing slip/note/return address!

Here's hoping for some sleep tonight...:)

Home at LAST!!

Nearly three weeks after we set off for China, we are finally HOME! I don't think I could be any happier about it! :) Our trip was fine...long, but fine. Hannah was a great traveler again - way better than her parents. On the flight from Guangzhou to Beijing she was a little fussy, but slept most of the way home on the long flight from Beijing to DC. Not so much for me and Chris - he picked up some sort of a nasty cold (he's sleeping right now, anxiously waiting for the Walk-In Care by us to be open) and I had an unfortunate combination of eating something iffy and airsickness (a bumpy flight for someone who already gets motion-sickness...well...it wasn't good...). But we are home and that is all that matters.

Hannah seems to be settling in already. She was so happy to be able to sit on the floor and play with Bubbie and Zaide last night (it was fun having a welcoming committee at the airport, even if I forgot to take pictures!). And she is in awe of our house...she keeps looking around like she can't believe she is here. The stairs are taking some getting used to - she holds on so tightly when I carry her up and down - but she is happily rolling around in her crib right now as I sit on the floor next to her with my laptop. Hopefully we will all take a nap soon...I have had 3 hours of sleep in the last 49 hours, so a nap would be very very good. :)

Pictures at home soon...

Homeward Bound

Finally. After nearly three weeks in China, tomorrow is finally the day
that we get to come home. As much as this has truly been the trip of a
lifetime, I could not be more ready to get on that plane in the morning
(and that's really saying something, considering I am both a bad
traveler and not a morning person). We leave the hotel at 7 am
(hopefully haven eaten breakfast first, since eating at the airport is
not as much of an option as it is at home), take a 3 hour flight to
Beijing, enjoy a lovely 5 1/2 hour layover in Beijing (though we do have
to get our luggage, check back in for our flight home, and go through
customs with Hannah), and take a 13 1/2 hour flight back over the polar
ice-caps to Dulles. When all is said and done we will have flown 18,150
miles - far more than anyone needs to go in less than three weeks. We'll
arrive home Saturday night DC-time...about 26 hours after we leave the
hotel here in Guangzhou. It won't really matter - it will be just so
good to be home.

This has really been an interesting trip, and I will write more about
the culture shock, visiting the orphanage, and how I don't know if I can
ever come back later. It was worth every second of it though - I am
watching Hannah nap right now while Chris is off with Lee getting her
visa so we can actually get home - and I would go through it all again
just to get to her. We are truly blessed. I will never take for granted
clean air and clean water again - I hear that there are record pollen
counts at home, but it's safe to breathe and I don't have to boil the
water before I can brush my teeth. And, as I said to Chris this morning,
two hours of sleep in my own bed will be way better than the six or
seven I have been getting on my bright orange air mattress here. :)

Watch out Virginia...here we come...

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