We're big fans of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert here. We've been watching The Daily Show since the Craig Kilborn days (wow, that makes us sound old), and it's by far one of our absolute favorites. We used to never miss it - now, we're often asleep before the end (ok, more Mara than Chris), so we tivo it every day. And when The Colbert Report started (remember when it was a joke promo when Colbert was a Daily Show correspondent?) we added that to our 
daily routine too. So when Jon Stewart announced plans for the Rally to Restore Sanity, there really was no question that we would go. And it seemed like the perfect way to introduce Hannah, a proud American citizen, to politics before she helps Mommy and Daddy vote on Tuesday.
We knew that we wouldn't be able to stay for the entire Rally - Hannah gets overwhelmed easily, and she's not as into the satire as her parents. So we got down to the Mall just as the Mythbusters were doing their human experiments. (a highlight for Chris, as Mythbusters is one of his other favorites) I can't remember ever being on the Mall with so many people before. They are estimating the crowd somewhere between 215,000 and 250,000 - far more than the 60,000 they expected. We retreated back towards the Smithsonian Castle to give Hannah a little breathing room, though it was still packed all that way back. It was hard to hear, and we could barely see the screens, let 
alone the stage, but it didn't matter. As someone near us said, it was more about being there and taking in the crowd than anything else. And for a crowd of that size, people were remarkably nice and well behaved. Even when we were stuck in the middle of the crowd, everyone was nice, no one pushed, and most people stopped to say hello to Hannah. She enjoyed the music, ate her lunch on the Mall, and generally had a good time.
Yes, we fully appreciate the irony of restoring sanity by bringing a toddler to a rally on the Mall. But it was fun, and the message was an important one.
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
We're Going to the Zoo
Hannah is fascinated lately with animals. She loves looking at them in books, waves to them on television, and really loves to see them in person. She is totally in love with Colt, the puppy of two of our softball teammates, and she knows where all the dogs and cats live on our street (so that she can stop and wave hello as we're out on our daily walks). At the Fairfax Fall Festival she spent a lot of time saying hello to the animals in the petting zoo - in fact, she greeted each of the baby chicks individually. Since it was a beautiful day on Saturday, we took Hannah for her first trip to the National Zoo. No surprise - she LOVED it.
As soon as we walked into the zoo, she started excitedly pointing at the signs with pictures of the pandas. She LOVES bears, and we spent awhile watching the pandas enjoy their snack (plastic milk crates covered in honey).
We then spent some time saying hello to the elephants. She kept waving at them and then turning to us as if to say "did you know that there are REAL ELEPHANTS there?!?". We said hello to the other animals on the Asia Trail as well...greeting animals is a lot of work.
We finished our day with lunch. Hannah was not that excited about her sandwich, but was thrilled at all the birds who joined us for lunch.
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!
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...
(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!
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. :)
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.