I accompanied Keith’s class on a field trip to the local science museum.  Remember, we live in a city of 10+ million people.  It is a big city.

These are my semi-censored thoughts on the day.

We pull up at the museum in our bus.  It is a nice building from the outside.  Really nice.  You can tell they’ve put a lot of money into the building.

I learn that several of the exhibits are labeled in English and they have English maps.  I’m feeling positive.  I’m feeling like this could be a good learning experience for the kids.

We go in.  It is dark.  It is open to visitors but yet dark.  Hmm.   Oh, wait, there are a few lights on, just not enough.  It has that “hazy” feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for the alarm clock to see what time it is and you’re sort of fumbling around in the half-dark.  Only it was mid-morning at a museum.  Hmm.

My students were really interested in finding out about the human body and simple machines and gears.  So we headed up to the 2nd floor to check out those sections.  The first section was taped off and construction workers were working behind the taped off area.   Oh, look a computer/math area.  Oh wait, none of the computers turn on.  Oh look, a button.  Oh wait, it is broken.

Oh my goodness, about 500 local middle school students have descended on the museum, with no teachers in sight.  They’re running around the museum jumping on equipment and such.  Um, is this why everything is broken?

Neat, some human body models that light up to show you… oh wait, all of the lights are broken.  Wow, it is awful dark in here!

The next section has balls you can roll down various metal loops that show how gravity and inclined planes work.   Except all of the balls are flat (some literally split open on one side!).  Oh, okay, moving on.

Space stuff.  Cool.  Except nothing works.  Half of the stuff isn’t even plugged in.  And the rest of it is just broken.

One of those little balls with the neon electricity thing inside that you put your hands on the outside of the ball and the neon lights go toward your hand… except it doesn’t work.

In the end, about 20% of the exhibits actually were functional or half-functional.  The other 80% were completely non-functional.

I ended up taking my kids outside after an hour and a half because we’d finished the entire museum of everything that was functional.  They practiced cartwheels on the sidewalk.

I know there are supposed to be some good museums here.  I just left today feeling like, wow, what a completely sad place.  Why even open the doors?

Side Note:  This might read as negative and blechy.  Sorry about that.  Life isn’t always a bowl of cherries here.  I’ll try to share something more uplifting next time.

Second Side Note:  The owner of our local import food store is a local guy who is in his late 20’s.  He’s married.  He and his wife live with his parents.  I commented the other day that it was hot. He said he was really hot.  I asked why he had a sweatshirt and long sleeved shirt on if he was hot.  He said he was too lazy to get out other clothes and that is what his mom laid out for him.  I stopped.  Um, what?  Your mom gets your clothes out for you?  He said “Yes, of course.  My wife buys my clothes.  And then my mom washes them and each day she folds them for me and puts clothes on my bed for me to wear that day.”  Ser.i.ous.ly?  Dude, mom, you’ve got some duties you’re slackin’ on!  I got some laundry for you to fold!

I’ll get to the title in a second.

Katie’s old pink cowboy boots fit her… so cute!!  She wore those back to the O.  She’s 10 months younger than Katie, but Katie is bending over and still a lot taller!  She’s a little peanut!

Dad must have known I was going to have a hard time saying goodbye.  Well, it really isn’t goodbye, since I’ll see her at least once a week.  But still, it was hard.  Silly that it was so hard, perhaps, but hard.  Anyway, we got a nutty taxi driver and it at least kept things entertaining.

Jing Jing goes pee often.  I mean, often.   So we get in the taxi to go back to the O and she starts squealing “Niao niao!!” (pee pee!)  I tell her to wait a minute, we’ll be there in 10 minutes, she can just hold it, etc… the driver says “just hold her out the door at a stop light and let her pee”.  I say no.

She keeps squealing “Niao niao!”  so finally he just pulls over and tells me to have her pee on the side of the road.  I say no.

He is annoyed.  He tells me “I have a grandson who is 1.5 years old and he pees on the road.  My son pees on the road.  I pee on the road.  It isn’t a big deal!  Just let her pee on the road.”  I say no.

After much fuss, we arrived.  I took her in, she blew kisses goodbye.  It is home for her.  It is all she knows.  She’s not devastated.  She’s fine.  But inside all I think is “Every kid needs a family.  A real family!”

It has been a long week.  I saw a lot of things that broke my heart.  I met families from all over China who were in Beijing to give their kids a chance at life-saving heart surgery.  Some will live.  Some will die.  Some will not be able to afford the surgery their child desperately needs.  Life is hard.

The day of Jing Jing’s angiogram, a mom was waiting to hear news about her daughter’s heart surgery.  Her 5 month old daughter’s heart surgery.   She waited and waited and waited.  Finally, at 6 p.m. they came in and said she had made it through the surgery and was in ICU and in a few more days she’d be able to have visitors.   There are no “regular updates” from nurses.  You hear information once a day if you are lucky.  It is just the way it is.  Trained nurses move to the west, leaving empty spots here in China.  The nursing shortage is severe.  Half the children’s cardiac ward can’t be opened because they don’t have enough nurses.

In China, hospitals are different from the west.  Closed doors to your hospital room don’t mean anything.  Patients and their families wander in and out of each other’s rooms.  The room we were in was decorated especially for orphans.  It has a tv in it.   Other rooms don’t.   So families would wander in and turn the tv volume up and sit on our bed to watch tv.  (Try that in the west, I dare you!)

This system has a few drawbacks (waking up at 5 a.m. because someone was mopping underneath my bed while I was sleeping??… lack of privacy… migraines from tv volume) and yet it allows a community to develop that might not otherwise exist.   I got to hear their stories.

“I’m from Xinjiang (far west of China).  My daughter needed surgery so we flew here a few weeks ago.   She couldn’t survive the train ride, so we had to fly.  It was so expensive, but now she will live.  We’re flying home tomorrow.  She’s doing so well, and she’s so healthy now.  I’m so happy.”

“I’m from Guangxi (southern China).  My daughter had an angiogram on Tuesday.  The doctor told us the results today.  They don’t know if she can survive surgery.  It is very expensive.  She’s very sick.  She’s only 1 1/2 years old.  We’re going to take the train home tomorrow.  We have no money for the surgery and they don’t think she will survive it.  We are so sad.  We’re taking her home and we hope we can help her.  But maybe she will die.”

I left feeling thankful for my childrens’ health.  And thankful for the opportunities we have, coming from the US.  If we don’t like the medical options, we get second opinions.  When we considered Katie’s surgery, we had the chance to ask anywhere we wanted- Korea, the US, Hong Kong, Singapore.   Our medical insurance allowed us that freedom.

It is easy to forget how much we’ve been blessed with.  I don’t want to take it for granted.

Wednesday morning I got up to Beijing around 11 a.m. and settled in with her at the hospital.  Every single communication in this time was Chinese until we left the hospital (minus a few phrases from a doctor who would speak snippets of English).  I met the roommate, a little boy from Taiyuan here for surgery.  He had already had surgery and is heading back to Taiyuan (a city quite far from here) soon.  He’s a cutie isn’t he?

My friend Jenny had forewarned me about staying in a Chinese hospital.  This hospital is VERY nice, connected to Tsinghua (Qinghua) University (one of the best in China) and her wing is in the brand new cardiac building, beautiful and modern.  Modern or not, rules for hospital stays here are a bit different.  You bring in everything you need- from toilet paper to soap to a hand towel to slippers to a spoon.  You are given absolutely nothing and it isn’t available to buy at the hospital either.  So I packed a suitcase with a pillow and towels and toilet paper and shampoo and shower shoes and … so much stuff.

When I got there I wanted to get her cheered up.  I pulled out some of Katie’s clothes and they fit her pretty well and I had brought a little Hello Kitty jewelry set from Aunt Emily (thanks Em!  She LOVES them!) and a kids’ watch from Hong Kong.    I also knew she looooves pizza so we ordered some and she was more than happy to pig out completely!

She entertained everyone who would come in the room by telling them she is “ke ai” (cute).  Ke ai sounds like “the eye” only with a k instead of th sound.  And ke ai she is!

Thursday morning she went in for her angiogram (heart catheterization).  She went in at a few minutes past 8.  I’d talked to other moms on the floor about the procedure and they all said their child was back in their room 1.5-2 hours afterwards.  I ran out to get a few things and was back by 10.  Waiting.  Waiting.  11 o clock came.  I asked the nurses, they didn’t know anything.

12 o clock.  1 o clock.  I was pacing by now.  How in the world was it taking so long?  Finally at 1:15 a nurse told me she was in the ICU and would be in soon. Before 2:00, she was brought in.  The doctor came in shortly after and gave me a report that the angiogram had been difficult.  She motioned her hands in waves and said her arteries are not neat but are tangled (not sure if my Chinese translation there is accurate, but that’s the gist anyway).  After surgery her oxygen levels sat at 40%-50%.  They wanted them to stay over 75%.  Her oxygen levels are never normal (98%+) because of her heart.  They normally sit in the 80’s.  But 40% is definitely not good at all.    She was on a cardiac medication to help with this.  She was a very sick little girl when she came back in.   This photo was taken hours after she came back in and she still doesn’t look good.

I talked to Father often throughout this time.  My biggest concern, other than the difficulty of the upcoming surgery she needs… was how she would survive a surgery.  If her system is so overwhelmed by a cardiac cath, what will happen when she has open heart surgery?  This is still a concern.

In the evening, she was still looking poor and then oddly/strangely/unexpectedly within 30 minutes she was sitting up, smiling, and drinking juice with excellent oxygen levels.  That was nothing short of a miracle for her to go from the above photo to the below photo in such a short time frame!

Yesterday afternoon, we came home.  She gets so carsick that we took a taxi to the train and then took the train to TJ.  We wandered for about 30 minutes outside the TJ station looking for the taxi stand.  We came out of the station the wrong way and then followed some girls who tried to help us.  I was dragging a big suitcase (the wheel had broken) and carrying Jing Jing and really didn’t know what to do.  We finally found a nice driver who came and took the suitcase from me.  I was soooo thankful to finally be home when we got home!

We’d arranged for her to stay the night with us before going “home” to the orphanage tomorrow.  Because she isn’t in foster care, she lives at the O.  I realized last night as she walked in with me, eyes as big as hers can get, struck mute by the situation… she has most likely never been in a home or house since she went to the O as a baby. She has been to hospitals and the orphanage and that’s about where where world view ends (other than the occasional trip with her crazy foreign friends to get pizza!)

I started wondering if this was a good idea or not.  Eliza and Katie were excited to see her and for me to be home.  I had to help them control their excitement while Jing Jing warmed up to life here.  I carried her around and showed her.  She wasn’t ready.  She rested a bit.  We ate dinner.  I gave her a bath (that was an experience- she was terrified until she got in and then she liked it).

Once she was all lotioned up and dressed and re-pigtailed she warmed up.  Side Note: She is in love with the pigtails- she always has her hair “down” at the o and I put it up the first night and now she insists on them- I think because all of the nurses told her how cute they were.   She was walking around giggling and had both Eliza and Katie laughing hard at the faces she makes and the noises she makes.  Her language is extremely delayed (around 1.5 year old or 2 year old level and she’s going to be 4 in 2 weeks).   But she knows how to communicate– shriek “MAMA” until I give her what she wants (yikes!).

I have to admit that taking her home tonight is breaking my heart already.  I just can’t do it.  She deserves a family, a mom and a dad who can care for her. Given her heart condition, she actually needs a family in the west.  She needs access to quality medical care.  We probably are not the best family for her for that reason.

The doctor said surgery is possible- but expensive, dangerous, and difficult.  My friend Jenny who is coordinating her care is getting her files translated and sent to some pediatric cardiac surgeons in Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, and the US.  We will wait for those opinions.

We love her to pieces and I just don’t want to send her back.  Will you lift up that extremely selfish request of mine- that I won’t fall apart after I drop her off?   When you’ve had a little girl attached to you for 4 days who calls you mama and sleeps in your bed with you and kisses your cheek at every opportunity… leaving her is going to be so hard.

A few days ago, I mentioned Jing Jing.

Life in China has a way of going as slowly as humanly possible and then suddenly smacking you in the face with gusto.    Jenny, the American who is coordinating Jing Jing’s care, has been waiting for a bed at a specific hospital in Beijing for Jing Jing’s testing.  She got a call last week and they wanted her there that evening.   A friend’s ayi was able to deliver her to Beijing, and then Jenny and her daughter cared for her over the weekend and then Jenny’s ayi has cared for her the last few days.  They thought she would be done with all of her testing by now, but there was a delay.  So, I’m headed to Beijing in the morning to stay a few nights with Jing Jing at the hospital.  I’m sure it will be an “experience” as it is a local hospital and that just lends itself to “experiences” doesn’t it?  I’ve already been warned that I can’t leave the hospital at all while we’re there.

So, food delivery  numbers in tow, I’m Beijing-bound.

I want to ask you all to lift up a few things specifically:

1. That Jing Jing’s testswill be able to run (they’ve had a delay with her angiogram and she needs to do it this week!)

2. That the tests will be conclusive and they’ll know exactly what needs to be done to help her

3. That her situation will be deemed operable.

Poor Jing Jing has severe car sickness and vomits in the car.  Because of this, she took the taxi to the train station and then took the train so she wouldn’t puke over and over the whole car ride.  If we are successful with getting the angiogram we hope to come home Friday or Saturday.

Thank you all!  We are confident that He loves all of the kids at the O and has a purpose and a plan for their lives.

P.S. The infamous Driver Wang will be taking me to Beijing.  It promises to be a quality car ride with much entertainment.

So our “severe weather” ended up being nothing more than rain and a mild amount of wind.  We ended up having gorgeous blue skies yesterday and I walked from our apartment to a grocery store a few miles away.   It was actually one of the best weather days in a long time.

I have to admit, I’m checking weather.com.cn more often now.  I  mean, why settle for just the weather when you can get entertainment in the same package for free?  And how else would I have known the following information?

Fishing Index：It would be more appropriate
More suitable for fishing, but slightly larger than the wind, fishing will have a certain impact

This semester has completely flown and I feel like I’m not even ready to give my students 3rd quarter grades and yet midquarters for 4th quarter are due soon?  How did this happen?

My Korean moms’ group is ending for the year.  All of us end up living life in a complete blur the last month of school, so we’re packing up a bit early this year for our moms’ group.  It has been one of my favorite times each week- good food, good conversation, good friends!  One of these moms is moving to Korea on May 10th- we will miss their family SO much!  The goodbyes here are a yucky part of life!

We asked our friend’s ayi to take the photo.  She had the camera flipped backwards, lens pointing at her face and was taking the photo that way.  It took us a second to see what was wrong, we could see from the back side of the camera just her ayi’s mouth on the camera screen.   Anyway, she got it pointed the right way, but the lens was fogged up from being so close to her mouth.

I’ll have to get another photo at our going away party for the mom who is leaving.  I couldn’t bear to ask her ayi to do it again!

Today is supposed to be a really special day in Tianjin.  Yesterday a guy who works for our apartment management company was out with a bullhorn yelling that severe weather was coming.  The local convenience store (Good Friends store for those who have visited) was warning customers to stock up on veggies and necessities because they’ve been warned by the government that they should close on Monday due to the weather.

Our forecast on yahoo seems so benign though.  Rain and wind, lots of it.  But not anything “special”.  So we sit and wait, debating if going to fellowship is a good idea or not.  Rain here tends to mean mud and overflowing sewers, so it is not our favorite thing for sure.

I popped onto weather.com this morning to see if anything had changed in the forecast since last night.  At least, I thought it was weather.com.  Read with me, here are some gems.

Comfort Index：Less comfortable
Daytime rain, strong wind, people will feel some cold, but most people can accept.

Ultraviolet index：Weakest
Ultraviolet radiation is a weak weather without special protection. If long-term outdoors, the proposed smear SPF sunscreen in the 8-14 between skin care products.

Car Wash Index：It is not appropriate
Not washing, in the past 12 hours in the snow larger, more snow surface, it is not appropriate scrub cars. If he insists on scrub, it is necessary to

Sports index：Than it is not appropriate
Tomorrow is precipitation, low air pressure, wind stronger than tomorrow precipitation, strong wind, can be properly mild exercise

Clothing Index：Comfort
The proposed package or a thin denim shirt and trousers, and other transitional Spring loaded. The elderly infirm are advised to the suit, jacket.

Cosmetics/Make Up Index：Moisturizing
Little wind, the proposed use of neutral moisturizing cream category cosmetics, without use sunscreen cosmetics.

Um?  Since when did weather.com lose their ability to use the English language?  And when did they start offering a cosmetics index?

And then it dawned on me.  weather.com.cn  Not just weather.com   It all makes sense now.  Check your .com, people!

At least I know I can use my neutral moisturizing cream category cosmetics though!  I was worried about that!

I have favorites at the orphanage.  I wish I could be impartial.  But it is the simple human truth that certain kids dig in a little deeper and earn a special place in your heart.

LiLi, the sweet little one above, is one of those babies.  The first day I met her, I fell in love.  She’s 16 months old now (I know she doesn’t look 16 months old!) and still in a size 3 month Target baby outfit there!   She’s healthily plump but really, really, really short.  But she’s meeting milestones and doing well, so it doesn’t seem to be a medical concern.  She has a completely flat profile with no nose and will need a series of surgeries to correct things.   But all I see when I look at her is perfection.

This week, LiLi left the orphanage to go to a foster care village outside Tianjin where many kids live until they are adopted.  It is a good thing for her.  But still my heart is a bit sad today.  It was the first time I’d been to the orphanage and not visited my LiLi in nearly a year.  The ayis all knew how much I loved her and called me her Hong Ma Ma.   We even went so far as to inquire about adopting her (there are several reasons why we can’t right now, so I just have to trust His plans for her little life).

And just to remember how far she’s come… from July 2008…

I trust that whenever she is adopted (hopefully sooner rather than later!) that He has the perfect family preparing for her and that she will be loved.

There are always more babies, always more kids to love.  So with that, let me share a few other kids that are currently captivating my heart!

With all of that in mind, I want to introduce you to a little girl with a serious heart condition.  She needs heart surgery and a friend of mine has devoted herself to raising the money for little Jing Jing.   I’ll have more information in the future, but if you want to donate money toward her surgery, just go to the ICCO website >>http://tjicco.blogspot.com<<  You can make any donation and mark it as “for Jing Jing” and we’ll know how to appropriate the funds.  She’s a special girl and we all want to see her make it!

If you can’t give, please take a moment to lift up this little girl.  She’s got a long, hard journey ahead of her.  But we’re not going to give up on her.  Every child deserves a chance!

Such a beautiful day to celebrate His grace and forgiveness and mercy!

It is sunny/smoggy with a high of 84 degrees here today! Gorgeous!  Katie’s got a fever so she’s home with Keith and I’m taking Eliza to fellowship and swimming lessons.  SO strange to have swimming lessons on Easter, no?  But Easter is definitely not a holiday here!  Not a single bunny in sight- which is not necessarily a bad thing!

Before fellowship we did a little impromptu photo shoot.  This might actually be my favorite photo of the girls together so far in their lives- they were so cooperative :).

A little sisterly kiss.  This is before they licked each other.  Why? Why are we licking people?

Kate.  Yes Kate.  She has decided in June, after JK is over she will be Kate.  No more Katie, because that is a “baby name” and she needs a “big girl name”.  Have I mentioned this yet?

Little Miss Toothless Writer.  She’s into writing “books”. I have a book I’m going to scan in and post sometime, it is about daddy and a monster.  It is insanely long.  She’s a bit obsessive with her writing lately.  It is a good obsession.  Much better than screeching at people (Katie’s obsession), so we will encourage it :).

Can you feel the love?

We’re so thankful to Him for the blessings in our life.

Have a blessed, wonderful Resurrection Day!

We finally got cornhole up and running for spring break.

Here are friends of ours who biked by as we were setting up the cornhole.  I ran inside to get a pitcher of lemonade for us to share and they stopped and played a couple games.

We had many curious onlookers.  I mean, we always have many curious onlookers.  But today we had even-more-than-usual numbers of curious onlookers.

Cute little one year old kids were really interested in running UP the cornhole board and dropping the bags into the hole.  As one might expect… that didn’t last long…

This is grandpa showing the little boy “Yep, I shouldn’t have let you walk up that!  See how we broke it?”

It didn’t matter, as it still works fine- just a shorter board. It isn’t like we have the American Cornhole Association here keeping us to strict cornhole rules or anything!

Also, note the kid in the background playing on the ground- that’s cause one of the three bags that burst open (we had 10 to start with and are down to 7 after the first night of playing!) spilled everywhere.  This was actually the kids’ favorite things- playing in the spilled rice!

See our cool IU board? I realize the logos aren’t perfect, but it is our attempt at being Hoosier-fans from afar.

Several people stopped and watched- we’d offer “do you want to play?”  They’d say “no no… maybe just one throw”  Then they’d throw and giggle and play a bit more.  This guy owned Keith in a full match.  (Clarification: I did tell Keith he needed to lose because we didn’t want the guy to lose face.  Or was I just giving Keith face because I already knew he was going to lose?  Hahaha.)

The girls made friends with a sweet little boy.  He started playing with Eliza and Keith while Katie and I walked around the corner and bought popsicles.   We came back with popsicles and he was no longer interested in the game- just getting his hands on a popsicle.  Keith ran back and got another one for him.   Please note- 2 shirts and a vest on the little guy. It was 80+ today.    His mom was concerned the popsicle would be too cold for him.

Finally, I have a photo.  I don’t think it needs words?  Do you agree?

It has jumped from winter to summer here in Tianjin.  We’re sitting in the 80’s now!

On Monday, the girls were playing in the courtyard and I overheard two local ladies talking about them.  They first commented on how little clothing the girls were wearing.  Of course, it was sunny and 80 degrees, so their summer sundresses seemed appropriate to me!  But the locals are mostly still in long sleeves (2 layers!) and long pants.  Some of the younger generation bucks tradition and drops to one layer a bit early.

After commenting on this, they were whispering about why Americans can wear less clothing. “I have heard it is because they eat so much beef and cheese, so they’re stronger in the cold.”  I was laughing.  We eat cheese more than the average Chinese family for sure- maybe once/week or every other week?  But beef?  Maybe twice a month on a really crazy month?  Maybe.

Anyway, beef/cheese intake aside, the weather has been really nice and not TOO hot yet.  We’ll enjoy that while it lasts!  We won’t get air conditioning before we leave for America (it comes on June 15 and we head to the US June 8th).

We had a picnic with several families from the girls’ school at a local park.  It is one of the rare areas in China where you can sit on the grass.

On the way out with Joy & Jennifer.  Eliza ripped her dress at tha park so this is the one and only time she got to wear it- I bought it on Monday!  Thankfully it was cheap- 20 kuai- about $3.