Our good friend Alison picked us up from the Seatac airport and Maya didn’t fuss at the newfound car seat with buckles and belts galore.  I’m glad Maya was content in the car seat because Alison drove with one eye focused on a lowered rear view mirror.  This is not to say that Alison didn’t drive well.  Her hands were stationed at10 and 2 and unlike a guy, she can multitask while driving.  It’s just that Maya has a power over most observers.  I was glad to find out that my constant gaze isn’t just a Daddy thing.  Maya is so cute your eyes lose interest in other things.  Even Alison kept saying, “I can’t stop staring at her.”

Upon entering our home we quickly noticed the boys had created a crayola welcome with signs that sprinkled the steps leading up to Maya’s room.  Since we flew through the night and made it home by 12:30 in the afternoon, our boys were still at school.  On one of their notes Dawson pled for an early pick up of him and his brother from school.

So, we quickly introduced Maya to her pink princess room.  At first she didn’t seem too impressed.  I believe she was still recovering from the anxiety of meeting our miniature labradoodle named Basil.  When Maya is cranky or upset she has a combo move of head shakes, verbal no’s and a quick slashing series of karate chops in the air.  Her first introduction to the family dog wasn’t love at first sight.  She added a batch of new toddler Chinese words and made sounds like an angry cab driver caught in traffic.

At this point in Maya’s homecoming I took a turn for the worse.  For 16 days I entered Chinese culture and ate what they ate and more.  Not once did I get sick, thanks to my twice a day vitamin called amoxicillin.  However, the decision to have sushi in Tokyo was starting to bear digestive warnings.  Perhaps airport Sashimi is like eating a day old sandwich from a gas station or drinking unrefrigerated goat milk in a Mexican village.   Since you don’t want the details I will spare you.  But for the next 13 hours I quarantined myself from the family.  Instead of bonding with the boys and their first meeting with Maya I bonded with porcelain. 

But the next morning I started feeling better.  I asked my boys what they thought of Maya and Owen quickly responded, “Dad, I loved her the first moment I saw her.”  And Owen’s words capture what life has been like with Maya.  When you see big brothers brushing doll’s hair and having tea parties you know that Maya has us under her spell.  It’s a good spell.  One I wish everyone could experience.  Even turning the corner in our upstairs hallway feels like a new adventure of peek-a-boos, giggles and blushing cheeks of love. 

Mar 26, 2009 flying home from China

We miss our boys

We miss our dog

We miss our own beds

We miss our friends & church family

We miss our western toilet…even though Maya and I have learned to master the squatty potty!

Our flight arrives at 10:15 am on Thursday…yay!!!  Maple Valley, here we come!

United by a bond of open hearts and emotional jitters.

I came to China with a singular focus. . . to become the father of a little girl. This is why I hadn’t given much thought to the relationships I could build with families that are traveling and adopting alongside us. To me they were extras with limited roles. My stage only has room for one star. So the spotlight remains on Maya and she fills it well. What I didn’t expect was how a supporting cast of fellow travelers would have such a huge impression on me.

Staying in hotels with a band of adopting travelers feels like returning to the university dorms. And I mean that in a good way. While no one is playing quarters, drinking too much or strumming college chords (G, C and D) on a guitar, there is camaraderie to the crew. Like freshmen crashing the campus we are wide eyed with fears and possibilities. We are united by a bond of open hearts and emotional jitters as we tip toe our way into a 2 week crash course in anthropology, sociology, ethnography, early child development, linguistics, squatty potology, bacteriology, and the art and science of culinary adventures.

Leaning on you and with you for encouragement and advice has strengthened my first days with Maya. So, to the families that go by Cabe, Beaver, Carl, Brannen, Christopher, Cantilina, Cornelius, Fuster, Gerke, Gerckens, Kieffer-Gerckens, Musser, Caracciolo, Nieves, DeBerry, Vaccaro-DeBerry, and West, you have filled my trip with laughter, one of you fixed my blog, several of you have shared your stories and I am richer because I had an opportunity to listen. You have given me faces to names that I pray for.

If any of you travel to Seattle you can crash with the Taylors. It’s not as ritzy as the White Swan hotel, but I promise to have diet coke with ice and if you venture around you won’t have to carry your own toilet paper or crinkle your nose at a squatty potty.

I’m proud of all of you for helping 13 orphans graduate into families. I can’t wait to hear more of your stories as your children mess up, grow up and continue to fill your hearts with love.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The song used in this photo montage is called, “Angel” by Jack Johnson.  You can find this song on his “Sleep Through the Static” CD.

Here’s where I’m in trouble.  Once the white shoes went on. . . they haven’t come off.  In fact, Maya slept in them. 

I should have forced Cathy to leave it alone.  Have you seen Cathy’s closet?  We don’t need another shoe hound sniffing around Nordstrom Rack living with the burden of having to buy another pair because they are so dang cute.

So, after all the psychological insights and sociological connections to selfhood and the search for identity, I want someone to counsel me.  What if red boots are no symbol of the wounds from having your world turn upside down and leaving the love of your foster parents?  What if Maya is simply a girly girl who wants new shoes for every outfit and occasion?  I realize that Maya is grieving some love loss, but retail therapy is not the fix.  Do you hear this Cathy?  I will repeat.  RETAIL THERAPY IS NOT THE FIX!

So counsel me. . . send me links to psychological journals.  We don’t have an emotional connection to feelings of loss on our hands.  We have something much worse. . . an emotional connection to shopping, fashion statements and expensive tastes.  Oh, that we could go back to the way things used to be.  The days when one pair of red boots was all she needed.    

We didn't just slip these on while she was napping - she wore them all day!

I had to wear new shoes while taking my new parents to the zoo!

Maya is super bright she knows tons of Chinese words (we wish we knew more than just 4 words!).  She has already picked up some English.  She knows, “more”, “bow” (for her hair of course!), “bye-bye” (which she loves to say as we flush the toilet for her), and she has even just started to say “Maya”.  It seems that she can understand many things we tell her with hand motions and she can repeat words when I ask her to. 

She loves to pick out her clothes and hair bows and have us put them on and check herself out in the mirror.

Maya is pretty shy and quiet when we are with our travel group, but she has been opening up to us more and more when we are alone.  Unfortunately, she is pretty camera shy.  As soon as the camera or camcorder come out the smiles disappear. 

She loves the bath and has just discovered color wonder markers (what an awesome invention!). 

Our little girl has hardly gotten fussy with us – really only a couple of times – when she is having a fashion crisis (which I totally can understand) or when it is bedtime.  I haven’t figured out what works for her to get settled in at night.

I am very thankful that she is happy to go to either of us and seems to enjoy playing with both of us as well. 

Everywhere we go, we are constantly told how beautiful she is – we may be in big trouble when she is in her teens.

Below are a bunch of pictures from the last couple of days…

Ready to take a walk.

I'm Stylin (Thanks for the coat Duartes!)

Wheeee!

At the Aquarium

Checking out the Fish

At the Pool

Out-Cold

…decided that Maya’s heart is too young to understand the dramatic changes that are going in her life.  As her parents, we decided to protect her from any further confusion and that it would be best for us to spend time talking to the foster parents privately.  We were comforted to learn that the foster couple didn’t come to try to see Maya again, but in hopes to meet or see us.  

With our guide as a translator, Shane was able to meet the couple first.  He hugged them, thanked them and asked some questions about the care Maya received.  Then, I was able to meet them and talk to them as well.  I can tell you this…I bawled like a baby…I felt as though I was meeting Maya’s biological parents, after all they were the only family she has known.   From our brief talks with the couple, we learned that Maya is a very bright and intelligent girl (of course we already knew this!), she loves to listen and dance to music, she is very healthy and plays like a normal child, and her favorite foods are vegetables and meat.

We also found out that Maya hasn’t known a crib.  This family let her sleep in their bed.  They also confirmed that she loves pretty things – Maya has already made it clear to us that she is a fashionista.  She brings me hair bows and wants them in at all times (this is true – I have not forced a bow in her hair once!).  Maya also likes to be involved in picking out her clothes each day.  And, of course we all know that she is a shoe girl to the core! 

So, meeting the foster family made for a very emotional day for all of us.  Even though I have tons of questions about my little girl’s past, one thing is for sure.  She was truly loved and I am deeply grateful for the love and care she received from this family.  We are so glad that some day when she is older we will be able to share the video and pictures we took of our time with her foster family allowing her to know more about her past.

Do any of you have any ideas of how we can get a 3 foot stuffed bear home from China???   

Tears, Hug, Closure and New Beginnings

Rehabilitation Room at Orphanage

Split Pants Save A Lot of Money on Diapers

Baby Room

Potty Time

Lots of Children With Special Needs

Xin Xiang Orphanage

Yesterday we traveled to Xin Xiang to see the orphanage that Maya came from.  The good news is the orphanage meant nothing to her.  Like us, Maya was visiting this strange place for what seemed to be her first time.

Maya’s lack of orphanage connection is linked to the love of her foster parents.  We enjoyed the orphanage tour and to be honest, the care that I witnessed was better than I had imagined.

Then it happened.  The moment I secretly longed for and simultaneously dreaded.  An orphanage worker gave Cathy a stuffed teddy bear that was bigger than Maya.  Then she pointed past the 2^nd story balcony and below us stood a set of weeping and waving foster parents.

Cathy and I didn’t know what to do.  Of course we longed to sit with the foster parents and hear stories of Maya’s life, likes and terms of endearment.  And yet, we have witnessed Maya’s grief.  At times Maya’s eyes pan the room in search of the only people she has known as parents.  She is old enough to know how to give and receive love.  It is our understanding that Maya was the only child in her foster care home.  She has been the recipient of generous helpings of love.  Since she has loved much, she knows what she has lost.

From the balcony Cathy and I looked to one another for direction.  Do we let Maya see them?  Do we hide Maya back?  Is it rude if we don’t give her foster parents one more chance to say goodbye?  Is Maya too young to go through this emotional roller coaster again?  If we let Maya meet with her “Ba Ba” and “Ma Ma” again will it take her grief deeper?

It was happening so fast.  Cathy was in tears.  Foster parents were crying.  Maya caught a glimpse of them.  Suddenly Maya was crying out for her mom and dad and it wasn’t us.

If you want to know more. . . you will have to stay tuned.  I will let Cathy tell you the rest.  In the meanwhile, I will tell you that it was a tough call to make.  We were torn between letting love be wrecker ball with everyone’s emotions or letting love be a stance that always protects.  A decision had to be made, so we. . . 

Maya's Foster Parents

Don’t ever order a Hot Dog in China.

Disclaimer:  No Dogs were harmed in the making of this picture.  Thanks to my good friend Nathan McAfee for this hilarious photo.