Finally, Filoli!

For years, I have heard people talk about Filoli.  Somehow, despite growing up in this area, I have never been.  I've seen the house from highway 280 but never knew it was Filoli.  Filoli is a beautiful home and grounds built by a family that got their money from the Empire Mine.  For more information, click on this link. 

http://www.filoli.org/

It was warm and sunny and it was fun to walk around with my daughter.

This is the house.  It was used in the filming of the old  night time soap opera "Dynasty." Not that I ever watched that of course.

Floo network anyone?

Ready to travel.

The hills were gorgeous.

These were a kind of ball flower.

Close-up- it was really funky.

The pool- stunning.

The hills, the colors....lovely.

Roses.

The knot garden.

The Door to the Secret Garden.  Elisabeth played Mary in last years school play so we had to take a picture for her director, Mrs. Johnson.

Again my soul was fed with beauty and I am so glad we went.

Growing up near water.

I think that when you grow up on the water, you just never get used to not living near water.  The waves, the colors, the fresh air, the fog...all are a wonderful comfort to me.

On our second night in CA, we went to Venice Beach.  Paul grew up near here and lived on the beach growing up.  He was on the Surf Team in high school which basically meant that they went to the beach early in the morning, surfed, called it PE and didn't always make it to school.

Elisabeth on Venice Beach.  The Boardwalk could serve as an excellent visual in teaching kids to just say no to drugs.  Sad, sad people with broken lives.

Yesterday, we flew up to San Jose to spend ten days with my family in the San Francisco Bay Area.  We started off the evening in one of my favorite places- the Palo Alto Baylands.

The boardwalk look out towards the bay.

My mom and Elisabeth walking back towards the nature center.

Herons are nesting this time of year and the trees were full of them.

Another heron.

Swallow's nests at the nature center.

Egrets are also nesting and the trees are full of them.

If you look really closely, you can see stilts and an avocet.

One more egret.

My soul has been thirsty for beauty this year.  I am so thankful for seeing all of this last night.

Hello, America!

Cereal!

Elisabeth is happy!

Taco Bell!

Panera and Trader Joe's Side by Side!  Are we in heaven?

Milk in cartons, not boxes.

Cheese, glorious cheese!

Varieties of pet food!

Check out the tortilla's!

Yes, it's good to be home.

Goodbye, my darling boy.

We wish we could take you with us in our suitcase.

But we can't.

But while we are gone, we will miss 

your sweet face.

Waking up to your cheerfulness...even at 5AM.  Yes, it is that light at 5AM here.

We will miss your chubby little hands that grab at hair and fish crackers and hold on to us tightly.

We'll miss your little feet.

And your delicious legs and tummy.

We will miss your sense of fun and laughter.

And while we are gone in America, we will speak of a little boy that waits for a family.  We will speak of the Father that loves him more than we ever could.  We will speak of how much we love this country and these people and their need to know that Father.

We love you, our little treasure.

The finding place.

I did a sad thing today....and a joyful thing.  I took a picture of a finding place...a place where a baby was found.  An adoptive mom had read my blog and found that one of her daughters was from our city.  She knew where her child had been found and asked if we could get a picture.  I was happy to do it and rode my bike over today.

This was it.  The west gate of a hospital near us.  Ironically, from our old apartment, we could see this hospital from our back window.  It's an easy bike ride away.

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A finding place means that a baby has been left.  Abandoned.  Babies are left at all kinds of places...but almost always where they can be found.  Hospitals are very common as are police stations.  It is not unusual for the parents to be watching to make sure their babies are okay.  Our own little guy was left at a hospital.  His parents checked him in...and then left.  I've been in a the hospital with him when he was so sick last fall.  It would have been easy to just walk out.  Parents of special needs kids often leave them in hospitals in the hopes that they will get the care that they need.

Why do parents do it?  The reason's are as varied as the parents.  Lack of resources.  A second child that is going to bring a large fine.  A child with special needs that the parent can not afford. Mythology and superstition about certain special needs. A girl when the family needed a boy.  Parents who simply don't want to child that was born to them.  All sad reasons.

When children are abandoned and to be adopted, a finding ad will be placed in the newspaper.  I understand the reasoning behind this but it strikes me as sad and odd.  These children are not lost, like a puppy or cat.  They are....for lack of a better word...abandoned.

Look at that picture and imagine what it felt to leave your child there.  Were they afraid of getting caught?  It's a crime to abandon a child.  What were they thinking or feeling when they left.  Was it sadness?  Relief?  Hope?  All of the above?

A finding place means that a baby was found.  For this little baby found here, there is a happy ending.  She has a sweet family who loves and cares for her.  She is one of the few that has this kind of happy ending.

As we have entered this world of orphans and foster care and adoption, I have been on a sharp learning curve.  I had no idea how few orphans are actually orphans..most have parents somewhere.  I had no idea how long and complicated the adoption process was.  The biggest thing that I have learned was that the approach must be multi-faceted.  More and better foster care is a good place to start.   Less complications with adoptions.  More domestic adoption.  Better structures in place for birth families who have children with special needs.

What I do know is that the abandoned need to be found and that children belong in families.  I will believe that forever.

That's how we roll in China.

Monday's are my days to get things done!  Since we have had our little foster guy, it's been more complicated to keep up with things.  He had a  severely compromised immune system when we got him last fall and at the advice of the pediatrician, we kept him in for most of the severely cold winter.  It's been warmer here for about a month but it can still be challenging to get things done with him. We live on the sixth floor of our building...and we don't have an elevator.  Carrying a low muscle tone, limp baby up the stairs in addition to groceries...not that fun.  Add in that that our local market is two stories with stairs.  If I walked over to the market with him, I can only get vegetables and meat- not the milk, yogurt etc. that is on the second floor.  I can't do the stairs with a stroller and he is just too heavy to carry and carry groceries.  Plus, there are no carts to sit him in.
So on Monday's, my helper comes.  I try to head out as soon as she gets there but that can be challenging.  Our little guy is a morning napper but the time varies.  If he isn't asleep when I leave, our soft hearted helper lets him get up.  This leads to a challenging day all around!  I need him to be asleep when I leave.
Yesterday was a fairly typical day.  In spite's of Sunday lack of naps and late night, our little guy was bright eyed at bushy tailed at 5:00 AM.  I've gotten used to waking up this early and most of the time don't mind getting up with him.  Most of the time.
Fortunately, he went to sleep right at 9:00 and I was able to go out immediately.  I had a meeting at the international school at 9:30 to discuss some ESL curriculum development and I wanted to be on time.  Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles - there was a taxi right outside our apartment complex.  I headed out to the school (about 20 minutes away),  and had a wonderful meeting with one of the Chinese (nationality not teaching matter) teachers.  Some exciting things are happening in our city with schools and curriculum and it was good to be able to think about being a part of that.  I hadn't been able to find my keys that morning and I thought Elisabeth had had them, so I went over to the high school to ask her.  No keys but it was nice to see what she does during the day.
Then- big miracle!  There was a taxi outside of the school.  The school is at the end of a road, surrounded by factories and the countryside and the main traffic is donkey carts.  But there was a taxi with a very nice driver and we had a good conversation about family and American propensity towards divorce.
Back home to a still sleeping baby so I decided to get on my bike and go to the big grocery store.  Spring is wind and dust season here and wow!  风很大！Dust and wind and wind and dust!  I made it to the bank to get out money, only do have the bank tell me "system error."  We have an American bank that has a China partner and rarely have issues getting out money.  I didn't have enough cash to shop (using a debit card is rare here) so I biked back home to call the bank.  We love the google phone!  Called the  US bank and guess what....a holiday!  Banks are closed for Memorial Day.  So that was that.
At this point, our little guy was up and needed lunch.  I also ate lunch- our sweet helper had made us zongzi  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zongzi  so I ate one and some soup.  At one o'clock, a student came over for help with her writing.  She has been accepted into a PhD program in England but needs to increase her IELT's  score a little.  Her spoken and written English is really good and it's really a pleasure to work with her.  She is from a small village and is just so interesting to talk to.  She saw the picture we had from the 25 anniversary of the Shenyang International Church and that lead to a great discussion about the kinds of things we like to talk about!
After she left, I biked over to the local market to get milk and food for Tuesday's dinner.  However, when I got home, I discovered that our helper had only made vegetables and rice for dinner.  We had thrown out some meat that was in the freezer when we defrosted this weekend so maybe she had planned on using that.  Either way, the chicken that I bought for Tuesday's dinner became Monday's dinner and now I need to go back to the market.
Elisabeth got home around 4:00 and we ate a quick dinner around 5:30.  At 6:30, people started to arrive for the class that we have on Monday nights.  We studied the story of the woman caught in adultery.  There is something about slowing down and looking at a familiar story in a different language that is really refreshing.
Collapsed into bed around 10:00....only to be woken up by a sweet and happy face at 5AM.  Today I get to stay home and work on curriculum and work with my tutor.  Both days are good kinds of days.

A day of cross cultural confusion and fun

We haven't had a day like this in quite a while....but it happens even after you have been here for a while.

This afternoon we went to the 25th anniversary of the Shenyang International Church, commonly referred to as Xita (West Gate) as it is in the Xita neighborhood of our city.  Xita is basically Korea town.  Our city is pretty close to North Korea and we have our fair share of North Koreans who have made it out or ethnic Koreans whose families have been in China for a long time.

So we got in the taxi to go there and our driver just finished a cigarette.  Taxi drivers aren't really allowed to smoke when they are driving and most obey that rule.  He was a nice enough guy and asked if we would mind if he ran into a mini-market to get lunch.  He came out with a loaf of bread, a sausage and a diet coke which he ate while he drove us to the church.  He asked about our little guy and we told him his name and a few details.  He told us we had love in our hearts or sympathy (爱心）and then spend the rest of the ride calling out our little guy's name.  Even though that got really old, really fast, it was nice to know that our little guy really does know his name.  The taxi driver lit up another cigarette so I opened up the window and protested.  

On the way to the church, we called up a seamstress who had made some skirts for me.  We had arranged to meet her at the church when she picked up the fabric.  So we called her and we were to meet in front of the church.  When we got there, we waited and waited and waited. After 45 minutes, we finally gave up and went in, thinking that she could text us when she got there.  An hour later she arrived, breathless and apologizing.  She had been up at Qi Pan Shan, about an hour from our city!  We felt terrible that she had rushed back but we had no idea that she was there.  Anyway, the skirts are lovely, if a little form fitting.

The anniversary service was packed with people from all over the world.  There are many Africans here studying at a medical college and many of them are active in the international church.  We like going there for the worship and freedom and joy.  However, the service is on Sundays at 3:00 and that doesn't always work for us.  This service was full of joy, color, dancing, singing and praying.  It was fun and I am glad we went.

Afterwards there was a potluck but our little guy fell apart as it was really noisy and he was really tired. So we walked out onto the main street to a little store that my friend took me to when we first arrived here.  It's one of the only places you can buy light brown sugar.  We also needed diapers and milk but they didn't have diapers.

By this point we were hungry so we went to a Korean barbeque place.  We love Korean barbeque and have eaten it many times.  But somehow, we just couldn't understand the waiter and he couldn't understand us. Usually you order meat and some vegetables and you cook them right there at your table.  We ordered bibimbap, which is my favorite.  Some how an order of kim bob landed on our table and a mystery bowl of soup.  I tried to feed to tofu to our litte guy but it was too spicy.  Fortunately we had an egg on the bibimbap so I fed him that.  We took the kim bob home with us.  It was just the oddest experience to just not understand what was going on in the restaurant. I asked them to cook the egg on the bibimbap a little longer and they brought me some kind of spice. We think they were telling us something about the meat....or maybe not.

As we were leaving, two ladies came in and looked at our little guy.  I heard one say to the other "Oh, he has problems."  I looked right at her and said "That's right."  They weren't being unkind but it still rankled.  We feel very protective of our little guy.

Since we still had no diapers or milk, we walked over to the big Korean grocery and got those things.  To get to the market, you enter a kind of mall and weave your way to the back and then up three flights of stairs.  There is a pretty large Korean grocery store with fun stuff to buy.  But I was on a mission for diapers and milk and that's all I got.  Paul and the sweet baby had to wait outside.

We fell into a taxi and got home more than an hour past the sweet baby's bed time.  He cried a little and then fell asleep.  Maybe he'll be tired enough to sleep past 5AM tomorrow.