You're the bravest little girl I know...

What a difference a day makes.

Monday morning before heading out for school - all happy with her new bunny she named Sparkle.

Tuesday morning with a breakfast of jello, popsicles and apple juice.  That could mean only one thing...

... surgery #6.  Helaina's been great about it.  A little whining and complaining over the last week but no tears.  She was comforted by the fact that she wouldn't have sutures in her palate or throat this time and that we could come home the same day.  She picked the root beer scent for her gas mask and they gave her stickers to decorate it too.

Daddy in his zuit suit prior to walking Helaina to the operating room.  I've taken her down for 2 of her previous surgeries and I'm not a fan.  I don't like it when they put the gas mask over her nose and she goes limp right before your eyes.  Too much for Momma to take, so Jim's the official OR escort.

"You're the bravest little girl I know."  That's the first thing I said to Helaina when I was allowed back in the recovery area, fighting back tears with a huge lump in my throat.  I definately wasn't prepared for what I saw.  Her other surgeries were inside her mouth and throat so nothing was visible.  This time she had both ears worked on again (no biggie) but her lip was worked on also.  She's got clear tape on the skin right under her nose to hold the sutures tight, but everything is visible, including the sutures, oozing, fresh blood and dried blood.  The surgery lasted just under 3 hours and she's one tired little gal.  Helaina and I spent the night on the couch.  She needed to be watched for bleeding outside the lip and the sutured area inside.  We had to keep her on her back and relatively still because when she moved a lot the surgery sites would start to bleed, which scared her (yah, me too).  She got up at midnight to potty and get a drink and then wanted to watch TV.  I found Mickey Mouse on the Disney Channel so we watched that for about 30 minutes then she finally fell asleep again.  Pain meds, antibiotics, ear drops, ointment, soft foods, no biting down, lots of rest and limited activity for 2 weeks - doctors orders.    Swelling was down a bit this morning and she doesn't appear to be bruised.  She ate some breakfast, got cleaned up, brushed her teeth very carefully, took all her meds and now she's been sleeping for almost 90 minutes.  She is the bravest girl I know.  She's my hero.

 

A weekend of ...

... indulgence for Helaina.  So, actually, what else is new?  Helaina's got a big day coming up on Tuesday (and not in a good way), so this weekend was all about her.  It started yesterday with our zoo adventure and continued today with a trip to the mall - specifically, Build A Bear for an Easter bunny.  The mall excursion started like all others ...

 ... with a ride on the carousel.  Notice the shiny bling on her finger.  She's got a "diamond" ring - looks to be about 5 carats - and she loves wearing it.

Sharing a laugh with the Build A Bear stuffer dudette.

Giving Sparkle a wash and blow dry.

Our adventure continued with lunch at the Melting Pot.  Jim gave us a gift certificate to the new fondue restaurant for Valentine's Day and we finally cashed in.  OMG, scrumptious.  We decided against the full 4-course (super expensive) 2-hour dining experience and chose a cheese fondue pot for starters - spinach and artichoke.  It's made right at your table and it was love at first bite - cheesy, gooey, melty, garlicky, stringy goodness.  For dippers we got bread cubes, apples, taco chips and veggies.  Delish.  Helaina's sipping her orange creamsicle-type drink complete with cherries and orange slices.  7-year old happiness.

Having a skewer battle with Daddy for stringy cheesy goodness.  She liked her pink-handled fondue skewers.

After our cheesy goodness, we opted for chocolate goodness.  We chose the milk chocolate and peanut butter fondue.  The dippers were (OMG) strawberries, bananas, chocolate and white marshmallows, cheesecake, brownies and red velvet cake cubes.  Indescribably delicious.  Helaina loves to dip and dunk anything so Melting Pot got 2 gooey thumbs up from her.  We'll definately go back for an occasional treat.  In the meantime, I think my next new purchase will be a fondue pot.

Amazing bamboo wall at the mall.

A view from the first floor of the 3rd level rope course at WonderWorks.  Helaina is big-time obsessed with the course and wants to do it in the worst way.  She surpasses the height requirement by about 6 inches but we're still a bit leary.  Jim and I won't do it with her - that will be Josh's task some day.  You have to wear a body harness and are tethered to a "run" above you that you follow through the course.  I swear Helaina would bungie jump off something if we let her.  She's absolutely fearless.

 

Breakfast at the zoo

This morning we took our yearly trip to the zoo for breakfast with the Easter Bunny.  It's always fun.  Good food, face painting, crafts and of course, E.B. himself - or herself, who knows.  After the event we visited the "inside" animals because it was too cold and windy to make the loop around the zoo and we didn't think any animals would be out in their habitats anyways.

Cute bunny with our cute gal.  The bunny gave Helaina a neck and back rub with her big fluffy paws and Helaina thought it was too funny.

Face painting is always a hit.  "What color do you want your egg, honey?" the face painter asked.  "Purple" - what other color is there?

The zoo volunteers even brought out some real bunnys for the kids to pet.  This is Peter - all 12 pounds of him.  Biggest darn rabbit I ever saw.

This is Yohan.  The bunnys were really good, letting the kids pet them all they wanted.

Now my sister would say that I have too much time on my hands, but I always wanted to enter the newspapers peep art contest so this year I did.  Peepnastics - clever, isn't it?  I didn't want to spend hours and hours on it not even knowing if I'd make it into the judging, but I did take the time to make a balance beam, trampoline, bar and rings.  I like the peep bunny hanging from the rings by her ears the best.  I think it's cute - better than some that were entered but not good enough to be a finalist.  If I had taken the time to put leotards on them I may have had a shot.  Since I started this 2 days before the deadline I didn't have time to get fancy.  I already know what I'm doing next year(!) and I'll start a lot earlier with my creation.

Tooth #5

"Mom!  My tooth came out in my taco!!!"  I picked Helaina up from school yesterday (instead of taking the bus home) and she was screaming that statement as she came running down the hall when I was waiting for her in the lobby.  She was wearing the famous, coveted plastic white tooth necklace that carried her bloodied tooth.

Happy happy, another gap on the bottom.

The count is now up to 5 visits from the tooth fairy.

 

That's 2 teeth now lost to the school cafeteria lunch.  First one came out due to a chicken patty and this one a soft taco.  Helaina said the taco shell was "thick".  That doesn't say much for the school food, but I've had it and it's very good.  I'm a helper in Helaina's classroom and when I go in to help, I stay and have lunch with the kids.  I've sampled many of the items and it's tasty, made-from-scratch food.  They have lean proteins, fresh fruits and veggies, skim milk, beans, rice dishes & whole grain everything.  I chat with the lunch ladies and they are friendly gals.  Last time I was there one of them told me "no whole milk and never bacon - those are no no's on the school lunch tray."  It's not the same lunch food we at as kids.

 

Gotcha Baby

Five years?  Really?  Five years ago today at 5:30pm in a dingy little civil affairs office in the city of Xi'an, I got to hold a 27-pound bundle of sweating, screaming, crying, squirming energy that was to be Helaina Marie.

We had arrived in Xi'an the night before and mercifully had the following day to catch up a little, get organized a little, get our money exchanged and visit a park just down the street from our hotel.  Above pic shows the wall that surrounds Xi'an city.

It was nice having a park so close to the hotel.  We took many walks to this park pushing Helaina in her spiffy orange and blue Chinese stroller (which we still have, even though it's in horrible shape - I can't bear to part with it).

 On our way to the grocery store near our hotel to stock up on drinking water.  It was always an adventure going to the store but eventually we got really good with the Chinese currency (yuan?)  We bought mostly bottled drinks.  Even though we were told it was "safe" to drink the faucet water after we boiled it in the kettle in our hotel room, I still wouldn't drink it.  We used the boiled water to brush teeth and rinse out a few things.

 Ahhh, precious cargo.  Men Ying arrived with her nanny in a van about 30 minutes later than expected - stuck in traffic, what a surprise.  She had fallen asleep on the way and she was sweaty, disoriented, most likely hungry and probably wondering "what the heck?" 

 I held her first - just had to, couldn't wait.  After a while I passed her off to her new Daddy.  She's clinging to the panda bear we sent her for her 2nd birthday and a lollipop her nanny gave her to try and calm her down (didn't work).

She eventually calmed down a little and then totally in the van.  She liked riding in the van and looking out the window.  Still clutching the panda and lollipop!  Must have been somewhat comforting to have things she was used to in such an upsetting situation to her.

After we got back to the hotel room I changed her diaper, got her cleaned up a bit and headed right to dinner.  All her paperwork (and the size of her thighs!) indicated that she liked to eat so we figured it would be a good way to hopefully make her feel comfortable.  We were right.

 She loved her bath (just like her paperwork said).  As I was running the water Helaina was standing right next to me.  She knew what to do.  She started to rip at her clothing and lift her leg over the side to get in.  She absolutely loved the stacking cups we brought from home.  Filled them with water and watched it run out for a long time.

Finally fed, clean and sporting her blue jammies.

We decided to take her for a stroll around the hotel.  We quickly learned that she liked to have one thing in each hand.  Didn't matter what it was - sippy cup, lotion bottle, flashlight, phone, lollipop, ball - as long as she had something to hold in both hands, she was good to go.  What I remember the most (and what I'll never forget) happened when we left our room to go for our walk.  Helaina had her pink sippy cup in one hand and a small lotion bottle in the other.  She stopped walking, put the cup in the same hand as the lotion bottle and reached up to hold my hand.  I get choked up now just thinking about it.  I knew at that moment things would be ok.  We walked up and down the halls and went to the lobby for a while.  We almost got a half-smile out of her at one point.  She was so stinking sweet, adorable and good natured about things, even though she was totally out of her element and with strangers she had never laid eyes on.  We went back to the room after our walk, gave her a small cup of applesauce (big hit) which she fed herself with a plastic spoon and got her ready for bed.  After hugging and kissing her to death we put her in her crib, covered her up and didn't hear a peep out of her until the next morning.  She slept 9 hours straight, which we didn't think was too bad considering that we had heard some stories about kids who would scream all night and never sleep a wink.

Five years later this is our amazing little gal.  Some things haven't changed - she's as feisty as she was the day we met her, she loves to eat(!), she lives to please us and still loves hugs and kisses.

We celebrated our Gotcha Day anniversary with dinner out at Red Lobster (gotta love lobster fest).  My mind keeps drifting back to the night we brought little Men Ying into our lives.  I gave Helaina extra hugs and kisses tonight as we tucked her into bed.  I told her about how we tucked her into her crib in China on that very first night and that we gave her lots of hugs and kisses then too.  She flashed me a sleepy smile.  Love you, little girl.  Glad you're our daughter.

Memories

Five years ago on March 7th we left our home to travel to the other side of the world to finally meet our Asian princess.  We headed out of our hometown at 9:10am bound for Chicago.  We departed Chicago at 1:00pm with me praying that the jet had enough fuel to stay in the air for 13 hours.

I remember watching these screens pop up in between the movies that were shown on our flight (all 5 of them).  I longed for the "Time to Destination" to read "1 more second".

Zombie man somewhere over Syberia.  Poor Daddy-to-be.  I was used to not sleeping (since I have always been a quasi-insomniac) and could get along on little sleep, but Jim is a solid 8-hour-per-night dude and I knew it would be tough on him.  Good thing he could fall asleep in 10 seconds or less, anywhere - anytime.

We landed in Beijing some time on March 8 and this truck was the first thing I saw out of our plane's window.  We met "Frank" (our trip coordinator) and had a brief layover before our next 2-hour flight to Helaina's city, Xi'an.

Quick pic in Beijing airport next to an Olympic mascot.

Oh yah, this was one of the second things I saw inside the airport.  I remember walking into the bathroom (TOTALLY forgetting about the squat toilets) and thinking to myself "why are all the stalls elevated and the bathroom doors so low to the ground?"  I stepped up, opened the door and said out loud "Oh cr*p!"   And compared to most of the other squats I saw in China, this one was immaculate and in pristine condition!

Getting to Xi'an from Beijing was filled with funny moments.  I think back now and laugh but at the time, being jet-lagged and exhausted, it wasn't funny.  After already being on 2 planes for a total of 15 hours in the air, last thing we wanted to do was get on another plane.  When it was time to board, we were herded with many others onto a small bus that was overcrowded and pitch black inside.  I remember hanging onto a pole trying not to fall over while telling Jim not to take his eyes off of me.  The bus drove us to the middle of the runway where our plane was waiting.  When the bus stopped it was a mad rush to board the plane.  We finally got on, found our seats and waited to get going.  Very quickly and without warning the plane started to move - fast, very fast, so fast I couldn't believe it.  Pulling my seatbelt tighter I said to Jim "Are we taking off?  He said "No, I think we're taxiing."   He was right - taxiing at rocket speed.  The plane went straight for a while then made a sharp turn to the right.  I looked out the window and said "My God!  We're going over a bridge!"  Out the window I could see a road below the bridge with cars driving on it!  I'm petrified, Jim's laughing saying something about a Kamakazi pilot.  Over the bridge, another abrupt turn then the plane comes to a halt.  My heart's pounding while I brace myself for when the crazy pilot speeds down the runway for takeoff.  With a quick start we were tearing down the runway like a space shuttle.  We lifted off and I was on edge for the first 3 minutes (I read somewhere that if there's going to be a malfunction on a plane that it most likely occurs within the first 3 minutes after takeoff).  No malfunction (except for my heart).  We landed 2 hours later at about 9:30pm in Xi'an where we met our guide and driver.  After about an hour long ride we arrived at our hotel.  Got our bearings (sort of), unpacked a little then collapsed onto the rock-hard bed to try and sleep.  Jim was snoring Chinese style in about 45 seconds.  Despite being up for about 26 hours straight, I couldn't sleep.  The room was hot, the bed rock-hard and I couldn't get out of my mind the monumental change that would occur in our lives the next day.  I kept thinking about little MenYing asleep in her crib with her nanny's.  Little did she know that it would be her last night in the only home she'd ever known.  We were about to rock her little world whether she wanted it rocked or not.  I did get some sleep that night, but not much.  Even though I was exhausted, I had too many thoughts running through my mind that I just couldn't turn off.  Imagine that.

3 parties are totally enough

We finally ended our week-long celebration of Helaina's 7th birthday, which included 3 parties:  big party with family (well, at least one side of the family was excited and more than thrilled to celebrate Helaina's big day), our celebration on her actual birthday, and the finale this past Saturday at McDonalds with her friends.  Jim and I are glad to have February over with, not that it wasn't fun with our month-long events, but time for a break from it all.

The birthday girl at school.  Jim and I went to school in the afternoon and brought a craft for the kids to make.  Her classmates are all good kids and they get along very well.

A fancy little mermaid skirt to wear.  The obsession with mermaids continues in full force.

Rings are also a big deal at our house now.  Jim loved sitting at the kitchen table one evening after dinner making rhinestone flower and butterfly rings with his little girl!

Monster High rules - or as they say "Ghouls Rule".  See the smile on her face after opening her Clawdeen Wolf doll?

Yup, that's quite enough stuff for one gal.  Helaina still had to open her "big" gift this year, which is a Barbie Vet set.

When Jim asked Helaina what her favorite birthday gift was she replied "My Monster High lunchbox!"  Thank you Aunt Terry and Uncle Mike.

Dinner at a restaurant of her choice (except NOT McDonalds).  Helaina picked Tulley's.

Plucking the whipped cream covered cherry off of her birthday sundae while the waitresses were still singing to her.

Back home for more cake.  I froze the leftover cake from Sunday and we had it again.

The grand finale.  Helaina's party at McDonalds with 9 of her classmates.  It was first-graders gone wild as they climbed in the play structure, enjoyed Happy Meals, goody bags, and a Ronald McDonald cake. 

Helaina reading the card from one of her best little buddies at school - J standing right next to her.  One of Helaina's classmates told me that Helaina and J sometimes dance at school like they're married!  He gave her a pink bear that's holding a huge pink heart that says "Kiss Me"!  Oh boy.

Singing happy birthday and a chocolate Ronald McD cake, complete with side of vanilla ice cream.

Helaina fell asleep almost instantly on the ride home from the party - clutching the pink bear that her little beau J gave her.  Done and done - for another year.  I still can't believe that she's 7 years old.  Five years ago at this time we preparing to leave for the biggest adventure of our marriage - a trip half way around the world to meet our daughter.