Out of Order---The Forbidden City (pre-Gotcha Day)

These pictures were actually taken when we were still a family of three....
Tianaman Square...

Entering the Forbidden City....

Inside the Forbidden City.... Still in the Forbidden City....

Ellie!

Waiting to leave the White Swan Hotel to travel to the Civil Affairs office to meet Ellie. Quincy brought her Cho Cho and Mei Mei's Cho Cho to the greeting.

Mei Mei is shell-shocked...Quincy is patting her face saying, "It's okay, Ellie".

Taking a walk before bath and bedtime. So far (three days in), Quincy is being a really, really, really good sister.

In bed about fours after Mei Mei became a part of our family :))))

We brought Ellie HanMei (who has gone by "Mei Mei" for the last three years and we're sticking with it) into the family on Monday. It has been a crazy three days so I am just now getting around to posting. Sorry!

Gotcha Day was very emotional. One of the people in our group spotted Mei Mei (AKA, Ellie Han Mei... see above) before we did and shouted to us, "There's Ellie!". She was right. Ellie was sitting in a room with other kids waiting to come out and meet us. When they brought her out (maybe two minutes after we spotted her), she was placed in our arms and immediately began to cry. Not hard, loud, wailing cries. Just soft sobs with tears. Crying is supposed to be a healthy sign of attachment (and separation from someone else)....we are very glad that she cried. Quincy immediately went to her and hugged her and gave her her very own "Cho Cho" doll. It appears Mei Mei has never played with dolls before as she tried to rip its hair out later that night. Good thing the hair was glued in with something strong.

It is now three days after Gotcha Day and it is a HUGE adjustment. Mei Mei is doing fine....Quincy is the one showing the "adjustment". Prior to coming to China, Quincy was 95% wonderful, 5% two-year-old with tantrums. Now it's more like 50-50. She gets along really well with Mei Mei, but her sleep and feeding schedule has been thrown off big-time (due to the crazy schedule our travel group is on). I am pretty sure the behavior change in Quincy is a combo of that and the new sister. It will be interesting to see how her behavior changes again when we get back home and back on schedule.

Another thing that is very different from the last time is this whole Swine Flu thing. A couple in our travel group were quarantined at 2:30 am the morning before we were to leave Beijing and travel to Guangzhou to get our babies. Apparently there were three Japanese men on their same flight into Beijing a few days prior that had Swine Flu. The officials in Beijing tracked down every single person on that flight (over 300) and they are all in quarantine now. We are pretty sure that as long as they don't come down with any sickness they will be allowed to fly out of Beijing after one week of quarantine. However, since everyone in our travel group was traveling with that couple in Beijing after their arrival (but before their quarantine), every person in our travel group has to have twice daily temperature checks by officials in protective gear. It's very odd.