Webless in Beijing

Life has handed us a strange turn of events. After completing the adoption and visiting the orphanage, we took our tired boy back to the hotel for a nap. A different boy woke up from that nap. Angry. I think it hit him that a big life change had happened. Poor princess became the object of all his frustration. She had no idea how to react and it broke her heart.
With the adoption complete were were free to leave Hefei. Without his passport we could only travel by train. We were able to get tickets for the next day. On 2 different trains.
All the teachers at the school came in and took us to an amazing lunch before our train. Because we were comfortable, little guy seemed more comfortable and he finally had a good meal.
Little guy seemed to be bonding with Chris, but it made the most sense for Chris to travel alone and for me to take the kids since we had two sleepers, that way Teenager could help out with all the trips to the W.C. and guard our stuff. Chris's train let 30 minutes earlier than ours but came in 4 hours and a different train station than ours.
Divide and Conquer
I have never felt so defeated as I did on that train ride. For some reason at 1am they hadn't turned off the lights. Princess and Teenager had sacked out and little guy was still wired. He was going up the ladder and then wanting me to get him down. An hour of this and I was over that game, so I decided to just hold him on our bottom bunk. He began screaming and hitting me. Everybody on the train came to gawk at us. It was awful. Groggy teenager woke up and told them in Chinese to turn off the lights and leave us alone. They turned off the lights and he was still screaming. The conductor brought over someone who spoke English and told me I needed to make him be quiet and asked "Where is his mother?" Augh!!!! I'm his mother, he's deaf and I have no clue how to quiet him at this time, please get out of our face.....It was truly awful. He liked watching the lights go by and so he stood in the aisle along time and then I got him to sit on my lap and watch the lights and then eventually he fell asleep. It gets light very early in China and on the train people start making their noodles so that if you aren't awaken by the sunrise the aroma will get you. So with just a few hours of sleep, little guy woke up, ANGRY! He climbed up the ladder and started pounding Princess. It was just awful, my midnight audience came back to see how this crisis would be handled. Augh! Eventually we made it to Beijing with Princess and myself covered with bruises from the battle.
Then we had the joy of waiting for hours at the train station for Chris to arrive. The battle between Princess and little guy raged on and we had the rudest spectators. They would say, "punch him back" and awful stuff like that in Chinese. Poor us. Eventually Chris arrived. Little guy was so happy to see him. And so was princess. It nearly killed her when her Daddy carried her new brother and not her out of the station.
Enter a new nightmare
I had a job offer at a Korean International School that paid really well, but didn't have housing for the family. Actually they said I could keep Teenager with me since it was a shared flat and we could share the room. Our plan was for Chris to get a hotel and sort out the stuff at the embassy, homestudy update and fingerprints and then figure out housing, etc. We went to a hotel that we had been to 2 years ago. What you are Americans? No Americans here!!!! After pleading and producing numerous things that showed we have been in China since March and don't have swine flu they said ok. Then we go to check in with the adoption certificate for little guy. Apparently it doesn't have an id number. The id number is EVERYTHING here. We basically adopted somebody who technically doesn't exist. When they told us they would mail us his passport and that we couldn't fly because he didn't have a passport, we didn't realize that meant he couldn't check into a hotel. It was a real eye opening experience. How could this have happened to us? We did everything we could to make sure the adoption would be legal in both countries and here we were with no ID number. We convinced the hotel to let him stay the night (less than 24hours). So Chris stayed with Princess and little guy and Teenager and I hopped on the subway to the burbs.

I actually live across the street from "A Decent Life"...so close

Wow the apartment is the best I've had in China! Complete with bathtub! The school is really nice and the other teachers are great too!
Back at the hotel, Princess was continuing to be Little guy's punching bag. And the 24 hour clock was ticking. We made the difficult decision to have Chris to go back to Harbin with Little Guy. Without the id number there was no way for him to remain in Beijing. I spoke with my new boss about having Princess stay with me and it turns out he has 3 daughters and is a big softie so he let her stay.

Statues near apartment

It was really sad to have our family separated. But actually it is the best thing for Little Guy. He was not ready to be part of a family yet. His deafness is not his biggest problem right now, it is the institutional behaviors. What he needs is lots of attention and a routine. So Chris has gone back to Harbin. And they are getting along great!

Why can't I have my saddle? He just couldn't bear it.

Webless in Beijing

Beijing, China