All Mixed Up Leaving Harbin

"HE IS LIKE SUNSHINE"

Those were the words Rose and I received in an update from China a month back, when asking for a tidbit of information on Ray. We'd have to agree with them at this point. And many thanks go to Kelly Rumbaugh, a fellow Carroll County Citizen, for helping us get the updates we did. Bless her on her trip to get her son Joseph next week. We look forward to seeing them home safely.

...I believe the first time in my 38 years I have ever spelled the word schmorgasborg…was just at this moment. Alas, the Swedish word for a luncheon or supper buffet offering a variety of foods and dishes is apparently spelled smorgasbord. Maybe when I’m 76 I’ll get it right.

Anyhow, since we are checking out of the hotel in less than seven hours to catch a 2:55pm plane to Guangzhou, we’ll list of bunch of little stuff and thoughts and pics here in no particular order before we leave the city of our son’s birth.

RAY IS DOING WONDERFULLY!

He is a beautiful gift from God

*******************************PICS of Harbin City***********************************

**********************************Random Stuff*************************************

I miss Ray's family back home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back home, Elizabeth has decided that she doesn't need her booster chair anymore, and pushed it into the sunroom while saying "for Ray"! Then, she proceeded to sit in a regular dining room chair. Oh, the times they’ll have being brother and sister, soon never knowing the period they didn’t exist in each other’s lives.

There are certain things in life that one can not properly describe with words. Love is one example. The Harbin traffic is another. (My father calls it “Constant Chicken.”)

The hotel has several restaurants but we’ve pretty much eaten on the 13th floor one, with the exception of lunch on Wednesday. We dined on the 11th floor, and it was much more posh which suited us better…since, ya know, that’s how these three males running around China roll. After we ate Ray preceded to take each and every item off the table, run it over five feet to the waitress and hand it to her. We are talking on the order of 25-30 items. We were the only ones there at the time, and those five minutes were adorable.

Taking pictures of Ray while we are out is getting harder since he MUST where my camera bag (with said camera in it) around his neck.

My son eats like he has a shovel in his hand. I said to my dad, well he just didn’t have food like this in the orphanage, and his response was, “And he won’t when he gets home either.”

Ray is a tremendous eater – he actually gets a work out, and I have tempered his portions since realizing he would eat until the cows come home if I let him, and then he’d eat the cows! But on Wednesday night he really didn’t have an appetite, and spent most of the time hand-feeding me stuff off his plate. I sat bewildered since it was out of character, so much so that I turned to him and said, “Who are you, and what have you done with my son?”

Ray is really great with being potty trained; better than I was in college, in fact.

When returning home I will give serious consideration to petitioning the US Olympic Committee to push for “Snoring” to be a recognized Olympic sport. I understand the 2008 games here in China are out of the question at this point. Yes, I’m partial because “he’s my dad,” but one William Seeley would definitely bring home the gold for his country. But regardless of the outcome, there is no question my mother will be canonized.

Our time in Harbin has been wonderful, and one of the reasons is due our friendly and fearless driver Song. He’s been a difference-maker!

We needed to cross the busy street outside our hotel on Sunday, and realized there was a tunnel we could take for a safe route. When we got underground…we were shocked to discover when seems to be a City Under The City…full of shops. I’m talking it goes for football fields after football fields.

Here’s a shot of Harbin beer. I don't mean to be gross, but 1.95 RMB equates to roughly 30 cents. A six-pack? How would anyone get through college?

The wait staff in the hotel restaurants are outstanding, kind and gentle! And last night I asked one young lady who we have been seeing what her name was, since all she has is “trainee” on her pin. She told us, and then came back a few minutes later and asked, “Excuse, can you please help me pick out my American name?” Wow, what a gesture! What pressure! We’ll be seeing her for breakfast in about four hours and will decide then.

It was positively precious to watch Rose play peek-a-boo with Ray over Skype the other night. He also modeled his mother’s moves by touching his head, shoulders, ears, and the like.

Leave it to my father, but he found a Catholic Church a block over and block up from our hotel, and he’s been going to 6:30am daily Mass since Sunday.

We visited a Siberian Tiger Preserve on Wednesday. Ray seemed to enjoy the time in the van when you drove RIGHT NEXT TO the big cats; he did not like the time we walked around the cages, however. There are 200-300 hundred of these things in captive. The place looked in poor condition, but the animals did not. And did you know there IS such a thing as a “Liger,” a cross-bread between a lion and tiger? I thought that was a made up thing from that teenage cult flick Napoleon Dynamite.

I was commenting in a Skype session yesterday that Ray probably weighs more than Ben…and in turns out he was listening since he said, “Ray isn’t supposed to weigh more than me.” My son, bring your shovel to the table and let’s talk about it.

How resilient human beings are. Beauty aside for a moment, a hotel room is quite an artificial environment to live with your child for the first few weeks. I guess if anything, it forces the parents and the child to be physically close!

My mother stayed at our home a few days this week. What a treat for the children! She was born to be a Grandmother to Julia, Ben, Ray, and Elizabeth, and anyone else God sends our way.
Many of my WCF (Waiting China Family) sisters are on my mind and heart, especially the Triple Treat of the Heather, Kelly, and Amy P who leave next Thursday to bring home their Samuel, Joseph, and Samuel. What a symbolic and real Thanksgiving that will be.

Speaking of China families, the latest update on that tragedy with the father dying while in China with his wife to bring home their little adopted girl is that…”The US Consulate in Guangzhou has denied Sandi Sheldon permission to proceed with the adoption of Hannah. They want her to fill out a new I-171 and are making no guarantees after that. Sandi, of course does not want to leave China and leave Hannah here because she has no where to go. The adoption has been finalized here in China.” She is working directly with her congressman to get home safely and quickly…with her daughter. (The word got out…and the U.S. Rep's offices received over 1000 calls! Ironically she was concerned it was doing more harm than good so the calls have stopped and the prayers continue. Can you believe that support?!)

The other day during a Skype session Ray started throwing balls at the computer screen. I guess he wanting to play catch with Ben!

We went to PolarLand on Thursday. I almost put the kibosh on the visit, but am glad we did not. It’s a modest size aquarium but a very nice one. Ray really enjoyed being near the fish, and would get right up next to the glass. He was mesmerized by this one dolphin variety. And I was thankful my frantic race down two levels of the place in search for a “Water Toilet” for Ray ended with success.

(Looking below, this is the ONLY time Ray has let May touch him. In fact, he actually blows her off every time she tries to talk to him. But this was sweet, and she is really. And it was funny because two minutes later she bent down to pick him up...and she put him right back down 3-5 seconds later because he was too heavy. You should have seen her struggling to hold that brick boy!) We'll be meeting with two other families from AGCI when we are in GZ!

I’m already packed, and Ray’s clothes and my clothes are laid out and ready for us. Oh, sorry about that Rose – I should have asked if you were sitting down.

Oh, my gosh! I just realized the craziness of taking a three-year on a six-hour flight to Guangzhou! PANIC time!!!!!! I’ll need a carry-on just for lollipops.

*****************************Gotta Go*****************************************

So much more, so little time!!!!

We’ll close with poem Julia recited to me just hours ago on your Thursday morning. Rose and I could not have been blessed with a more wonderful young lady as our first child. If I were to fully write what I think about our lovely daughter I’m afraid the plane to Guangzhou would be missed…and I wouldn’t be home for months.

Foreign Lands
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94)

UP into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next-door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant faces more
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky’s blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping in to town.

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships,

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

…This all does seem like a dream, doesn’t it my dear Rose? We'll be home soon enough with your son, such that he comes alive in your arms.

Love to all,

Demian

(Blurry, schmurry...you get the idea. That belly is the stuff of Harbin CWI Legends.)