Pelley Family Blog

It’s morning - Monday, April 20.  It is supposed to be the first day of school for Ruby - and she is still sound asleep at 9:40 a.m. (I LOVE homeschooling).  We had a busy, busy weekend, and we’re all a bit tired.  I think the best thing to do right now is to let her sleep. 

We let Ruby call China last night.  It’s the first time she’s asked.  I felt especially positive about this because she has had two encounters with friends from China this past week - and neither gal could remember how to speak Chinese.  I think Ruby was feeling a little - just a little - frustrated by this.  I think she needed to be able to communicate with someone familiar.  She called her teacher last night - and talked about 15 minutes.  I knew she was talking about a friend she was able to see in Cincinnati this past weekend, because I could hear her name repeated several times.

We went to Cincinnati for the Homeschool Convention this past week (Thursday through Saturday).  Ruby was a gem.  I can’t imagine sitting through something like this, not understanding, and behaving as well as she did.  We brought things for her to do.  Mike also loaded lots of Chinese music onto a MP3 player, so she also listened to that a lot.  Last week, Ruby was so bored, she asked (through her pocket translator) to go to school - she was tired of staying home.  I explained that we would start school next week.  During the weekend conference, she told me that she wanted to stay home for school.  I’m not sure why the change.  I had explained that all of the people at the convention homeschooled (and there were thousands!).  Also, she spent time with her friend from China, who is homeschooled. 

Mike took a break from the convention to take her to visit Mayana, one of her friends from Maoming.  While they could not communicate verbally, she still had fun.  While there (and they were not there long), she learned how to ride a bike!  Now she wants one.  We told her that as soon as she speaks English, she can have one.  Now she is a woman on a mission! 

I will try to add some pictures tonight.  Ruby is up - and I’d better get this day going!  She is playing with my nose!  That is an every day occurance.  We characterize Asians by their eyes. They characterize us by our big noses.

Well - we’ve been home one week with Ruby!  This week with Mike home has flown!  While we originally thought it would be good to have him home during the transition, we feel like the only one NOT needing help with the transition is RUBY!  She seems right at home - laughing, kissing, lots of hugging, etc.  The rest of us are dragging.  She has WAY more energy than anybody else in this house.  She’s going to either keep us young or kill us! 

One happy girl! I'm convinced that, just for Ruby, God let us have one more (I hope) snow!

Mike took Ruby to work this week - first to Mandarin Club (they want to make her an honorary member) and then to have a Chinese co-worker teach Ruby how to use her pocket translator to talk to us.  It worked, and this has been wonderful!  We can communicate a little better!

Ruby and Joanna communicating with the pocket translator - and body language!

Ruby experienced her first “science night with Daddy” - and wouldn’t you know - they dissected a worm this week.  She was right in the middle of it all!

Dissecting a worm!

We’ve stopped at an authentic Chinese restaurant twice - and bought enough for Ruby to have one traditional Chinese meal per day.  I make her try one bite of whatever we are having at mealtime.  Sometimes she takes a bite and waves it off - but then comes back to it, one time even having seconds.  One thing she did NOT wave off was a hamburger off the grill.  She DEVOURED it before moving on to noodles.

Eating her noodles!

I’ve done some math placement tests with her this week - just to find out what she knows.  Basically her addition/subraction and all of her multiplication facts through ten.  We hope to start working on reading next week.  We’ve gone around the house and labeled several things - so she can see the English word.  Today, she picked up a Hello Kitty notepad at a store - I said “Hello Kitty”.  She looked at me and said, “Kitty” and you could see a light turn on!  She connected it with our Kitty at home and realized they were the same word.  That was neat.

Doing math

One thing I’ve realized is that Ruby must have studied the photo album we sent her last fall.  And she wants to “relive” the things in that album.  One thing she wanted to do was to make bread, and imitate the picture of Joanna pulling on the dough.  So, we did that this week.

Ruby with oatmeal molasses bread dough

Mike and I HAD to get some work done yesterday, so I put Ruby in front of the TV with a video - frist time I’ve done that.  I went down to do laundry and found her with the cat on her lap.  She and the cat have a love/hate relationship right now. 

Kitty napping on Ruby

Well - that’s it.  We’re headed out for Chinese - one of Mike’s co-workers is headed for a stint in Singapore - so we’re meeting at a Chinese restaurant.  We figured she’ll like that!

I feel like today is Ruby’s first chance to do some exploring - and what she wanted to explore was OUTSIDE.  We had a wonderfully mild day for Cleveland, and sunshine to boot, so as soon as she was home from church, she changed and headed outside.  Kind of like travel day on Thursday, she showed her enthusiasm by touching EVERYTHING and trying it out.  Grace and I stayed home - Grace is exhausted and having trouble getting over some sickness, and we felt it best to lether recoup today.  Mike and Joanna introduced Ruby to the Victory community and took her for some good Catonese food - I guess she did some major eating.  They brought some home for the next few days as well!

Here are some photos of today:

Peace sign

Badmitton

Biking

Jumping

The Pelley Family of Five!

Ruby with Grandma and Grandpa

With Uncle Phil, Aunt Brenda, and Andy

As I fell into bed last night, I had two thoughts.

#1 - we must be crazy to put Ruby through what we did yesterday, less than forty-eight hours after coming home.

#2 - I’m glad we spent the day as a family, even if it meant being gone from 6:15 in the morning until 8:30 last night.

As many of you know, yesterday was one of the things I worried about before going to China.  It was district Bible Quiz.  To say that Joanna and Grace are “into” quizzing would be an understatement.  They LOVE it.  During the year, they have monthly “meets” that they participate in.  But at District Quiz, you have to reach a certain level to be able to go on.  The fact that this quiz fell 36 hours after returning from China really bothered me. 

Friday was just a blur to us - we were so tired and trying to just cope with life.  By the end of the day, we had made a plan for Saturday.  The girls would go to the quiz on the church van with their team.  We would let Ruby sleep in, and join them later in the day.  But, we are still jet-lagged.  Mike and I were awake by 1:30 a.m., and Ruby was awake by 4:30 a.m.  So - we changed the plan, and were all in the car about 6:15 to head to Mt. Vernon.  The girls did GREAT.  Both of them made first team, and their church team also advanced to regionals.  Grace was exhausted all day - you could see it in her eyes (which wander when she’s tired).  But, her competitiveness kicked in.  We told Ruby in her translator that the girls were going to be in a contest.  That was enough for her.  She cheered them on, and generally stole people’s hearts.  One of the girls’ teammates taught her how to play games on the cell phone.  She did some busy work from her backpack.  It was so neat when she recognized my parents when they came in.  She’s spent a total of fifteen minutes with them, but seems to know everybody from her picture album.  I could NOT have asked for better behavior.  

Then, after the quiz, we took my Dad out to dinner for his 75th brithday.  He didn’t know it, but my brother and his wife were to meet us at the restaurant.  When we got to the restaurant, my mom was concerned because they had set too many places at our table.   Then our surprise came - my nephew Andy was there from Memphis - and they had kept it a secret.  What a treat!  So - Ruby got introduced to some extended family.  Phil & Brenda gave her an Ohio State Buckeyes shirt.  

We had to trade driving responsilbities a couple of times heading home - we were SO EXHAUSTED.  And Ruby fell asleep in the car.  But we had a great day - we were SO PROUD of all three of our girls!

Lots to tell - but I’ll start with the best story of the day - so you can quit if you want to.  The last four-five hours of our 14 hour flight, Ruby kept opening the window shade, or asking me to open it.  It was so bright and cloudy, that we quickly closed it again.  Somewhere over New York, when we opened the shade, we saw - finally - land.  In Chinese, she said “America”.  She said it several times.  She said it several more times throughout the next few hours.  As we flew past Manhattan, I saw the Statue of Liberty, and was so frustrated that I didn’t know how to say it in Chinese.  She had shown me a picture of it in China, so I knew that SHE knew what it was.  I kept pointing at it - I’m not sure if she saw it.  So cool.  I bought her a t-shirt in the airport - it had a little Statue of Liberty on it - since she became a citizen yesterday.

Ruby is a US citizen

Yesterday was the longest day of my life.  I thought maybe labor was, but at least those were 24 hour days. This one was thirty-three hours.  We got up at 4:30 a.m. China time (4:30 Wednesday afternoon Ohio time) and arrived home about 12:30 a.m. this morning (Friday).  Exhausted.  As I write, it is noon, and Ruby is still asleep. (We gother up at 1:00 p.m.)

At Guangzhou airport

I learned first-hand a few things yesterday.  #1 - the way Ruby deals with over-stimulation is NOT by shutting down (common in many adoptees).  She gets curious.  She has to investigate EVERYTHING.  It started at the airport.  She obviously had never seen a vending machine before.  She was intrigued.  She couldn’t stay away from it.    #2 - the people who told me that she would be like having a two year old in a big body - well - yesterday I found that to be true - at least for yesterday!  It was like taking your exploring toddler into a new, very sensory situation.   You know - where you walk behind them making sure they don’t break anything?  That was yesterday.  In many ways, Ruby is very mature.  In other ways, she is like a two year old.  She had to touch everything yesterday - figure it out.  On about my 25th hour with no sleep, she was getting on my last nerve.   She was so “Chinese” - running into people and working her way through the crowd.  Even on the jetway, there was about two inches between people, and she was wedging her way between the people before we stopped her.  About the time we would give her a “lesson” on how to not push through, someone would come push their way through us.  This is one lesson better taught here, and not in China! 

Praise God we had the airplane with the little TVs.  She loved it.  She got frustrated that it didn’t start up until we were in the air!  Her selection of movies cracked me up.  This is one place where I realized her younger maturity level.  No Nemo, or Toy Story, or Monsters Inc.  She watched Snow White three times (once in German), and Dumbo at least twice (once in German).  

We had some major delays on the last leg of the journey, sitting on the runway for two hours before taking off.  At that point, I was trying to hold back tears.  Exhaustion - frustration - just wanting to be home.  Plus - feeling badly that we had no way to call home and let them know why we weren’t there!

Ruby finally fell asleep as we were descending into Cleveland (she slept about one hour on the long flight - on the airplane floor at my feet).  She was then awake the car ride home.  I wish I had a video of her running into Joanna’s arms at our back door.  Grandma had the video running inside, but they couldn’t wait to get inside to hug!  We stayed up about an hour - with Ruby exploring a lot.  I’m guessing today is a BIG exploration day.

This should be our last post while in China.  I hope to keep this blog up - at least for awhile - as we chronicle lots of firsts for Ruby. 

We leave in about forty-five minutes to get a few last dollars changed to RMBs, pick up a few last souvenirs, and then head to the US Consulate, where we take some kind of “oath” - not sure what we’re promising to do - but it’s gotta be done.  Then we’ll get Ruby’s passport and visa and we are finally free to leave the country with her. 

We leave EARLY tomorrow morning for about a 30 hour trip home.  Some prayer requests, for those of you who have been lifting us up:

Continued health & safety.  We have stayed incredibly healthy here (my stomach’s only acted up the last day or so!).  No travel related illnesses, for which we are thankful.

Very selfish - that we would have the same type of plane going home - with mountains of videos IN CHINESE for Ruby to watch - to help the time.  We have lots of layover time, as well.  We’ll need patience and creativity.

Another very selfish - that we would bounce back to US time quickly - I would so very much like to go to Mt. Vernon on Saturday to see Joanna and Grace quiz.

That we would be given great patience and wisdom: #1 - in teaching Ruby about the God who made her and loves her, and #2 -  in training her.  She’s tested us a few times these last couple of days - nothing major - but we need to be on our toes.  We’ve been told this is very common - these kids want to see if you still want them and love them even when they don’t behave perfectly. 

Well, the Chinese checkers are set up - and that means I’d better GO!

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.  God has been amazingly good to us - we feel blessed.

This is at the folk art museum.  Ruby is watching a caligrapher write her English and Chinese name on a card.

Watching

 We had a group photo session. These are two other older kids with Ruby. The one in the middle was adopted from Russia several years ago and came with her family to get a younger brother.

With other kids

This is near an indoor waterfall at the White Swan.  Ruby is wearing a traditional Chinese outfit we got for her.

Waterfall

We got someone to take a family portrait. Well, not the whole family, but those who were there.

Famliy

Bamboo

 If at first you don’t succeed, …

Signs

 At the zoo, they had a small amusement park with about 10 rides, mostly for younger kids.  Mom and Ruby had fun on the roller coaster.

Roller coaster

 Somebody in China loves lots of bright lights!  It seems every building was lit up.  The one in the background has full motion video done in full color lights.

Guangzhou at night

 This is looking across the Pearl River, which runs through Guangzhou.

Across the river