Our airline tickets are booked, and we'll be on our way soon. As with any journey on the path to international adoption you wait and wait and hope and wait some more and then suddenly you're going and the world is turning faster than it was the 200 or so days or 3+ years or whatever the wait has been. That's where we are right now. So much to do, so little time, but life continues. Toby woofs at the back door, the dryer makes it's tumbling noise, and before long everyone is going to be hungry. You mean I still have to feed everyone?
The suitcases are out waiting to be filled. Things are getting crossed off lists. We still need to get a few things written down in characters, such as our dinner menu. Grilled chicken or grilled salmon, rice or boiled potatoes, steamed broccoli or steamed cauliflower. That's what we stuck to on our last trip, and it worked beautifully. Tom gets migraines, so he has eliminated from his diet many foods considered to be migraine triggers. On the top of the list of migraine triggers: Asian food. We learned early on in preparation for our last trip that bu fang wei jing means don't cook with MSG. I'm allergic to shellfish and can't eat spicy food. As a couple, we are a Chinese food disaster looking for a place to happen, so don't look for any pictures of us enjoying any of the delicacies offered on sticks from street vendors. Ain't gonna happen but have *Immitrex* and epi*pen, will travel.
We have a 14.5 hour flight ahead of us with an 8 hour layover in Shanghai followed by a 1 hour flight to Hefei. When I see all of that written down it's enough to make me weep. We don't have the luxury of flying at night this time, and we are going to be tired and wrung out, but there is a part of the travel plan that makes me laugh while I'm weeping. We received a call the other night from Louise, our unofficially adopted, 20-something daughter from *China*, informing us that her mom and dad are going to meet us at the airport in Shanghai. You might be able to figure out what comes next, but I'll give you a clue: they don't speak English. With our own extensive Mandarin skills, Tom and I will be able to say to them hold my hand, stay with me, you are being good, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, do you need to pee and several other general phrases necessary for our trip such as thank you, you're welcome, that's too expensive and I don't want any.
That darn language thing. You notice it frequently has the word barrier attached to it. We are lucky, though, because we've already met Louise's mom when she was here for six months a few years ago. When we see each other again, we'll pick up where we left off. We'll smile, we'll laugh, we'll hug, words that don't have barrier attached to them, and it will be wonderful to meet her dad. Don't get me wrong, we'll be exhausted, and it's going to be tough to pantomime how much we love their daughter and what a great job they have done raising her. But, we'll do what we can using the international language of smiling, laughing and hugging.
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