Exactly One Month Ago our Family woke up as three, but when we went to sleep we were already 4

One month ago today, we met Gabriela Mercedes Anli. Thanks my absolutely fearless daughter for letting us be your parents. Gracias mi chiquilla por habernos dado el gran obsequio de poder ser tus padres. We could not imagine our family without you, and in fact it feels as if you had been with us for quite a lot longer. I would be totally unable to love this little girl more.
The last almost 3 weeks back in Puerto Rico have been spent adapting and getting back into routine, including return to school for Sebastian as well as return to work for Papi. On our third day back our familiest gave us a Welcome Gabriela party, which was great. I was really afraid for Gabriela, because I felt it could turn out to be a little bit too much people too soon. Well, as it turned out, Gabriela did great. Met everyone and had a wonderful time. We were all pretty jet lagged at that point, but it was good and we really thank our families who made the activity a success. Thanks also for all of the gifts, not only for Gabriela but for the ones given to Sebastian, in order to make him fee better and not left out. Thanks, it made a difference.
We are doing very good, including Gabriela. Many people have asked whether we would write more in the blog. Sorry for not writing for a long time, but it has been harder to do so since I got home. I will try to write in the next couple of days a long post with everything that has transpired since we got back. I can already tell you that Gabriela has a huge personality, and f we can totally understand why she was known as being somewhat wild. This girl is a dynamo, who loves to dance, loves the pool, and the water in general, loves to eat, crawls (not on 4 yet but she cruises everywhere), sits perfectly, sleeps perfectly and pretty much tries to repeat whatever she sees I have not met a person more curious about everything than Gabriela, and I think that she will either be a contortionist or a gymnast, but this girl is FLEXIBLE. She is like an Energizer bunny, and is extremely sociable, although she clearly prefers to be with Mommy to whom she has really BONDED with. The person with whom Gabi laughs the most is her older brother, who is lik her idol. She thinks that Sebastian is hilarious. She also already attended her first birthday party for Sebastian Jose, the son of very good friends of ours, and had a blast. It was in a Romp and Roll scenario.
When we met Gabi, she had 2 teeth. She now has 8 teeth, 3 of which have already broken through and are tiny yet but already out.
Someone recently asked how did it feel to have Gabriela in her room. I inclued a photo of her in her crib because I remembered that I had posted a photo of the crib with dolls inside, and had indicated at the time that I wanted it to be Gabi instead of the dolls. Therearen no words to describe how it feels to have GABI in her room, how to describe the feeling that your famliy is finally complete. There are just no words.
Also, please note that on September 20 we went to watch the documentary Somewhere between, which I strongly encourage everyone to watch. It was emotionally draining, and I would have waited longer after travelling to China to watch it if I had known, but it was so beautiful. It deals with the questions that our daughters and sons who come to us through an adoption journey, have regarding their quest for an identity and what each of 4 teenagers do about it. This documentary recently won an award in the Sundance festival, and therefore there were Sundance representatives present, who afterwards asked to interview me. Gabriela totally charmed them, and laughed through it all. I was told that the footage would be also sent to us, which I believe wil be valuable for Gabriela's future, since Mommy had certainly to answer some pretty hard questions.

So this is what JET LAG is- Brutal!!!

For some reason I cannot go to sleep, even if I really should. As to my children, Sebastian went to sleep at 5 pm. I was able to rouse him for 10 minutes in order to put his pj's on, and to feed him. As to Gabriela, she fell asleep at 4 pm, after a big meltdown in the car because she did not want to be in the car seat. Of course I felt awful because I felt that she must be thinking why cannot my mami take me out of her and hold me. I really felt like crap. Then we got home, she played for 4 minutes and fell asleep. I was able to rouse her for 30 minutes around 1 hour ago, when I gave her a bottle and she played for a bit. As to Florencio, he fell asleep around 5 also, and was awake for around 5 minutes like 2 hours ago. I really hope that once I am able to go to sleep everyone does not decide to that it is time to get up.
Today we went with my parents to have Mexican food at my favorite restaurant. Gabriela did pretty good.
On another subject, Gabriela loves her mobile. She also had apple puree for the first time yesterday, and banana mash today, and loved both. Today she also had chicken noodle and liked it as well. Gabriela now raises her tummy in the air, which is really cute, and for the first time she raised her whole torso from the ground todayt and got into a crawling position, so I guess it is just a question of time when she will move from moving herself about to full crawling.
p.d1- The pic of Gabriela in her car seat was clearly before the meltdown.
p.d2- Sebastian loved her year of the pig figurine, and put it in his room.
p.d3- As of a couple of days, Gabriela has moved from the art of mastering Cheerios to that of Rice Crispies. hurray!
Pd4- Today marked our 6th year LID anniversary.

We arrived at Puerto Rico on our 40th bday and there comes jetlag

We arrived yesterday at Puerto Rico, on the day of both FLorencio's and my own 40th bday. Best gift ever!!!!! Plus gabriela calls me MAMA. We are a family of 4!!! We were very very tired from flying from HK to Chicago, going through customs and Immigration where we turned in THE brown envelope and Gabriela became the newest US citizen. Then we flew to newark where we spent the night in order to take an early flight to PR. When we arrived at PR both our respective parenta were at the airport, as well as Auntie Jelixa and good fried Lisandra. Everyone was so excited about Gabi, but as expected she was a bit overwhelmed. Gabriela is probably one of the most sociable babies I have ever seen adopted, but still, I don't think people who are not immersed in adoption realize that these are kids who have been in a very controlled environment all their lives who have ha unmet needs and therefore it will take them a bit more to trust them, especially when a very fragile trusting bond is still being formed between the child and their immediate family, namely mama, papi and brother.
After we got home my parents stated for a bit, and one of ymy aunts and nieces came over to visit.
As to the house i believe that at first gabi was a bit overwhelmed, but later began to play. She fell asleep at 5 pm and woke up at 11 pm. I just put her to sleep again after a bottle, SOME play and the magic of her mobile which she totally loved. Seba went to sleep at 7 pm and has not woken up, so that is good.
We are really over the moon! Right now I have no desire to go sleep but imagine I must try to do so.
PD- As to Sebastian, it is hard for him. He is a very perceptive child, and even if people try to give equal attention he sees a difference in the attention he used to receive. Also at home I obviously have to give for now more attention to Gabriela. I hope to see my little guy more like himself tomorrow, and less acting up like he has been doing for past couple of weeks. But do I get where he is coming from? Hell yeah! We can only love him and let him see that he is still as much of our little guy as always, only he now has a little sister as well, whom he dearly lives i might add. Te amo Seba con todo el 💙 y hasta el infinito.
Pd2- I had to add the picture of our family with taxicab driver Ramon taken at HK. He took us from the train station to our hotel and this guy was so so excited because for years, he has been teaching himself Spanish. It is not quite good buy he gets a millikn points for trying. I must confess that at first I een thought he was drunk because he would shout "estoy contento estoy tan contento" because he was getting a chance to practice his Spanish. I mean this guy was really excited. He also said that we were the first Spanish speaking family he had had in his cab who had adopted a baby. So here is Ramon, who we really hope he achieves his dream of travelin to Slpain, Chile and Argentina.
Pd3- There are also pics of the siblings, taken both in HK and newark hotel, and airplane to PR
Pd4- From HK to Chicago we had requested a bassinet, and we were lucky enough to be able to get one. In the pic you can see Gabi in it.
Pd5- you can also see pics from when we left HK, from waiting at Newark airport and from airplane to PR.
Pd6- I also includes one of the first pics I took of Gabi in our house.

Quick Post: we are back in the Americas

After 14 hours of flying from Hong Kong to Chicago, we are in the US. We turned in Gabi's brown envelope to Immigration and she is already a US cutizen. Now waiting for connecting flight to Newark, where we will sleep overnight. Tomorrow we arrive at Puerto Rico with both our children on our 40th bday. The best gift ever!!!
Pd for those wondering Gabi did really good in the flight. That is her in the bassinet... Gotta go! Boarding!

Wonderful Day: Consulate Appointment is Done, we visited the Guanxiao Temple and had final group dinner

Today we had an exceptional day. We were picked up at 9 am for our 10 am Consulate appointment. We arrived in time and after security checks, we entered the Adoption Unit, where other adoptive parents were also waiting. At 10 am we all had to raise our right hand and give and indicate under oath that the information we had provided was true and correct. Then our names were called, and we turned in our dcuments necessary to obtain Gabriela's visa, which we will pick up tomorrow. We were also told that tomorrow we would receive a brown envelope, which we would need to deliver at the first port of entry in the United States. For us it will be Chicago, at which point Gabriela will become a US Citizen. It was a very emotional day for us, because it finaly sunk in that we after 6 years, Gabriela was trully ours. No more appointments nor nothing. It really feels so good
So it was very fitting that we then visited the Guanxiao Temple, which was built around 1600 years ago, making it the oldest Buddhist temple in Guangzhou. There is saying in Guanzhou that says "Guanxiao Temple comes earlier than Guanzhou. It was very beautiful and exuded a sense of so much peace. We burned incense and made blessings for our family and children. I have also included pics of the children of our other friends that make up our travel group. There is Grace, who is such a little lady and is almost 5, and Amy, who was just adopted from China, and who is 4, and Cameron, who was also just adopted and is 15 months, Karina, also 15 months, and Nina, who is I believe 9 years old and is Amy's sister. We loved sharing our journey with thease families and hope that our children will meet again. Our lives will certainly always be connected.
Tonight we had our last group dinner with our guide Connie. I believe that our lives will be connected forever and hope to meet again with all of them.
Tomorrow we will get picked up a 2:30 to go to the train station to go to Hong Kong. We are just 2 days away from beginning our trek to Puerto Rico.

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The Jade and Pearl Markets, Shamian Island and getting to the end of this trip

Today, on day number 14 of our trip, the day began with Sebastian feeding the fish at the hotel. He was very excited.
We then visited the Jade and Pearl Markets. I am very excited because I was able to get both a jade pendant and bracelet for Gabriela. The bracelet I will wear first for her, and when she is older I will pass it on to her, as per Chinese tradtion. Since you want the bracelet to fit pretty snuggly, I thought it was funny that they put a plastic bag around your hand in order to put the bangle. At first I was what does this man think he is doing. It was really good to have our guide along for this because she gave us quite a bit of guidance. Jade is considered to be for good luck, and it is very important for the Chinese culture. Then I also got Gabriela some pearls.
We then went to Shamian Island, which means sandy surface in Chinese. Shamian Island looks totally different from the rest of Guangzhou, since it used to be owned in part by the French and part by the British. Therefore,, the architecture is a throwback to the colonnial days. It is very important to the adoption community, since until a couple of years ago most of the adoption going ons took place here. it is also where the famous White Swan hotel is located, which is now closed and which is the home of the famous red couch, which is couch where many pics were taken from the adopted kids by the proud adoptive parents.
We had a wonderful time. We first went to have lunch at the famous Lucy's, which is an American owned restaurant, pretty famous between adoptive parents. We went there with our friends Jen and Steve, as well as Dr. Jerry (who left today and who we give enormous thanks for. For a parent, it really gives a lot of peace of mind to have known that Dr. Jerry was near if needed), Suzanne and all of our respective kids. We then also went to the playground, where the kids had a blast. Finally we went shopping, and got some traditional dresses for Gabriela, as well as squeaky shoes, some toys for Seba and chops for both Sebastian and Gabriela. These are handmade stamps with both their names in English and Chinese.
When we arrived at the hotel, I took both Gabriela and Sebastiann to the play room. They had a wonderful time, especially Sebastian who made friends with another 5 year old. It is beautiful to see how language barriers only exist among adults. Children can communicate no matter what. Sebastian gives an English intonation to his Spanish words, and seriously believes that he is speaking English, plus he has learned some English words as well.
Tomorrow at 10:00 am we have the consulate appointment. I hope that everything goes great.
P.D.- Gabriela está cada vez mas y mas apegada a nosotros. Es increible ver como algo que al principio no le gustaba mucho que hiciera, que era mecerla, ahora la encanta. Es una chulería de nena y mucha gente me ha comentado que se parece a mi, lo que obviamente no es necesario, pero ciertamente no molesta, particularmente por los ojos. Muchos también han comentado que es un fit perfecto para nuestra familia. La verdad es que no podría imaginar nuestra vida por siquiera un segundo sin esa chiquilla.