Tony and Tracy Lobb

No Expense spared on the entertainment of our son

2011-06-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

Manning Park 2011

2011-04-08T01:12:00.000-07:00

Friday February the 4th 2011 and the boys are off to Manning Park for the weekend.

Me, Tanner and Spike. I had a list. I started it 2, maybe 3 weeks before, all the essentials, stuff you can't go on a weekend trip to a winter wonderland without. It started with the obvious items like travel crib, boots, sled, beer, Ove-Glove, decent carving knife (I'm cooking Prime Rib) and ended with a shopping list for the morning of departure.

Tanner goes swimming on Friday mornings with Tanis so I had a small window of time in which to gather together all the essentials together.

I was thrown off my game, somewhat, by the meat slicer that appeared on Craigslist the evening before our departure. A decent meat slicer has been an elusive part of my kitchen gadget collection for many years. When we had 5 students living with us it was an essential tool in the effective transformation of leftovers into other gastronomic delights ie: roast beef into beef dip. Can't shave beef without a meat slicer, now can you? But a decent one? The $200 plastic ones work well for a while but they're plastic and that translates into built in obsolescence.

But this one. No pictures, but from the description, it sounded like a beauty, cast aluminium, 10" blade, the lady selling it used to own a deli.

Advertised at $200 obo. How could I resist?

So. All I need to do is squeeze in a quick trip to West Sechelt to buy the meat slicer, I mean look at the meat slicer, between 9:30 (when Tanis picks up Tanner) and 11:30 (when we have to leave to catch the ferry). No sweat.

9:30
Wave goodbye to tanner and run to the truck

9:40
Arrive at gas station to fill up for the drive to Manning. Manning Park is a couple of hundred km's from Vancouver and the last 80 km's is uphill. It is, after all a mountain resort.

9:55
Leave the gas station. I know that that took a while but the price of gas has gone up in recent weeks and my truck holds a lot of it. I also managed to pick the slowest pump at the gas station.

10:05
Leave the bank machine with weekend cash and money for a meat slicer, well maybe.

10:15
Arrive at the current abode of my new meat slicer.

Nice house, new, not finished, landscaped really well but with a really steep and long drive. Thought it best to leave the truck on the street as it has a bit of an oil leak and this was very new concrete.
Oh I would I regret that.

I knocked on the door and a very nice, petite, lady in her 50's answered and invited me in. "Don't take your shoes off" she said "like her already" I thought. I followed her into the kitchen.

And there she was. Gleaming like one of those old Airstream travel trailers (caravan, for the brits). 10" blade gleaming in the morning sun and the bodywork to carry it.
"Bloody hell" I said "it's huge" and then, I think I might have giggled. This was the mother of all meat slicers, you could slice up a whole cow and not even break a sweat.
"My wife's gonna kill me" I mumbled. I realized later, that this statement meant I was probably buying this slicer, even though, my head had already figured out that I had nowhere to put it, I would never use it to it's full capacity, and, yes, Tracy was going to kill me. But easily be able to slice me up, bones and all, and dispose of my body at her leisure. Probably like how they got rid of the dirt in "The Great Escape" little slices of me, tucked into her jeans, that she could drop off when she was taking Spike for walks in the forest.

And then she said "My sister placed the ad, I told her I wanted $200 but she put it in for $150" "so you'll take $150?" a voice said "yes" she said, and that very same voice that had said "so you'll take $150?" said "I'll take it". It then dawned on me that that voice was mine.

"Maybe you should bring your truck up here?" she said "Oh no" I said "I can manage" "It's pretty heavy" she said "maybe I can help you" I thought to myself "it's aluminium it can't be that heavy. I was wrong. Not only was it heavy, it was awkward. I nearly dropped it on her her new "engineered" wood floor and desperately adjusting my grip managed to get control of the beast. By the time I got to the front door I was out of breath. Luckily the driveway was downhill so all i really had to do was stop myself from careening out of control all the way to Gibsons. I managed to manhandle the thing into the passenger seat of the truck and off we went.

11:00
Oh oh, slicer successfully unloaded, back into town for beer, groceries and beer

11:15
Return home and load the truck with all the stuff for the weekend. I'd already got our clothes and stuff ready so really it was a matter of checking the list and loading it all up.

Should have checked the list

11:40
Off we go, Wahoo!

I guess we were almost at Abbotsford and I was thinking about how Tanner would be sleeping in a strange bedroom, when it occurred to me. Crib, I forgot the bloody crib. I had put the crib by the sofa in our basement next to the mattress for the crib and the sled. Bollocks, forgot those too.

I was kinda choked about the sled. I bought it 7 years ago, when we started the adoption process and have taken it to Manning every year since. All the other kids got to use it and last year Tanner was too small. But this was the year. Or not.

I called Tracy and asked her to phone ahead and get a crib for the room. At least he'll have somewhere to rest his head.

Spent the rest of the journey wondering what else I'd forgotten but also somewhat relieved that I hadn't put the beer by the sofa.

Hey Tanner, should we tell mum about the meat slicer?

Bed Head? Whaa?

2011-01-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

How happy am I with my Christmas present?

2011-01-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

This is how happy.

I'm gonna wash my hands and brush my teeth

2010-10-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

Start humming the Mission mpossible theme tune. Right now.


Just one big, just one big

...Tug


and ......I got it!


Thank-ya, thank-ya very much

Cramming for that test tomorrow

2010-07-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

You've been working real hard for weeks, burning the midnight oil not to mention the candle at both ends. Study, study, study. But eventually it all becomes to much and you drop off in the midst of studying

PS

2010-06-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

Tracy was pissed of that I said she was "googleing" herself. Well, slightly miffed, would be a more accurate term.

She'd forgotten her password and was trying to get on her flickr account, so she googled it.

There, I explained it.

Now go to sleep, the games at 7.

oxoxox

On our way to England

2010-06-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

So here we are at 10:48 on a Saturday night in a hotel in Richmond BC.

On our way to England so my family can meet the newest Lobb. Who is asleep in the travel crib behind me.
Tracy is laying on the bed googleing herself on her iphone, go figure.

It was Tracys decision to spend the night in a hotel near the airport. A decision that I initially did not agree with. Then the results in the World Cup meant that England would be playing at 7am on the day of our flight. Mmmmmm.

I knew that there was no way I could watch the game at home and still make the ferry and the flight. So a night at a hotel sounded like the perfect solution..

"Okay honey, you're right.". There. That was easy.

It was a strange afternoon really.

Richmond, for those of you that don't know has a huge Chinese population. So much so in fact, that there are shopping malls that only have Chinese signs.

So when my friend Gwen called (we were supposed to meet earlier in the day but it didn't work out) and asked where are you? I said "I decided to expose Tanner to some of his heritage........... we're in Costco in Richmond".

Truth be known, it is an eerie feeling. Here we are again, in a hotel, in a city that is full of asian people, living out of a suitcase. I wonder what, if anything, he makes of it. We went to Landsdowne mall after Costco to buy some bath toys at Toys'r'us and the last time Tanner and I were in a mall, we were in Beijing.

I don't think he cares or even notices, but it was very nostalgic for me.

Of course in Beijing he would stay in his stroller and not scream and shout because he wanted to play with the big trucks and buses and bikes and books and every other colourful thing he could lay his sticky little paws on.

Tomorrow, the flight.

A few photos

2010-06-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

Sense of humour

2010-06-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that you get your sense of humour via osmosis, you know, from listening to the grown-ups when you're a kid. I've also always thought that Londoners and Scousers (people from Liverpool) have the same sense of humour because it was derived from poverty. The poverty of the 1800's, when nobody had anything and you either laughed or cried. Laughing in the face of adversity as it were.

Just before I came to Canada I was a taxi driver in a small English town called Colchester.

It was one Sunday evening, a night when it seemed that everyone wanted to stay at home, which left all the cab drivers standing around the office waiting for a fare.

The controller (radio guy) started up with a story about a soldier.

I should mention at this point that Colchester is a "garrison" town. There are 6,000 soldiers stationed there at any one time and also a huge housing estate for families.

His story was about a squaddie (soldier) who had attemted to park a tank on his own.

He went on too explain how it takes two people to park a tank as there are no rear view mirrors, So you need somone to tell you where the hell you're going when you're going backwards. Well this young squaddie had decided that he could do it on his own. Not a good decision. He flattened a Land Rover. Totally obliterated it.

Now there was one other Londoner in that office. His name was Chris, if I recall, Short fella, big hair.

The controller, after lamenting the woes of the squaddie that couldn't drive, finished with " he's going to have to pay for that Land Rover, every month, out of his wages."

Sitting in the corner of the office Chris piped up with "F##k me, no wonder a Captain goes down with his ship"

Which reduced me to fits of laughter. Just me. All the other fellas looked over with a questioning look.

It seems the folks in Colchester didn't see the humour.

And now to Sechelt.

We bought some cabinets from Ikea. There were not enough bolts to bolt them together. So to the lumberyard I went. I was wandering the aisles when a very nice fella, with a badge that said his name, asked me if needed any help. I briefly explained my dilema and and off to the "bolt isle" we went.

As we passed the front counter, where there were five people standing behind it, he said "how long do you want them?"
I responded "Well, forever."

He turned at looked at me with a quizzical smile and started to talk. I looked over at the counter and of the five people standing there, only the young blonde chick was laughing. He said "no, I mean, what length?"

When you have to explain 'em, it's just not worth it.

The Blonde chick must be from London.

That's enough about that

2010-06-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

I can't be bothered with the moving stuff, it's boring.

Selling

2010-05-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

"Staging" was pain in the butt, it's true, but there was also finishing the niggly little things that you never get around to that now had to be fixed. To be honest, most of the "nigglies" didn't have to be addressed but I wanted them finished.

When you spend so much time making a great home it would be remiss to leave silly little deficiencies for the new people to look at for years.

As it transpired, I was pretty happy with the way the place looked on the day of the open house. Tracy worked tirelessly to get the place looking its best and Tanner and I work equally as hard keeping each other occupied.

It probably would have been better to wait a couple of months as, those of you that know our street can attest to, our street looks way more appealing when the leaves are on the trees. But, as I said before, circumstances dictated an immediate sale.

A princely sum of $849,000 was decided upon and on the Wednesday before the Sunday (which was the "open") on the market it went.

You have to leave when there's an open house and unfortunately the "open" coincided with Tanners nap time. So we drove, and we drove, and we drove. To White Rock, it turned out, and a fun time was had by all. That would be everyone else in White Rock except us. Tanner was as miserable as sin. Who could've blamed him?

The "open" was finished at 4 and the house was sold by 7 and Tanner was asleep by 7:10.

Glad that day's over.

Packing

2010-05-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

Before we can buy another home we have to sell our present abode. To facilitate this we have to "stage" our house. This is an acronym for Stuff, Take, Away, Get, Elephant or something like that. We had to get rid of a bunch of crap so that the potential new owners could visualize their crap where ours used to be.

Luckily, I had been unsuccesful in selling the cube van, although it didn't seem lucky at the time as we were getting pretty skint. On the other hand, if I were to analyze this even further, it would become apparent that selling the truck would have given us some breathing room and maybe "5930" (our new house) might have been sold by the time we started looking.

So stage we did, this entailed loading up the cube van with stuff from all ove the house and then moving it to an empty garage. This garage is also on the Sunshine Coast, Roberts Creek to be precise.

Never leave a couple of Karens in your house to help you "Stage" it. I know that eventually we would be leaving but that doesn't mean we need to empty the kitchen drawers of everyday cooking utensils. I'm sure that the new people can envisage their measuring spoons in a drawer without ours having to have been removed.

2 weeks before the open house and me vacuum packer has gone! WHAT'S A MAN TO DO?

It seemed to me that there was a lot of stuff gone already and once we got rid of all the furniture from the student rooms there wouldn't be too much stuff left. Really how much more stuff is there?

You know where this is going.

Sechelt

2010-05-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, no posts for quite some time and so much has changed.

Circumstances dictated a major change, so our plans to move to the Sunshine Coast got, shall we say, accelerated, moved up, just a tad.

Not being one to harp on the whys or wherefores let me just say that it took only 2 trips to the Sunshine Coast before we found a place that we both decided was "the one".

All that was left to do was to pack and move.....

The evil deed is done.

2010-02-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

Left it way too long to write stuff down but here goes.

The evil deed is done.

After a couple too many comments about how Tanner had “modern” hair, I decided that it had to go.

Auntie Karen made a valiant attempt at shearing the little fella. An attempt, I might add, that came with strategy.

The strategy was to bathe him in the kitchen sink and cut his hair while he was in there. I only caught the end of the adventure and entertaining it was.

I walked into the kitchen to see Tanner in the sink with Tracy trying to entertain him and Auntie dashing in and out with scissors flying left and right. All things considered, it turned out pretty well, the “Spock” sideburns had gone and the back didn’t cross his collar anymore.

Spock Sideburns

3 weeks later, “Spock” sideburns were back and he was looking like Isaac again. For those of you that have never met Isaac he has the quintessential “modern” haircut.
Nothing wrong with the way Isaac looks but it’s his choice. If it was my choice, Issac too, would have a “normal” haircut.

Isaacs "modern haircut"

So that’s how we ended up at Brentwood mall looking for the kid friendly barber/hairdresser, not sure which one it is.

After wandering around for awhile, he likes going up and down in the elevator anyway, we found the place.

It was really cool actually, the chairs looked like the rides outside Safeway and there were lcd TV’s playing Dora.

Dora is “Dora the Explorer”. Tanner’s never seen it, so I knew it was going to be no help.

Unlike with last episode at the shearing shed, he didn’t scream when I put him “in the chair” but it didn’t take long.

As soon as he saw the shears he obviously had flashbacks to the lovely Vietnamese lady (and I truly mean that, she was really nice) and the screaming started.

The cool looking seats (I opted for the red racing car) had no seatbelts which is, in my opinion, a major design flaw. So I had to manually restrain him, which started of as just keeping his arms down and then progressed to holding his head still with both hands.

Now, the shears don’t hurt, not in the slightest, and I think he realized that. As the torture went on he would stop crying as soon as she lifted the shears away from his head and then start as soon as they touched him again.

I could see in his face that he had gotten to the point where he knew it wasn’t that bad and really, it didn’t hurt at all "but I’ve started so I’ll finish" he thought to himself. He was crying for the sake of it and I knew it. Now kid , I have the upper hand, this is it, it’s a haircut, it’s not surgery, get over it.

And then she changed weapons, out came the scissors “oh no” I thought.

Then the real screaming began.

He was fine as soon as I took him out of the chair and the nice lady even laminated a lock of hair.

“see you in six months” she said “not if I can help it” he replied.

Hey! Yesterday you could only say cookie!

Maybe I imagined that last bit.

So here's the final product, ignore what's in his mouth, but check out the gel at the front. Needless to say, we don't do that.

Little Boy Lost

2010-02-02T19:22:00.001-08:00

We went to "Kindagym" at the Trout Lake Community centre today.

It's a fun thing for the kids to do, huge room, well, gymnasium, I guess. Not familiar with gyms really, so I guess they're all big rooms. Anyway, big room with lots of cool toys. Backyard kind of toys, large things, made of plastic, multi-coloured, cool stuff if you're less than 3 feet tall.

Tanner had made a beeline for the "castle". Not a multi-coloured castle, a grey one, but made of plastic nonetheless. There's a door and a slide and a turret and everything.

He was having a great time and I was just talking with another dad, when I looked down.

There he was, bottom lip wobbling, but not really crying, looking up at me and the other dad.

"What's the matter pal?" I asked

He garbled something that was totally incoherent.

Josh (the other dad) said ""what's up buddy?"

This was obviously a more recognizable question and not spoken in a foreign language because the response came back.

" I, I, I can't find my mum"

Now that he had said it out loud there were tears.

You have to bear in mind, that in a room where there are 20 or so adults and he's talking to the only 2 fellas, Finding his mum was a daunting task for me and Josh.

Even a 3 year old knows that you're not supposed to talk to strangers. But do 3 year olds know what "strange" means?

The look on his face when I ventured my next question told me he hadn't, but he did now.

"What does she look like?

The look said "ah, this is what they mean by strange. That dude's 285lbs, talks funny, and asks stupid questions. That has to be "strange" "

I wasn't sure if he was listening so I had made another attempt.

"Can you see her?" I asked gesturing around the room from my 6' 2" vantage point.

There was a plastic castle obscuring his view.

He'd stopped sobbing at least. Totally bewildered by the stupid questions, I guess.

I have to say that it is quite awkward trying to talk to a kid you don't know. I thought about rushing over and scooping up Tanner in an attempt to say "Look, it's okay, I'm a dad, I'm not strange" but I didn't. I just asked the same stupid question again.

"What does she look like"

No answer. I wanted to ask "what is she wearing? Is she Blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Is she fat? Thin? Is she cute?

I asked again "what does she look like?

No sooner had the words left my mouth when the quizzical look fell away from his face

"she, she, she, looks, she looks, she looks like my mum."

"Of course she does" I said

It was at this point Josh took over, picked him up and started walking towards the woman who was obviously looking for her child.

The Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale

2010-01-29T13:30:00.000-08:00

I thought there should be a rating scale for diapers, you know, like the Richter scale for earthquakes. Richter didn't seem appropriate, more for farts really. As when sitting on a wooden park bench and someone at the other end lets one go, does it rumble the slats or not? Of course there could be a Richter component but that starts to get complicated.

Then I thought of the Saffir-Simpson scale which is used to measure hurricanes. Mmmm, there's wind, rain and damage. That could work, so here it is.

Category 1 hurricane
75 - 95 mph winds
Damage primarily to trees and un-anchored mobile homes; some coastal flooding.

Category 1 Diaper (1 baby wipe)
75 - 90 grams of poo
Damage limited to small pellet sized poo balls. No fluids present.

Category 2 hurricane
96 -110 mph winds
Some damage to roofs, doors, windows, trees and shrubbery; flooding damage to piers.

Category 2 Diaper (2 baby wipes)
96 -110 grams of poo
Damage has arrived in larger quantities than Category 1, damage detectable by faint odour as the event passes by. Damp from peeing.

Category 3 hurricane
111 - 130 mph winds
Some structural damage; large trees blown down; flooding near shoreline and possibly inland; mobile homes destroyed.

Category 3 Diaper (3 baby wipes)
111 - 130 grams of poo
Damage easily recognized by the aroma wafting around the room/car. Substantially greater quantities of pee. Diaper makes a thud as it hits the bottom of the garbage can.

Category 4 hurricane
131 - 155 mph winds
Extensive damage to doors and windows; major damage to lower floors near shore; terrain may be flooded well inland.

Category 4 Diaper (4 baby wipes)
131 - 155 grams of poo
Saved up a whole days worth of eating for this one. Last nights dinner easily recognizable, what's that? Oh, blueberries. How can you smell this bad? Good grief, it's almost to the top of the diaper. Makes a squishing sound from the pee.
I would like to add that it is at this stage the task is handed over to the "primary caregiver" as mum (or dad) can't handle it.

Category 5 hurricane
More than 155 mph winds
Complete roof failure and some building failures; massive evacuation; flooding causes major damage to lower floors of all shoreline buildings.

Category 5 Diaper (5+ baby wipes)
More crap than you can count
Holy mother of God, it's leaking out of the sides and running down the inside of his sleeper.
The dog leaves the room in disgust.
Your T-shirt needs to be pulled up over your nose as the smell is making your eyes water.
Forgot to get the baby wipes ready first, hold the kid up in the air by his feet (shoulders still on the changing pad) and reach for the wipes with your free hand. Diaper falls to the floor creating a secondary explosion.
Call for reinforcements.
Reinforcements take a step back as they enter the room.
He hasn't finished peeing, he has now.
No amount of baby wipes is going to fix this. OFF TO THE TUB.

Beer.

Marinated Leg of Lamb (butterflied)

2010-01-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

1 leg of lamb, 6 to 7 pounds, boned and butterflied
For Marinade:
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup minced fresh rosemary
1/4 cup minced fresh thyme
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons anchovy paste
7 or 8 large cloves garlic, crushed
Trim off any excess fat from the lamb and place it in a 9-by-13-inch pan. Whisk together all the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Scoop out and reserve 1/4 cup of the marinade, and pour the remainder over the lamb. Massage into the meat. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

Doesn't that just sound awesome?

We're off to Manning for a couple of days and I'm in charge of dinner for Saturday.
This is what I'm making.

There'll be some complaints from Tracy if she spots the mini-barbeque in the back of the truck tomorrow.

she: "what's that for?"
me "dinner"
she "why do you have to take it all the way to Manning?"
me "dinner"
she "Can't you just cook it in the oven, like a normal person?"
me "nope"

At this point Trace will either walk away mumbling or this will go on for 10 minutes or so. Either way I'm cooking it on the mini barbeque.

The marinade came together pretty well. Had to top up the olive oil with a couple of TBSPs of veggie oil. Bought fresh rosemary but unfortunately forgot to find a recipe before buying ingredients.

We have a pretty well stocked cupboard of herbs and I knew I was going with a "Rosemary" marinade, unfortunately, we don't have any thyme, oh well.

Found an extra large ziploc for marinating it in at the bottom of the pantry and noticed a whole box of them at the back.

It was at precisely this moment I thought to myself "maybe I should blow this bag up to see if has any holes in it?". Self thought back "naah, who would put a Ziploc back in the cupboard with a hole in it?".

Self was right, no-one would put a Ziploc back in the cupboard with a hole in it. What use would it be? The whole point of a Ziploc is that it "zips and locks, right?"

Nobody put it back with "a" hole in it, no, not one hole.

This ziploc was apparently a sieve in a previous life poured the marinade in. Out it exited, through more holes than you'll find on a tray of Tim Horton's doughnuts.

The ensuing panic is not worth describing. Suffice it to say, the dog hates rosemary and the Lamb is now resting comfortably inside 2 extra large Ziplocs.

I'll post pictures on Sunday.

inta lectual property

2010-01-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

Without going into too much detail, I offered my blog to be printed in a newsletter.

It was a weird thing to do, but I have received so much positive feedback from folks that I thought that maybe a new audience might enjoy it too.

The response came back from the editor of the news letter that they would like to edit it so that it is suitable for children.

I was overwhelmed by a feeling of protectionism. "This is mine, you can't touch it! Why do you want to change it? I'm writing it so my son can read it. What are you protecting your children from? .....Did I write dodgy stuff?"

Strangely odd. Why do I have this overly protectionist feeling about something that I spent no time working on? I just typed (2 fingers. Why use 10 when 2 will do?) and that was that.

I'm not going back and reading all this stuff to figure out which ones are inappropriate, so I guess I'll figure it out if or when it gets printed.

But the truth of the matter is, that on the internet, anyone can do what they want with it. I have no control. That's why it is there, for people to read. The recent fuworgh (what is that word? I have no idea) about privacy issues on facebook spring to mind.

Its a SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE!!!!! it's not meant to be private? This is a blog which is also not meant to be private. What would be the point? I hope my eldest kids get to read it and get a glimmer of who I am and who their little brother and Step-Mum are.

So, quite honestly, I have absolutely no problem with the person concerned doing whatever he (or she) thinks is right. As long as it's still funny and his (or her) husband (or wife) checks it out. As he (or she) might have the same sense of humour as me (or him) because we may (or may not) be from the same part of the world.

Dog just farted, no time, to edit, gotta go.

Trip to the Hospital (again)

2010-01-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

It started innocently enough. Runny nose, 2 days, not even a full on "eight hankies in an hour" affair.

Then the wheezing started, oh oh.

I started giving him the puffer (Ventolin, for the medically inclined) but wasn't sure about the Steroid. Mark McGwire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McGwire )obviously would've put his kid on 'em ASAP. But Tanner would have only got muscles in his spit, so where's the use in that?

Called the GP "come in tomorrow at 11:30" she ordered.

Got there at 11:30, trainee doctor came in at 11:50.

Now this wouldn't seem out of the ordinairy to most folks but I arrived there 7 minutes late once and was grilled by the receptionist.

"Did you have trouble finding parking?" She asked

"I'm sorry" I replied. She obviously interpreted this as a sign of weakness and came at me again.

"Why are you late?" I gestured towards the obviously sick 17 month old in my arms.

"The doctor is very busy I might have to reschedule"

That got me.

"well, yesterday he couldn't breathe so you might want to ask the doctor about that, you short, fat, miserable little cow"

Okay I didn't say the last bit, but that self important 22 year old did piss me off.

Anyway, the Trainee asked a few questions, I told her about the 2 previous occurrences including the 2 days in hospital. She put her stethoscope on his back, sat down and said "well what do you want from us?"

I thought of asking her if she'd ever been a receptionist but didn't.

I told her I wanted to make sure it was okay to give him the puffer and should I be giving him the steroids?

She said she would go and get the "real" doctor (my words).

Dr T. came in, Stethoscoped him and turned to the trainee and said "he's really wheezy, would you like to listen again?"

That was Wednesday.

"Come back and see me on Monday."

Monday, same symptoms, she sent us to emergency. DOH!

I won't go into the full details, We were there for 4 hours or so. It wasn't too bad.

The good news is there was a nurse there that explained the whole situation to me. She explained how her son had the same thing (lots of kids do) she told me that she starts him on the "roids" at the first sign of a runny nose because they take some time to kick in. Awesome.

Great nurse, but she'd have been a crappy receptionist.

My boy has a phobia.

2010-01-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

There were supposed to be photographs with this blog.

In fact this blog had a different name originally. It was called "Tanners first haircut".

But it turns out he has a phobia.

I haven't narrowed it down yet. It's not like an allergy where you can go and get tested, it's a matter of elimination.

Here's the things I have to eliminate:

1. Squirty bottles with water in them.

2. Combs

3. Middle-aged Vietnamese ladies wearing too much make-up and/or perfume.

4. Scissors. Not that they actually came near him, but they were extremely close by.

She said "come back later"

"okay" I replied

"six month time."

I'll try the old Italian guy in a couple of weeks.

Maybe there'll be photos.

1979 F250 (Camper special)

2010-01-04T23:29:00.001-08:00

Now the vehicle pictured above is a fine looking specimen of a 1979 Ford F-250 and NOT a picture of my 1979 F-250. Mine was a fine machine, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't as pretty as this one.

Mine was purchased from our dear friend Karen's father. Wonderful guy and proud to say we drank together once (that's a whole other story). Anyway, 500 bucks was the princely sum I paid him for it, and I was chuffed to bits. So chuffed in fact I drove away from his house in Nanoose Bay with the licence plates still sitting in a bag at his house.

Anyway, the thing about a 1979 ford f-250 Camper Special, is that first gear (yes it was a standard) is there for when there's a fully laden camper on the back. Otherwise first gear gets you a whopping 4 inches forward and then you have to change into 2nd.

It's all about gear ratios, torque and brake horsepower and, well, mechanical stuff that I don't need to bore you with, suffice it to say, 1st gear in a 1979 ford f-250 Camper Special is as about as useful as a ham sandwich at a Jewish wedding.

So, the point is you never use first, ever. Pulls away from a standing start totally happy in second. You don't have to slip the clutch or anything fancy, just put it in 2nd, little bit of gas, foot off the clutch and away you go. Easy.

How, I hear you wonder does that get me to a story about Tanner?

Well here he is

Granted, first glimpse you wouldn't say that it looks much like a 1979 ford f-250 Camper Special but believe me, I've seen it with my own eyes.

He sticks his feet out as far as they will go (approximately 2 inches) and then drags himself forward. But no further forward will he go. Pushing backwards is waaay easier he can go for yards backwards.

It seems, thus far, that if going forward will only move him a few inches then, for now, he's sticking to reverse.

Kid just needs to find second.

Marlin Fishing

2010-01-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

I've never fished for Marlin but I've seen it on the telly.

Looks like this:

Fellas struggle for hours, they have to wear a special belt to keep the handle of the rod from spearing them in the belly, Quite often, another guy has to take the rod, he doesn't reel the fish in, no, he's just giving the first fella (it is, after all, his fish) a break. So he can catch his breath, regain his composure once again for the ensuing onslaught.

Ever tried putting an 18 month old in a high chair when he doesn't want to go? Same thing. Except there's nobody there to hold onto the struggling lump while you take a breather.

As most anglers do, I've crafted a technique. I swing him from side to side in a motion that eventually forces his legs, from thrashing uncontrollably, to swaying from side to side in unison (and together) and, as an angler would take that last yank that forces the fish into submission, I knock his feet against the arm of the highchair and in he goes.

Landed, now for the safety harness.

Not unlike when you've got your supper in front of you on the deck of the boat and all that is left to do is remove the hook from its mouth, that clip that holds him in place can bite just like the marlin.

Fish picture borrowed from here:

www.wexpl.com/SCFishing.htm

MICE!!!!!!

2009-12-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

I've killed 4 in the last 24 hours, but they just keep on coming. For some reason Ilia (our Russian student) is videoing all the dead ones? Is he going to call the SPCA?

The smorgasbord under the high chair is probably the reason.

I've realized that cheerios have some kind of cloaking device, as soon as you've finished sweeping them all up another one appears.

Also some are made of rubber because they seem to be able to bounce huge distances and into nooks and cranny's which seem almost cheerioly (humanly didn't seem appropriate) impossible.

Driving me nuts

2009-12-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

Here's what I wrote on Facebook.

"I'm saving one of Tanners "early morning diapers". Why? So when the next person says "welcome to parenthood" or "that's what you signed up for" I can beat them senseless with it. I think I know what I "signed up for" and what being a parent is all about".

Was I too harsh? I dunno, I don't remember getting comments like that 20 years ago, but then maybe I just forgot.

Anyway, when I get those comments it's usually after I've said something about how he kept me up all night or how I was starving to death in the hospital for 2 days. Well people, I'm just.... well.... saying.

Saying, is different to complaining.

New inventions

2009-12-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me, as I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing dried up banana of the floor, that someone should come up with a way to market mushed up banana as an environmentally friendly adhesive. Because it sticks to just about anything.

Also, a millionaire, it would make of someone, if they could figure out how to turn drool into a form of energy. Tanner has produced enough in the last few weeks to run the street lights in a small BC town for, probably, months.

Friends and family info

2009-11-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

This is probably too late but here it is anyway.

Our friends Mike and Cheryl had this posted on their blog.

I edited it in Microsoft Word so there might be some dodgy words

The note that Mike and Cheryl wrote at the start applies equally to us and I couldn't have put it better myself.

Letter to Family & Friends

Some adoptive parents find it helpful to send a short letter to family & friends in anticipation of the child’s attachment needs. Although Tanner has already arrived, we still feel this is beneficial information for everyone to have as it helps to explain why we are so cautious with his.

This is the letter that they send

Dear Family and Friends,

As we have prepared for the arrival of our Son, we have learned that while decorating the nursery and stocking up on baby essentials is important, even more important is the emotional health of our baby.

In his short life, Tanner has gone through more changes and life altering experiences than most adults could handle. Imagine how much harder the changes have been for him. While He may not consciously remember the events, He will still experience immense loss, including feelings of grief and trauma.

He has already experienced the loss of a birthmother and has experienced the loss of familiar and comforting caretakers as well as the sights, smells, and language of his birth country. His world has been turned upside down. He will struggle with feeling safe and secure and He may lack the ability to trust that we will meet his needs.

We have prepared as best as we can to meet his emotional needs by speaking with other families who have gone through the same things and by attending seminars offered by our adoption facilitator and social worker. Tanner still does need to learn that we will always take care of him and we will always keep him safe.

We need your support in order to form a strong and healthy attachment. We will allow him to regress so that He has the opportunity to go through all of the emotional stages with us despite his age. Although it may appear that we are spoiling him at times, we have been advised that it is best that we, his parents, meet every need quickly and consistently. Until He has learned that we are his parents, we will need to be his primary caretakers at all times. It is essential that we always hold him, feed him, and do all of the nurturing. You may wonder how long this will take, but the timeline is different for every child. We will follow his lead and trust our instincts as his parents rather than worry about what society expects.

We have all been waiting anxiously for our Son to arrive (for years), but He has not been waiting for us and was not prepared for his life to change so drastically. He may show his grief and confusion in many ways and we are prepared to help him through it and prove that we are a forever family and this truly is his last stop. We trust that as our family and friends, you will help us to do what is best for our Son, and we thank you in advance for your support and understanding.

Sincerely,

Tony, Tracy & Tanner

Do’s & Don’ts for Family & Friends

Do:

2. Do trust the mother’s instincts. Even a first time mothers may notice subtle symptoms or clues that well-meaning family and friends may not notice. Family and Friends may feel that the child has fully adapted to all of the changes, but this may not be the case.

3. Do accept that attachment issues are difficult for anyone outside of the parents of the child to see and understand. They are the ones who have been with the child since day one of leaving the orphanage and know what is his normal behaviour and what is not.

4. Do be supportive even if you think everything looks fine to you.

5.Do allow the parents to be the center of the baby's world. One grandfather, when greeting his grandson, immediately turned him back to his mom and said positive statements about his good mommy.

6. Do tell the baby every time you see his, that He has a good/loving/safe mommy and daddy.

7. When the parents need someone to care for the baby for a night out, offer to babysit in the child's home. (After the child has been home for a substantial period of time.)

8. As hard as it may be for you, abide by the requests of the parents. Even if the baby looks like he really wants to be with Grandma, for example, he needs to have a strong attachment to his parents first. Something as simple as passing the baby from one person to another and allowing others, even grandparents, to hold a baby who is not "attached" can make the attachment process that much longer and harder. Some parents have had to refrain from seeing certain family members or friends because they did not respect the parents' requests.

9.Do accept that parenting children who are at-risk for or who suffer from attachment issues goes against traditional parenting methods and beliefs. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.

10.Do remember that this is often a honeymoon period after the child arrives. Many babies do not show signs of grief, distress, or anxiety until months after they come home. If the parents are taking precautions, they are smart and should be commended and supported!

Don't:

1. Don’t assume an infant is too young to suffer from emotional issues related to attachment. Babies are not immune.

2. Don’t underestimate a new mother’s instincts that something isn't right.

3. Don’t judge the mothers or father’s parenting abilities. What looks like spoiling or coddling may be exactly what the child needs to overcome a serious attachment disorder. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.

4. Don’t make excuses for the child's behaviors or try to make the mothers feel better by calling certain behaviors "normal". For example, many children who suffer from attachment issues may be labeled strong-willed by well-meaning family members. While being strong-willed can be seen as a positive personality trait, this type of behavior in an attachment-impaired child may signify problems.

5. Don’t accuse the parents of being overly sensitive or neurotic(regarding attachment and bonding). They are in a position to see subtle symptoms that others would not necessarily notice.

6. Don’t take it personally if asked to step back so the parents can help their child heal and form a healthy and secure attachment. You may be asked not to hold the baby for more than a minute, or asked not to take the child directly out of the parents’ view.

This is not meant to hurt you. It is meant to help prove to the baby who his mommy and daddy are, they need to know this before they can even begin to bond with any others family members.

Up until now the child's experience has been that mommies are replaceable. Allowing people to hold the baby before He has accepted who his forever mommy and daddy are can be detrimental to the attachment process.

7. Don’t put your own timeframes on how long attachment should take. One mother was hurt when she was chastised by a relative who couldn't understand...after all, the baby had been home six months. It could take weeks, months, even years. Every child is different.

8. Don’t offer traditional parenting advice. An adopted child, especially one from a foreign country has very different needs than a non-adopted child…traditional parenting advice may be of little of no benefit to an adopted child’s parents.

Some well-meaning family members will tell a new mothers not to pick the baby up every time he cries because it will spoil him. A child who is at-risk or who suffers from attachment issues must be picked up every single time he/He cries, this helps them learn to trust their new parents and to feel safe with them. He needs consistent reinforcement that his mommy/daddy will always take care of his.

9. Don’t Fall into the appearance trap. Some babies/toddlers with attachment issues can put on a great show to those outside of the mothers/fathers. What you see is not always a true picture of the child. Even babies as young as 6-months-old are capable of “putting on a good face” in public. In others words, it may appear as though they are fully attached, when they actually are not…

10. Don’t lose hope. With the right kind of parenting and therapy, a child with attachment issues or at great risk of having attachment issues can learn to trust and have healthy relationships throughout their lives. But it does take a lot of work and a good understanding of what these children need from the parents and all family members.

Apparently, he likes it.

2009-11-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

Mum bought the little fella a new toy

2009-11-19T23:33:00.001-08:00

Somewhere there's an "on" switch

Think I've got it.

Yup, here it is.

Snot has a use.

2009-11-19T23:22:00.001-08:00

It keeps those cheerios in place for later consumption.

New shoes

2009-10-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

Bought ourselves some new shoes today.

I'm still wearing my shorts, but the sandals have to go. So new boots were in order.

Here's a picture (mine are on the left).

Mine were $50 and are ten times the size of Tanners. Shouldn't his ones be one tenth of the price?

The boys finally bonded

2009-10-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

"I love this kid"

"nothing but cheerios kid, c'mon"
"Okay, I'm jut gonna wait"

"and wait"

First OWee

2009-10-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Is that how you spell it?

Not including rolling over on the living room floor and banging his head, constantly, for the first few weeks, or rolling of the sofa/bed/airplane seat. They're all self inflicted and.... there was no blood.

There has to be blood or else there's really nothing to cry about, right?

Although I did elbow my daughter on the nose when she was about 2 and a half. Off my elbow and headlong into my nan's sideboard, now that was an owee. Probably the only thing she remembers about me.

Anyway where was I? Oh yeah, we were playing with this.

I should've picked up on the satanic grin this toy has on it's face.

He was laying on his back mucking around with it when he started bawling. I had no idea why, so I picked him up with the usual "there, there"'s and he buried his head in my shoulder, drooling, and eventually the sobbing stopped.

With that, I thought we should go for a walk. It was a beautiful day and I thought a walk was in order. When we got to the corner of First Avenue and Commercial Drive I noticed that he had some dried up banana between his fingers so I reached for a Kleenex and started to clean his hands. That's when I noticed the red stuff on his fingers, doesn't look like yam? Oh oh, what's that red stuff on the rice cracker he's eating?

The penny dropped. I looked at his lip and there it was, an owee. Luckily I hadn't given him that pickled onion that he wanted because there would have been hell to pay.

I probably should've got tracy to photoshop his nostrils. He has a cold. What can I say?

Some readers might remember the first photograph I ever sent of Tanner. The referral picture from the orphanage. I scanned it and used all the filters in the scanner (I don't know why). Well, the dust filter removed one of his nostrils! So this picture at least confirms he has two. How he breathes through them? Who nose? That's a little pun right there.

In conclusion, a more attentive dad would've realized the stain on his T-shirt.....

(It's just below the many chins)

Wasn't drool, it was blood.

I hope the next 40,000 Owee's go better than this one.

Spoons. More complicated than they look.

2009-10-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

First time in a swing.

2009-10-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

This was a few weeks ago.

In North Vancouver With Mum and Aunti Karen.

Today I became a dad, officially.

2009-10-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

From the first day we brought our son into our lives, he has always said "Ga" pronounced like the "a" in again. We initially thought it might have some Cantonese significance but Jack, our tour guide, said "it's just a baby sound" in a "are you people stupid?" kind of way.

Anyway, after a few weeks of me saying "dad" constantly, he finally said "Da" sometimes even "da-da".

Then, everything became "Da". It was Da this Da that, even the dog became Da. So, I started on Mum.

He went back to "Ga" shortly thereafter but pronounced it differently. It became "Ga" with the "a" pronounced like in "Aspect".

He knows what a "sock" is (and has for sometime) and today I established he knows what "cookie" is.

Today he went back to "Da" but directed at me, if I didn't respond, it was "Dada" and then add numerous exclamation marks if I didn't respond quickly enough.

A mixed blessing really, warms the cockles of my heart to once again hear a baby calling me when it needs something, but c'mon kid, it's not all about you.

Wrapped around his little finger, that's where I am.

Hasselback potatoes

2009-10-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

Now don't these look good?

They look better than they tasted. The spuds I used were too big and were still a little crunchy. But the slice of garlic between each slice of potato made up for it.

Mondays

2009-09-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Mondays are our "Sign Language class" day.

More for something to do really, but fun nonetheless.

The first time (last week) he didn't want to leave me. We sit on the floor on what, I presume, are yoga mats. It was the first time he'd been in a room with lots of other kids since he left the orphanage, he wasn't sure what was going on so wouldn't relax his vice-like grip on my fingers, which makes it somewhat difficult to sign for both me and him.

He relaxed towards the end of the class but never went more than an arms length away.

This week, a little fella came over and poked Tanner in the eye which encouraged T. to move around. I think more because he was an easy target sitting stationary than anything else.

I'm hoping that he will make some friends so that we have other kids to hang out with, we'll see how that goes.

This afternoon we went to Costco, only because he likes it sooooo much. I'm getting reasonably good with remembering all the stuff I need for him but unfortunately not so good with me.

He really doesn't like the car seat and starts to complain after the first ten minutes. So he was pretty miserable by the time we got to Costco. Loaded him into a cart and off we go.

For those of you that have never been to Costco (if you've never been to Costco you must be living in a cave, would not have a computer and, therefore, would not be reading this) you have to have a membership card which you show at the door.

Bugger, no wallet.

Well I'm not putting him back in the car seat now. So we window shopped for 45 minutes. We were both okay with that.

A week of firsts.

2009-09-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Everyday, it seems, has a "first". It is an overwhelming concept really that this young lad is experiencing all of these new experiences and we're responsible for them.

Thought I might list some of this weeks firsts.

First trip to the pub.

First time he drank from a sippy cup (baby beaker for the brits).

First time he drank Cow's milk (albeit with some sugar in the mix)

First time he slept for 10 and a half hours with no interruptions (I leapt from the bed at 5 to 7 to make sure he was breathing)

First time he's (I should write this down when it happens) eaten toast.

First time he's been to the dentist

First time he's had his teeth brushed (all ten of them)

First time I've picked up a turd.

It happened so fast I didn't have time to think about it. Before I knew what I was doing, I had a piece of poo between my fingers.

I was changing his bum this morning (always takes his constitutionals right after breakfast) on the sofa.

He was squirming a bit and I should've been paying more attention, but when I looked in the diaper (nappy) there was no poo?

Blimey. That's odd, must have been a really good fart.

Put a new diaper on and was about to do up his pants when I noticed the dog sniffing and rising from his slumbering state at the other end of the sofa.

As my eyes turned back towards Tanner, there it was, a turd, slightly larger than a grape, in fact like a walnut in size and appearance. I hadn't, thankfully, closed up the used diaper and before you could say "good grief there's a chunk of crap on the settee" I'd picked up it up and put it in the diaper.

I suppose the good thing was I got to it before the dog.

Tonight was also the first time he said "mum". I had brought him into the living room to give him a bottle of milk before bed and Tracy followed me into the living room. He watched her walk bback to the kitrchen and as she disappeared from view, he yelled "MUM".

Now that's a great first.

Farleys Rusks

2009-09-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned these in an earlier post.

They're awesome! I grew up eating these. When I say "I grew up" I mean that we never stop growing up, we're all kids at heart. To be truthful, I haven't had them for...... well, as long as it's been since there were baby bowls in my kitchen. But I still love 'em, oh yeah, they're gooood.

I have a friend (Annabel) whose family moved here some years ago from Ol' Blighty. She once told me that her dad, Ray, decided, probably at the behest of Annabel's mum, to import Farley Rusks for his kids.

I tried at the earliest opportunity to give Tanner F.R. but with no success. I realized that he didn't like milk. So I gave him a dry one. I should explain that there are big biscuits that melt readily into any liquid and also the gummy mouth of a 15 month old.

Tanner discovered today that chewed up FR on his hands becomes, well, a sort of cheerio velcro. Chew the rusk, get all the crap stuck to your hand and then place said hand into the conveniently placed pile of Cheerios. All that's left to do is suck the cheerios of your hand. Not helping his fine motor skills but what does he care?

just another wednesday, except

2009-09-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

We all went to the doctors today, Tanners first check up.

Same as the check up in Beijing, really. Nothing to report.

Dropped Tracy at the Skytrain station and then off home.

And then.......... the dentist.

(insert foreboding music here)

Very nice lady, was pleased that I thought to bring him early, she showed me how we should brush his teeth. Turns out, the poor little sod is REALLY teething and as soon as the toothbrush touched his gum's he started to scream.

On the bright side, when he's screaming, it's easier to brush his teeth. Not long before he figures that out.

Tonight was, by far, the easiest night I've had putting him to bed. As I was walking him around the living room he pointed to the door that leads to his bedroom (memories of Joseph right there). I was back downstairs at 8:30. I'm going to pay for that tomorrow.

Cheese

2009-09-22T23:32:00.001-07:00

Here's a funny thing.

Not many people don't like cheese, of those people, not many like cooked cheese. I, am one of those people. Raw cheese, yuck, cheese on toast, pizza, nachos, those doughnuts with beef and cheese inside that they sold at Costco 15 years ago, no problem.

Tanner, it would seem, is another one of those people. Won't eat raw cheese but feasted on cheese on toast this morning. There's me, eating a slice and so was me boy. Warms the cockles of me heart, it does.

Stuffed his face full of water melon too. Should have got the video camera out for that first experience! Luckily it was also the first time I put a bib on him.

So that was a fun morning, full of "firsts" then it all went sideways.

Kid, they're just teeth.

P.S. Maybe one day Costco will get the beef and cheese doughnuts back (hey, even my Jewish ex-sister-in-law liked them and they are sooooo not Kosher).

Observations (#1)

2009-09-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yams - Come out looking the same as when they went in. They just smell worse.

Fake crying - His attempts at fake crying work impeccably. But if he really wants me to lift him off the floor/out of the highchair/out of the crib (cot) all he has to do is lift his arms in the air, smile and say Dad. Get's me every time.
Too bad he prefers to go with the fake crying mostly.

Cheerios - see previous post. Thanks here go to Maelin, for it was her that taught him how to eat them.

http://ourmiraclemaelin.blogspot.com/

Jet lag - worried too much about it. He was over it way before me.

Being a Mum - is waaay tougher than you'd think. I wonder every day how something so small could possibly take up so much of your time. Of course most mums don't cook for 5 grown-ups as well. Yeah, what are they complaining about?

Cheerios

2009-09-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

They are a wonderful thing.

Put the young master (For anyone that doesn't know who Darth Vader is, that's a Star Wars reference) in the high chair, throw some Cheerios in front of him, all is good for 15 minutes.

He throws a lot on the ground and I have, apparently, the only Labrador that is not a food vacuum cleaner.

I bought a little cordless vacuum cleaner today but it turns out that not all Cheerios are created equal. Some are more substantial than others and remain on the floor even after several passes with the new machine. So the dustpan and brush are not completely retired.

Breaking News:

The longer a Cheerio sits on the floor the more edible it becomes. Tanner just cleaned up those which neither the dog nor the vacuum cleaner could.

Friday the 4th (Part 2)

2009-09-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

So off we sauntered, well I sauntered, Tanner just kind of laid there.

Our gate was the one at the end of the terminal (which I would later come to regret).

I had already looked at the “map” and figured out that there was a coffee shop 3 gates before ours, so we stopped for fluids. I wanted water, but the beer was cheaper, so I asked the girls for 250 mls of hot water, 2 Heinekens and a bottle of Evian. I mixed up a batch of formula and rice cereal for the young master and we were good to go.

I knew that we would be the first to board so I didn’t have to worry about the
”free for all” at the gate. We got there just before boarding and the big guy in charge told everybody that was trying to push in front of us to “line up behind the baby”. That was really funny, I’d put up with 2 weeks of (from my perspective) rudeness, and was delighted to see some decorum.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a different culture, I’m okay with that. I was just fed up with it. The plane is NOT going to take off until we are all on board and YOU, the guy that gave his bags to his parents when he was checking in and is now trying to get on the plane with 5 bags, are not going to use up all of the overhead bin space.

I had noticed, after leaving the coffee shop, whilst walking to the plane. That there were a lot of fellas in the front wheelwell of the plane. With flashlights, notepads, stuff. Stuff, that, well, you don’t need for routine maintenance.

We got on the plane first. I was still sweating rivers, I went to the wrong side of the plane. After putting all of our stuff in the bins I had to move to the opposite wall. Bollocks.

It all looked so different online.

We sat and watched everyone else get on. Tanner was somewhat enthralled by all the people. The girls were quick with a smile and a “cootchycoo”.

I was giving the “yes, I’m a 285lb white guy and yes, he’s with me” look to all the fellas.

Did I mention that I was really fed up with the staring?

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking”

I should’ve known.

The pricks never “speak” that early.

3 hours later, the commandant said “the ground crew have asked us to turn the plane off and then turn it on again”

There was a bunch of guys with flashlights and notepads and now we’re just going to “reboot”? Not a happy camper in 14A.

I was relaying this story later and Faith said “I do that all the time to my computer” I said “your computer isn’t flying at 37,000 feet doing 600mph”.

Anyway 2 hours after the first 3 hours we were getting off the plane because now the crew had been “in the air” too long. If they’d have got up 3 hours later we’d have been okay.

I waited until everyone else had got off and then made our way to the exit.

“Yes, I need the stroller”

“No, I can’t carry all this to the bus”

“Are we on the same plane tomorrow?”

“Okay, then I really need to take all of this”

“Then yes, I reeeaaallly need the stroller”

It appeared that the flight crew had already pre-ordered their martinis and the ice was melting and were exiting stage left as fast as their legs would carry them..

Turned out a whole bunch of people had to wait for me and junior and another kid that was traveling alone.

There was a bus waiting and the usual scrum ensued. The driver launched my backpack into the belly of the bus (with the laptop inside) and me and the lad made our way onto the bus (coach, for the Brits).
There was a big white guy sitting next to an empty seat that had a bag on it.

“’scuse me pal can you move that bag?”

“It’s not mine” he said

With that, an old Chinese guy started yelling “my wife! my wife!” Whatever, I’ve got this culture sorted out, I threw the bag down the aisle towards him (presuming his wife wasn’t inside it).

His wife soon appeared, and the old git didn’t give her his seat, nor did any of the 20 year old students that the bus was packed with.

I could hear my nan telling me to give her my seat “sod off nan, I got a miserable kid in me arms” she understood.

The worst part was that Tanner had fallen asleep at about 6 (2 and a half hours into the big sit). If the plane had taken off, he would have slept the whole way. Bastards.

We go to the slum that they called a hotel and after waiting in line with a screaming kid for an hour (it turned out that everybody else on the plane was stone deaf! Even the wankers in business class) we were given a room and a meal voucher.

Meal voucher, thanks.......... I can’t wait to get in another line up with a screaming kid. I ordered room service.

I called Trace once teeny T. was asleep and said “Don’t ask any questions, get a pen”

She took down the number of the hotel and called Air Canada.

She called me back and told me that we would be flying out at 10:30 the next morning.

They had already allocated seats for the next morning and I was in 15 a and Tanner was in 37 f. Thank Christ, I won’t have to deal with him for 11 hours, phew!

She changed the seat allocations. She’s evil I tell ya.

We left the room early determined to get a good seat on the bus. Met a really nice Chinese/Canadian out front who told me “don’t take any prisoners man, grab a seat, I’ll look after your bags” that was greatly appreciated.

Some equally nice people helped me off of the bus at the airport. After checking in (again) we meandered through the terminal with just a few hours to kill.

BURGER KING! I saw it the day before and was assured that there was on post security. That wasn’t true. I was famished, I knew I wasn’t likely going to be able to eat much on the plane so I went for the Double Whopper. Like an angel crying on me tongue, it was.

And then on to security…….

Bearing in mind we had already done this the day before and nothing had changed (apart from the Duty Free Vodka) this should be a breeze.

Nope. They dumped the premixed formula (Tanner wasn’t hungry so wouldn’t eat it), sunscreen, bath stuff (Tracy’s) and then they took the vodka. The fella opened it, sniffed it and then dragged us off to a “special” section (the section that Cheryl was oh, so familiar with).

I wasn’t about to argue over a bottle of vodka I was bringing back for Ilya. I just wanted him to write down that he had taken it. I’m really good at conveying stuff to people with very little English (I’ve had homestay students for 14 years) this guy was either thick as a brick or just being a dick.

Anyway, no receipt, he’s not getting my vodka, I poured it into the garbage can.

After all that, it was time to board They hadn’t moved the plane it was still miles away. The moving sidewalks never move when you need them too so we galloped to the gate.

When we got there thay hadn’t started boarding and I assumed my position at the head of the line. Then I saw it. Young fella showing his laptop to one of the people at the gate.

My laptop (and it turned out my wallet) were still with “dick for brains” at security. We were the last to board.

All things considered, we survived the flight pretty well.

He never fell off the sat once, this time. There was only one major meltdown, which got me as nearly upset. There seemed to be nothing I could do to stop him crying. Cold formula did the trick????????????????

Three hours out of Vancouver, he fell asleep. I watched “The boat that rocked” great movie. I was filling up as we were coming into land partly because the ground was approaching in an orderly fashion ( I hate flying). But mainly because he was home.

Nobody at the airport. Tracy overslept. Which she only admitted 3 weeks later.

To be honest a whole bunch of people at the airport waiting for us would have been awful after the previous 36 hours. One person would have been good, but then there wouldn't be a story in it, now, would there?

Friday September 4th - Part 1

2009-09-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

I was pretty much packed the night before, which meant that after getting up at 4am there wasn't a lot to do between breakfast and pick up at 12:30. Boy did the time go slow.

I had the usual issues at reception. I had left the cleaning ladies a generous tip and a whole bunch of unopened goodies that we never used. The guy (from Switzerland, the german part, his words not mine)that was checking us out informed me that here was a flannel (face cloth) that couldn't be cleaned and that I would have to pay for it. It was a dollar, whatever, the point was that I had wiped tanners face with it after we, sorry he, had chocolate pudding. Chocolate pudding? You can't clean chocolate pudding from a small towel? It seems that just have to get you for something.

We packed ourselves into Mr Zhou's mini-van and off we went.

As in Guangzhou, we got rushed through the airport and through to the departure lounge. After, of course bidding a fond farewell to our travel guide, Jennifer, who was excellent. She was a fountain of information about the places that we visited and was always concerned for our well being.

I went through first and waited for Mike and Cheryl and Maelin, and waited, and waited. Now one would think, and I know she won't mind me saying this, that after 2 previous failed attempts at bringing liquids onto an airplane, Cheryl would have given up trying. Well, I can say this, she has perseverance. Once she had been stripped of the 4 gallons of liquids she was carrying (exaggeration is always allowed on a blog) they made it through to the other side.

It was really sad. My flight was leaving in 45 minutes and was at one end of the terminal and theirs wasn't leaving for nearly 3 hours and was at the other end.

So we had to say goodbye. I can safely say for all of my family that if we could have hand picked 2 people with which to share the greatest journey of our lives We would not have been able to choose two better people. As it happened we had no say in it, it was just fate. We will not only be forever bonded with Mike and Cheryl but also with their beautiful daughter Maelin. Who, is officially Tanners first girlfriend.

As we live on the West coast and they on the East, we've agreed that in a couple of years we'll all meet in the "middle". We also agreed that Mexico is in the middle.

And now the adventure begins....................

Thursday September 3rd

2009-09-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Same old routine really. I'm now referring to the room as "the cell" we both just want to get the hell out of Dodge.

We went to Sogo and Walmart and Tanner didn't even bother to complain. He's resigned to the fact that he's stuck with me in this room and no amount of whining is going to change that.

We were picked up at 3:30 to be taken to the Canadian Embassy to pick up Tanners Visa.

Picked up the visa, came home.

We're leaving tomorrow.

Wednesday September 2nd

2009-09-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

4am now seems to be the preferred wake up time, which leaves us with a lot of time to kill. I'm pretty organized with the bottles so they're all prepared the night before (just like blue Peter:"here's one I prepared earlier") he knows when his bottle is being made when he sees me shaking the living daylights out of the mixing bottle (water jug).

Once he's changed and fed we roll around on the floor of the hotel room playing with his toys. For what seems like an eternity. I've taken to laying out the quilt from my bed to make it more comfortable (for me). The pillows, however, stay on the bed otherwise I'd be out like a light.

6:30 arrives and of to the cafe we go.

Mike came over and asked if we wanted to go to the Forbidden City. You betcha.

We took a cab and had explained to the desk where we wanted to go and to the bell boy as well. Mike also had a card from the hotel with all the tourist destinations preprinted on it. The bell boy told him we wanted to go to the Forbidden City and mike pointed it out on the card.

When we got out of the taxi we were surprised to see how many people were at Tiananmen Square we were not only surprised to see so many people but also surprised at the obvious lack of city, forbidden or otherwise.

Unperturbed we crossed the street, proceeded through the security check point and into the square itself. As I had expected, it is a very large, flat piece of concrete. We walked to the opposite end from where we had been dropped and ventured into the subway to get across the 14 lane road (same one as previously mentioned).

It was in this subway that I saw the only person begging on the whole trip. No need for details.

We made our way through some gardens (50 cents to get in) towards where we thought The Forbidden City might be.

We got to the entrance of a building that was labeled "museum" Yes there were large walls etc but it didn't look like it does in the movies. So we passed on that and decided to keep on walking. It turned out that we chose to walk around the forbidden city. Oh well.

We walked and walked and ended back at the 14 lane street. We headed back to the hotel on foot and it was quite a trek. The kids had been pretty good for their hot and tired dads and wanted to be carried and then would let us put them back for a while in the strollers.

When we got close to home we headed for the nearest mall with a Dairy Queen.

And so endeth the 2nd of September

Tuesday August 32nd. No, September 1st

2009-09-08T02:49:00.000-07:00

Another day in Beijing.
Same breakfast and exercise routine.

We had to go to the SOS clinic to get the medicals for their visas.

From there we went to the Embassy where Jennifer (our guide) took the paperwork to a member of staff (we didn't have to get out of the van).
She promptly returned with some corrections/changes and disappeared again.
She promptly returned with some corrections/changes and disappeared again.
She promptly returned with some corrections/changes and disappeared again.

Third times a charm.

Back to the hotel.

Tuesday. Done.

Monday August 31st

2009-09-08T02:30:00.000-07:00

When there is only 2 of you things are easier to organize.
We established a routine for the rest of the week.
Tanner woke up whenever the hell he felt like it and I just had to deal with it.

But at 6:30 sharp we were always in the restaurant for breakfast. He would get a jar of baby food and I would have baked beans on toast or a fried egg in some of the freshest baguettes I have ever had. Or both. Oh, and a danish and a doughnut and a yoghurt and juice. C'mon, it's 6:30 Dairy queen doesn't open until 10!

We went for a stroll around the neighbourhood. Stumbled across the beijing swat team, no really, Bomb disposal stuff and everything. Look.

Saw a bunch of guys digging a ditch with a backhoe (JCB for the English) parked across the street. Why use diesel when there are people? Hey, that's almost a slogan.

Mike asked if I wanted to go to the market with them as Cheryl had some shopping to do. I told him I don't go shopping with tracy. I'm not going with someone else's wife :)

A couple more jaunts in the afternoon and that just about wraps up Monday.

Sunday August 30th

2009-09-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

Sunday August 30th

Well, today’s the day that trace had to leave us.
But before she left we needed to get some supplies so we toddled off to Walmart to buy some essential goodies and another stroller. As my mum always said “son, you can never have enough strollers”. She never said that really. In England they’re called pushchairs.

Fridge stocked and formula supply replenished we bade Tracy a fond farewell.

It was pretty sad for both of us as the door closed behind her. One of us knew we wouldn’t see her for a week and the other didn’t know if she was ever coming back.

But onward and upward. We soldiered on and went for a walk.
200 yards. I had forgotten the hot water so back we went.
Off again.
400 yards. No blanket in sight (a little white towel that normally is no more than an arms reach away). I thought I’d left it in the room but a bell boy caught me at the elevator. Tanner had launched it from the stroller at the first opportunity.
That’s it here we go.
600 yards. Sod it. He should probably be wearing sunscreen.

Success! 4th attempt but we made it. I hope I fare better for the rest of the week.

He kept checking the door for the rest of the evening.

Saturday August 29th

2009-09-07T02:01:00.000-07:00

Saturday 29th

Our bloody alarm clock didn’t go off. That’s what you get for relying on a baby to wake you up. He normally wakes at 2 -2:30 for some grub and then up at 6 - 6:30. Not today, Tracy went to the bathroom and it was 10 to 7.

Woke the little git up and went for breakfast, then off to the Great Wall of China.

Apparently everybody likes to get out of the city on the weekend and they all are going to the Great Wall……

We stopped first at the Jade factory which is run by the government so all of the Jade is guaranteed and it is the best place to buy. Turns out that doesn’t mean the cheapest place to buy : (

According to Jennifer (our tour guide) the profits go to the upkeep of heritage monuments such as the Great Wall, Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. According to Jennifer.

Off we then toddled to the great wall. A 45 minute journey on the Expressway, a journey on which one of the Lobb household decided that it was time to see what a Pamper can really do.

Once the integrity of Pampers had been checked and verified (and a replacement put in it’s place) we ventured on to the Great Wall. The irony of the Great wall is that it was built to keep out the screaming hordes of foreigners. The screaming hordes who now approach from inside the wall and but stuff at the 10 Yuan shop (like a dollar store). Even the beer was 10 Yuan.

It’s not that old, only 600 years, but the scale of the thing is astonishing. We were close to the bottom of a valley and it went, practically, vertically up the walls of the valley. How guys carried all that masonry up there is awe inspiring, to say the least.

Needless to say, I wasn’t inspired enough to venture past the 1st 37 steps to the 1st landing.

Some idiots, however, had climbed all the way to the top of the valley, same morons that do the Grouse Grind I expect.

Moron “I did the Grouse Grind on the weekend”
Me “Did you take 125lb bricks with you and build a wall?”
Moron “No.”
Me “Why did you go up there then moron?”

I wasted my energy really. Before surmounting the steps I went to the gift shop (not the 10 Yuan one) and they had shirts that said “I climbed the Great Wall”. I felt a pang of guilt, not actually having taken one step, so up to the first level I went (there’s pictures).

When I got back to the gift store, there was nobody serving, so I wasted my time.

We stopped for lunch at some kind of ceramic factory where Mike and I tried a thimble full of “Chinese white wine” Holy mother of god! 56%, could’ve stripped the hairs of a donkeys arse.
Food was good though.

We then drove past the Olympic stadiums. The Birds Nest is as equally an impressive feat of engineering as the Great Wall. We drove past because the kids had had enough and it was getting hotter. For some reason, beyond my comprehension, we then stopped at a silk factory. By now Tanner was as miserable as I have ever seen him. Just get us out of here.

Home. Nappy change, clean clothes. He’s back to his little giggling self.
But he’s sacked as an alarm clock.

Friday August 28th

2009-09-07T01:59:00.000-07:00

Friday

Tanner woke at 6:30 so I gave him a bottle and we went for a walk. The weather here is way more civilized, clear skies, slight breeze, I would guess 20 degrees C. There is a main road outside which has 4 lanes each way but close to the curb separated by a 3 foot wide boulevard is another 2 lanes one for cars and one for bicycles. There are a lot of bikes, not like you see in news footage from 30 years ago, but still a lot of bikes.

We all went for breakfast and then at 10:30 we left for the Summer Palace and the Pearl factory. We had lunch there too and then..... WalMart.

It’s now 5pm and my family are napping and I’m having a G&T in the Lobby.

Thursday 27th (part 2)

2009-09-07T01:56:00.000-07:00

The flight to Beijing

Started out pretty uneventful. The hotel asked if we a stole a glass plate (not their exact words) which we said we didn’t. Then we had to pay 43 Yuan (7 dollars) for water we didn’t drink, then we left.
Once again the traffic was just amazing, 9 lanes down to 2 everybody edging one another out, but it never stopped moving, weird.

Pretty impressive airport to look at as you head down the approach road and they are still building it.

Our tour guide, Jack, took all of Tanners documents and got his ticket and we were good to go.

By this time Tanner was fast asleep in his stroller (actually it’s mine as I bought it, I’m just letting him use it) that was until we went through the security check. Apparently, Al Quada are now using cheap aluminum strollers and miniature suicide bombers so as a precaution I had to wake him up, take him out of the stroller, walk through the scanner thing where he was then taken, screaming, from my arms to have the little wand metal detector thingy passed all over him. He (and I) were given the all clear.

Now you have to bear in mind, the last time he was taken by somebody he didn’t know (just days earlier) it was a very traumatic experience. And now he was reaching out with both arms, screaming for me to get him back.

It got calmer after that.

Until we were boarding.

After being warned about boarding internal Chinese flights, we were prepared, we leapt into action at the first sign of movement at the gate. And Mike and I used our considerable bulks to muscle our way onto the plane first. It was a full flight and a “3 and 3” plane we had the window and centre seats and some other poor sod got the aisle. Obviously being a seasoned traveller the aisle guy spotted the only empty seat on the plane and launched himself towards it at the first opportunity (beating out the other poor sod in Mike and Cheryls aisle seat.).

The flight was delayed and started moving about 45 mins late, by which time Tanner had laughed, cried and screamed his head off. But, as soon as the plane started to taxi, out like a light, stirred a couple of times, didn’t even wake up on touchdown or when the engines go into reverse.

We landed at an airfield, yes airfield, wasn’t grass, but looked like a WW2 aerodrome, apparently used for domestic flights but mainly the military.

Got to the hotel, after a 20 minute drive, which is steps from The Forbidden Palace and Tia nan men Square.

No crib! Had to sleep with the Tanner inbetween us.

PS does anyone want to buy a glass plate?

Thursday 27th (part 1)

2009-09-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Thursday (Part 1)

He seems to change everyday. It’s like he goes to sleep and learns new stuff in the middle of the night. He loves playing with his toys (just the hard ones) and is figuring out how to crawl (they told us he could already do that). He eats everything we give him and is gradually getting that ”baby belly”, he was pretty skinny when we got him and then of course we practically starved him for 24 hours.

I just caught up, I’m now typing in real time. Tracy is upstairs packing and I’m in the lobby bar with my boy ( who is sleeping in the stroller). No beer, just coffee. The internet is free in the lobby and believe it or not the bar is the only place to sit.

Looking out of the window it is really beautiful. Flowers, ponds little bridge over the water. I now know what you would see as you look through the gates of hell “oh, it’s so pretty, it can’t be all that bad”. Oh no, let me tell you how hot it is in there, stay out.

I’m going to research the name of the guy that invented air conditioning and strive to make his birthday a national holiday.

His head is starting to bob, gotta go.

Wednesday August 26th

2009-09-07T01:53:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

Today we went to the park across the street. It was 4000 degrees in the shade and I think we were underwater. Even my tongue was sweating. It turned out to be the most stroller unfriendly park on the face of the planet so we ventured in about 200 yards and then headed back out again.

On our way there we used the subway to get to the other side of the road which is by far the best way to cross the street. There was no elevator so we had to carry Tanner and the stroller down the stairs and up the other side. The drivers are nuts, they don’t stop for anyone, not even little old ladies. I could probably get used to driving here, it might even be fun. But despite the mayhem I’ve only seen one accident. Maybe more surprisingly the streets are not littered with dead pedestrians.

On our way back we used the the “crosswalk”. I use the term loosely. Yes, there are black and white stripes on the road. Yes, there is a little green man. No, you can’t cross. In the middle of the road there is a huge piece of steel, like a 10” curb that you have to climb over before you can get to the other side. We had to lift the stroller over it and by then the little green man was flashing. We made it, the 80 year old woman behind us, I’m not so sure.

At 2:30 and 2 T-shirts later (time could be measured in t-shirt changes) we went to another government building to apply for Tanners passport. This was straightforward, they just needed to see us and our passports. Oh, and Tanner.

Tanner crashed at 6 and I had to drink the beer I bought on Tuesday because we are now leaving for Beijing on Thursday. I went to sleep at 9 and Trace went to the pool.

Tuesday August 25th

2009-09-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday

So Tuesday morning I went and got congee from the restaurant and he wolfed it down.
At 8:30 we went back to the adoption centrre to make it all legal.

We had a short interview with a girl from the centre and then another with the a Notary public.

He is now legally our son!

We then went to Carrefour which is like zellers or Walmart. Bought way too many snacks (I hadn’t eaten for 2 days) and got some baby food and ………….CHOCOLATE PUDDING Wahhooo.

Bought Tanner a little stroller for shoving him around ($16).

GOTCHA DAY!

2009-09-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

Monday. Gotcha day.

Starbucks

What can I say? I’m writing this on Wednesday because a lot of web pages are blocked here including Facebook and more importantly our blog. I should’ve took notes, didn’t. I guess because of the excitement on Monday afternoon, Monday morning has become a total blank. Did get Tracy a birthday card though. She didn’t care for the sausage and egg McMuffin as a present (Mcdonalds is closer than Starbucks).

We had to wait until 2:30 for the big moment

Jack, our guide and baby expert, picked us up at 2 and we made our way to the adoption centre where we would meet our babies for the first time.

We were the first families there and could glimpse the children in the next room through the curtain over the door.

There was a lot of paperwork that had to be checked. Our temperatures were taken as an H1N1 precaution.

Tracy spotted a woman walking from the room where the children were towards the entrance she said “that’s him, that’s Tanner!”. I turned to look and she was right. When the woman walked back we knew for sure.

It’s funny how I’ve seen lots of photos of Mike and Cheryl before we met them at the airport, had conversations, but still wasn’t sure if it was them at the airport on Saturday. We only had to see the slightest profile of our son and knew immediately it was him.

Then the moment came with no warning, I kind of hollered at Mike to take my video camera (sorry pal) and they placed him in my arms, why me and not Tracy, who knows. He looked confused, but calm. We got a couple of snaps and I passed him to Tracy, where for a few short minutes he was fine.

A voice, somewhere deep down inside him told him something was up, so you’d better start screaming, which he did. Unfortunately for Trace, I was returning the videoing favour for Mike and Cheryl so she was on her own.

I eventually rescued Trace and tried to calm the little fella down.

I succeeded, I think the whole day had been traumatic for him. He’d never been out of the orphanage let alone on a 4 hour car ride. He went to sleep in my arms.

Now have I mentioned how hot it is here? It is hot, it is humid, it hot and humid like nothing I have experienced before. How my old man survived 2 years in Hong Kong, astounds me. If I had to do National service here I’d be a conscientious objector ( can you do that if you’re not at war?).

After 10 minutes of holding a 24lb sleeping child with one arm, I was starting to perspire. After 10 minutes and 2 seconds, I looked like I had just got out of the shower. Yes, there were tears, lots of them, but they didn’t last for half an hour, that was sweat pouring from my brow and running passed my eyes (which, by the way, hurts).

The sweat was one thing, after 20 minutes my arm started to quiver. I couldn’t help it, it was just shaking bent at 90 degrees holding Tanner in that heat was just too much for my old muscles to take.

There were a bunch of religious people (you know, middle America christian types) who were looking at the 300lb beer bellied lout in strange kind of way. It was almost as if they had already decided that I wasn’t the right type of dad. But here I was apparently crying and shaking uncontrollably, I couldn‘t be all bad, I‘d seen the light……. If only they knew.

We got back to the hotel by about 4:30 and then considered our next move.

The father in me, that has lain dormant for all these years, leapt into action. I’ll go for a beer and Tracy can deal with him. Just Kidding.

We knew that there was a formula/rice cereal mixture and Jack, our guide, told us 4 and 4. Got it.
Okaaaaay, looks like porridge, an elephant couldn’t suck that out of a bucket, let alone a baby from a bottle.

More water. The attempts at mixing went on and on. We came to the conclusion (turned out correctly) that we had the wrong formula.

Tanners caregivers had left us with nothing, no formula, no pictures, nothing.

The poor little sod went to sleep hungry. We called Jack. He told us to give him Congee.

Sunday August 23rd

2009-09-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday.

Woke up after 3 hours, not a lot to do in Guangzhou at 4 am.

Went to Starbucks at 7.

The rest of the day is a blank, we spent some time checking out the restaurants in the hotel and then ordered pizza. I know, I know, I love Chinese food, but should anything you eat look like that?

Mike and I went swimming at 9:45pm.

That was that.

Saturday August 22nd

2009-09-07T01:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday.

I think it’s saturday. We got to Shanghai airport earlier than expected and had arranged to meet Mike and Cheryl in one of the 2 bars on the ground floor of the terminal. I had sent Mike a plan of terminal 1of the airport prior to departure, there were only 2 wine glass symbols, what could go wrong?

A quick glance at the map on exiting the customs area and I soon realized we were in terminal 2. Sod it!

Making the best of a bad situation, we had a beer in the bar right outside international arrivals and waitede for their flight to land.

We hooked up without any problems and headed for the other terminal.

It is a bit odd looking for people you’ve only ever seen in photographs. But Mike was the only fella that came through looking like a man that could wear a skirt and get away with it (he’s a bagpiper).

After what seemed like a 3 mile walk, we made it to terminal 1.

Flight to Guangzhou was delayed by about an hour. Which was bad enough for us but M & C had been travelling 8 hours longer than us!

Bed, hard as a rock but a bed (thought of Tanner sleeping on apiece of wood).

Friday, September 4, 2009

2009-09-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a phone call at 7am this morning. It was kind of like being in a spy movie about the KGB or something...it was Tony saying "don't ask any questions, just get a pen and write this number down".

That woke me up alright, I didn't know that my husband and or son were possibly enemies of the State.

It turns out it was the number of the hotel Tony was sent to after sitting on a plane for 4 hours, . They determined that the plane was broken.
Long story short, I was speaking to a very upset person...they didn't even give him any info on the next available flight, so I had to deal with Air Canada on this end. Let me tell you, not the most helpful folks. I finally squeezed the flight info and seat details out of them, and wouldn't you know it, the boys were assigned seats 20A and 22K. I sorted that out and got them primo seats nearer the front. I think they should get 1st class seats for their trouble, but that would mean excellent customer service. Wouldn't want to spoil Air Canada's record, would we.

Anyway, the boys should be rolling Saturday AM around 6am. No rest for the wicked.

Giggles

2009-09-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot taken on August 26th. He makes me laugh...not at all like the deer-in-the-headlights look he has on his referral photo.

Update

2009-09-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, I just got back from China where blogs are not allowed...big brother. I will try to update later this week. Maybe I can make it a school project or something as I start school Today (Sept 1) yeesh! Talk about when it rains, it pours. Wish me luck.

Tracy

At the airport

2009-08-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Made it to the airport last night. One night at the Fairmont, very nice.

Up at the crack of dawn, 7 o' clock. Crack of dawn for me, anyway.

Couldn't help feeling for Mike and Cheryl in New Brunswick, who were just getting up to leave for the airport as we were going to sleep. By the time we get to our hotel in Guangzhou, they'll have been up for over 30 hours.

I don't like flying very much and was talking to Elliot yesterday about flights and flying. I told him that the group of people we were supposed to be travelling with weren't leaving until the 11th of September. September the 11th!!!!!! Oh oh.

I heard once the terrorists don't take any notice of anniversaries, but if they did, and did it again, no one would ever travel on 9/11. Except, terrorists.
Now they'd know if they were planning to blow up another plane. So the only people flying on 9/11 would be the bad guys. There, caught them all on their way to Cancun. The tall one with the beard's in first class.

8:38 am and drinking a latte, bar opens in 22 minutes. 21 minutes..................

2 Days left.

2009-08-18T23:16:00.001-07:00

Well, just 2 days left before we jet off.

Taking Spike up to Uncle Daves and Auntie Chari's tomorrow, boy is he in for a shock when he gets home!
They have a doggy ranch www.happytailsranch.com so he'll be as happy as a clam for a couple of weeks.
It's a stunning 40 minute ferry and I never get tired of it.

Hoping to catch the noon ferry home so I can do some packing (5 minutes, tops). Then figure out where to move the cube van too so it doesn't keep getting tickets.

Have a little job to do on Thursday (thanks AK) so that's when I'll move it.

Thursday night at a hotel by the airport.

Friday, China here we come!!!!!!!!!!

Goodbye old friend

2009-08-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

My chip pan fried its last fry this evening. My mum gave it to me 7 or so years ago, didn't give me the good chip pan, just the new one she bought that "didn't cook the chips properly (well your dad said they tasted different)".

Still, better than nothing.

Common sense says that 6 pounds of lard at a temperature close to the surface of the sun, is not a good thing to have on the stove with a kid around.

I know, I know, nothing untoward happened to me when I was a kid. I didn't reach across the flaming burner for the handle. But, I'm older than your average Pa so a lttle bit more over-protective I guess.

Still thinking about the lard? You can't cook chips in vegetable oil, it doesn't get hot enough.

My arteries are breathing a sigh of relief as I type.

The old chip pan is gone but not forgotten, it'll be doing come back appearances for chicken wings (outside on the barbeque).

Which, in itself is kind of sad. It's like a horse that won the Grand National pulling a float in the local carnival.

Car seat

2009-08-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

Just installed the baby seat in the car, it also comes with a convenient beer can holder.

Breakables have been put away (display case with glasses in it etc) toy storage cupboard is in place.

Stair gates tomorrow.

4 more sleeps until we fly

They think of everything

2009-08-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Tracy went shopping today for a stroller (pushchair in English).

I'd already tried it on for size and it has an extendable handle so it works great.

Even Ilya came up and said "cool".

Here's the best part, it comes with a little thing on the handlebars for holding your beer! Is that unbelievable or what? They just think of everything

Disapointment at Superstore

2009-08-13T14:46:00.001-07:00

There are a some things you can really only keep in your cupboard if you have a kid.

Today, in the baby section at Superstore, search as hard as I could I couldn't find Heinz Chocolate pudding. Imagine, no chocolate pudding it's one of my favourites. Organic this and that but no chocolate pudding. London Drugs here I come.

On the bright side they had Farley's Rusks which would be another of my favourites, I'm sure Tanner will like them too, he better, they're going to be in the cupboard 'til he goes to university.

Also realized that today was my last trip to superstore where I would be putting food in the place in the cart where the kid is supposed to be. Now that, is a great thought.

Itinerary in place

2009-08-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

Good news on the travel plans.

We thought that Trace was not going to get to see any of Beijing but, as it turns out, we're leaving Guangzhou a day earlier than expected. So she'll get to see The great Wall and a couple of other things before she abandons me and Tanner.

Got a crap load of forms to fill out today too.

Finished (kind of) painting the bedroom on the main floor (Issacs room) lots of other stuff to do though.

Like packing.

Packing

2009-08-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

I just took Tracys "zebra" suitcase upstairs, but we're still painting, so no packing has been done as of yet.
Tanners gear is laid out on the bed in his room, but, for sure, we'll be packing by Sunday.

Oh, 'ang on, last Sunday meat draw for quite some time, so packing on Monday.

Definitely.

There is, however, a kid lock on the tv cabinet? My karaoke machine is now inaccessible until Tanner figures out how to open it. Denny will be happy.

Packing, Monday, for sure.

Follow us here

2009-08-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

I created this blog last year 5 days before Tanner was born.
This is where you'll be able to follow our trip in China.

If it's possible (internet availability) we'll post pictures everyday

cheers

Tony and Tracy

Spike chillin' at the lake waiting for his bro

2009-08-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

We're hoping that Spike is going to be as thrilled about Tanner as we are.
He is actually looking forward to more walks and under-the-highchair snacks...

CCAA

2008-06-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

so the China Centre for Adoption Affairs has moved the "matched" date to Jan 22nd 2006.
The rumour is that next month there will be a big move too.