Cheezer and Louzer

This morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we drove the pugs out to the local dog park for some exercise. They love this park; it’s all wide fields and scrub brush. The bigger dogs mostly just want to sniff them and then leave them alone.

Of course, Louie, the wonder dog, always ends up barking at them and that sometimes makes the big dogs jumpy. One nice looking St Bernard-mix got a little testy today after being rudely barked at by the Lou-er, so he started to growl. We just brushed him off and he ran off to find another more suitable playmate. Once again, we regretted not properly socializing Louie when he was younger.

In other news we’re all set for the big trip coming up. We’ve met up online with some of the parents in our Travel Group and they all seem nice. A few are getting girls from the same orphanage as we are, “Gong girls” as they are known, since the orphanage assigns all of their girls the same surname. At first we thought maybe we might be traveling around in China by ourselves (plus our guide) but it turns out there are more like the usual 10 or so other families going too. We’re trading tips on buying tickets for the flights to Hong Kong & back and getting to know each other.

Here at home now, I am reading CHINA GHOSTS by Jeff Gammage. It’s a father’s story of going through the Chinese adoption process and the profound effects its had on his life. He’s a great writer and it’s a good read. It’s really nice to see a father writing about this experience. If there’s one thing that can somtimes get a bit on my nerves about this whole 3-years of waiting, it’s been how everyone always talks as if the adoptive Moms and the little girls are the only ones involved. I understand the how and why of that but I’m in this too. I have become as emotionally wrapped-up in little Kristen Jianmei as my wife has. This is going to be shocking and life-altering for both of us. This last minute waiting is officially killing us now, but getting to read Jeff Gammage’s book while we wait has been a big help. Most of what he writes about becoming a father, adopting a girl from China, and so on is not news to us but it’s still reassuring to read it one more time. I’m going to write to him and thank him for that.

I just looked at the calendar. We leave in 10 days now. Wow!