Wuhan Update—17 days

A dinner selfie...our space is a little tight!!

Things have definitely improved this week.  The adjustment period has settled down.  To help record our adjustment progress, we have created the Bickel Boohoo Cry Chart!  We record who cries and how many times!  It really has been fun and the kids are really into the recordings!  We have created some motivation to keep the crying down by having a “party” at night in their room (they all sleep in the same room, 2 bunk beds).  We have gone from some kids crying 6X in one day to no tears!!  They finally were able to have a “party” late in the week! =)

The deli!

Homeschooling has become easier but it does continue to be challenging in that there is one teacher and 4 needy children!  =)  This week has proven to be better though and look forward to continuing to improve!

Scott’s work has settled as well.  He has to remain flexible in that they add to his schedule and give no warning of the changes!  The school really enjoys having a professor from the States and are using him to the max!  A funny thing is that we plan on meeting a friend on a trip to Xi’an and a doctor found out about it and wants Scott to work while he is there!  The hospital in Xi’an wants him to come and help them!  The Chinese people are such hard working people…. They don’t really understand the concept of a “vacation”! 

 The hospital department

 Doing a little teaching...

 Trying to convince a mother and several physicians that there is nothing wrong with this child!!!

They kept telling Scott that his legs were different sizes

Treating patients...like riding a bike

We have been meeting many people and making relations.  We have really been able to connect with a family that is from Texas that have 5 kids, who live here permanently.  They have been such a blessing to our family and really shown us the ropes on how to get around and plugged us in to help serve our Father!!  They have connections that allowed Nanette to meet with some friends who are going through a hard time to help encourage them!  Our Father is so good and ALWAYS takes car of His children!

China - Day 10

 A family photo at Beihai Park

It’s hard to believe that we have only been in China for 10 days.  We have hit the ground running from the very beginning. 

Beijing

We started our trip in Beijing to see some friends from Birmingham.  Scott has a former student, Chuan Wang, that lives in Beijing and works with a private PT clinic that treats professional and Olympic athletes from China.  He has a very unique job, especially for rehab in China. It was great to catch up and to have a contact that could help arrange a few things here.  He went above and beyond the call of duty and really helped in so many ways like purchased train tickets for us, arranged dinners, cars, etc…  He was born and raised in China and this speaks to him personally, but also a characteristic of many of the people here…very hospitable.  They can certainly give the South a run for their money in terms of hospitality! 

          A UAB PT alumni event in Beijing!

We also got to spend some time with our dear friend Jenny, who also works as a PT in China.  She works at a large, inpatient rehabilitation facility and has been here a little over a year.  She was traveling out of the country when we arrived so we only got to have dinner with her and Chuan on Saturday night, but it was great to see her and catch up.  We hope to meet again during our stay…maybe in another part of China.

Wuhan

            High speed train

             "First Class"

We arrived in Wuhan on late afternoon on Sunday.  It was a neat experience to take the high-speed train from Beijing.  The train runs about 300 km/hr (~185 mph) and we got to see a good bit of the countryside.  When we arrived, we were met by 2 students that we had previously met on our October trip. They helped get us to our apartment where we spent the next day and a half getting settled and buying supplies.  We have enjoyed getting to know our surroundings and making new friends.  We can draw a crowd everywhere we go with our large group and people are generally amazed that we have 4 kids, which is very uncommon here.  We have made several new relationships, everyone here uses a few apps on their phone to communicate (WeChat and QQ) so we can easily get their contact info and communicate via text message to arrange meetings, get directions, etc… We have also connected with an American family that lives here who have 5 kids!  We got together for dinner at their place and all the kids had a great time (ours and theirs!), so we are very thankful for them.

        Nothing beats meat on a stick!

       Learning some new skills

Scott also hit the ground running with his work.  He has planned a 3-day workshop with students and clinicians in the area and given a lecture to international medical students on the basics of rehabilitation.  More is planned and he will be very busy keeping up with new responsibilities while also keeping up with a few UAB projects!

            Some new friends

Homeschooling has been an adjustment for all (teacher and students), but we are all aware that it will get easier as we develop a routine.  The benefit of homeschooling is that we can make sure that we understand a topic before we move onto the next!  

Thanks for thinking of us and being interested in what we are doing here.

Long overdue update...

It has been a long time since we updated the blog and there is a lot to say, but this is going to be brief and to the point.

Everything has been going fairly well with Olivia's adjustment.   She has been with us for a little over a year and has made tremendous progress.  Her English is doing well, she is learning to read, and fitting in with the family.  There are still some issues that we are working through, but nothing that cannot be overcome with time.

Our big news is that we will be spending the next 2 months in Wuhan, China.  Scott will be working at a University, teaching physical therapy in both an academic and clinical setting.  Generally speaking, rehabilitation in China is far behind and there is much room for improvement.  You can read more about some of his work in the following article: http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/features/translating-therapy

We are excited to get to spend this time abroad as a family, learning the culture and spending some quality time with each other.  We will not be rushing to baseball, soccer, and softball practices and try to spend time making relationships with the people we will meet in Wuhan.  Overall, we are excited, but some of the kids are a little nervous.  Bryce will miss playing soccer and his friends at school, Elise will miss playing softball and all of her friends, Benjamin is pretty care free and is excited about going, and we think Olivia is most excited about the food (she loves Chinese food).

We will try to update the blog regularly, so you all can keep up with us, and will try to post some things to Facebook.  We would love to hear from you through email or iMessage.

Home 4 Months

Home Depot Saturday morning project

The update: We have adjusted to being a family of 6 and are doing great!  We are super busy with Bryce, Elise and Benjamin playing soccer/softball/baseball and going to all of the practices and games.  Olivia is doing fantastic.  She has jumped right in and has learned to throw, catch, and hit the ball or shoot hoops outside!!  She loves to do this almost every day!  She is so much more comfortable and is responding more to others.  She still loves to be with her siblings but she also enjoys being with her cousins who live across the street. She loves our dog, Shelby, as well as our cousin's dog, Millie.   Her food issues are so much better.  She has even started to like pizza!  She is such a precious and fun little girl.  She is doing amazingly great with learning the language!  We have "Olivia school" daily and she has learned the alphabet (upper and lower case) including sounds, shapes, colors, numbers, etc.  Nanette is trying to get her ready for Kindergarten, which she will officially start in August.  She is so proud of how well she is doing!! =) Her teacher in China did a great job because she already knew how to use the scissors, glue, most of her numbers, and colors!  There is still so much to learn and we still have some issues but overall she is doing fantastic.

Vogel State Park in Georgia (highly recommend)

Cousins enjoying a pretty day

She is getting to have so many firsts!  During Spring Break, we went camping in north Georgia.  We enjoyed camping, campfires, hiking, and fun family time!  She loved it.

Fire Hazard!

We can tell that she is forgetting her Chinese language, despite some efforts to help her maintain it.  We have lots of Chinese friends that speak to her in Chinese, but she does not speak to them yet…  We listen to Chinese music and have some videos as well… =).

First time climbing up a tree--she was "very scared"

 It is not always rosy and she still has some issues that we are lovingly working through.  The hardest and most frustrating thing is she totally shuts down when she is hurt or upset, so it is hard to determine what is wrong! That being said, I totally am amazed at how she has handled and adapted to all the changes in her life.  She has been through so much in such a short 5 years!

Climbing wall in Birmingham

Some walked and some scooted across the bridge

We had a great opportunity at a local orphan care conference to personally meet with "JT", the man that founded the Both Hands Organization to facilitate fundraising for adoptions through serving a widow. We were able to meet him and his wife and introduce them to our entire family. What a special experience for JT to meet Olivia because Both Hands helped us bring her home! It was great for us and hopefully encouraging to him to see the "fruit" that comes from this great ministry.  You can look through our blog and see our "Both Hands" project from May 2013 to raise money for our 2nd adoption.

JT from Both Hands…please consider supporting them!

(http://www.bothhandsfoundation.org)

What a Blessing

The whole crew!

I get overwhelmed at how incredible our God is!  How He knits families together in such unique yet perfect ways is astounding to me.  During the waiting period, we prayed fervently for Olivia before we even knew her.  When we received her referral, we just knew that she was ours with complete and absolute peace.  Yet, we did not know what a blessing God had in store for us.  She has officially been with our family 7 weeks today and we have been home for 6 weeks.  Olivia is adjusting well, is a happy child and has us laughing a lot.  She loves to have fun and loves to play with any family member that is available.  She actually reciprocated one of my hugs on Christmas (the best present ever!!), and she now gives both Scott and I hugs and tells us that she loves us as well.  She was doing this to the kids long before us parents…  When she is comfortable (on her own turf), she has such a sweet and fun personality that is laughing most of the time, but when we are out in public or meeting people, she totally shuts down and becomes “stoic”.  I am sure this will improve with time as well.

 Very happy at home!

Some artwork.

Olivia is learning more English words every day and speaks one to two words at a time.  She is gradually starting to express herself with words versus us asking questions until she nods her head yes.  She sometimes mimics us, which causes much laughter!  She touches my heart and brings tears to my eyes to hear our sweet little girl thank the Lord for every family member by name in our prayer time!!  How sweet that must sound to Jesus!

Olivia is sleeping well but snores as loud as Scott! Unbelievable!!  So Elise has had some difficulty adjusting to her roommate.  Elise told us that she woke Olivia up, trying to turn her over to get her to stop snoring.  When Elise told Olivia that she was snoring, Olivia said “Me??” with surprise and laughter.

First Christmas!

Olivia’s is still very picky with foods but she is getting better with this as well.  She is at least trying new things like her first peanut butter sandwich and sliced ham today.  She still loves noodles and rice and could eat this at every meal if we let her.  Her food issue could have been related to her 19, yes 19, cavities!  We have addressed her bottom teeth already, which consisted of 4 crowns, 3 root canals, 2 fillings, and 1 extraction.  We have her uppers to go.  She is one brave kiddo with the way she handles doctors, shots, blood draws, dentist appointments, etc.   It will be nice when we have all these things behind us!

So in conclusion, we have come a LONG way from Nov. 25.  Olivia has had a huge turn around and is very happy.  I will close with how she closes her day in bed, “See you in the good morning!”

First time on the bike!

Home 10 days--December 15, 2013

Not sure what she was trying to write, but it looks important!

We have now been home for about 10 days and are getting settled into Central time and our usual routines of school and work.  It was a little rough the first few days that Nanette was home alone with Olivia, as she likely had not been alone for quite some time.  At the orphanage, there are kids everywhere all the time!   Everyday we are learning more about each other.  Consider Olivia’s perspective—she has arrived in a new country where everything is different: food tastes different, things smell different, everything looks different, the language sounds different…there are very few things here that are familiar to her.  Thankfully, she is very comfortable around us, or should I say the other kids.  She definitely likes the other kids more than us right now, but I suppose that is to be expected.  However, we are making progress and she has come to expect us to take care of her needs: bath, food, clothes, etc. 

We arrived home on a Wednesday and she literally did not leave the house until Monday.  Since then, we have taken her out to the store, to pick the other kids up from school, and a few other places.  We had a breakthrough when she wanted to go with Scott to drop Bryce off at basketball practices.  We’re not sure if she wanted to go with Scott or Bryce, but either way it was a good sign.  We have also learned that she fits right in with the other females in the house—in that she is NOT a morning person!  She usually wakes up a little groggy and takes some time to get warmed up to everyone.  However, the flip side is at night, she is usually in a good mood and likes to have fun.  Overall, we are making progress albeit slow. 

To address some of the common questions we get:

1.  Language—she is learning English and seems to understand a lot of basic things that we ask her.  We do not get a lot of words spoken back to us, but she does say our names, the dog’s name, and she is saying some other words here and there. Interestingly, a good friend gave us a DVD with some children’s songs all in Chinese and she seems to love it—smiling, singing, and laughing.  However, she doesn’t sing when we look at her…if we leave the room or ignore her, she will sing away.

2.   Sleep—she and Elise share a room and they are both doing well. We had a rough first 4-5 days, but she has settled into a routine and is now sleeping in her own bed, through the night without any issues. 

3.  Eating—she is very picky about what she eats and could probably eat ramen noodles 3 times/day.  However, we are trying to get her on some healthy food so we are limiting the ramen noodles to once/day!  Olivia will eat fruit and we have some Chinese snacks like seaweed and fish flavored crackers, so these can tie her over while we find other foods. We have been encouraged that she is starting eat more protein.  Nanette made some congee (rice porridge) and she does like this with some meat or tofu.  She is slowly getting accustomed to the food.  For comparison, when we were in China and eating their food all the time, our kids really didn’t care for it and wanted “American” food by about the 3^rd or 4^th day.  So we have tried to make foods that she likes, add tons of salt, and hopefully that makes her feel more comfortable!

Very sweet girl, however, she won't do this if she knows we're filming.