July 13 – Goodbye Nanchang, Hello Guangzhou

12:00 a.m. Brilliant Detective hears telltale grunting from a little body in the crib next to him.

12:40 a.m. The first cry. Brilliant Detective thinks “great – midnight diaper change. I’ll give her one more chance before we take the plunge.”

1:40 a.m. Real crying now. Brilliant Detective has his “ah-ha” moment, finds baby wide awake in crib, and gears up for the diaper change.

The plan is simple, really. All it takes is deft maneuvering, swift hands, and the old diaper-change magic. Will I fall back to my old training? Am I as quick as I used to be? Can I pull this off with the precision that is needed? I stretch a bit – need to warm up here. Make a few practice moves. “Okay – like this,” I tell myself – “One, two, three” – one hand under kid – scoop from crib, lay on blanket, pull off jammies, pull off diaper, wipe, replace diaper, and swift return to bed. I need a stopwatch on this one – I think I can do this in record time. I’m feeling confident that the time-worn motions will return to me like a retired baseball pitcher standing on the mound and staring at home plate. I mean it’s been over three years since I have had to change a diaper at night. But I am primed and ready…

Okay. Deep breath. Nerves: calm. Stance: poised, cat-like. Senses: on high alert. I am ready as I will ever be.

Zoe greets me at the crib staring up with terror in her eyes and immediately hits full volume in protest. “That’s okay,” I tell myself. “I was ready for this. It’s no worse than bath time.”

I get her out of the crib and onto the changing mat on the floor. So far so good. All is going according to plan. But I forgot one crucial element. One tiny detail. Something so trivial that it is easy to overlook, and yet so important that the task cannot be completed without it…

I did not dress her for bed. I have no idea how these jammies snap together. It’s pitch dark at this hour.

“Okay – keep calm. Remember your training. I can do this – I can do this! It’s only a minor snag in the works. Just a little setback.” I fumble a bit and find the snaps. “Of course – this is a front-snap jammy. I know where I am now. This is familiar territory. We’re back on track.” Zoe disagrees with my approach, but she is helpless to resist my unsnapping. There we go – down to the diaper.

At this point, Zoe is rolling furiously left and right from the hips. Trying to hide the diaper Velcro from my hands. But she does not realize the Brilliant Detective is an expert in midnight diaper changes. A black belt, if you will. Her hip wiggling is no match for my practiced hands.

Velcro off – one side, two sides. Diaper off, ready for the wipe, But wait…..

The diaper is clean. So clean that I could return this to Target for a refund. So clean that it glows white in the night like a beacon. A beacon with an accusing glow that mocks Brilliant Detective for this whole episode.

At this point I am sure I have awakened the entire floor of the hotel. I return Zoe to her diaper, her jammies, and her crib, and in less than 30 seconds after returning to bed she is silent – calm and poised and happy that this late-night injustice is finally over.

I am not so quick to fall asleep.

We wake up later than usual this morning. Karen is feeling a bit under the weather, and we have nowhere to be until our noon check out and our 3pm departure for the airport. Randy and Amy stop by with Naomi (they are the other Faith International couple in our group) and we have a nice chat while the two girls play on the floor a bit. Emma Zoe and I play ball. We pack slowly. Zoe and Karen nap until lunch time and Emma and I have some time together in the room. Emma’s new friend Mary stops by with her dad to exchange addresses. Mary was adopted 6 years ago and her family, from Alabama, is on their second child from China. She is 7 and friendly and a nice change of pace for Emma after all of the adult time Emma has had.

Michelle stops by with Zoe’s China passport. The photo makes me smile – a typical Zoe worried expression on the day we met her. It’s the only quick moment they had when she was not crying, and seeing this photo reminds me of how far we have come in less than a week.

Zoe wakes up from her nap and allows me to take her to the dining table with no word of protest! It’s as if she does not even remember last night (or more likely she has already forgiven me). I feed her an entire meal and we have some baby talk chat with plenty of smiling and Zoe pointing to various objects and “naming” them for me. It’s a priceless hour we spend for a few reasons. Zoe was comfortable, and Karen was able to rest a bit longer before our plane trip.

We are able to stay in the room until 3pm even though checkout was noon – once again Michelle has worked some magic on our behalf. At 3 we all gather and board the bus for the airport. It’s a quick trip, and relatively quick check-in process. We are sad to say goodbye to Michelle and take some final photos before crossing into security, which is very quick in China, but as thorough as any U.S. procedure.

Emma continues to be a rock star. The people are fascinated with her. When we finally line up to board the plan, there is literally a line of local people with their digital cameras out, zoom lenses trained, and furiously snapping photos of us as we show our boarding passes. All we need is a red carpet! Emma pauses and gives the group a peace sign (a typical Chinese pose we see teenage girls doing for the camera) and this brings a murmur of delighted approval from the crowd. Then down the jetway for Zoe’s first airplane flight.

It’s an uneventful trip. Zoe would rather be moving around but otherwise did not complain. The flight was 1 hour long and they still served a full dinner, and Zoe made quick work of tomatoes, broccoli, and rice before we had to return our dishes and prepare for landing in Guangzhou. She also made quick work of a diaper (not all of which was contained – poor Karen gets a gold medal for this trip, and has another set of shorts that won’t be worn again until cleaned), so Karen deplanes ahead of Emma and I to change Zoe.

We are greeted by Cordeila, the Faith representative here, who has a warm smile and lots of information for us. It’s 40 minutes on the van to the hotel, and we arrive, check in, and wind down for the evening. I’m a day late from my last posting and hopefully can catch up here today at the hotel.