How long for kids to adjust?

OK, this post is confessions of an ex-pat mom going slightly nuts. I don't know what I expected of my kids, I knew there would be an adjustment but I didn't know what form it would take. But right now, I want the kids that I had in the US back! Olivia has always been a whiner, but it has reached new heights in the last week. And her ability to burst into tears at the slightest problem is incredible. She has a future in acting. Actually, Olivia seems to be doing better today since we visited her school to pick up her uniform and she was less emotional. But Gigi! Oh my, she's making us crazy. She is defiant, stubborn, hilarious, and testing every parenting resolution I've ever made.
Yesterday morning she went up to the TV and stuck her hand (palm down) right on the screen. Joe told her not to and she did it again (we have the same no touching the TV rule at home in the US). She refused to say she wasn't allowed to touch the tv and subsequently spent the next half hour in the bathroom (our new time-out spot) before she finally acknowledged that she wasn't allowed to touch the TV. And this is the 4th time in 3 days that she's had a 1/2 hour time-out based purely on stubbornness. Then this afternoon we are in the grocery store and we're walking down the aisle to the check-out and it happens to be the candy aisle. Gigi is touching everything she can, I ask her to stop 3-4 times and then finally I swat her hand away from the candy. She looks at me, grins, then turns around and LICKS a lollipop on the shelf!
She has colored on every conceivable surface in the house - thank goodness I brought washable markers with me. I swear she has markers stashed somewhere because I have put all the markers up on a top shelf in a closet, and still every time I turn my back to do something, she produces a marker and colors on anything but paper! What to do with this kid?
Oh, here's the answer - plop them in front of the TV. Most of you know that I've always kept the kids away from TV because I felt that in the 3 hours/day I got to spend with them, I didn't want to share it with TV. WELL, let me tell you how stupid that feels right now! TV seems to be the only thing that keeps them in place for long enough for me to get a shower or get dinner prepared. But it actually only works for Olivia, Gigi will give it 15 minutes and then she's up and about, finding markers, pulling medicine out of cabinets (b/c we can't find safety latches), or falling off slippery stools.
Is all this defiance and disobediance part of the transition? Or is this just my kid? If it's part of the transition, how long does it last???
Today was a day of small frustrations. I put a step-stool from IKEA together twice, wrong both times and finally left it for Joe to do. I ordered a new bottle of water from the apartment complex and the guy who delivered it insisted I pay and I couldn't talk to him in Chinese to convince him otherwise (even though it's part of our rent), the elevator door closed on me 4 times before I was able to get two kids and two bikes in, and I made spaghetti for dinner and ran out of burners because we only have two...
Some days just feel like you do nothing, even though you attempt 100 different things. I've gone from being queen of lists to being thrilled if I accomplish one thing in a day. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Oh, and did I mention that this evening the guy from Deloit who is handling all our Chinese government paperwork showed up to pick up our passports and told us that he'll have all of our passports back to us by next Friday? It's scary to be in China without any of our passports for 2 weeks. They've had Joe's passport for a week already, and now they have everybody's in the family. Because in order to stay here for two years, and get our stuff we have to: get a travel Visa when you're in the US, get a health check once you get here, that enables Joe to get a work permit, once Joe has a work permit we can all have a residence permit, and THEN they will ship all our stuff to us and we have to go down to the port and sign for it in person. I will be so happy to get our stuff, I can't even remember what was packed to be shipped at this point. You'd think with all the lists and planning I would be able to remember, but honestly I have no idea.
I wonder what the process for ex-patting to the US is like? I bet it's easily this convoluted to get your stuff. Crap, it's practically more complicated to go through the security checkpoints in US airports than to claim your shipment in China!