Day 10 – trial by fire

If there’s one thing we can say for our little girl, it is this – she really is a trooper.

This morning after breakfast, our group met to take our girls to the medical exam. As we were waiting in the lobby, a Chinese-American woman from Ohio asked if she could take a picture of our group for a Chinese newspaper in Ohio. Apparently there are around 300 Chinese-Americans staying at our hotel.

At Maylie’s medical appointment we found out that she weighs 17 pounds! Everything seems to be fine (although she does have a cold and cough now). It wasn’t a very in depth exam- mainly to allow her to leave the country with us. The "lowlight" of the medical exam was when the Dr. needed to check her "parts" and we found she had just left us all a little surprise. All three of us – the Dr., Rachel and I said, "ugh!" simultaneously. So after a quick change, we were told… "Ok. Normal. Ok?"

After that we went shopping again. A friend of our once remarked that she thought the 10 day stay was set up in part to help the local economy. I’m beginning to agree.

We have met some cheerful, helpful shop keepers. If you’re headed to Gungzhou and will be on Shamian Island, we’d recommend Susan’s Place. Very helpful (even if it is all a sales pitch) and their English is wery good. Susan is in this picture to the right of Rachel. All the shops are about as big as a large walk-in closet and crammed with merchandise. All during our shopping, Maylie has been great. She may whimper now and then, but for as much travel as we’re doing (including walking with her on our hip), she’s doing great.


And then there’s this…


I had to add this…

Since we couldn’t get the camera out fast enough to capture it on film, let me describe it to you: We’re getting back on the bus after shopping and our girl had a combo cough-sneeze-runny nose. This resulted in the largest nose bubble I’ve ever seen. Rachel said if you were chewing gum, you’d be happy with that size of bubble. We’re not planning to contact the Guinness Book people (due in part to lack of evidence and not meeting the required number of witnesses), but this whopper was about as big as a pool ball. Billiard ball. Whatever. You must remember this is coming from a 10 month old baby. Score one for the little gal.

I told Rachel later today that Maylie is going to be my punk rock girl. She looked at me with that bemused smile. You know – the same one she gave me when I said I’d like to get a dog someday. That look that says, "I’m humoring you now, but bring it up again before 6 months has passed and there will be pain"

We’re thankful that there are American TV programs (with Mandarin subtitles) and HBO and Cinemax (Asian versions). Sometimes we’re so desperate to hear English that we’ll even endure Paul Shore in Jury Duty. (JustinG, I know you walked out of the theatre on this one, but after 10 days in China… you might just laugh a bit at it). MTV China is also quite a change. Every song is a sappy love ballad. Every now and again you may catch a hip hop song, but it seems that what we’re seeing is all cheesy pop love songs.

As much as we like ethnic food we are so ready to eat "normally" again. It’s also a challenge to have to always eat out, try and communicate with the wait staff, eat noodle soup with chopsticks, order something only to find out it doesn’t at all match the picture in your head, and have a little one with you. And not once have we received fortune cookies! But we have sampled our share of congee. Maylie will eat rice cereal in addition to congee but that’s about it. It will be interesting to see how she does with American baby food. She was eating tiny pieces of a Cheerio yesterday, but even that was obviously very foreign to her. She has not had the opportunity to experiment with "finger food" or mashed fruits and veggies. (except mashed potoatoes)

Today she crawled- not "army style"- but really crawled. She also now loves to bounce on our laps and throws herself backward with such force both when she’s happy or angry. She’s a trooper but she definitely has a little spark.

Our friend, Kim, who is from Point, went with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law to the girls’ orphanage today. It’s an hour’s flight away and $100 each way, so Rach decided not to go. We asked her to take photos and video so that we can see what thy saw and get a better idea of where our girls spent their first few months. Rach is in their room right now, and I’m hoping to see images tomorrow.

Not to overindulge you with gross baby items, but tonight we had our first real diaper buster.

Yup.

The whole nine yards.

Diaper… infant tights… cute little black velvet outfit.

Go directly to Tub… do not pass Go… do not collect $200.

We can’t wait to introduce her to everyone, especially Elijah (she’s gonna love you, Buddy. I think she’ll be happy to have another kid around.)
So keep us in your prayers. We can’t wait to see you all again real soon and show you more pics, and share more stories.