Saturday,
December 20, 2008
Day 4 of life with Lauren and it has been one step forward,
two steps back. Unless I’m holding her she wails. Today she
definitely prefers her time with me, which makes Mike feel
awful. When I walk out of her sight she freaks out. She pretty
much has cried all day except for when she was eating. She’s
teething and the Orajel, teething toys and cold rags don’t seem
to sooth her. She chomps her teeth together so hard, she sounds
like a horse’s hooves clacking. While all the other babies in
our group seem to be opening up every day, Lauren seems to be
shutting down with rare glimpses of a happy baby. It just breaks
our hearts. Please keep her in your prayers.
Today’s activity was a trip to Nanning’s People’s Park. This is
a huge park with all kinds of things going on. It has winding
paths that surround a lake with beautiful structures and a
really cool zing zag bridge, pagodas, amusement parks, etc… The
people of China take exercise and communing with nature and
friends very seriously. The people just enjoy themselves. We saw
old men playing cards, groups of people playing instruments or
singing together; some with microphones! There were groups of
women doing Tai Chi and couples dancing to live music. Children
were everywhere. I’ll tell you, these people adore children!
There were so many activities for the children to do in this
park and it’s all free. There were roller coasters and bumper
boats and these giant plastic bubbles that the kids were zipped
into and could roll around on the water (think hamster ball).
The kids were having a blast. I think Americans would live much
happier and fulfilled lives if we made sure to get outdoors each
day and do fun things with friends and neighbors like the people
of China do! OH and I can’t forget to mention the little ones
who were being “potty trained”. In China it’s traditional for
babies to wear split pants so when they need to go they can just
pop a squat and do their thing. We saw many little ones just
step to the side of the path and do just that. Too cute, little
buns everywhere!
There was a group of older men standing in a group, with big
calligraphy brushes and they were using water to “paint” poems
on to the walkways. They invited Mike to join them too. Then one
of them showed us a proper poem, which translated to “no matter
who we are, no matter where we live, across the ocean or
anywhere we are all of one earth, one truth”. Very nice
sentiment!
Later in the evening we went to dinner with Ellie/Pat/Tess and
Ro/Tom/Grace and our guide XiXi. Our 3 families met on day one
of our adoption process in 2005 and as most of you know Ellie &
Pat are now like family. We were ecstatic when we found out that
Lauren and Tess were in the same orphanage and are around the
same age. Anyway, XiXi ordered up some local favorites, which
included some noodle dishes, different kinds of rice, tofu
selections and lastly roasted pigeon. Yup pigeon! And it was the
whole bird – head and all – freshly deceased and chopped into
pieces with some tea leaves. I was not brave enough to try it
but did everything else & it was all pretty yummy. Mike even
tried some dish with bamboo shoots. Those of you who know him
will know that is a HUGE deal! So that was a cool experience.
Tomorrow we are heading to another park that’s supposed to be
very famous in this part of China, so you’ll hear all about it
on our next update.
Our little one is grinding teeth like a woodpecker on a tree, so
I’m off to snuggle & see if I can calm her down.
Goodnight all, we send our love from the continent of Asia. Hard
to imagine that we have another 11 days until we come home. It
feels like it’s already been weeks.
|
Mike is doing his thing "PA" style!
The real deal!
Name that tune!
Such a sad girl today
Yum, anyone want some pigeon???
Dinner Chinese style |
