Sunday, July 30, 2006
FIFTY FIRST DATES

Have you ever seen the movie “Fifty First Dates”? It’s about a man who falls in love with a woman who has no long term memory, so every night when she goes to sleep, she forgets everything, and so he has to work very hard every day to make her fall in love with him all over again. John and I both feel like we are totally living that movie with our little Gracie! Everything will be so good…she will be laughing, talking a bit, smiling, playing with us, but then she falls asleep and when she wakes up, she seems to be totally a different girl. So, it has been a great day and a horrible day, all in the same day.

We had a wonderful dinner last night at the Cow and Bridge, a yummy, yummy Thai restaurant, with many of our friends we are traveling with. We ate family style so we had a variety of dishes to sample and they were all delicious…even Gracie seemed to agree as she ate everything we put in front of her. After dinner it was a fun play time and then bed. She even got to talk with the kids on webcam and say “Zaijian!” (goodbye) to them and wave. It was so sweet.

This morning we went to a big, big five story mall to do a little shopping, but it was sort of a bust. Gracie was not very content to shop and had a few tantrums while we were there. She is continually saying, “Nai-nai! Nai-nai!”, which I only know means Grandma. I don’t know if perhaps it is something from her local dialect, because you might remember this chick is bilingual already!.., but it is confusing to us because we don’t know what to do when she is saying it over and over and over. Sometimes she will stiffen her little body out and just work up a sweat screaming so hard. All we can do is try to comfort her and pray that she will calm down again. A couple of times she has swatted at John when he has made her angry and we have to keep reminding ourselves, “Don’t get angry, she has never had discipline before. No one was there to love her enough to teach her what is right.” It is a challenge to stay patient and loving and ride out the tantrum.

A sweet thing that happened at the mall is that when John disappeared around a corner and I asked her, “Baba zai nar?” (Where is Daddy?) she pointed to him and said, “Baba!” (Daddy!) John didn’t get to hear it, but I did. :) A sour thing was that when she was having a good time with me on the bus laughing, I leaned in for a kiss and as she leaned in too, I was so excited thinking, “Wow! I’m finally getting a kiss!” but rather than a kiss, she sucked in my bottom lip and chomped down hard. It was sort of hilarious, painful, and terrifying all at the same time as I wondered if she could possibly bite it clean off my face. And since I seem to have been stressing in my sleep by chewing my tongue, now I have a swollen tongue and swollen lip as well. :( You can imagine how I sound as I try to bargain with all the Chinese shopkeepers. They must all think I am drunk, which unfortunately does not help my bargaining leverage.

While Grace slept today, I did a little more shopping, lived on the edge a bit, drinking some coke with ice and eating TWO ice cream bars. So far we are not sick and so we keep pushing the envelope on what we can take. Tomorrow we will visit the zoo and do a cruise.

I can’t think of anything else to write and I think we hardly have any pictures from our excursions today, but I will try and dig up something interesting for you all to look at. We miss you all!!!!! Much love from China…..John, Lis and Gracie.