Sunday,
November 11, 2007
It is time for a new perspective on things. This time Bart is
writing the update.
Last night we went to dinner with our entire group at a Thai
restaurant called Cow and Bridge. It was very good food and was
a lot of fun. We really enjoy everyone in our group. After
dinner, we all sang happy birthday to Ella and ate cake. As
usual, Ella was a ham. She loves all of the attention. This
morning we walked by Cow and Bridge restaurant on our way to the
Pearl Market. Apparently, Ella told the waitresses standing in
front of the Cow and Bridge that she wanted to come back in and
eat. This was only about 30 minutes after we had eaten
breakfast.
As I mentioned, today we went to the Pearl Market with our
group. This is a wholesale market for pearls and other jewels.
In reality, it is a place for all of the women to pawn the
children off onto the dads while they spend all the money.
Before we went to the Pearl Market, Ronda had assured me that we
were only going to look and to kill some time. But of course
after we got there, she told me that she intended to buy some
new pearls. I still don’t know how much she spent, and I
probably don’t want to know.
For the past several days now we have really been working with
Ella on the language and it has been going very well so far.
Ronda and I can now say several words in Mandarin. Ella on the
other hand can only say Mama, Papa, Ella, hello and bye bye. My
guess is that she will probably have the whole family speaking
Mandarin before too long.
Ronda and I are really starting to get tired of being here in
China. We miss the kids terribly. Two weeks is way too long to
be away from our kids. We cannot wait to see them. We have so
much that we want to talk to them about. We cannot wait for them
to meet Ella. They are going to love her, and she is going to
love them. She has a little bit of each of them in her. Last
night she showed us that she loves to sing just like her big
sister Madison (oh great, more money for singing lessons). Last
night we were watching some people singing on the TV. Ella left
the room for a minute and then came back with a flashlight out
of one of the suitcases. She then started to sing into the
flashlight as if it were a microphone. It was very funny. I have
no idea where she learned to do that.
We learned a little bit about Chinese customs the other day. I
had to go to the restroom at the mall. When I walked into the
stall, I saw nothing more than a hole in the floor (it is called
a “squatty potty”). Now, as many of you know, I like to be in
the outdoors, so I thought to myself, no problem I can do this.
However, I could not find any toilet paper anywhere in the
stall. I then proceeded to the next stall only to find that it
also had no toilet paper. I then left the restroom and proceeded
to ask our guide Jocelyn where the toilet paper is located. To
my horror, she informed me that “there is no toilet paper and
that it was Chinese custom not to use toilet paper”. Needless to
say, I held it until I could get back to the hotel room.
Before I sign off, I also need to respond to Ronda’s allegations
that Ella has me wrapped around her little finger. This is
absolutely not true. I can recall at least two occasions over
the past week where I have told Ella “no”. In addition, in my
defense, how do you say no to a little girl who laughs about
everything and always has a smile on her face, especially when
this sweet little girl has lived in an orphanage since she was 5
months old, had open heart surgery when she was 2-1/2 years old
and up until a few days ago, had never tasted ice cream. It
makes me feel guilty for all of the times that I have been
grumpy because something in my own life hasn’t gone the way I
expected.
The miracle about this whole adoption is that we have traveled
halfway across the world to pick up a child whom we have never
met and whom was matched to us by our adoption agency and by the
Chinese government only to have it confirmed to us that Ella is
the missing piece of our family and was intended from the
beginning to be a member of our family. She will perfectly
complete our family. What is even more amazing is that every
adoptive family that we have met on this trip has had the same
experience. |
Ella Feeding Fish
Our Group On Way to Pearl Market
Chinese Gourmet Soup Ingredients
Pearl Market
Bart and Ella at Pedestrian Shopping
Mom And Ella On Shamian Island |
