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Have started something new - a BLOG! Check it out on the links page.

Still writing the last Travel Entry

Now posting on the Home Updates page 01/31/09

Email from the website is not working. My personal email address larawade@sbcglobal.net

China Time:

Travel Date: 1/14/2009
Subject: Love and Limits

What we did today:
Today was scheduled as our lazy, resting, family day. So we had no touring plans for the day. We could just focus on family.

Now that Hui Dong is officially our daughter, she decided to test her boundaries and limits today! Not only is this very normal for a birth child, but it is also a normal part of the adoption process. She is also experiencing some frustration with parents who don’t speak Chinese. Translation – lots of whining and grunting.

Hui Dong is not a morning lark, especially when she is awakened by her brothers and sister’s Skype video-phone call.

From the start of the day, she decided that she was a Mama’s girl and wanted nothing to do with her Baba. Only Mama could carry her, only Mama could sit near her, only Mama could do anything to help her. We haven’t tried to force Baba on her, but we have tried to encourage special things with Baba to overcome some of her rejection. Baba and Hui Dong got to lie down in bed and watch her Dora (in Chinese) DVD together.

After an early breakfast, we relaxed and watched some kids’ TV (I know this is nothing like home where we rarely watch TV). We also broke out the Play-doh. Huge hit! She played for quite a while cutting, shaping, and molding. Then we decided to adventure out to the grocery store and walking around near the hotel without our guide this time.

After strolling around to look at the shops and things nearby, we let a six-year-old take us shopping. Hui Dong really enjoys yogurt with breakfast so we wanted to get some for her to have in the mini refrigerator in our room. In China, the yogurt is very thin and you drink it through a straw. We have no idea what all we purchased, but she had no problems picking out various brands and flavors. Then we wandered through a cookie isle. Baba was the first to find Chocolate Oreos that he wanted. Then Hui Dong found a package she wanted. “Prince” cookies are like Ritz crackers with a chocolate filling. On the next isle she latched on to a bag of potato chips, Tomato – Ketchup flavored. We decided we needed to leave before we purchased the entire store!

Back in the room Baba and Hui Dong decided to lunch on cookies and potato chips. Not the healthiest lunch. Hui Dong started to watch a DVD and then fell asleep. She took a two hour nap!

Since the only shoes she has were her red boots, we decided to go shoe shopping in the attached mall. Her boots seemed a little big for her and we hoped to find a more comfortable, athletic-type shoe.

How many ways can you say “disaster”? Escalators, stairs, walking, riding the elevator, everything involved a meltdown. Eventually she was kicking off her boots and wouldn’t even walk on her own. We never even tried on a pair of shoes. Finally we decided that it would be wrong to reward her behavior with new shoes so we just gave up and took her back to our room for some quiet time.

She settled down to watch her favorite Dora DVD. Just as we were about to adventure out again, she started to play with some of the toys we have for her here. At first Christopher really wanted to head back to the mall, but we decided to just let her play for a while.

Boy, was God ever leading and directing our time! Our doorbell rang unexpectedly. Charlie our guide stopped by with some of the completed paperwork that we will need in Guangzhou in order to process her Visa. While he was here, we asked him if she would have napped regularly in school. Oh, yes, a nap is part of the daily schedule…just as we had begun to suspect.

Steeled and ready to face the mall again, we headed out. This time we had a totally different child with us. Since we had already looked around some before, we knew what store we wanted to find.

Now imagine shoe shopping for a six-year-old who speaks Chinese and so do all the store clerks and other customers, but you don’t…in fact you don’t even know what shoe size she wears. Baba picked out one pair to try first, black and pink. The clerk happily helped and so did some of the other customers. Everyone was trying to convince Hui Dong that the shoes were a good fit. Then she discovered that they lit up! But she still wasn’t sold on the pair. She and the clerk found another white and pink pair she likes better…with lights still.

Hui Dong had quite interesting and animated conversations with everyone in the store. They called her “mei mei” or little girl. I think they asked some questions about her Mama and Baba. At one point she responded by ending her sentence with a firm declaration of her name, “Fu Hui Dong.” Finally as her Baba was paying the bill, the clerk and Hui Dong were trying to convince Mama that she needed a new coat.

We decided to try dinner in the mall too. We selected the sit-down restaurant with a sign out front in English that advertised “Beef and Cheese Ham Burg” hoping that there would be enough English that we could figure out dinner. Thankfully the menu was written in Chinese and English with pictures! Christopher tried the Ham Burg, Hui Dong had more noodles, and I tried Spaghetti in China. Hui Dong and I were happy with our dinners, but Christopher’s Ham Burg was well done on the outside and slightly raw in the center. Plus he said it tasted like it had been cooked with all the Chinese food.

Our princess had new shoes and we survived our “restful” day!

Photos... (click image to enlarge)

Play-doh fun!