PICTURES!

All right.....it's been a while so here we go. Lovin' the brothers.

A Few Closing Pics :-)

M. Pics

Random M. Pics

Playing With Mom

Progress

Dad is slowly getting back to being a "holder" again. This morning in the playroom, M. was holding my hand climbing the ladder to go down the slide. She looked up at the light on the ceiling and gestured for me to lift her up. :-)

Why do kids love to touch the ceiling?

The Pout

You can just see the beginning of "the pout" here. Little miss M. can put on quite the face when things don't go as she would want.

New Handbag?

Hmm. What do I do with this?













Oh. Do I put it on my arm?













This is FUN!

Pics of the Big Blue--Changsha Style

Not so sure about these fish, Mama!




























No aquarium is complete without synchronized mermaids! They're real, folks--we wouldn't make this stuff up!

What An EATER!

Boy can this girl eat! Oh. And we were wrong about the spoon. She is actually quite good with them. Her fine motor skills are quite good all the way around. It's her gross motors that will need some work. She's very unsteady on her feet. We think she's probably spent much of her time in a walker.

Play Time

After a good long nap, we went down the hall to the hotel play room for some fun. We played with bubbles and balls, then we went to the slide/tunnel. We had some really special time with her.

A little later, the others from our group came and the kids had some fun together. So much fun to watch.

Mia fell and hurt herself mildly and cried. Our three-time adoptive friend pointed out that this is a really good thing. Her oldest daughter, at time of adoption had already temporarily lost the ability to respond to pain. Life in an orphanage trains you to believe that no one will listen, I guess.
We also noticed that she's not big on sharing. :-) While she did kindly and repetitively bring Mama and Baba each a ball with which to play catch, when she heard some noise in the hallway, she promptly picked up the bucket of balls and looked for a place to hide them. Later, we saw her push another child's hand away when he tried to play the little keyboard she was using. Normal kid-stuff to be sure, but I think it's especially pronounced in the orphange setting.

Story Time

I (R) was sitting in the chair and she picked up the book held it out to me. This was the result. What fun!

Sharing Cheerios

M. Feeds Mom some Cheerios.

And NOW do you like my hat?

OK. Here is a picture from our first trip to the hotel pool. They make us wear these dopey hats. But she sure is cute!

Breakfast

After M. finally woke up (can't remember the last time I had to WAIT for one of my kids to wake up!) we took her down to breakfast at the hotel buffet. She would feed herself melon, banana and cheerios, but it seems she does not know what to do with a spoon. J. fed her rice and helped her drink from the glass. She was such a delight!







The buffet is really wild. Crazy mixtures of western and Chinese foods. Plenty of things you'd never think to eat for breakfast. My favorite today was the polenta bread. I gave M. samples of just about everything I ate and she tried it all. Boiled egg, polenta, omelet, and tomato juice. (not sure if she like that!)







It's really fun to be down in the "coffee garden" in the morning. There are so many adoptive families walking around with their new children. The Chinese wait-staff are wonderful! They clearly love the children and are excited that they are being helped and cared for. They go out of their way to talk to, smile at, and play games with the kids.

Asleep

And so she sleeps. Soundly. Breathing deeply. We had the full lights on for almost two hours after she fell asleep. Amazing.

There's not much better than staring at sleeping kids. wow. This is the last picture for today, but I'd like to post some more about the experience and what is yet to come.

Sleep!

J. fed her some more after me, but M. was starting to doze off--while holding watermelon in one hand and cantaloupe in the other!

J. picked her up and within a few minutes M. was sound asleep on her shoulder--right about 8:00PM, which (orphanage) Director Wang said was her bedtime.

Dinner Time!

Things have really gone well. After the expected rough start, we've both been able to calm her and hold her. It took a while for us to be able to pass her to the other without her sobbing, but we ended the day with three successful passes in a row!

We ordered room service after bath time. We really didn't know if she would eat or not. She took what must have been the longest journey of her life today (4-5 hours from her orphanage to Changsha) met us etc. Very traumatic we are sure! We saw her drink a-plenty but she's only held candy, crackers etc. without even tasting them. I had given her a cookie earlier and she did finally taste that. Well, you can see here, that dinner was a smashing success. J. ordered a hamburger (of questionable meat quality--left uneaten) off of the "western" part of the menu. I ordered a barbecued meat platter off the local part of the menu, some fried rice and wanton soup. We also got two nice-sized fruit plates. (grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon and a fruit we've seen here but have not yet identified.) M. sat on my lap and easily took the watermelon in hand and went to town. She watched me eat every bite of the meat (It must have been duck, actually) so I broke off tiny pieces and fed them to her. She ate them all. I also gave her fried rice. She ate. And ate. And ate. And ate. She ended up with several bites of meat, many mouthfuls of rice and a few slices of fruit. I'm getting the hang of those chop-sticks, too! This was amazing, and after the smile, possibly the next highlight of the day for me.

--R

Getting Dressed

Getting Dressed