Day 18 (Trip to Park, Free Day)

We had nothing scheduled for today except a little sightseeing, which we were glad of, as we felt that too much "here and there" leaves FL very overstimulated to the point were she shuts down and then falls apart later once she feels safe again.  We thought that the gardens would be a nice, peaceful place for our family to enjoy without overstimulating FL, but when we got there we saw this:

 

A garden on steroids.

Yes, that is the Beatles right there... not exactly the quiet, peaceful walk through a botanical garden I envisioned, but we thought we'd give it a try.  C was alllll about the bright colors and sounds and couldn't get enought of these big statue things that were covered in silk and gold trim.

Ergo Up!  It is so much easier to carry the girls around in these, and makes for good bonding time.  This was Sam's first time using the Ergo, as C was attached to me first (I am also back in first place with her again after a short run by Sam).  C is always happy to get in it and happy to get out of it (we usually both are : ) ) and FL did just fine in the carrier, though it is hard to tell what she thought.

You'll also notice that C has new shoes (we couldn't find any we liked in FL's size) which is good because the slippers are not waterproof, and C is a girl on the go, where as FL is not quite running yet.

The gardens had some really pretty views:

 

It was not as big as I thought, and if I had known, I would have taken my time and explored a little bit more.  This was a place where I would not have minded if the guide had left us and given us a time period to be done.  She stayed, and that was fine, but I'll take the time to mention something here that has been really bothering me.  The only way I have been able to handle it is to just let it go (please, no singing).  

Our guide is organized, smart, on top of the paperwork and VERY familiar with the process.  She will tell you what she thinks, but is also very willing to help.  I am glad she is our guide, BUT she is VERY, VERY partial to one of my daughters.  In a way, I understand it.  This daughter is very smart, charming, happy and social.  Most children that are adopted that our guide sees probably aren't usually this happy go lucky (she really is - it's crazy!) and well-adjusted at this stage, but our daughter is.  To top it off, in this country, everything about her is considered exteremly beautiful: lighter hair, "perfect" shaped mouth (apparently people get plastic surgery to make their mouth like hers), big eyes, lighter skin heart-shaped face and she is an extrovert that LOVES attention.  I haven't seen an unattractive child on our entire trip and though I think both my daughters are very beautiful, but I had NO IDEA that this daughter is what she apparently is here.  We first noticed it in her province when people were stopping and taking pictures with her, stopping and telling us how beautiful she was, kissing her (yes, while she was in the ergo attached to me) and staring more than the normal stare (y'all who've been here know what I'm talking about).  My other daughter is beautiful, but she has some things that are different about her physically.  Also, she has several layers of hurt that are built up that prevent us from seeing her wonderful personality in the fullest.  One of my daughters is so easy to love.  You can't NOT love her (ok, sometimes her drama over a piece of lint on her stockings is a little much).  My other daughter struggles to eat, sleep, communicate and cope.  She moves, talks and acts unnaturally sometimes.  She shuts down.  

Our guide almost ignores one daughter and lavishes attention of the other, even giving her treats and taking her from me and walking with her at times.  She talks nonstop about how beautiful, smart and happy she is.  My other daughter gets a smile from her now and then, but nothing else. 

Our guide is not a bad person.  She's human and responding to a cute, loving little girl when most of the children she sees don't even respond  to her.  There's a reason I am telling you this.   I struggle with it too sometimes and if you are going to be around our family, you might, as well.  Prepare yourself.  

Both of our daughters need so much love.  BOTH of them.  The hardest things about getting two together   (though I am certain it was the right thing for us) is dividing my time and attention.  One reaches for my hand constantly, sings with me, calls me Mama, enjoys pretty things, the other sturggles to balance when walking, is afraid to sleep, has more difficulty eating, swats at me and makes peeps most of the time to communicate or yells.  I can also see the good things in her though.   She shares well, she likes to hold her sister's hand, she enjoys being dressed and wearing a bow in her hair, she wants to be held, though it is hard for her.  She smiles at you and looks for your smile, she can be silly, she wants to sing, she's GREAT at signing, she can take her dolly and make it clap and dance, she gives kisses, and, like me, she really likes food. : )  Both of my daughters compete for attention a little bit.  It's normal and ok.  But, please, don't fall so hard for one that you make the big mistake of missing out on getting to know the other.  They're both really fantastic and I can't believe the blessings I have gotten in having these two girls as my daughters.  God made them each so perfectly and they've taught me so much over the past two years already and teach me something new everyday.  I can't wait for you to meet them!

And no, those are not capris - we forgot to pull her pant legs down for the pictures - you have to move FAST when photographing these girls!

Things I'm Glad I Brought:

* I Pad for pictures 

* Water

* Sanitizing wipes (y'all, a public restroom is a public restroom, but this is a time when you have to do more than just put tissue paper on the seat... and there is no tissue paper)

* Baby wipes - no tissue paper in the restroom

* Baby carriers 

Things I Wish I'd Brought:

* Sunglasses for myself and the girls - it was so nice to see the sun!

* A better knowledge for the garden and how it was laid out.  I would have enjoyed exploring it more and staying a little longer than we did

* It started to get very crowded, as we went on a Sunday.  A weekday may have been better for children who become overstimulated.  Come as early in the AM as you can.

Prayers/Praises:

* The girls' illnesses are much better- no more coughing spells

* Our families from our travel group made it home safe (one is still traveling for pleasure)!  Yay!

* FL is NOT sleeping through the night, or at naptime.  So, we aren't either (except C - she's sleeping great and waking up happy).

* FL will not sleep in the crib or in the bed.  That leaves the floor and this won't work at home, plus, the floor is no place for a little girl (or her aching, old parents). 

* FL has had many big tantrums, but they are getting shorter and less physical as of today.

* Please pray for our girls as we prepare and travel to Hong Kong in a few days and travel home.  This big change will be very stressful on both of them, as we can't make them understand what is happening or what home is.

* FL is great at signing - I think she's starting to make the connections as a language as well! : )

Thanks for reading!  We're a day closer to home!

 

Day 17 (Medical Appointment, Guangdong Museum, Lunch Out)

Well, ready or not, the medical appointment is here!  We were supposed to go on Friday, but because of all of the different people from our agency travelling in and out at different times, our guide moved our appointment to Saturday.  Saturday appointments are usually very crowded, so we were told to be up, dressed, fed and ready to go by 8:30 - not always easy as new parents to two two-year-olds that eat slow, but we did it!  We even got good sleep the night before with minimal coughing on the girls' part!  Thanks for your prayers!

I was really frightened by the medical appointment because the girls have been sick (It could potentially delay us if they had fever), you hear stories of them taking the children into a room and shutting the door to draw blood (and the children screaming in terror) and most people talk of having to wait there FOREVER and how miserable they were.  You also hear about how they have Christmas decorations up there year round, which is both random and true.  And there is a wine dispenser of all things!  So you know it has got to be bad!

Well, the girls did cry, but not much, and we were in and out in a little over an hour because we were the first ones there!  And, no, we didn't buy any wine. : )  Neither child had a fever (which I knew) and no one said anything about their cough, which is much better.  I think FL may have had one small coughing spell in the night, but that was it.  Thanks again for the prayers! 

We were told (though I am pretty sure I heard her) that C did not cry at all for the blood draw ( yes, they take them away and shut the door for the blood draw) until she saw me.  They felt that that was really something special and wonderful.  Crying is viewed very differently here for adults and children.  On C's Forever Family Day they (office/orphanage personel) were upset that she (and I) were crying and told me to get up off the couch where I was holding her and take her to play so she would stop - I did what they said (which didn't really work) as far as walking her, but I felt like loosing your family was a pretty legitimate reason to cry loudly.  This week, C was crying about stumbling over something one afternoon (I had picked her up to hold her) and our guide immediately gave her a piece of chocolate... which Sam and I later got rid of.  It is just a little different.

All this to say in short that the medical appointment went well and we will know the results of the blood test soon (TB).

After the appointment, our guide asked us if we were up to going to the Guangdong Museum downtown, then lunch, which we were unprepared for as far as baby carriers and lunch supplies, but we went anyway and had a great time!  We saw the history of the area, dinosaur skeletons, common plants and animals and natural resources.  It was a nice museum that gave us a good overview of FL's province.  A Chinese high school student stopped us and asked if she could follow along to improve her English, which we all happily agreed to!  We used strollers from the museum for the girls as neither wanted to walk and we had not brought the carriers. I wish we had had them, though, because it was really too much for FL.  She became so overstimulated by the lights, sounds and everything really that her eyes just glazed over and she shut down and didn't make a peep the entire time.  Going from an environment that is mostly the same and very small every day to all that's happened to her in the past few days is A LOT for a little tiny girl.  You'd think that a museum would be a quiet, peaceful place, but for someone with her background, it really is too much.  I felt bad that I didn't think about it before, but there it is.  C, on the other hand, got bored with it all and sang and talked to herself most of the time when she wasn't charming the guide or other people. : )

After the museum, we went back to a restaurant where we had been before to try some different dishes.  It wasn't my favorite, but it certainly wasn't bad either.  The girls were very good after such a long morning and this time I made sure that they didn't wear "death bows" like we had before! 

Once back at the hotel we went to the room for the girls' nap.  C went down fine, as they were both very tired, but FL did not.  All of the hard stuff of the day came out and I had to hold her, with Sam right beside us as she raged for over 30 minutes.  It didn't include biting or hitting, but in the only way she could, she told us that the morning had been too much and she was scared.  This is not abnormal behavior for a child that has spent the first years of her life in an orphanage, so I wasn't really surprised by it.  However, it was really hard to watch her scream and thrash for that long without stopping, but we needed to hold her through it.  It isn't that she was mad at us, it was that she was overstimulated and frigtened by the days events.  It doesn't make her a "bad" child, it just shows that she's a broken one that is in such need of a family to love her.  It also makes me wonder if she has ever been held while she fell asleep.  

I honestly felt that she needed to scream it all out after what has happened  and what she has lost over the past few days.  C had her day yesterday, so FL could certainly take 30 minutes or more to be sad and scared. 

She woke up several times during her nap crying, but each time one of us was there (C fell asleep during all of this, if you were wondering) and she eventually got in some very good sleep.  C woke up before FL from her nap with a hearty "MAMA!" and a smile on her face, so we had some nice time together looking at pictures on the I Pad while Sam and FL slept (Sam sort of slept - C kept shouting for him to look at the pictures he was in - "OOOOOOH!  PAPA!" - I don't know how FL slept through it).  FL woke up from her nap happy too, which was a relief, so we all got ready to walk to some shops to find the girls some decent shoes.  Only C got shoes, which she was soooo excited about, she kept stopping and picking up one foot and yelling for one of us to look at it!  She tried to put them on again before bed too, so I think we have a shoe girl on our hands!  She's definitely a priss!

FL got a little overstimulated at the shop, so we didn't stay long and went to the play area after shopping, which was good for both girls and us!

So that's a wrap - not many pictures today as I forgot the I Pad!

Things I'm Glad I brought:

* Sanitizing wipes - that restaurant bathroom left me speechless and covered in...

* Hand sanitizer - don't leave home without it!

* THings for the girls to play with at the medical appointment (coloring books, their dolls)

* Lollipops - the sucking action is soothing and FL really needed it as she got very upset at the appointment.  C just stuck hers in her hair and mine.

* Dresses - they make you take off the children's clothes at the appointment.  With their dresses we just had to lift them up and take off their stockings.

THIngs I Wish I'd Brought:

* Tissues and or napkins - many restrooms don't have tissue, as was the case today.  Most resturants don't have napkins and/or they charge for them

* The bag that had the girls' meal supplies in it (bibs, placemats, etc.)

Prayers/Praises:

* I think the girls and I are on the mend - keep praying!

* For FL and C as they transition into our family.  THough it is the best thing for them, they don't understand that and it is not easy for any of us no matter how it may look. 

* For Sam and I as we try to figure out how to parent our girls in the best way possible

Thank you and Much love!

The girls did have a great time spinning in some bowls tonight!  Yes, we are running out of fun things to do in our hotel room!!!