Our days have ran together. It is hard to keep her on a schedule here. We tried to get earlier flights home and skip Hong Kong, with still a week to go, we are ready to come home. But No Luck!
Our day gotten started really well, we put her to bed at 8 the night before and we woke her at 6, and she woke in a good mood. We talked and played for a minute and then loved on her, before starting to get bathed and dressed.
She is still loving her baths. She'll let you do it once and then she picks it up. While taking a bath she now wants to wash her hair, when she was done, she was rinsing her hair with the cup, so I did the same, but for some reason she did not like it and quickly took the cup and put it away where we keep her shampoo. Usually she would keep the cup to play with it, it was really very funny. She loves putting her lotion on after taking the bath, and then brushing her teeth.
She is really very independent, VERY bright, VERY smart, and extremely cute. Helen came to our room after breakfast to translate her record books. These are books that her nannies and foster mom kept on her. What a treasure, as I suspected, her foster mom found out early about her adoption, the love that she and her family has for our girl is so very clearly. I feel so badly and my heart aches for her. She is grieving the loss of a daughter and my heart breaks. She has done a wonderful job in raising our child. It is because of her love and work that Gracie is who she is.
I will never be able to thank her enough, along with her birth mother and China for the gift they have given us.
She played for awhile, we tried to get her to eat something for lunch, but no go. We did get her to take a nice nap, and she only did that because she wanted to go shopping. You should see this girl with new clothes. Every morning she looks at herself in the mirror (we'll be getting a full size mirror for our closet door. When she woke up, she started asking Helen what time it was, she knew we were going shopping.
We have learned that our guide is only allowed to take us certain places, our safety is a first concern for her and CCAI. We have yet to be able to buy gifts, so far all shopping has been for our princess. Todays agenda was a pair of blue shoes, and a pair of JEANS, yes Aunt Erin, jeans.
Finally we left, Mr. Lu met us downstairs, our first stop was to drop off the camera to be developed that we sent in her care package. We'll pick it up tomorrow, along with our laundry and have lunch with the volunteer Robert that we've been talking with.
From there, Mr Lu dropped us off on a shopping street. Clothes, etc I have yet to see where you would buy China souvenirs from.
Oh, in the room, Helen taught Grace a new game to help learn her new name, she has it down now.
And did I mention, our girl LOVES her baba (daddy).
We did not find any blue shoes, did not see any all day. She did get another pair of red ones. I then got her 2 little play dolls that she did not see, that we'll break out on the very long ride home, God Please Have Mercy on us during that flight!
We finally tracked down a pair of jeans, we looked everywhere and they all have some kind of stuff on the legs.
We found a beautiful dress department, I could have really spent some money there. There were several nice dresses, we picked out some we liked and let Grace pick the one she wanted. I'll post pics later, I dont think Paul has downloaded them yet.
Helen bought her some ice cream today, wrapped in a waffle cake, that was good, didnt care for he ice cream at all.
Grace was pretty quiet today, I'm not sure if she had been there before or what. As usual people stop and stare at us. We've ran into maybe 4 nice people since being in Tianjin. Helen said it is just that they dont get many of foreigners here. I think they just dont like us.
We took a taxi back to the hotel and Helen went to the police station to get Miss Grace's passport.
While Helen was at the rooom earlier, she saw Gracies lovie with her name on it, she said in China you cannot buy something with your name on it like that. Interesting, also, people are not allowed to have guns.
Helen was suppose to be back around 530 and we were taking grace to MCDONALDS (this was for me really) but all the kids here love mcdonalds. At 620, still no helen, we decided we would try on our own, which i really didnt want to do. but as we were leaving helen arrived, she had been stuck in traffic.
Gracies foster mom has taken her to mcdonalds so she knew it, but funny, she does not like the fries, hambuger or chiken. She had 2 things of CORN, my girl loves corn. I know she and her Papa will get along real well. For those at home, do you know of any Chinese restaurants that make the steamed bread, she loves it, helen said she didnt think they would make that in the states.
it almost has a sweet taste to it. We let her play and she had a ball, even in china its One More Time, but after one, she listened very well. And We Left The Camera in the Room for This! :(
She played with baba all the way back to the room, she is now answering to Grace, counting to five or IVE or she says. Wait till you hear her say three. She can almost sing, Itsy Bitsy Spider and Patty Cake, but she can do the hand motions.
Paul is picking up the language and she thinks he can have a conversation with her. It is so funny.
Back to the room, she puts on her pjs and brushes her teeth. Tonight she climbs into bed easily and no fussing, but she wanted to play, and it took a little longer for her to fall asleep. I'm not sure what woke me up at 12 in the morning, but here I am.
She only had 2 meltdowns today, one she wanted to use the phone and mama told her no, she tried anyway and I stopped her, i think she was trying to call home. EAch day does get better and I know she will grieve for awhile, but it does break my heart for her to have to go through it.
I think that was everything from today.
Much Love from China and We're ready to come home.
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you
