Thursday, July 19, 2012

Day 9..... Zheng Zhou

This is how Annabella rocks herself to sleep. She has to have something covering her face, something in her mouth, and then she rocks side to side. It is both sweet and heartbreaking all at the same time.

I ache to think that she has never had anyone hold her and rock her to sleep, yet she so desperately needs that in order to sleep. I have tried, but she just doesn't understand, and it stimulates her more than calms her. I guess this is just a part of her life we will have to grow to accept, and maybe one day she will grow to accept us comforting her as well.

Today has been pretty good thus far. She slept through the night again, and we got up at 9 A.M. for breakfast. She didn't eat as much this morning as she has been, so maybe the "hoarding" is subsiding a bit. She had one bowl of preserved egg congee, and a hand full of cheerios as well as some noodles and a chickpea or two. She will only eat white or off white colored foods now. I think the green and red things she ate the first day were her way of eating what she could while she could. Now that she is beginning to understand that she is going to be fed as much and often as she wants, she is showing us what she really wants. I'm not sure how to get her to begin to eat colored foods, but we will have time to work on that. For now she is getting some of every food group, and is getting fruit juice, so we will worry about that problem after we get home.

After breakfast we went walking round the hotel some more with another couple and their kids. They have one biological son who is 2 and have just adopted a 16 month old little boy. Annabella and their bio son Connor have really had a good time talking and running around with each other this morning. Once we got back to our room, we played for awhile, and then she went to her crib. We put her in her crib, gave her a bottle, and with just a little fussing, she began rocking herself to sleep, and has been taking a pretty good nap.

This is our last day here in Zheng Zhou, and I think we are all very happy to be moving on. We are beginning to really feel the stress of such a different lifestyle, and are longing for home. Zheng Zhou is not a tourist place, and so anytime we go outside the hotel, communication is difficult. The people here are not used to seeing Americans, and so we are even more of a novelty here, and as such are stared at and even stopped frequently.

We are supposed to be getting the children's passports this afternoon, and once we receive them, will officially be 100% done with everything here and ready to move on to the phase of the adoption that gets us home. The part in Beijing, was getting us used to the culture, the part here was getting our children, and the part in Guang Zhou is getting back to the states. There should be more for us to do there. We all opted out of the Shaolin Temple tour here as it is just too much to ask our new children to do so soon after we've received them. We are all looking forward to being able to get out and do a bit more shopping and sight seeing when we get to Guang Zhou.

Our plan is to venture out to the park later today and most likely to have supper at McDonald's. That sounds so strange, but the McDonald's here is very different than at home. Her you still get fried pies, not baked, and they are Taro or Pineapple. You can get what looks like a Big Mac, but it has a very different kind of "special sauce." Someone ordered a chicken sandwich from KFC earlier this week, and got a flat piece of chicken with bones and cartilage still in it. The food is so different, but we've been very fortunate, and we've only once gotten something we just couldn't eat. It was the first day we were here, and we ordered a chicken curry dish. It was so hot that even Greg couldn't handle more than a few bites!

I'll try later to upload some pictures from the park, but tonight will be a busy night as we will be packing up for our 2 hour plane ride tomorrow to GZ. Please be in prayer that our children will take well to flying, especially since we will be leaving for the airport right at nap time! Hopefully we will have internet in our rooms again in GZ and as good a connection as we've had here. We continue to feel your prayers, and continue to be very thankful for all of you who are following our journey!

"You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear." Deut 7:19 NIV


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