Day: February 17, 2011

I want to let everyone know that we only recorded 6 minutes of our gotcha day with Amelie. She was so hysterical  that there was no point in continuing the video, but we did want to share this with you and encourage you to watch all the way to the end.

Amelie slept 12 hours and then was up for 3 hours and then slept for 2.5 more hours in the morning. Mike and I were discussing that it’s so sad to see a 20 month old who is depressed and fighting off a cold. We were out in the afternoon to pick up our documents at the notary and when we got back to the room she took another 90 minute nap. Most of the morning she was just wrapped up in herself with the wall around and not communicating with us. Then we opened up a new snack and I had barely started to move towards her with it and she started dancing around on the bed and snatched it out of my hand to eat it. I sat down next to her to eat some myself and she grabbed one right out of my hand as I was about to eat it so she had one in each hand. She was eating them up and wiggling around and starting to smile. We are going back for more of those tomorrow before we fly to Guangzhou. Then at some point in the afternoon she said 2 things to me which was really exciting. I have no idea what she said, but it was a delight to hear her voice.

Tonight we went to dinner again at the same restaurant in the same private room and it was like a switch flipped with Amelie. She didn’t want to eat but she was just playing and having a good time like any other kid. If she saw us looking at her she would look away, but then she would forget herself and start having fun again. We rode back to the hotel and got her in her jammies and she started to play games with us. I started to tickle her for the first time and she was belly laughing so loud Mike came in from the other room. He got the camera going and it was so fun.

After she played with me, Mike was about to squeeze a packmate shut for me and Amelie started to play a little game with him. She would “help” him put something in the bag and then throw herself backwards onto the bed smiling when he clapped for her. It made my heart so happy to see her interacting with Mike without suspicion for at least a few minutes of fun. I know it made Mike feel good too. We have made some real progress today.

The final surprise came when I was brushing her teeth tonight and dropped the toothbrush into the sink. She looked down at it, looked back at me, threw her arms up and said, “Uh OH!” I laughed because Mike has said that to her about 100 times in the last few days each time something falls or she drops something, trying to draw her out. So her first English words/phrase was “Uh OH!”

• It’s a city of about 1 million people.
• The pollution is overwhelming.
• People smoke everywhere. In the notaries office today a group of men were smoking in the waiting area and Nadia said, ‘Oh no Mom, they are smoking!!’ I was glad they couldn’t understand her. (I know that smoking is way more common in the rest of the world compared to America)
• Only in China do you see street sweepers and shoe polishers that look like super models. It’s amazing.
• It looks like life here could be very hard. Squeaking out a living with your hands. Most of the people look very weathered.
• There is a distinct middle and upper class though.
• It’s COLD, COLD, COLD. The wind sometimes makes it blistering to be outside.
• It’s on the edge of a desert so we are thirsty all the time. It’s like going to Vegas and you can’t get enough liquid in your system.
• No English!
• The Western restaurant in the hotel is not western.
• The people like to drink everything hot. So in the morning the buffet has HOT milk, all the juices are hot (including the orange juice which is just weird), hot water always boiling and the yogurt just sits out warm on the counter. And forget trying to get a soda for breakfast. We finally started bringing our drinks down with us.
• We really freak people out here. It’s different than our last 2 trips. People are just not accustomed to Westerners.
• Crossing the street here seems way more dangerous than on our other trips which I thought were as scary as it could get.
• We saw the “Yinchuan Catholic Church” and it looked like it could hold about 7 people.
• The dust masks here are like a fashion statement. They are decorated every way you could imagine.
• Today we found out why. Our guide Tony said that in the spring when the sandstorms come almost everyone has to wear a mask all the time and the sky is yellow not blue from all the dust.
• That is also why it’s called the Yellow River.
• We haven’t seen the outskirts of the city so I can’t really speak to that.