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!”
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.
Whew! What a day this has been. The girls both slept until after 7 am, which was nice. Amelie woke up quietly, in fact because she is so scared she does everything quietly. We played a little and Amelie stayed very wrapped in herself, had her body closed off and not really looking at any of us. I was feeling good because all of the MSG had worked its way out of my system and I declared that I would not be taking any more chances on this trip, even if it meant plain white rice, noodles and Oreos for the rest of the trip. We headed down to breakfast and she perked up a little because she really likes to eat. We decided to go straight over to the store to find some noodles I could heat up with the boiling water from the hot pot and a baby bathtub for Amelie. We had also decided that we would put Amelie in the carrier with Mike facing forward so that she could get used to him. We put her in there and she started screaming her head off. It was like Gotcha all over again. TOP.OF.HER.LUNGS. Tears were free flowing and we just headed out with her screaming. She calmed down and we walked up the street to the store and by then she had mellowed out and her curiosity got the better of her. We did our shopping and found a bath tub that we will give to Tony when we leave. I am sure he will be able to find a use for it.
Once we got back to the room and we unbuckled Amelie from the carrier she went crazy again. Screaming and screaming. Once she calmed down I decided that it was time for a bath. We had her Gotcha day clothes sent out to be cleaned since quite a bit of the stuff I brought didn’t fit her – did I mention she has chunky baby legs? And I was able to wash her hair in the sink the first night, but she really needed a bath. She thought that was great fun and splashing around and started to make little noises. Then it was Nadia’s turn for the tub which was hilarious since she is so tall, it looked like a basketball player trying to get in Yugo, but she was determined to take a bath in there like Amelie. While we were in the bathroom, Amelie was on the bed with Mike and she really freaked out again when he moved her a little further up on the bed. Hysterical screaming just because he touched her. It was so, so, so sad. We read everything we needed to read and knew that something like this might happen, but when you are living it out, it’s horribly sad and painful for your heart. Mike and I know that God is sovereign and that He is watching over us and means for us to be a family, but that doesn’t change how bad it can hurt in the moment. The heartbreaking part of the morning was that she was just so terrified of Mike.
We got her down for a nap and spent some time in the other room just playing with Nadia and giving her some much needed attention. She is having a hard time understanding why Amelie won’t just play with her or why she is still upset or why she cries about Mike. Tony was picking us up at 2:30 to head back to the notary so we bundled up and headed downstairs. We read over everything in English to confirm it was correct. A good thing about that was that we got a bit more information about Amelie’s abandonment details. After the notary Tony said he was going to take us to a park to walk around. We strapped Amelie back in the carrier and thank goodness this time it was just a small whimper. The park has a little lake and a water park and a small amusement park. You could tell that in the spring and summer it would be very beautiful. We saw people flying kites, playing poker, feeding pigeons and rollerblading along with lots of people just out taking walks. They also had quite a few sculptures around the park that I snapped photos of.
We were quite the sensation once again. I was saying “ni hao” to the children and they would get all embarrassed and then say “ni hao” back. We walked all through there and then Nadia wanted to ride the plane.
After the park we went into Dico’s chicken place for the girls to play on the inside playground where it was a little warmer. Both girls had a lot of fun and the kids and parents in there just didn’t know what to think of us.
We went back to the hotel for about an hour and then Tony came to pick us up for dinner. I have no idea what the name of the place was, but Tony arranged for us to have a private room that basically had a table for 6 in it. We let Tony do the ordering and he said, “No mono sodium” That made us laugh, but he was so worried and said that he worried about it all night. He did call us yesterday evening to see if I needed a doctor, but Mike just told him again that all we could do was wait it out. The food was incredible!!!! We have been longing for such good food in the last couple of days because no one speaks English anywhere and it’s very hard to convey what you need. We had a spicy cold beef, fried rice, eggplant (unbelievably good), steamed eggs and pork balls. The girls both loved the pork and Amelie was turning down all the other stuff and wanted me to keep shoveling in the pork. We headed back to the hotel and got jammies on and then watched part of “My Neighbor Totoro”. Amelie really opened up with us a little more and even played a little game with Nadia. She still seemed confused, but she was a lot more relaxed and curious.
It’s very hard to see her just be silent. She said something to me while she was in the bathtub and she said something to Nadia while they were playing, but 99% of the time she is completely silent. She is very intelligent though and is already starting to mimic somethings that Nadia does. But she seems to stop the second she notices that we are watching. Our day did end a bit up, but after the regression of the morning we are all quite worn out. It was the hardest on Mike today and very emotionally draining. I wish I could make Amelie see that he is just the best dad ever, but for now we pray and ask God to comfort her and let her know that we love her so much.
Today was mainly a family bonding day and we only took a few photos. We’ll get more uploaded tomorrow.
Amelie slept from 9 pm – 6:30 am. Praise the Lord! I know that she was so tired and worn out from the emotional day. We got her up on the bed with us and all started playing. She opened up to Mike and even gave him some half smiles. We went down to breakfast and then had to get right downstairs to meet Tony and our driver. They took us straight to the notary to do some more paperwork. Amelie had been doing really well and opening up more and more, but when we got to the conference room she really started to get upset and nervous. Her little eyes got all teary again and she wanted to be snuggled up against me. We could tell that she was starting to panic because it was like yesterday. Once we finished there and got back into the van she relaxed again and we headed over to the bank.
We waited quite a while at the bank to get receipts for the various fees we have paid since arriving. While in the waiting area Amelie wanted to get down and started to mimic what Nadia was doing with Mike. She started spinning around and around and then would stumble into my arms and laugh and laugh. Then I introduced her to goldfish and she really liked those and so Mike started giving them to her. After the bank Tony took us to a little children’s shop so we could find some shoes for the orphanage. Tony did the negotiation and I hope he didn’t haggle too hard. The poverty here is overwhelming and I hope that we were able to help that family out with the 20 pairs of shoes we bought.
Tony then took us down to a more commercial shopping area and we went into a toy store to find something for Nadia and Amelie to play with in the room. It’s just miserably cold here and I am keeping some of our other toys stashed for Guangzhou. While in the toy store Amelie got excited about a lot of stuff and said a couple things to Nadia. We could not understand, but it was exciting to hear her little voice.
Yesterday at lunch I ate something that I thought might have had MSG but I took my chances because I was so hungry. True to form, just about 20 hours later while we were in the toy store it hit me. Heart racing like mad, burning up and thinking I was going to puke. We decided go back to the hotel instead of going out to eat with everyone. I was down for the count. Between that and the pulled muscle in my chest I was feeling awful. We all laid down for naps and slept a very long time.
Once we were up we played some more with Amelie. After a while I touched her and she was burning up. Her temperature was 102 and she has this icky cough so we gave her some medicine. Once again I am so happy that I packed a pharmacy since no one speaks English here except our guide and the Italians who are adopting too. Mike is still coughing and it sounds really bad. Nadia is the only who is well out of the group. I pray that she is able to stay healthy.
Oh and tonight Nadia was feeding Amelie some Cheerio’s and when she got up to grab something Amelie turned to her and said, “Jie Jie!” Which means big sister. ADORABLE!
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