Touring Chongqing

Okay so I am still a ffew days behind, but here is Thursday in Chongqing. We decided to do some sightseeing and go to the river. And by river I mean Chongqing hosts the 3rd largest river in the world only to be topped by the Nile and the Amazon. There are two rivers that merge here in Chongqing and we got to go to where that happens. There is the Jialing River and the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River is the 3rd largest river in the world. It is the more yellow/brown river you see.

My darlings checking out the rivers.

She is so curious. She loves to be out but only wants Mama or Dada…good news!!!

Noah is the coolest kid on the planet. No really he is amazing.

Got joy? Oh yes, we do.

After looking at the rivers we went to an art museum of local artists and saw some beautiful things. We of course bought some art that was specific to the Chongqing region…allegedly. It is beautiful though. Noah was fawned over by a young woman who could not get enough of Noah. She kept saying, “I love your eyes, they are so big and beautiful.” She was really sweet. She even wanted to hold and play with Hope, which is saying a lot since most people shy away from her. It was a good outing.

We left here and went back to the hotel so Hope could nap and Noah could swim. At 4:30 we met Michael again to receive some paperwork and retrieve our laundry. We are so thankful to Michael and his laundry contact. It was some of the best money we spent and it was very reasonable. We actually had to give her another small load since Hope wet through EVERYTHING the night before. Then Michael took us some place that made me so excited…

Oh yeah baby!!! I’m so redneck I shop Walmart in China!!! Woot! Woot! The entire building you see there is the Walmart, it takes up several city blocks and it all looks like an old Chinese town on the outside. It is huge on the inside and has several floors. They have people mover conveyor belts to move you and your buggy from floor to floor. We went for baby supplies: bottles, nipples, formula, rice cereal etc. It was an adventure. As we approached the meat section I told Noah to look right to look away and he did, then I realize we were about to be surrounded in random animal part and I was like, “Hey Noah, just look at the floor.” And he did. It was funny.

Only I would blog about Walmart on my daughter’s adoption blog. After this trip we all ate random food in the room. Then Eric introduced Hope to a sink full of water. He held her on his knee and she patted the water tentatively at first and then it was game on! She and Eric and the entire bathroom was soaked. I was able to wring a wash cloth over her head without her caring so I went ahead and washed her hair and then wiped down most of her body…we are calling it her first bath. She smells a heck of a lot better anyway. Then we put her to bed…she was really angry about bedtime but she only cried and screamed for about 5-10 minutes while I sat on the floor softly talking and singing to her. She calmed down and the laid awake for about another 10 minutes and then drifted off. So she was down at about 8:30 pm. It is currently 9:06 am! This girl has been in need of some sleep. She is also fighting some sort of crud. She started a horrible hacking phlegmy cough the day we got her and it proceeded to worsen and sound rattley in her chest. We went called Dr. Chambers at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham to see if we should start the anti-biotic. Then we accidentally turned the ringer off on our phone..nice. Poor Dr. Chambers kept trying to call us and finally texted us to let us know she couldn’t get us. By this time we had already decided to give her the antibiotic and we were on Day 2 of the dose. She sounded much better even after day one. Even Michael remarked she sounded better. We had need of Dr. Chambers for one more thing and we did get to talk with her yesterday, love this woman. So all is well medically we believe with our little one currently.

We feel that she is attaching as well as she can under these circumstances but attachment is a process and a journey so we know there will be setbacks. She is so adventurous and curious, she wants to be out walking all the time. We have been guarded with our excursions because we don’t want her to be over stimulated. But she seems to love being out in the middle of it all. However, she only wants to be touched or held by Eric or myself, and that is a GOOD thing. She has stranger danger. She likes people from a distance. So maybe when we get home we won’t have to be as secluded as we originally thought. But a change in scenery can enough to bring on a meltdown so we are trying NOT to envision what life will be like in the future and just take one day at a time.

The last thing I will leave you with is my parental warning systems that screams…this can’t be right! It is in relation to her bottles and the size of the nipple holes. This first picture is a normal medium flow nipple.

Here is what it look like after I have prepared it for Hope to use like the one we got from the orphanage…

Can you see why all my parenting bells and whistles are going off?! It literally just pours out, but it is how she best drinks. She guzzles it down and will bite the nipple with the side of her mouth to stop the flow or she will stick her tongue in it. She is very effective and doesn’t spill a drop out of her mouth until she is done and just playing around with the bottle in her mouth. It’s wild to see how well she has adapted. Love this sweet girl!