handsful

Let me start by saying I have zero pictures to share.  The internet isn’t working well today and not allowing us to download pictures.  We will try again in a few hours and hopefully I can add some pics to this post then.  Once you get past the dissapointment, please read on.

It’s another free day for us in Hefei.  Our guide is taking the other 2 families to visit their daughters orphanage, so we’ve had nothing scheduled today.  We went to the hotel dining area for breakfast, like we’ve done every morning since we’ve been here.  The ladies know us well by now, seat us in the same area and then rush about to find us a high chair.  The breakfast here is good, lots of choices…some western (bacon, poached eggs, cereals, lots of breads and pastries) and lots of Chinese (fried rice, noodles, and many unidentifiable selections….such as “grow eggs”).  Lainey’s breakfast includes banana bread, fried rice, mandarin oranges, congee with oatmeal, and bites of daddy’s poached egg.  My favorite is the sugared donuts.  And, this sort of cheerio-like cereal that’s denser and has a brown sugar taste to it.

After breakfast, we went upstairs for some play time and a diaper change and then we headed to a garden that’s a short distance from our hotel.  We borrowed a stroller, which Lainey wasn’t thrilled with at first, but she finally settled in (it helped that she had a cracker in both hands).  Our guide told us that we would attract a lot of attention here in Hefei, as there just aren’t foreigners here.  Hefei isn’t exactly a tourist trap.  Everyone looks at us, all in friendly curiosity.  They look at us, and then down to Lainey.  Hmmm…American couple, Chinese baby.  We’re supposed to wear our CCAI lanyards that explain in Chinese “our names are…we’re here to adopt this child, etc.”  We forgot them today.  There was a very nice young man who we ended up walking beside, and he desperately wanted to talk with us but knew no English at all.  We were able to fumble ourselves around explaining that we were Americans and Randy tried to introduce himself.  We think he told us his name too, but we’re not sure.  We THINK he went by Ping Liang, or something similar.  We’d love to be able to talk more with the people here, they are so nice.  With all the attention, I joked with Randy today that this must be a little what it feels like to be a celebrity.  I can honestly say I’ve never turned heads at a KFC until today when the WHOLE restaurant turned to watch us as we walked up to the counter.  (Yes, there is a KFC here, right beside the Lotus Center…does it taste like KFC?  Not exactly, it was spicier and the potatoes had more pepper.  We are pretty sure it was chicken. :)

While at the garden, we saw several small groups of children who were obviously at the park on sort of a “field trip”.  Lots of boys and only a few girls, which only makes sense with the way their population control works.  We also saw a very attractive newswoman and her camera man looking for a story at the park . . . apparently we were her best option.  She came up and asked Randy, through pretty broken English, who we were, where we were from, why we were at the park, etc.  Then she asked if he could do the interview again on camera.  Who were we to say “no”?  We didn’t read in our CCAI guide book that it would be bad to wind up on the 6:30 news, so I hope that was o.k.

After exploring the garden (not sure why it’s called that, I saw no evidence of anything living…though, everything here is dead either from the weather or the polution – could be both), we went back to the Lotus Center for more bread (PB&J in the hotel is becoming a staple meal for us) and a few more items.  We attracted more attention there too.  Randy loves waving at the teenagers, and he had this group of girls giggling their heads off.  Michael Jordan and Tom Cruise, all wrapped up in one guy.  He might decide to live here.

Back at the hotel, we ate lunch and put Lainey down for a nap.  She fought this one hard, but we think it’s because she was off schedule due to our lazy outing today.  She’s snoozing away now.

Let me back up to the playtime after breakfast today.  Lainey made some MAJOR strides in warming up and letting her guard down today.  She had much better explorative play…checking out more toys, crawling after toys, throwing them under her crib, climbing under to get them, etc.  She decided today was the day to start walking, too, and when we put on her coat to go get breakfast (it’s always quite cold in the lobby), she stood up and quickly walked to the door.  Unreal.  Oh, and did I mention we got MAJOR smiles today?!  Real, honest to goodness smiles.  Her whole face lights up.  Oh….and she LAUGHED!  A short giggle, as I was playing with her.  We are beside ourselves with joy and thankfulness to see this true side of our daughter. We were a little down yesterday, and boy did today make up for that.

Tomorrow, we leave at 8:30 for our visit to the orphanage.  We’re both excited and a little apprehensive about it.  We realize it will be hard seeing where she spent the first part of her life, not to mention seeing all the little ones still waiting for their chance.  We would appreciate prayers…and we are still amazed and humbled by the comments and prayers that are being said for us.  We feel very covered by you!