It's the end of another day here in China, the girls are sound asleep, perhaps passed out is a better word! They're both so tired by the end of each day! I got my first full night's sleep last night and woke up feeling terrific. We had a really wonderful day. Jorie woke up about an hour and a half before Terra, so I got up with her and was able to play and talk one-on-one - something I had really been missing, since Terra has been monopolizing my time and my lap. It was so great to reconnect with Jorie. We're so incredibly proud of how she's dealing with all of this. She speaks to Terra in the softest, sweetest voice, saying things like, "Don't worry Terra, Mama, Baba (Daddy), and jiejie (big sister) are here, we'll be here to take care of you forever." It's so adorable. The two girls together are such hams - they copy everything the other one is doing, I can see this being a really big problem in the future!! :) Terra is becoming more and more comfortable with us. She's smiling a lot more as you can see in the picture above. She even took her first steps away from me. Of course, then she realized that she had left my lap and immediately turned around and ran into my arms with a big smile. Jeff is slowly winning Terra over with food. He gives her lots of snacks and though she still won't let him hold her, she will take food out of his hand and even fed him a few Cheerios today, which we think is a great sign! It's actually quite funny, Terra is definitely the smallest girl in our group, but she eats far more than the other kids. Anything having to do with food makes her very happy! We ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch today and Terra kept pointing at it as if she'd like to try some. I decided to let her try it and she ate the entire piece before pointing for more! The other couples are teasing us that Jeff will have to get a second job just to feed her. :)
We did some more sight seeing today. We went to the Tengwang Pavilion - that's the picture above. It was absolutely stunning! The original structure was built around 600 AD!! Of course, it's been refurbished since then. We were able to see a show while we were there - singing, dancing and musical instruments. Both of the girls loved it. When the dancing girls came out in their fancy costumes with lots of beads and sequins, Jorie said, "Wow, those fancy girls have lots of accessories!" After the Pavilion we came home and played for a while (that's when the smiling photo was taken). We discovered that Terra loves to be picked up and put down. After lunch, both of the girls were feeling tired and cranky, but neither were willing to take naps, so we loaded them both up in our carriers - Jorie on Jeff's back and Terra on my front - and ventured out for a walk. We did our first shopping since we arrived. We found a little shop that was absolutely wonderful! We placed an order to have a traditional Chinese dress made for Terra for her baptism - with shoes and a hat to match. We picked the most beautiful white fabric with white flowers. We ordered a scroll for Terra's room with her Chinese name, birth date and hometown on it. We also ordered matching dresses for the girls and a matching shirt for me in a beautiful red fabric that we can all wear this Christmas. The man measured all of us and will make the dresses, shoes and shirt specifically for us. The most incredible part is that they will all be ready tomorrow! I can't wait to see them and I'm debating putting in an order for another dress when we go pick up our last order, I think it will be nice to have a dress or two in larger sizes that Terra can wear as she grows older. After we spent most of our spending money in that store (just kidding, you wouldn't believe how inexpensive it was to custom order our clothes!), we ventured on to a whole street lined with shops. We were searching for a larger diaper bag, our bag is just not cutting it with two kids, and a pair of shorts for me - Terra is the messiest eater I've ever seen and I'm going through far more clothes than I thought I would. We ended up finding both things, but boy was it an adventure! When I decided on a pair of shorts, I asked the saleswoman where I could pay for them and she had no idea what I was asking. After a lot of confusion, Jeff finally took money out of his pocket to show her and she brought us to the register. We didn't last long shopping and returned to our room. That's when we attempted Terra's first bath with us. You can see one of the pictures above. It went so much more smoothly than I had anticipated. When I first placed her in the tub, she started to scream, but I think it had more to do with me putting her down than her being in the water. Once she got over the initial trauma, she settled down and started playing. She really enjoyed the bath and didn't mind at all when I washed her hair. She didn't even cry when Jorie decided to help and accidentally poured water right down the front of her face! I guess we'll have to sign her up for some swimming lessons when we get back! She's clearly not afraid of the water!
Jorie continues to attract a lot of attention. Our guide keeps explaining to us that the people here rarely see a child with blonde hair and blue eyes, so it's quite a novelty. Apparently, she's correct because Jorie has had her picture taken so many times that Jeff said, "Next time we come back to China for a visit, we're going to see Jorie's picture on detergent boxes or something!" On our way out for dinner last night, we were stopped by a couple that wanted to see Jorie and they commented on how beautiful she was. Then, the woman said, "That child is going to rule the world one day!" Can you imagine?! We're trying to take it all in stride, but it really is starting to bother Jorie. She's not usually one to shy from attention, but she's mentioned several times that she's tired of people touching her hair and asking to take pictures with her. At dinner tonight, our guide finally had to come over and tell the waitresses to leave her alone and go back to work, I don't know how many pictures they had taken before our guide intervened for us. We thought that Jeff wearing her on his back when we went out today would deter some folks from approaching her, but even that didn't work. So, we've explained to Jorie why everyone is so fascinated by her and perhaps we won't take too many other excursions on our own.
Tomorrow, we'll be going to visit Terra's orphanage. We're excited and anxious at the same time. We really want to see where Terra has lived for the past 17 months, but a little nervous that it might be especially difficult for her. She had such a terrible time leaving the nannies to begin with and we're just starting to make so much progress, we really hope that we don't set everything backwards by going to see her former home and friends.
Well, I think I've typed enough for now! Thank you all once again for all of your kind words, thoughts and prayers. It is so incredibly helpful to know how much love and support we have back home! Love to you all!