Wednesday Recap

Today was an eventful day here in Nanchang. After a late night, we slept until 7am when we woke ourselves up from the funk someone put in the room. We won't mention any names. We were quickly changed and Daddy fed us breakfast while Mommy slept in. Daddy then took us down to the breakfast buffet so that he could eat and Little Butt ate again. Mommy showered and went to breakfast later and we tagged along and had some mandarin oranges while she ate her toast. We like to eat!

We came back to the room and played for awhile and then took a nap on Daddy's chest while the housekeeper cleaned up our room. After our nap, our friend Evie and her mom came by and we headed to the pedestrian mall down the road. We got a lot of stares and curious people coming up to us. Between Mommy's blonde hair and Daddy's height, we stuck out pretty bad. Some people even took pictures with their camera phones. Mostly waves and stares. A clerk at the Nike store said "lucky one, lucky one" to Bella and to Evie. (FYI - we have heard this from other families a million times before....no harm)

Daddy got some more pictures of the city to share with Bella some day. At the end of the mall we saw this sign:

It was lunchtime and we felt adventurous, so we ducked in. Everything was pretty much the same as it is in the states. Of course, munch mouth had to have some fries. They are pretty salty and as you know, we have drinking issues right now......so guess what happens.....we grab Mama's Sprite and start sucking on the straw like we know what a straw is. Sure enough, she was well aware of what a straw is, so we are going to use this to help get us some more fluids. Mommy thought for sure the baby police would come take her away between fries AND a little bit of soda......on day 3 of being a mom? Not something I would consider a normal practice, but our current living conditions have forced us to relax on a lot of things we wouldn't normally be crazy about. Grandparents, breathe.....don't call the Chinese government and have our adoption docs ripped up.

After our big adventure out, we came back to the room to hang out. Daddy fed me a real lunch and we looked through our ladybug book again. Mommy snapped a few pictures of us together. We love our Daddy.

Yes, I know that one was sideways. I can't figure out how to turn it and its just too darn cute to exclude over that. There will be more and maybe one of my blogger friends will let me know how to accomodate portrait format photos.

PS - we also love our Mommy. She stands at the

window with me so I can see outside and point at

things going by (and there are a lot of interesting

things going by).

Mommy loves her little B.

As some of you know, we are very attached to Mommy & Daddy and were so from the first minutes. This is not the case with some of the other children, but it is good from a bonding and attachment perspective. The trouble is, we scream our face off if we are sat down. We don't do so well at naps and we need our sleep. We progressed yesterday with seeing the other kids and playing in the playroom. Tonight, Daddy sat with us on the floor with B in his lap. He gradually moved her bottom to the actual floor with her leaning up against him. Evie and her parents came over and played. Before you know it, Daddy quietly got up and moved onto the bed. The parents hung out and the two girls played for a good hour. Daddy went to get dinner from the restaurant while Mom made me some more mush for dinner. Daddy came back and saw this - another sideways picture.......BUT, check me out....I was sitting up by myself (a first) and playing by myself (a first). Mommy & Daddy sat on the floor with me and ate their dinner. Mommy chopped up some scrambled eggs Dad got for me and put them on a plate....I then fed myself as I played (a ~third time wonder).

A few other notable breakthroughs from this evening:

We got our diaper change with about 20% less screaming.....we were distracted by a toy and it worked this time.

We drank a half of a sippy cup's worth of formula and fell asleep doing so.

Daddy was able to rock me after my bottle and lay me down without any fussing. I was out like a light at 8:15.

Now we're talkin'. :)

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In all seriousness, it is absolutely amazing to see how much she progesses from one day to the next with the one on one attention that she hasn't been able to get up until this point. We are so honored to have her and she makes us so happy. We are also grateful that we have remained healthy here. The baby across the hall had to go to the hospital tonight for an IV. She has had a fever off and on since we got the babies. We really feel for her because that is a lot for a new parent, especially a single mom. Her mom is here with her and helping her out. We hope that Chloe is feeling better tomorrow.

Tomorrow we leave at 10am to go to the Teng Wang Pavillion. If you'd like to check out a website on it....here you go: http://www.chinats.com/nanchang/attr_03.htm

One week until we head home....