Chicken Pox?

dinner at Lucy's patio

Imitating art

The hams

rocking rollercoaster

Sisters

Daddy's girl

Ready to fly

We said good-bye to Nanchang as we prepared to fly to Guangzhou.  Jing Yi was in a happy mood as we arrived at the airport and she had her own monkey backpack on wheels to maneuver through the airport.  It was only after we reached our gate and were sitting waiting for our flight that she caught sight of the planes just outside the window.  She pointed and started asking questions.  The first problem we encountered is that she did not want to wear her seat belt.  I’m sure she has never had to wear one and she decided she wanted no part of it.  She is kind of determined to do things her way.  The second problem we noticed is that when she sat down, her feet just hit the back of the seat in front of her.  I remember taking a similar flight with the kids at this size and how much they love to kick the seat in front of them, much to the dismay of the occupant.  It was a very short flight, only 1.25 hours, thank goodness.  We arrived in Guangzhou to tropical weather; it was 70 degrees and felt great.  There was a driver waiting for us and we were on our way to the Victory Hotel.  The White Swan has been closed for over a year now for major renovation but we love the Shamian Island area so much that we chose another hotel close by.  We met Judy, our AAC agency liaison when we reached the hotel.  Judy made all our in country travel plans for us and it was great to finally meet her.  We were all starving as we arrived at our hotel at 4pm and it had been a long time since our breakfast at 6:30am.  Judy walked with us to Lucy’s restaurant.  Lucy’s is a refuge for those of us missing French fries and grilled cheese sandwiches.  In years past they have catered to many adoptive families.  They have outdoor dining under umbrellas and the American pop music is blasting away.  I believe I commented in our blog of 2008 that Debbie Boone was  belting out "you light up my life," and Deja-Vu, here it was again. Lily was delighted to have a plate of spaghetti and French fries and I had fish and chips.  John and Luke ordered food with a local flair and Jing Yi ate a bit of everything.

We walked back to the hotel.  I had read on-line that the rooms were small but clean, and they were not kidding.  There was just enough floor space to carve an area for Lily’s air mattress.  Good thing we all like each other!  There is a playroom in the hotel and the kids have already been there twice.  We all slept pretty well.

This morning we met Judy at 9am to take Jing Yi to her physical, required to obtain the visa.  The first doctor seemed to take quite an interest in some small red dots on Jing Yi’s body and soon we had a parade of doctors in the room each giving their opinion.  They think it may be chicken pox.  Jing Yi has not had a fever or acted like she felt bad but I did double check her shot record and she has not had the vaccine.  Hummmm.  This could create a problem as they won’t give us her visa until they feel like she is safe to travel.  Personally, the dots were so small and there are only 5 or 6 of them that I would not really have noticed.  She has to go back to the clinic on Monday to have her TB skin test read, so they will know then if indeed it is chicken pox.  It might turn out to be a good thing that Luke, Jing Yi and I are not scheduled to fly out until 1/8/13.

Judy took us to a local park that again had amusement rides and walking paths.  Many groups of people doing Tia Chi, kids practicing martial arts and karaoke singers.  The kids went on a couple of rides and would have liked to do more.  We went to the Dim Sum restaurant at the hotel, dim sum=finger foods.  We had wonderful dumplings and spring rolls.  Jing Yi ate one dumpling after another, she was still eating when the rest of us had finished.

We took a walk around the island and the kids went shopping.  Even though there are not nearly as many adoptive families staying in this part of Guangzhou there are still many shops with all the trinkets the kids love.  Stores are willing (and expected) to bargain on the prices and even Lily got caught up in the fun.

Jing Yi continues to have a period of grieving every day right around 6pm.  Tonight is was 5:30 and we had just returned from shopping.  She did not want to take off her shoes or coat and had big tears rolling down her cheeks.  I don’t try to bribe her out of her mood, I figure she has the right to grieve-but I hold her and rock her and tonight I drew her pictures on her white board of sad faces and other emotions.  About 15 minutes later she is fine and acts like nothing happened.  So hard for her to take all this in.  How can she understand how her life is going to change and she will soon be living on the other side of the world.

It has been fun to watch the three kids play together.  Jing Yi insists on holding Lily’s hand when we are out and about and Jing Yi jumps right into the middle of rough and tumble play with Luke and Lily.  I think she will be able to hold her own.

We are experiencing technical difficulties with our VPN while in China so I am getting behind on posting.  Hopefully it will continue to work.