Not sure what day it is…..
John and Lily were off and running yesterday morning at
6am. A van drove them to Hong Kong to
catch a plane to Chicago. We had to wait
over 24 hours to hear that they had made it home safe. I can’t tell you how many times during the
day I would calculate the time 14 hours behind to decide how far along they
were in the journey. Thank goodness for
skype! How good it was to see John’s
face, even as tired as it looked, viewing me through my iPhone. It was only 3am their time, but John was wide
awake due to the time change. A bit
later he had Lily skype me and it was good to see her sweet face and hear that
she already misses me. In a few hours
John will be driving her up to KC to join her dance troupe at the JUMP
convention. She is not competing but
will pack in two full days of lessons.
John will be able to spend the night in KC and come back Sunday morning
and Lily will ride the bus with the troupe.
We have kept ourselves entertained while spending the last
few days in Guangzhou. We have walked around
the island many times and played at the park once or twice each day. It was Saturday today but apparently the kids
go to school on Saturdays because we saw them all outside in their sweat suit
uniforms doing group exercises and later playing soccer at recess. I like the idea of the group exercises-maybe
something our schools need to try, a break in the day to get out and get
moving. We also watched the armed
soldiers during their marching drills.
The park is a popular hangout for the older crowd. It is fun to watch them dance in large groups
and then there are the singers complete with karaoke sound systems. There are adult sized exercise equipment and
the elderly are constantly using them to stretch and flex-something we don’t
see in the states either. I think every
city I have ever traveled to in China have this same exercise equipment. The stuff is made out of heavy metal and runs
on muscle power only. The kids like to
get on but it is specifically designed for adults.
Jing Yi seems to take all of our adventures in stride. She is currently in an ice cream coma, I think
she has been working on this cone for a good 20 minutes and she still has more
to go but there is no stopping her. She
is a very lovable little girl and I am guessing this is the first time she has
had so much one on one attention from one adult, but it seems to be growing on
her. She was not too happy with being
carried at first, but now she will reach those arms high in the sky and give me
her best puppy dog eyes, wanting to be held and carried. She loves to color and at first would not let
me color with her; during this past week she has really lightened up on the
attitude of “I am doing this by myself,” and is letting me creep into her
space. We did a great job of coloring a
page of the hello kitty color book today.
She also likes to draw and we worked together drawing the picture of the
monkey on her shirt. She pays attention
to detail and added the eye brows on the monkey that I had overlooked.
We had a bit of a power struggle over getting ready for bed
last night. We had made it past the grieving
time without any tears and I knew that if I pushed the point of getting pjs on,
there would be some tears, but it was time to get ready for bed. There were a few tears shed, but once the pjs
were on, the tears stopped and she was fine.
Tonight we have made it through the 6pm hour without tears once
again-progress. She has struggled to
make some words in English. Luke has a
habit to drawing out his no so that it sounds like noah and last night she
clearly said, “noah.” Instead of
speaking English to Jing Yi, Luke likes to babbled back to her in her version
of Chinese, they carry on some lively discussions. I am sure Jing Yi will have some challenges
ahead of her from what I have seen of her mouth. I would not be surprised at all to hear that
surgery will be needed in the near future.
Sorry, no photos, I am too lazy to download them. John did all that for me. Maybe tomorrow.
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