The rest of Monday…
We did finally get a naptime completed – see picture below. We never did get the backpack or shoes off. Shoes are going to come off before bed, but we will probably let her sleep with the backpack if it becomes an issue.
We ventured out for a few groceries and road the toddler roller-coaster (aka escalator). She had a blast with that! We knew that the Chinese people were going to stare and were mentally prepared for that, but didn't expect to be stopped on the street – 2 times in our 3 block walk. We probably should have made little cards in Chinese with a polite statement of our situation.
We have mastered bathroom communication and she is indeed potty trained as we suspected.
Tomorrow is more official stuff in the morning and then downtime in the afternoon. We met another family from Utah adopting a little 8 yr old boy, so we might try to hook up with them if they are game.
If you are an adoptive family in the wait – put this on your list of things to think about. We were going to download some blockbuster movies on demand to watch. I think you have a few days to watch it from the time you START to watch it. Anyway you are not allowed to download or rent movies from outside the US, so plan ahead. J Also, our hotel does not have on-demand movies either on the TV.
All in all, we put today down in the success books – we are so thankful that she is peaceful and even if at times nervous, she does seem to be agreeable to hang out with us.
She is definitely much more comfortable with "mama" and Dana is doing a great job building on their relationship. She is becoming more comfortable with Rob as the day rolled on as he was able to feed her dinner and play with her until bedtime. Tonight she was repeating words from a picture book that Rob was reading to her, which was super cute. Towards the end of the night, she was "talking" more and more. Some of it sounds like actual Chinese words and others sound like 2 year old babble.
We were told by the orphanage worker that Ellie has yogurt every night before bed, so we made sure to buy some when we were grocery shopping. We wanted to have a good signal that it was bed time.
Bedtime went much better than we had anticipated. Since we couldn't get her to take off her backpack or shoes all day, we thought that at bedtime that we'd have a major fight on our hands. Dana fed her some yogurt and then pulled out some PJs. Off came the shoes and the backpack and on went the PJs. No fight, no crying, just peace. Thank you Lord for hearing and answering our prayers. When Dana placed her in her crib, there was a little crying, but Dana was able to quickly calm her down. All in all, I think she is glad that it's bedtime, but she just didn't want us to get off that easy J
Good night our little angel. Sleep well.
Her Build-A-Bear bunny, Brit Nicole, has been a hit. We have dressed and undressed her several times today.
Getting on the escalator at the mall. This mall has a grocery store on the bottom level and that is where we were headed.
One of many smiles that we saw today. Escalators = Poor Man's Roller Coaster
I will not sleep. I will not sleep. I will not.....ZZZZZZZZZ
