Saturday was the medical exam. Ellie was in all kinds of an attitude at breakfast and we knew we were in for a fun day! J The first station at the medical is the visa picture – just the picture. Ellie went completely hysterical, crying and having a fit. We will try to post her visa picture later – but we thought if the picture was bad, just wait till we have to deal with needles!
Ellie clung to Dana for her life during all the exam stations. At the ENT station, the doctor said that he didn't even have to use the tongue depressor since she was screaming so loud, he could just look down her throat. I think we won the award for the loudest child at the medical exam. It was exhausting for everyone.
We went back to the hotel for naptime (for Dana too! :) After nap, we decided to venture out to check out the local scene and see if we can pick up some additional clothes. There is a children's market just down the street. We saw a store selling shoes and as we looked in the window at the shoes, the store worker got up and turned off the lights. Apparently, he was now closed at 4:13pm. We were not optimistic we were going to be successful. On the next floor, we found some willing shopkeepers and managed to pick up a few things. The clothes are definitely more expensive than we were thinking they would be. We bought a pair of sandals, 1 pants, 1 shorts, and 2 shirts for $103 CNY which is about $16 USD. The shirts are very thin (actually 1 is a PJ shirt that we are going to use as a normal shirt). $16 doesn't seem a lot of money for what we bought, but the quality is also not very high. We are struggling to find "simple" clothes. Everything is blinged out with added bows, lace, glitter and such.
Later we went to the executive lounge for dinner. Whatever fight we have had with our agency about hotels – not having to pay for breakfast or dinner and having access to snacks all day is a blessing for sure. Ellie had been looking at our family picture book before dinner, so we let her take it to dinner. That was all fine until she started to tear the binding apart – like down to the staple level. Dana took it away from her and she got upset and wanted it back. Well anyone can see where this is going….. When Dana wouldn't give it back to her, the tantrum began. Dana and Ellie left and went back to the room for the all out screaming fit. Dana sat on the couch while Ellie stood in the room and screamed while looking in a mirror. After about a minute, Dana calmly said "if you are done having a fit, you can have some banana". As if a light switch went off, she took a big sigh, came over and had a bit of banana. Dana then asked her if she was ready to go back and see daddy… another big sigh and then she pointed to the door and said "daddy". So back to the lounge we went where finished out the night without event.
Earlier in the day we had met an adoptive family from NC that had just arrived in Guangzhou. We let them borrow our stroller that we had rented for 24 hours from the concierge. Post dinner, we were giving Ellie a bath and the family stopped by to return the stroller. Dana talked to the family for a bit and Ellie let Rob finish bath time, including letting him hold her all wrapped up in a towel. Priceless night for Rob.
Bedtime is almost unreal. We start the routine with yogurt and PJ's. After she goes to the bathroom, she just goes and crawls in the pack-n-play without issue. We are sure this won't last forever, but boy is it nice not to have that fight everyday.
Sunday we are off to Shamian Island to do some shopping.
