Guangzhou is HOT!

We barely survived the heat today as we toured the Safari Park in Guangzhou. It was a nice park, but the heat here is crazy....alot like Arkansas in the summer! I guess living in the cold of Northern China has turned me into a whimp. We saw some cute pandas and the only pair of twin koalas in the world. The kids enjoyed it, but they were as ready to leave as we were.
Lucy is doing well. She is content as long as she is eating, watching TV, or doing her Barbie's hair.
I noticed yesterday that she never complains about watching movies in English and she doesn't really bother the boys' things. She is pretty possessive of the things that we sent to her while she was in the orphanage. She came to us with her things in a big blue bag and she will occasionally take inventory to make sure that it is all still there. I am sure that it will take some time for her to understand that no one will take her stuff away from her now......because Jude and Will could really care less about "girl" stuff anyway!
She is still eating like a horse....she eats 3 times as much as the boys. I am not sure if she just has a big appetite or if she is making up for lost time.
We have 1 whole week of downtime now where we don't have any appointments or plans. I am not sure how that is going to go, but my guess is pretty slow. We did find a nice indoor play place a few blocks away where we can waste some time, so that may be our new hangout.

As we predicted, Lucy was a trooper for her medical exam. She told the nurse that she wouldn't cry when she had her 2 immunizations and TB test, and she didn't. We are pretty sure that her toughness must be her way of coping with this transition...or maybe she is Supergirl, who knows. We have had a few pretty major meltdowns in the past week, but we think she will probably need to go through that to learn to trust us.
After we got back to the room after the shots, Lucy began to scratch below her ear where the tumor is and after a few minutes it had whelped up pretty big. We called our guide who contacted the doctor and we were advised to just watch it. After an hour or so it finally went down. We are anxious to get that checked out once we get back to the states.
We have been watching lots of DVDs in the room and Lucy always picks Go, Diego, Go. Jude is so tired of preschool DVDs, but atleast Will still enjoys them.
Lucy just fell asleep while coloring a picture of Diego....I know coloring makes me sleepy, too.

Touring Lucy's orphanage

Today we took a 2 and 1/2 hour ride to Lucy's orphanage. She jumped out of the van, ran up the steps and showed us everything herself! She immediately told one of the workers that she wasn't there to live, just to play for awhile then she would go back with her mom and dad. I think they may have gotten her age wrong...she must be 16 and not 6. Anyway, one of the orphanage leaders gave us a very short tour. The orphanage building is huge and there are 150 kids there and 250 in foster homes, but we only saw maybe 5 rooms. The few kids we saw were asleep. Lucy got to see a few of the nannies and she was quick to tell them that we were her new mom and dad. We were able to ask some questions about Lucy and saw her file which contained a baby picture of her and the name of the person who found her, but we were not able to keep the file. There was an extra little baby picture attached to the back of one of the pages in her file....and yep, I swiped it. Daren was really embarrassed when he saw me trying to gently peel it off the page, but no one was looking. I think Lucy will be glad to have atleast one baby picture of herself one day.
Tomorrow we go for her medical exam and the dreaded immunizations. Some kids receive 7 or 8 shots! OUCH!!!!!

Wow....3 kids is alot!

Daren and I are exhausted! Lucy can really be a handful....she has worked over every piece of electronic equipment in the hotel room....the TV, clock, camera, computer, lights, remote control, cell phones. She is so careful with all of her new things, too. She folds her clothes perfectly, makes the beds, washes the bowls and spoons, and makes sure that nothing is out of place. She brushes her teeth every chance she gets and must have atleast 4 hair barrettes in at all times.
She has not stopped eating yet. I'm sure this must be her way of coping with the changes. She always wants food in her hands and she will fuss and fuss if we tell her that she must be full.
Our little bit of Chinese language has helped us understand most everything she says. I'm sure she wonders why our Chinese tones and grammar are so bad!
Jude wrote the ABC's for her today and she copied them down and did a great job. I think she must have been taught that before.
I think the transition has been a little harder on Daren and me than it has for her! Jude and Will just do their regular day to day activities and seem to be adjusting to her fine. She hasn't really opened up to them much yet.
She now calls herself "Lucy" and says "OK"....sometimes the dreaded "OK le" which always drives us crazy when our students add the Chinese "le" to OK!
We are planning on going to Lucy's orphanage on Friday with another family that is here with their little girl who is from the same orphanage. We have debated on whether this will be a good idea, but it seems like it usually brings closure for the little ones.
I hope we can find a playground or something around here pretty soon because this hotel room is getting smaller and smaller.

Lucy Day!

We finally have her! At 2:30 today we met Lucy for the very first time. The room was crowded with other families getting their children and Daren and I were so nervous we didn’t know how to feel. Then, we saw a little girl standing with 2 adults and we thought it was Lucy so we asked our guide and she said it was her. We all ran over to see her and Daren videoed while I knelt down and she said, “mama.” I thought I was going to lose it, but I managed to compose myself. She had a bag full of the things we had sent to her and she showed it all to us. She didn’t shed one tear!

Since then, we have gone grocery shopping, played in the hotel room, and gone to dinner and now she is asleep and she still hasn’t shown any signs of grieving. We are so happy that she is doing so well, but we are still waiting for reality to set in for her.

This little girl can EAT! She has snacked on everything she can find. She ate a peach all the way down to the bare seed. She is very thoughtful and wants to share every bite of food with us. She calls us all by our Chinese family names (Mama for Mommy, Baba for Daddy, Gege for Big Brother, and Didi for Little Brother.) She is learning that her name is Lucy and she will say it then laugh.

Jude and Will are doing well, too. They still can’t believe that she is finally here and neither can we!