Adoption? : Jan 27, 2016 - Last Full Day in China

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

This is our last full day in China. Hard to believe it's coming to an end! Our last breakfast, lunch, dinner. Our last views of the city we have come to become familiar with. For the past 2 ½ weeks we have lived in a hotel, haven't had to make our bed, had most of our meals prepared and cleaned up after, haven't driven a vehicle, haven't had to clean or go to work, and have been in cities with 5, 10, and 15 million people in them! We are getting ready to go back to life in a suburb area, with 4 kids, work, school, and daily chores, grocery shopping, and all the other good things that come with regular life. Hopefully it's not too much of a wake up call. :)

Today we let Lucee sleep in as long as she wanted (9am) and got ready for the day. Ben had learned yesterday in that group that they serve the same breakfast on the 30^th floor that they do on the 1^st floor. Both have a great view, but since we've never been on the 30^th floor, we decided to go there today. The first floor breakfast area looks out to a garden with a tall waterfall and huge goldfish (close to 50-75!) swimming in a pool. The 30^th floor is a circular room with the walls being windows that overlook the city. We were thankful to have found out before it was too late to take advantage of it.

We decided to venture out by taxi today and went back to the Shamian Island. Yesterday Ben got to see the cafe called Lucy's Place that we were told about to come get American food at. So today we decided to go eat lunch there and walk around the Island since it was a warmer day (in the mid 40's).

This place has a special meaning to us... A guy that Ben worked with adopted a girl about 10 or so years ago from China. When Ben had told him about us adopting (about a year ago- we hadn't completely decided on naming our daughter Lucee, but we were in the stage where we were jokingly referring to her as Lucy) the guy said, “Oh, when you go there, you've gotta go to this little cafe called Lucy's Place, it's got great American food!” we went there and Lucy enjoyed something like Chicken Noodle Soup, Ben had a double cheeseburger, and I had a grilled Cheese sandwich. Great food and service and of course we had to take pictures :)

Thankfully, we didn't have any issues with the taxi drivers. We did make sure to write the license numbers down before getting in and we gave exact change. We had spent the entire afternoon there walking around that by the time we got back to the room, it was time for dinner. Ben went out and got more noodles for Lucee and a pizza for us. Lucee ate some of the pizza and enjoyed tomatoes tonight. It'll be interesting to see how quickly she ventures out with new foods back home. I don't think I'll be making noodles for every meal... hopefully she'll copy the other kids and eat what she sees them eating.

When Ben left to get the food, Lucee began to cry and whine for about 10-15 minutes before I was able to get her to laugh by helping me wash daddy's “stinky socks and shorts”. This girl is going to flip out when daddy has to leave to go to work for 24 hours at a time! Hopefully she'll have so much fun playing with her brothers and sister that the time will go by quickly for her, and me ;) .

After eating, we packed a little and decided we'd show her a picture of a plane and talk about us all getting on it to go bye bye. She seemed a little nervous and we prayed that God would give her peace and not be afraid. She's really starting to understand what we are saying now and repeating some of the words with meaning and not just copying us like before. Tonight when Ben read her a story, she was repeating him as he read it and used some sign language in the right context. We are so amazed at how quickly she is catching on, especially with her diagnosis of “moderate retardation”. Tonight while eating dinner, I told Ben that when I look at her, I don't even see a disability, I see a sweet, smart little girl who seems to be connecting very well. He said, “their loss, our gain.” So true. We are so thankful for this little girl, we can't express that enough!