Hong Mei slept twelve hours last night. She has been an excellent sleeper and does not wet the bed. Rulon took her for a short walk down the block where she had a full-throttle temper tantrum, for the residents of Changsha. Meanwhile I was worried that they had been hit by a taxi. I set out to look for them and found poor Rulon dragging the stroller in one hand and Hong Mei slung over his shoulder with the other. Once again our family has been a public spectacle!
Steps forward and steps backward today. Three big temper tantrums, but Hong Mei has now decided that she loves Mama!!! Hong Mei is fascinated by Rulon’s goatee. She calls it foozie (Changsha dialect for beard). We played with the soap bubbles and made foozies on our faces. We played with baby. We tickled. She let me hold her and we fed each other food. This was so major for me. By the way she had been acting I thought it might be weeks before she decided to like me.
We visited the Yu Ling University today. It is 1,000 years old. It was a Confucius philosophy university. It is no longer used as a university, but is located in the modern university part of town today. The gardens were spectacular. There were ponds with large goldfish swimming around in them. Hong Mei enjoyed breaking up her cookie to feed them. While we were there; a group of older women stopped our guide Vicky. They were confused as they could tell we were Angelo, but the babies looked Chinese. Vicky explained and the ladies broke into big smiles and said, “Lucky Babies.” We said, “Lucky us.”
In the afternoon our little family took a taxi to Martyrs’ Park. The park is named for all those who died in WWII. The gardens were lovely and in the center was a giant memorial. We enjoyed the small amusement park also located there. Hong Mei played on the playground and rode on the carousel. What was funny was that we were the only (as far as we could tell) non-Chinese people in the park. The teenagers loved to say “Hello” and “pleased to meet you”. Everyone stared at us. We just smiled and said “Hello”. Hong Mei loved the celebrity attention; she called, “Hell o” to the people too.
We all had a lovely dinner at a restaurant together. Rulon ate turtle. Yuck! the head and shell were still attached. After the second big temper tantrum of the day, in the restaurant, after I took her for timeout in the bathroom; she calmed down. One of the other babies began to cry a little. Hong Mei asked Vicky to tell the baby to stop crying. Hong Mei also commented that the other baby was not a good baby. We thought this was funny. Talk about “the pot calling the kettle black”! Tomorrow we travel to Guangzhou. We will miss Changsha. We have enjoyed our stay. The Dolton Hotel was great, Vicky was wonderful, and the citizens very nice. Changsha will always hold a special place in our hearts; for somewhere out there is a dear birth mother and foster mother who will always be in our prayers. We pray that God will comfort them and bless them in this life.
Good night,
Joanna
University
Garden
View From The Park
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
