China: Days 4 & 5

Hallelujah, this baby can sleep!

Three consecutive nights of at least 8 hours of sleep has made everybody’s life a lot happier. Last night, Kaitlyn won the grand prize for 10 ½ hours of uninterrupted sleep. We didn’t get up this morning until 8:00. I could get very used to this. Even as I write this blog at 11:00am, she is fast asleep for her morning nap.

A couple of nights ago Stacey, Carol Anne, Kaitlyn and I went for a walk after dinner. Nanchang – the city where we’re currently staying – is the capital of the Jiang Xi province (pronounced “Zhang Zhi” … I’m sure that helped a lot!). Somehow, the province has managed to squeeze more than 40 million people into 77 square kilometers, an admirable feat indeed. As you can imagine, there are people crawling everywhere. Even as we walked the streets at 8:30 at night, car horns blowing, people talking, and buses driving by, Kaitlyn was fast asleep. Once we got back to our room a while later and settled down, she was in bed for the night and sleeping again by 10:00.

She has eaten a lot better over the last two days, scarfing down some more steamed eggs (which look like hot banana crème pie … yummy!), watermelon, and congee. I’m not entirely sure what congee is, but it looks like a really bland and watery rice soup. Whatever it is, she can’t get enough of it. When we fed her at breakfast this morning, her arms and legs were kicking for more even though the spoon was barely out of her mouth from the last helping. It’s amazing to see such a transformation in her personality, facial expressions, and appetite in the last two days. She seems to be adjusting quite naturally and very quickly. (Plus, she had her first “movement” today. I know that sounds really gross and that nobody in their right mind would normally share a little nugget like that. But we were told that many of the babies coming from the orphanage get really ‘backed up,’ shall we say, and this really becomes an issue as time passes. I never thought I would be this happy to celebrate a movement, but when Kaitlyn had a party in her pants, we had a party in our room!)

Most of our tour plans were put on hold yesterday because of poor weather. We’re catching the butt-end of the tropical storm that has hit another part of the country. It’s only been a light drizzle here for most of the last two days … nothing serious. We had plans today to visit the orphanage in Shanggao (pronounced “Shang gao” … again helpful, I’m sure) which is a two-hour bus ride from our hotel. Last night, there was some question of whether we could make this trip because the weather forecast outside of Nanchang was not looking very good. When coupled with the lunatic driving habits of the people in China, we were advised that it would be in our best interest to seriously reconsider making that trek.

To be honest with you, we are pretty tired of traveling, having spent about 16 hours on a plane and more than enough time on buses, some of which haven’t been air conditioned. Our tour director left the decision in our hands as a group; if we wanted to go, we could go. In addition, they scheduled an opportunity for us to visit the local orphanage in Nanchang, but Stacey and I decided to have a quiet morning at the hotel. We both woke up with slight headaches and we finally received Kaitlyn’s schedule for when she eats and naps, so we thought we’d give it the old college try and see how she responds to a schedule she’s used to. So far, so good.

We were able to go yesterday to the Nanchang Temple, as you’ll see from some of the pictures that are posted on the blog. This temple was built by a Chinese Emperor’s son who was being groomed for political life by his father, but had no personal interest in anything related to politics. He was more interested in the arts and entertaining people, so he decided one day to use his father’s vast wealth to build this six-story temple that is used today as a museum of sorts. Each floor has different Chinese historical artifacts and displays along with little gift shops that all sell the same thing. We toured through the entire temple but left early because the higher we went, the hotter it got. As you’ll see from some of the pictures, however, the view is pretty sweet.

Later on today, we’re taking Kaitlyn swimming in the kiddie pool. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes from there. Tomorrow, we leave Nanchang to fly back to Beijing where we’ll be spending the rest of our time and doing most of our shopping … ahhhh ya! All the babies have a medical scheduled with a doctor in Beijing on Saturday. We’ll be back in the sweet hotel we stayed at our first night in the country. It’s hard to believe our trip here is almost half over.

Please pray for Kaitlyn when we fly on Saturday morning, that the change in the air pressure won’t be too much for her. We’re expecting her not to like it, but with her teething and the pressure that is already on her ears because of that, we hope it isn’t totally unbearable.

OK, I’m outta here. I think Kaitlyn is waking up. Time to go play.