Guilin July 30 - Orphanage visit

Today has seemed to be going even better so far... right now Maylynn is napping with her baba:) We'll see what the rest of the day has in store for us:)

 

It really helps when she gets all the sleep that she needs:)  This morning she did better when Lance had to shower - i held her for most of the time and then eventually she was calm sitting on the bed waiting for Lance to get done.  It's a fine line on whether or not i should let her be or be near her or hold her- i'm pr-ying about that.  I just want her to feel safe with  me too... Anyway, breakfast went better today too - She actually sat in her own chair to eat.  Lance helped to feed her and i sat across from her... Then we were on our way to the orphanage.  We told our guide that we were okay to meet the foster mom if she wanted but ne siad that the director said that the foster mom was too upset and so we weren't going to meet her... We arrived at the orphanage and instantly the director was there to greet us.  She is a very nice lady - her name is Fu.  We also spoke with a nanny there and she walked us around the grounds.  We were dissappointed to find out that they would not let us into the orphanage b/c of the swine flu (they are crazily over cautious here with that whole thing - commercials about it too!)- not too sure why we were there - Maylynn was a bit upset when we arrived - not sure if she recognized it or what - Lance tried to get her to play but she didn't want too.  While he was trying to play with her, i asked to meet Meiyang.  She is a precious 7 yr. old that is going home to her forever family in NC very soon.  Her mom asked me to relay some information about them and to let her know that they will be there for her very soon.  This was the very best part of the trip!  I was even able to meet her foster mom.  It was a wonderful experience - i was crying just telling her about her family - Meiyang is very excited but nervous too - she has been with this foster mom for the past 5 yrs.  We were able to visit for about 15 minutes with them - you'll see some pics of her and her foster mom on my shutterfly site.

 

Maylynn did fine leaving the orphanage- i guess that she didn't really spend much time there - only once a month for check ups etc... oh- we also can't figure out her special need.  The director said it was a cleft lip - our papers said a cleft palate - we can't see anything on her lip and from what we can see her palate looks okay. ???? We'll have our dr's check it out at home - won't that be fun! ;)  We did find out that Maylynn had a

 

After the orphanage visit we were dropped off at the "Elephant trunk" rock thing - i wasn't able to get any pictures - we had to pay to get a better look - and we didn't want to do too much walking (we were already dripping with sweat)  we did walk back towards the market area in the city center  - i bought a few other things adn then we went to KFC for lunch.  We are now back at the hotel to nap... She is doing much better - not as histerically upset as previous days - she does say that she misses her mom - it's very sad - i just wish that she would accept me as her mom - soon, very soon - is what i'm pr-ying...

 

Maylynn woke up from her nap upset again.  It makes me so sad that i can't soothe her and be the mama that she is wanting...  After about 30minutes, she started to calm down and we decided to sit down and play.  We had a fabulous time!  We started out slow with books - she really like the book of our family members - we went through it several of times and she started to repeat what i was saying "gege ai ni, jie jie ai ni, etc..." it was so sweet:) then we moved onto stickers and then playing with the balls - this was when she really lit up and was all over the place - it was wonderful!!!  Then she remembered that we had playdough that we tried to get her interested in a previous day - boy she had a great time... She is so darn cute and it is precious the way she is very meticulous about cleaning up after herself (did you hear that kids??? ;)  When we were playing balls, if she knocked something over - she'd immediatley stop to clean it up and then would carry on playing:) 

 

We met David for dinner for Chinese - i told him no more KFC or McD's!!! If Lance didn't like what we ate then he could starve or eat in the hotel later:)  My stomach could not take that stuff anymore!!!  We had a wonderful chinese dinner: our favorite: sweet & sour pork, fried rice, pan fried dumplings, rice noodles & deep fried pumpkin strips -yum yum!  Dinner went great too - Maylynn sat between me and Lance and i even helped feed her and she asked me to too! It was wonderful:) So many more smiles today:)  AFter dinner we took an nice stroll along the river - now we are packing up to get ready for our flight tomorrow to Guangzhou - this is the last stop but will be there until Thursday... We are ready to go home:)

 

Ps. our internet connection is soooo slow!  i am having a hard time getting pictures to upload today:(