Day 16 - Saturday

Woke up early for medical appointments today.  Breakfast was really nice at this hotel but we felt very rushed.  They sat us down right at the entrance so we felt very on display again.  Even though there were a lot of adoptive families here and we were not the only ones.  We were definitely the largest though!

We met the other adoptive family that was with our guide in the lobby and our guide, Aron (a woman), and headed over to the new place for the exams.  It is really close to the new place where the US Consulate is now located.  The medical exams used to be at an office on Shaiman Island but this new place is very nice and much bigger.  This was the second Chinese adoption for the adoptive family we were with (a lady from Georgia who was adopting a little 3 year old and was traveling with her mother).  They had something to compare it to and they said it was much nicer at the new place.  

We entered the building and had to get a picture taken of each of the girls first.  That was pretty uneventful.  Our guide left us to do some paperwork and then I had to fill out a few things, but mostly we just sat and waited.  

(Sorry for the junky iPhone photos but that's what I had at the moment.)

Then we were moved to a different part of the facility to wait for the actual exams to begin.  The medical appointments went OK until the actual exams.  Neither girl liked the Dr.'s or nurses at all.  G did OK until they started touching her.  This was the ENT exam.  (Please ignore my hair for this entire trip.  If I didn't put it up like this everyday I would have had a serious afro!  Curly hair + crazy humidity and serious heat = crazy woman hair.)

E was waiting patiently (ha!) for her turn.  She actually started crying the second we got in the room.  She knew something was up.

The Dr. squeaked this toy to see if she could hear it and then let her hold it to calm her down.  Josh and I both looked at each other and immediately said, "Sure hope he doesn't want that back!" 

It did calm her down for about 2.3 seconds until the Dr. needed to examine her mouth.  She was not opening her mouth for anything!  I think he finally ended up prying it open to see in there.  I was using all my strength just to hold her down and keep her from attacking the Dr.  This girl is strong!  And when it was time to leave she freaked out that we had to give the squeaky toy back.  It was not a very fun day for her.

S had fun running up and down this long hallway.  There was a huge Mickey Mouse face in the tiles - I'm sure they got Disney's permission for that!

Then it was off to the nurses' station for height and weight and temperature.  The girls are only 1/2 lb off from being the same weight.  G sure feels heavier though!  E is quite a bit taller but much slimmer.  

G was charming everyone, as usual.

Then we waited for our turn with the other doctor - I guess just a general pediatrician.  She was nice and asked us questions, through our guide, about each of the girls.  I found this whole thing very weird since I didn't really know any of the answers to their questions!  I actually know very little about the girls and could only tell them the history of the past 1-2 weeks.  Kind of pointless if you ask me!

E also had to have blood drawn for TB test since she's over two and they wouldn't let us in the room with her.  Absurd!  We could hear her screaming as we sat outside the room and the whole process took quite a while - much longer than a quick blood draw should have.  I think she gave those nurses quite a hard time because she came out of that room completely drenched in sweat and so did the nurses!  There were only two nurses in with her and I bet they wished they'd had another set of hands - like the parents maybe?!  There's no way we could have calmed her down but at least there would have been a somewhat familiar face for her.  Crazy.

After the blood draw we were all done and we went back to the hotel.  I had to meet our guide and fill out some more paperwork to get ready for the Consulate visit so Daddy took 5 and I took G with me.  

We decided to head over to Aeon (pronounced Eon) - a mall kind of like walmart.  We needed some diapers, wipes, water and some snacks.  Our guide drove us by it on the way back from the medical appt so we felt confident we could find it.  It was just down the street!  We headed out and realized, about 3 blocks later, that we had gone the wrong way.  So we walked back and tried another street.  The hotel is situated in a weird spot and had 3 streets branching off of the front of the hotel so that's how we got confused.  We were also able to buy another stroller to replace the one we left in Nanjing.  I was also about to find pacifier and teething toy for E.  She keeps stealing S's binkie.  She has no idea what it's actually for - she just wants something to chew on and to copy S.  This girl chews on everything!  It's like having a puppy!  We also found a new sippy cup that she hopefully can't chew through.  We're down two nipples on her bottles and one sippy cup already with her!

We also got some lunch at Subway, our favorite place to eat here in China!  Seeing the 'sandwich artist's' face when we order 6 footlong subs is always hilarious.  

They don't have any 'regular' chips here.  It's always some crazy long-named concoction.  We tried this gem today.  

You're probably thinking it tastes somewhere along the lines of a nacho Doritos right?  WRONG.  It tasted like tomato soup.  Nothing 'Mexican' or 'Chicken' about it.  All tomato.  Gross.  Although C (of all the people!) liked them!  

We made our way through the crazy maze of a mall and found that it had started raining.  Great.  We were all tired, cranky, and not in the mood to walk back 2 large city blocks in the pouring rain.  At least we had three strollers so the littles didn't have to walk in it.  Apparently a typhoon had just come through Guangzhou the day before we arrived so it was a very wet and humid week there.  It was a little cooler but so flipping humid that you don't really notice.  We had at least had the foresight to have the kids take empty backpacks to the store so we would have a way to carry things home (especially since you have to buy your own bags here!) but they weren't happy about being loaded down.  Poor Daddy pushed a stroller, carried the heavy backpack and had two big jugs of water to deal with too.  We all made it back to the hotel though - wet and not very happy!

It was nice to have some downtime and we ended up hanging out in the room and just relaxing for the rest of the day.  The little kids played fairly well and the big kids had fun watching a movie and hanging out together.  

E had a bit of an accident as we were getting ready to head out for some dinner.  She was holding all the toys she could handle plus her water cup and tripped on something.  She fell face first onto the very hard ground.  She wouldn't drop anything to catch her fall so she landed right on her mouth.  She ended up biting through her bottom lip.  I immediately picked her up and she started thrashing about me touching her and clawing at her face.  I head her hands down while Josh ran to get a cold washrag.  When she gets hurt she'll hit the spot that hurts.  She normally doesn't cry about it - just gets angry about it.  She was crying hard about this though and she was angry about it as well.  The cold washrag helped a little but she didn't want me to hold her and definitely didn't want me to mess with her hurt mouth.  She finally relaxed a little bit and let me take a closer look at it.  Thankfully she let me put some pressure on the wound and it stopped bleeding pretty quickly. It's such a hard thing to watch her knowing that she has no idea how to accept comfort and care.  She has dealt with this kind of thing completely on her own all her life.  It's beyond awful and so heartbreaking.  Once the bleeding stopped she seemed OK.  There wasn't any swelling which really surprised me.  

We ventured out for dinner and ended up at Pizza Hut.  We waited and waited and waited for a waiter to come take our order and we finally decided to just leave.  The kids were all starving and cranky and we just couldn't sit there waiting forever.  We found another place on the way back and I waited outside with all the kiddos while Josh went in to check out the menu.  The place had tons of stairs up and down and we didn't feel like carrying all the strollers through there plus the other kids.  We are just too big of a group for any place in China!  E had a major meltdown in the street while waiting for our order, probably because she was starving!  She threw her cup and toy on the nasty sidewalk so she couldn't have them back and that was the cause of the craziness.  Josh finally ordered and came back out to tell us that it was going to be a while.  I decided to take E and a couple of the other kids back to the hotel with me and one of the big kids (I can't remember who) stayed with Josh to help him carry the food back.  

We all made it back to the hotel and Josh arrived about 20 minutes later.  We finally got some food into everyone and that made everything better.  E fought me the whole time we were eating though.  It's mostly stubbornness.  She wants to do everything herself (because that's what she's used to!) but we need her to know that we are the parents and will take care of her so we need to do things for her.  Plus she just doesn't know how to use a fork and there is no place for a toddler to eat in a hotel room.  She'll sit defiantly looking at a fork with food on it placed in front of her just waiting for her to open her mouth.  But she will sit there for several minutes looking at me from under her eyelashes giving me the crusties.  You can just see the inner struggle she's having:  I'm hungry but I don't want to eat from this lady!  She'll look at the food and then at me several times and finally give in.  Once she's given in it's not such a struggle but she'll keep testing the limits.  We have a VERY strong-willed child on our hands!

R also had a big meltdown after dinner and after we got the kids bathed.  He's really tired of the screaming (as we all are) but he just doesn't know how to cope with it.  We had a good talk though and hopefully that will help.  I know things will get better once he has a place he can go to get away from the noise a little bit.  It's just really hard in these tiny hotel rooms where everyone is together all the time.  It's a good teaching tool though and he is learning how to calm himself down even in the midst of the chaos - which is a really good thing.  We are all growing and stretching here.  :)

The babies slept through the night (yippee!!) and Mommy crashed right after they went down.  The beds are so uncomfortable here though that it's hard to get a good night's sleep!  Tomorrow - the pearl and jade market.