More Changsha

Little by little, Tabitha Jian Jian is warming to us. She still spends 90% of her time in my arms but is now playing with toys and giving us sweet little smiles. This morning she even laughed out loud when I tickled her. Her favorite activities so far are playing with stacking toys and her spoon and cup, looking at her gorgeous self in the mirror and making calls on Skype from Mama’s lap. The only time she vocalizes is in front of the computer as she moves her index finger around the mouse pad. She’s a fast learner; she’ll have her own blog in no time. She’s a very easy baby to care for since she pretty much stays where you put her and only plays with the things you give her. She cries only when we lay her down to sleep or when she thinks I am too far away from her. Most of her cries are silent sobs that are accompanied by big tears. It breaks your heart. When we adopted her, I vowed to love her and raise her as my own biological child and to never abuse her or abandon her but I never vowed not to spoil her. That’s going to be really hard not to do when she can melt your heart with one little glance. Notice in her pictures that she has curly hair, just like her Mama.

We have experienced “Shopping at the Apollo.” The Apollo is a 7-story store where you can buy anything from refrigerators to baby clothes. Kind of like a huge Sears. Each floor is arranged into mini-stores by brand. The process of shopping is a little different than shopping in the US. Here, you pick the item you want, get the sales clerk to write a ticket if the item is in the size you need, then you proceed to the check-out counter and pay for your merchandise. After paying, you return to the sales clerk and she will collect your receipts and give you your merchandise. Of course, you can wander around the store picking out things and collecting tickets and pay all at once. I recommend this only if you are really good at memory games or can actually read Chinese. And never, I repeat NEVER, attempt to walk around the store with unpaid for merchandise. You WILL be chased down by a team of sales clerks.

Yesterday we visited the Embroidery Factory. I’ll have to admit that I almost passed on that one because watching women embroider sounded as exciting as watching paint dry. I’m glad we went, however, because it was extremely interesting. The factory includes the Hunan Embroidery Research Institute of China and our lovely agency representative, Daphne, gave us a good briefing on the museum contents and the history of embroidery in Hunan. Hunan embroidery is renowned throughout China and it is magnificent. We saw a reproduction of an embroidered picture of President Rooselvelt that looked like a painting. This work was done for President Roosevelt who paid $3,000 for the piece and the original is now in the Roosevelt museum in the Little White House. We also saw magnificent two-sided works, which when flipped over showed a completely different picture or even the back view of the picture on the front.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Guangzhou. Yea! The first half of Chinese Adoptive Parent Boot Camp is almost over. We stayed in the room today except for a foray to the hotel’s playroom. We’re just waiting on paperwork and passports at this time. Tonight we will make our nightly trip down to the Fear Factor restaurant where we will cautiously eat from the Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails Buffet. Those names are, of course, coined by me. I know there are people who enjoy lifting the lid to a dish and looking eye to eye with a snake slit lengthwise and stuffed with something unknown or seeing tiny baby turtles. And I knew that people ate dogs but wasn’t interested in experiencing it first hand. I prefer my dogs unbraised, thank you very much.