Guangzhou (Medical Clinic)

We left Nanning Friday and headed to Guangzhou.  We traveled ALL day.  Our flight was delayed and we did not end up arriving in Guangzhou until almost midnight.  The good news is Vivian was a trooper and wonderful travel mate.

Guangzhou is wonderful!  Very different from Nanning.  Guangzhou is a huge city -- 18.5 million people!!  It is also a very "Western friendly" city (for lack of a better term).  Every adoptive family has to end their trip in Guangzhou (because of the US Consulate), so there are adoptive families everywhere.  It is really nice.  At breakfast Saturday morning we had to laugh because there were "Mei Mei's" everywhere!  Seriously, we counted four other little girls just on our side of the dining area.

Saturday morning Vivian woke up sad.  She still does that.  Mornings are her hardest time.  To make matters worse, we had to wake her out of a dead sleep and dress her for our trip to the medical clinic.  There was only one other family from our travel group with us  so we were able to get in and out of the clinic fairly quickly.  All is well with Vivian.  She weighed in at 19 pounds, which is not enough for a 2 1/2 year old, so we are determined to "fatten her up" a bit.

After the medical clinic we came home and ate lunch.  We introduced Vivian to ramen noodles and the child went crazy!! She loved them.  We gave her a nap and when she woke up we decided to head to a park near our hotel.

The park was really pretty and very interesting.  You see some different things here  than you see at a typical park in the U.S.  We thought it was pretty neat.  I will let the pictures explain

Vivian still seems "nervous" when we are out and about.  She is hesitant to walk and we notice she gets her "worried" look on her face.

took her out of the stroller and she is not so sure

On a positive note, she is starting to warm up to Rob.

I have to  say that EVERYWHERE we go people comment on how beautiful Vivian is.  The most common compliment is about her big, beautiful eyes

After our walk in the park, we decided to take advantage of some "American" food and ordered a pizza to our room.  Miss Vivian polished off some pizza and another huge bowl of noodles.  Like I said, we are going to fatten her up!

This was her best night yet.  She is really feeling more comfortable when she is in the hotel room with us.  She is laughing and playing.  She likes to be thrown up in the air and likes to be held upside down.  She has taken to ordering us around with her finger. She points, we fetch.  She loves it.  Whatever she wants, she points to it, and one of us gives it to her.  We are total slaves to the pointer finger.

But, we still have our ups and downs.  When it was time for bed, she completely lost it.  Crying and crying.  She is hesitant to be "snuggled" and it makes it hard in situations like this.  We have noticed she kind of "moans" herself to sleep and I think it must have been a self-soothing technique in the orphanage.  She doesn't want you to hold her and she just lays there with her eyes closed moaning.  It is hard for us that she does not know how to let us comfort her.  Every time I tried to hold her close last night, she would push away.  But at the same time she would look at me with a sad look, as if to say "help me".   I just haven't figured out how to do that yet and I hate it.

One last story.  When we were on the plane from Nanning to Guangzhou, there was a very nice Chinese woman who sat next to Vivian and I.  I could tell immediately she was watching us and a little confused by us.  She spoke a little English and started asking me questions about Vivian. She asked me how long we have had her, and I told her  4 days.  She was very surprised and commented that we seemed so "familiar" with each other.  That was nice to hear.  She asked me her name and I told her it was Vivian.  She still seemed confused, so I told the woman her Chinese name.  She nodded and understood.  Then she said, "Vivian is her new name", and I said, "yes".  Then, she smiled, and said, "ah, new name and a new life".

Yes indeed.