Her TB result was good! So she is being sworn in as a US citizen tomorrow (Tuesday 12/20/2010) at 1:30pm. All of the legalities are complete. We start heading back home on Wednesday. We leave late afternoon for Beijing, and after a quick overnight stay we start the 13+ hour flight home.
We've had a good day today, no real fits or anything. She's been pretty happy all day. She likes riding in a stroller around the island. She's a little too big for it, but we couldn't carry her anymore, she's too big and heavy. Lots of people stop and talk to her. Lots of people ask us what provence she is from because they say she is very beautiful. She has dimples when she smiles and it looks like she has two lines on each of her cheeks. She has a birth mark on her back as well. All of the shop workers like talking to her. An older woman, we are guessing 90 or so, came up to her and Debbie and was telling JingJing how lucky she is and how good Debbie was for taking care of her. At least that is what we are guessing. We've been told a lot of the older generation think the little girls are very lucky for going to America. Some of the younger generation doesn't really agree with Westerners coming over for the girls. But overall people have been really nice to us.
We figured out last night that she has used chopsticks, she understands how they work, but she is not the most efficient with them. We're guessing the orphanage just used spoons for everything.
Mike just uploaded some pictures but apparently China is not happy because we're now being blocked. We are unable to see them or add captions. Mike's guessing he's blocked because he has been tagging the previous photos with "China". It may be a fluke, but he's thinking not because we were able to access Flickr yesterday but not today. Many popular sites are blocked here. I can't edit my blog directly, we have to email in the updates. Hopefully everyone can see see the pics here, we'll add captions when we can:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkrisher/sets/72157625510583409/
Mike woke up this morning not feeling the best and thought for sure he was going to be sick for 24 hours, but it quickly passed. A number of people, including all of the males in our travel group have been sick, including vomiting. We've been lucky so far. We're getting tired though, it's been a long two weeks. Today was back to Shamian Island to get her TB results and then about 4 hours of shopping. The weather was great. Maybe 70 degrees and sunny. We picked up a lot. Prices are pretty good. Hopefully we can get it all back in our luggage. We learned some more about Shamian Island. All of the buildings are protected by the government. Most of the buildings are occupied by Europeans for their consulate offices and businesses. It's really pretty amazing. We've both said numerous times we could move here. The weather is nice, the people are nice. The currency exchange is in our favor. We didn't expect to really like China, but our vision of it was completely wrong. We have a lot more photos and videos that we haven't posted. We'll do more when we get back to the States and have a faster connection.
Tonight we think we are going to just get McDonalds and stay in, we are pretty tired. Hopefully JingJing will be as well, she didn't sleep well last night she kept having dreams and screaming no and yelling at someone (it was probably us). We can't take pictures at the swearing in ceremony unfortunately, but we may have more pics to post tomorrow depending on what we do afterwards.
She has learned some more english. She now says "no" maybe a quarter of the time and still uses the Mandarin word 75 percent of the time. She says "uh oh" now when something spills. She says "ketchup" all the time. She understands what "take a bath" means. She says "hota hota" when something is hot. She adds an a to a lot of words. She says "carry please" when she wants carried. She asks for "help". She says "open". She's working on "on" and "off". She's working on "no thank you". She says "I love you" but doesn't really know what it means. She understands "sit down". She understands what "all done" means, but still says the Mandarin version. She says "hello" and "bye bye" a lot. We expect she will probably speak mostly english within 4 months. She's picking up things pretty quickly.
I have to tell you this...I am completely amazed by this little girl. She has been through so much in her short little life and at times it shows. We have had some terrible drag down battles of will a couple of times but they are getting shorter and shorter each time. She is realizing that we are the boss and that we love her without all the drama. She is testing us for sure. That aside, we are so completely in love with this little girl. When I think of everything she has been through and is still willing to trust and love, it blows my mind. I simply adore her and am so honored to be her mother. This truly is the child I have been waiting and praying for. She is so funny and cracks me up all the time. She is also VERY STUBBORN and definitely has an opinion. I can respect that! :) Ugh....words simply cannot describe how I feel. Blessed...I guess blessed is the right thing. I also feel completed. I did not realize that I was not completed without her until I met her and that was it. I cannot imagine breathing without her in my life. Okay, starting to get all gushy. I will post again when I can. Miss you all but LOVING China and this special time with my incredibly amazing, strong, funny, loving, cute, girl. Mike has also been such a loving and wonderful dad. So proud of him. I cannot describe how it feels to see him so smitten with his little girl.
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