Sunday, June 24, 2007

Well, I could write an entire page on “The Squatty Potty Adventures of Kaylee and Madison” from this week! Things you would never believe—surely you would think I was making them up. You would be laughing hysterically, I’m sure. Hopefully, one day I will look back on them and be able to laugh too, but I’m not quite there yet. :)

This morning, we were down at breakfast when Madison had to go to the bathroom (“really bad” of course). As we walked into the bathroom downstairs, I was so relieved to see that they had Western toilets—the first place we’d been in 12 days, outside of our hotel room, that did. Without me saying a word, Madison said, “Good! They have toilet paper!” It’s amazing the things you take for granted—even when you’re 4.

Jenna has developed a cold, so John stayed back at the hotel with her today so she could get some rest. It seems to happen to all of the babies. They warn you that they are not used to air conditioning and have you dress the babies in long sleeves and long pants, but even so, they all seem to develop runny noses. Even with keeping our room much warmer, and dressing Jenna in winter clothes in the hotel room, she has managed to get sick. Poor baby.

The rest of our group, minus John and Jenna, went on a city-tour of Guangzhou today. The three stops included a Buddhist Temple, the Chen Museum, and the Provincial Arts and Crafts Center. On the way, Jason gave us some history about Guangzhou, and told us about the weather and real estate in Guangzhou. He gave us a glimpse into what schools were like in China, and talked to us about the changes they are making in the Family Controlling Policy. We also talked about the increase in domestic adoption within China and the impact that’s having on international adoption from China. He briefly compared Mandarin and Cantonese, the two main languages in China, and the tones involved with each—interesting to me, since I’ve been sitting in Chinese school with Kaylee this year. He told us there are actually 2,000 spoken languages in China, but everyone reads the same written characters (5,000 of them!). Almost each city has their own dialect. Jason is from Yueyang, just like Kaylee. He can speak English, German, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Changsha Dialect, and Yueyang Dialect. Changsha has its own dialect, as does Yueyang (82 miles away), and the city where Lila was from—which is in between Changsha and Yueyang. To put it in perspective, that would be like us having a Gainesville language, a separate Lake City language, a Micanopy language, and an Ocala language. No one could understand each other if it was spoken, but everyone could read it if it was written. Fascinating.

One startling difference from our last visit to Guangzhou is that there are no motorcycles on the road. There were a TON the last two times we were here, and no one seemed to follow any sort of traffic rules. It was the craziest thing you’ve ever seen. Everyone—buses, cars, motorcycles, and bicyclists would all dart out toward each other at once. I remember sitting in the middle of the back seat of a taxi, holding Kaylee as an infant (no car seats in China) and thinking, for sure, we would never make it back to the hotel. As of January 1st of this year, the city banned motorcycles for traffic safety reasons, tourist theft reasons, and environmental reasons. Because Guangzhou is growing so large, they are encouraging more people to take the bus. Without the motorcycles, the city has an added benefit—the flow of traffic moves much more orderly.

Later that afternoon, we gathered in the 2nd floor lobby for the highlight of the day: the traditional Red Couch photo sessions. It was a little easier this year since we have only 3 babies. As someone once said, getting the babies to pose for these photos is a little like trying to “herd cats”. There were 18 babies in Kaylee’s group—most of them crying and crawling away. Madison’s group had 10 babies, but I think (unfortunately) we gave up before we ever got a picture of all 10 of them alone. Getting a picture of the three girls this time—Jenna, Lila, and Vivienne—was much easier, though of course, none of them are looking at the camera. (I have so much respect for photographers of children!)