Monday in GZ: Guess who can walk?!

Yup, M. Oh yeah, and Little Z. This afternoon, while I spent an hour and a half in our guide's room doing Z's visa paperwork, M & Z went downstairs to the playroom to practice her moves. They've been having secret practice sessions whenever I'm not around. Secret training! When I came back to the room, he told me she could do it, and sure enough, she took about half a dozen steps all on her own, going from M to me. I've seen her do it two more times since then. She's had the mistaken impression that she could walk for as long as we've known her, and it's been hard both to rein her in so she doesn't hurt herself and to see her get mad when she tries & doesn't quite pull it off. Things are going to be interesting around here for the rest of our stay. I'm seeing a few head bonks in the next couple of days. It's inevitable. But I predict we'll be chasing that little monkey around shortly after we get home. Cats, you might as well go under the bed right now and stay there for the next year or so, because this little girl is going to be all over you. Kenai, I doubt you have to worry about that. I have a feeling your 95 pounds of labrador puppy love is going to scare the diaper right off this poor child.

A little practice goes a long way.

Another baby in our group had a big milestone today too. This little boy was pretty seriously malnourished and had yet to eat any solid foods, much to his parents' distress. Today he ate six Cheerios! His mom called to let his dad know while we were in the guide's room doing our paperwork. We all cheered when we heard. The improvement we've seen in this little boy over the past week has been remarkable. It's been remarkable in all the babies, actually. They are all just blossoming right before our eyes. What strong little kids we have. They are survivors, all of them.

TG 1314 Babies

For the most part, today was all waiting around & filling out paperwork. There is absolutely NOTHING exciting to tell you about other than the walking thing. We had visa photos taken for the babies, then took them for their medical exam. It was quite perfunctory, yet we still managed to spend two hours in the clinic. There are "Keep Quiet" signs all over the place, but the noise in there was deafening. We were glad to be done with it.

Medical Clinic

As I mentioned earlier, we did the paperwork for Z's visa to enter the U.S. today. Stupid government bureaucracy. I had to fill out about half a dozen forms. Each one of them asked for the exact same information. Stupid stupid. There is NO reason why we should not be able to sit down in front of a computer, type in the answers to about a dozen questions, then print out all those forms and just sign them. What a waste of time.

The last item on today's agenda was the red couch photo. Z was lovely in her fuschia silk dress and matching squeaky shoes. Unfortunately, the tights I brought for her are so big that they hang on her like sweat pants and look just plain silly, so she went with just the diaper under the dress. You know, when you set a baby who's wearing a diaper & a dress down on a couch, you see a lot of diaper. Oh well.

Cheese!

Squeaky shoes to match my dress.


Three-quarters of the family.

I had a little mini-adventure today. While M & Z napped, I made a trip to the pharmacy. I ran out of my cold medicine today, and I most definitely still need it if I want to breathe. After a lot of pointing, miming, and fake coughing, I was handed a bottle of Robitussin. All the packaging is in Chinese, so there was more pointing and miming to determine the correct dosage and how often I should take it. I hope we were on the same page with that. The last thing I need is to OD on cough syrup in China. I made a quick stop at Starbucks on the way back to the hotel. Two cups of regular coffee at Starbucks cost more than my medicine!

Tomorrow is a free day for us. There is an optional trip to the pearl market in the afternoon; I think I'll exercise my option to go. My girly girl needs some pearls for when she graduates from high school.

Pearl River at night.

TG 1314 families and babies.

Thanks for dropping by, and I'll talk to you all tomorrow!