THE SMILE!!!!

It took a while, but it was worth the wait! She’s a real cutie! Before I move on to today’s events, I want to mention a few things that happened yesterday. As usual, DD ended up in our bed before the end of our first night in Hefei. When I woke up and looked at her, I saw that she had her hands in a “praying” position. Then I heard her say, “Dear God, Thank you for Doodlebug. Thank you for keeping her safe until we could get here for her. We love her and promise to take good care of her. Amen”. It was so sweet.

Doodlebug went down for her nap yesterday without any problems, but when she awoke she had a terrible grieving experience. I held her in my arms as she sobbed uncontrollably. This went on for several minutes. I have heard about children who really grieve when they are separated from their caretakers, but this was something of new to experience for us. DD shut down on the first night, but she didn’t really have any major grieving incidents. Today was much better. Hopefully, she won’t have to go through that again anytime soon.

To end the day yesterday, we decided to eat at the restaurant in our hotel. Of course, Desheng Darling has already made friends with all of the ladies who work there. She has them all wrapped around her little finger. Last night one of them invited her to go up on the stage to sing with the band providing live music during dinner. Oh my! DD went up on the stage, spoke into the microphone and danced to the songs that the vocalist sang. Thank goodness, they were all slow sweet songs. She just smiled, batted her little eyes and had the audience entertained. It’s too bad that we didn’t have the camera with us!

Doodlebug is sleeping well throughout the nights. We, on the other hand, are not quite acclimated to the time difference. We wake up around 2:00 a.m. and can’t sleep for the remainder of the night. This makes for a really long day. I don’t think I mentioned this yesterday, but the one thing that we were told about Doodlebug is that she is VERY SMART! We didn’t have a chance to ask about anything else because she was crying so loudly when the orphanage director gave her to us. She seems to catch on to things pretty fast. She watches every move we make and seems to figure things out quickly. She also knows how to color in a coloring book and how to feed herself with utensils. One of the things that really impressed me was that she knew how to lace these cards with string. She doesn’t always get it perfect, but she knew what it was all about without anyone showing her.

(Taken this morning before breakfast)

She knows how to put on her own shoes and tonight she actually took a small bag of crackers, opened it up and poured the crackers into her bowl instead of just reaching her hand into the bag to grab what she wanted. It may not seem like a very big deal, but we are really seeing her come out of her shell.

(These pictures were taken this morning before going down for breakfast.)

Today we visited the Bao’s Memorial. It is located across the street from the hotel. It was soooooooo “hot!” The girls were exhausted! This is a picture of our group before we left the hotel this morning. Boy! Were we ever glad to get back to air conditioning!
After Doodlebug’s nap, we decided to take a trip to Carrefours, a “Wal-Mart “ type store. It was interesting to say the least. The cab drive alone was enough to make me think that I never needed to shop again. The girls loved it, but I am surprised that we actually made it there and back in one piece. I don’t think the English language has words to describe it, so I won’t even try! LOL

Inside the store, WE were the ENTERTAINMENT. Everybody stared!!! We couldn’t event shop because the people were crowding around us. It was a little weird. I was ready to leave after getting the few things that we needed.

Inside the taxi…no seat belts, car seats, a door that wouldn’t close properly and a transmission that was losing parts as we traveled down the road..LOL I was so glad to get back to the hotel.

There were several businesses in the same mall-type area as Carrefours, including a McDonald’s, so we decided to take Doodlebug in and let her try some ice cream. This was her response:

When we got back to the hotel, I started playing a game with Doodlebug bouncing her on my knees. That’s when we got the first real smile. We’d had a few straight-liners, but never a real smile until then. Isn’t she precious?

Tomorrow we are planning to go to the zoo. I think the girls will really love it! I’ll try to post about it later.