July 5-6, 2010 I am so sorry that I did not post an update yesterday or tell all of you more about Miss Ruthie. Yesterday was a very hard day for me and Jon Milledge, therefore the only thing that got done yesterday was survival! I can’t even begin to explain this country to anyone who hasn’t ever been here. I feel somewhat guilty in the fact that I haven’t enjoyed being in Ruthie’s home country yet, but I haven’t. This has been hard, very hard. The smell itself is enough to do me in. Then we are in a hotel that seems to be far away from the center of the city where everything is located. If Milledge was with me, I might be more inclined to venture out, but Caryn and I do not feel comfortable at all going out without our guide. So we feel very alone and isolated. Caryn and I asked the bellboy at our hotel yesterday if he could get us a cab to a McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, and he said that he could, but then we realized that we would have to find a taxi driver to get us back, and we don’t even know how to pronounce the name of our hotel. So we opted for the lunch buffet at our hotel. Honestly, I hope that a person can live on rice and watermelon, because so far that is all I have eaten. Jon Milledge has been a real trooper, but jet lag is killing him. Today has been the best day so far, so maybe all good days are ahead. He is wonderful with Ruthie and has not complained one time when I have needed help. He is at the hotel swimming pool right now by himself, hopefully swimming off some stress! Now, I know none of you came here to read a pity party about me and Jon Milledge. You all want to know about my precious Ruthie. She is perfect in every way, and I already can’t remember what life was like without her. Here are a few things that we know about her so far: ~She doesn’t cry unless she is tired, or you put her down when she wants to be held…which is 95% of the time. ~She sucks her tongue and rubs her shirt while sleeping…so cute! ~She has a beautiful smile with cute little dimples. ~She can belly laugh with the best of us and shakes all over when doing so. ~She look at me today for the first time and said Mama…warmed my whole soul! ~She loves Jon Milledge and thinks he is hysterical. ~Her personality is coming out a little at a time, and I have a feeling she is going to be a spit fire. She will point her finger and tell us something that sounds Chinese when we are not doing something she enjoys. ~She does not like to have her nose wiped…at all! ~She loves to play patty cake and peek a boo. ~She is already mimicking anything we do. ~She laughs with her mouth wide open. ~She LOVES to eat, and we haven’t found anything that she will not eat. ~Her favorite game is to take her big bow out of her hair and throw it on the floor so that we can pick it up and put it back in…because all of you that know me know that she will have a bow in her hair. Actually she has been very accommodating to me in this respect! My guide is amazed everyday that she has a new bow with each outfit…she doesn’t know me very well! ~We can tell that she was well taken care of and loved immensely. For this we are thankful. So what have we been doing the last couple of days? Lots! Yesterday was full of many appointments to finalize the Chinese side of the adoption. She is officially ours in the eyes of the Chinese government! Now we are just waiting on her passport, which should be ready on Thursday, and then we leave for Guangzhou on Friday. This is a funny story that happened yesterday at the Civil Affairs Office when we went to finalize the adoption. There was this man there who tried to look very mean and important…which I guess he was, since he was deciding whether I could adopt Ruthie or not. Anyway, I took a book that my friend Heidi had on her packing list called When you were born in China. It is a book about the whole process from start to finish about Chinese adoptions. The book was probably written in the late 1990’s. I took the book like Heidi did for people from the orphanage to sign wishes for Ruthie. This mean, scary man didn’t like the book at all. He said that the way Chinese adoptions were depicted in the book are no longer correct and that things were much better now. So get this…Ruthie’s orphanage hasn’t really allowed parents to come for visits since the spring of 2008 for whatever reason, but this man granted me permission to go because he wants me to see that it isn’t as bad as this book depicts! So on Thursday I will be going to see where Ruthie lived for the first 21 months of her life! I am thankful but nervous as well, because I don’t want to upset Ruthie. Her nanny that brought her to me on Sunday was pitiful when she had to leave without her, so I hope it doesn’t cause any problems for either of them. Caryn is very skeptical and doesn’t know if I should go or not, but I feel like I owe it to Ruthie to go and see where she lived. I need to know what to say when the questions come in a few years. Last night we went to a Dumpling Banquet and Chinese show. It didn’t go very well. The dumplings were all made to look like what was in them. Like the duck dumpling was in the shape of a duck, pork dumpling in the shape of a pig with eyeballs included. Jon Milledge was very nauseated, from jet lag, I think, so he ate nothing. Caryn did her best to eat a little of everything so we wouldn’t upset anyone. I spent all of my time feeding Ruthie. She ate a total of about 10 dumplings…out ate all of us! Once we were done eating, the show started and seemed to be very interesting with very extravagant costumes, but Ruthie cried, and Jon Milledge was sick…so we left after the third song. Oh, well! Today we went to see the Terracotta Warriors and Horses exhibit here in Xian. It was very interesting and quite spectacular when you consider how many years ago these warriors were made. The detail that was put into each one was amazing. Ok…God bless any of you that actually read all of that! Here is what you really came to see! Please continue to pray for us. Each day is getting better but this is still hard. I am so thankful for my friend, Caryn, if she wasn’t here I don’t know how in the world I would be coping.   Caryn and Jon Milledge with the Warriors     Pit 1 of warriors...over 6000 found here, and they are still excavating.   Happy girl!     Sleeping Baby Girl     Belly Laughing with Jon Milledge     First Bath     Bathing suits optional in China on a hot day in a city fountain!   Ruthie and her Orphange Director     Making it official with my thumbprint...     ....and Ruthie's footprint!   Us with Orphanage Director           This page hosted by