Loving Some Amazing Kids

Last night I made myself stay up until at least 9:30 so I could sleep till when I needed to wake up. So, I stayed up a little bit and watched the beginning of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I got really tired really fast though, so I ended up stopping halfway through.I slept all the way through the night till 6:30 though, so that was good. Charlie had apparently woken up at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. So she stayed up and blogged and such.

We went to the orphanage today and had a bunch of fun. All the kids know us now and get excited when we walk in. We went upstairs to where the big kids go in the morning (because its cooler) and played around. They were watching what looked like Tom and Jerry, but saw us and got excited. We took out the crayons and coloring pages and they had a blast with that. They liked to see all the different colors.

After coloring we went and visited the baby room and played with them. I found my favorite one… but I don’t know her name. She is just absolutely adorable! She’s pretty chubby and has big eyes, and she’s just always happy and smiley. She loves to get attention and to be played with.

I walked out into the hallway after playing with the babies and the 10 year old I talked about yesterday was there. Once he saw me he ran up to me and took my hand and pulled me along through the hallway. He took me to the elevator and we went down to the bottom floor, but he noticed I had my camera and tried to play with it but noticed it didn’t work (it was off) and stopped. A girl got back on and took us up to the top again, and he forgot what he wanted to show me. We went back into their room and he sat down with me and we watched some tv show that had something to do with the monkey king. He didn’t want any of the other kids to touch me or for me to give them any attention while I sat there; he wanted it all on him. He held my hands and if I took them off for something he would pull them back to him.

Halfway through the morning we went back to the big kids and took out the tutus and head bands. (it’s really funny because now they know that our bag is full of goodies for them, so whenever we go towards our bag they all crowd around to see what we have). They all just flipped when they saw Hannah (who was our model) put on the tutu and headband. They loved them so much! It was so cute to see them run around in them, and the ones that don’t have much hair or don’t have their hair done much loved the headbands. We took the music out that Charlie had brought (my iPod died) and did dances like the Chicken Dance, Tooty Ta, and other fun things and they all thought it was the funniest thing. I wish I were able to send pictures because their smiles are priceless! The nannies thought it was funny too and laughed at us. Bliss got some pretty good video of us doing it, so hopefully I’ll be able to get that for later. We made a bunch of tutus and we had some left over (and headbands) so we gave the rest to the nannies to keep and they seemed pretty excited about that.

While we did the dance and such Susan, Katie, and Deena went to the bank to exchange travelers checks for the orphanage donations that they’re buying. They said it was such a pain because the bank had never done cashed travelers checks before… Susan said that she basically had to sell her first and second born to get them exchanged. Unfortunately they weren’t able to get the water heater and AC units today because they need to do that with the director who was out, but they’re going to go back tomorrow and do that.

We met up with them downstairs after the music time and by then it was time for us to leave. So we went back to the hotel and ate some lunch. We actually got some watermelon today which was a big treat because we’ve all been craving some nice cold fruits! We went back to the room and I took a nap because I was exhausted.

We went back to the orphanage at 3 and went to see the babies. I found my little favorite one and played with her and I got to feed her. They have this really thick substance that they put in their bottles… it looks like really thickened formula and I think it may be a formula and congee or cereal mixture… but not very appetizing.

I walked down to the older kids and they were having watermelon for a snack. The 10 year old boy took me and sat me down next to him. He showed me his coloring book which he was very proud of. Molli took out her treats that she had brought for the kids which were pixy sticks and lollipops. Lily (our Chinese guide) tried the pixy sticks first to see what they tasted like and she gave a really disgusted sour face because they don’t like sweet stuff in China. The nannies thought they were interesting too, but the kids LOVED them (what’s not to like, right?).

We took out the parachute we brought and they thought it was fantastic. They bounced the ball they had around in it and we showed them how they could get underneath it kind of like a tent and hold the handles down and they thought it was really fun. Props to Mrs. Hammond and mom on that one!

We let them run around for a bit and they found their tattoos that we’d done with them yesterday and brought them to me, so we did more of that. They love those. I brought out the nail polish too and all the little girls thought it was so much fun. They even stayed still for us while we did it and after while it dried! They all walked around showing us how pretty their nails were, just like ours. ☺ Thank you nana for the nail polish! You brightened those precious kids' day☺.

By that time we had to leave, so we said our goodbyes and left. We went back to the hotel and kind of hung around. We got all of our gifts for the nannies ready in their bags to bring tomorrow. Susan said that she’s going to go down to the market tomorrow and buy some chocolate too for them. Today, being day 5, we’ve been craving some things from home… so we brought out the peanut butter and crackers and they tasted so good! I don’t remember peanut butter ever tasting that good. Hannah, Bliss, and Molli came into our room and talked a little bit and we got Hannah to eat some of our snack too, which was good because she hasn’t been eating much of the Chinese food here.

For dinner we went down to KFC, but it’s not the KFC we all know and love (well, some of us love…). They had all different sorts of sandwiches that looked like they were different meats. We went with the popcorn chicken… but even that was different. They had some sort of seasoning on it that made it very spicy, so by the time we were finished our mouths were on fire. Everything here in Chenzhou is very spicy. The fries we ordered were good though, just like a taste from home☺. While we were waiting for our food Elyssa and I spotted a balloon guy outside with really cool balloons, so we went and bought one. They were all so adorable!

It’s about time for bed… can’t wait to sleep on this nice rock hard bed! It seriously feels like a piece of plywood that we’re sleeping on… we all have sore backs from sleeping on the beds. I feel like the floor would be more comfortable! But anyways, I’m tired. So goodnight! Pray for us because tomorrow is our last day at the orphanage, and it will be very hard to leave.