Linguine or Lo Mein?

Today was another relatively smooth day here in China!  P and I were up way early trying to clean things up a bit from Hurricane Emmie/Rosie.

We had a nice breakfast trying to figure out what R likes to eat.  It seems she will try anything, but has trouble with chewing and swallowing.  Even the tiniest bites are a little tough for her.  She doesn't know how to use a spoon or fork, and can't drink through a straw, so we've got a lot of work to do in that department. Still, we were really impressed with her interest in different foods, and trying to eat.

We headed out for several appointments, including the adoption finalization meeting.  The 24 hours after Gotcha Day is technically a "test drive" period, after which the officials ask you if you want to go through with the adoption.  Um, YEAH!  I'm not sure what she'd have to do to make us change our minds!  Maybe burn the hotel down?  Nah.

After that we were free for the day.  We went for some dim sum.  We ate an outrageous amount of  delicious food for $12.  We headed to Shamian and grabbed a Starbucks and went to the playground.  R was a little timid, but loved watching her Baba and E playing.  R seems to be developing a preference for her Baba right now.  We did some shopping at From China With Love and got some wonderful things for the girls to bring home.

Things got a little rocky at night.  Because we had already had Chinese food at lunch, we decided to send P out to grab a pizza.  He went out and I did bath time with the girls.  We had a blast!  Lots of laughing and playing and splashing.  R loves the bath.  Baba came back shortly thereafter, empty handed because the pizza place we remembered was gone.  We had a little meeting about a back-up dinner, and then it was time for Baba to head out again.  That's when the meltdown started...she was absolutely terrified to see P leave the hotel room and screamed for the entire time he was gone.  That's when I realized that the slight preference for Baba that I picked up on throughout the day was in fact real.  R actually seemed somewhat terrified of me when it was just us.  She recoiled, screamed, wacked her hand at me, shook her head "no", and had this awful, scared look on her face.

Even when Baba returned, she was so traumatized that she was still inconsolable and sadly went to sleep crying.  We felt so badly for her.

Thinking back, we made a few mistakes (don't make these!!!)...while Baba had done all of the "fun" things, I was the one who tried to put her on the potty (terrified!!!!), give her a shower instead of a bath (was advised this by orphanage staff but she was scared out of her mind), and gave her the cold medicine the orphanage staff gave us.  This might have contributed to her preference, or else it's just a role-reversal of how E rejected Baba last go round.

Hopefully, we can work on trying to balance things out a little better, and get her happy with both of us again.  It's still so so so early, so we're not going to stress about it too much.

'Lil ladybug girls

Making it official!

Could they look more mischievous?

Tao Tao Ju dim sum.  I've got to hand it to us...we do VERY well
even at local establishments where they speak NO English!  But the
stares we get for the entire meal get a little tiresome.

Some sort of chainsaw was making a loud noise that the girls didn't like.

R with her #1 guy.

Dimples!

Notice anyone missing?  We tried getting R in the pic, too, and she was
TERRIFIED of the statues!  Absolutely screamed when we tried to put her near them!

To answer a couple of questions....
1.  "Ahh-Yee" is R's Chinese nickname.  Her first name is Xiayi.  The Mandarin nickname would be pronounced "Yee", but in Cantonese, you put the "Ahh" in front of it.  So, yes, sort of sounds like Ayi.
2.  She is indeed as small as they told us. We put her on the scale and she weighed in at about 9 kg.  So, under 20 lbs.  She is a peanut!