A Walk in the Park... Sometimes

Itty bit slept 11 hours last night!  Mommy got 9 hours and Daddy, er, well, he's definitely trying not to take a nap today.

She woke up in a great mood and happy to see us.  Then when we were getting ready for the day, Zoe decided that she wanted nothing to do with Daddy and became glued to me.  I mean, the girl wouldn't even let me put her down.

We've been told that can happen where the child might attach more to one parent than the other.  My fear was she would latch onto Eriek because he seems to be the Pied Piper of children.  They have always flocked to him.  I was worried she wouldn't want anything to do with me, then Eriek would have to go right back to work when we got home, and she would be inconsolable.  So, as tough as it is that she is hit or miss with Daddy right now, we're glad she's latching onto Mommy.

We had some Skype time with Mimi, Pops and big sister.  Zoe was very excited and kept pointing to Arella.  Arella was initially excited kissing Zoe on the screen again, then she started to get a little jealous and walked away.  When Daddy took Zoe out of view, Arella was happy to come back and talk to Mommy.  Looks like we'll have some adjusting to do for a bit when we come home.  Obviously we expect some of that, I just pray that God equips me with wisdom in how to best handle it.

 Amy, our guide, took us to a park today.  I'm not totally sure, but I think this building was some sort of shrine to Mao Tse-Tung's family.  Apparently he was from this province, and she talked a lot about his first wife and his brothers.  And she loves to tell us how "spicy" people are from this province. That's a great bit of Chinese history, right?

All over this park people were gathered doing exercises.  Exercising at a park is pretty much always done in a group and takes the form of Tai Chi, ballroom dancing, belly dancing, or pretty much any other form of dancing that usually involves really bad American music that I have never heard.  Zoe did like it when I joined the outskirts of the ballroom dancing and twirled her around.

 Of course, this was also our first real time of being out in public with Zoe.  We got all kinds of stares and looks.  And people here are not shy to come up and tell you what they're thinking and try to mess with your baby.  Don't worry, we were aware of this in advance and took it in stride.  Our guide was really great, so we had her translate everything they were saying to us.  Mostly the older women would run up and try to cover her with a blanket or tell me she needs more clothes on.  Here people put at least 5 layers of clothes on babies if it drops below 60 degrees.  There were a lot of double takes when they realized us white people had a Chinese baby.  Young women usually smiled and talked to Zoe.  Men are different.  Some just laugh.  One must have asked Amy 6 times if the baby was Chinese.  Most people though just stare and stare and stare.  We just look back and smile proudly.

The park was pretty and very big.  Don't worry, the haziness is not so much pollution here.  It's foggy in this season.

We're checking out the koi pond here, but Zoe is more fascinated with the trees.

Look, they even have baby koi for kids!

Yes, this is a dog with a full outfit- sweatshirt, sweatpants with tail hole and 4 matching shoes. No wonder they get upset that I don't have enough clothes on my child!

Family picture as Zoe falls asleep again in Mommy's arms.

Next stop, my favorite, Chinese grocery store!  I love how different things are here.  How different you ask? This is the walkway down to another level.  I guess it's a food aisle, too.

Eriek is hanging out with chickens for sale.

And yes, that is a flat pig's head.  Awesome.  Aren't you hungry now?

Then we finally came back to the hotel to relax.  We had some seriously sweet giggle time with Zoe and she started cooing, almost purring, like Gizmo.  Such a precious little girl!

Just laying low the rest of the day. Tomorrow it's off to the embroidery museum. Hmmmm....