Another day with smiles

This is our last night in Nanning. We are anxious to be leaving and heading to Guangzhou for the final round of paperwork and exams. Nanning is a tropical area and the last couple of days has been hot. Yesterday it was about 85 and very humid. Not ideal weather to have a 25 lb little one strapped to me. We went to a National Museum today. It was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. Our Holt rep has been so wonderful. She has really tried to schedule activities for the families for us to really experience the Chinese culture. All of us are ready to leave this hotel and go to the White Swan hotel. It is just a hotel for adoptive families. We have been going to a park every day that is near this hotel. Mikenna loves being outside. This afternoon the park was very busy because it is Sunday and families were all out enjoying the day. The unusual thing is that even though it is very warm here much of the year, they dress in a lot of layers, especially the children. Mikenna always wants a jacket on even though she is sweating. The Chinese think if they dress the children warmly, they wont get colds. They also have these unique pants called: slit pants. The babies and toddlers don't always wear diapers and so the slit pants allows them to squat and pee anywhere and anytime. Somehow I don't think this would go over well in the US. At this same park, they have amusement rides. They have this one ride that would never be allowed in the US because all the lawyers in the US would have a field day with the possible injuries from the way the ride could hurt someone. It was pretty funny to watch but very unsafe. The other thing that wouldn't go over is how the children ride on scooters her in Nanning. There are no helmets or even seats for these little ones. They squat on a tiny space at the bottom of the scooter. The cars and scooters here are in great shape. We haven't seen an accident. It is organized chaos the way they drive and get around. They understand the flow of traffic. Pedestrians do not have the right of way. Tomorrow our flight leaves at 8:15pm and lands in Guangzhou an hour later. Then we have another hour drive to the hotel so I will not be able to post a blog. I will update on Tuesday(china time). Mikenna had a fairly good day. We definitely can get her to smile and today she actually engaged other children in play. That encouraged us. She did have a 2 hour crying session of asking for her foster mom. She wanted me to take her 'home'. Talk about breaking our hearts. Our rep said that it should get better once we get home because she wont be around Chinese people and she'll have only Paul and I to depend on. Please continue to pray for our little one. She is grieving and I can't really do anything but hold her and kiss her. Most of the time she responds ok to my kisses and telling her in Chinese that I love her. Good bye from Nanning, China.