Day Seven - Sunday, April 21, 2013

Another free weekend day.  We have walked about every direction from the hotel at this point, and seen many stores and bought many souvenirs.  I was having a hard time getting motivated to even leave the room, but Heidi did not relish the idea of staying in all day with the busy sweetie.  We had our breakfast, and then hung out in the room all morning.  We spent some time trying to throw M&Ms and catch them in our own and each other's mouths.  Elora thought that was pretty fun.

We got out later in the afternoon and went back to the restaurant Heidi ate at the first day she and I were here before meeting Elora.  Her and Elora ate there, and I hit the McDonald's again.  The streets were packed though!  To be expected I guess, but the weekends are even crazy busier than the weekdays.  One weird thing happened.  Everyone in the crowd was staring up in the sky, as though looking at one of the apartment buildings.  They were definitely not looking at the big screens.  It was making me crazy.  People were taking their cameras out and taking pictures, pointing, and many of them had a very concerned look on their face.  There was also an ambulance on the street.  The best we could figure was perhaps someone was threatening to jump or something.  We looked and looked and never could see what they were looking at.  Something definitely wasn't right though.  Weird...

A couple of side notes about Elora...She still likes for me to carry her around and has her sweet Daddy moments, but she has really become Mommy's little girl.  She is on her like glue and goes on along well with anything Heidi says or does.  She spends most of her time in the room hanging out on Mom's bed, and only comes to me if she wants something.  Food is a big passion for Elora though, and her and Mom spend a lot of time eating together so I'm probably missing out some there.  For some reason she can easily be angered by me and always acts like I'm going to take things from her.  It really makes us wonder about what life was like in her foster home, like maybe if the dad rubbed her wrong and gave her this trust issue, or it could just be she loves Heidi that much, or I'm just that annoying sometimes, or any combination thereof.  :)  In any case, she still does really well with both of us overall and God has been so good to open all of our hearts for this adjustment.  And honestly, if she is going to be closer to one of us it should be Heidi as before we know it, I'll be back to work and she'll be spending loads of time with Mommy.

The other thing...she has been saying a couple of things over and over.  Usually she says them with a bad tone like she is mad.  We just know it is bad, and she is probably swearing at me, Heidi and the world.  One of them sounds like DaBuDine and the other one sounds like DaBago.  Many of the things she says are apparently Hakka, and many people here don't even speak that.  If it is Mandarin, though, Mr. Li may know what she is saying and we intend to ask him on Monday.

Elora loves drawing on Mom's puzzle book while she is solving them.

Picture from 2nd floor of McDonald's...lots of people out there!

Cutey Pie!

Notice all of the people  in the back looking up and to the left?  I just don't know why...

A rare moment of Elora having Mommy carry her...I had to take pictures.  Elora loves to take flyers from everyone and give them to Mom.  It is so funny.

Another photo by Elora