New Day, New Attitude

First, thank you to everyone for all of the encouraging and kind words you offered after my less-than-cheerful post yesterday. It helped to remember that we have so many wonderful people that love and support us.

Today we woke up in MUCH better moods. It was such a great feeling to be able to say that we are leaving tomorrow (albeit at 9:00 p.m). Tomorrow sounds so much more promising than “x” amount of days from now. It also helped that we had a beautiful day, full of sun and blue skies. We had no plans today (other than pick up the all-important visa this afternoon) so we spent the morning at a local park, enjoying the gorgeous day. The kids had such a fun time, playing at a children’s playground and strolling around the grounds. It was great to take a nice leisurely walk and observe the various activities that so many people enjoy at the park: singing, dancing, tai chi, ping pong, exercises… Stu and I both agreed that retirement looks pretty darn good here in China.

The rest of the day was low-key and we were thrilled when we received Pudding’s visa late this afternoon along with all of the other important paperwork needed for immigration. This means that our official trip is over and we can leave at anytime! Yahoo!!! Of course, we have a late flight tomorrow night so we have one more day to spend on the island but it feels so much better to know that we could leave if we wanted to. And tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day so we can stroll around the island (and do a little more shopping) and wear Pudding out before our flight. We fly from overnight from GZ to Los Angeles so we are really hoping and praying that he sleeps for the majority of the flight. I’m not sure what we’ll do if he is as active as he was on the flight from Beijing. I have lots of toys and treats packed and if things get too bad I’ll just keep reminding myself that we’ll never see the people on our flight again;)

While he is still incredibly happy and silly, Pudding continues to show us new layers to his personality every day. Several times recently he has become a little aggressive when other children approach him. He is content in the playroom playing by himself and watching the other children. However, if another child comes into his personal space he will slap or push them away. I’ve had to remove him from group play many times over the past few days. This does not bode well for creating a positive relationship between HD and him, as HD can be pretty aggressive herself. I think we might have quite a rough transition ahead for all of us.

We’ve also discovered that we are going to have to maintain a pretty strict schedule for him in the beginning, as well as limit his sugar intake. Yesterday was a long day and we missed napped due to our consulate appointment (by the way, who at the consulate thought it was a good idea to schedule the adoption appointments RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of naptime?!?!? Imagine what a room full of 36 newly adopted children, all missing nap, sounded like yesterday afternoon). On the car ride to dinner afterwards, we gave Pudding a lollipop to keep him quiet in the van. By the time we reached the restaurant he was C-R-A-Z-Y! Seriously, he was more hyped up than our Monkey ever thought of being, and that is saying a lot. He was screaming (happily) at the top of his lungs, throwing chopsticks and plates, banging the table, kicking the chair. He couldn’t sit still for a single second. It was like he was possessed. I have never seen him like that. Stu and I were at a complete loss for how to handle it. Finally after the food arrived and he got his belly full he calmed down a bit, but holy cow that was a crazy thirty minutes. Not sure if was no nap, sugar from the lollipop, being overly hungry or just the perfect storm of everything but we will try to never let those events happen at the same time again.

Okay, off to bed. One more sleep to go until we begin the long