China Day 4 - Green Mountain

We had a pretty good first night with Talitha. She woke up fussy around four (but not really crying or screaming at all). I gave her some water in a bottle and rocked her a little bit. She put her head on my shoulder and seemed to enjoy it. She woke up around 7 with a low grade fever. I gave her a bottle of whole milk and some Motrin and when she woke her fever was gone. We didn't go sightseeing in the morning to let Tali rest. She slept a lot of the morning and I can just imagine how busy her brain is trying to process all that's happened. We stopped at Walmart and got a stroller (I have a carrier but she gets so sweaty I imagine she's uncomfortable) and some diapers. We had to get the size 1 diapers because she's so little (they are 5-8kg and she's 7kg - exactly what I guessed). The size 3 kept leaking even with folding them down and cinching them as tightly as I could. We're going back to Walmart tomorrow morning and I'll post pictures because it's pretty interesting.

We went to Green Mountain today. It's on a, well, mountain, and it has beautiful gardens and temples. It was rainy and awful but we could still appreciate the beauty.

Lots of people were lighting incense and praying. It was pretty cool to see.

This is huge sticks of incense lit for a goddess.

First stroller ride. The excitement is overwhelming. 

Sometimes I'm really grateful our guide doesn't speak perfect English. We saw the huge sticks of incense pictured above and I asked "Is that incest?"

Big burning sticks of incest...no thanks. I never realized how important that consonant is.

Later we visited a garden area with fish and ponds and walkways. The guide told us that the pond is full of lupus in the summer.

Note to self: Do not swim in this pond in the summer.

Later we saw a note that said "Lotus Pond." Ohhh, lotus. Yes, that makes more sense.

We climbed lots of stairs to get to a big tower. Jack wanted to run up it, of course. I graciously elected to sit on a bench with Tali. Our guide told Matt it would be best if he stayed with me. So Matt and Jack went up the tower. I asked the guide if it was unsafe for me to sit alone. He gestured to the tower and said "Well, they're men." And then after a pause, "Also, I don't want to go up the tower." Aha, I thought so.

Our guide is really funny and he and Matt crack jokes back and forth. We talk a lot about religion and politics and our respective governments. It's pretty interesting.

We got Talitha some formula at the store and she wolfed down a bottle. She happily eats or drinks anything we give her. She is very, very chill. I don't know how much of it is just a coping mechanism and how much is personality. I think she'll be pretty quiet overall. She laughs and smiles a lot when she plays with Jack. The rest of the time she's quiet. Not melancholy but not exuberant. She doesn't fuss hardly at all. She's probably the easiest baby I've ever met. I know that will change when we get home and she settles in.

She has a lot of orphanage behavior/characteristics. She has very low muscle tone and can sit and hold her head up but barely. Most often she is like a rag doll. Her legs splay to the sides when she lays on her back, like an infant. She also doesn't know how to be held:

See how she doesn't wrap her legs around our waists or hold on with her arms? That's typical of a kid who hasn't been held much. I think of Noah and other kids who have had a lot of attachment and positive attention and he automatically holds on. This is a skill she will have to learn.

She seems pretty content with us but to truly attach to us will be a process. She will have to learn that we are safe, that we can be trusted. We are her third caregivers in her short life. Her first set left her and so did her second. She will eventually come to realize that we will not leave her. Ever. That a family is trust and commitment and safety and for always.

We see little signs that she is attaching. Little tiny signs. Like when she reaches up to pat Matt's face or when she slowly touches my fingers and rubs my arm when she sits on my lap.

Today she started gently touching my red bracelet and rubbing the silver "t" charm. I took it off this afternoon, after all these months, and thought of this journey.

How far we have all come. And how far we have yet to journey. Together.