Bonaparte is retreating

Whew, when she woke up, I still wasn't her favorite, she wouldn't let me touch her, tears leaking out, jerking her hand away from me, but she warmed up during breakfast a little more. Maybe it was the roomful of SCREAMING babies that made her feel not so alone. There are about a dozen French Canadian families receiving babies from a Guangxi orphanage, but I couldn't catch the name, not familiar to me. One of the babies was obviously in foster care because she keened for MAMA all during breakfast. There are a few Spanish families that must have received their children last week and it is so lovely/sad to think of these daughters of China spreading out to all parts of the world.

Xiao Ye has a runny nose and a little congestion, but otherwise, absolutely clean, no bug bites, trimmed toenails, wonderful hair do yesterday, so well taken care of by her foster family. Her family sent four pink qipao dresses that Mimi might be able to wear when she's 14, kind of big, but how generous. I gave her Motrin Cold before we went down to eat and I think that helped matters. She knocked it back like an old pro. I let her make mincemeat of the watermelon with her butter knife, but then when she started to hit the plate, I took the knife away, expected fireworks, but she just let me feed her the mincemeat. She sat on my lap and kissed my cheeks while I pledged fealty and support at the notary office. We went sundry shopping in a HUGE Walmart-like, but so glad it wasn't Walmart store in the bottom of the Dreamland (I think that's what Matthew called it) Mall. Capitalism has hit China with a BIG stick. Both YuYu and Xiao Ye did great riding in the carts, no problems and Xiao Ye helped put things in the cart. Then we went up a few levels for shoe shopping and she was just a 4yo, not especially difficult, not especially helpful, not Ellie, but who is?

She was hell bent for leather on the escalator though, not careful at all, and scarfed up her shin pretty bad. She cried, but the right amount, no extra drama. There's a 1.5 inch scar on her right shin below her knee with not very skilled stitch marks. I think she might just like the pell mell approach and I'll have to watch her pretty closely. We came back to the hotel room, ate cup-o-noodles and wonderful mandarin oranges, started watching Barbie Rapunzel in Chinese, she faded and let me lift her on the bed for a nap, no tears.
I asked Matthew to explain again that rules were for safety and I asked him to try to explain that hitting, sticking out her tongue and pinching mom was not acceptable, but until she gets more English, that's going to hard to explain/enforce. It might get hard again tonight, but today is MUCH better. I'm a mom who likes clear boundaries, she's a kid who hasn't had that many, but she did much better General Wellington today.

We will walk to the park when she wakes up from her nap and after that, I'll be scrambling to try to entertain them, but jumping back and forth on the Klingon death slabs (Chinese mattresses) keeps them fairly happy. YuYu's family can go with us to Green Mountain Park tomorrow. Not sure what that entails, but we will have lunch and there is a Miao minority dinner show, so that sounds intriguing.

Oh, and her feet are really big, bigger than YuYu's feet and YuYu has pretty normal sized feet for a 5.5yo. Xiao Ye had to put her footprint on the adoption certificate and it flopped over all the lines. Pretty cute. And man she's heavy, at least compared to YuYu and Mimi, my flyweights.