She has a good appetite and we haven’t had any problems getting her to eat. When we went down for breakfast we tried to feed her a bit of congee (rice porridge), which she absolute loves. We almost couldn’t shovel it fast enough – not sure if that’s her eating fast or us as new parents being a bit challenged.
Then back into the bus for our trip back to Chongqing. The weather is a bit nicer today, but still overcast and foggy. Same bumpy roads and still a very long trip. Samantha seemed to be doing very well, eating on schedule, bowel movement, everything normal. That was until we were about ½ hour away from Chongqing when the bus hit a huge bump. Samantha was in a deep sleep at that time and woke up screaming, not crying. She was absolutely inconsolable, and continued to scream until she fell asleep again just before we pulled into the hotel. We waited for everyone to get off the bus before we got up hoping that Samantha would keep sleeping and we could quietly get up to our room. To our surprise, after only 5 minutes of sleep, Samantha woke up just as we got off the bus and was happy and smiling again. I guess she had had enough of the bus.
Once we got to the room Shirley did a bit of unpacking while I played with Samantha on the floor with her stacking cups. She seemed quite content sitting there and playing, but did start to cry if she saw Shirley or I leave the room. Hopefully that’s a good sign. We then fed her cereal, gave her a bath – which again she seems to love and sat there splashing and playing with her cups in the water – then gave her a bottle and put her to bed. Although there’s a crib in the room, while we’re in China we’ve chosen to have her sleep in our bed as she would have with her foster parents, even though she’s like a little propeller, spinning all night. The only challenge we have is that her cough causes her to vomit, which was great after we gave her the bottle in the middle of the night. We were ok with the midnight feeding, but the midnight bed change and pseudo shower we can say we’re going to have to get used to. We know, all you experienced parents are sitting laughing, thinking “they’ve got a lot of learning to do”, and you’re right. We don’t deny it, but for the time being we’re reveling in the experience. We would say though that the round trip to Qianjiang is nice for the parents, but puts a huge strain on the children traveling with a bunch of strangers. This is something that we would not recommend for the future.
So, another day down and one day closer to getting back to Canada, and back to our friends and family. Even though we are thrilled to spend time learning more about Samantha’s heritage and the area where she was born, the trip itself takes it’s toll on our emotions.
We hope everyone is doing well, and don’t stop dropping us short notes. It’s nice to get a few words from home.