Today my daughter had to tell her friends goodbye, knowing that she probably will never see them again. It hurt me to watch her do that and yet, I am so thankful we had the opportunity to see them again. We met the camp at an indoor swimming pool and both girls had a fabulous time playing. Xiaoli spent most of her time with her friend, Kayla. She definitely doesn't know how to swim but she isn't afraid of the water either. She had a grand time on the slides and I only thought I was going to have to jump in once to rescue her as she came off the end of the slide. After that, the lifeguard was ready for her. : ) After swimming was over we went outside to tell everyone goodbye. I was crying before we reached the group. Xiaoli said a casual goodbye to everyone and then Kayla and one other girl followed her out of the gazebo. She never did cry but I cried enough for both of us. Kayla is past the age to be adopted....if she wasn't we would probably break some kind of record for the fastest 3 adoptions on record, because I would be coming back for her. She is the one who asked several months ago if a family might come adopt her like Xiaoli's was coming for her. That absolutely breaks my heart!
This afternoon we spent time with Penny, our guide from last year. It was so nice to see her again and she was wonderful with Avery. She took us to McDonald's for lunch(at Emily's request). It was Xiaoli's first visit to McDonald's and she had a chicken sandwich and Oreo McFlurry. She said she liked it. While we were there Penny took some time to talk to her about leaving China and coming to America. She said she was sad and a little bit nervous but she wasn't scared. Penny was so kind and compassionate. She sat and rubbed her arm while she talked to her. It was so sweet and I am so thankful for her. We visited the Muslim market after lunch. Emily found a jade dog to match a jade cat she got last year. I am not the bargainer that Shawn is so we didn't buy much. I will have to do better in Guangzhou. Once we got back to the hotel, the girls really started having fun together. They have played Uno, colored, and played on the DSi all afternoon and had a lot of fun. There has been much laughter between the two of them and it is so nice to hear. At one point, while I was writing this, they jumped in the doorway of the room and yelled to scare me. It worked! I jumped and they laughed and laughed. This afternoon Avery has tried more English words when Emily says them first. I think she is going to do fine with the language. She definitely reads more English than understands spoken so we may use that too for a while. Either way, I think she is going to try hard to learn English and will do well. I think homeschooling her is going to be so good. She needs another surgery for her cleft to repair her gumline. I can see where a couple of teeth are missing on the top. Also, I think it affects her speech so not all her words are pronounced exactly right. Of course, I can't really tell because I only know about 4 mandarin words but that is my impression. She does seem self-conscious of her teeth and speech so I am thankful she will not have to go to middle school in 6 weeks! I can't think of a worse place to drop her right now. Once again, I am thankful for the privilege I have in homeschooling my girls.
We leave for Guangzhou tomorrow evening. It will be Xiaoli's first time to fly in an airplane. Having seen her this week, I don't think she will be scared. I think she will want to sit at the window and watch us take off. I hope so! I wonder what will be going through her mind as we take off from her birth province. That is the worst thing about the language barrier. We can't have a discussion of any depth; it is all basic communication right now. So I am unable to ask her how she is feeling about something and then really talk about it with her. Pray for her heart as we leave Xi'an. I am sure she will have mixed emotions. Thanks for the prayers for us as we wrap up week 1 and begin week 2. Today marks the halfway point of the trip so its all downhill from here. I am happy that we are getting closer to seeing my other 3 girls and Shawn. I have missed not having them here. Goodnight from Xi'an.
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