Playgrounds, Pools and Shopping

First, Steve has posted some videos and photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/skbohler/ChinaTrip

Cate loves to play games. She loves to chase Steve. She sees him ahead and screams, "BABA!" and takes off after him, laughing and running. Then she runs back to me and does it again. It is amazing to watch her playful personality unfold.

We borrowed a stroller today from the laundry across the street, excited to get out and explore this little island. The minute I put Cate in it, she began to cry. This is the second or third time she has cried when I have set her down in something and I don't know why. Maybe at the orphanage she had to spend a lot of time seated in a walker or a high chair and she feels trapped. I am not sure. There is so much about her life we will never know. I reassured her and started to walk. She cried for a few moments, then sat tentatively and finally, relaxed and started to laugh and play games in the stroller. I wish I could just carry her every place because I am sure it is better for the bonding process, but she weighs only a pound or two less than Alex... that coupled with the fact that she won't let Steve hold her has made for a lot of back strain over the past few days. The stroller was a welcome relief.

Anyway, it is beautiful here. Quiet and a little surreal because there are so many adoptive families here on the last leg of their journey back home. The shops are geared toward proud parents eager to buy Chinese dresses and squeaky shoes and souvenirs to bring home, but the shop owners are friendly, the shopping is fun and the prices are great. (I will admit that I did see the very same outfit I discussed in my last post for 49 rmb.... in Nanjing the woman started at 298 and I bought it for around 120 or 140....oh, well...) We strolled every place. After six months of winter in NY, the trees, the flowers, the warm, humid air, the prospect of swimming are spoiling us and creating denial of the fact that we will go home to, at best, mud season, and at worse, a few more weeks of winter. The warm breeze on my skin and the frizz in my hair have me envisioning evenings on the deck and days at the beach upon our return. It will be tough to readjust.

We walked along the river. Older men and women were out practicing Ti Chi, some with wooden swords, others, just movement. Another group danced. Children and parents and grandparents played badminton in the open spaces. It was good to be out with the feeling of a carefree Sunday in the air. We discovered a playground teaming with children and Alex played for an hour, delighted, I am sure, to have found a spot made for kids, relatively free of rules. Cate watched for awhile and then hopped out and started to run. Someone came along with a small dog, and she was captivated. I have been told that the children from orphanages are usually afraid of animals, sometimes even stuffed animals, because they usually have had no contact with them before, but Cate loved the dog and I had to pull her back to keep her from running right up to it.

At the moment, she is napping. Steve and Alex are out at the pool and I am sitting here in the dark. The Going Home Barbie (disturbing on too many levels to discuss), a gift from the hotel, lays on the bed, and I wonder, if by the time I leave Guangzhou, I too will be blond, blued-eyed, enormously busted, dressed to kill and carrying a dainty little Chinese baby with a placid smile on her face... somehow, I think not... but as I emerge from the plane in Newark, sweaty, frizzy, smelly, bags under my eyes to my toes with a heavy crying two-year-old and a kicking and screaming four-year-old (who will not want to leave China, I am sure), I will have that serene Barbie smile on my face ( and I will haggle for a silk miracle bra to take care of the rest).