Guangzhou

Today was a busy day but was infinitely more successful in terms of schedule and sleep. We put our plan into action and kept Maddox up all morning. By lunchtime, he was rubbing his eyes constantly and fighting off sleep with all his might. He still required a little walking and holding but went to sleep quickly. He slept for 1.5 hours and we woke him up just as we were loading our bags onto the bellhop's luggage cart to leave Taiyuan. He probably needed a little more than that, but we were SO glad that we got what we did. The properly timed nap paid huge dividends.

He sat in his own seat on the plane and accepted the seat belt when he saw that Mommy and Daddy had to wear one, too. He ate snacks and for the first time spontaneously signed more when he wanted more. We were very excited about that! The picture is a little dark because I used an action mode without the flash, but hopefully you can see him putting his hands together with the fingers of each hand bundled. We are having trouble getting him to learn the sign for food because often when he is hungry he is tearful and we are rushing to get the snacks and don't have the chance to sign it (tough to teach a crying toddler). On the plane he played with his toys and played with Play-Doh which turned out to be a big hit. An extra special thanks to Kris who put together a BRILLIANT toy bag with all sorts of variety that has kept us going. That brings me to another new item about Maddox: he gets bored now. He soaks up every ounce of stimulation he can. But we are, for the first time, seeing him get bored with certain toys and certain types of play. So, we are glad for the impressive variety Kris included (you would think she has had boys this age, oh wait, she does!)

We arrived in Guangzhou today and it is paradise... It seems to be a very westernized, modern city. All traffic rules are obeyed here which is in sharp contrast to Taiyuan. Our guide speaks excellent English which is a desperately welcomed change from what we had in Taiyuan. We are in a beautiful room on the 11th floor of the White Swan Hotel (which many of you will know about from the books), right next to 2 other families who are also using CWA, the Hendersons and the Millers. We chatted with them on the tour bus (yes, tour bus) on our way to the hotel from the airport and they are going to be great friends. They referred to us as "the young married couple" and rightly guessed that we could not have been far over the lower age limit of 30 to adopt in China. We were on the bus during Maddox's bedtime which brought some tears, but we relieved those with Cheerios. We finally got him up in the bath (which he absolutely loves) and then to bed. We started out with him in one of our beds before the hotel staff brought a cute wooden crib for us. The top half of one of the railing sides drops down making the top of the railing line up perfectly with the top of the bed. The crib has an abacus on the other rail for playing. What a great crib...

Thank you for your dedicated prayers, posts, and emails. We crave the emails and read them all the time. I am about to fall asleep right now but your encouraging words keep me blogging. Tomorrow is the medical exam. In Christ, JP.