Day 3 with Kimi and Day 8 with Maria!

CJ 11.24.2010

Day 3 with Kimi and Day 8 with Maria!

This morning at Breakfast we met up with Amy and then on our way out we chatted with the other couple living on our floor. Their coordinator (C) knew Kimi!!! She said that Kimi was in their program for a while. There is a program in Hengyang with ICC. http://english.chinaconcern.org I am certain she was in their program just after she came into the orphanage… Then she went to foster care. C is certain that Kimi is ok, she just needs a family to teach her! C wrote us a note, that tomorrow when we visit the Welfare Center (Orphanage) that we can talk with S and she should have some more info for us! Yay!!! They might even be able to find some former pictures of Kimi!! But most of all the information!!!

Also at breakfast we learned that the foster parents have left the province. Kimi was their last child in their care (or not). So they were free now and they have already moved away, they were in their fifties… so their children are grown as well. I am relieved… I am very disgusted with them and really didn’t even want to meet them after seeing how Kimi lives. It was going to be hard for me to fake being happy to meet them and THENNNN give them a gift! Ugh! So God answered my prayers before I even asked!! So we don’t have to meet them. This way we will get to tour the orphanage and hopefully visit with ICC people. We will take the orphanage director to lunch and plan to visit a park afterward and I should be able to do some photographing and visit Kimi’s finding place.

Today it was raining and cold… so we did not go to the park we had planned… but we did go to the embroidery factory! Amazing!!!! Such beautiful work!!! Most stuff was way more money than we would want to pay! We went thru the museum then into the work area and watch some of the women who do the work. That was amazing! Finally we visited the sales areas! There were three rooms… finally, wouldn’t you know it we found the piece that we really like in the clearance section! Haha! I also bought some little purse/pocket mirrors, pocketbooks, a set of placemats with matching chopsticks and a gorgeous scarf. Our embroidery art was a picture of some scenery of Hunan Province, where we are now, where Kimi is from! When we get it framed at home I will try to remember to photograph it and post it. They had to take it out of the frame for us! Ha! It took them like 15-20 minutes to get it out! Meanwhile Jerry went to change Maria’s diaper… oh dear… she went ballistic on him… screaming mad that he took off her shoes and loosened her belt to change her! Oh my! You could just tell she was MAD MAD MAD!!!!! Oh boy! little squirt! I suppose she will get over her issues with Jerry soon enough!

I forgot to share that yesterday we went shopping at a children’s store for a couple pairs of pants for Kimi! The pants here are hilarious! They are SUPER baggy around the middle… I mean huge and on Kimi even more than normal! But they are long enough and they stay up on her skinny bod! We also bought her a pair of shoes… the one we sent her in the care package are HUGE on her! About and inch and a half too big!! The new ones are 25 cm. The old ones are a 17 in children’s size. I don’t understand how the children’s size works though. The old ones will be nice though when she grows into them! Once we are in Guangzhou I think I will shop a little more for both of them. I don’t need many, but I saw a few in the store and they were adorable!! Little black and brown everyday shoes!

We came back from the embroidery shop, and ordered our normal room service… actually we tried some new things today… on accident. We ordered some things we knew what they were and when they came they were not what we thought! Ha! It is so much easier to eat here… we can feed the kids, training Kimi and then put the girls in bed while we eat. Otherwise they stand next to us and stare at us for more food… well, mostly Kimi. Then when you give her another bite… she will spit it out because she is full.

We had dinner tonight with our hotel neighbors and their precious daughter. She is 9 and wanted to feed baby Maria at the table. She is such a little firecracker! SOOOO smart… she has already been drilling them on the US, politics and mentioned Harvard and doctor! They have this cool translator… you type in the English word and it will translate to Chinese or vice versa. It works good for them!!! She is so gentile and loving with the girls. I think I have a picture of them together, maybe.

Anyways… Kimi is definitely doing better today in her responses… she is still testing us big time. We think she is no dumby… she only picks on the stuff she knows will get her in trouble. Like my camera… she will just reach a finger to touch it, then look at me smiling to see if I am going to do something… Jerry observed this from across the room… I didn’t see it or she Would have had to go to her little time-out spot. Speaking of timeout spot… tonight she went into the bathroom and grabbed some of my makeup… she had been in trouble for the same thing about 5 times today, same makeup case every time, too. So I took it from her, took her and plopped her down in her spot next to the bed, against the wall… I put her legs out in front of her and her hands in her lap… I went and put the make-up away, when I came back she was turned to the side laughing at me!!! So I grabbed her little shoulders and twisted her back to the position, telling her no again as stern as possible… and as soon as I stood back up, “WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” I was SHOCKED!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t even know she could cry… she shows no negative emotion… I mean why bother until now. It was so great! That means she hasn’t been completely crushed! Her crying is kind of funny too… she opens her mouth sooo big, I didn’t even know her mouth was that big!!! However her cry is pretty subdued compared to screaming banshee Maria!! Even Maria’s cry was somewhat subdued when she came to us. There were tears even! We were so happy to see it, and yet she was sooo pitiful that Jerry had pity on her and picked her up to comfort her… so torn, we want her to know that we will comfort, but at the same time, she was being “punished” for something she knew she shouldn’t do… So she stopped and was just sniffling for a couple of minutes, then we went on and Jerry was doing something with Maria and out came the FAKER cry from Kimi!!!! Ha! While looking at Jerry… He started to respond and then we realized she was fakering! Haha! She is in there!!! Anyways… that was huge for us!

After that drama it was time for bed! Tomorrow is going to be a BIG day… and I am so tired!! I should be able to get the photos done tomorrow.