The propeller bow

Mia seemed a little bit more at ease today. She is holding on to me for dear life and I am exhausted. I am sore all over from holding her... even though she is little, she still gets heavy. She slept until nearly 8 am today and we woke her, gave her a warm bath, dressed her, and went to breakfast. She sat in her high chair some of the time and ate some congee, bread, and egg. She began to smile more and would allow Griff to feed her. She will sit in the floor if I am right beside her or behind her and she will let me go into the bathroom while she lays on the bed. This too is improvement. She is allowing my mom to kiss her, but no holding. She still will not allow Griff to hold her either. She is still not accepting to the stroller, so we are hoping she will take to this tomorrow as I don't know how much longer I'm going to hold out at this rate. We napped a little today, not nearly as long as yesterday. Afterwards, we all met and went to the police station to complete her passport application and make her passport photo. It's funny that we saw all the same families at the popo as we saw on Gotcha Day... everyone is on the same schedule. Our guide , R, is absolutely wonderful. Very helpful and speaks great English. I feel much more at ease whenever she is near. After we returned to the hotel, we decided to venture out to Shamian Island, which is about a 25 minute cab ride. We are getting cabin fever pretty bad! We ate at a place called Lucy's where we had heard you could get a pretty good cheeseburger. It was decent...the fries were good. After dinner, we walked down the street and bought Mia some more shoes. The little shoes that you buy in children's boutiques at home that cost around $30-$40, were 25 yuen here... translated to $3 US. Awesome!!!! The lady who owned the store was very sweet and beautiful. As we were leaving, she waved goodbye to Mia and Mia waved back. Then a few steps later, Mia began to cry and reach and try to get out of my arms. We know that she was trying to get back to the lady at the shoe store. We are still not her family in her little mind. That was sad... but it is what we will work through over the course of days, weeks, months, possibly years. We will be going back there this weekend and I'm going to stock up. Lucky I brought an extra suitcase... LOL. Today Mia wore a red dress that my mom had monogrammed and I put a huge propeller bow in her hair. She looked like an angel and was the cutest baby in this entire hotel! Everyone stared and I know some made fun of her huge bow... but do you think I care? Nope... not one bit. We are doing some sightseeing tomorrow as a group... got an early day so I must go to bed now that my little Chinese princess is finally asleep. Until tomorrow...

Much love,
Ashley