Giant Pandas!

Hi everyone! So today is Wednesday (or Tuesday for all of you back in the States) and today we went to the Panda Reserve in Chengdu! We were able to sleep in a little longer which was nice. We were wiped out! Most mornings we’re up by 5 or 5:30am but today we slept in until about 6:30. I think both girls would have slept longer if I hadn’t woken them up. At any rate, today was a tougher day with Jasmine. She was pretty fussy this morning which could be because she was tired, it was rainy or she was grieving or a combo of all 3. A lot of people don’t realize it, but babies do grieve. People assume that when you adopt an infant, everything’s ok, the baby doesn’t know or remember anything but that’s not true. They may not have a clear memory like an adult can remember details but they remember being abandoned. They remember being alone and not having anyone answer their cries. They miss their birth mom and their nannies and they grieve. I have to say that one of the toughest things about being an adoptive parent is figuring out when your child is crying over brushing her teeth because she's tired or if she’s crying because some fear of being abandoned again has been triggered and came up. We have a new “normal” that we’re constantly trying to figure out which makes parenting an extra challenge. But I also have to say that those same challenges turn into incredible rewards when we’re able to figure out a tiny piece of what our child is grieving and help them get it out so they can heal.

So, despite the rough morning, we all had a fantastic time at the Panda Reserve. It was gorgeous, our walk way lined with a canopy of green bamboo trees. A light misty rain was falling and it was cool but not so cool that we were cold. We were able to see not only the giant pandas, but also red pandas! We paid a little extra so that Lily & Jim were able to sit and hold and pet one while I took pictures. If Jasmine hadn’t been sleeping….oh well! ☺ Lily was in hog heaven! You know how she loves animals! We took a ton of pictures!

The afternoon, we gave Jasmine her first bath! Well, first bath with us anyway! We held off until today because apparently bath time at the orphanage was a little traumatic. It was more like an assembly line and the kiddos didn’t get a chance to play so most didn’t always have fond bath time memories. We obviously didn’t want to add one more thing for her to be traumatized over so held off until today. She did really well and really enjoyed playing a bit so it turned out to be a good idea. ☺ The rest of the afternoon, we hung out and eventually got out of the room and did a little more shopping before we came back to the room to eat dinner and get the girls to bed. Bedtime was definitely much more traumatic tonight. I don’t know if she’s just really missing her nannies or what but please pray for her and for us that we’d have wisdom to know how to best handle the situations as they come up.
Well, I’m pooped so I’m off to get this emailed off to you all. Thanks again for all of your prayers and we’ll be talking to you soon! Tomorrow (Thurs. for us) we’ll be doing some shopping for cultural souvenirs and then Friday afternoon (I think) we’ll be flying to Guangzhou for the last leg of our trip! We can’t wait to get back to see you all. Talk to you soon! ☺