wed-fri, nanning

ok, so, no pretty lies here... it has not been an easy transition. fu xiang is actually a very easy baby ... her cooperation can be bought with a rice cracker, and she can go from cries to smiles with a simple spin in a circle and/or dip upside down. she likes mom and dad fine, and is also perfectly happy to be carried around by jie jie.

jie jie, however, has her moments battling the green-eyed monster -- not that this will be news to anyone acquainted with her. tuesday was actually the hardest day -- xia didn't like it that fu xiang was being carried everywhere and wanted to be carried too (hello, you weigh 55 pounds now?!).

and i confess to a little emotional confusion of my own... as i've blubbered to a few of you, in the back of my mind i think i was hoping for another go with my little xia baby, and lo and behold, this is an entirely different person! quite easy to grasp a few days out, but at the time (and in the midst of a hormonal rush -- remind me to pack feminine hygiene products for my next trip), there were a lot of tears.

so on wednesday we cocooned by ourselves in nanning -- nice long walk along the lake (with BOTH girls in the stroller, which helped tame said green-eyed monster enormously), a swim in the pool with xia taking fu xiang down the slide into the baby pool on her lap, to great peals of laughter from them both. (unfortunately, the only one of these i caught on video was immediately after fu xiang slid down slide by herself and completely submerged. it's not pretty.) carving out time and attention for xia has helped quite a bit too. think we're all starting to fall into a rhythm. xia was sick of chinese food so we walked to -- cough -- kfc for dinner and got her some chicken nuggets. ordering was a riot.

on thursday, we went to fu xiang's orphanage, where she spent the first year of her life. (she went into foster care in march, but we did not get to meet the foster family.)

 unlike when we went to xia's orphanage in hefei -- where we got pictures of her beside the crib she slept in -- we were not allowed inside fu xiang's orphanage in yong ning (just a bit outside of nanning). the nannies came out and kissed and hugged the babies, and they were obviously very well cared for.

 

then we went to the spots where the babies were found. these next pictures are weird, but important to have: "finding place" pictures.

fu xiang was left on the side of the road, beside some rice paddies. she was very ill with pneumonia, and we are not sure how easy she would have been to find. we have the blanket/towel she was wrapped in (embroidered with her "xiang" character), as well as a red envelope with "lucky money" left with her by her parents (or whoever left her here).

there was a watermelon vendor at the corner, so we bought a, well, a finding watermelon, i guess you could call it. it was quite sweet, as fu xiang is herself.

can't believe we'll be heading home in less than a week.