Thurs. AM, Nanjing

Thurs AM: I did wake up at my usual 3:00am, but I did manage to go back to sleep for a bit. I am typing this at noon as Ty is napping and D and K are swimming in the pool. We wake up at 5:30 in the morning. One exciting thing this morning was that our hotel safe broke. Thank goodness it was open! So we were late for our tour because we weren’t leaving until our passports were safely locked. I asked for a new safe—ask and ye shall receive!

We toured the Nanjing Wall today. Amazing! We went in these caves in the wall where 3,000 soldiers could fit as they hid while waiting to go to battle. Kacie enjoyed yelling and listening to the echo effect. The emperor was pretty smart: families had to give quality bricks to the project, and they had to put their family name on the brick. If it wasn’t a quality brick, he went and found them—I think he killed them. If it wasn’t 100 degrees with like 90% humidity, we’d have stayed longer, but we were all pretty miserable.

Bathrooms are crazy. Yesterday when we went into a bathroom in the mall, Kacie found the one stall with a regular toilet and said, “Western style toilet! YES!” Hilarious! She did have to use a “squatty potty” at the museum yesterday (I’m sure she’ll love that I’m saying this publicly!) and she said it was fine, but I think that’s why she had a little celebration cheer at the mall! Public bathrooms generally do not have TP. You bring your own. Sometimes there is a roll outside and you take in what you need.

Tyson still refuses to walk. We know he can, he walked the first two days, and we’ve seen him go from a laying position to a standing position, so we know he can do it. However, he refuses. I’m sure there are multiple reasons: security, safety, control, wants mom and dad to do it, likes to be held, etc… But it is killing our backs and arms. So after the Nanjing Wall, we went to this crazy store and found a cheap stoller. Well, he despises it. He screamed and cried, on and on, and judge me if you want, but we are tired and can’t carry him everywhere. The Chinese people just came and stared and pointed, very disapproving. But he will adjust.

To describe the store: Picture Ross, the store. Then picture the ceilings only 8 feet high, and there are long hallways of clothes, the kind that would drive an ADHD person to the brink of insanity. It was individual little stores only about 8 feet long and five feet deep, then a partition and another store of the same type. I compare it to Ross because it was not a store where the clothes are easily seen like the big mall near our hotel—that is more like a Western mall, except the 9 circular indoor/outdoor floors. I wanted to find Ty some clothes, but if I can be honest? The clothes were hideous. Now that is my taste and not meant to offend anyone, but really, the little creatures on the clothes creep me out. I did find him a vest and a jacket for the plane. The vest is cute, but the jacket? I’d never buy it in the states, but it zipped and had a hood…it will work.

To my mom: The ride home from Sea Tac could be a nightmare with him strapped in the car seat. Sorry in advance! I really don’t know how this plane ride will go…only 4 plane rides, one of them 12 hours. Hmmmmm….. not going there right now.

This is gross and might be too much info: Food does come through his nose. Not a lot, but it does happen. He sneezed, and chunks came out! Ewwww! Better get used to that I guess. It’s actually not a big deal, but if you plan to still continue to be our friends, please accept that this is going to happen. We’ve actually been impressed with how clean he really is! He doesn’t drool like I’ve heard some cleft kids do. I expected to go through many bibs, but so far, so good! His cold is getting better, praise the Lord. I’m so glad I brought all those medicines. We’ve used a lot of it!

Laundry is another huge issue. We are almost out of clothes, and laundry at the hotel is super expensive. I was out of clothes, so I had to send a few out. We hope to do laundry at Guangzhou. Well, we have to! We have nothing left! There is a place nearby, but yesterday the language barrier was way too much to deal with. It’s not a laundry mat like the US. You leave your laundry and they do it. If yesterday hadn’t been so hard, I might have been able to figure it out, but I was out of patience.

Well, I guess I wrote enough for this to be a post. I’ll write again tonight when Ty goes to bed. Nothing major planned for today, just staying cool.