Swirling Thoughts...and laughter along the way...

I'm bone tired...in fact, everyone is busy snoring...but today was yet again another defining day...

We are absolutely LOVING reading your comments that are posted to the blog...please...keep them coming...you feel so close to us when we read your words and hear your voices in our mind's ear...

We got up early and ate breakfast then headed out for a day of touring...in the typical Chinese style...not Westernized touring...it was an adventure!

We took a small tour boat along the Yangtze River. This river runs along the cities where both our Chinese children hail from...Isaiah from Yichang and Potato from Wuxue. It is special to us because it has touched their experiences early on.

Though I don't like to dabble in "potty" talk...we had some awesome potty experiences today. The one on the boat was pretty humble...and very aromatic. I had awakened this morning with a little upset tummy...so you might imagine the joy I had during that 3 hour boat ride and the NUMEROUS trips to the bathroom I had to take 4 girls on! Then, at lunch...I'll post some pictures of the common Chinese, open air restaurant where we ate alongside the river...we had another experience with a more rudimentary potty. I'm going to post it for those of you who've never experienced a typical Chinese bathroom...in the countryside...not influenced by our Western ideas of sanitation.

(I should mention that all my girls are excellent about the "squatty potty" opportunities they have in each day...it lends to their sense of adventure...and they're developing such skills! I never have understood people that come to a foreign land and then complain that it's not like America....save the money...it's NOT like America!)

Upon reaching the Three Gorges area, Busy Bee once again felt the call to visit a potty and so we shuffled over to the water closet and as she came inside she said in a most humorous, demonstrative and dramatic was "Oh man...squatty potty???...you got to be kiddin' me!" I nearly fell into the potty myself as I was racked with laughter!

Everywhere we go we are assailed with friendly Chinese who want to take a picture (or 10-20) of the girls...Busy Been in particular is growing a little sour on the whole deal...but NOT THE BUG...on the tour boat today she was honest to goodness, mugging, posing and performing on the front of the boat to the delight of clicking cameras everywhere! (Where did this kid get her sense of drama?) I've determined...from now on the kids should ask for 10 yuan for every picture...they could use some spending money! :)

On after our day of touring (10 hours of it) we then boarded a highway bus and settled in for the 5 hour trip back to Wuhan...we were exhausted and swollen up like tics! Water retention...not the friend of the traveler!

The plan had been to go to a supermarket an purchase food for dinner that the kids could eat on the bus...however the best laid plans...we couldn't find a market in close enough proximity to the bus station so we went to a tiny little shop and bought anything we thought that the kids, who were quite hungry, might eat...So 4 bags of chips, three rolls of Oreos, some experimental cracker purchases and several bottles of water and we had our dinner...oh, and I forgot...some little green oranges..

Funny Daddy comment today upon seeing the green oranges I had purchased..."Green,you know, is the new orange." Delivered in the usual understated fashion...laughter abounded.

Good parenting on those food choices?...no...good for laughs on the bus? ...yes... I actually said to the girls "You cannot eat your Oreos until you finish your chips!" (Good thing I've got that approved homestudy in hand and I'm only three days from our boy!)

I've been really thinking on this trip about our lives in America...about the typical Chinese life...and I've come to the conclusion that I really need to buck up a little bit. All of the conveniences...the prosperity...the self-indulgence that I experience in America has made me soft and spoiled. We've had the wonderful privilege to step off the tourist track and get into some "real" China and we've experienced how hard most Chinese must work to live...and I can feel grouchy about "not enough legroom on the bus."

Trying with all my might to beat down that "Ugly American" inside...and to be grateful for this chance to learn about other lives that are rich and difficult and bittersweet and content...content...that's where I want to be...

Pray for our sweet Isaiah! He has only 3 days left in the only home he has ever known. He will live the wonderful city of Yichang in 3 days for a life he could never imagine...we'll be scary...he'll be grieving...pray, please, for a peaceful transition for him.

It was very difficult when Potato came to us...such guttural grieving...yet look at that girl in the pictures I post tonight...bossy, confident and in love with her forever family...I know this too will come for Isaiah...but tonight...just a little overwhelmed at the pain and struggle in the very near days to come...

Please lift us before the Lord...we are in need...