A little more about Annie

We had our third day together as a family. Little Miss Annie is fitting right in. She even let Patrick carry her in the zoo. The first time he had to go up hill with her in his arms, he shot me a look and said, how have you been doing this??? She is one solid little girl. She is very bright and she knew most of the animals by sight at the zoo. We got belly laughs and lots of smiles. She even let Grumps hold her for a few minutes and then played with Grandma Judie. The zebras were amazing to her. Ying and Meimei loved the zoo too. They both rode in the strollers with Grumps and Grandma Judie pushing them. We saw an amazing sea lion show. They have two trainers who direct a sea lion to do all kinds of neat things including standing on one flipper and balancing a ball on its nose. It is choregraphed to very cheesy music. The kids loved it. We happened to arrive at the zoo at the same time two preschool classes arrived. The children were all 3-6 years old. They were darling. We filmed them singing a traditional children's song, Yi Fen Qian. This was the first song Ying ever sang and she joined right in. For those who are about to visit Hefei, the zoo is very nice. The first two sections of it have peacocks and deer who wander freely. The whole setting seems more of a park and the animals are in nice enclosures.

After the zoo, we went to Carrefours and McDonalds. This was the first time for Ying and Meimei to eat at the Golden Arches. They loved their food of course and Meimei was enamored of the banana fried pies. She ate the filling out of three of them. Annie seemed to enjoy her meal. The chicken nuggets were new to her but french fries were not. She also enjoyed shopping at Carrefours.

Then things took a turn for the worse. We came back to the hotel and the girls played like maniacs. Annie joined right in. We went to the 6th floor playground which is a nice playground on a roof top garden. They have a slide, some rocking things, a little table and chairs, a kids tunnel and something else that I can't remember. You can play and see Hefei . The girls had a blast. Annie is dare devil and would laugh hysterically when she went down the slide. When she grins and laughs, she holds her chin down and you can see all of her chins (she has at least 2). The girls decided to have races around the outdoor pathway. Annie, of course, joined right in. After the first turn around the circle, she slipped, fell, and bit her lip. Oh, my goodness, this child has lungs. She screamed and cried for over 45 minutes. She was so pitiful. She would not look at anyone other than me and she cried "Mama, hurt". Someone taught her the word hurt. We know she knows it because after the fall about three hours later, she held her hand out to Patrick and said "shou hurt" which was hand hurt. She cried so hard that she wore herself out and took an hour nap on me. After that, she would not interact with anyone other than me. Patrick tried to feed her at dinner and she threw food at him. She threw her spoons on the floor and demanded that Patrick pick them up. Of course, he did not so she upended her juice on herself and the floor after getting his attention. After this incident, I was the one who said enough and took everything away from her. She was fine with me discipling her but if Patrick tried, she just set her mouth and shot him dirty looks, and kept right at what she was doing. We left and got her back to the room. She took the dreaded bath (she hates them) and she let Patrick help her. Once she was asleep, I went downstairs for a foot massage. If you ever stay at the Holiday Inn Hefei, definitely get a foot massage. For 68 RMB, you get a very nice foot and leg massage that does not involve any sharp implements or hot water like they do in Beijing!

Today we are leaving for the orphanage. We will see how that goes. We will post more photos tonight.