I'd like to thank the makers of Fleet..

for giving us today's poop. Well it was a momentous occasion today, unfortunately we had to use the laxative but all is well ;) What a difference a day and a schedule makes. The orphanage gives you a basic schedule. Say it's like getting the operating instructions on a Civic, but you'd purchased an Accord.....similar but different. Zoe, we've found, is a three nap a day girl as opposed to the one nap that the orphanage told us about. Usually we're out and about for the first couple naps and she falls asleep in the Ergo carrier on me, but she also falls asleep around 2:30 every afternoon. She's also really easy to get to bed at night, she likes it when I sing her lullabys (as in Hush Little Baby don't you cry, I forgot the words to this lullaby....)
Today was another 1/2 day tour of "a very old building" in Nanchang. It was very pretty. The group photo is from outside the building. Inside it's essentially 5 floors of gift shop. Nanchang is well known for its porcelin. I wish there was some way to get all of it home, it's beautiful! We bought Zoe a very nice porcelin chopstick set.

When we got back from the tour we went with another couple to a place called Tiffani's around the corner from the hotel where they make traditional silk suits and dresses. We purchased a suit and dress for Zoe as well as a wall hanging and a baby bracelet with her Chinese name on it all for only $100. No one in our adoption group price haggled so we all got things for free. As one dad on the trip pointed out, a sure sign you've overpaid :) Still, it's so cheap!
After exploring the street around the hotel after shopping, and realizing that it just wasn't that safe, we hopped in a cab and went to a more swanky part of town to get McDonalds. Seriously, the best filet of fish and coke I've ever had...and not just because when walking through town we saw fried duck heads in the window :) The reason I call this part of town swanky is because they had air conditioning (a rarity). If you look at the second picture that's posted, it's of a building from that street and then the apartment building next to the street. There is so much poverty here, it's very sad. We saw a man digging through the trash for food, and eating the trash with chopsticks.
Zoe is doing so well. She has been sleeping through the night and now she really loves her floor time. She's building up her core strength and can do short periods of unassisted sitting. When she's on her belly she can reach for items and bring them to her. She sort of gets up on her knees and I don't think it would be too long after we're home before she figures out the crawling thing. She has such a wonderful little personality. It seems she's always happy. She's so interested in what is going on around her. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we got back the 3 rolls of film the orphange people took of Zoe. The orphanage looks just like the pictures, rows and rows of cribs. We got pictures of her nannies as well. It is priceless to have pictures from that time in her life.

I saw that referrals had come out..congrats to all the new parents!!!