First, a quick update on the family. Everyone is doing well. One of the biggest blessings has been from family and church family in the form of meals and food staples (milk, eggs, bacon, fruit, etc.). These have been life savers! The only real challenge is the jet lag. One lady from church said it best..."jetlag is almost fatal". :) I've been up since 2:00am. Mei woke up at 4:00am, and the rest of the family is still in bed. Everyone falls into an afternoon coma, and these are very hard to recover from. It's so hard to wake the girls after sleeping on China time.
Mei is doing great overall. She is such an entertainer, and very active. Personality and then some! :) Church should be interesting today.?! Jad warned Preacher last night that he may have competition during his sermon. LOL. She doesn't always understand when it is appropriate to be animated, and when to be still. We'll be working on this concept. We have tile and hardwoods throughout the house. This must be uncomfortable on her feet, because she wants to wear shoes or socks all the time. She walks on the sides of her feet. I look forward to getting those corrected so she can enjoy being barefoot, like on the carpets in the hotel.
We did venture out to Walmart yesterday to get Mei some shoes and pick up a few items. Mei was sick within four miles of home, even with the homeopathic oils behind her ears. The first thing we shopped for in Walmart were sea bands and Meclizine tablets for motion sickness. Then we wandered into the shoe isle. We found two little pair of shoes for Mei. One pair is light up tennis shoes, which she is SO proud of. We may be adorning those with a pretty little dress at church today. It doesn't really match, but if it makes her happy we will accommodate. The other pair is little black canvas shoes with hot pink piping. Not exactly church shoes either, but the closest thing we could find that fit Mei's little feet. As we moved through the store, Mei rode in the cart. By the time we hit the grocery section, Mei became "cart sick". I almost fell into tears for her. How are we every going to take the girls to/from school without her getting sick? How do we keep from having to medicate her for a simple grocery run or trip to the doctor? I am so frustrated for her. :( We opened the sea bands and put them on her wrists, then broke into the Meclizine tablets and tried half a pill. The pill didn't have time to absorb before it came back up. Ughh. We took turns carrying her through the rest of the store. I am open to any home remedies at this point, so please pass those along! My sister recommended having the pediatrician check her ears well next week. Maybe an inner ear thing going on? I've also tried ginger candy. Other thoughts?
Now on to the "lost in translation" section. When traveling in China, we saw several signs that just didn't translate. Here are a few...
The second is from the Great Wall. The hundreds of tourists each day ignore the sign that tells them not to climb on the Wall. This is in the middle of a climb, so pretty funny to see it.
The next was a sign hung right next to a stop light. It's the only one like it we saw in China. I suppose this is a restricted part of the road for some reason? No trucks, no horns, no cars, no tractors, no horse and buggies. So what does that leave? Mopeds? I have no idea!
The next "lost in translation" doesn't have a sign, and is a bit personal. I'll call this the "keeping it real" section. After arriving at the Nanning airport, we met our guide. The following day was going to be "Gotcha!" for Mei. On the ride to the hotel, the guide handed us a piece of paper that described Mei and her daily care. There were several disturbing things on the paper, which took my breath away. As one example, it gave us the recipe for mixing up her formula and times to feed her within the day. Seriously? She is seven, and still takes a bottle? How was this information not included in her updates? Jad kept saying that something was lost in translation and not to worry. As we talked later that night, I told Jad how concerned I was. Just like in the past, when my faith is weak, God gives Jad strength. He said "God brought us this far. Why would you think He would abandon us now? That's not God". When we received Mei the next day, Jad asked about each concerning area. Sure enough, everything was "lost in translation", and every concern was explained away. I should know to trust God totally, but the truth is that sometimes your faith is tried. It's amazing to me that God provides you the perfect mate to help balance us. I am so thankful for Jad.
I love your last paragraph. It was the same thing with us on this trip. On the way back to the hotel from our hard time meeting our son, my faith was really weak. My husband looked at me when we were almost back and said, "I just had this feeling that things will get better sooner than we think". I didn't believe him. My son was still in the front seat with our guide glaring at me. But just as he said, we walked up to the hotel room, got out the ipad and started playing with him, and he perked up and called us mama and baba. I am also thankful for a good husband who has the strength when I don't. All the blessings leading up to this did mean something.
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