The only real adoption-related event was a big paperwork check with our agency in the hotel this afternoon. Heather took care of this while Steve stayed in the room with Helen. Ten additional families from our agency arrived in Guangzhou late last night (these were the families that had to travel to other provinces first to get their children). We ventured out with most of them to a local restaurant for dinner this evening. The food was great, and Miss Helen even ate some rice, noodles, and Cheerios! We just read that the feels-like temperature here was 134 degrees today, so it was kind of a blessing in disguise that we didn't have to do anything major outside of the hotel.
Since today was sort of uneventful, we thought we'd take a few minutes to share pictures of some of the products we've used here so far. Shopping tends to be an adventure in and of itself.
Baby Products: Buying baby supplies can be pretty confusing when you can't read the labels and nobody speaks English to help you out! We took a chance with some Mamy Poko diapers, size "L". We're wondering if Chinese babies tend to have genetically extreme-wide hips or something, because these things don't fit the countours of any typical baby we've seen.
Along with diapers come, of course, baby wipes. We opted for the "Carefor Baby Natural" since they were the cheapest, and "Natural" usually means they're safe, right? :-) You gotta love the pictoral instructions: 1) Wipe baby's bottom. 2) Take special note of how great your baby's bottom shines. 3) Give baby thorough deep-tissue Shiatsu massage (???)
You think there's a lot of formula to choose from in the States? Holy cow are there lots of options here. We learned from the orphanage that Helen was used to drinking "Yili" formula. Thankfully we had someone from our agency with us on the first shopping trip to find the right stuff. We guess this says "Yili" in some mess of Chinese characters, but we sure wouldn't have known that this was it by ourselves!
We needed to get some rice cereal to mix in with Helen's formula. We saw the word Nestle. We saw a picture of a bag of rice. We saw a blue bear eating something with a big blue spoon. We bought it. Helen, if you're reading this when you're older, we apologize if we accidentally fed you some other rice-based food product during your first days with us!
Snacky Foods: Yeah, we've had some major cravings here. Thankfully you can guess most products based on their recognizable mascots and package colors, such as Chips Ahoy:
We really wanted some ice cream last night. Steve headed down to the 7-11 and tried to buy some Hagen-Dasz. A pint was approximately $15 US!! He took a chance on these Magnum bars instead, and we've had them two nights in a row. Turns out they're basically chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick. These cost less than a buck each and are wonderful. You definitely pay a HUGE premium here to get a product with mostly-English labels on them!
Tea is insanely popular here. Milk tea. London-style tea. Italy-style tea. Lemon tea. It's all good, and it's all packaged in bottles with little to no English on them. Recognize the Lipton logo on the far right?
What-The-Heck Products: Helen disappeared into our hotel bedroom today and reappeared carrying a relatively heavy red box. We wondered what in the world she found, and upon "reading" the label we were even more confused:
Gas masks in the hotel rooms? Turns out these are for use in case of a fire, to help you breathe as you evacuate the building. At any rate, this is currently one of Helen's favorite toys in the room (the box, that is; we haven't let her try on the mask itself yet).
Back to a more serious note, thanks to every one of you that lifted us up in prayer over the past day! Helen's health seems to be improving greatly and neither of us has gotten sick. Helen is actually sound asleep right now, praise God. She didn't really nap at all today, but we're praying she'll get a full night's sleep and will be fully back to herself tomorrow morning. Please continue to pray for good health for all of us during the rest of our time here!
Finally, here are your mandatory new pictures of our little lady for the day!
I really enjoy reading these blogs every morning! They r the first things i look for when checking fb in the morning! Give Helen a big kiss and hug from her family here. Praying for you guys!
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