Thursday a.m. here in Nanchang

Hello - this is Lisa now trying out the blog for the first time, with Baby Kyle and Charlie sitting next to me. Kyle is Charlie's third arm so he has to be stuck to him 24/7!! We get up early here around 6 to start our day. We just finished breakfast. Kyle is a HUGE eater so he has that going for him. He really doesn't like bottles and water but he'll eat eggs, toast, oranges, watermelon. Last night, we had a group pizza party with everyone, so of course, he had to have pizza. That was after having a taste of the Oriental style of Oreos in the afternoon (they don't taste like U.S. Oreos and they are about the size of a quarter!)

For those of you emailing us, aol.com must be now "blocked" from our accessing it due to possible cultural content reasons, so we haven't been able to read any emails from the hotel in 2 days. If we still can't read them tonight, we may go to the local internet cafe. Of course, it is hard because Kyle has to be with Charlie the ENTIRE time, so we will have to go as a family!!!!

We had a very interesting experience yesterday afternoon. Kathy and Michelle, our guides, took us to the local Chinese farmer's market. You would not believe what we saw - one man was cutting up worms (yes, huge worms); there were entire fish heads laying around, there were pig heads (entire pig heads), pig feet, pig livers, pig brains, eels and all kinds of vegetables. Kyle totally perked up with all of the smells and sounds. There wasn't a ton of refrigeration either (a little ice). We took lots of pictures. Again, it was hilarious with about 35 of us (Americans) parading through and flashing all kinds of pictures in the market. Most of the locals smile and point and talk rapidly at us. Several told Kyle that he has "huge eyes." Several of the older Chinese women got very upset with 2 babies as they didn't have any shoes on. Remember, that here, they like them dressed in 20 layers at all times with no skin showing at all. Yesterday, it actually got quite cold and windy here, too. I think that the Beijing weather is following us, as the other days had been so mild. It was really foggy here, too.

Our guides are very interesting people. Our lead guide, Kathy, is from Hunan Province. She is married with 1 5 yr. old son and they live with her parents. She said that a friend of hers told her to join GWCA to help out because she knows "how to take care of children" and "she has a nice smile." She has been working for them for about 2 yrs. now. She is an independent contractor who does both local work in Hunan and then comes here to the Province. She is fluent in her own Hunan dialect and then in Mandarin (the dialect spoken here). She knows a ton about the local culture, too, and is very caring. Kathy travels to Beijing on a 4 hr. train ride, when she comes this way.

Our second guide, Michelle, is on her first training session with Great Wall. She is from Xian (home of the Terra Cotta warriors); I told her that I had seen those on "Amazing Race" but she didn't know about that TV show. She has been with GWCA only a few months, and had been helping special needs children in Xian before this. She said that the Northern Provinces, like Xian, are more conservative than the southern provinces (like Jiangxi) and that the northern provinces only really allow the adoption of special needs children at this time. That's why many of the healthy adopted children are only coming from southern China now. She also is fluent in her own dialect and in Mandarin. Both of them sound very different, as the dialects are all so different. They are always asking about all of the children and making sure that everyone is doing okay.

Our group is very diverse - they are from all over the U.S. and we have several children traveling with us too, due to the holidays. They all get along very well and everyone is extremely nice and caring. Kyle is the only boy. Last night, he had two girls crawling towards him and he really wanted none of that!! He only wanted to hug Daddy. He will allow one of the other mothers to touch him. Many of the babies are bonding quickly with their brothers and sisters, maybe because they are closer in size. It's funny to see how different all of the children are - some are crawling, some suck thumbs, one is already potty trained. Kyle is probably going to skip crawling and go to walking. He grows a little stronger each day as we make him walk a little, sit up, feed himself.

It was funny post our pizza party last night. Kyle went to bed around 8 p.m. and was talking up a storm. We couldn't understand what he was saying but he was talking and talking. He also goes to bed every night listening to the Vince Giraldi Christmas tunes (basically, Snoopy's Christmas songs!) He is swimming in some of his clothes so they are all rolled up -- big head and a petite little body!!! With the way he is eating, he should catch up very soon. Clothes are cheap here, too. I got a little rugby type sweater at Walmart for a whopping $7.00.

Today, we are headed to the site to see in Nanchang. A big temple of some sort. Then we'll probably walk a bit around the streets near the hotel this afternoon. It's pretty claustrophobic to stay in our room, as we only get HBO (one channel) and then everything else is in Chinese. We also don't have access to any Western news (are you surprised?!) nor any Western papers, so we have absolutely no idea what is going on in the world right now - it's a strange feeling. Our guides are familiar with the internet, so they must read some news there.

We are going to go upstairs now and get ready for our big day -- Mommy will be the sherpa and Daddy will be the Baby Carrier.

Most of the pictures that you will see of Kyle's adventures in China today have little grimace faces!!! It should be interesting to look back on these in the future, with all of his little frowns. He is also the one wailing in everyone's Gotcha Day video -- !!!!

Talk to you all later -- have a great day. Love, Lisa & Charlie