The kids watch Wall-E on the iPad while I read a book I started months ago and finally finish it. Veronica and I play travel sized Connect Four and "War with jokers and kings" as she puts it. The morning goes pretty quickly and before we know it Julie and Shan-Shan are back. Poor guy needed to get 3 booster shots plus a TB test. He seems to be doing very well considering though it'll be interesting to see what tomorrow and the day after bring for him. The guides here in Guangzhou have arranged for a lower cost laundry service than the hotel's normal one so we collect our dirty laundry and I take it along with our paperwork to the hotel room where our guides are staying for a paperwork party. I drop off the laundry and we sort out what papers the guides need from us for the consulate appointment. They will deliver the papers to the consulate and want us to be in the hotel room in case there are any questions. If not, we are done for the day and can go sightseeing. The next day we all go to the consulate and that is where the oath taking ceremony is and where Shan-Shan will become a US citizen (though I guess it is not 100% complete until he touches US soil). After that we are done for the day and then the next day he will get his visa and we are done!
We wrap up the paperwork party and I head back to the room. We are meeting everyone for dinner at a Japanese restaurant here in the hotel tonight. I head to the wireless hotspot in the hotel and update the blog, send emails and check on F1 and see what is happening there. Back in the room we all play with Shan-Shan and work on building those trust ties that are so important. He and I master the high five and he has fun playing with his brothers and sisters. Julie and I wonder just how much he got to play with the other kids in the orphanage as it seems like interactive play is new to him.
As we prep for dinner I am putting on his shoes, something he obviously doesn't want to do as he seems to be most comfortable in the hotel room. Wonder if that is space/size thing where the room is finite for him whereas a lot of the other places we go are large open spaces. Guess we will never really know. Anyway, I am putting on his shoes and pick him up when he smacks me in the face! I grab his hand and tell him no and he seems to get it but is not happy at all and seems pretty angry. Guess what little guy, I am too - nobody hits me, I don't care if you are two or twenty, doesn't happen. I think my stern (our kids call it scary LOL!) voice conveyed the tone it needed and no more hitting the rest of the night.
Sydney is tired and that always means a bad mood so when we meet for dinner she wants nothing to do with the food. We had scoped out the menu there earlier in the day so had a good idea of what we were getting. Julie and Max had cold udon noodles that came with garnish of dried seaweed and condiments that included what looked like a raw quail egg - yummo! We also ordered edamame, fried rice and I had a spicy ramen soup. Overall it was pretty good but we all hit the sleep coma wall quickly. We asked for our bill and as we were leaving they told us that our dinners included ice cream so we sat back down. Unfortunately for Sydney, her dinner of edamame and Sprite didn't qualify her for the ice cream according to our family's dinner rules so she cried. You hate to do that kind of stuff, but those are the rules. We left and the kids enjoyed watching the turtle and koi in the pond in front of the restaurant, which also featured a snowman, go figure. We hit the sack hard knowing that we could sleep in and enjoy it.
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