Guangzhou Day 3

What started out to be a difficult day turned out to be a great one. We started our morning off with a little "incident". We're still not sure if Kara locked herself in the bathroom or simply went to the bathroom and locked the door. That may seem like a minor distinction, but it was a very significant one for us to try and figure out this morning. Picture that situation and not being able to communicate with the person on the other side of the door. A bit of a challenge, eh? We believe that Kara was used to getting full reign of all the tv channels, but Nolan and I have other beliefs regarding children and televisions. Kara started flipping channels this morning and Nolan simply asked her for the remote control. She held the remote high in the air and said, "No!", so Nolan proceeded to turn the tv off. Thus started the pouting, followed shortly by the bathroom locking incident. It is so hard when you can't communicate to tell her why we do things. Fortunately, our guide explained to her later that not everything on tv is appropriate for children and that if she wants us to turn the channels, to simply point to the tv. She was fine with that and now she knows. This has been the biggest issue that we have encountered thus far. On a scale from 1-10, it was maybe a 4 or 5, so we're still doing very good. She recovered quickly and was back to her cheerful self by breakfast.

We started off by heading to the park. This is just the coolest park. The playground equipment doubles as exercise equipment for the adults. Every morning, the residents are busy working out, just like it's a YMCA. Leila really impressed the locals with her monkey bar skills. She got several cheers from people standing nearby.

Finally, on day 3, I got to do a little Shamian Island shopping. Woo hoo!! While out shopping, I started talking to another woman and recommended that she shop at a local store. Nothing clicked. I was headed to that store, so I saw her again there. Still nothing clicked. After talking to her a bit more and glancing down at her BEAUTIFUL daughter, it finally clicked. It was Kimberley of Red Mary Janes. How funny!! We have "known" each other through the blogging world for quite a while, but we never officially met until today and here we are standing in a store talking and we didn't even recognize each other. Oh my, her daughter is beautiful!!
I am still floating on cloud nine because today, Kara blew me kisses when I was leaving to go shopping and Nolan and the girls were headed back to the hotel room. I was blowing them to her and she blew them right back. I thought that was a good moment in itself, but then tonight, I got two unsolicited hugs and kisses from Kara. May I just repeat that, please? TWO unsolicited hugs and kisses from Kara!!!! Ah, yes!! This is one happy Mama here. I am amazed that she has become so comfortable with showing and receiving affection in just 7 short days. I'm off to bed now, to dream of more hugs and kisses from my sweet girl tomorrow. :)

Tomorrow afternoon is the swearing in ceremony at the US Consulate and then we head to Beijing on Wednesday for a five-day tour. We were warned tonight that we will be busy from morning until night every day. We should be exhausted and ready to sleep on our L-O-N-G flight home!