Nanging February 3rd - keeping busy!

Isaac was up late last night but did eventually fall asleep and slept until past 7 a.m.    When Indigo woke up this morning she climbed in our bed and said "you are my best mommy" - made my heart sing.   I told her "you are my best girl" to which she responded "and Isaac is our best boy."  We met up with Grandma and Granddad for breakfast and both children put away a lot of food.  I think Indigo had 3 small sausages and a lot of watermelon and two yogurts and a bit of egg.   Isaac had sausage, dumpling, egg, watermelon, muffin and congee - he did not fuss so much when we left the table.   We saw two other adoptive families with their two young girls.   We met Denise and the driver and went to the Nanjing Cloud Brocade Museum.   This is filled with examples of Emporer robes made of silk brocade with intricate embroidered patterns - apparently it takes 5 years to make a robe.   We saw the people on the looms working which was just amazing and mind boggling.   We all agreed that we could watch for days and have no idea how they know what they are doing.  Two people work the looms as you will see in the photos - the top person is responsible for the design, the lower person does the color and you just see a whir of spools of silk and pressing of these bamboo peddles and it's really unbelievable.   Working an eight hour day produces 6 inches of brocade.   We also saw the silk worm cocoons - one cocoon produces one strand of silk - I think that they said the strand was 500 meters - that's very long.   Of course we finished in the gift shop which resulted in a slight bit of damage to the bank account but overall I felt we were quite restrained.   We got some nice family photos outside the silk brocade museum in front of one of the beautiful gates.   It was still earliesh - around 11:15 and so too early for lunch and nap and we did not really want to go back to the hotel - it was the nicest day yet.   We did stop at the hotel to grab our laundry and Denise took David and Granddad to drop it off.   We then went to a park - Egret Isle Park.   It was beautiful - although there was just a ton of activity going on with workers preparing decorations for Chinese New Year - it is going to look stunning.   The plum blossom is heavily featured and is the flower of Nanjing - you can see decorative plum blossoms on the pillars - Indigo is standing by one - so very pretty.   all You can see from the pictures all the work going on - decorating the boats and the building of the huge dragon.    The border of the park is the giant city wall.   We loved being out and Isaac wanted to walk and walk and walk.    Indigo spent a long time in the stroller - I think wanting to be babied a bit again but she loves to be out and running too much to stay there and so they both got a lot of exercise.   Like Indigo, Isaac seems to also like to pick up twigs and play with them.    It's wonderful to have Granddad and Grandma along to be sharing this experience.    Both seem to be really enjoying the experience and it's really great for both the children and for us to have the extra hands and team effort.   Granddad is a wonderful help with negotiating the stroller up and down stairs and over fences where pedestrians can do a walk through but strollers can't fit.   It's really terrific to have them experience something that we could never adequately describe and to see them be interested in the history and culture of the land of our children's birth.   Lunch was another exciting experience as we tried another new spot.   It was basically a whole line of food options where you could both look at pictures and walk the line choosing what you wanted to have brought to your table.   I was tasked with doing the choosing.  I kept thinking of our friend Robert and how he would have been in heaven and how much more adventurous he would have been in his choices.    We did pretty well and ended up with a beef over lettuce - it was spicy which I had not realized when I ordered but Granddad and I both loved that dish.   We also had some small sort of custard tarts which were well received by Grandma, Indigo and Isaac, we had noodles, dumplings and a steamed bun (Isaac ate a whole one of those).  We had some other kind of steamed dumpling that was a disaster - the three of us who tried it, could not stand it.    We also had a delicious pork dish with a green vegetable.    We also had a black sticky rice sweet dish - I think sweetened with red bean paste - Isaac polished off one of those too.   We had a lovely walk back to the hotel through the  Confucious temple area and passing all the street vendors  - Isaac fell fast asleep in the stroller.  I have said before and I will say again, we are a complete walking spectacle and so many people come up and just stare at the children - particularly the older Chinese ladies.   Isaac had his little hat on and this one lady leaned into the stroller to lift his hat to see his face - I presume to see if he was Chinese.   I scolded her that no, he was sleeping and Granddad made a motion of sleeping child.  Also, Granddad and I had walked a little ahead but then were waiting to get the stroller over the fence and apparently David was scolded by an older lady because Isaac's pant leg had ridden up and his bare leg was showing.   She pulled his pant leg down and David said he could just tell that she was shocked that we did not have the second layer of pants on him.   Isaac transitioned to the crib and stayed sleeping and Indigo just crashed.  David was hungry and he went and got KFC - chicken nuggets and fries and a chocolate shake but he said that was not good.  Isaac was upset when he first woke from him nap but then he was playing in the room.   Grandma and Granddad had slept for about 2 1/2 hours; we wanted an earlier night and also wanted to bath the kids so we went with Grandma to give the kids some food in the hotel.   Indigo wanted to sit next to Isaac but then wanted us to feed her.  I was feeding Isaac and so she said "my tummy wants Mommy to feed me" so you can see some of that competition kicking in.  I asked her if I was going to have to call Mrs. Goldberg (her teacher) and tell her that Indigo could no longer feed herself and would have to feed Indigo her snack.   That made Indigo laugh and she told me I was silly.   We coaxed her to eat some supper with bribes of sips of her apple juice after "x" number of bites.  In the meantime, Isaac polished off three fried dumplings, and a small bowl of noodles with "meatballs" and some fried egg.  The story of the knife is that we kept getting these bowls of noodles and it's almost impossible to get them out the big bowl into the smaller bowl and then to get them into a bite size for the children, so we asked for a knife to cut and this is what we got!   I think I might have to purchase a knife to carry around - but better remember to put it in checked baggage on the flights - other that, or quit getting the noodles, and that's unlikely.   We got the kids vanilla and strawberry icecream and Indigo wanted to feed her brother.   That was so sweet.   We then went to see the fish in the lobby pond and to see the indoor pool - no swimming there - it's beautiful but FREEZING.  We had a fun game out in the hall way having both kids run back and forth to mama and baba and that was a lot of fun.   Isaac is now loving the elevator!   David made it a game of counting the floors as we go up or down and then getting excited when we hear the "ding" at the end so now the whole family counts and Isaac watches and tonight he was saying stuff too as we did the numbers.   Also, when we heard music he wants to bounce up and down "dancing".   Well, the fun ended at tub time - I can't wait to have a photo of both kids laughing in the tub but that is not yet to be.   We made some progress in that Isaac sat down this time and perhaps cried a little less vigorously but he was not happy and we had the toys and the cups and big sister trying to show him how fun it is.    I cuddled him in his towel afterwards and he settled down and we put on jammies - he was near comatose with tiredness - I think he had more walking and exercise today than he is probably used to - but he is keen to be moving.   In fact, before we went "out" for the evening we stopped at Granddad's room and Isaac was pitching a fit because he wanted to be out and on the go.   Sweet photo of David reading to them before bedtime - Isaac was almost already completely gone, thumb in mouth, bless his heart, his thumb is raw and calloused with peeling skin from the sucking.   Kristi M. - no shots yet of them asleep on a bed together - our room has a king and a roll away and the crib.  Also, he is not as keen on Indigo's affections which makes me feel bad - she wanted to hold his hand walking in the lobby and he completely blew her off, not to mention when he clocked her on the head chucking a board book because he wanted us to get him out and go adventuring!   Tomorrow is our last full day in Nanjing - I have got to find some time to fit in a little shopping!  Here is the link to the photos from today:  
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7322989@N05/sets/72157623342112502/