I love these kids so much.

I love these kids so much.

I can't even think about leaving them in less than a week.

Thankfully I don't have to leave them now and I am going to savor every moment with them that I can. 

Our morning was pretty normal. Breakfast and then we headed to the orphanage at about 7:50. We started with the older kids and took them outside like we yesterday. We decided that working with the older kids was best in the morning because that's when it is the coolest and we can go outside for a little bit and it is also when we have the most energy. The afternoons are mostly spent in the baby playroom upstairs, which is very nice since it is air-conditioned!

We brought balloons for the kids to play with & Annie even made some fun animals, hats, swords etc. They really seemed to like the balloons, until they popped…then they got a little bit scared. We also brought some more of the chalk out and drew with that on the sidewalk.

Earlier in the morning we decided it would be best to take shifts of 2 to go upstairs and spend time with the other babies that are usually upstairs by themselves (John included). When it was my time to go upstairs I was pretty excited to see John since I hadn't seen him all morning. He has been getting so close to stand up and walk on his own, but since he is blind his balance is off and he really has to trust that someone is there to help him. I started walking around the room with him while he held my fingers. He is starting to go really fast and I finally decided that I would try to set him on the ground and help him get up. At first I let him hold my fingers and walk the couple of steps toward me but a couple of minutes later he was getting the hang of it and started to do it…ON HIS OWN. I was so excited! Even if it was only a couple of steps. He seemed to love it and would stand up, walk a few steps to me and then fall into my arms and giggle. I wanted to cry because I was just so happy. It seems to me that sometimes the nannies give up on him and some of the other kids because of their special needs. I know they truly do care for them, but there are so many kids, I know it's hard on them. I'm just so happy that I was able to be there for some of John's first couple of steps by himself. Hopefully he will be able to walk even more by the time we have to go. I did get a video, even though he didn't walk very far in it and wanted to hold my hand for some of it; I will try to post it though if the internet will let me.

After a little while in the baby room playing with John and some of the other babies, including a sweet little girl that just wouldn't stop smiling and mimicking me; Charlie and Karla came up to switch with us.

The older kids were now inside in the downstairs classroom and had just finished getting their faces painted. We decided to start a simple craft with construction paper, cotton balls, colored pom-poms, and some glue. We all had a glue bottle and would just dab some on the paper so that the kids could stick the cotton balls and pom-poms on the paper. It was so simple, but they loved it and it kept them calm for a little while, which was a nice break for us.

Eventually that craft ended because we ran out of cotton balls and pom-poms and we just decided to let the kids color some and play with their (not so well kept & clean) toys.

I got to sit with Xing Xing, the 6-year old little girl that I talked about the other day. She has really warmed up to me and I just sit on one of the chairs while she bounces on a bouncy horse. She has some autism tendencies but bouncing on the horse really seems to calm her down; she can't stop smiling and laughing while she was on it.

At around 11 we decided to head back upstairs and some of the other girls stayed downstairs to clean up and clean some of their toys because they were so dirty.

Another family came today to visit the orphanage. They had a little 11-year old girl that came with them that was adopted from Chenzhou when she was a baby. It was cool to have been able to see 3 kids now that were adopted from the orphanage. We spent a little time talking to them and then played with the kids until 11:30.

After we left we went to a Laundromat to see how much it would be to do laundry there vs. the hotel. Less than $1 for each item and then we can pick them up the next day…we will definitely be bringing our laundry there later. We ended up eating at the hotel for lunch and then some people went to the store, but Megan and I stayed back to catch up on blogging and look through pictures.

Later tonight, the man director, Mr. Ren and his friends are taking us out to dinner because they are so interested in what we have done for the orphanage. They are supposedly the head of the youth in the communist party or something like that…from what it seems like they are very important and are interested in what we are doing and think it is really neat. So please pray that later tonight when they pick us up and take us to dinner that everything will go smoothly and maybe we will even have a chance to share some things with them.

Will try to blog later about our afternoon with the babies and our dinner with Mr. Ren and his friends!