A Day in Tianjin

"Oh Lord, you are my God; I will exalt and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago." Isaiah 25:1

Mom and our guide Helen headed out first thing this morning to go to the notary office to pick up the official documents. What joy it gave me to see her name with the official Chinese red stamp on it saying Jade Mingcong Rittenhouse is my daughter! I will forever be amazed that you, Lord, loved us enough to make us a family.

Jade has finally eaten a few good meals. Our guide told me yesterday that I wasn’t feeding her enough for a Chinese 3 year old. I only was feeding her until she was full. I thought that when she just kept pocketing the food that I gave her that she was full. Guess I was wrong.

This afternoon, we ventured out to the Ancient Market Street. It is a reproduction of traditional market street. As we walked through there, many people stopped and told us how beautiful Jade was. As I was talking to my guide tonight, she said most people had no idea that she was Chinese as she had her sunglasses on and unless she spoke, they wouldn’t have known. It was hard for me at dinner. I know this will happen but my mother feathers got ruffled for the first time tonight when a woman sat at another table and blatantly pointed at my daughter and was laughing. Maybe it was because she was wearing capris instead of long pants. Whatever it was that she found “funny”, I found it very hard and just wanted to hold her tighter, tell her how much I love her and remind myself that God made her perfect since He makes no mistakes.

My question to you my friends is when everyone was offering their wisdom from all their experience, why did no one suggest that I would need to start carrying around a 25 lb bag of potatoes to prepare my body for this? Let’s just say Jade doesn’t like the stroller and my mother can only carry her for a little while as I don’t want her to hurt her back. For those of you who were blessed to have their husbands with them to carry their children, you make sure you go and thank him today for all that he did for you during your time in China! J
Jade’s latest thing today was creating patterns while lining up our shoes. Initially she lined them up in pairs from smallest to largest. Then she started getting creative by alternating little one, big one. She got to one point and she needed another bigger pair. She went over to me and started jabbering about my sandal and started to help me take them off so she could use them. Fortunately, though it is a little obsessive-compulsive, I can stop her in the middle of things and she will walk away from them. Phew! I do think my house will end up being more orderly as she likes things in their places. Well, one recommendation was as a mom, I would need to be more organized. Enter in Jade Mingcong!
Bath time went much better. She only cried initially. She can be quite the drama queen and knows how to work the tears already. It quickly stopped as we started playing with tub toys…glad they finally worked! Tonight was the first night she didn’t cry out for her foster family before she fell asleep. Praise Jesus! We are coming along. She is having a hard time with transitions and when we leave the room. Her personality becomes much quieter outside of here. Not sure if it is the light, the noise, a fear of me bringing her back…I just don’t know.
Tomorrow, if my back and neck can handle it, we are going to go see some more sights in Tianjin.