We have had the first melt down!

The girls are tucked in for the night, so I thought I would do another quick update to let you know how the afternoon and evening went today. When we got back from our appointments Rylee was so tired so I got her ready for a nap. As soon as she realized what was going on she yelled, cried, kicked and screamed. I held on to her tightly and rocked her back and forth at the end of the bed speaking softly to her. She fought it so hard, but she finally settled in and whimpered while I rocked her. After about 30 minutes, we laid back in the bed and I rubbed her forehead gently and at her temples, very slowly she drifted off to sleep. I was watching her but she wasn't really closing her eyes. Finally I realized she was sleeping with her eyes open. Hanna came in and looked at her for a while and then she asked me if Rylee was alive. Well she obviously was because she was snoring! I told Hanna that and she said "Oh my gosh - she sleeps just like Scrappy" (our miniature daschund)! When she woke up she was her happy self once again!

We stopped at the hotel gift shop and I was glancing at a book while Rylee was standing behind me, I turned back her way and realized that she had dropped her pants so that she could admire her new panties right there in the middle of the store! She is fascinated with them and acts like she has never worn or seen anything like it before. She may be four and a half years old, but we still get to have lots of firsts with her!

We went out to the Walmart to get some shoes for Rylee and pick up a few snacks for the room. Rylee had never been in a cart before, but she settled in easily and sat there taking everything in. It did not take long for her to get this figured out and very soon she was pointing to things and then pointing to the back of the cart. I asked our guide about some of the things she was asking for, they were mostly things like rice crackers and other snacks that our guide said are popular with the kids. So we loaded up our cart with things for the girls and as we were passing the DVD section Rylee focused in on something and her eyes got real big. She started pointing and talking fast and so we started pointing to things and she would shake her head quickly no, I pointed to a few things but she kept saying no so I pointed to the sparkly Barbie DVD cover and she nodded YES! So, she now has Barbie on DVD in Chinese - I hope it works at home.

We tried out the swimming pool tonight and at first Rylee was ready to follow Hanna right in, but then Baba and Hanna disappeared under the water and Rylee panicked. She cried so hard and there was no coaxing her anywhere near that pool, poor sweetie!! She had silent tears leaking from both eyes for well over 45 minutes (and we had left the pool after seeing that there was no calming her while we were there). I wish I knew why she was so scared and what she was thinking! Once we got back to our room and changed into pajamas she was happy as a clam again. She had dinner, got ready for bed, laid down by her big sissy and drifted peacefully off to sleep!


Here is our first picture of gotcha day, taken by Hanna.