Is it the 17th yet?

Today was a long day. We went to visit Keeghan's orphanage. She did better than I expected but I was completely overwhelmed. I'm choosing not to share the whole story of our visit. There are a couple of reasons for that...one is how emotional the day was for me and another is that I'm not sure how public I want that story for Keeghan's sake. I may feel differently in a day or two or more once I've had some time to digest but not right now. I will say it is very clear to me that her nannies love her and we're lucky to have a daughter who got as much love and attention as Keeghan did. I was able to take some pictures which will be nice to have for Keeghan when she's ready. I was also given a precious piece of her history. An organization called Half the Sky (http://www.halfthesky.org/) works in Keeghan's orphanage. They sponsor a few different programs that you can read about on their website. Anyway, Keeghan benefited from this and as a result we have some photos and information from the time Keeghan entered the orphanage up until I got her. We're very lucky.

Tomorrow we head to Guangzhou for the last leg of our journey. I'm really ready to get home, but I'm sure re-uniting with the other two families in our travel group will be a nice distraction for a few days. This is a first child for one of the families and I wonder how their week has been getting to know their daughter and learning the fun of parenthood. I really can't wait to hear how they're doing! Our flight out of Changsha isn't until 9 tomorrow night though and we aren't really sure what we are going to do all day. We're trying to fix it so we don't have to check out of the hotel until much later in the day but we aren't sure that will work...oh and we don't have a driver until we're ready to go to the airport so the whole thing stinks a bit.

On another fun note...I'm about out of sort of clean clothes. Keeghan has managed to spill something on everything since I've become a bit of a sucker about letting her sit on my lap to eat. I need to pick her up when she reaches for me and she's learned to do that ALL the time. This afternoon I was trying to get her to walk from the elevator to our room (maybe 50 feet) because my arm was killing from carrying her and our stuff and she kept walking in front of me putting her arms up. I gave in.

And let me talk about China and driving for a minute. You pretty much take your life in your hands anytime you go out here. There are cars, scooters, bikes and pedestrians EVERYWHERE and no one seems to have the right of way. People just go to get across the street and keep walking until they are all but under a car! There's been a few times I was totally sure we were going to end up in an accident. Scary to begin with but twice as scary with a baby on your lap! It seems carseats don't exist here.

Finally, thanks to everyone for their comments, emails, and general encouragement. Being here alone is a lot of work so hearing from everyone really helps!! Ok, I'm beat so I'm off to bed.