Tuesday in Hohhot

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Today was a lazy day. Thomas completed all of the paperwork. We now have a passport for Hamilton!!!!! The China side is complete.

We had a rough night last night. Hamilton has been dry every morning, so I decided he would sleep in underwear instead of a pull-up. Big Mistake!!! He wet the bed at 10:30 and cried for about 30 minutes. Beth had to call housekeeping, who speak only mandarin. While I was consoling Hamilton, housekeeping came with only one sheet. It was difficult to explain that we needed a complete bed change. Finally, I just threw the comforter on the floor and 2 pillows and Beth patted the wet spot to show him. Hamilton is screaming during all of this. The man called for back up. Another man in a suite came in and looked quite uncomfortable. I guess two American women in their pajamas, a crying baby, and a wet bed was a little too much for him. He just stood in the doorway staring at us. After the bed change we all went back to sleep. Hamilton woke up screaming again at 12:30. He acted as if he was in pain. So, being the good mother that I am, I decided to call Dr. Chambers, the international doctor on call in Bham. We gave him motrin. She called back at 3:30 am. She thought the crying was probably due to extreme scolding in the past for bed wetting. According to her, this is typical in China. He woke up happy and fine this morning. I was nervous that he was getting an ear infection or something. That would cause us not to be able to fly to Ganzhou tomorrow. So I wanted to ask before it got too bad. But all is well. Beth and I napped for 2 hours and Hamilton for 3 today.

We went back to the park and ventured out to our first restaurant outside of the hotel. We thought we were ordering plain noodles. The menu was in mandarin. Beth and I got some funny looking meat and rice. Hamilton got what looked like noodles, but Thomas told me later was tofu. And Laurie got beef soup. We took the menu so that we could ask Thomas what we had eaten. I had to send pictures of the food and restaurant, just because it was an adventure for us. I took Hamilton to the drink machine and let him get a drink. He went running to show Laurie, LaLa, and Beth. He loved his big drink. I included pictures of the restaurant because Will asked me what kind of fast food is here. This is it. There is no McDonalds or KFC in Hohhot.

After he was finished eating dinner tonight, he began to wash his 3 spoons in his bowl of noodles. He did this over and over making a huge mess. I had to include a picture. It is the one with his hands in the bowl.

We fly out tomorrow night at 6:00. I probably will not be able to send a new post tomorrow. Thomas likes to have us at the airport two hours before the flight. He really likes to be on time places. He is very conscientious with his job, which is beneficial with the paper work.

We did realize that we are missing two dates on our I800 form. You can pray that Michelle is able to find these or that they are no big deal. They are the expiration dates for our fingerprints. They were not listed on the I800 as they were supposed to be which concerns Thomas. This will matter in Guanzhou.

As you all are waking up we will be going to bed. Hopefully we will sleep through the night tonight, because tomorrow will be a tough day for Hamilton.

The picture of Hamilton with the ball is typical Hamilton. He prefers to have no clothes on and loves my shoes and balls.