A Mom and Son Day

Today Wade and I spent the day together. Rich went in to the Beijing office to work today while we enjoyed some more Beijing sites. It was a cloudy, foggy day but very mild and comfortable. Wade would have been much happier going to Happy Valley amusement park but being a mom, I insisted that we see a historical site so that Wade could remember some important things about his home city and country. I had the guide explain this to him. We walked through Tianamen Square and then went in to the Forbidden City. Our guide did a good job of explaining the history in stories that Wade could relate to. It was quite crowded with Chinese tourist groups so he wasn't able to get a good look into some of the buildings.

He doesn't particularly like having his picture taken, so we often had to coax him into smiling or laughing. We caught this one just right.

After we left the Forbidden City, we headed to the local silk market to see if we could shop for some clothes and shoes for Wade. We found several things but these Beijing shop owners were not willing to bargain like we do in Shanghai for the same stuff. I must have been wearing my 'Sucker' sticker on my forehead today. I even had the guide with me confirming my appraisal of what prices to offer. I did get Wade a pair of jeans but was unimpressed with shopping in Beijing. We left there to join Rich at his office building for a lunch together. It had started raining so our outside plans were a bit squashed. We tried a mall that sold kids clothes, but found out the selection was poor and the prices high. Wade tired of the shopping pretty quickly (typical guy) so we came up with a plan to visit an oceanarium. This was a more local place with no other foreigners but plenty of Chinese tour groups. It was a nice diversion on a rainy day but not the most impressive aquarium. As we were leaving, Wade was asking the guide about tomorrow and going to Shanghai. He said he didn't want to say goodbye to Beijing.

We returned to the hotel afterwards to wait for Rich to finish up at work. Wade read to me from a book we had bought for him the other day. He seemed to be reading so well in Chinese. I was impressed. I was also very impressed with him as I got out a word find puzzle book in English and he knew every letter and found all of the words on the page. He showed determination and never got frustrated even with the hard ones. Like Lance said, "he is smart". Tomorrow morning we pick up our adoption registration papers and head to the notary office and police station to apply for his passport. We fly back to Shanghai to start our new life 'at home' tomorrow afternoon. Can't wait for all our friends and family to meet him!