Red Couch

And just like that, our time in China has drawn to a close.  As soon as Henry's visa arrives, we'll leave by van for Hong Kong.  It ought to be a bit less than 3 hours on the road, and we'll be sharing the ride with Dr. and Mrs. Indiana and their son, Ethan.
We made our own Red Couch today for the photo session, and the kids dressed up in their little Chinese outfits.  It was pretty cute... and hot and sticky.
Henry was a bit more fussy today, and it is becoming clear that he believes he is entitled to attention any time he wants it.  It's hard to get down on that, because that's the life he was thrown into for the last 10 days after 18 months in a remote Chinese orphanage.  He got really fussy just before lunch time, and because he know completely understands that the food comes from me, he did his fussing to me.  

Funny thing, though, his belly was still huge from breakfast.  His little body doesn't even really know when he's actually hungry.  With scheduled feeding times and limited feeding times in the orphanage, his body hasn't been conditioned to normal hunger/feeding cycles.  And because he was so upset because he thought it was lunch time, he started sucking on his fingers, a habit of which Jenn is not fond.  It becomes a vicious circle, though, when we tell him to stop sucking his fingers, because he is only equipped to calm himself by one of two methods: eating or sucking on fingers.  So when there's no food and no fingers, there is great turmoil, and we know that we need to give in to one of those things until we can help him develop the tools necessary to not get so worked up.

After a lunch of peanut butter & banana (he's eating some fruit now!), yogurt and oatmeal, he was in a better mood.  A learning experience for us all.
We're all packed now.  It's funny how much we accumulated on this trip... more than we anticipated at the outset.  Our marathon of travel will start very soon.