Orphanage Visit

It rained quite a bit today, however, we did not find it to be a gloomy day at all. After eating our favorite meal of the day, we packed up for an outing. We left at 9:30a for a three hour drive from Nanjing to Zhangjiagang. Our guide rented a driver for the day, which came with a van. Yesterday Melanie slept for most of the day and all of the night. I think it was definitely a grieving day for her. I was kind of worried about going to the orphanage and confusing Melanie even more about what she was going through. I was wrong. It turned out to be the best thing for her. It was like she was able to say goodbye to the nannies and director and see their approval. As I mentioned it was raining so we did not get any good pictures. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside as we were guided around for our tour. We got to see where Melanie slept and played. Other than a small group of boys (various ages) all the other children were napping and snugly tucked in to their beds. The orphanage was extremely clean, but very cold. The individual rooms were heated with large space heaters, but the hallways were freezing. Now we know why the children are bundled in so many layers. Since the children were sleeping, most of the nannies were in a small break room. The director walked into their room holding Melanie and all of the nannies jumped up to see Jin Shun. They were so excited to see her. She was passed around (Jin Shun reaching out to each one) as they called her name out and made her laugh. The director told us that all the nannies thought she was beautiful and loved playing with her. It was obvious. She also did have one special nannie that she played with the most. Unfortunately we did not get her name, but we did get her picture (the first one posted). Melanie did however keep her eye on us the whole time and reached out to me several times. After only two days with us, she already knew who her "mama" was. We had a small tea reception with the director and the favorite nanny and shared Jin Shun information back and forth. Then we said our goodbyes and thank yous and went to see the hospital where Jin Shun was found, which is also where she had her cleft lip repaired. ( Her palate still needs surgery.) The director told us that Jin Shun would have had the palate surgery next year through the orphanage if she was not adopted yet. We actually just did a quick stop at the hospital and took a few pictures of the outside. It was still raining and we were contemplating eating somewhere, but the chosen restaurant was closed so we just headed back. Melanie's schedule has pretty much been messed up since day one. She didn't appear to care for a 3 hour drive and the orphanage director mentioned she wasn't too happy on the trip they took Monday to Nanjing with her. Up to this point, we had not seen her cry very much. When we first got in the van at our hotel to head to Zhangjiagang, she started crying and didn't stop until she passed out 30 minutes later. I felt sorry for the van driver. The director did tell us that when Melanie is upset the one thing that usually calms her down is food. So on the way back when she got really fussy, we broke out the fruit puffs and gave her one at a time for the next hour. The last picture posted was from the ride back. Needless to say, we are stocking up on food for our long flights back home. After we got back from our adventure, Melanie was a new person. It felt like she had some closure and was ready to move on. We were very entertained for the rest of the evening. She had a short 20-30 minute nap today, but didn't go to sleep until 9:15p. We are exhausted. She has been so much fun this afternoon. We can see that we definitely have our hands full. What a cutie . I'll add a second post with the pictures of her playing after we returned to our hotel.