Teng Wang Pavilion

So, yesterday was so exhausting I fell asleep next to Lucy before I had a chance to blog.  Not that I could have anyways as my brain has turned to mush.  Yesterday was the roughest day with Lucy in many ways.  While we have a bit more of a routine going making the everyday tasks of bathing and dressing and eating a bit better, she spent a lot of the day crying, still working through her grief.  There were some shining moments when we got her to laugh and smile - her eyes get HUGE and absolutely light up when she is laughing.  She is still wholly rejecting Melissa - hardcore - and gave a bunch of grief to Tyson yesterday including hitting him in frustration.  But she still wants him around and starts up the tear factory as soon as he leaves her sight.  As for me, I'm the only one she will let hold her, rejecting anyone else who tries.  It's got to be breaking Melissa's heart but she is being such a champ about it - she's read way more than any of us on how this grieving process works and knows/hopes Lucy will come around eventually.  Melissa says it's called nervous attachment - when the baby has an almost hysterical attachment to only one person - so much so that I can't go to the bathroom or walk across the room to change my clothes without her flipping out.  Apparently, it's not uncommon.  One of the families in our travel group says their first daughter with the husband for almost the whole 2 weeks in China - that little girl is now 7 and on our trip and is wonderfully attached to all the members of her family.  Very encouraging.

Yesterday we went to the Teng Wang Pavilion - a pagoda like tower that is the symbol of Nanchang.  It's like the Golden Gate Bridge or the St Louis Arch.  If you come the Nanchang then you have to visit the Teng Wang Pavillion.  It sits on the river and, although this is a reproduction of one of the original versions of the tower, it has stood watching over the city for over 1300 years.  Don't know how tall it is but it's pretty tall - six levels but each level was very tall.  I don't know if it was the heat, the fluid loss or the height - probably all three - but my head was swimming as we walked around the top to look at the river and the city.  Very pretty if I wasn't about to pass out!  I did much better by the time we worked our way down to the fifth and fourth levels - AC is such a wonder!  The entire time we toured, I had Lucy strapped onto my right hip with the Ergo Carrier - it's like a baby sling on steroids  - straps and webbing everywhere - and HOT!!!  Lucy and I are very tight with lots of sweat shared between the two of us in there. It doesn't help that she insists on carrying 3 of her stuffed animals in there as well.  The things we do for love.  We did that for a few hours and then went to an amazing lunch next door. Chinese not western with tons of food.  The whole group around a big table with a lazy susan in the middle - every traditional chinese meal we have here is like that.  All the food piled in the middle and everyone picks off the plates as they go around.  Spicy beef,  a different kind of really spicy beef, eggplant in sauce, chicken wings, fried rice, sweet and sour pork, roasted corn, shoestring fried potatoes, broccoli and garlic, chicken and green beans and it goes on and on - all for $10 US per family!!!!  KFC cost twice that the other night and it was just...well KFC.

Lucy just woke up for the morning so I'll have to tell you all about her first time in the pool when she goes down for a nap today.  Superdad to the rescue.

TJ