Crib and the Red Couch

Poor Ellie had to have another doctor's visit today. We took her to the Western Clinic in Guangzhou because Karen found a suspicious-looking lump in her lower abdomen, one that kept going away and coming back. Karen and Jocelyn guessed "hernia" and the American-trained doctor at the clinic agreed. We're told it's not a serious condition. Ellie will have to have outpatient surgery to correct it, which we'll arrange after we get back Stateside. It doesn't give her any trouble. She is still running a low fever from her infection, but it doesn't damp her spirits at all. In fact she was especially playful today just before bedtime.

Karen suggests that Ellie is just trying to one-up Tori (who had to have surgery soon after coming home to remove her epidemial inclusion cyst ... "hernia" is easier to say.)

One of Shamian Island's traditions among adoptive families is Lucy's, an American-menu restaurant with outdoor seating about a block from the White Swan. We have now been to Lucy's twice, not so much for the American menu but because it is convenient; and we have met fellow-travellers each time. Another White Swan tradition is the "Red Couch Photo," taken on one of a set of red couches near the bird cages on the hotel's second floor. Ellie does not approve of the Red Couch Photo. (She is not alone in that.)

The White Swan hotel is heavily occupied by Chinese babies with American parents. In fact there are a few parents of other nationalities, but Americans form a large and conspicous majority -- or seem to do so, anyway. We wander all over Shamian Island, carrying babies or pushing strollers -- the former, in Ellie's case. The island happens to be a "tourist" spot even for the local Chinese, who are also seen carrying cameras and shooting photos of everything. It is a favorite site for wedding pictures, due to the elegant European architecture, the very many beautiful old trees, the life-size and very life-like bronze statues that show Eastern and Western inhabitants through the centuries, the park along the Pearl River and the park in the island's central boulevard. We have run into a few families that we met in Hong Kong, who went to Nanning for their adoptions, and we have made friends with a few other families that we bump into at the hotel, then meet again elsewhere on the island.

One of the pictures in this set shows Tom holding another Eleanor. This older Ellie (four) was adopted from Jiangxi two years ago, and came back with her family for their second adoption, of a three-year-old little sister, Mae, also from Jiangxi. "Big" Ellie shows up in many of the other picture sets, if you care to go through them and hunt for her...