Last Full Day in Zhengzhou

After a much needed day off yesterday, we went to a park here in the city this morning with our guide Danielle and her almost-two-year-old son, Patrick. It was a beautiful day to be outside, even though it was almost 90 degrees when we got outside. As we'd suspected, Jonathan hasn't done much walking around outside, and that showed today. He tired out after about half an hour of walking, and the combination of being physically tired, hot, and somewhat overstimulated by the sights and sounds of the park resulted in a handful of tantrums and meltdowns in our last 15-20 minutes outside. Even after just three days with us, though, he's responding better when we tell him he can't respond like that. When he starts flailing about, we sometimes have to restrain his arms and legs, and where this just increased his frustration earlier in the week, it now helps him calm down and come back to himself.

 

We ate a lunch of instant noodle bowls back in our hotel room, and he LOVED the noodles, so much so that he ate more than Kristie did. Thankfully, even before lunch was ready, he had calmed down from the morning's activity. He spent some time sitting off by himself, playing with toys and spinning bottle tops, coins, and whatever else he can find to spin. We're learning that he occasionally needs some time to himself to cope following a period of intense (at least for him) activity. The good news is that he hasn't yet gotten completely lost in his own world; he wants to make sure we're still nearby, even if he's not ready for us to interact directly with him. Life with him is all about balance, and yesterday and today have been really good for us all as we try to figure out how our life together is going to work.

Given the hard times he had at nap time and bed time yesterday (not nearly as bad as on Monday, but still difficult), we were a little apprehensive heading into his nap today. We didn't know whether the morning's activity would have tired him out so much that he'd just fall asleep or have upset him so that he wouldn't want to sleep. It turns out, neither was the case. He was definitely tired from the morning, but not to the point that he collapsed into bed. He had returned to playing with some toys after lunch, and when I picked him up to change his diaper and settle him into bed, he didn't resist at all. In fact, he was sound asleep within about 15 minutes, and he slept peacefully and contentedly for over two hours.

We're just about to head out for dinner again tonight. Our bags are mostly packed for tomorrow's flight to Guangzhou, where we'll begin the last week of our stay here. We don't know how he'll handle the airport or the flight, so we'd appreciate your prayers for that. We can't thank God enough for this little guy, and we hope he'll be able to keep things together tomorrow.

Greg