Orphanage

Thursday we were able to visit the orphanage where Nora lived. For privacy of the orphanage and kids that live there I am not going to go into a lot of details but we were glad we could see where she had been living. She was attached to a Nanny in her room and we got to meet her and exchange information so that we can send her pictures of Nora. The orphanage has 800 children living there. This orphanage is mainly for babies and kiddos that have special needs. Health care is very expensive here so if a baby is born that needs surgery or specialized attention many parents cannot afford to take care of them. Also, in China up until two years ago you could only have one child. The law changed about two years ago and now families are permitted to have two children. Though the salaries here make it difficult to afford two children.

When we went to the orphanage we decided to not take Nora back into her classroom. We thought it would be hard since she was so attached to her Nanny to take her back to visit and then pull her out again. So, Clara and I went into the orphanage first and Brad, Dana and Nora stayed back in the van with our driver. We took a tour and then switched so Brad and Dana got a chance to see inside. Nora had two rooms. A sleeping room with cribs and a play room with toys and a large TV. There were 30 children in her room. Each Nanny was in charge of 4 kids. The Nanny said Nora was a favorite. She would give snacks to kids who were crying to try and cheer them up. Brad asked if she had any boyfriends and the Nanny laughed and said that yes there was one boy in particular that Nora liked the best. They often played together.

There was also an outside playground and Nora visited there in nice weather and loved the swings. Nora seems much more advanced than her classmates with her physical movement. She was in the 2 and 3 year old room and there were kiddos who were not even crawling yet. She can run and walk up and down steps holding on to your fingers. She can hold a balloon, drop it and kick it. She can throw everything. Even when you don’t want her to. 🙂

She is learning so much every day. She likes us to sing Old Mac Donald to her and she will say Mama eeee i eeee i oh. She is learning how to say more and cat, dog and fish. She is trying to hum twinkle twinkle little star and she now asks for hugs from all of us by holding out her arms really wide.

She has such a routine. I am sure it is from living with 30 kids. She is a great sleeper. She goes to bed at 8 pm with out a fuss. She takes a nap from 12:30 to 2:30. She falls asleep right away. She loves to suck her thumb. They said she was up at 6:30 am but she has been sleeping in until 7:30. She probably is sleeping more because we are on the move so much.

She eats so much. She will not stop eating. We have to limit the amount of food she eats or I think she would burst. I was nervous to give her things with nuts in it because I wasn’t sure if she would have had nuts before and our guide said not to worry because kids don’t usually have allergies to things and she would be fine. The lack of allergies here is a curious thing to me since allergies are so prevalent in America.

Here are a few photos of the orphanage. We weren’t allowed to take any with kids in them for privacy reasons so we couldn’t get any pics of her play room.