Bringing Home Mei Mei

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby smiled at Harper.

"Statue," she said in English.

[justagirl4fun]

Despite Ruby's use of the Changsha dialect, Harper still didn't really understand her; after 3 years in an orphanage her vocabulary was closer to that of an 18-24 month old at best and she had no idea what a statue was. Still, she looked around at all the interesting things the island had to offer, seemingly in pretty good spirits despite her undeniably rough day. She kicked and squirmed, attempting at get out of Anne's arms as one statue in particular caught her eye.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby ran over to join her as Harper led them to the statue she wanted to be near.

"Daddy!

[justagirl4fun]

Harper made her way over to a statue, or rather a group of statues, of a woman playing a violin with 5 children following her. The children were right about Harper's size and she studied them intently, tracing their cherubic faces with her fingers and chattering happily. Most of it was more or less baby babble, but there was the occasional identifiable word.

[Ishigreensa]

Anne started taking pictures of Harper in natural movement in awe around the statues.

Ruby tried to get Harper to look at the camera while Anne continued to take pictures.

"Are you getting any pictures?" she called back to Jack.

[justagirl4fun]

"Yes, I got some. How about one of all 3 of you, over on that bench?"

[Ishigreensa]

Anne nodded and called to her little girls.

"Come here, babies!

[justagirl4fun]

Harper took Ruby's hand and walked towards the bench, though she pulled away and ran the last few steps and buried her face is Anne's lap with a joyous squeal.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby smiled and ran after her, and climbed up to sit on Anne's one side.

Anne picked Harper up and put her on the other side.

[justagirl4fun]

Jack hurried and snapped the picture as soon as Harper turned to him. "Come on baby, smile for daddy," he begged, making a silly face but she turned to Anne and whimpered, trying to get on her lap.

[Ishigreensa]

Anne obliged and put Harper on her lap and turned her to face the camera while in her lap.

[justagirl4fun]

Harper grinned, happy to be in her favorite place -her mother's lap. Jack snapped a few shots. "Okay, got it!" he said.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby smiled and finally got bored of sitting still and stood up and started to do individual poses.

"Daddy!

[justagirl4fun]

"Yes. That's a good one," Jack said and snapped a few dozen shots of Ruby in various poses. He still wanted more of Harper, though, to go with the hundreds of photos they had of Ruby's China trip. "Honey, see if you can get her on the bridge," he directed Anne, pointing to a small bridge over a koi pond.

[Ishigreensa]

Anne stood up and held out her hand to get Harper to take hold of it.

"Come on, honey.

[justagirl4fun]

Harper followed along, pausing to squat down and study the fish in the pond, waving to them and babbling on in Chinese.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby bent down and looked at the fish with her sister trying to hear her Chinese since it was the first time she had ever heard her sister really speak besides to the doctor.

[justagirl4fun]

Jack took some pictures, but paused when Ruby peed. "Well, I guess we're done here," he said, rolling his eyes.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby looked up at him with big round wet eyes.

"Why daddy?

[justagirl4fun]

"Ruby, you just wet yourself. Don't you want to change?"

[Ishigreensa]

She shrugged.

"No.

[justagirl4fun]

"Fine. But just a bit longer. Harper hasn't had a nap today," he said, though he worried that if she did sleep at this point she'd be up half the night which probably wouldn't be a good thing since she had her medical exam in the morning.

[Ishigreensa]

Ruby nodded and continued to play with her sister, Harper trying to explore the world with her and hear her brand of Chinese for things.

[justagirl4fun]

(hey, only gonna be posting sporadically tonight...don't really have time for long, detailed posts and I don't like leaving you with too many short replies. I'll probably be around a bit more tomorrow though.)

"So, you think she did that on purpose?" Jack asked quietly as he approached Anne. "I don't want to make a scene in public, but what should we do? I don't want her thinking it's okay to per her pants on purpose just because she doesn't want to stop what she's doing and find a bathroom..."

Harper named the things Ruby brought, or at least the ones she knew, then took great delight in dropping them off the bridge into the pond.

[Ishigreensa]

(I'm not going to be around much myself.