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olympian

Wouldn't it be so exciting to have a child in the Olympics? Today Madeleine and I were watching gymnastics. She wasn't so in to it but since I wouldn't play with her she sat with me and watched grudgingly. However, after awhile she got down and started trying to stand on her head and running from corner to corner of the room (floor routines) and ending with a grand throwing of the hands in the air and bowing. I was proud of her for just that display so I can't imagine having a child actually compete.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that a requirment to be a stay-at-home mom would be for us to have play friends. Well, today I found out that Madeleine already has about 8 friends here. They patiently sit on the bathtub eagerly awaiting her nightly bath. They are (in no particular order) shampoo bottle, conditioner bottle, empty sprite bottle, empty coke bottle, baby shampoos bottle, wierd blue liquid in a bottle and empty juice bottle. This morning when she walked into the bathroom for her first potty of the day she looked at the bottles and in a very happy, sweet voice said, "Good Morning." Then to me she says, "Those are my friends." A bit pathetic in one way but in another a good solution if you have no friends and are 2 1/2 years old. She's talked to them everytime we've gone in the bathroom today.

Madeleine does have a great imagination. She picked up a piece of cut up pizza the other day and said, "I can't eat this! This is a shirt!" And it did look just like a little short-sleeve shirt.

There will be a couple more gals staying here tonight. They fly out tomorrow so they'll leave the camp today and be sleeping here tonight. Then a few more fly out on Friday so last night was our one and only night with the place to ourselves.

It's going to be incrediably strange being back in Xi'an with just my family. No grandparents, no volunteers coming and going. Thankfully, Phil's folks will be flying in to visit a week after we arrive home. Yeah!!

Plus, we've got lots of new friends through this experience (2 teams of volunteers came from Xi'an) that I'm looking forward to getting to know better once we all return home.

Of course, there are always shampoo bottles that need befriending.

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