Saturday-Sunday in Guangzhou

We're learning our girl, 

bit.

by.

bit. 

Most of the itty-bitty bits are pretty fun, or sassy, or shy.
Most of them.

Maylin is exploring just about everything within the confines of our room. 

She enjoys manipulating the zipper on our suitcases, exploring the stuff inside our suitcases, 

checking out the new snack foods, the TV remote, 

the desk lamp dimmer, the desk lamp light bulb 

Having the suite has been great

(which will certainly put a blister on your index finger, if you must touch it...OUCH) 

and the computer which you may only touch with parental supervision.

Our room at the Holiday Inn Shifu

Most of her activity is sanctioned, although some of it we've just chosen to ignore (like completely peeling the paper off her Crayolas. I'm sure we wouldn't have let any of the other kids do that at 6 years old.)

And FYI--it just ain't right to color with paperless crayons. Take it from a gal who has colored 5 full pages all the way to the edge today:
It just.ain't.right.

 The burn from the light happened although she was repeatedly warned with all sorts of sounds and charades what might happen should she chose to touch the hot bulb. My friend Toby has a sayin' which so puts her behavior in a nutshell regarding the touching  the light bulb thing... I hope he adds it as a comment below.

Those who know me personally can vouch for my
compassion.
Those who know me personally can also vouch for my lack of sympathy if you choose to do something stupid when you've been warned it's stupid. Good thing Maylin doesn't know me well yet, because she got the "aww, poor baby" sympathy-pout from me but I don't think she is tuned in to the
underlying sarcasm. yet.

Lotus flower at Six-Banyan Temple

After the first potty stop of the day

Change of subject: Using the bathroom must be a universal time-filler for all kids. The Urologist's newest daughter can hold a major bladderful sometimes...yet insistently requires a visit to the little girls' squatty anytime she's bored.

(She is scamming me as if I haven't figured this out, 
Oh Clever Child #8 in the Dersch Dynasty)

While the three of us were on Shamian Island shopping this sweaty afternoon, I  had an
interesting bathroom experience with Maylin. Mark was almost ready to begin the negotiation part of the transaction (read: haggling) when I heard the whispered

niao-niao (think meow-meow, with an N sound)


I replied, Shao hou. In a minute.


coy smile: niao-niao


head shake: In a minute


insistent pulling on my hand: niao-niao


rolled eyes: Do you have a bathroom she can use?


The shop lady was, as every shop sales person has been so far, quite taken with our Inner Mongolian Beauty, and was quick to say she'd show me one we could use. Before I could say Charmin, she whisked us out the door, around the exterior of the building, to the alleyway in back (this is about the time I thought, "I may never see her Ba-Ba again, and we didn't tell him where we were going...") up a short flight of irregular stairs to the laundry area that she also runs, and triumphantly pointed up another 4 steps to the squatty potty. 
I wait for you here.
Uh, we can get ourselves back to the store...will you tell her Ba-ba where we are? Thanks.


I've thought of taking a photo of what it takes to get two people squeezed into a stall that has 9/10th of the floor taken up with, well, a porcelain hole in the floor. But, no can do. That gets weird, even for me. 
So, you figure it out: While toe-to-toe, I have to hold onto a little girl's tiny ribcage while she's clinging to my slippery-wet, sweaty arms while I'm  pulling up her dress so she can pull down the other clothing we need removed, while keeping our feet at the required angles to avoid what we wanted to avoid...
It was funny enough that I even enjoyed the absurdity of it at the moment.


And then it happened.
Not 
what
you
think.


My ebony-eyed cherub flashed her pearly white chicklets at me, 
and pulled a stolen toy out of her underwear.
Not. Even. Kidding.


Did I mention that I was already feeling a little like I was living a Monty Python rerun?
I put on my neutral face, placed the toy on a flat surface above the pee-line, and we finished what we had come for.


Job done, we left the toy at the rightful shop. I didn't mention anything to the shop owner.


If, perchance, you're on Shamian Island in the near future
 and you're interested in a little red transformer-like toy,

don't touch it. Just don't.