Our Leap of Faith: We have one of THOSE children ... and thankful for it

With all the official ceremonies and most paperwork behind us, today we visited Chongqing Zoo, which went pretty much worse than we'd feared. We're not huge fans of zoos anyway, but it was on the itinerary, so of course we had to go, and you never know when that magical moment of attachment will happen, and you should just make the best of seeing everything in China you can.
So this is how it went down.
We step off the bus and immediately Little Bit runs to the hawkers and grabs a pinwheel and some bubbles. The women hand more of the same to Jake, who has no clue and I'm sure thinks they are giving it to him. After all, how many times at parades and other fun events does that happen?
So we shell out the 5 yuan each for the stuff, but Kevin apparently paid the wrong woman for something, and the other one gets mad and tries to take the bubbles from Jake!!
Really!!? I know you need the money and this is how you make a living, but to thrust it at my son then try to take it away. I got pretty firm with my Bu (no!) at that point and we managed to disengage and let them fight it out.
But Jude threw a tantrum when the bubbles got packed away and only had just calmed down when we entered a place where you can get refreshments and we would not get him more toys and drinks (we offered him water which we had in our bag, to no avail).
Yes, we have one of THOSE children. AND we love every inch of him, but it will make for interesting times.
He did pretty well after that, so maybe we made strides.
After the zoo it was onto an ancient structure that was like a temple but really was only a place where royalty resided. It was more than 300 years old and beautiful.
At that point it was into the afternoon, so we missed the photo op at the river convergence (way more cooler sounding than the zoo in my opinion) and headed back to the hotel. We ate nearby (Jude's first Happy Meal!) and were checking out a kids' store for a size 2T (yes, you read it right) pants for the 4-year-old when Mr. Bull in a China Shop (aka Jude) starts making messes and being his grabby, wonderful self.
So Kevin and I decided he would take the boys back to the hotel so I could shop in peace.
Well, Little Bit has been attached to me today, so you can imagine how that went down.
Kevin was grateful no one called the authorities about the man carrying the child who was screaming for his mama and whatever else in Chinese.
Back in the room, safe and sound, the little stinker decided to push the boundaries some more by pulling down his pants in the main part of our hotel room instead of using the bathroom (which he knows perfectly well how to do) smiling the whole time. He was only faking us out, though. Then he went to two trashcans and did the same thing before finally going to the toilet and doing the real thing.
But he settled down and we ended up having a pretty good family bonding moment with Jude's first pillow fight. He was laughing the entire time. It was wonderful to see.
Then we decided to get brave again and venture to the very fancy hotel restaurant with our kids for turkey dinner, which was not on the menu but they would "figure something" as the waiter said.
Jude dived into his fried rice with pork and some kind of tart fruit. Rice was going everywhere.
Kevin and I got our turkey, complete with a little gravy boat, so when I poured some gravy over my turkey, Jude picked up his mango juice and poured half in his rice!! And then he ate it! Rice flew some more. He then climbed on my lap and started to feed me ... an entire roasted small potato. Then before I could hardly get it in my mouth he tried to give me another. I was laughing so hard I nearly choked on a potato. It made Jake laugh, until he worried I was choking to death (I wasn't I was just really cracking up!) He came over with his spaghetti sauce-stained face to make sure I was OK.
We felt like country bumpkins bumbling into a 5-star restaurant, but we wouldn't have had it any other way.
Day ends with room service ice cream, baths and bedtime. The boys fell asleep immediately. Oh, and Jude LOVES his footed pajamas (will try to get pics of him tomorrow).
Sigh.
Jake, as usually, took things in stride and was a good big brother to his headstrong DiDi. We owe him some major reward one-on-one time with Mom or Dad when we get home.
Oh, and did I mention, we have one of THOSE children. AND we love every inch of him, but it will make for interesting times.
We have rest tomorrow until we leave for Guangzhou in the afternoon to get Jude's Visa and medical checkup in the next few days. Happy Thanksgiving from China everyone! We are blessed beyond measure by our family, friends and our wonderful Lord.
~ Violet