Score 1 for Daddy (and Mommy)

Today, the rain did not come as promised :). We had another awesome spring day as we headed to the Hubei Provincial Museum. The Museum contains the most important collections of artifacts in Hubei province - 812 of these are listed as first-class relics of China, and 16 are considered national treasures. The most famous treasure is the Chime Bells, which is the largest bronze musical instrument ever discovered. The Museum was a great exhibition of ancient Chinese artifacts, similar to the one we saw in Shanghai. The children especially enjoyed seeing the chariots and horse armour that were excavated from a very recent archeological discovery in Hubei.

Sir Quinn was his usual cheeky self today, throwing, hitting, spitting food, dumping apple juice on Daddy's head, etc. Steve and Jane continued to try new words and/or actions to get him to stop, but with little success. Finally a breakthrough - Daddy hit the jackpot. After Quinn hit his fellow Shiyan adoptee, Alice, and howled with laughter, Daddy sternly said "Ba Ba Shengqi" (shung chee) ("Daddy is angry") and laid Quinn on his back, he began to cry and cry. Several times for the rest of the day when Quinn was "crossing the line", Daddy only had to say Quinn's name (Shi Lin Yu) with a raised voice and stand up, and he responded very favourably :). Lots of work still ahead for Mom and Dad, but the transformation is in full flight. Not bad, considering we are trying to reverse 3 years of "acquired behaviours". We joke with the Lotens that the Shiyan SWI must have been a free-for-all - no rules, every child for himself, with the last one standing proclaimed the victor.

Having said all this, we did see a very sensitive side to our feisty wonder today while at the museum (which was an awesome place, by the way). While touring around, there was a little boy (probably younger than Quinn) who started to cry. Quinn immediately went over to see what was wrong and stood looking up at this little boy in his mother's arms. When the mom put him back down on the ground, Quinn looked at his face (presumably to see if he was still crying) and then put his arms around him to give him a comforting hug and kiss. We've seen this look of concern, but not the outward actions of a truly sensitive heart.

Tomorrow is our final day in Wuhan as we fly to Beijing late afternoon on Friday for our final leg of our journey :(. It has been a special time here with the addition of Quinn, and we hope to return soon to this fabulous city and province.