Februrary 28, 2016

This day we would load up in a bus full of other adoptive families and we'd drive across Guangzho, to spend the day at Chimelong Safari Park. We knew that it'd be an exhausting day and we really didn't have the energy, some families chose to skip it, but we'd done it once before and knew that it wasn't something that we wanted to miss. Chimelong Safari Park has large populations of breeding animals, is one of the biggest zoos in all of China, and it is impressive.

Panda house:

(This was my life.)

White tigers:

Safari ride:

She fell asleep.

Everyone was worn out.

We were off the safari ride and back out in the park, watching more animals, when a Chinese tourist walked up to Luna and stuck her camera right in her face, chattering in Chinese. The lady pushed Luna's hat back and pulled her glasses down to take a photo.

She.touched.my.child.

John and K-Man were standing with Luna when it happened so I stayed where I was. I waited on them to handle the situation, I was focused on maintaining my composure, I was a visitor, her father and our guide could handle it, right? They just kind of froze in shock and watched it happen. After the tourist took her picture and went on her way, I felt very angry. In a lot of ways, Luna became MY child at that moment. Gah, I was furious.

I took a deep breath and I told John and K-Man, "If the two of you can not protect her from people taking advantage of her- doing exactly what just happened- I will protect her.  Either deal with people like that, or I WILL and it will be ugly."

At that moment I stopped caring about being "nice" inside of China and I, for sure, became a mother for the fifth time. The picture below would have been made right after that happened, she was not going to let me hug her, but I didn't want to forget. I won't ever forget. I remember thinking something along the essence of, "Little girl, you may hate my guts forever. I'll learn to be okay with that...but no one will ever hurt you again."

Momma bear? Check.

Finally, on our way out of the zoo, and I told the girls that they could pick whatever they wanted (within reason.) Q-Boo chose babies for her Bamboo Panda that we'd bought earlier. Luna picked another backpack. Q-Boo also picked souvenirs for the boys.

(Yep, I'm still mad.)