The Bath Saga

Johanna was wearing ALL of this...under that huge red coat.

My poor sweet baby. :(

Well, we did it. We took off Johanna’s coat and clothes and gave her a bath tonight. She wasn't happy about it, but she also didn’t totally freak out (until afterward). The poor thing had gotten to the point where she had sweat through her clothes so many times that her entire back was covered in an itchy heat rash. Everything was really dirty, and it was time. 

After her bath, we put her in clean underwear and pajamas. That’s when Johanna really started to freak out. She obviously wanted her old clothes back on. We decided to let her put her coat back on top of her pajamas. That way she still can decide when she’s ready to take that off, but at least she’s clean and safe. We plan on putting clean clothes on her tomorrow and letting her put the coat back on top again. I wasn’t sure it was the right choice to give her a bath and change her clothes at first, but when she didn’t protest too hard as we removed her clothes and washed her (we would have stopped if she did), and especially when I saw the heat rash, I knew it had to be done.

Can anybody translate?

The next 45 minutes or so was really difficult. Johanna was grieving hard. She basically tore apart a suitcase looking for her old clothes. I used the Google translate app to try to explain to her that we were going to wash them because they were dirty and that she could keep her coat on, but she wasn’t having it. I also had it tell her how proud we were of her for taking a bath, that we loved her, that it was time for bed, etc. She just kept sobbing and tugging my arm, guiding it toward the suitcase and speaking in Chinese, obviously trying to tell me she wanted her old clothes back. Eventually she let me bring her to bed, where Zack got her to fall asleep lying on his chest like yesterday.

The poor girl is SO tiny. She is super duper skinny. Besides the heat rash, we also discovered Chinese characters written on her arm. We’re not sure what it says or who put it there (maybe her foster mother?), but we’ll definitely ask our guide about it tomorrow. I feel so sad for her tonight, and I’m a little afraid of how tomorrow will go when she wakes up and remembers that she has on pajamas and then when we change her into clothes for the day, but I’m hoping she’ll feel better now that she’s clean and dry. And she still has that coat, so there’s that! Anyway, off to bed with the rest of the family…