Day Four: 5 Big Changes

Wednesday 1.27.10

On this cold, windy, rainy Wednesday, we decided to go to the bookstore down the street in search of small gifts for friends. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the perfect gift, but Schäfer did.

Hubs decided that since Schäfer has been doing pretty good for a little boy being away from home for so long (read: being away from all his trains for so long), he agreed to give him a special treat and bought a bi-lingual Elmo Visits the Firehouse dvd. In our house, this is a big deal.

On our way home, we ate lunch at a random restaurant. Hubs saw something in large, ceramic pots. He asked what it was. They replied, “duck soup” and that’s how we selected today’s restaurant. We’re easy to please.

After a couple of bites, I came back to the hotel room because of a big diaper. Hubs and Schäfer finished up the meal. So far, we’re pretty impressed with the quality of Jiangxi cuisine.

For lunch, Sianna enjoyed apple, carrot and pear combo baby food meal.

I realize that Chinese culture has a completely different philosophy for babies and food. For example, most of my friends introduced eggs to their child at 3 months. I waited until Schäfer was almost a year before trying eggs. We don’t have allergies, but you know what the baby books say…

Anyway, I realize that Sianna has probably been exposed to lots of foods and textures by 8 months. The fact that her foster Nai Nai sent 5 packages of “xiao mantou” (small white puffs) probably means that Sianna ate them – well, gummed them is more like it since she has no teeth.

Right now, we’re taking it slow: rice cereal, baby food, etc. Once we get home, I’ll be back to Super Baby Food. For now, it’s mostly milk, baby food from a jar and rice cereal.

We live in a hotel. We’re making it work.

After lunch, we agree to let Schäfer watch Elmo before nap time. Here they are anticipating the Elmo movie… but the movie wouldn’t play. Naturally, Schäfer was upset. He easily agreed watch some Thomas the Tank Engine instead.

During nap time, Hubs took the movie back to the bookstore where he learned that it will only play on an actual DVD player – not in our computer.

Now, on to today’s 5 Big Changes…

• This morning, Sianna did not cry when I changed her nappy or clothes. I can’t believe after 72 hours she’s trusting me that much. In fact, she did not cry all day during nappy and clothing changes.

• Today, Sianna held up her head during tummy time.

• I’ve also noticed that she’s holding up her head in the Ergo instead of resting her head on me.

During the beginning of tummy time she kind of lays there and gnaws on a finger or two.

Then, she complains that she does not want to be on her tummy. She would rather be held.

Eventually, she makes her way up – normally to watch Schäfer play.

Once her head is up, she’s her happy self again. If she’s watching Schäfer play, she can stay like this for quite a while. If she gets bored…

• Sianna is also holding her head strong when moving from a laying position to standing while I hold her hands.

• It was a MIRACLE nap day. Sianna napped from 12:30 – 2:30 and Schäfer napped from 12:50 – 2:50. I actually got some photos edited, captioned and uploaded.

This afternoon, it was raining pretty hard so we all played together in the hotel room.

Here are some favorite shots from today:

love you Sianna.

This evening, we were tired of being at the hotel so we ventured down to Walking Street and met up with some friends. We ate a delicious supper at SoKoo’s. They are a Brazilian barbecue type of restaurant (I say “type” because the meat men were dressed as Texans not Brazilians.) Anyway, the meat men bring around various types of meat on a skewer.

While the meal was delicious and the fellowship was sweet, it did create a very late night. Once Sianna was down, I fell asleep at 9pm trying to get Schäfer settled. Schäfer is having a hard time sleeping while Hubs and I are moving about the room.

While I was off to dreamland, Hubs stayed up blogging about our first day together.

(Update: I have gone back and added lots of details and additional photos to Hubs post. You can read the updated version here.)

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