First...I soooo appreciate the love and support coming from all of you, it's been just fantastic to have all the comments and e-mails. I've been getting questions so I'll answer some of those. If anyone has any other questions, please ask shelnel@blforest.com
Jia is 20lbs and is wearing 6 - 12 mo. on top she is tall so not everything fits for the length of her legs. We're OK for clothing, I only had a few things here that are smallish on her or that will only fit for now. I'm set for at home, tons of 12 - 18mo. stuff for her to grow into. She isn't chubby anywhere except her thighs. Again, it's so hard to not compare, she is the same age Lili was when we got her but over double in size :)
Every single day I asked the universe for a happy, healthy baby.
She doesn't seem familiar with food, cookies yes, but mush in the mouth she still pushes forward. She tries everything and has a bite or two of everything we try. She doesn't like anything sweet. Tonight she had peas and had about 10 bites of that, and then came the green poop :) Much to Lili and Fei's dismay!
Diapers, she's wearing 2's, we'll move into 3's at home but these are fine for here. She drinks 6 bottles a day with one in the middle of the night. We were given a shedule yesterday at the civil affairs office and we saw that she was getting a bottle at 1:00am still. She woke up right on time again! She wakes up so happy.
Well...except for a few minutes ago, she woke us all up with shrill screaming, her leg was stuck out the crib bars. She went back to sleep right away...me...still up.
No other health anomalies that we can see. Just the little cold.
She can stand up from sitting but has a hard time rolling over still. She can roll over but often gets one arm left behind and then screams. She is extremely easy to comfort and distract.
We've figured out that crying, really crying almost always can be fixed with a bottle.
Lili wants to know why she drinks so much.
The girls adore her! They were however horrified when she had her first poop with us. It was aromatic and Eric was out of the room, he said he could smell it at the elevators. GRIN. As new parents to this little one I was just so happy to see that all was working. Food going in, food coming out. The simple basics of health. So, they weren't particularly helpful :) and there was a lot of gagging and fussing. Oh, and Mom wasn't any help either, she was too busy laughing at the antics. Jia, now she was just soooo proud of herself and had lots of dancing and squealing going on afterwords and then down for a nap.
I am the chosen one this time. Both Lili and Fei preferred Eric. He's handling it ok. I've told him all along that Jia will prefer Mama right away. It was instant with her. She cries every time I leave the room. So, she, um, has to sit on my lap even on the toilet. The girls are able to distract her for a couple mins so I can do some stuff but she's getting more and more velcroish as we go here. Eric brings her straight to me now and thrusts her into my arms and she stops crying immediately. Things change so fast with her, we're zipping through the stages at lightening speed. Mom is absolutely amazed at how fast she is melding into the family.
Yes, It's my Mom's Birthday today! We have some treats and cards here for her. We're doing immigration paperwork today and then this afternoon we're going to the Tengweng Pavillion. The guide is taking us, but only if it's not raining. I figure if it's raining we might go anyways, it would be a nice way to spend Mom's B-day.
For turkey day we ate pizza of course! We went to Wal-Mart and then Papa Johns again. Catherine, the pizza in China is still just so fabulous...why is that? Way better than at home. Mom ordered a garden special pizza with no cheese. The waiter was just dumbfounded...seriously he came back twice more to confirm. When he brought it to her the cooks came out of the kitchen to see if she was actually happy with that! Love it. Oh, and yes she was happy with her pizza.
We had so much fun in Wal-Mart. After the seriousness of the morning it was nice to just stroll around. Mom and I both bought coats, hers is a winter coat mine is a jacket suitable for CNY. Jia got a vest to match her silk hoodie blanket. Oh, and we bought two pairs of shoes for her, $2 each pair. She is a size 3!!!! I gave all of the shoes I brought for her to the SWI today, they were all too small. She hates wearing socks and shoes! She reaches down and pulls until they're off. So, we bought some boot style ones in an effort to keep them on her. It's become a game now for all of us, does Jia still have shoes on? one is missing? who has it? well where did she drop it? It's pretty hilarious. I can't stand sox and shoes either, so we'll be barefoot together at home.
Fei was WAY out of sorts today, several meltdowns and she was wanting to know why we attention Jia when she cries so I explained about meeting her needs so that she can start trusting that we will keep her safe and fed. Fei quick as a whip said 'well, you're not meeting my needs right now'. Sigh. So although it's going mostly OK with her, we'll still have a bit of work to do there. Fei has been great about food, smells, sounds and new experiences. Way better than we could have ever hoped for.
Lili wanted to take the photos of food at Wal-Mart so she held it together, got close and personal with smoked ducks and chicken feet in all flavors and we had a lot of fun with that project. We'll post those food/grocery store photos on a separate post. Fei did ok until the fish section, then she was done and demanded that I take her to Eric, who was off shopping with Mom. So, we didn't get too many pictures in there. Lili was horrified to see tanks of turtles swimming. Oh my gosh the experiences are big here.
Jia was gifted with a wooden pencil holder that has ancient poetry lacquered on the outside. We did the gift exchange and the women doing our interview was pleased to see the girls in red, all of us matching and honoring traditions. It was sad to note that there were only 4 gifts on her table with all of the children being adopted. To be fair, perhaps some had been moved. China is moving forward and they also are proud of their culture and gift exchanging is a part of that. There is my small lecture for the adoptive families going behind us. Our agency told us we didn't need to have gifts...I told them we would, just saying...it was appreciated.
Our guide Helen is tiny and meek and I can hardly hear her. She seems new to this and I was a bit worried when we met her but she's getting the job done with out any flaws. So that part is great. The civil affairs office was in a different place than six years ago. Downsized. Having done this twice before, I have to admit that the paperwork part is a total breeze.
There were some ladies at the civil affairs office watching us very closely. Catherine as with last time, I suspect there were foster mothers there. Some were in tears, some happy, some not. It's hard to write about a lot of that and we didn't take a lot of photos in there, it just seemed so disrespectful. I did ask twice but was ignored on purpose so didn't find out anything about who they were. Mostly it was about the Director who really was lovely but Jia clearly didn't know her.
The rain is mild here. More of a drizzle. Not affecting anything that we can see.
Jia loves music. She bobs her head and bounces. It's so cute. Her new report says she goes to sleep to music so we have found Chinese music videos on the tv and she does go to sleep faster once we put that on. I bought a couple more cd's of Chinese folk music for at home. Lili bought a cd of the Wondergirls. Pretty cool. She can't wait to get to the car so we can listen to it.
Mom took the girls to the book section while Eric and I were in the baby section and they found some arts and crafts books so Fei was delighted about that. They also found a picture book for Jia that she really likes. She knows how to turn pages and she sits still to listen already! Someone has been reading to her :)
Jia doesn't do a lot of sitting still. She is constant movement. We seriously have to take turns eating. In this heat and humidity...it's a workout just trying to hold her. I can't wait to be home where we can put her down and let her go! She loves toys. She grabs them, waves her arms around, bashes us with them, slams them together, squeals and babbles and laughs, she throws them, drops them and almost never puts them in her mouth. I'm pretty glad the 'group' is getting this baby...we might need some assistance in containing her :) Wait till she sees her toyroom!
Mom always jokes that I'm a chaos junky...ah..no...not at all compared to Jia! I wore her facing out in the carrier today. I know for attachment she should face in but she is attaching so well already that I figured it might be better for the short jaunt out to let her face out...she loved it. Arms and legs flailing the whole time. She waves and blows kisses and yells out to everyone. She gets super excited when she sees the girls, Eric and Grandma. Mom said her and Eric knew the girls and I were getting close to them because they could hear Jia coming :)
We attract a lot of attention but there are some moments that are just crazy, me in Wal-Mart with three girls on their own! Oh my. Fei said 'do you think this is a good idea Mom?'. They walk up to us and hold out three fingers and just grin and give me thumbs up. We had an interesting conversation with a woman and Lili said 'Mom, I know what she wants, she wants to take a picture of us' I said that was fine but she actually wanted our camera and we have a lot of photos going on here. Digital is great for that :) I've asked the girls if they wish they could understand but it doesn't seem to bother them. There is lots of English here at the hotel.
One of our cab drivers took us on a scenic drive yesterday and we all really enjoyed that. We think we'll try to set out to do that on purpose. Can you imagine the effect that request will have?!
I think of interesting things to tell you all when we're out and about and then go blank when I sit here.
I'm going to attempt a little more sleep before the whirling dervish is up.
