Cheezy Dining

This weekend we tried a restaurant close to our house called Swensens. It turned out to be some kind of 1970's American throwback joint, replete with stained glass hanging lamps and dark wood booths. I was pretty sure this place was something that could only survive outside of the US, but it seems there are still some locations stateside.

For some reason, I love eating in restaurants here that I would be snotty about visiting back home. Like this place. And Outback Steakhouse, where we also ate this weekend. I cannot explain it. Sometimes I just want a steak. Or some eggs and toast. Perhaps I left my dignity at immigration.

It wasn't all bad because Miss G made a new friend. And I got to sit in a pleather booth facing a stack o' pancakes. Yummmmm.

Mail Goodies!

We just got a fabulous package in the mail. Well, not really we. It was a gift for Gioia. But I like it so much that I am secretly calling it mine. When we opened the package, I said, Gioia these are from your first cousins... once removed... and second cousins... Hey, how about we just call them family.

Our cool relatives from Texas sent wonderful embroidered gifts. First, a cotton blanket that is a perfect weight for the stroller on these cool-then-warm-then-cool-again spring days in Taipei. Gioia also got a sweet monogrammed shirt and these fantastic bloomers. I think bloomers are one of the best things about having a daughter. Seriously, aren't they fabulous?


Thank you guys! We love them. Megan, you do very nice work.

Ruminations

Gioia is ten months old today.

In the two months we have known her, she has learned to wave hello, sit up without support, stand steadily while holding on to something, go from a sitting position to standing in her crib, pick up her feet and move forward while we hold on to her hands, roll over, crawl backward.

She starts dancing to Bob and Ziggy Marley immediately when they come streaming over the internet. Sometimes she will dance when you sing to her as well. It is a rocking, rocking dance, one that is quite intentional. Mozart, for example, does not cut it. Elvis and the Marleys, though, KICK IT.

She munches up her veggies, but makes faces at chicken and yogurt. She does not like to be on her back for changes, especially after lunch. She sleeps from 7:30 pm to 7:30 am. Every night. She loves to be held upside down and will throw her head back and arch her back to try to get you to do it again and again.

When she wakes up in the morning, she talks to herself for quite a while. Chris and I fight to be the one to get her up (seriously, we fight). That is because when you walk into her room in the morning she looks over sleepily. Then she slowly, slowly breaks into a smile of such joy that it completely makes your day.

She is fabulous, this little girl of ours. We asked China to give us a daughter. And by goodness, they actually did.

Easter in Taipei

This was our first holiday as a family. It was such a lovely day. Gioia had a great time digging through her Easter basket. When you can't give someone candy, putting an Easter basket together is quite challenging. Two items were really for when she is bigger: a jade cross and a bunny charm. We had to watch her like a hawk when she opened those. We we sure she would put the jade bunny straight into her mouth and choke and die. The tiny bunny was a hit, actually. Chris had to wrestle it away from her in the end.


I really liked the recycled fabric bunny from Muji, but she really wasn't that into it. Perhaps she liked the one her Grandma sent better. And see the basket - which isn't really an "Easter basket"? Yeah, that's what happens when you remember at 11:30 the night before that you actually need something to hold all of the goodies. But, really, who needs a long handled basket cluttering up the apartment?


After the basket was opened and breakfast eaten, we headed off to mass with our friends. But we decided to take the subway instead of a cab, and...well...we got a bit lost. Did you know there are at least TWO 51 Zhongshan North Road places in Taipei? Yeah. We made it, though, just in time to light some candles and sing some songs. An usher gave Gioia a real hard boiled egg, which kept her busy and quiet for at least 20 minutes. After church we had fajitas and margaritas. It was excellent. Perhaps Mexican food can be a new Easter brunch tradition?

Sooooo let me tell you about Gioia's dress. I finished it last night at 11:44. Yes, nothing like last minute sewing. The truth is that I started it late. We just got back to Taiwan a month ago, and the materials I ordered took a couple of weeks to arrive from Australia. And wasn't Easter so crazy early this year!? As a result of all of that, I only started the dress a week and a half ago. I told myself that if I didn't finish for Easter, then it could be her birthday dress. But I finished, and it was really cute today.


I used Cherry Williams' Baby Bishops pattern as the base for the dress. The smocking plate and scalloped edge technique came from an article in an old Sew Beautiful magazine.* I made some silly mistakes,** but it came together quite nicely in the end. Here is a closeup of the embroidered chickies with french knot eyes. Precious.



More Easter pictures are here.

*I think this was the Spring 2007 issue. Hard to say, though, because I have been subscribing for so long that I have to sort through every magazine and save the articles I like in binders. The issue date is not printed on each page, so the articles and patterns can get mixed up in my files. The article was called "Chicken Scratch," and the designer was Linda Richards. Oh wait, good old google tells me it was issue #111 after all.

**Like forgetting that it is important to remove the smocking gathering threads AFTER finishing the neck binding, not before. Yargh.

Hiiiiiii

We returned yesterday from a quick visa trip to Hong Kong. Chris stayed with the baby while I continued on to Shanghai for two days. When I came back to meet them on Tuesday night, I found that Chris had taught Gioia to wave HI on command. He took this great picture of her waving at her reflection in the bathtub. She is fascinated by waving now, and will get quite confused if the recipient of her enthusiasm does not wave back.

In related news, the visa trip was successful. For certain reasons, we were a bit worried that she would not get it (long boring paperwork story which has to do with the fact that she was born in China and trying to live in Taiwan), but it looks like this long road indeed leads to a residence card.

When we checked in for our flight to Taipei yesterday, the counter agent said, "Make sure you get to your gate early because of all the travelers." And we said - Yeah, what's up with all of the people going to Taiwan on a random Wednesday? Hah. The election. Everyone is flying home to vote. Crazy times.

Diapers

As soon as we got home from traveling, we switched to cloth diapers in earnest. We now have refined our process to one that is pretty effective. We fill a dry pail beside her changing table with pee pee diapers, and wash them once every two days. Poops get dumped straight into the toilet, and then the diaper gets thrown into the same pail. Big messy poops have a hazmat hose down process, which thankfully I have not yet had to perform (just Chris so far). Our washing machine has an "Xxtra Sanitary" setting especially for diapers. Fabulous.

We are primarily using a pre-fold and cover system, with a few "all in ones" for convenience. The pocket Fuzzi Bunzs are great; it is exactly like using a disposable (except for the washing part). We started out using Snappis to hold the diaper together, but those things were hard to use. Some did not grip the cloth well, and we seemed to always be struggling to secure the strap while the baby was whining and losing patience. Chris discovered a neat trick, though. The little straps that are used to bundle electric cords together work perfectly in holding the diaper closed. You can see one in use in the picture above. These things are sold in any computer or hardware store. We saw a packet of 10 today at B&Q for like 3 bucks. Cheaper and more effective than Snappis, for sure.


Our biggest problem in the beginning was leaks, especially at night. None of the covers that I made were able to last through 12-13 hours of nighttime pee pee. We did not have any mattress leakage because her two sleep sacks are both made of waterproof fleece. But she was waking up with a completely soaked onesie, which was not good. On one hand, the cloth diapers were comfortable enough that she did not wake up if the diaper was soiled (unlike the disposables, with which she woke at least once a night). On the other hand, morning cleanup was pretty gross. I finally bought some of the Imse Vimse wool diaper covers pictured above. These covers are incredible. Not a single drop has leaked so far. Each cover needs only to be air-dried after use (pee is sterile) and then washed and lanolized once or twice a month.

The wool soakers I knit work well for daytime (see picture below). I never got around to making the crochet edgings for the leg openings (I am a crochet failure), but they still work fine. The Very Baby covers are not so good, however. In one or two covers, the elastic edging failed after several washes. Also the velcro tabs are too small and too weak. Lesson learned: use large sections of Aplix or snaps. Now after a month, the sides will not stay shut without a onesie on top to hold it all together. If I have energy, I may try to make some more in the next size up, but I'll use snaps and a different seaming method this time.


Good diaper system = dry and happy baby. Now we can take all that money we are saving by not buying disposables and invest in a couple bottles of wine. Oops, I meant... college fund. Yeah.

Again. Again!

Art classes in Taiwan are really different from in the States. In Chicago, I was given lots of creative space and encouragement.

"Draw a still life." GREAT JOB! "Now paint it." GREAT JOB!

Here in Taipei, I spend two hours each Saturday trying to make my fruit (after fruit, after fruit) look just like the instructor's fruit. After each session he points to one and says: "bu cuo (not bad)."

Sometimes I wonder if I am disliking the watercolors because I really hate the painting method or just because of the boring class. Or perhaps I need someone to let me do my own thing and then come over and tell me GREAT JOB!

I shouldn't hold my breath, though.

I am a Dinosaur. RAR.

We had a little photo shoot of Gioia modeling her dinosaur outfit this weekend. These pictures are evidence that we are, indeed, trying to give her lots of tummy time. Even though she hates it. Which is weird, actually, because she immediately flips on to her stomach at night to sleep. Flipping her back makes no difference. She will just return to her tummy immediately. So if tummy time is OK for sleeping, then why not for playing?

Puzzling. More Gioia pictures here.

*^%$#^@

Ohio and Texas, you are DEAD TO ME.

Incriminating Evidence

I am sure my daughter will bring this episode up when she is a teenager.

More Things That Worked

Two more things - one prompted by my husband and one by Bes' comment.

12) Sleep sack - So no blankets in the crib means that baby needs another way to stay warm, especially in Chongqing in January. I brought one of the two sleep sacks that I made from an Ottobre pattern last year. It was great. Loved the sleep sack. Both are made from a waterproof fleece, which has proven quite handy now that we are home and using cloth diapers. Big fan of the sleep sacks. Do they make them in a 168 cm size?*

13) Hot shower trick - Gioia came to us with a pretty nasty cold. By the fourth day, she was waking up in the middle of the night with a persistent, hacking cough. Chris decided to run a hot shower and rock her near the open shower door. The steam build-up helped clear her airways and the white noise soothed her back to sleep. It was brilliant.

*That is a European sizing joke. Perhaps not so funny for those of you who haven't spent the last year trying to figure out if a size 74 cm is a 9 month, 12 month, or 18 month size.

Things That Worked

Before we left for our China adoption trip, we read lots of lists from people who have gone before on what to take and what not to bring. Well, most of that advice was useful, and is widely available if anyone is interested. So no need to rehash thoughts like *bring a thermos* and *lots of ziplock bags*.

Instead, I thought it may be helpful for us to share some of the more unusual things that worked for us on the trip.

1) Bedtime music routine - We preloaded her ipod* with a BeddyBye playlist that we would start right before we put her down. The list contains 15-20 sleepy time songs, mostly from this collection. Within a week, we had basically conditioned her to go into sleep mode if the songs started playing. Often, she would start to yawn about 30 seconds into the first song. If she woke up in the middle of the night and had difficulties settling back down, we just started the list again. It is important to play the songs consistently at the same time and in the same order every night. Also, we didn't play those particular songs during the day. Now that we are home, she falls asleep almost instantly after we put her down in the crib. I think the bedtime music is a big reason for that. This trick helped her to get over jet lag too.

2) Pack n' play - We knew we were going to be in three cities and three different hotels before we could fly home. We also were going to be traveling with her for a LONG time (about a month), so we wanted to establish as much consistency as possible during the trip. As part of the plan, we brought along a pack n' play given to us by one of our good friends in Beijing. Although the website says this product is not to be used in place of a crib, it worked really well. It was a pain in the butt to lug through airports, but it made her transition from hotel to hotel and finally to home much easier.

3) Carseat - There is much debate about whether one should bring a car seat on the trip or not. Chinese people really do not use car seats at all, so it is a bit of an oddity. Nonetheless, bringing a car seat was a great decision for us. She rode in it in every car we took (except for one - and that was a BAD experience). If a taxi did not have seatbelts in the back, then we waited for the next one. We also had a private guide take us to the orphanage, so were lucky to have had use of a regular car for much of the journeys. In the hotel, she took some her naps in the car seat for two reasons. First, her head was a little flat in the back from lying on her back for so much time. We wanted to give her every opportunity to stay off of her head. Second, she was getting used to being in the carseat. After six days, she would calmly sit there for thirty minutes or so. We also brought wheels that attach to the seat so it can be wheeled through airports.

Our only problem was that Air China forbade us from using the seat on the plane from Chongqing to Guangzhou. We even went to the airport the Saturday before the flight to show them the seat and try to convince them to let us buy an extra ticket (my husband speaks Chinese pretty well). We waited for an hour and a half while they called Beijing. The final response was no - not on 737s or 738s. Hmmm, China.

FYI, the rationale for using the seat on the plane has to do with turbulence, not crashes. Babies have flown out of people's arms and crashed into the ceilings of planes. I fly transpacific quite regularly, and I cannot remember the last time I was on a flight to/ from the US that did not have serious, scary turbulence for a period. For me and my family, taking a car seat was the only decision.

To balance that, however, we asked our guide in Chongqing how many other people he had seen with car seats in his ten years of doing adoption tours. He said - only you.

4) Mei tai carrier - This thing was fabulous for fostering attachment. She really relaxed once one of us had her strapped to our chest. We used a Babyhawk Mei Tai that is AWESOME. We also brought a Snuggli, but it sucks. Too much strain on the back. When she was fussy during the day, we just plopped her in the Mei Tai and walked around. It worked like a charm. In fact, now that we are home, she much prefers the carrier over the stroller.

5) Soft dolly for self-soothing - The orphanage rooms did not have heat, and all of the babies were swaddled up to sleep in large sleeping bag contraptions, tightly wrapped up in layer after layer of fleece. We think that Gioia learned to suck on the lip of the blanket as she went to sleep. Sucking was her automatic self soothing mechanism whenever she was stressed. So when we put her down in the crib to sleep, she needed something to suck on so she could settle down. We couldn't put a blanket in the crib, for fears that she would smother herself. I brought one of the simple velour doll babies along, and it worked perfectly.

6) Putting powder in all of the bottles - We had a veritable assembly line going in the bathroom in the morning. All powder for the bottles ( at that time, it was still cereal and formula together) was put into the bottles before she woke up. Then when a bottle was needed, we added room temperature water and then 50 ml of hot water from the kettle. A quick shake and we were ready to go.

7) Emergency food - We kept a few scoops of dry rice cereal powder in small bowls in the diaper bag at all times. If she needed a snack, we just added hot water and we were good to go. We also brought several jars of baby food with us because I was sure we wouldn't find organic where we were going in China. We did find lotus paste baby food though. She liked it.

8) Bath strategy - The first time we tried giving her a bath she screamed bloody murder and made us scramble for a fluffy towel. The secret lay in getting in the tub *with* her and her favorite toy. Which leads me to...

9) Stacking cups - Best invention EVER. The version we brought were bath toys too, so they were doubly great. Beyond that, no expensive toys were needed. We wandered into a toy store one day and bought a fancy rattle. That was not money well spent. She MUCH preferred to shake the tube of gum that we bought for one tenth the price.

10) Gerber stars - Baby crack. Awesome.

11) Casio point n' shoot camera - This little, inexpensive camera was excellent for taking quick little movies that could be quickly uploaded to the web. Our immediate and extended family all live in the United States, and they still have not met her in person yet. So movies are a really important way for everyone to share the Gioia experience. We have a big video camera too, but we barely used it on the trip. Actually we only used it one day: on the day we picked her up in Fuling.

*Yes, our infant daughter has her own ipod. To be fair, it is a hand-me-down. And we use it for play music, wakeup music, bedtime music.