Some mighty fine programing

Tonight I introduced T to come classic Sesame Street. See (C?), I was trying to sing "Up & Down" to her but I couldn't remember all of the lyrics though Tovina enthusiastically raised her hands up to the ceiling and put them down on the floor whenever the song called for said actions.
Not to be put off by my lack of remembered details, we headed over to my computer where we found this.
Tovina loved it so we watched it 3 times.
Our next big winner was the letter "B". This led to a lot of lip closing, cheek puffing, and bbbb noises.
Realizing that it was time to pull out the big guns, I introduced T to a classic that she has heard sung many a time but had never before seen with her very own eyes. The pinball song which counts 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12!

It was quite the learning experience for her and helped me remember why I loved Sesame Street so much!

Observations State side

People drive really fast here
Adults and children still adore Tovina though they are slightly less excited about her going around and touching stuff that is clearly not for her.
Other people understand the continuous thread of random thoughts that I say to Tovina
People immediately realize Tovina is a girl based on how she is dressed
A lot of people tousle Tovina's head but not many touch her arms or legs or face
The air sure is clear - even when it is raining
Its safe to walk barefoot outside
The tap water tastes good
I can understand the discussions on the radio, read all the labels at the grocery store and all the street signs
There was dragon fruit at the grocery store!
It is pleasant to walk down the street/sidewalk and there is no construction though there is the occasional plane overhead and a lot more dogs that run around and bark
The grocery store lines are really short and fast but the bills are really high
While our sleep schedule has pretty much already adjusted, I'm still exhausted... so that is it for now :)

Not going to miss

Things I won't miss

Haggling
The air - though we have had some GLORIOUS days recently
Living in an apartment building and parking across the street adding an extra 10 minutes to any outing requiring driving
Appliances within our apartment running on different volts and amps and using different sockets (our apartment came with 2 different types of wall socket types and neither of them is North American)
The lack of stroller friendly walking places
Haggling
The inability to find certain foods and then having them disappear once they are discovered
My inability to have silly little conversations with passing strangers
Blocked websites (though the only thing that has been made truly inaccessible to me in the last few months was the video I took of people goofing around at the Olympics that was then blocked by NBC even though when I looked up what it takes to infringe on video copyrights I seem to be within fair use.)
Haggling
Unsafe tap water

Going to miss (updated)

Yesterday one of our local friends asked us what we are going to miss most about Beijing.
And we weren't allowed to pick our friends - which was going to be numbers 1-4 on the list.
Here are some of my items.

Interesting and tasty foods!
Bicyclists having as much (or as little) right of way as the cars
Cheap groceries
Tight knit communities with lots of people willing to lend a helping hand
An entire society who loves babies
Almost an absence of road rage (though it does seem to be growing)
Our Ayi!!!
People exercising, dancing, working out in local parks

I'm sure there is more, but that is what I've got for the moment

and here is more
Massages!!! (how on earth could I forget this)
Having everyone smile at you encouragingly when your daughter makes laps around the restaurant, tries to go through stranger's bags, and then offers her half-eaten dumpling to them.
Having the wait staff take our daughter during the meal to go play

Noises

I'm told we need to publish some video, so here is Tovina making the noise that means "I want you to look this way." Why does it mean that? Because when Chinese people want to get her attention, this is the noise they make. It also means that when Tovina wants your attention, she might also make this noise.

Diapers?

The other day, while waiting in line at the grocery store, a crowd of Chinese women gathered around the small center of attention perched on my hip. There was a discussion among the ladies in Chinese and then one of them asked me, "Why do you put her in pants?" With a little more pantomiming I eventually realized the question was - why do you use diapers?

At first I tried to explain that it was so Tovina does not make a mess in the store. But Chinese babies are brought into the store with split pants all the time and I have only heard 1 story of an emergency. So my response just seemed ridiculous to them. What they were asking was more ,why bother with diapers at all? There is all that cleaning up of things stuck to the skin and the cost of buying them and the irritation to the child's skin. Why, they wanted to know, would anyone choose that way?

In my time here I have learned a bit more about the whole split pants thing for children. Most parents seem to learn to read their infants signals very young so that by the age of 6 months or so they know when their children need to use the bathroom and can react appropriately. This also means that the children learn that certain signals will get them assistance for going to the bathroom. Given that a 10 month old's ability to wait is pretty limited, this does mean that small children end up using the ground around the tree in the middle of the sidewalk occasionally. But it also means that their parents carry them around with no diapers and pretty much no worries from a very young age. To have an almost 11 month old child with a diaper.. well, it led to the question above.

Then the line started moving and I was saved from further attempts to justify my approach.

Paparazzi at the Great Wall

I know we shared some still shots of this recently, but here is a more comprehensive idea of what happens when Tovina pauses for a photo op.



The noise she makes at the end of the video is when someone new tries to take her for the next round of photos. I should also explain that this had already been going on for about 10 minutes when I took the video.

Food, glorious food!

We are making some serious progress on Tovina's eating habits. Today she had 1/4 of a mango, half a banana, and a whole egg yolk. It is so wild to just watch her eat it all up. Very fun and impressive.

The down side is that she also seems to be making some serious progress on getting that food to go all the way through her system. Also very impressive. We decided it would be best to not share pictures of this event.

I would not have thought to give her eggs yet but 2 of my Chinese classmates told me that they started their children on egg yolks at 4 months.

Friends in Bangkok

One of the shocking things about Bangkok was that Thai people like children in general, and Tovina in particular, even more than Chinese people. We had not thought this was possible. Below are photos of just a few of the friends Tovina made during our trip. I don't think we had enough memory on the camera to get a photo of every person who held her or played with her or took their photo with her. She had quite the time!

Here is Tovina making friends with a nice woman who had a store front eatery. (This was right before the nice man gave Tovina the orange.)

And here are the nice girls she met inside the neighborhood Wat (temple).

These were some folks who ran some drink booths at a food court. They watched Tovina while I ate lunch. During those 30 minutes Tovina was taken around and introduced to every single vendor surrounding the eating area where I was seated. When she came back to me, Tovina had the monkey that you can see around her neck in the photo. The girl on the far right had gotten it for her.

At the palace these tour guides entertained Tovina while I tried to cool her off by keeping her in the shade and feeding her watermelon.

These were from our dinner Monday night where the waiter finally gave in to temptation and rather than simply making faces at her, picked Tovina up and took her over to share with some of the other staff.

This was on our way out of the country where the staff of the store played with Tovina for about 30 minutes and brought over various toys from around the store to keep her entertained.

And finally her buddy on the airplane who was up for holding her as much as we would let him. He was very good at quiting a fussy baby especially considering that he has no children of his own.

Teething sucks

I sort of thought we were home free now that the first tooth popped free. (or teeth because I think there are 3 showing now but it turns out Tovina is shy about the inside of her mouth and refuses to let me see or really feel exactly what is going on in there.)

But I was sadly mistaken

The poor little thing has woken up with severe crying jags the past week or so and seems to be in a lot of mouth pain. We are trying all the usual tricks but its just no fun.

Since our Chinese babysitter is not here at night when Tovina is the most upset, we give her cold teething rings, wet, cold wash clothes, and sometimes even frozen bananas. (gasp!) They all seem to help for about 5 minutes a piece.

Apple mush

We've been trying to get Tovina to eat solids for a few weeks now with pretty minimal success. (Videos will be coming eventually.) Yesterday Zhao ayi cut up some apples and put the little bits in a cloth mesh bag for Tovina to chew/gum/suck on. It was a big hit!
As a side note: I had made applesauce out of the apples that Michael and I like for Tovina to try (our apples are something like a Gala apple, firm and tart) and Tovina had pretty much disdained it entirely. Zhao ayi said that maybe Tovina would like a sweeter and softer apple and that Chinese babies would start with something like red delicious.

Another side note: If you have not yet realized it, you can see all of the videos that we post at http://www.youtube.com/user/shamrockjews.

International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day

Today we helped our friend Bec celebrate International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day.
That is Bec on the left.
Her Grandmother started this holiday a few decades ago and it has since been taken to many corners of the earth. Bec even created a little red book to share the accurate history. You can check out the official site regarding this official holiday or you could also check out this http://icecreamforbreakfastday.blogspot.com blog which references Bec in this entry.

This shot was of Tovina listening to Bec and her boyfriend (the nice young man standing on her right) explain the history of this mighty fine holiday and the various prizes that were going to be awarded. Tovina won a spoon for being the youngest participant... er... make that attendant since she hasn't really figured out that whole swallowing of food thing yet.

One of the fun things about having this holiday in China are all the... we'll go with odd..toppings that are available for trial.
Michael and I both agreed that the hua jiao powder, otherwise known as really hot pepper, on the left were TERRIBLE although I tried some pickled vegetables on vanilla ice cream and it was okay. More surprising (more surprising than pickled vegetables in your ice cream?!? Yes!) was how much Michael liked curry powder (which can be seen on the last plate in the bottom right) on vanilla ice cream. He says its tastes like eggnog. I actually enjoyed the beer flavored ice cream with fermented bean curds. The fermented bean curds were in the brown/yellow looking box between the red jam and the spicy nut/chili sauce mix in a jar.) The fact that I thought that combo good leaves me almost as shocked as you probably are.

This is why we have cats (Warning: dog owners may find this offensive)

It came up in conversation the other day that there is not a good expression in English for helping a baby fall asleep. This does not seem to be a weakness in the English language regarding sleeping so much as a weakness regarding references to the end of pet's time on earth.

Since both Michael and myself have both felt vaguely uncomfortable 'putting her to sleep' and 'putting her down' even if only for the night, we have decided that in the future, when it is time to help our little one fall asleep, we will simply say, 'time to kill the dog.'

Corrections

Michael pointed out that we have had the cats for over a year so they were clearly around for the 2007 Chinese New Years. However, last year I do not remember them being scared by the fireworks. Admittedly they only seemed really startled once last night, but still it was odd behavior. Then again, these are odd cats.

I am also happy to report that Tovina slept just fine last night. Tonight might be trickier as there are considerably more fireworks going off, but I've got a good feeling about this sleep momentum that she has been building up. Unfortunately, the other thing she has been building up is her ability to talk to dolphins using her supersonic vocal range. Her capability is a thing of terror especially because she usually hits the really high notes when she is happy so I don't really want to shush her when she is so ecstatic.

Happy New Years!

Chinese new years has started, or at least the fire crackers have made their loud appearance. What I remember most from this holiday last year was being woken up at night by all the noise. Now that Tovina occasionally sleeps 6 hours at night, all I can think of is that if someone wakes her at 1 in the morning with some fireworks... well, its not going to be a good start to their year if I get a hold of them.

And to add to the fun, I believe that the blur of fur that just ran by was meant to demonstrate that the cats don't particularly care for loud exploding noises either. This is also their first time with this holiday.

To make it even worse, the new buildings going up next to us now block most of our view, so we don't even get to see the fireworks that we hear.

Teething is not a winter event

Tovina is teething. Well, at least we think she is. She is chewing on everything in site, drooling constantly, crying in pain with no visible reason, not sleeping well, and at the right age. We have a few teething rings for her, some of which are intended to be kept in the fridge or freezer so as to offer relief to her sore gums. We also have some of that numbing stuff that goes on her gums... and lips and tongue the few times we have tried to apply it.

I had a discussion with our babysitter and some other Chinese people about this recently. They were shocked that I would give a baby anything cold, especially in winter! Practically child abuse. Didn't I realize that after the teether was in the fridge and then given to her, it would make Tovina's mouth and thence her whole little body cold!

Cold is a big deal here and for good reason.

I have been informed that teething is normal process and that in general the people here don't interfere with it. Given time and patience it will take care of itself. Admittedly the cream did not seem to do much good, but she really does love her cold teething rings. Though, given how much Tovina likes to gum everything, maybe she just likes them because, rather than pulling it out of her mouth as we do with so many things she seems to find lying around, we actually encourage her to try to eat cold teething rings.

Baby break

I was informed today by one of the ladies that works in the Maryland office where we are taking classes that the work staff has 'baby breaks' during the day where they stop by to play with Tovina. They believe her to be an unusually friendly child and wondered if it was because she is American.

Making new friends

When we were in Shanghai, Tovina and I would walk past a park where people were doing their morning t'ai chi. Since we were usually walking past at 8am, it was just as one group was finishing. So here is what would happen: Tovina and I would be waiting at the crosswalk to cross to the park and at the other side would be a group of energized older ladieswho couldn’t help but notice this little person staring over at them. While I was waiting for the light to change, these lovely women who make their way across the street and congregate around Tovina – who was strapped into the front carrier. Every day the size of the group increased. On Saturday there were over 10 and they kept calling more friends over.

Unfortunately I understood practically nothing they say. After much repetition, there have been a few things that came through, mostly questions. Here is what they wanted to know:

She is 4 months old
She is a girl
She is mine
I am 32
We are Americans
She will be coming by tomorrow
She looks like Michael
I feed her breast milk

I learned to keep Tovina’s hands trapped with the little fold over flaps on her outdoor jumper, otherwise they admonished me about how cold her hands are. One day I had her in a little sweater under her outerwear. The top of the sweater was visible where the blue outdoor jumper was not quite zipped up all the way. The ladies were concerned that I had not buttoned the sweater up all the way so I woman took off her gloves so she could do up the very top button of the sweater which was right under Tovina’s little chin. I had left it undone because I could not convince Tovina to lift her chin enough for me to get it. Clearly these ladies had more skill, or at least determination, that I did.

They held us up through at least 3 turns of the cross walk light.

Protected from the cold

Tovina and I went out for lunch the other day but when it was time to come home, she didn't want to stay in her carriage, so she ended up strapped into her front pack. Unfortunately she was not wearing her coat and I was sort of afraid that she might get chilly during the walk. The solution? We decided to share my coat.

And away she goes

One of the things we have commented on before is how the wait staff in restaurants will take care of children while their parents eat a meal. We have thought that was a pretty neat feature and a wonderfully positive comment on Chinese society but had not had a chance to experience it ourselves... until this week.

Having just returned from the States, we were out running errands and decided to enjoy some lunch. As we were ordering, Michael was holding Tovina on his lap and she was looking particularly adorable in her leopard print outfit (see previous post). Well, the waitress, having finished with boring ol' us, squats in front of Tovina and starts trying to get her attention with hand clapping and general friendliness. Being a social kind of child, Tovina's all for it and responds with a big smile and a happy noise. That was about all the waitress needed and proceeded to lean in and pick our little girl up out of her daddy's lap. It is a good thing we had been exposed to this behaviour before or we might have been alarmed. As it was, when Michael looked at me as if asking, 'is this okay?' I immediately responded, 'Yes!'

The restaurant had a number of different rooms. We were in the one that had the front door. We're not sure how many of the other rooms Tovina saw but we do know that she disappeared for at least 10 minutest at a time. At one point a woman who was apparently eating back in one of those rooms, appeared to pay her bill. As walked by us she told us that we have a beautiful daughter.

Tovina was brought back to us when Michael finished his meal (I was still eating) slightly tired from her social outing but quite satisfied that she had been able to expand her fan base.