Doing it herself

Tovina has taken to doing things herself. Mostly this means holding her own spoon while we feed her with another one. What is sort of surprising is that Tovina's spoon does not necessarily need to have food on it. Though when it does, she is getting reasonably good at getting the food into her mouth, sometime by taking it off the spoon with her fingers, but eventually into the mouth.

(This is Julia in the picture with Tovina. She was one of my fellow students in the MBA program.)

She also tends to turn the spoon upside down when eating with it. Maybe it is easier for her to taste the food that way.

This whole 'I can do it' attitude means that she loves finger food. Fruit is a big winner as are pieces of chicken, eggplant, Cheerios, and really anything else that is within reach. Frankly we have not found anything that is not a winner.

She is also getting better at sippy cup manipulation.

Learning about sharing

Tovina is just beginning to learn how to give things away to other people. She is starting to play the game where she will hand you something and then you hand it back to her. Then she gives it to you again and then reaches for it again. Then...
She is also starting to share food intentionally as opposed to randomly flinging it around.
This Saturday we were over at a friend's house and she gave part of the carrot she had been chewing on to another little girl.
How generous.
Though her new friend was all for it.
(Admittedly I bite pieces of food off and give them to Tovina, so maybe this seems normal to her.)

Later her new friend was interested in getting in on the Cheerio action (or baby crack as we generally refer to it.) Tovina didn't interfere but she also never looked away. Gotta keep track of these people trying to hone in on the good stuff.

Dancing Tovina at home

Last week we had Tovina dancing in Shanghai.
This week we bring you... Tovina dancing at home!

Ms Zhao gave Tovina a dancing and singing bunny for Chinese New Years. That's what is playing the music you hear. Tovina is quite fond of it as you can see.

This second one is of Tovina dancing to Cake's version of Mananana (which they spell Mahna Mahna but what do they know?) on 'For the Kids'


As usual, there are a few longer versions available on YouTube under - surprise! - ShamrockJews

Bed head

Tovina has finally managed to grow some hair. Admittedly it is all at the back of her head, but the fact that she now has noticeable bed head at least indicates that she is growing in the right direction.

Tourist day

We had a bit of a tiring day today. We moseyed around with our guest Brian, made our way to a really nice vegetarian restaurant near the Forbidden City, then headed down to Tian Tan (temple of heaven) one of my fav parks before coming back north to drop Brian off. At that point Brian's host gave Tovina and myself a ride home where, after a quick diaper change, we headed off to join Michael and Andrew, another friend in town!, for dinner.

Now Tovina is crashing and I am about to do the same.

This first shot is from some of the dancers at Tian Tan.
Here is an excited Tovina at the park.
Here is a kind Brian holding an exhausted T.
And here is the exhausted T trying hard to get some shut eye.

Why is this baby smilling?

Because we only have one more day of class to go!

Dinner in Shanghai

It can be pretty late by the time class ends and I get Tovina all together and ready to head back to the hotel but I still need to find some dinner. There is a McDonald's across the road, but generally I try to find something better. One of the tough things can be Tovina's exhaustion level - she is often pretty tired by 7pm (at home she is usually in bed by 7:30.) She wanted to be carried and cried when I tried to put her in her stroller - not that you can tell from this photo :)

Here is what I ended up eating, a soup made from ingredients I chose. I picked mushrooms, noodles, tofu, spinach, some other green leafy thing, and bean sprouts. It cost 5.5 rmb (80 cents) and was pretty good. Tovina also liked hanging out with the people in the store front so that was an added bonus.

I tried to wash down dinner with this sour plum soda which I had hoped would taste like Dr Pepper.
I was wrong.

Donating blood in China

On Wednesday last week there was a blood drive at the embassy. It was very similar to a drive in the States other than a few items:
First off, you get this cool book which you can see here.
Also

They type your blood in front of you
You have the choice of how much blood to donate (200 or 400ml rather than the straight 1 pint = 473 ml)
There are all sorts of restrictions that the US doesn't impose (No donation if over 55 or nursing a baby. Can only donate every 6 months rather than 8 weeks)
There are all sorts of acceptable conditions that the US doesn't recognize (No questions regarding prison time or sex with people who had served prison time, no question regarding traveling countries that have mad cow)

Lastly they gave all these cool gifts. I don't know if this is normal but it was very fun. I got a leather cased manicure kit with clippers, scissors, a file, etc. And even better there was a metal travel kit that contained a fork, spoon, and 2-part chopsticks that disassemble and screw together.

Dancing Tovina in Shanghai

Here is the view from Shanghai's Bund. The tall building is Oriental Pearl Tower (Dongfang Mingzhu).

And here is Tovina with one of the lions in front of one of the buildings on the Bund. (Update: the building in question is the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank known for its beautiful interior.)

And here is the highlight.. Tovina dancing!

Circus time

Sorry for the shortage of recent posts. I'm also not so sure I will be doing better this coming week because (drum roll please.....) I am heading to Shanghai tomorrow for my LAST MBA CLASS!! So excited.

But to do a little catch-up. Tovina rode on a little merry-go-round for the first time as seen below in still and in motion.
The other girls are Jennifer who we met there and Isabelle who we have played with many times.

In other news Tovina has now eaten hamburger, cheese, salmon, ravioli with spinach and cream sauce, bruschetta and really loved the tomatoes and buttered bread.