Things about Daisy...

Since we have been home and adjusting for a few weeks I though I would update what Daisy is up to.

She still loves to eat.  A typical breakfast is:  1/2 packet of oatmeal, 1/2 banana, 1 egg, 1 carton yogurt.  I am not kidding here.  Breakfast is usually her biggest meal but she would eat all day if I offered it.  She usually has lunch and dinner and a few bottles of formula in between.  She will eat anything I am eating, i.e. pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, salsa.  The other day she ate a coupon.  Swallowed it whole before I could stop her!

She is adjusting really well.  She is happy most of the time and loves exploring our house and destroying everything she can get her hands on.  She literally does not sit still, but will occasionally sit in my lap for a quick book, quick being the key word.

She is a ham.  She loves to make us laugh, especially when she is supposed to be going to sleep and she doesn't want to.  She pulls out all her tricks and tries them out on me to see if I will play.  She squints her eyes shut really tight like she is pretending to sleep, then peeks them open to see if I'm laughing.  She points to her belly button, she puts her fingers in my mouth, offers up her feet for nibbling and tries to play peek-a-boo.

When we first got home she was deathly afraid of our dog Simpson.  He could not even be in the house if she was awake or she would just cling to me and cry when she heard his jingle jangle coming.  Poor Simpson spent a lot of time outside.  We have gradually been letting him come inside more so she could get used to him and we would just hold her and show her that we liked him.  She is now much more comfortable with him and will pet him a little and walk up to him and look at him.  She also has decided it's fun to take his toys from him which could be a problem because he is not a fan of that game.  I just make sure I am right there when they are in the same room.  It's going to take some time for them to become totally used to each other.

Daisy is a pretty good sleeper.  When we first got home she still had her cough and then a few days later it got worse and she got a fever.  I took her to the doctor and he put her on an antibiotic which seems to have cleared it all up after 10 days.  But boy were those first few days home a nightmare.  We were all jet lagged and she was sick.  There wasn't a lot of quality sleep happening and I thought I might die.  Since she has been feeling better she has been going to bed around 9:00 and waking anywhere from 7:30 to 10:00.  Not sure why she can't settle on a time.  She also has a penchant for waking up around 4:30 or 5:30 at which time I give her a bottle and pray she goes back to sleep quickly.  She usually naps in the morning, about 3-4 hours after waking up and then tries to steel a quick evening nap.  We are all still figuring out what is going to work best.  We run a fan for white noise and sometimes play some music.  This all seems to help.  Steve and I have both been known to slink out the door on all fours while holding our breath!

This is one girly girl!  She loves clothes and shoes.  One day recently she walked over to her closet, opened her arms wide and embraced her clothes with wide arms while squealing.  She loves her shoes and gets mad when we take them off.  She especially loves the squeaky shoes we got her in China.  She stomps around with delight when she's wearing them.

Daisy likes her bath time but hates getting water on her face.  This is just something she is not getting used to like I thought she would.  She cries and cried when I rinse her hair, no matter how hard I try not to get water on her face.  (With Zack I would just pour large buckets of water on his head and he was never bothered, I am not used to being so gentle!)

The attachment books say not to let her watch TV for the first year.  Sometimes a mom is desperate though and a couple of times I have asked Zack to show her a cartoon for a minute so I could get something done.  But alas, she has not been interested.  Today, I broke out the Baby Einstein DVD's.  It was a hit!  She loved it and played on the couch for at least 20 minutes while it played!  When it first started she was so excited she started shaking!

She seems to like music.  Sometimes she makes sounds like she is singing, it's really cute.  Sometimes I tell her to dance and then I move her arms around and she thinks that is really funny, but she hasn't initiated any dancing herself.

She likes kissing her stuffed animals but has only offered humans kisses a few times.  But we kiss her a lot so hopefully she will come around!

She still does not have any real words but says, ba ba, ma ma and da da, and a few other sounds I can't type.  She has said ma ma and da da in reference to us, but only a few times.  We just talk to her as much as we can so she can process all these new sounds and words.  She does seem to understand a ton of what we say to her.

A few days after we got home we took her to see the cardiologist.  Dr. Cowley ordered a chest x-ray and an EKG which were done quickly and painlessly and then he examined her.  He felt like there is probably nothing wrong with her heart.  No murmur is heard, her chest x-ray was pretty normal, and her EKG was completely normal.  He wants to repeat these tests in 6 months and if it's the same he will see him again when she is 3 and do a sedated heart ultrasound to see if there is a hole between her atrium.  If there is, they can fix it then.  If there isn't then we will never have to see him again!  He thinks she looks healthy and there is nothing to worry about right now.  We are so grateful and happy!  To think that they thought she had a very severe heart defect in China!

We are loving this cute girl more and more every day!  We are so happy to have her in our lives!

**Pictures taken by my friend Lindsey at http://cheekyandtrig.blogspot.com/.  She's awesome!

Sunday the 5th

Today, we woke up in our crappy apartment, packed up our stuff for the 100th time and checked out!  We had to get two cabs to carry all our stuff and one cab driver was such a jerk.  I got in the back seat with Daisy and my mom went to get in the front and he yelled at her that she couldn't ride in his cab and then he took off!  All the luggage wasn't even loaded up!  I told him to stop but he wouldn't and then he yelled at me the whole way to the new hotel.  I think I told this story before but it was so amazing I had to tell it again.  I was near tears on the ride over and then I yelled at him when we got there and wouldn't pay him.  If I see him again some day, I might hurt him.  We were going to report him to the taxi cab officials but it was too hard to figure out.

Our new hotel is divine.  Small rooms but divinely clean and a nice soft bed.  The neighborhood (Shamien Island) is shady and clean, no trash in the streets, cute shops and restaurants all over.

Good thing Sharon remembered to take pictures of our hotel rooms!  Zack and her room at the Victory Hotel.  Our room was the same only with one king size bed.

Small but clean and comfy!

The lobby at the Victory.  The air conditioning was heavenly!

After we got settled in we took a taxi to find a restaurant that was recommended by someone on-line.  When we got to the place, it was closed for remodeling so we ate at a nearby Malaysian restaurant.  It was good, cold drinks,  delish curry and nice bathrooms.  They even had a high chair for Daisy.

After lunch we took another taxi to the electronic district.  Zack wanted to buy DS games and I was told you could get them cheap here.  We looked all over and couldn't find any and then we found a store that sold gaming consoles and games.  The guy told us that games were more expensive in China than in the US so what they do is sell you a chip with 40 games loaded on it.  We decided to go for it and bargained the price down to $60 usd.  We probably could have got it way cheaper but you know how sometimes you barter well and sometimes you don't?  Plus, it's less than $2 per game so we felt OK about it.  Zack was way excited.  (I found the chip in the wash the other day, I wonder if it still works?)

The electronic store.  Zack is playing Wii while we wait for them to load up his games.  Nice of Steve to carry Daisy in the muggy heat.

When we got back to our hotel, we booked a boat ride on Pearl River for that night.  The river runs right through the middle of the city and all along it they light up the buildings and bridges with all kinds of lights that change colors.  It's really pretty.  We decided to get the best seats on the top of the boat and a snack was included in the price.

Our boat.  We took our time getting on so we woulnd't be crushed  in the humanity.

Our table.  Note the tea in paper cups.  We ended up buying soda's from the concession stand because hot tea in that muggy heat is less than refreashing.

We were lucky to have a table on the side of the boat.

I think I was actually taking a picture of the kids ducktail behind Zack.  Love it!

I only included this picture to prove I was there.  Hideous.

It's funny because in China personal space and manners are very different.  When it was time to line up to get on the boat, everyone started a stampede to the line.  People were pushing and shoving and trying to be on the boat first.  I was so confused because the seats on the boat were reserved.  What was the urgency?  I still don't know.

We got to our reserved table and the boat took off and we were served tea and a bowl of peanuts and dried bananas.  We tried to take pictures but we are not good photogs so they didn't come close to capturing the coolness of it.  Every bridge was lit as were many of the buildings and they kept changing colors.  It lasted about 1 hour which was plenty long for us with our squirmy baby.  We got off the boat and walked a while trying to find a taxi.  Finally someone picked us up and the ride home took about 3 minutes, we were closer than we thought!  We took our sweaty selves home and to bed in our deluxe soft beds!

In the desert of Utah, it cools off at night and feels really nice after a hot day.  In tropical China, it is hot and muggy in the day and hot and muggy at night.  There really is no change.  We kept expecting to feel some relief after it got dark but it never came.  I love the desert. 

Zack Says...

**When we were coming through customs in San Francisco it was taking a long time and Daisy had reached her limit.  I was holding her in the carrier strapped onto me and she was screaming and yelling like crazy.  We had tried everything but she was just mad.  Zack and my mom had gone through customs and were waiting a short distance away.  I could see Zack getting upset over there and could tell he was just mortified.  When we finally got through, he walked up to me in tears and said "Lets just take her back to Kunming!  I am so embarrassed, everyone is staring!"  He was dead serious about taking her back!  It was all Steve and I could do to not laugh out loud, but he was in such a state we didn't think that would be helpful.

**The other day in the car Zack looked over at Daisy being nice and quiet and he said: "I bet Daisy speaks Chinese in her mind."

Things about Daisy...

I want to keep a record of things Daisy does and says and I am behind.  This is all stuff from when we first met her in China.

Daisy looooves Steve.  She gives him lots of smiles and giggles.  He can do no wrong.  Even if he scolds her she just smiles at him.  He is the only one who can calm her down when she is mad (usually because of something I've done like wipe her nose or change her diaper!)

For the first two days if we tried to set her down she would just buckle her legs.  Then she just started walking!  It seems like she hasn't been walking very long though.  She is still a bit unstable and has no idea that you can fall down stairs.  She does not prefer to crawl at all.

The sound she makes most of the time is Ba.  She says Ba Ba a lot which is Chinese for daddy, although we are not sure if she is referring to Steve or if that is the only sound she says.  She also says shhh when she sees fish or snakes (we taught her this one!).  When she is mad she yells BA! really loud.

She looooooves to eat.  She mostly likes to eat whatever we are eating.  Don't try and eat in front of her or she goes crazy and demands to have some too.  She likes the jar baby food with rice powder in it, but doesn't love the fruit ones.  She loves those Gerber puffs and they will make her stop crying every time.  But as soon as we put them away she gets really mad so we have to have another distraction.  She likes to feed herself and make a mess.

She will only drink formula from a bottle.  We have tried sippy cups, straws and plain old cups but she can't quite do it yet, she gets choked up on the fluid.  She also hates fruit juice.  She will however drink a little water from a straw that we put in her mouth that already has water in it.  But she spits most of it out.  She takes FOREVER to drink a 4 oz bottle.  Like 45 minutes.  But she is getting faster.

She loves playing with the stacking cups we brought.  She could play with those all day.

She loves her shoes and always wants to put them on.  She also likes to eat them.

She HATES blankets.  Do not try to put a blanket on her, even if she is asleep, she will wake up and get mad and kick it off.  Good thing we brought warm pajamas.

She scratches herself a lot, like she is itchy, but there is usually no rash.  Seems to be she does it when she is stressed or really hot.  She doesn't like to be hot.

She sits still for me to do her hair, for the most part.  She also doesn't cry if I tug on it a little.

She loves to point things out that she sees.  She is constantly going around pointing at things with her little pointer finger.  Sometimes she whispers about what she is seeing.

She is very friendly to strangers (typical behavior for children who have been institutionalized, but it will be interesting to see if this is the reason or if it is her personality.  We'll have to see what happens when she is fully attached to us).  She is always waving and smiling at everyone and wants to stop and talk to everyone.

She is not overly sensitive.  If you tell her no, she either stops or ignores you but she doesn't get offended and cry.

She loves her belly button and showed it to us right away.  The boys immediately made a game of pushing her button and saying "ping pong" and she can't get enough of that.

She has 8 little teeth, 4 on top, 4 on bottom. Coming through immigration she was screaming so vigorously with her mouth wide open I saw a new tooth coming in on the top left side toward the back.  No wonder her nose is running and she drools constantly (that and the cold she has).

She likes men better than women.  I think it's a trust thing.

When she is mad, she will hit, scratch and pinch me.  She also does this thing where she flings her whole body backward and has hit her head a couple of times when I was not prepared.  She also noodles her whole body and lifts up her arms if she doesn't want to be held, so she then slips out of your grasp if you're not careful.  She is quite the little firecracker!

She loves to play in the toilet.  Ooops.  OK, it's only happened twice and I think we learned our lesson.  The lid stays down!  Boy is she quick though!

She is so pretty!  We have the cutest little girl ever!