February 18, 2005 Friday

We all slept wonderfully, we woke up at 7:00 am. She’s so cute when she’s sleeping. The Chinese people don’t let the babies suck on their fingers or a pacifier so the babies like to suck on the corner of a blanket when they are sleeping. Yesterday on the bus she couldn’t get to her hands or anything to suck on so she used my shirt. It was cute (except for the wet spot on my shirt).             I’m having to sleep with one pillow under my body & one under my head. The beds are like sleeping on the floor. My hip bones on the side are sore to even touch. We got back the documents from the notary at 2:00 pm & had to check them closely to make sure everything was correct on them. We left at 3:00 pm & went to the porcelian shop. We bought the cutest little snoopy bank to go in her room. It has a small chip on hte nose but we only paid like 50 cents for it. They do such beautiful paintings on the porcelian. After shopping we went to get her Chinese passport. It’s red & she’s not smiling in the picture but at least she’s not crying in the pictures. Finally we went to eat dinner. This kid comes alive at the table. She’ll eat almost anything & doesn’t like to wait until you give it to her. She goes to reaching for everything, chopsticks, food, bowls. Everyone laughs at her because she gets so excited & eats so much food. She makes the other babies look like they aren’t eating at all. We found out that she’s been calling me mama in Chinese. She’s been saying “nu” but we didn’t know what it meant until tonight. It means mama in the local dialect of Chinese. Nothing in English yet but I don’t care at least she said mama first. HaHa. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and had a little birthday cake for baby Ellie. Her 1st birthday was Valentines Day. The icing was shipped but not very sweet. Aysia loved it & I couldn’t feed her fast enough. Tonight when we returned to the room we undressed her over like an hour taking off one article of clothing at a time. She did fine & was fascinated at her skin. She’s never seen it or felt it before. We kept her in just a diaper for about 15 minutes to get her a little used to being naked. She finally had a poopy diaper. Praise the Lord we were getting worried. Poor thing was uncomfortable. She went to bed & only fussed maybe 3 minutes & is sleeping in her crib. We are excited to show her off but we’re also enjoying this time just the 3 of us to bond. I think its good we have to stay in country so long for us to bond better.