More Laina

Hi; I got distracted by the babe last night before I could get a post about her on here, so here it is. She is doing so well! She now has had many "firsts"; she claps and waves, is learning to blow kisses, raises her arms up when her Daddy says 'Touchdown!', and has new syllables everyday. She has always hated being on her stomach, so hasn''t been crawling yet. We have started to do a little everyday and now she can wiggle there for a few minutes without getting ornery. She drums a lot, loves all percussion instruments, and dances as she sits, which we jokingly call the "bar-stool boogie". We'll be seeing all her China friends soon at a reunion this summer, can't wait! It will be so fun to see everyone and how the kids have grown and blossomed. Here's some pix; One of her with our friend Emma's daughter, Kyra, also from China, another is of Marguerite, our next door neighbor and future babysitter giving her a bottle, a third of her with Uncle Paul, and one of her with her Aunt Mary. She has begun to get a little more "clingy" with me, but still lets everyone hold her. Today she will put on one of her beautiful China outfits and go to my friends' art opening with me. Should be fun and we'll bring the camera!

Music in the Park

Another fun part of walking through the beautiful "Peoples' Park" in Nanning, is that people were playing all sorts of music there. Some seemed to be just playing for the fun of it and enjoying the day, others seemed to be practicing and were very serious about it. We hear "folksy" stuff, with traditional Chinese instruments, there were singers, flutists, hammer-dulcimers, all kinds of percussion, and more. The park is large enough that everyone can pick a picturesque spot under a tree by the water and not overlap each other with sound. Here are some pictures, including an interesting closeup of the actual sheet music someone was using.

Today's China story

In all the parks we went to, there were beautiful lakes or large ponds. They were well-landscaped and often had little paddle boats or other boats to rent. We once saw a mother letting her little boy who looked about 5 years old, drive a regular small motor boat. She was a lot more confident than those of us he was heading toward onshore. He made a turn and we all survived. One thing that was fun to watch were the children feeding the fish. This is encouraged and the fish get pretty fat! They pigpile on top of one another into a big mound of fish mania, thrashing and fighting for the goodies. The kids love it of course!I am posting a picture of little girls buying their food for the fish, the fish pigpile and a family on one of the boats. Enjoy.

Aloha

At Last! We are back on track after some "technical difficulties..so sorry about that. This past weekend Jimmy's family hosted a "Welcome Home Laina Party" on the Cape, it had a Hawaiian theme, complete with Leis for the ladies and shell necklaces for the men, tropical food and fun for all. Laina was a good girl and everyone just loves her already. Here are some pix..one is Laina looking beautiful in her new hat(did not want to wear the sunglasses, she has her limits!) another of her with her cousin Megan, and a third with her Uncle Tom who hosted the party. Today, we had a visit from our Social Worker. After you bring your baby home, there are still steps to take to make it all final. We'll have about 3 visits at our home and one at the Agency, we have to provide photos for them and keep our Social Worker updated about Laina's health, development and general progress. This is called the Post-Placement period and lasts for 6 months. It is nice that they look out for the kids wlfare and check up, but we are anxious to get her a Social Security number and feel as if the U.S. recognizes her as OURS. She traveled home on an immigrant visa and has her own Chinese passport. We are, of course, considered her guardians and she is even covered with our health insurance already, so it's not all that difficult. I'd like to tell more China stories, but Laina is what it's all about, y'know! Maybe you'll get 2 posts tonight to make up for my slacking there for a bit...

Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother's Day! Laina woke up with a smile and said "mum-mum" to me, but also to the cat, her breakfast, and her daddy...oh well, it's a start. She is doing just great, survived her first vaccinations and is now sleeping through the night. She slept 10 hours straight! Yippee. Even Mommy feels human today, it really helps. Some people have said that they miss the China stories on the blog so I'll tell some more. We certainly have enough pictures. One photo today is of our bus group before we got the babies, I wish we had thought to take an after-shot with the babes but we didn't. Another photo is of a countdown display that they have in Beijing on a large building in Tannamen Square to count the days until the Olympics. The whole city is being re-vamped and beautified. There is construction everywhere, and all kinds of landscaping too. At least there seems to be lots of jobs; our guide said that with a large population like they have, it can be hard to find and to keep your job. There is always someone else who says they can do it better, or who can work longer hours, etc. From our bus window one day, Jimmy snapped a picture of some chefs in-training. The guys with the tallest hats are the head Chefs and the others are trainees. I also snapped a photo of an elderly man pedaling his wife behind him in her wheelchair, we saw all kinds of rigs attached to bikes and scooters, I wish I had done a whole series of just those. We saw a man one day with what looked like a king-sized mattress on a teeny cart behind his bike, and many people with loads so large you couldn't see the bike at all. We saw many people with babies on their backs, pets on the handlebars and groceries on their shoulders. I feel so frivolous with my soccer-mom van!

Laina The Lion

Today I had to take Laina down to the Outpatient Lab at the hospital for her blood tests. The adopted children from China have to be tested for many things, among them are HIV, Tuberculosis, Hepatitus A and B, and Lead poisoning. She was an angel in the waiting room, charming everyone by waving and smiling whenever they looked our way, and then we were called in.....she screamed and GROWLED like you wouldn't believe when they had to take her blood. We all survived but I overheard people talking in the hallways afterward, wondering what was happening to THAT BABY, and thank God they were done doing whatever it was! She can really rock the house! We were fine as soon as she was sitting in my lap, having a lunch-bottle; casually pretending that it couldn't possibly have been US causing all that rucous. I amposting a few family photos, as last weekend we introduced Laina to all kinds of people. One is of her with Aunt Betsy and her dog, Summer. The second is of Grandpa and Laina, the third is of her cousin Jacob and her at the piano, another is of her and her Aunt Trish. There is one of her and her cousin Amy also. She was really great about letting everyone hold her and feed her, we are happy about that because we are both from big families who love babies.

Mirror, Mirror

Wow! May 3rd already, I can't believe we have been home almost 2 weeks. Laina is doing very well, she is a joy to be around. Yesterday she discovered herself in the mirror, and the day before she discovered her tongue so now she sticks it out all the time, including at her reflection in the mirror which makes her crack up! I will post a picture of her, but I couldn't catch the tongue. I am also posting a couple of pictures of the Guangxi Girls, the other 3 cuties from Laina's Province. They are Roma, Jianna, and Isabella. We miss them and hope to have a get-together soon with them and their families. It will be fun and meaningful to keep in touch with all of them. Everyone got along fantastically and we can't wait to see them again!