Maggie Emerges
Oh joy! What a wonderful day it has been. Our beautiful daughter, Maggie, has emerged and she is a delight! Or maybe I should describe her as a delightful little thing with a mind of her own.
Today, we figured out a couple of things about Maggie. First, she hates our hotel room. We can't figure out why, but we know it is the room. We will be out and she will have been a laughing, giggling baby, then we will come back to the room and she will start crying as soon as we stop in front of the door. It is uncanny. We are trying to help that by taking her out a lot, so she knows the room is just temporary. We walk her around the wonderful 13th floor of the China Hotel. We walk her around the lobby. We walk her around the block. We just keep her moving and it has really helped her tremendously. Alot of the babies are having this issue, so it must be part of the transition, but I just can't figure out what about the room reminds them of the orphange.
The other thing we figured out from the orphanage is she is really used to having play time with her friends for a couple of hours every afternoon. So, we had a play date in the play room her at our hotel. I think about 10 of the 12 Suixi girls participated and they had so much fun. Maggie was so funny once we got her back with her friends. She was giggling and running around. Yes, of her own free will, she was walking. It was so joyful to see. Given that we knew she could walk and was just refusing to show us, seeing her comfortable enough to walk is beautiful. She was particularly fond of putting her head on the ground and looking through her legs at the room. She picked up waving bye-bye and blowing kisses in about 3 seconds and thoroughly enjoyed backward plopping into my lap for a belly blow. This was a 180 degree transformation of the baby who spent Tuesday and Wednesday with her head back, crying her eyes out or clinging to me as if I were I was going to disappear any second. I swear the transformation is magical.
If we could just get this child to drink something other than her cereal bottles and congee, all would be well. I have tried water, gatorade, juice and pedialyte. I stooped to trying sugar water today as teh orphanage suggested, but that didn't work. Frankly, I probably didn't add enough sugar. My next idea is hot sugar water. (Doesn't that sound awful?) The funny thing is I know Maggie knows what she wants and she just can't tell me what that is. It seems her game is to make me guess until I get it right. Given that Maggie has a smile that lights up her entire face and seeing that smile is so addicting, if she keeps those smiles coming, I will keep guessing and she can have all the sugar water she will drink...well, at least until we get home!
One final note, another family in our group, literally they are across the hall from us, is blogging their journey, the URL is www.macyday.blogspot.com. Considering Macy's Dad is a professional writer, it may be worth checking out. The funny thing is we are living witin 100 feet of each other, yet we can't read each other's web sites. They are having the same trouble updating their blog that we are. In case you haven't heard, we can't see our blog. Blogspot is a censored web site in China. We have also been blocked from posting directly to the blog, so dear Auntie is making all these posts for me. I am forever grateful to her for all her help on this trip.
Today, we figured out a couple of things about Maggie. First, she hates our hotel room. We can't figure out why, but we know it is the room. We will be out and she will have been a laughing, giggling baby, then we will come back to the room and she will start crying as soon as we stop in front of the door. It is uncanny. We are trying to help that by taking her out a lot, so she knows the room is just temporary. We walk her around the wonderful 13th floor of the China Hotel. We walk her around the lobby. We walk her around the block. We just keep her moving and it has really helped her tremendously. Alot of the babies are having this issue, so it must be part of the transition, but I just can't figure out what about the room reminds them of the orphange.
The other thing we figured out from the orphanage is she is really used to having play time with her friends for a couple of hours every afternoon. So, we had a play date in the play room her at our hotel. I think about 10 of the 12 Suixi girls participated and they had so much fun. Maggie was so funny once we got her back with her friends. She was giggling and running around. Yes, of her own free will, she was walking. It was so joyful to see. Given that we knew she could walk and was just refusing to show us, seeing her comfortable enough to walk is beautiful. She was particularly fond of putting her head on the ground and looking through her legs at the room. She picked up waving bye-bye and blowing kisses in about 3 seconds and thoroughly enjoyed backward plopping into my lap for a belly blow. This was a 180 degree transformation of the baby who spent Tuesday and Wednesday with her head back, crying her eyes out or clinging to me as if I were I was going to disappear any second. I swear the transformation is magical.
If we could just get this child to drink something other than her cereal bottles and congee, all would be well. I have tried water, gatorade, juice and pedialyte. I stooped to trying sugar water today as teh orphanage suggested, but that didn't work. Frankly, I probably didn't add enough sugar. My next idea is hot sugar water. (Doesn't that sound awful?) The funny thing is I know Maggie knows what she wants and she just can't tell me what that is. It seems her game is to make me guess until I get it right. Given that Maggie has a smile that lights up her entire face and seeing that smile is so addicting, if she keeps those smiles coming, I will keep guessing and she can have all the sugar water she will drink...well, at least until we get home!
One final note, another family in our group, literally they are across the hall from us, is blogging their journey, the URL is www.macyday.blogspot.com. Considering Macy's Dad is a professional writer, it may be worth checking out. The funny thing is we are living witin 100 feet of each other, yet we can't read each other's web sites. They are having the same trouble updating their blog that we are. In case you haven't heard, we can't see our blog. Blogspot is a censored web site in China. We have also been blocked from posting directly to the blog, so dear Auntie is making all these posts for me. I am forever grateful to her for all her help on this trip.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:07 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:51 AM ,
elaine said...
Auntie,
I'm elaine a freind from playgroup. If you can email julie and eric suggest they try different vessels to get liquid into maggie. my first daughter wouldn't take a bottle but finally on the third day thought it was fun to sip drops of water at a time out of bottled water teeny tiny cap.
we had a game of me pouring a few drops in and then she'd laugh and sip them out.
also plenty of wet fruits should be enough for now.
good luck and thanks. i am so enjoying sharing the journey.
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