More Giggles

What makes stomping your feet so funny I can't quite figure out, but this qualified as a knee slapper for Bryn!


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When Dad's In Charge

The hardest thing about the past week has been not being able to pick up Bryn. As some of you know, I'm recovering from surgery. The 4 days I spent in the hospital without my baby were hell. It was the first time I'd been away from her for more than a few hours at a time and it was awful.

It's heaven to be home with her again, but it's so hard not to be able to pick her up. She stands at my feet and says "up, up, up" and when I say "I'm sorry, dolly, mom can't" she says "mom, owie" and then says "up, up, up" again. It's extra hard when she wakes in the night and calls for me and I can't go get her out of her crib and rock her back to sleep. It breaks my heart. How do you make a 19-month-old understand such a thing? The next few weeks will be hard, though quite likely harder on me than Bryn!

The second hardest thing as been watching her dad dress her. I think he's gone color-blind and I hadn't realized he was so fashion-challenged. The first few days I was home I didn't say much. But after seeing the outfit pictured below I decided I had to step in and take over. I'm now back to picking out Bryn's clothes each day. In Girard's defense, I suppose I should mention Bryn was the one who insisted on wearing her housecoat!



A fashion don't: Red shirt, blue and grey fleece sweatpants, bright pink slipppers and peach housecoat. All very pretty clothes on their own, but certainly not together! (Though she still looks adorable.)


The upside to all of this is we're fortunate Girard is able to get time off work and can be home for a few weeks so we have more time to spend together. He's taught Bryn to call her stuffed teddies "Da Bears" and she watches football with him and says "hut, hut", though not always at the right time. Ah, the influence of a man.

Thanks to everyone for your concern and all the get well wishes while I was in the hospital and since I've been home. And an extra special thanks to my best friend, Cath, who is always there when I need her and Simone for coming to help Girard while I was in the hospital.

Giggles

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We were so happy to have our niece Katja stay with us last week for a few days. She and Bryn had tons of fun! Thanks for all of your help, Katja, Bryn sure misses you (and so do we)!

P.S. Don't you just love the sound of a baby giggling?

No Longer A Baby

Last week Bryn turned 18 months old.

We spent her first birthday in China at the Beijing Zoo and the Summer Palace. I can't believe it's been six months. It was a beautiful day at the zoo wandering around with the other families in our group and their girls. The pandas were amazing, the monkeys pretty cool, the little kid pooping on the sidewalk quite a sight. The next day Kate and Helena (big sisters to two of Bryn's Xinyu sisters) stood at the front of our bus and sang Happy Birthday to Bryn -- what a great birthday present that was!

It's obvious to us now how scared Bryn was then. She didn't smile very much, just looked at us and sat quietly (though she'd scream at the top of her lungs when we changed her diaper or tried to dress her). She ate what we gave her and sat in her hip carrier looking up at me and seemed quite content to be there. The only thing she said that we could understand was mom (believe it or not) and she'd nod her head when I said yes. She did chatter a bit, very quietly, but of course we had no idea what she was saying.

How things have changed since then. She now runs around the house all day long. Yes...all day. Once she found her walking legs she took off and didn't look back. She's now progressed to running and other than the odd stumble over the gigantic dust bunnies in our house, she's pretty much unstoppable.

From what I know about the other girls, Bryn is the only one who doesn't require much sleep. She goes to bed around 9.30 and gets up around 7 (after getting up a couple of times in the night). She slept through the night for about two weeks until her molars started coming in but since then she's always up in the night. In the past couple of weeks she's decided she only needs one nap in the morning, usually for about an hour and a half. That means between getting up after her nap and going down for the night she's up for at least 8 hours, usually closer to 9. Aside from meal times and her bath, she's on the go that whole time. I have no idea where she gets so much energy. I can't imagine what she'd be like if she ate a lot of sugar!




One of her favorite reading spots is right by the front door.



She put her wet cloth to good use during our heatwave.



Bryn chatters non-stop, too, and has added so many words to her vocabulary we're amazed. Her most used word is no, then mom, da (dad) and Sheshie (Jessie). I love to hear her say mail, which she pronounces mayo; Girard's favorite is reebeet, her sound for a frog. Some of her newest words are fridge, rainbow, dossie (stroller) and spicer (spider). She's started putting two words together to make little sentences. No, mom. Sheshie seeping (sleeping). Beet (big) ball. Water bottle. Whenever she laughs at something I always laugh and slap my leg and say "that's a real knee-slapper". For weeks now she's been laughing and slapping at her leg. Yesterday she started saying "kneeswapper".

She eats like a horse which probably explains the 7 pound weight gain in six months. So far the only things I've found she doesn't like are cantaloupe and broccoli. Sometimes I call her Hoover because she eats so fast. It's now to the point that I only put a bit in her bowl at once because she picks as much up as she can and stuffs it all in her mouth at once. She refuses to eat with a spoon because it takes too long to eat -- she doesn't have a lot of patience when it comes to waiting for her food.

Bryn still loves books but is now paying more and more attention to toys. She has a couple of dolls she feeds and rocks and cuddles. We bought her a little musical piano/drum set (a.k.a. noisemaker). She loves it, Jessie isn't quite sure about it though. Bryn also loves to dance and yesterday learned Ring Around the Rosey. She loves her little pool but it's been quite cool the past couple of weeks so she hasn't been in it much. Every day she asks for it "spash, pool, panda" and it's hard to make her understand why she can't play in it right now.

She's slowly making progress with her interaction with other people. She'll now play with people and let them touch her and she even gives kisses to a fortunate few! The other day she actually let her cousin Anna carry her around for a few minutes. That's the first time she's ever let anyone other than Girard or me hold her for any length of time so it was quite a breakthrough!

Well, this has turned into a longer ramble than I'd thought. It's taken me three days to get it done (see paragraphs 4 and 5 above), I guess I should have stopped after two!



Look ma, no spoon!



Hanging out with cousin Anna.

A Special Day - Updated

Today is the 6 month anniversary of the day we first held Bryn. I had planned to have a photo from that day as well as one from today but to make a long story short, I had an accident with the camera about 5 minutes after I finally got Bryn to sit still for her anniversary picture. Enough said.




On our first night together in Nanchang.




Six months later.



UPDATE! Now that the camera is fixed, here is Bryn exactly 6 months later.



It's been an amazing 6 months, nothing we can even put into words. We're so incredibly lucky to have such a beautiful daughter and we love her more each day.

Happy anniversary to our travel mates and their beautiful daughters. We miss you all very much!!!

p.s. We'd be thrilled to host a one-year reunion. Think about it.