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Well, except Grandpa Bernie — who could sleep through a tsunami.

Noelle fell asleep at 6 pm again!!! Despite my efforts otherwise. I don’t know if we’ll ever get her on a China schedule — probably that last day! I don’t regret having my sweetie along, but it may actually have been OK to leave her at home (for those looking at traveling in the near future ). I wouldn’t be so tired if she weren’t here, as I’d have adapted to the time change by now. Ah well. Peng was awake when Miss Noelle woke up at 12:30 am, so I suppose I’d be awake now no matter what (its 3:15 am here in Urumqi).

We are quite the e-family. Picture the three of us squeezed into a double bed with the Leapster, the Game Boy, the computer, and the DVD player. Its quite a cacophony. Peng Peng will fit right in!

Peng had a melt down this evening. Just started crying and there was nothing I could do. So we called our guide, Lily, and I had her talk to Peng. She told me he was hungry and also had been waiting to go to the pool all afternoon. We had chatted about swimming in the car on the way to the hotel and it turns out he has never been but would like to go. He is clearly adventurous and game to try new things. At the time of the meltdown, I had thought he and I would companionably eat snack mix while interacting over his Game Boy, as Grandpa and Noelle were both sleeping. Turns out my newest sweetie needs real meals at regular intervals — or maybe he just needs his regular schedule at this exact point in time.

Well, I woke Daddy up and decided to leave Noelle sleeping with him. Peng and I went down to the buffet (which is very Chinese — frog legs and many unidentifiable dishes). For a skinny little guy, he can sure pack it down. The SB is scary in person, I must admit. I can see the shunt running down his chest and he’s got a huge scar on the back of his head from where the shunt was inserted. The sac is pretty big, too. He also itches a lot and makes me cut the tags off his clothes. I’m guessing that has to do with dry, sensitive skin and not the SB, though. Just like Miss Noelle. I didn’t push a real bath tonight, we’ll try that this evening with Miss Noelle to provide an example. We just did a scrub down with a wash cloth tonight. He brushed his own teeth over the toilet … I assume so he could spit easily into it without mussing up the sink and counter. He folded up all his clothes neatly as he undressed, putting me and Daddy to shame.

After dinner, Peng and I went by the pool to look. When we got back to the room, I showed him his swim suit and offered to take him, but he insisted it was bed-time. Daddy and I suspect that Lily told him to go to bed easily for us after dinner. I think there was more to the Lily conversation than she relayed back to me. A bunch of times I heard “baba ma”, which would be “Daddy” followed by the question particle. Lily would reply with a sentence that included “Momma”. A single Mom is probably pretty peculiar to him. We’ll have to get Uncles Adam and John to come up regularly and provide a father type figure to him.

Peng is doing well with Noelle, so far. A little in her face at times, but that’s the Chinese culture.

We are the freaky center of attention everywhere in Urumqi. We can walk the streets and not see any other Caucasians. The only other Caucasians I’ve seen are the parents in a Spanish family. Its way more intense here than in Nanchang. Its a little bit unnerving, but everyone seems to mean well.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.