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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Chasing her Zhengzhou roots - Day 3

On the last day in Zhengzhou, Rosabelle woke up in high spirits, and as we waited for the expensive steamed egg breakfast, she cruised along the bed frame, in spite of her precarious near-falls due to the over-long pair of Peter Rabbit pyjamas pants I wore for her...
She likes to wave 'hello', and this video captures her trying to steady herself and continue her Sunshine Ambassador wave of peace...

After her breakfast, we all headed to Wayne's grandparents' home, and strangely enough, she refused to be carried by anyone else today, thus I did not capture any farewell shots. She was happy enough busying herself with crawling/exploring of the bed, and even refused to take her lunch that the nanny prepared for her at the house (noodle soup with pork, potato and vegetables). So we had no choice but to bring the lunch back to the hotel with us.

When we left the house, Wayne's nanny broke down in tears at the thought of not seeing Rosabelle again. Only when she's bigger can we bring her to Xinjiang, as it's quite a trip there, and it must have been a whirlwind ding-dong of emotions for the poor old lady who enjoyed every moment spent with her precious great-granddaughter over the last few days. It did not help that Rosabelle did not want to be carried by her, so there was not even any last hugs, sigh... Back at the hotel, Rosabelle managed to eat some of her lunch, and had a nap after her bath. We arranged for a late check-out at 3 pm, as the taxi was due to fetch us at 3:15 pm to catch the 5:40 pm flight. However, at 3 pm, our dear girl was still deep in slumber, and this was in spite of me packing and rustling through all the plastic/paper bags, and switching on more lights than usual. We also did not want to pluck her from her deep sleep for fear of having a grouchy baby on our hands, so when she turned over in her sleep, Wayne went 'Yue yue, Yue yue' in hushed tones, and she sleepily opened her eyes and smiled. Great! We took the opportunity to quickly excite her into waking up and set off for Zhengzhou Airport.

Wayne sent us there, as he wasn't due back till Monday night, and enjoyed some time with Rosabelle dear as the girl feasted on her afternoon snack of her favourite grapes.
After we'd checked-in, whilst waiting to board the plane, we brought Rosabelle to the children's playground located within the waiting area, where she happily interacted with a 4-year-old girl who was waiting for a flight to Sichuan. As they sat facing each other, the little girl wanted to teach Rosabelle some recital/clapping games. These days, Rosabelle knows how to voluntarily clap on her own, though it's more an action than the production of any solid clapping sounds, and she claps when she's happy and/or when she hears music and singing, so clap she did together with this girl. And it got her all excited that she let out her usual shrieking scream, making the little girl look away in horror and wonder at what she'd unleashed... Rosabelle does seem to like and learn alot from playing with older kids, and we could see her observing the girl closely. Very soon, it was time for us to board the plane, and this time round, even after I nursed her, she did not sleep at all, jabbing her little finger and pulling at anything and everything, keeping the nanny's and my hands full throughout the journey. The plane was late in taking off and we reached Beijing Airport 40 minutes late, at only 7:40pm.When we reached the airport, we made her dinner of banana and milk cereal, and started feeding her in the taxi I had arranged to pick us up. She was, however, too distracted by the novelty of sitting in a taxi and did not eat much, continuing with the dinner only when we reached home. Needless to say, after her dinner and bath, she had a well-rested early night, with memories in her heart of her first-ever trip to Zhengzhou to see her great-grandparents!

I was quite worried about her meals on this trip, and made sure she drank loads of water, but thankfully it all turned out well and we managed to get her proper meals. What helped was I brought loads of disposable bowls so we did not have to keep dirty bowls and rewash them, and as I did not have access to a sterilizer, we could only scald her utensils before using them. As for her dose of fruits, it was also not an issue as they were easily accessible, and I made sure to arrange fruits that can be easily taken on the go, like bananas, grapes, peach/mango/papaya that can be scraped etc.

All was smooth-sailing during the whole Zhengzhou trip (well, safe for the fact that when we reached Beijing Airport on the first day, Wayne realized that he'd forgotten to bring his bag of clothes, and had to buy some clothing to change whilst home, haha!), and it was certainly an eye-opener for our dear girl! If only she didn't have to fall sick after coming back...sigh, poor thing...

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