However, she seemed to be in high spirits and was eating fine, so I still brought her down for her usual morning walk. My guess is that she could have caught a cold from those late-night walks to/from Yeye's block opposite, and with autumn coming, it does get chilly (she goes out in her usual home singlet and shorts combo, which is kind of much too thin).
I even took her for a haircut after lunch, since her fringe is getting longer, and the hair at the back was quite uneven. It was the Seventh Month Festival before this (i.e. Hungry Ghost Festival, where the Chinese believe that spirits roam the Earth, and is not an auspicious month for anything major), so on the first day of the Eight Lunar Month, we made an appointment at the usual place Wayne cuts his hair, where she had her hair cut previously in May.
However, this time round, it was another supposedly better hairdresser (cost RMB48 as opposed to RMB25 the previous time), and I was quite irritated that we had to wait for about 10 minutes since he was attending to another customer (in spite of us having made an appointment and me rushing Rosabelle through lunch to get there on time). So when he finally came over, I was quite hostile when he started suggesting that she needed to have her hair washed before he can cut it. Hello... Rosabelle even kicks at Nainai when the latter is trying to wash her hair - what makes you think she will let a wierd-looking young punk with badly-dyed yellow hair wash it for her at the dingy-looking sink? And so we left it at that, suggesting that he just spray it wet.
However, when he brought the high chair over for Rosabelle to sit, she started getting edgy and hid by the mirror, refusing to get on it nor let him touch her. Oh dear... I carried her and she kept turning away whenever he touched her hair. No good... and so, I asked them for a hair roller that distracted her abit whilst I gingerly put her down onto the chair, standing. She refused to have any cloth or towels put around her, and since I had to hold her hands and stand close by, we both had loads of hairs on us.
The hairdresser was very nice and patient throughout, speaking with her, and Nainai also took magazines/postcards in the shop to distract her. Unlike the other guy, he dared to cut the sides by her ears, and in the end, it wasn't sloped to one side like previously, heh! I must say he did a pretty good job of trimming the fringe and back evenly, and had to bear with Rosabelle using his water spray to squirt water all over, even onto his face at times - but that was the only thing that kept her occupied as he trimmed the fringe, so good for her!
And in spite of her fever/sneezing, she was fine all the way throughout the day, giving me cheery smiles even at dinner as she modelled her new bob, heh!
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Thank goodness by this morning, her fever went down to 37.2 degrees (even though the sneezing snot was still around - she woke up with two big pieces of dried snot on her face as she must have rubbed her nose whilst asleep - ewwww!), and I had to wake her up (by opening the door and talking gently) as we were running late for our first offical Kindermusik class starting at 10am.We practically rushed out the door with avocado/soya bean milk puree in hand as the booked taxi was waiting, and luckily she cooperated with me in finishing up her breakfast quickly. The ride took longer than last week, as we rushed to Familier about 5 minutes late (the taxi driver also wasn't very friendly and ignored Rosabelle when she repeatedly thanked him for turning on the aircon). Thankfully the class had not started and altogether, there were 5 families - a younger girl from Scotland, two younger boys from the States and Bermuda, and an older boy from Korea. A nice, international mix, I must say.
We went through the paces and learnt the building house song again (hammer goes rap, rap rap and saw goes see, saw, see), ringing bells and hitting sticks, as well as lots of dancing. It was quite exhausting for me too as I carried her at times to make sure she did not stray away, haha!
After the class, we hung around to chat for awhile with the other mummies (I prepared Yakult and biscuits for Rosabelle - she very nicely shared the biscuits with her new friends, which was really lovely) and made payment only after they had all left (signed up for a RMB5,000 membership card that entitles us to 20% discounts on everything, including F&B). I'm surprised none of them stayed on to play around abit more, but we were there till almost 2:45pm!
Whilst there, she played at the usual places, and liked climbing up/down the stairs, ensuring that the stairgates were closed shut at all times, but was her scary self again when she hit three younger kids at different times. Sigh... looks like as much as I don't wish to watch over her, I must still continually watch out for her wierd hitting/pushing phase.
One of the mothers commented that Rosabelle speaks well and looks matured for a yet-to-be-two, as she immediately said, 'No beating, no pushing', when I scolded her. She's a Singaporean as well, and was there with other friends, all with similar ages of around one.
As they were all having lunch there, and the centre only had three high chairs, there were none left when our lunch was ready. For the first part of the meal, she was sitting on propped pillows on the chair, but was climbing all over the place, so I was thankful when the staff brought up a newly-vacated high chair so I could strap her in.
The meal wasn't that good - the Hainanese Chicken rice was dry and offered parts of the chicken I don't like (drumstick and wing - I like BREAST, haha!). The spaghetti bolognese was only so-so and much-too-overpriced at RMB22 for an Ikea children's plate portion, served with a small piece of garlic bread. The pumpkin soup was so watery that I had to feedback to the centre manager (a guy called Daniel, I think), and they very nicely made a new bowl of soup for me even though I did not ask them to (it still came out watery, so maybe it's the way they do it...).
I had ordered drinks of vanilla latte (they serve Starbucks) and for Rosabelle, a blueberry/strawberry yogurt smoothie, which she was very happy to taste but strangely enough did not go beyond about 3 sips of it. Much too overpriced food (thank goodness I have 20% off with my card), but it was nice to have the minders around helping and watching out for whenever I needed help.
Throughout, Rosabelle kept seeing and calling out to Yuliya, and greeting every and anybody in the place, haha! She was fine playing on her own or holding hands/being carried by the minders as I ate my lunch/went to the washroom, so at least I know she's comfortable in the place. She even attended a mini-art session with one of them, painting with brushes and drawing with markers as I read a magazine outside. I purposely left my seat beside her and went out, to see if she can manage on her own, but made sure I was within sight of her. She only came out when she saw me playing with a younger baby, and maybe jealousy pangs took over as she quickly came out and became all babyish again, sitting on my lap and hugging me, heh!
It was a nice first lesson, and here she is at the lift lobby, modelling her first-ever scoolbag, a RMB350 (cost of materials on top of the amount we had to pay for lessons) package of two music CDs, three books, and a stir xylophone. As I was saying to the teacher, Yuliya, all these are Made in China and she had to pay a bomb to ship them over, tsk tsk! Our ride home in the taxi was more pleasant as the driver was lovely, even offering her a cookie from her dashboard compartment (which I obviously politely rejected - I don't let her eat cookies much, and his fingers looked grimy, haha!).
For next week, I will make sure that I wake her up a least 20 minutes in advance (woke her at 9:05am when we were supposed to leave at 9:15am)!
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