Instant pick-me-ups

With the nanny off today, and the upcoming Zhengzhou trip in sight, we decided that today would be the day for us to try out the instant foods for Rosabelle. If she took well to them, they'd serve as her meals in Zhengzhou over the two days we're there.

For lunch, she had Nestle chicken/vegetable cereal. We usually give her about 50g of cereal mixed with other ingredients, so it comes up to at least two-thirds of a bowl. However, it was just cereal today, and when I mixed it up, it filled only a third of the bowl, so I was afraid she would not have enough, and made another 25g more. Hmmm... surprisingly, she only managed to finish 50g of the cereal, and we had to pour away the extra I'd made. But think she liked it as she finished the first bowl up pretty quickly.

After her lunch, we thought she would have her afternoon nap after her bath, but she decided she wanted to play for awhile more, and slept only at 3:10pm, making us late for our tea date with Wayne's ex-colleague, Kathleen. (I carelessly woke her up from her nap by setting off the musical piano when I was taking some books, and she woke up crying for awhile... bad...bad...lucky she became all excited again when we told her we were going out.)

We met at Element Fresh at Sanlitun Village, where Rosabelle seemed petrified of Kathleen as it was probably the first time she came up close and personal with an 'angmor' (foreigner) lady. (The first time she saw an 'angmor' was when John and Amy came to visit when she was two months old, and again when we saw them when she was 5 months old - but John had no hair, so maybe it made a difference, haha!)
Rosabelle clung onto me when she sat on my lap, and hid her face in my neck, but all the time having her curiosity get the better of her and staring at Kathleen, making her lips downturn and quiver with a threat to burst out crying anytime.

Luckily she controlled herself well and managed to settle into her baby seat, where she was more interested in peeling the PVC leather off the back of the seat.
We had to keep her occupied with toys (which she kept throwing onto the floor), biscuits and Coke bottles as we ate, and she quickly warmed up to Kathleen, turning her head sideways to look at/tease her, as well as smile and wave hello.

She was soon waving to anybody and everybody around our table, and even examined Kathleen's manicured red fingernails with much curiosity, wanting to scrape at them. There was a close shave as she kicked her legs up at one point and forced herself and the high chair away from the table, almost toppling over backwards had I not put my hand on her in time...shudder.

It was a quick catch-up as we had to come back home to prepare Rosabelle's dinner, but good enough for Wayne and I to recharge with a get-away from home. For dinner, it was also a no-brainer as I cooked instant vegetable porridge for her, which turned out much too watery as she normally eats rather thick porridge. I had even added the recommended least amount of water (300ml, as opposed to a maximum of 350ml), and I ended up with a full bowl of watery porridge. Good thing was - she drank everything up, and Wayne, who fed her, felt an extreme sense of accomplishment with his daughter's porridge-slurping skills.

Oh well, at least we've got the meals part of her Zhengzhou trip settled now (except that we need to work out how to give her her daily quota of eggs...). Got loads more to do, like accommodation (we intend to put up in a hotel), the air tickets, bathing arrangements etc etc.

Add to that the fact that I'm planning a trip back to Singapore with Rosabelle in September (YAAAY!) as we need to deregister her Chinese citizenship in Singapore (BLEAH...) before she can use a visa to stay on here (effectively, she can stay as long as she wants now in China since she's a Chinese national). But before we make the trip, we need loads of paperwork like her departure permit, Wayne's temporary residence permit, working out what stuff are required for her deregistration of Chinese citizenship, and what visa she'd need to get back in again... It doesn't help that the Chinese embassy in Singapore isn't picking up any calls - last thing I want is to be there in Singapore and realizing we'd missed out on documentation that we were supposed to get here. It's a bureaucratic nightmare, I tell you...

Depending on how long it takes to process the paperwork, we're likely to be there at least for Simon and Marianne's school holidays from 5-13 September, longer if needed. Food wouldn't be a problem as Mummy dearest can cook different kinds of meals for Rosabelle. At the same time I'm so looking forward to going home, where my brother can see Rosabelle for the first time as he's heading in from Zurich, I also shudder at the paperwork that's going to bog us down over the next few weeks. Yikes. Wish me luck. Loads of it. (Yah, and patience too...extreme patience.)