Crossing out the ‘To Go’s!

We had a rather packed weekend, and I still have the remaining days of the Guilin/Yangshuo trip to blog about, and I am going to start planning/preparing for our Christmas weekend getaway – yaay! As Wayne has 4 days off in a row, we will be driving up to Pingyao, an old city (just one of two in the whole of China that has been accorded a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status) I’ve been wanting to visit. This, along with a rather expensive hotel, Jing’s Residences (comes highly recommended by my brother), so I am considering hard whether we should splurge on the lodging…

In any case, the last weekend came and flew past, where we first headed to another place on my 'To Go’ list – Today Art Museum near Pingod Residences just a 5-minute drive down the road from where we stay. It was exceptionally cold that day, with gusty winds, and our girl who does not normally like to don hats, actually asked to 戴帽 – she looks slightly strange here as the woollen hat is supposed to be pulled back slightly to expose some hair so she doesn’t look like an egghead, but choosing between fashion and keeping her practically warm, the conscious mother in me took over… (She's also sporting a new pair of Nikes, a tad too big, but she insists it's comfy after she saw me take them out for her...)
It was a 5 minute walk from where we parked – which could have taken 2 minutes instead, but remember, we’re with a straggly toddler? – and was littered with small shops and cafes that were not opened yet as we were quite early. Along the way, there were also some interesting exhibits, and I can just imagine this place hustling and bustling with life with a lot of quirky/art-farty types on a busy afternoon…
And then we reached the museum, which has its trademark row of men looking down, and the circle of men standing outside. Rosabelle even walked in the cold weather after our trip to scrutinize every single man within the circle.
We then went into the museum and was surprised to see at least 5 other families with kids during our time there – I wasn’t expecting so many people to have the same idea and make this a family outing. The place wasn’t very big, just 4 levels, of which only two had exhibits on them, but it was all for free, and all very nice – even the signages look so chic (if you'd ignore the English...)!
Rosabelle seemed to enjoy looking at the various exhibits and films, and even though Wayne and I aren’t that into art, it was good to expose her to various elements and forms.
There was an interesting mix of artists and exhibits, and no doubt if we had better appreciated art, we might have stayed on longer and/or explained more to our girl, but it was still a nice ‘to the museum’ experience nonetheless.
Since it was still early, we then headed to Jianwai SOHO where I had another place I’ve been wanting to visit – Kids’ Republic Bookstore. It was a really small bookstore but held a lot of books, mainly Chinese, though they had some shelves of English and Japanese books as well. We only stayed on awhile as I wasn’t really sure how to select Chinese books, and the assistant’s recommendations weren’t really what I was looking for. Think I might go back on another day when I have more time, and Rosabelle can just spend the time browsing through whatever catches her fancy as I do my book-shopping (or I can even go onto Taobao as there are online bookstores, but I just need to know what I am looking for or it can get overwhelming).

We then left to be on time for our 1pm brunch appointment at Chef Too, again another restaurant I’ve been wanting to visit. I read about their great brunch and complimentary meal for the kids, so we went with high expectations. Too high, I think…. The steak and eggs I had was passable, whilst Wayne’s recommended eggs benedict was so-so. Maybe the best thing was the two free pancakes (very nice and fluffy!) that Rosabelle had, which came with a slice of bacon that she ate half of. I wasn’t very keen on having her chew on the over-salty, processed bacon, but oh well, it’s only once in awhile and she’s already big enough to try this, I guess.
Our bill turned out to be about RMB400, as we had three drinks amongst ourselves, and had to order a chicken salad to share as I wasn’t very full, and Rosabelle wasn’t eating much of the eggs and potato I was sharing with her.

Seeing that she had such a late lunch, we asked if she wanted to ‘go home, milk milk time and sleep’, or go shopping. Of course, she’s my daughter, and she started chirping ‘shopping, shopping!’, so off we headed to Solana down the road for a walk.
We weren’t planning on buying anything, so it was more to just look around and work off the lunch, as Rosabelle had fun playing with some chair and cushion displays outside a shop, even picking up posing tactics from her last photo shoot as she propped up her cheek with a hand, and also peeked out sideways from a signboard and asked me to take a shot of her.
She was tired out on the way home and slept for about 10 minutes as I carried her from the car back home, waking up as we were taking off her shoes. Thinking she would be tired out, we quickly went through the rites and got her ready for her afternoon nap but nope, she had other things on her mind. She was making up the same delay tactics of going to the toilet, asking for water etc, like she does at night to put off sleep time, so I just laid down next to her for about 45 minutes and asked her to be quiet. When I woke up at 6pm from my 40 winks, she was still wide awake and was delighted when I told her to wake up since she was not sleeping already – guess her 10-minute power nap earlier must have recharged her fully!

So we pushed the schedule ahead and had her eat an early dinner, have an early wash-up, drink an early milk, and by the time she slept, it was indeed an hour earlier than usual – 11:30pm. Haha, it’s still late by anybody’s standards, but hey, she did not sleep for almost the whole day man…

The next morning, she sort of slept in as she got up ‘late’ at 9:30am (usually 8:30am), which was fine, since Wayne was heading out first to get some paperwork sorted for his暂住证 (turns out we still need to get some paperwork in place done by some folks here, so it was a wasted trip anyway – I REALLY miss Singapore’s efficiency at times like these), so we stayed at home till he came home to bring us out for lunch.

Lunch time was a date at 陶朱公馆with Wayne’s colleague Jon and his wife, Gloria. Both of them are Canadian Chinese and extremely nice and friendly, so it wasn’t long before Rosabelle warmed up to them, especially Gloria whom she was seated next to. Our girl was really on her best behavior throughout, feeding herself well (i.e. no mess, eating most of the things put on her plate/in her bowl), and even wanting to try most of the things. Whenever a new dish came onto the table, she would say ‘玥玥要try try这个', and provided it’s not spicy, I will usually offer it to her as it encourages her to always try new things and be adventurous. Some times, she will reject the food after one bite, but I praise her for trying (like how she scrunched her whole face up when she tasted a spoon of vinegar), and at other times, she will say ‘这个好吃' and go on to finish up a whole siew mai by herself.
Lunch ended quickly enough and we then headed to a hotel near Wayne’s office to look for Dr. D, the chiro. He had come back from the States and was commissioned by the corporation to be in charge of a new branch, so just as well as this new place had much nicer facilities/surroundings than the previous clinic, was cheaper, and we were the only ones there since not a lot of people know about it.

Wayne had a shoulder/back pain so I carried Rosabelle as we watched Dr. D massage/knead him and do scraping/cupping on him. I must admit it did look quite painful and terrifying, as our sweet girl would endearingly call ‘Papa, Papa…’, then go up to him and rest her head on his arm, as if comforting him. So when time came for Dr. D to massage her, boy did she scream! Naturally, of course, as she must have thought she would also have to go through the motions of the scary scraping and fires with cupping… So I carried her as she still resisted whilst Dr. D lightly felt her back and pushed some parts. Nothing intensive as there wasn’t anything to fix, but luckily she stopped screaming after awhile.

This day’s afternoon nap was settled in minutes as she dozed off whilst nursing, allowing Wayne and I to sneak out for a once-in-awhile date – shopping this time round! I wanted H&M, he wanted Zara (spotted a wool coat on Saturday at Solana) so we went to Raffles City, one of my favourite places, mainly also because it has my favourite snacks/drinks at the basement level, haha!

What followed was about two hours of retail therapy – did I forget to mention I was suffering from a nagging headache since Friday night and this strangely went away when I started shopping, wahahaha! I was grabbing at least 15 different items at H&M and dropping them into the in-store shopping bag, and they weren’t even having a sale! As the queue for the changing rooms had formed, I took heart in the fact that the camisole and chiffon top I was wearing were thin, so I could just layer them on as I dumped my bags at the side of a mirror and started trying on the larger knit tops. An ugly-looking ang mor woman came by and asked me in Mandarin as she held out a paper cup in front of me, ’请问垃圾桶在哪里?', thinking I was the service staff sorting out clothes, sheesh! I told her in English, ‘No idea, go ask the service staff over there…’ and pointed her in the direction of the cashier.

I ended up buying about RMB900 worth of clothing (and got one top in two different colours after I decided that it was so comfortable and fitting, haha!)…

Then it was Wayne’s moment as we headed to Zara, and he got close to RMB2,500 worth of things (just as well, it would be his belated birthday package, haha!), getting two additional items upon his fashion advisor’s (ahem, me) advice, heh! In between, I managed to get a cup of my favourite Happy Lemon bubble tea and Tip Top curry puff – delish.

By the time we reached home most satisfied with our purchases, it was close to 7pm and time for dinner, with our girl giving us the sweetest, warmest welcome when we came through the door. Ah, the bliss of a family weekend, especially if you combine it with my first loves of eating and shopping…

Day 1 – Guilin: The beginning of the reunion

I would have to start off my chronicles of our Guilin/Yangshuo trip talking about the eve of our departure. On 20 Nov morning, we headed to Raffles City for some shopping (I bought some scarves and stuff from H&M) and lunch at小南国. When I was at H&M, Wayne brought Rosabelle out to walk, with my bag, and my handphone inside, so when I was done, for the next 20 minutes, I could not even contact them nor find where they were. I went around the same level, thinking they could not have gone far, and my request to use the H&M store phone to call Wayne was rejected (can’t make outgoing calls…duh?) – the assistant didn’t even offer to let me use her mobile, oh well…

Then I saw father and daughter coming down the escalator – they had gone upstairs and even after repeated reminders to use the toilet, Rosabelle refused (and this was after drinking small cup after cup of for-testing Vitamin Water at the supermarket downstairs, and she even had her first sip of bubble tea, courtesy of Yours Truly), and when she eventually had to go, Wayne could not make it in time and she peed as he was removing her diaper/pants. So she had pee all over her pants and socks, and Wayne had to carry her as he washed and dried the clothes under the hand dryer. Obviously his calls to me went unheeded because he was carrying my bag with my phone inside, remember? He must have scolded our girl quite abit as Rosabelle looked pretty sheepish, which was just as well, since Wayne already did his part by reminding her to go to the loo earlier.

By the time we came home, our girl was quite tired, and had a three-hour nap, waking in time for our takeaway dinner of 将太无二. Nainai wanted to take a night train home that night, so the plan was to finish dinner, then have Wayne bring Rosabelle to send Nainai to the train station. The two hours they were gone, I was able to quickly do any last-minute packing and cleaned up the house (keeping her toys and stuff away etc). At first, I got slightly worried that they were taking longer than usual, and then I thought Wayne could be bringing her for a ride about town, heh!

Turns out they had ice cream at KFC since they both stopped for a loo break there, and as usual, our girl preferred the cone to the ice cream… That night, sans Nainai, we got her into bed way past 1am, which wasn’t good at all, since we needed to catch a 11:50am flight the next day…

There were strong winds howling that night, making me fearful that our flights might get disrupted because of the bad weather. Me being me, I did not sleep well and woke up at 7am, which was just as well, as I needed to pack, and also cook the corn+peas and potato+sweet potato to bring on board the plane. Shortly after I woke up, Rosabelle woke up crying and Wayne actually called for me, but I told him to settle her down – maybe it was because the winds were howling outside – and she did go back to sleep after some patting, right until I had to wake her up at 9am to head to the airport and eat breakfast en route.

We bade farewell to Daddy dearest at the gates…
By the time we cleared security, we did not have much time till boarding time, but I let her play awhile at a playground located inside the departure area, until I decided I’d better make my way to our gate, and thank goodness we did, as it was a long distance and I ended up placing her in the trolley even though I know you’re not supposed to.

We boarded the plane and had a three-seater all to ourselves, but the seat near the window, where she was originally seated, had a spoilt arm rest with the cover coming off and exposing a sharp part, so she ended up sitting near the aisle instead. On the journey, we were served lunch, but as the staff claimed I did not book a child’s meal, they gave her an adult set instead. Oh well… she pinched some of the rice, had some of the fruits, and mostly ate the food I prepared for her. There was quite a mess from the purple sweet potato landing on the seats, and her sitting on them, and can you believe I forgot to pack tissue paper in the bag (I had tons checked in)? Thank goodness I had wet wipes….

The flight was otherwise rather uneventful, and we reached on time at 2:50pm, but had to wait quite abit for our luggage to come out. In the mean time, I could feel the temperature difference – it was quite humid within the airport and I was perspiring even with just two thin layers. Maybe it was because the rains were coming, as when we started walking out into the arrival hall, we saw that it was drizzling slightly. I saw a placard with the name ‘GIOK ENG LIN’ on it, and told the man that he was supposed to pick me, and pick my parents at a later flight (the hotel must have gotten our names mixed up).

Luckily the rains weren’t too big as we were walking out, as the van was parked a distance away in an open-air carpark, and we had a safe journey to our hotel, Eva Inn, reaching there at about 4+pm. I forgot to insist that my brother was picking up the tab upon check-out, and signed an authorization with my own credit card, which would lead to much dissent upon check-out on the last day… In any case, we went to our room, which was really nice and spacious.
Our girl went wild at the new ‘playground’, running around and exploring, and ignoring/rejecting my repeated attempts/offers to ‘milk, milk’ and sleep. So just as well, I did my unpacking and got ready to call this home for the next few days, as our girl got busy with helping herself to the welcome fruit platter of small apples and tangerines.
At some point, I decided that I was the adult and really needed her to get some rest, and can leave my packing for later, so I got her changed and within minutes of nursing her, had her going into a deep sleep at 5:45pm. It was raining rather heavily by then and the room windows/balcony doors weren’t exactly sound-proof, so the sound of the rains outside were really quite loud. However, she still managed to sleep through it all, but was rudely woken up when my room phone rang about half an hour later.

Now, I’d wanted to unhook the phone, but decided against it in case my family arrived and wanted to contact me, but I wasn’t expecting the sound of the phone to be so loud, and was very irritated that it was the hotel lady who was arranging for hotel pick-up. Apparently, the driver was having a problem with pick-up as the rains were very heavy and my mum refused to walk in the rain to the van. The lady then wanted me to talk to my mum (via the driver’s phone) to try and convince her to take the hotel transport, and suggested I can use my own mobile (read: roaming charges - hello, woman?) to call him. She then suggested I can go down to the hotel reception to call him, and that was when I blasted at her and said of course I can’t leave my room, can’t you hear my child is crying because your damned, troublesome phone call woke her up?!

So I hung up, unplugged the phone, and thought that doesn’t sound like my mum – she would want to come to the hotel quickly, I’m sure. So after I patted Rosabelle back to sleep, I called the reception again and the lady said the driver said he would settle it himself. As they rightly should! Why should I be playing mediator and peacemaker when service staff are inept? Sheesh!

In the end, my parents and Simon finally reached the hotel past 7pm, and gave me the full story. It was raining heavily when they arrived, and obviously, with two elderly folks and a young kid in tow, they did not want to walk in the rain (or in my mother’s words, all fall sick on the first day of their trip), and told the driver they would wait till the rain had stopped, since he did not have any umbrella. Much later, with no sign of the rain letting down, my mum asked the driver for an update (i.e. what should they do now) and the driver was very rude, saying ‘等吧！你不是要等，就等吧！'. He was very angry that my mum refused to walk in the rain, and asked my mum to get her own umbrellas. When my mum said she will claim the money from him, he of course refused. Then when she said she will grab a taxi (since it’s at the sheltered area), and ask him to reimburse, he of course also refused. My mum was naturally angry since as the driver, and the local, he should have the umbrellas, and the contacts/solutions out of this, so eventually the driver relented, and asked them to wait for him at the second level, the departure hall. And he could very easily have done this at the beginning – he picked them up from the sheltered area as other people were dropping passengers off – he just had to make a detour somewhere and drive up. Goodness! Such lousy service!

Anyway, maybe Rosabelle overheard us talking in the adjacent room and woke up crying – thank goodness for Prince Charming Simon who quickly went over and received a very warm welcome from our Sleeping Beauty…
Just nice as well, she’d slept for close to two hours, and we slowly got ready to head out for dinner. The rain had lightened to a slight drizzle, and we were able to venture out, but not before I made my discontent known to the ‘transport lady’ at the reception, chiding her for daring to bother me, and letting her know that the service was sorely lacking in picking up my family that day.

I was forewarned by our driver to ignore those trishaw riders offering to pick us up to 美食街 outside the hotel, and true enough, one were harassing us for about 50m as we walked to the restaurant area just less than 10 minutes from our hotel, saying that it was raining, and the restaurants charge a lot etc etc, until I had to say that ‘美食节的东西谁吃啊，你去找别人吧，别烦了！', before he backed off.

We then wanted to go inside a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff, but strangely enough, when we went into their entrance, we got ushered into a side door into another restaurant. Thinking they served the same thing, I realized we were in the restaurant that we passed by earlier, serving mainly BBQ food. Strange… not wanting to change a place so late as it was already 8:30pm, we ordered some foods, and the servings were really huge, as you can see.
Our girl fed herself well, but kept wanting to try the BBQ chicken even after I told her it was spicy. She of course cried when I finally offered her a bit, and had to rinse her mouth well – that taught her well… After dinner, we actually wanted to walk around the area a little but my mum was feeling rather cold, so we headed back to the hotel instead. (Only thing we saw was this same restaurant serving a marsupial outside at RMB268 a serving- who can eat the cute furry thing?!) When we reached the lobby, ‘transport lady’ said she was calling my handphone all the time, claiming that the driver picking my brother and Boa up did not see them and had left 50 minutes after their plane arrived. I called my brother but he did not pick his phone up, so we left it at that.

Rosabelle was happily wanting to go to Simon’s room all the time to play (even though we both have deluxe rooms, my parents' is strangely much smaller than mine), so that allowed me time to bathe and get ready for bed. By the time my brother and Boa arrived, it was already close to 11pm, and apparently, they did not see any signages with their names at the airport. He gave the hotel staff a tongue lashing, especially after discovering that the rooms do not come with a bath tub as he had requested, and they actually upgraded them to a suite, free of charge! Haha… it does pay to make yourself heard at times like these!

It was a tumultuous route for them to get to this reunion, but it felt good to see them all again, and that night, Rosabelle went to bed only way past midnight as we got ready for the next few days of travel!

Daddy’s Packed Birthday

Yesterday was Wayne’s birthday but it was still a work-day for him, so we kept to our usual of going for Kindermusik class at Familier in the morning. Some of the families were travelling and we ended up having an all-girls’ class, having loads of fun as usual, and Rosabelle showing off more love than some of the kids could handle. She would actually manhandle them and wrestle them to the floor with her over-zealous hugging, right in the middle of the poor kid trying to sing and/or dance in class… oh dear!

This love was well-received all around, except that when I was sitting down sipping a cup of hot tea after class, I heard her cry out loud – the cry of when she hurts herself, so I quickly ran into the book room, where she was seated next to the older girl Tian Tian (the newbie who wasn’t very friendly last week), with her right hand slightly trembling on the table. I looked hard at her fingers, thinking Tian Tian might have smacked her hard, and saw a tooth mark. Oh. dear. me. So I asked the older girl what happened, as I saw her holding onto a book, and she said that Rosabelle was trying to take her book. I lightly chided her that it was not right for her to bite other children, and quickly carried our crying girl out, wanting to speak to Tian Tian’s mum, when I saw her speaking to Yuliya.

So I showed off our dear girl’s finger to other concerned mums, one who was Tian Tian mum’s friend, Katherine (her daughter’s Niu Niu), who said she will let Tian Tian’s mum know. This bite wasn’t as vicious as the one she suffered at The Place, and had left just a red mark and slight puncture (no broken skin), but it was still quite ‘heart pain’ for me, though our good girl thankfully stopped crying very soon after.

True enough, Katherine told Tian Tian’s mum, who quickly went to her girl and made her apologize to Rosabelle. By this time, the two girls were already each sitting alongside one of the assistants and listening to the story from the source of discontent (i.e. the book), and when Tian Tian very nicely apologized, I let Rosabelle reply that ‘没事，我们一起看书吧'. I made sure to stress to my girl that it was wrong for Tian Tian to not share, but since she knows that Tian Tian is like this, she should not touch/snatch her things, but instead look for her own books, or look for other kids to play with. Of course I also let her know that it was wrong to bite others, as it will cause pain, and make all mummies very angry. I really have to watch her around Tian Tian (and vice-versa) for the remaining few lessons…

This week, we went off early as I had arranged a photo shoot at Weikaqi – I saw their poster in Familier last week, offering a complimentary shoot to Familier members where we can get 7 selected photos in a 2011 calendar. Nice! So I made the appointment for yesterday, and for once, did not bother to bring any clothes/accessories etc since they had them all in the studio. I don’t normally go for such ‘free’ shots – we get loads of these free trial pamphlets in our yard area, from Lijia Baby etc, but seeing it was in a convenient location (and rather uppity), and ‘endorsed’/'supported’ in some way by Familier, I felt their quality should be fine.

It wasn’t far, just opposite at Central Place, and when we got there and the assistants started selecting four sets of clothing for Rosabelle, I made sure to introduce her to the photographer and his girls. They had a special room with nice deco and toys for the shoot, but I found that it wasn’t warm enough, so every time we changed a set of clothing, I made sure to do it quickly and got them to place the heater next to her.

The crew was all very nice and friendly, allowing time for Rosabelle to warm up as she was naturally quiet and stuck to me initially, not wanting to don the winter beanie for long in the first outfit change. She cooperated for awhile before deciding that she did not like anything on her hair, and even after they brought hairbands, small clips, big clips, and asked me to try and put them on her sneakily, it still did not work. I like to ask my girl for permission to do things on/to her (‘Can I put this hat on you?’) even though I may get a negative response, as I think it only teaches her some respect, so I wasn’t entirely happy that they said ‘不用问了，你就放上去就可以了' – in the end, I put my foot down and said ‘她不喜欢头上戴任何东西就别戴了', so that resolved the issue.

The girls especially tried very hard to do silly things to make her laugh/open up, and Rosabelle was at her best, listening to/obeying every single instruction (point at this, hide behind the chair, peek from the side, cover your mouth etc etc), though she didn’t guffaw/laugh hard or anything like that. When the assistant wanted Rosabelle to say thank you, then use her hand to gesture thanks, then make a cute face, go back and sit on her chair repeatedly, and STILL held a toy away from her, saying she did not say ‘thank you’, I was almost ready to jump in and tell her to ‘please give it to her already, you damn woman you!’, but I held back. I think at times, our girl would have to listen to instructions, and I was amazed at how patient she was in following them through, until all of them had to admit that she was indeed very 乖 – if it were me, I might have thrown a kicking fit had they dared deny me of anything!

Unlike my other paid-for photo shoots to mark her coming of age, this photographer seemed to have fixed shots in his mind, wanting her to look this way/pose that way/get that prop over there, and not really capturing her at her most natural. Oh well, like Wayne says, it’s free of charge, so what was I expecting?

I don’t normally likes kids to get dressed in those adult-like clothes, but just for kicks, she was donning a sweater/hot pants combo in one, a cheongsam in another, a denim jacket/frou frou tutu in one, and the last one with a working-type dress/fuzzy jacket, haha! Let’s see how the photos turn out next week – if they are really good, I might consider paying for extras/negatives…

I think our girl became hungry during the shoot, so I brought out grapes and she finished up the box. When she asked for bread, I was most happy when the shoot wrapped up after 1.5 hours, so that by the time we had lunch, it was already 2pm. I wasn’t ready to walk around and look for a restaurant by this point, so I walked into the first ‘passable’ one – a Japanese deli within Central Place, and ordered a miso ramen and a chicken cutlet bento for myself. Our girl was happily drinking on my Vitamin water whilst waiting for the food to come.

Since Rosabelle insisted on feeding herself, and there were no baby chairs available, I folded my down jacket for her to sit on – it got her to just a right height to start feeding herself the chicken slices, seaweed, and egg with the ramen. However, she had not really eaten much by the time I finished my meal, so I gave her a bit of help, where she loved to slurp the noodles off my chopsticks – I managed to feed her one whole bowl with her asking for more!

By this time, it was already close to 3pm and I did not want to stay on for her to finish her fruit, so I packed the pomelo I had peeled and got her going in the taxi on the way back. Think the whole photo shoot was rather exhausting for her as she slept a solid 3 hours that afternoon, which was nice, because it fully recharged her for celebrating Papa’s birthday that night!

By the time we got to Aroma Restaurant at Ritz Carlton, it was already 7:30pm, just in time for our reservations – Wayne came from work so Nainai and I took a cab there together with our girl. We’d chosen this place since Wayne has a 1-for-1 deal for their dinner buffet with his credit card, and it was also close to home. As Wayne carried her, I began picking a selection from the buffet table for our girl – pumpkin cake, potatos, mushrooms, pork, fish, carrot soup, fried rice… I’d put them all in a bowl at first but she was more keen on starting on the pumpkin cake first, until I laid them all on her plate and gave her a small fork to pick at the items. That’s her having an adult glass of water as well… The food selection was ok, but just about that – Asian, Japanese, Western, Italian, Indian… but there was nothing spectacular about the food. All was just passable (some even bad…), the kinds you would expect at a thrown-in breakfast deal at a five-star hotel, but definitely not worth the RMB268+15% service charge per person price tag.

Nainai, who normally does not eat much to begin with, stopped taking food after awhile, and that’s the mother-and-son duo (don’t they look so alike?!), as seen from my eyes (above), and from our daughter’s (below, taken from Rosabelle’s angle).
The Pine Stone Cowboy birthday cake I’d ordered from 21cake was supposed to arrive at 8pm, but the delivery guy called to say he forgot some battery or something and was going home to recharge it, so he came only at 8:30pm and called me to meet him at the hotel lobby. As I was waiting, who should I see walk through the main entrance of the hotel but Jackie Chan (Chen Long), followed by an entourage. Wow! He isn’t very tall, just well-built, but it sure is uncanny to see him in the flesh… The delivery guy told me to wait awhile more as he wrongly went to JW Marriott next door instead, tsk tsk, so I was quite irritated and went back to the restaurant first. In retrospect, if not for blur delivery man, I might not have had the chance to see Jackie Chan, haha!

We continued some more eating, in spite of the lousy food, and Rosabelle enjoyed the plain crepes, though still stopping to camwhore at times… (I look so bloated here!)
When I finally got the cake, I left it with the hotel staff to place in the fridge first as we wrapped up and headed out for some photos first. I love desserts but could not bring myself to try/eat any of the unappetizing-looking cakes at the buffet, and I sure did not want to waste Rosabelle’s appetite on lousy desserts, so we decided to save our stomachs for the good cake from 21cake at home. And when we were out taking photos, then we all saw Jackie Chan again, this time accompanied by his son and even bigger entourage. Wow… I have never seen him in the flesh, and now TWO times within the night, this must surely count for something!
As we headed home, our girl was most looking forward to cake time, and had to practise a lot of self-control as we took photos, sang the birthday song, and finally allowed her to swipe/sink her fingers at/into the cake, where she loved the pine nuts on top. She was basically eating from 7:30 till 10:30pm last night, so I did not prepare any milk for her before bed, for fear of over-stuffing her.
After that, we also had fun with the bunch of rabbit ‘flowers’ I’d ordered for Wayne from Salala.com – I’d gotten a RMB50 voucher when I collected our movie tickets last week, so I went online and got something to be sent to Wayne’s office yesterday, signing off as Rosabelle. Heh… that’s our girl’s first bunch of flowers for her Daddy!
The website, service staff, and packaging etc were all very professional, so I think I can use them again – at least both recipient and giver look pretty pleased with their rabbits!
P/S: In case you are wondering what I gave Wayne for his present, he is eyeing an Omega watch for his year-end gift, of course that is way above my budget, so lazy me has agreed to sponsor a bit part of it as his birthday present, haha!

That vein

Yesterday, we went for Mommy & Me in a 黑车 (illegal taxi) – I know it’s illegal, and it’s quite dangerous as they’re not regulated, and it’s been long since I last took one, but hey, Wayne was having a meeting that morning and I tried calling for a cab during morning peak period, but had zilch luck. So I carried my girl out, and carrying a bag, it wasn’t funny having to scour the streets for a cab, and having loads of competitors around (who were more able-bodied with no bag/toddler in arms, so they were able to sprint and push to get empty cabs, if any).

So someone asked me for RMB35. RMB30, I say, that’s the standard, even in morning jams. And another driver agreed to go at that price. And there marked our daughter’s first黑车 ride ever.

We reached there with ample time to spare and had the usual fun activities involving masses/messes of paints and water, and were told that next week would be the last session. Wow, 10 weeks has flown by that quickly…

After eating a slice of cheese, we got going, or rather, tried to get going, to Element Fresh for lunch. I dabbled with the thought of having a change and going to Annie’s, which was a further walk away, but changed my mind mid-way when I realized it’d probably take forever to get there if I let Rosabelle walk on her own (and I sure wasn’t able to carry her all the way). She would take maybe five stops, stop and look and me (maybe wanting me to give up and scoop her up), or even worse, retrace her steps and look at something. At times, I would indulge her and let her dally, at other times, I would scream at her to get a move-on if she wanted to get lunch anytime soon. Sigh!

The last 200m or so, I carried her some part of the way, and we finally managed to reach Element Fresh. Now, I was carrying her, with both of us wearing thick winter clothing in a restaurant with ample heating, carrying a huge bag, and Rosabelle decided she wanted to pee when she saw the flight of steps leading upwards, so I told the staff I needed seats for two, and stressed that I needed a baby chair to be put next to me (i.e. NOT opposite me). This trainee led me into the restaurant, where I decided to put down my bag and take off our warm clothing first before I trooped up the steps to the toilet, but she still led me to a two-seater, i.e. with the option of a baby chair put OPPOSITE me. I was quite irritated and told her I’d already told her what I needed, and then asked her to get me a place before I hastily made my way up to the toilet with bag, warm clothing et al.

It wasn’t pleasant at all, having to manage a bag, get off both our thick clothing, and hang them in the confines of the small cubicle, before getting Rosabelle to pee. Luckily she managed to hold it all in whilst waiting. Eventually, I went downstairs, carrying her, my bag, BOTH our jackets AND our scarves, and asked clueless trainee where our table was. She looked lost, and led me to the other end of the restaurant, all the way, to see that ALL the seats were taken, and mumbled something about other staff leading customers to that table that she’d prepared for us. Now, I was REALLY fuming. I did not mince my words when I lashed at her that she should make sure my seats are there before she even leads me all over, seeing that I was carrying so many things! She eventually sat us at a table that was just vacated, with dirty plates/cups still on the table, and I asked why isn’t a baby chair, the menu etc all set up at this table, and suggested that maybe she did not place the necessary things on the table, that was why other staff did not know that our table was taken.

I was basically very pissed off with her as she scrambled to get a menu, baby chair, crayons etc for us, as I wondered out loud why all these weren’t done as we were in the toilet, and why she should not be letting me run all over the restaurant for a seat… I had a very good mind to let my discontent be known to the supervisor/manager, but decided to hold off my anger first. Thankfully the supervisor who took my order was very nice, and I used the Element Fresh card to redeem a free apple pie and green tea, so that sort of put me in a better mood. In retrospect, I’m glad I held off the complaint, as that might have spoilt her day, or even worse, her tenure at the restaurant. However, I’m making sure I speak to and get attended by someone else other than a ‘trainee’ the next time round.

I let Rosabelle have some pasta with tomatos – I’d put the peas in her bowl, thinking that’s what they were, when she said it was spicy. I thought she meant the pasta, so I tasted it and said it’s ok. Later, she said ‘豌豆不好吃’, and when I tried it, oh, it was pickled small olives, heh! So I scooped them all out, then gave her the usual pork wonton as well, and she also had half a bowl of pumpkin soup and some of the bread from my steak sandwich. Half-way through, she told me she needed to poo, so I brought her upstairs, but I sure did not think it funny when she told me she had no pee nor poo. I was already in quite a bad mood and tired from climbing the steps, and felt quite bad that I forced her to remain on the toilet bowl till she really did manage to get some poo out… hmmm… maybe she just does not want to poo, and I should try making her do so every day….

Afterwards, when going down the steps, I suddenly felt a grinding pain in my right knee and quickly put her down and held her hand down the steps. I was afraid that if I should suddenly feel excruciating pain, I might tumble down whilst carrying her. Luckily the pain faded after about 5 more steps down… must have been all the tension… Back at the table, we also shared the dessert, basically with me eating the apple pie, and her eating the ice cream, heh!

Now, during our lunch, there was this Chinese lady seated next to us, eating with her angmor husband. She caught Rosabelle’s eye and started greeting us cordially, when she went on to ask me if the prominent-looking vein in between Rosabelle’s eyes (at the bridge of her nose) was a recent development, or one she’s had since birth. I wasn’t exactly sure but it’s been there as long as I can remember. The lady then said that Rosabelle might have a spleen or stomach problem, as her younger daughter (now 2.5 years old) had as she had the exact same mark between the eyes. Like me, she received the same answers from Western doctors (she goes to BJU), who say that it’s because children have thin skin, and this will eventually fade, so it’s no biggie. According to her, she brought her daughter to 儿研所, and for doctors there who practise TCM, one look at the nose, which is telling of problems within the system, and they will know that with the prominent vein at the bridge, there is a problem with either the spleen or stomach. It can go both ways – if it’s the stomach, the child will not have any appetite at all. If it’s the spleen, the child can eat well, but the foods don’t get broken down/digested as well, and it will lead to problems like constipation.

Voila! Eureka! The second scenario is just what I think Rosabelle is going through! When I mentioned casually that I am perplexed as to why she can instead poo every day whilst on our Guilin/Yangshuo tour, she said in cases like these, such children must be careful to not overeat, or it’s even harder for their systems to process the food. Again, voila! True enough, when out on our trip, we have meals outside, and I am not as strict about her finishing her foods. At home, I scoop a certain portion onto her plate and expect her to finish that, PLUS a bowl of soup, so maybe that is really too much for our poor girl. The lady went on to mention that after taking about two weeks of a 健脾化及口服液, her daughter was better, her pallor and appetite improved, and she did not have any constipation at all.

It’s not anything major, just that some children have digestive systems weaker than others, she said. But all these were all very enlightening to me, so I did an online search – true enough, Western forums/doctors all dismiss it as the child’s skin being thin, but Chinese forums/doctors all point to the spleen or stomach as an underlying cause. Wayne does not think we need to visit儿研所 or get her started on any medication but that night, I made sure that I did not force my girl to finish everything – I know what they say about children knowing when they’re full/hungry, but I never really did put that into practice, going into a ‘I’m an adult/your mother, so I know better’ mode. Now I REALLY know better!

After lunch, we again went to the bookstore at the suggestion of Rosabelle and since nice assistant was there, I again got two small books. Heh! You can never have too many books!

Nooka and that Potter guy

On Saturday, we brought our girl to Lane Crawford – December is Wayne’s birthday month, and being a member, he gets a no-strings-attached RMB500 voucher to spend there, yippee! My initial plan was to get him to scour around for his own present, so I just needed to top up on top of the voucher value. It was quite a long ride there since there were jams and traffic lights every where, so we took about 50 minutes to get there, with Rosabelle enjoying her pear fruit in the car.

When we got there, we stopped by the side of the road since Wayne remarked that there were so many cars parked there anyway. Rosabelle had fun looking at the Christmas deco (and Santa Claus Ye Ye), and then shopping around with us, making herself at home with one mini kids’-related display of children’s seats and hand-woven toys.
However, Wayne being Wayne, he wasn’t very keen on buying anything, so I ended up getting a pair of black Nooka shades at 10% off - actual price RMB1,600, obviously so much more expensive than if you get it in the USD130…, and with Wayne’s VIP card getting 10% off, we needed to only top up RMB940. I have not heard of the brand before, but the shades were nice and light, so I decided to get them. Going online to check, I really love their belts, and apparently I have the same taste as Disney girl Miley Cyrus! As luck would have it, the voucher was not valid for use till 8 Dec, yikes! Luckily the staff were helpful and professional, and obliging, enough to bend the rules and let us use the voucher, telling us we can only get the receipt from 8 Dec on (not that we need it)…

After that, we headed towards Friday’s, and put the shades in the car boot first, when Wayne spotted his first ‘Christmas card’ of the season - a traffic summons for RMB200 for illegal parking, alongside his brave comrades of other cars, who were each slapped with a fine as well. Oh dear… and to think just because he did not wish to make a detour from having missed the carpark exit. Oh well, get a RMB500 voucher, lose a RMB200 penalty…

Anyway, that did not dampen our spirits for lunch, as it was already late and close to 2 pm – our girl was independently feeding herself potato wedges/fries (and dabbing them in ketchup), ribs, beef from our tasteless mushroom burger, mushroom soup, and of course enjoyed the ice cream with brownie most (though I realized she isn’t a fan of cakes – she prefers the ice cream that comes with it). I’ve been most lax with her foods these days – figure she’s old enough, and also responsible enough, to take a bit of junk once in awhile, haha…
After a rather tiring day for her, in the car on the way home, as we were passing by Tiananmen Square, our girl dozed off. I did not want her to fall asleep as I needed her to sleep at home, so I distracted her by asking her to look at 毛爷爷, but it wasn’t lure enough… and she slept for about an hour till we got back. In between, seeing that she was already asleep, we decided to take a detour and collect our cinema tickets for an evening Harry Potter show. Since we had made a phone booking with our VIP card, we needed to collect the tickets 35 minutes before our 5:35pm show, so instead of having to rush later to collect them, we got them first.
Just as we were reaching home at around 4:20pm, Rosabelle woke up, and I was trying hard not to excite her too much as after changing her, as we wanted her to go back to sleep so we could leave by 5pm for the show. No sirree… our girl had other plans. At 5:05pm, even after nursing her, she was still wide awake, and wanted Wayne to come in and lie down together as well. I quickly took the chance to sneak out on the pretext of changing my clothes, as I needed to unpack my things and get foods ready for Nainai to be home alone with her for dinner that night.

At 5:20pm, I took a chance and opened the door to the room – I did not dare to go in any earlier than that as I was afraid she would still be awake, and seeing me, she would get even more hyper. Thank goodness she was already asleep, as was Wayne! I quickly shook him up – sheesh – we could have left earlier if he had not already fallen asleep as well, aiyo! So with 15 minutes to the movie's opening, we dashed out of the house, drove to the cinema, and I ran on up to catch the show first whilst Wayne went to park the car. Thankfully there were some inane trailers and ads (don’t we love such useless stuff at such times?), and the show started 5 minutes late, and Wayne came in just 30 seconds into the opening.

The next 150 minutes of the show was rather forgettable, with nothing making me feel like tearing/clapping/standing up to give an ovation, as I seriously did feel like doing with the other installments. It was rather slow-moving as well, and the Potter-Hermione-Ron triangle did make me go all roll-eyeball at times… oh well… I will still catch the last in the series next year, but I was seriously hoping for more, given that it’s only once in a blue moon that I catch a movie!

After the movie, we walked around New City a little before ending up at 味千拉面 for dinner – I used to have this a lot when my old office was at SOHO, since it’s just on the first floor, so it was nice, comfort food as I had my usual 泡菜牛肉豆腐锅, and Wayne’s noodles tasted extra yummy, maybe it was because I was hungry. I also bought a packet of kids noodles for Rosabelle to try, since she seems to like the ones cooked at Mai Dou’s house. Nainai tried cooking them today but maybe it’s because we used the electric stove, the noodles continued cooking even after the switch was turned off, and they turned out way too soggy and over-cooked. Mystery solved… now we shall remove the pot from the stove so that they will be nice and springy next time!

By the time we got home, it was close to 10pm and Rosabelle had just had her bath – Nainai said she woke up shortly after we were gone, and was luckily quite consolable, cooperating with drinking honeydew juice and eating her dinner and fruits. She can be such an angel whenever she knows that it’s only Nainai she can turn to, as at other times, she will reject Nainai instead, making me feel quite irritated that she can be so sticky, even clinging onto my leg when I walk away, until I have to constantly remind her that she would cause me and her to both trip over. Looks like we must create more ‘alone time’ for Nainai and her to bond then!

Hope the honeymoon isn’t over!

Maybe I’m too used to taking care of our girl all alone of the trip, but this past week alone has seen a few brushes/disagreements with my MIL, sigh…

I overheard Nainai using the word狗屁on Friday, when Rosabelle said she wanted to eat a pear before lunch, Nainai went ‘吃什么梨?吃狗屁吧!' – now, I heard her saying狗屁on a previous occasion as well, but wasn’t sure I heard that right as it’s not a very nice word to use, and my MIL seldom says such offensive things, but when I heard it on Friday, used in such a context, I quickly told her not to say such things in front of Rosabelle as she will pick that up (imagine us telling her to eat her dinner, and she will reply ‘吃狗屁吧!'). Immediately after, Rosabelle really imitated and went ‘狗屁' – I almost fainted. I had to tell her that Nainai said something wrong and will not say it again, and to not learn/repeat that ever again. Think Nainai found nothing wrong and maybe was quite offended, and she remarked ‘别学奶奶，跟你妈妈学好东西吧...' – I wanted to retort that all of us have to set a good example, not just me, but I left it at that – maybe she does not realize, but I did my job by telling her yesterday, so if she repeats that again, then I will have reason to be angry. However, it really is quite disturbing the pace at which kids pick up things – both good and bad, so all adults around them really have to be on their best behavior man!

Yesterday, as Nainai was carrying her out of the bathroom after a pee, Nainai remarked ‘都没尿，尿狗屁呢!', perhaps inadvertently… gosh! I really had to tell her to please not use that again as Rosabelle will pick that up, and true enough, Rosabelle started saying, until I had to point it out bluntly that it is very impolite to use on both adults and kids, and no adult nor kid should say it. I really, really hope that she will watch such slips of the tongue… sigh…

And then, Nainai and I had another slight disagreement – see, Rosabelle has had a cold sore (I think) on her left cheek since late Oct, and I applied some clotrimizole a few days later for about 3 days, leaving a scaly patch. Now, that seemed quite ok, until it refused to go away, so we tried putting Vitamin E and Aloe Vera (not together), for a few days, and it looked like something that should fade over time. However, and I am hoping it’s because of the cold/dry Beijing winter (that’s causing her a mild cough together with a runny nose now, she even had a coughing fit Saturday night for about 15 minutes, and surprise, surprise, I spent about 20 minutes looking for Euky bear rub to apply for her – I was very sure I had an opened tube lying somewhere, sigh… thankfully by the time I found it, she was sleeping well, so maybe it was just a wrong sleeping position and the dry weather, and I also gave her quite abit of water to drink to ease the dryness) that the spot suddenly turned a fierce red Friday, so I asked Nainai to apply some Aloe Vera. Nainai thinks it’s some medication, and thinks applying it would cause it to flare up more, like how we applied medicine the first time round on nothing much (I had to remind her that it was red, and that was WHY I had to apply Aloe Vera, which has a calming effect for cold sores and rashes)… sigh… let’s see. She thinks I should bring bring her to the doc’s for a look, but I have emailed my brother-in-law with pictures (see below) and see what his friend the derma thinks…
Still on the subject of things clinical, Nainai suggested we not bathe Rosabelle every day, and since our girl seems to have rather dry skin, especially on the back (which she complains of, so we’ve started applying J&J baby oil even), I also agreed, saying we can bathe her every alternate day (as it is, she washes her hair about every 3 days now). Nainai then went on to suggest that Beijing is different from tropical Singapore, and is very dry in winter, and we could even bathe her once every week (horrors!) and suggested I ask a doctor for opinion next time. I quickly indicated that the doctor can only give a suggestion, but it is really up to each family’s hygienic regime to make their own call. With our girl breaking out in sweat at times whilst playing/sleeping, and going out almost every day (unlike Nainai who stays at home mostly), I told Nainai that I don’t wish to cope with other skin problems resulting from not cleaning her well. Thank goodness the discussion ended at that… (I think our girl might disagree too, given that she’s quite a clean freak – the other day, I bit off the side of a banana that had some black parts on it, and she took a look at my other banana in the hand and claimed, ‘玥玥要另外一个banana, 这个脏了...' – faint…)

The last straw probably came about yesterday when I saw Nainai removing lint from Rosabelle’s thin pants with the sponge I use to wash Rosabelle’s hair with, so I casually remarked that the lint might be quite hard to wash off and get into our girl’s hair. (The pair of thin pants were worn as an extra layer inside a pair of thick fleece pants.) Maybe she felt she was already trying to find a way to remove the lint, so she got quite irritated and said that it can be washed off easily. I then saw the sponge break into half, as it is very hard when dry… oh dear me…thankfully I have a spare sponge. She then went on to turn the thick fleece pants inside out and also started scraping at the fleece, saying she wanted to remove the lint. Erm… but isn’t the fleece supposed to be there to keep her warm? If you scrape at/remove the fleece, it defeats the purpose, right? So that’s what I asked Nainai, and she said that she is only removing the top surface, and not the whole thing… then went on to say that she won’t do it if I don’t wish her to, so that she does not have to 多此一举… I wasn’t very happy when I heard that – I did not ask for her to remove any lint in any way, much less using a sponge that we bathe Rosabelle with, and spoil it. So I just said ‘那就别弄了', and she quickly packed up.

That exchange resulted in half a day of cold war (Wayne bought pears from the supermarket and asked her to cook for Rosabelle’s slight cough, and she wanted Wayne to tell me directly), sheesh… After Rosabelle’s lunch, I wanted to cut our girl’s fringe since it seems to be bothering her quite a bit, so I remarked that I will let Rosabelle sit on a chair herself instead of letting Nainai carry her, or the hair will get all over Nainai as well. Nainai retorted with a, ‘随便，看你吧，一切就随你喜欢怎么做' – I thought that was totally uncalled for but did not want to dampen our girl’s enthusiasm for a haircut, since she was very excited about it, seeing me bring out the scissors (got my mum to buy a pair from Singapore and pass them to me in Guilin) earlier, so I got her ready myself in the toilet and closed the door. I had half a mind to do this first haircut myself when Nainai asked if I needed her help, so at least she was still amiable about making sure her grand daughter was well taken care of. When Rosabelle got seated on the stool, wearing nothing but a singlet and panty, covered by her eating bib (it’s quit warm in the toilet with heating), Nainai then came in and stood behind her, holding onto her arms so she would not move.

I gave Rosabelle a big cosmetic brush to play with (I see this a lot in salons, where the assistants use a huge soft brush to dust away hair – I made the mistake of using wet wipes the first time we cut her hair – bad mistake! It made the hair stick on her face even more…), and set about snipping away at the fringe… it was all over in a few minutes as our girl was surprisingly cooperative, and I had quite a neat cut…. Nice! It wasn’t too messy at all as I sat her in the shower cubicle, and I only needed to shake away the hairs on her bib and on the stool. Now at least she won’t rub her eyes when the fringe used to poke into her face! Thankfully in spite of our animosity, Nainai and I made a good team when it came to Rosabelle’s hair cut, my first ever from Hairdresser Mummy Wendy!

At least things slowly eased up the today when Nainai asked in the morning if I wanted her to cook pear soup for Rosabelle’s cough… sigh! I sure hope that such unnecessary tension does not come about again, and me, I just have to be more mindful that Nainai is still my elder, Wayne’s mummy, and Rosabelle’s grandma!

Post-trip Syndrome!

Pardon the lack of more timely updates as Hotspot Shield has been failing me…

We are back from our 9-day Guilin/Yangshuo family trip, and I already can’t wait to bring our girl on our next vacation! It wasn’t as scary as I thought, managing the trip all alone (i.e. without Wayne, Nainai or an Ayi) with Rosabelle, and I think our girl has matured along the course of this trip, making me very proud of her. Best of all, I think I bonded even more with her, and her with the rest of my family members whom she seldom gets to see.

I have photos galore (about 1,100 of them!), and I really need to get down to sorting them out before I post a day-by-day chronicle of the trip, but I took half a day to unpack/get settled in after we reached home at 8+pm last week Monday night, and Rosabelle has been recuperating from a bad runny nose that thankfully came on only on the last day (and it did not affect her mood for play or excitement!).

Now if only I can get MS Photo Editor to not hang on me when I open the huge folder of photos – I spent close to a day trying to back up old files on an external hard drive so that I can free up space on the one normally plugged into the laptop; hopefully that will speed up the file reading and formatting…

In the mean time, life went on (and back to normal), with us having to stay indoors whole of Tuesday last week as it was hazardous-air time with bad pollution. Wednesday saw us heading out for Mommy & Me at 3e – it was nice to go back after missing the session last week, but it was a nightmare in terms of getting messy/wet. All the major activities had to do with something that I wished she could keep donning a waterproof long-sleeved smock – playing with shaving foam on a table, scooping up flat fishes swimming in the water (fake, of course), and running cars over puddles of paint in a box. And our girl had an OCD – she kept running to the sink to wash her hands, complete with squeezing of hand soap onto her hands and rubbing the hands down. She must have wasted loads of soap and water that day, washing even after getting her hands wet when fishing, until I had to stop her – who needs super-dry hands in an already dry winter? Aiyo… only good thing is I am so glad I did not have to clear up any mess… haha!

After that, I brought her to Amcare for her Hepatitis A second jab – I’d actually called them in the morning to return my call as I wanted to see if she could still take the jab, since she was nursing a cold, but when the doctors returned my call, I was in class, and could not speak to anyone available after that, so I decided to just make my way down as I was afraid to miss the 11:30am appointment (I’d actually made this appointment like a month earlier, but the girl called me two days ago when I was in Yangshuo and said I was booked for 10am – how silly of them! So she had no choice but to give me an additional slot at 11:30am and warned I might have to wait…sheesh!).

So when I finally reached there (carrying her and panting and note that I was breathing in badly-polluted air), we of course had to wait. She’s now 90cm and 12.5kg, and was happy to play around the area whilst we waited for our turn. After about 15 minutes, I asked the nurse if she could take the jab, and she said it’s better to wait a few more days till she recovers. At that point, I then asked to speak to the doctor as I did not want to wait for so long and then not to be able to take the jab, and still have to pay consultation fees. So the doctor’s assistant confirmed that yes, with a runny nose, she can’t take a jab that day, and can only come back in January (since they were booked solid for December). Sheesh… thankfully I asked and did not wait around for nothing, so off we went to have lunch at Element Fresh again. (I’ve booked a slot for this Saturday instead, with the doctor booking me in – who said anything about being booked solid! - as she advised that I don’t wait till her 10 Feb KKH appointment in Singapore for this jab since it’d be too long in between both jabs already.)

I stuck to tried and tested pork wontons for her, and her favourite mushroom soup (which she did not have much of as she surprisingly ate quite abit of my chicken with mac & cheese). I was really quite filled with having to finish both my mac & cheese and her wontons, AND the soup, AND the mango smoothie I ordered, but at the same time, wanted a sweet treat, I ordered a chocolate cake with ice cream. Our girl prefers eating the ice cream, so I dumped the whole lot into a cup for her to feed herself, haha…

After that we took a walk to the bookshop in Lido Hotel again, where I spent close to RMB250 on new books for her, and some for Simon/Marianne/Gideon when I’m heading home next month. Yes, it’s that fast – CNY falls early on 3 Feb in 2011, and I’ve already booked my air tickets on Air China – exorbitant as it may be (RMB4,100 for me, and RMB3,300 for Rosabelle, when it used to be RMB3,300 for me!). I sure am looking forward to heading home for a month!

I spent more on the books this time round as opposed to the previous time, as the assistant was so much more helpful than the fatty-stuck-to-laptop addict. She agreed to just waive 50% off every single book, seeing how I was having difficulty doing a match for one-for-one since there was a range of different prices. How nice! And how convenient! Makes me just want to buy more to thank her!

In the taxi on the way home, Rosabelle actually fell asleep on my lap, and I had to ask Nainai to come down to help me carry the things, but she unexpectedly woke up 5 minutes from home, heh! That afternoon, she slept for 4 hours in the afternoon, waking up at 6+ for a feed – I thought she would wake up but she instead rolled over and continued sleeping… till 8:30pm! (That gave me a lot of time to go to our management office and get her residence certificate done, as Wayne went back to Zhengzhou when we were away on our trip, to collect her denunciation of Chinese citizenship, so the next few steps are more paperwork (what else!) of going to the police station to get a foreigner’s residence certificate, then applying for her Chinese visa. FINALLY. We started on this crap more than a year ago, and had to make three trips to Zhengzhou – that’s how efficient that is for you…) As you can imagine, she started going to bed only at 1am that night…

So I was most thankful when she managed to wake up in time for Kindermusik classes the next morning on Thursday. We had a good time catching up with Yi An (realized it should be an English name Ian!) and his mummy (he apparently looked for Rosabelle last week when we were not there), and with Singaporeans Rei and her mummy Priscilla, and having lunch thereafter together at Familier. The lesson was most fun, as we learnt a new song, her favourite ‘Sombody’s knocking on my door’, and we did quite a few exhausting dances that had the older kids dancing/jumping in the middle of the circle. However, she kept wanting to hug the kids, and I had to be sure to keep her away from them as she can hug them quite roughly/tightly.

There were two new faces, a mommy I introduced from Mommy & Me class and her 22-month-old Niu Niu, and her friend, who came with her 2 years 7 months old daughter Tian Tian. The former was asking me on Wednesday whether Rosabelle attends any other classes, as she claimed that our daughter is very 厉害, i.e. not shy/afraid, and dares to venture around and play (and snatch!) things. Her daughter is too shy for her own good, or so she thinks, and she’d like her to open up more. So I asked her to call Yuliya for a free demo, and they both actually signed up for the remaining sessions! I was telling her to get RMB50 off the course if possible as rightly, I should get a discount for recommending somebody, but since I had already paid in full, I told her to enjoy the privilege – not sure if they gave her the reduction, but she was thankful to me for introducing this nice class to her, heh!

However, the older girl Tian Tian wasn’t very friendly – when Rosabelle wanted to touch her fruit box, she snatched it away rudely, saying she did not want her to see it. Then, when she found some fake beans to place onto a seat to ‘cook’ for her mother, and Rosabelle wanted to touch it, she pushed Rosabelle onto the floor, and later, smacked her onto the face. Sigh… I told Rosabelle to stay away from Tian Tian, and advised her that ‘if people aren’t friendly and willing to share, go and play with something else, or play with somebody else who is willing to share’, and to protect herself from children who will beat/shove her.

After that, it was mostly uneventful as Rosabelle ended up being the last to leave (again), even after repeated calls from me to go (she even pooed twice whilst there – in the loo, of course). When we finally got going, it was close to 3pm, and she started becoming fretful/grouchy in the taxi, getting a telling-off from me (‘Next time, when I say go, let’s just go, don’t leave so late and start becoming all grumpy on the way home eh…’). She was most tired and cried/screamed all the way as Nainai washed her hands, changed her and got her ready for nursing time before her afternoon nap. That night, after dinner, she pooed again, and yet again before she slept. Strange! But her poo was all normal – maybe she was making up for 4 days of no poo, which is highly strange, as she pooed every day (sometimes even twice) when we were on the trip. I thought such trips are supposed to make your system go all haywire… and hers is normalized even!