Friday, July 11, 2008

the real sadie is shining through

Sadie woke up at 9am this morning.  She slept for 12 hours!  I got her changed and dressed and fed her a bottle.  Then it was play time.  Let me tell you this girl knows how to play.  She was smiling and laughing and exploring all of the toys.  I thought she'd go down for a nap a little while later since she has every other day, but not today.  We sat and played with her for a good long while and then fed her some rice cereal with bananas and pears.  Sadie also had more Cheerios and then we broke out the Gerber's Banana Puffs which were a huge hit.  We finally decided to tag team so we could shower and around 1:30pm, actually left the room to do a little more shopping and looking around.  My mom bought her a beautiful jade bracelet and we found some great wood puzzles; one with numbers in English and then in Vietnamese and another with pictures of animals with their names in English and Vietnamese.  We also found this great kids clothing shop and she got a dress, a shorts outfit, slippers and a purse for $18 US.  How crazy is that?  We went to the supermarket to buy some yogurt for Sadie and learned a couple of things about her.  First, she is very strong.  Trying to wrestle something out of her hand that she doesn't want to give up is no easy fete.  And second, she gets angry.  I had to take the water bottle out of her hands to go into the supermarket and she had a cow.  Crying like we haven't seen yet.  She is quite a hoot though.  I had her in the sling at the market and when I found the yogurt, she wanted to hold it.  Well she latched on like it was the last yogurt in the world.  I couldn't get it from her to put into a bag so she just held it as we left the market.  As we were heading back to the hotel, she fell asleep, leaning out in front of me with her grasp tight on the yogurt and her head on top of the yogurt.  It was hysterical.  Thankfully, we got a picture (see below).  I had to hold her head in place as we walked back to the room.   

At 3:30pm we met my dad back at the hotel for high tea.  Sadie woke up as soon as we got back to the room so she only napped for about 10 minutes.  I brought apple juice in a sippy cup and more banana puffs and was able to keep Sadie pretty well occupied during tea; which was yummy by the way.  She also got to taste her first scone and my mom snuck some whipped cream on it!  (This girl loves to eat!)  She smiled and played while we ate and then we came back to the room.  Well, we played some more and she just kept on going.  This must be the active girl the nannies were talking about.  My folks went to their room to take a nap (the humidity really takes a lot out of you) and I hung out with Sadie.  She was playing with a note pad and stated eating a piece of paper so I thought she might like a snack.  I decided to give her her first biter cookie.  She LOVED it!  It was messy as hell though.  When she was done I cleaned her up and picked her up to look out the window.  She loves looking at the view.  Well, she fell asleep in my arms.  It was 7pm.  This was not good.  We were supposed to go out to dinner, but I figured since she'd had no nap, she was probably out for the night.  My folks didn't want to go to dinner without me so we ordered room service.  About 8:30pm I decided that I needed to get Sadie into her pjs because it gets cold in the room at night and she was in short sleeves.  I figured she also needed a diaper change.  So, I took her out of the crib to change her.  I thought maybe she'd sleep through it, but not Sadie.  She woke up and it took me an hour and another bottle to get her to go back down.  I finally got to eat dinner and wanted to post again before dropping into bed. 

I'm kind of sad that we haven't been able to do much sightseeing in HCMC, but we have lots planned for Hanoi.  It's hard to be out with her during the day because it is so hot.  Her hair sticks to her head and today her cheeks got really pink.  I'm hoping we'll get into a routine in the next day or so so that we'll be able to do everything we want to in Hanoi. 

Here are some pictures from today:

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Playing in the room

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Chillin in the sling

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Statue of Uncle Ho with City Hall in the background

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Asleep in the sling with her head on the yogurt

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First biter cookie - yummy!

5 comments:

mimi lam said...

Hi
I am a VN adoption blog reader, I have been following your adoption journey, Sadie is so adorable, she seems big for her age, congratulation for the promotion to parenthood, I am glad you and your parents enjoy Saigon and your precious daughter, you might want to go to the beach, about 1 1/2 hour from Saigon by hydrofoil, have a good time in Hanoi, it is quite different from Saigon, has many lovely lakes, and try to go to Halong if possible. And have a smooth trip home. Mimi Lam.

AllisonEvan said...

Love that she is becoming more herself and her true personality is showing thru:-)

Anonymous said...

I am having so much fun reading your story day by day. Sadie is darling!

Abby said...

What is a biter cookie??

rdsh20 said...

Gren, great narrative and pictures and Sadie is absolutely adorable. Hope your travels to Hanoi went well and that you have accomplished what you need to do in order to get back here at the end of the week without any hassles. Am eager to hear about Hanoi and hopefully see your pictures.

How are the "old folks" holding up?

Love to you all,

Uncle Ron