More from Nanchang

Yesterday we were out and about registering in Nanchang and applying for a passport for Jenny Mei. We got to see some of Nanchang, and have started to appreciate it now that we have been down in it rather than above it. It is a "small" city of 4.5 million, with 45 million in the province. Lots of different types of transportation, bicycles, mopeds, cars, vans, all competing for the same road space. More chaotic than the US, but far more orderly than India.



We have continued the bonding process, and it is pretty much complete. At first, Jenny Mei took right to Kay, but really did not want to have much to do with me. Kay and I had discussed the various scenarios in advance of Gotcha Day, and we were prepared for this. I was thrilled that she took to Kay immediately and I was prepared for her to take weeks to be comfortable with me.

I carried Jenny Mei during the first few of our errands yesterday, and she was comfortable enough to fall asleep in my lap. Of course, we had to wake her up to get her passport picture taken, which took four of us to do. And it is tough to get a good pic between spurts of crying, but we were successful!


You can see that JMX had plenty of time with Kay yesterday, too, and that she also quite enjoyed her time without a car seat.


JMX is smiling and laughing and is sooooooooo engaged with her environment all the time. Kay calls her a problem solver based upon her ability to get what she wants, be it food, playthings, or the like.


She is quite the eater, which makes sense, considering that she is so little and has been under fed. She eats everything we put in front of her, and wants everything, be it what she is eating or what we are eating. We gave her what we believe was her first taste of ice cream last night. Once she got over her initial surprise at the temperature, she loved it and could not get enough. We probably made a mistake by giving her ice cream before bedtime, and we paid for it this morning. It was her first "Atomic Diaper".

Someone told us there were two things you could not make a child do. Eat and sleep. Well, we found out last night how true that is when we tried to get her to sleep. I was falling asleep and she was full of energy. We discovered that she needs a bottle to get ready to sleep. Once we had her horizontal and she had her hands on a full bottle, it did not take long.

The picture below illustrates the effectiveness of that tactic as Kay just got her to sleep this afternoon.




More about today a bit later.

Location:Nanchang, China