Like Clockwork

I guess I have some 'splaining to do.

Yesterday started out as a very good day. We had breakfast and headed to the Chongqing Zoo. The panda bears are from this part of China and this zoo has several of them. The grounds of this zoo are beautiful, though not very well kept. We only visited a small part of the zoo has we only had about an hour. After the zoo, we went to the silk factory and then back to the hotel where the fun really started.

Jim got many great pictures. I'll share a few with you.

This is a shot of Chongqing from the bus. This isn't pollution. The air is always this hazy. It was actually pretty clear.

Since Chongqing is all hills, this man has a pretty tough job right now. I guess I'd better quit complaining!

Sera is checking things out on the bus. She wasn't really sure about it to start, but she decided she liked bus rides.

Here are some panda shots. This one was having lunch.

Another panda shot.

This woman stayed with our group from pretty much the time we entered the zoo. She's 90-years-old. She comes to the zoo to walk around and look for cans and bottles. She "helped" a few of us push our strollers. She spent the most time helping push Sera.

These women were performing a type of tai chi with swords at the zoo. I'm not sure if they were entertainment or just exercising.
After the zoo, we headed to the silk factory. Here's a shot of Sera with daddy.

One unbroken thread from a cocoon can exceed one mile in length. This is the contents of a cocoon. Four people each grab a corner and pull.

They can pull this out to the size they need, even as big as a king-sized bed. They lay layers and layers of this silk together to form the insides of the quilts. The then make something like a duvet. You can buy one for less than $100.

These are the silk covers that you wrap around the silk quilts. These will cost you around $200. $300 will buy you a standard no frills king-sized comforter in the States. Here, you can get a 100% silk handmade quilt for about the same price.

We bought a baby bed set for Sera, 2 meters of fabric, and a tie covered with math symbols.

Shortly after returning to the hotel, Sera went down for a nap. It was really late. She fell asleep a few times on the bus just to awaken when we got to our destination. She slept about 1 1/2 hours. She was a little grumpy when she woke up, but not too bad. We decided to head downstairs to the underground. If you go to the basement level of this hotel, and then ride an escalator down, you are in a shopping & restaurant area. We went to check it out. It's not geared to tourists at all. We wandered around, but the shops were not what we were looking for. We headed back up one level where there are a few other restaurants and tried the Japanese place. Dinner was delicious, and Sera was hysterical. She was really coming out of her shell. She played and acted silly. We ordered steamed egg for her, but she wouldn't touch it.

According to the last update we received, she's supposed to be eating 1/2 an egg a day besides her four bottles of formula. Well, we've tried steamed and scrambled - no go. We've tried congee - no go. At the Japanese restaurant, we tried noodles. She liked sucking on them, but she didn't eat them. She wasn't really going for the Cheerios or Puffs either. Last night I realized that she doesn't know to swallow food. She was sucking on the noodle, we thought eating it, when she started coughing and out came the noodle whole. Today, she started showing interest and excitement over the Cheerios and Puffs, so we're going to stick with those for now. I don't think she was ever fed anything other than formula before.

Anyway, after dinner we came upstairs and she started fussing. I should mention that we added prune juice to her afternoon bottle as we hadn't had the infamous poop yet. Those of you "in-the-know" with Chinese adoption already know all about this. The transition is often traumatic for the babies and often they don't poop right away. We were prepared and brought some prune juice, prune puree, and suppositories. The prune juice didn't work. She fussed and fussed. She'd try to go to sleep and wake right up. Her tummy wasn't hard, but she was obviously uncomfortable. She would only stop crying if I held her, and only if I sat straight up. If I leaned back against the headboard, she'd cry out. We decided to skip the puree and went straight for the suppository. I basically held Sera from about 7 pm until 11:45 pm when Jim woke up. He found Sera and I both asleep. I'd found a way to hold her upright as I leaned against some pillows. He placed her in her crib and she slept until about 7:30 this morning. She woke up happy and with a poopy diaper. Yay!

Today, we went to the see the confluence of the two rivers and the Three Gorges Museum. We bought some banyan leave paintings and some local embroidery. These are the crafts this area is famous for, and we want Sera to have some things from her homeland. We haven't downloaded those pictures yet. I'll put some up when we do. I'll also try to get some video up. The connection can be spotty, plus we haven't had the time to get it ready for uploading. Hopefully, we can soon. Tonight, we're going out to dinner with the group for Hot Pot. More details later.

With Chinese adoption, they say it takes about three days and a poopy diaper before the babies start coming out of their shells. Sera followed this timetable like clockwork.