A week of babies

Three people that we know, all local friends, had babies last week. And wow, the things we learned about local customs in the midst were really 'amazing'. I use that word because, while some of it was shocking to me, it was just normal for here I suppose. I pretty much thought I knew a lot of the customs, but in the nitty gritty, what I learned did amaze me.

K and I compared notes as she attended to her old helper and I attended to ours (who had babies within days of each other)...most of the time we were saying: 'did you know....? and what in the world?' (kudos to J on being very much involved in two of these births, so much so we started calling him a 'doula')

Abby had called us every week updating us and asking questions. She did not go into labor, but three days past her due date she went for a check up and was told her amniotic fluid was too little and it was dangerous for the baby, a c-section was a must. We told her this was not necessarily the case (I have been told that about my fluid and while I did have C-sections it was not for that reason). She asked if we thought she should stay in her local small town hospital or come here to our bigger (but still small in China standards) hospital. We did not want to sway her too much, but even our current helper who is friends with Abby said she should come here. After talking it over with her family, they came to town. We were thankful, now we could be with her every step of the way.


(waiting with Abby and her husband)

With Sophia at school in the afternoons, our helper watched the other two and David and I both could go wait with them for another ultrasound. David had already been with them a few hours by the time I arrived. It was pouring down rain. In order to get an ultrasound they had to walk to another building in the downpour, where the waiting room was outside. This seemed to be where all the hospitals x-ray type machines were. We also saw them bring a prisoner here to be x-rayed on a few different machines, we assumed they were checking for drugs via ultrasound.


see the rain puddle? It was raining sideways for a time, so we got a little wet in the waiting area.
this hospital is actually not the main/biggest one in town, but we liked it a lot better. It is newer, which means it is cleaner (the main building, not this area).

We knew that we could not convince our helper/her family (this is a whole family affair, every decision) to go against the doc, and nor should we, so in the end a C-section was inevitable. Most people here get C-sections, this is amazing too, at the drop of a hat they bring out the knife. I won't go into all the reasons why....let's just say it is a whole health system that....(if you don't have anything good to say....) frustrates us. We are constantly educating people on the simplest of health things, things a doc should say....anyway....I will leave it at that.

'Grandma' anxiously awaits


Beautiful baby boy, and the whole family cheered



proud new dad


so cute. He was just over 6 pounds. Five months ago I had one almost this small, and I already forgot!



Things that 'amazed':
1. Most seem to not know much about breast-feeding, and no one told them (nurse, mom, etc.), except us. Like, you need to start as soon as possible, and it is okay that you don't have milk yet. breastfeeding seems really unimportant. I did learn that they usually give rice cereal in bottles very early, I know they do not use formula, it is too expensive, and they definitely used sugar water. All this, too me, makes for one malnourished but satisfied child, and it appears to be the norm. Abby has seen me with two of our children from birth, she was asking a lot of good questions, and really trying to nurse, lets hope she sticks with it! (I told her to look at Tobin, so fat and healthy, all he had for the first 5 months of life was breast milk).

2. The giving of sugar water right away.

3. Nurses do not really take care of the patient here, they just really administer medicine and watch vitals. It was up to the family to empty the catheter bag, help to the bathroom, get the patient moving, etc. (Sophia noticed this as compared to what she witnessed in our posh hospital in Thailand, after being in the room for thirty minutes she asked, where are all the nurses?) (this actually did not surprise me, though it is on the list of interesting things).
4. This family used a water soaked Q-tip and let the baby suck from it when it started to cry.
5. When we visited, lots of other family members brought their newborns down the hall to see the room full of white children (most astounded that we were allowed to have 3), one of these other families took local honey, also on a Q-tip and rubbed the baby's gums with it. This, they said, would keep the baby from 'being yellow'. I made a mental note to look up alternative medicines to treating Jaundice to see if this had merit, but I never got around to it. I only have heard feeding honey before one-year could be harmful, who knows?

6. cost: her C-section cost a little over 200 U.S. dollars this with a nice 2-person room, had she chosen a 4 person room it would have been cheaper.

7. Squatty potty after C-section! Enough said.

8. Thankfully Sophia was looking my way when they brought a man by whose foot was soaked and pouring out blood. His friends just carried him straight into the hospital, in all the other elevators used by everyone, with a trail of blood. These type of things (lack of sanitation) are common.

9. Back to Jaundice, our current helper got a call and Abby's mom who wanted her to go buy some stuff that you put in a bath to bathe the baby because the baby was Jaundiced. 'What stuff?' I asked worried. She said she didn't know. I told her to tell them to listen to the doctor. And when she came back they had done normal treatment, put the baby under lights, etc. whew. No bath.

Strangers

Sophia learned a song at school about not going with strangers, not taking food from strangers, etc. etc. and the number to call if a stranger tries to do something or you need help. They showed her pictures, I think the 'stranger' in question had a knife. This is a response to several tragedies last year in this country.

We thought it was a good teaching moment. But there are a few problems. Most 'strangers' that are really out to do evil don't really look the part. They are nice and normal looking. Sophia said in all earnestness: 'I don't think I have ever met a stranger.' She wasn't using the cliche saying, she meant she had never met someone like in those pictures. We had to give some fuller explanation.

The other thing is is that we take food from 'strangers' all the time. That is the culture. You are walking down the street, they think the white kid is cute, out comes the food, the cell phones, the whatever to try to get fun responses out of the kids. Granted, we are usually always with her and have tried to teach her not to eat stuff from people when we are not there, but really, we haven't been that strict about it, at all. No matter where you are, on the street, in your home, you always offer what you have to others that you are having a conversation with, even if it is your first ever conversation with them.

So, we teach on...

A FULL week+

Last week was a tad crazy. With Tobin in full swing of meals like the rest of us, juggling Sophia's school schedule, and a handful of local friends having babies, the week went awry quickly.



He eats well. And I will get into full swing baby food making soon, but for now, rice cereal from Thailand. I bought some organic stuff too with banana added and other stuff, he loves it. I tried a real banana (way sweeter than the cereal), and he did not love it. Will try again soon.


Sophia's school got some new playground equipment. Two small houses were the girls' favorite, I took Bella up one day to play. But the next day they were gone. It has to be because about 300 kids wanted in at the same time and fighting ensued...who really knows...

We changed Sophia's school schedule. She now goes every afternoon from 2:30-5 p.m. and on Mondays and Wednesdays she stays until 6 p.m. This is because she is taking a dance class from 5-6 on those days and she loves it. I was not to sure about the switch to the afternoon, as supposedly they do more 'academic' stuff in the mornings. But that includes English on Thurs and Fri, a waste of time for her. They also do more art type stuff in the afternoon which is great for me because I am not artsy or crafty or any of the above. She likes this schedule and now in the mornings she and I do some K4 stuff together for about an hour total but it is often split up.
She wanted to start math, and kept asking, so we have, just 3x/week, this is only her second week of it. Mainly we try to have fun (more on her K4 schedule later, which is not a super real tight schedule at all).

I also participated in a parent/teacher meeting. Since Sophia had never really started a semester on time (we were always out of the country), they treated her like a first year student. Usually David will go with me to these meetings but he was super busy and time crunched. I went it alone. For the most part I understood, but there were a few sections (the teacher was reading all the announcements) I just did not get, oh well. They handed out an insurance card and all the other parents did not know how to fill it out either, lol. They did say that 'parents are the main teachers of their children' and 'please teach them to be polite...'. Sophia did tell me one day that her teachers are sometimes 'mean and harsh'. I asked her if this was because students did not listen and she said yes. We had a lengthy conversation about this.

This class has over 50 students, it is way too much. David and I are actually wanting to look around for a smaller environment. For now this is convenient, she likes it, and it is supposedly 'the best.' But we are starting to disagree. We will see. She will stay this semester for sure.



Tobin and Bella playing together.



Her hair is just wild...a little like her spirit.

Tobin at 5 months

Sept 10, 2011.

This big boy is now five months old and doing pretty well. He was a trooper through my illness but still has not gone back to a LONG nights' sleep like I was lovin'. He has been waking at around 5:30 or 6 lately. This even after we started the milestone of rice cereal!

what he's doing:
-rolling both ways, but usually just from back to stomach
-smiling a lot, laughing when sisters tickle his feet, which is often
-using his walker
-pushing his bottom up in the air and scooting a little, like an inch worm, but not really moving much
-eating rice cereal 3x/day now, nursing 5-6x or occasionally 7
-taking 3 naps
-wearing 6-9 mos clothing, mainly 9mos stuff
-weighing 7.8+ kilograms, about 17.3 lbs.
-still loves to suck his thumb




survey question: who do you think he looks like?

Congrats on 100 lessons

Last Wednesday Sophia finished her 100 lessons of reading! We were not sure we would finish, and honestly I had read in many places that most people just 'move on'. But she got so excited toward the end, that we were actually finishing. She said: 'now I can read!' I had to tell her that she had been reading since about 70 lessons ago, but it has improved a lot.
For her reading party and prize she got to choose a dessert, heavily weigh in on the choice of some shoes (a need right now), and go to a play place (we probably would have done this anyway on our family day, but hey, it works). She chose brownies, and I happen to have a box that we got in the mail! yeah. I let the girls help me make them:

well, help lick the mixer...


Bella got in on the action. She was a faithful supporter of Sophia's reading lessons because she often got skittles throughout. Her future cavities can be blamed on Sophia's reading.



Tobin looks on. He started rice cereal this week too. He is a hungry boy. We started with 1x/day, quickly went to 2x and pretty much are on a 3x/day schedule now, and I am still nursing 6x/day. Crazy kid.

Back to the 100 Easy Lessons. My review of the book: I went back and forth on it. But for Sophia it worked well (though we had days I wanted to just throw the whole thing out the window). Supposedly the book says she is on a second grade reading level. I am not sure and I don't really care. The point was she was ready to learn to read, and got the gist of it as soon as we started. But possibly if one of our other children do not show such readiness signs I would definitely wait and would possibly go with a fuller phonics curriculum at five years old. But I may just stick with using this for all our kids. It is no frills, but works well. I was pleased.
What now? I have some books that are way too easy for her, but they are building her confidence and she loves they idea of reading books. She often picks up other books, Bible included and starts trying to read. K let me borrow some of Veritas Press' early readers and we will get to those soon too. And I may supplement with review by looking through lessons of 'Ordinary Parents Guide to teaching reading,' but mainly we will just read books. every day.

For Heather

Bought this bib with you in mind, dear Heather, (and because it was less than a dollar):

Family Fun Saturday

9.3.2011

Most Saturdays we try to make a real 'family' day. Daddy worked almost every Saturday in August, so we were thankful for his day off and a day of no rain to get out and play together!

we went to the big square in town in search of good green grass to play in. We normally go to another school nearby, but since they are tearing up all the roads all over town, it was actually better to go across town. Plus we planned to walk up the street to eat dumplings, so this was convenient.


This is part of the square that represents a minority group here, this whole area is for the water splashing festival that takes place in April.


David is very far away from us in this pic, he used the digital zoom...


Green grass and a David made game of something like bocce.


We decided to walk up the street to eat dumplings. We pushed Tobin in the stroller and carried Bella in the Ergo, making Sophia walk. It wasn't too long of a walk but she really resisted at first. We ended up having a great little hike.


Sophia helped make the dipping sauce for the dumplings (soy sauce, vinegar, green onion, pepper, oil, etc.)


waiting for Jiaozi


'lightly' fried dumplings and the dipping sauce.



Tobin did not get a full nap this morning.


Guys under red tents are all over town, they are from the way NW of China, and bring their goods down to sell every so often. We usually buy some of their really good granola type stuff. This time they were selling cantaloupe, HUGE cantaloupe.


we splurged and bought one, it cost 5 RMB/lb, totaling 40 RMB or just over 6 dollars, whoa, that seemed expensive. I wanted to just buy half of one, but he wouldn't let me. His Chinese was not great, as it is not his native tongue, but I did find out that they arrived 4 days ago and will stay a few more days until they sell out, which I don't believe they will do in two days, but we will see.


yes, it was a very big melon

We went home and napped and then the girls played indoors in their play pool. We ate 'pulled noodles' with lamb meat, it was yummy yum. We then finished reading 'Little House in the Big Woods' and started 'Anne of Green Gables,' then we called it a day. Blessed.