Helena makes this noise CONSTANTLY. We theefore call her our little Ahbooo.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Another good weekend...
We went to Discovery World. We love the jellyfish. 
Helena just knew she could blend in with the Halloween decor.
The cat, meanwhile, is desperate for attention.
Helena just knew she could blend in with the Halloween decor.
The cat, meanwhile, is desperate for attention.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Reality check
I'm tired of blogs that only depict happy, giggling babies! Here's a dose of reality for you.
Exhibit A: Helena, having exhibited unmistakeable signs of sleepiness, has just been put down for her nap. And - her eyes SNAP open! and she's wide awake and all she wants in the world is to get out of the darn crib and play! just speculating, here.
Exhibit A: Helena, having exhibited unmistakeable signs of sleepiness, has just been put down for her nap. And - her eyes SNAP open! and she's wide awake and all she wants in the world is to get out of the darn crib and play! just speculating, here.
And here's exhibit B: Mommy, covered in an unspeakable substance...
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sitting up tall
Helena can sit up by herself now! two weeks ago she toppled over immediately... we are such proud parents!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Settling in
Some shots from today...
Violet says: "Hey you, play with me now!"
What great daddies...
And good mommies, too, if I say so myself...Monday, September 10, 2007
Meeting more of the family
We're settling in, and although mainly hunkering down, we've introduced Helena to a few very important family members- her cousin, and her Grandparents on Nikolai's side. 
Also, it only took her a day to get into solid food! Here's her first solid food meal: rice cereal and peas. The peas, actually, didn't go over very well, but today's carrots were a hit.
Also, it only took her a day to get into solid food! Here's her first solid food meal: rice cereal and peas. The peas, actually, didn't go over very well, but today's carrots were a hit.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
HOME, sweet home.
We survived! the trip was just as bad as we possibly could have anticipated! worse, perhaps! don't let the sleeping baby pictures fool you- she was probably awake for 16 of the 20 hours we travelled. And she was NOT happy at being on the plane - fussing and crying, and letting out the occasional tortured shriek. 
In penance for almost making us miss the plane from Taipei to San Fran (last minute shopping at the airport museum shop), I was on diaper duty the whole time, and changing five or six poopy diapers by myself in an airplane bathroom was profoundly unfun. Especially on those domestic flights that don't even have changing tables- you try balancing baby on a changing pad half-covering a small toilet seat. 
The flight did give us the chance to learn more about Helena, however. We found that she loves to be propped up against cushions and have toys, or pretzal packages, or plastic cups- whatever is on hand, placed in front of her. This is my favorite picture from the trip home:
The flight from SF to Chicago was late, and the flight from Chicago to Milwaukee was cancelled, so my sweet saintly sister Mary drove down to O'Hare to pick us up. Baggage arrived today. And my parents came down from Green Bay to meet their grand-daughter Helena! Her other set of grand-parents arrive tomorrow. She did fairly well, but she really is nervous around strangers, and bursts into tears at a moment's notice. Following the adoption experts' advice, we are trying to avoid anyone but us holding her for the next month or two - unless she's asleep, as she is in this pic.
She did have a rough first night here, waking up crying every 30-45 minutes, and I had the sense she was just frightened to be in such an unfamiliar place. As for us, I think she's starting to accept us as her care-givers, and we're able to get her to stop crying when we pick her up and hold her. But she's obviously frightened and unsettled, as would any alert baby be, having been taking away from everything familiar. We were reflecting that the pick-up process couldn't really be more traumatic for a child- handed suddenly to strangers, taken to a hotel room environment totally different from the kinds of spaces they know (air conditioning, smells, etc), and then taken on an airplane where all schedules are totally disrupted. Throw into that mix a set of inexperienced parents who can't even make a warm enough bottle, and you've got a bad time. But she's handling it really well, and we're managing to get little smiles from her - and aren't those the currency by which parents are paid?
We've started her on a good schedule, and are going to hibernate for a month or so- keep all external stimulation to a minimum and avoid crowds and strangers as much as possible. She needs to relax and feel comfortable here at home, and with us, before we try anything new.
In penance for almost making us miss the plane from Taipei to San Fran (last minute shopping at the airport museum shop), I was on diaper duty the whole time, and changing five or six poopy diapers by myself in an airplane bathroom was profoundly unfun. Especially on those domestic flights that don't even have changing tables- you try balancing baby on a changing pad half-covering a small toilet seat. 
The flight did give us the chance to learn more about Helena, however. We found that she loves to be propped up against cushions and have toys, or pretzal packages, or plastic cups- whatever is on hand, placed in front of her. This is my favorite picture from the trip home:
The flight from SF to Chicago was late, and the flight from Chicago to Milwaukee was cancelled, so my sweet saintly sister Mary drove down to O'Hare to pick us up. Baggage arrived today. And my parents came down from Green Bay to meet their grand-daughter Helena! Her other set of grand-parents arrive tomorrow. She did fairly well, but she really is nervous around strangers, and bursts into tears at a moment's notice. Following the adoption experts' advice, we are trying to avoid anyone but us holding her for the next month or two - unless she's asleep, as she is in this pic.
She did have a rough first night here, waking up crying every 30-45 minutes, and I had the sense she was just frightened to be in such an unfamiliar place. As for us, I think she's starting to accept us as her care-givers, and we're able to get her to stop crying when we pick her up and hold her. But she's obviously frightened and unsettled, as would any alert baby be, having been taking away from everything familiar. We were reflecting that the pick-up process couldn't really be more traumatic for a child- handed suddenly to strangers, taken to a hotel room environment totally different from the kinds of spaces they know (air conditioning, smells, etc), and then taken on an airplane where all schedules are totally disrupted. Throw into that mix a set of inexperienced parents who can't even make a warm enough bottle, and you've got a bad time. But she's handling it really well, and we're managing to get little smiles from her - and aren't those the currency by which parents are paid?
We've started her on a good schedule, and are going to hibernate for a month or so- keep all external stimulation to a minimum and avoid crowds and strangers as much as possible. She needs to relax and feel comfortable here at home, and with us, before we try anything new.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Final day in Taiwan!
No time to write! packing up to come HOME. but wanted to upload a few pics, to show you what we did today, and who's boss around here...
Helena always crosses her fingers - for luck?
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Day three
Helena is a joy! We dote and dance around her, and are happy to dedicate our every waking moments to anticipating her every need…
The AIT appointment went well, but was horribly long- we waited for a couple of hours for our ‘interview’ with the American embassy guy, who was very nice and asked us to raise our right hands and swear that everything in the home study was true, and asked us a bunch of questions and made us sign a bunch of documents. They’ll issue Helena’s visa tomorrow, and we’ll get her Taiwanese passport. She becomes an American citizen the moment we land in San Francisco. We met two other adopting couples in the waiting room.
After the AIT we came back to the hotel, did bottle and nap, then ventured out to the Tapei 101 building – one of the former tallest buildings in the world. We didn’t go up- its expensive and if you’ve seen one cityscape you’ve seen ‘em all (okay, I know that’s not true, but we just weren’t all that interested), but we did go into the shopping center that makes up the bottom levels of the building, and had an excellent meal – imagine a shopping mall food court, but make it the size of a football stadium, and fill it with top-notch fabulous food and a big ritzy organic grocery store, and there you have it. We picked something rather at random and ended up with delicious peanutty noodles, and pork-stuffed dumplings in some sort of soup. Oh- and there were clothing shops galore- every big name you can think of from Gucci to Dolce.
Major successes of the day: getting the bottle temperature right (I was making them too cold and the formula wasn’t dissolving), and getting the bath temperature and level right- again, too cold before, and not enough water. She LOVES baths!
Tomorrow we wander a bit- nothing scheduled. We haven’t done any shopping or bought any souvenirs, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Would like to see some gardens or temples, however.
The AIT appointment went well, but was horribly long- we waited for a couple of hours for our ‘interview’ with the American embassy guy, who was very nice and asked us to raise our right hands and swear that everything in the home study was true, and asked us a bunch of questions and made us sign a bunch of documents. They’ll issue Helena’s visa tomorrow, and we’ll get her Taiwanese passport. She becomes an American citizen the moment we land in San Francisco. We met two other adopting couples in the waiting room.
After the AIT we came back to the hotel, did bottle and nap, then ventured out to the Tapei 101 building – one of the former tallest buildings in the world. We didn’t go up- its expensive and if you’ve seen one cityscape you’ve seen ‘em all (okay, I know that’s not true, but we just weren’t all that interested), but we did go into the shopping center that makes up the bottom levels of the building, and had an excellent meal – imagine a shopping mall food court, but make it the size of a football stadium, and fill it with top-notch fabulous food and a big ritzy organic grocery store, and there you have it. We picked something rather at random and ended up with delicious peanutty noodles, and pork-stuffed dumplings in some sort of soup. Oh- and there were clothing shops galore- every big name you can think of from Gucci to Dolce.
Major successes of the day: getting the bottle temperature right (I was making them too cold and the formula wasn’t dissolving), and getting the bath temperature and level right- again, too cold before, and not enough water. She LOVES baths!
Tomorrow we wander a bit- nothing scheduled. We haven’t done any shopping or bought any souvenirs, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Would like to see some gardens or temples, however.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Day two in Taiwan with more pics!
I think as quickly as baby learns, we’re learning too. What works, what doesn’t, what REALLY doesn’t – what she likes, what makes her laugh, what games to play. She is a talker. She drops her pacifier and launches into long, complex baby discourse – usually concluding with an emphatic DADADADADA. It makes us giggle hysterically every time she does it. She’s smiling more and more as we create little routines with her- like when I lay her down and dangle my hair over her so she can pull on it, and when Nikolai talks to her in deepest baritone. But she’s also pretty fussy- arching her back, rubbing her head, and mock-crying often. Its pretty distressing, not to know what’s wrong. And we find ourselves wondering what to DO with her- there are only so many little games our tired brains can come up with… But our biggest concern is that she hasn’t gone #2 since we got her- a day and a half ago. Our agency rep told us this is extremely common for babies when they’ve just been picked up, but we're a bit worried about it and don’t quite know what to do. I’ve given her a few licks of the prune baby food I brought, to no avail. But she loves her bottle and otherwise seems fine physically.
Anyway – yesterday we hung out here in the hotel room, mostly, and I was glad we did. We did go for a short stroller walk around the hotel, and she conked right out (yay! A stroller-friendly baby!), and later went out to find some grub- ended up with a good meal from a little local shop. But the roads around here are so loud, crowded, and polluted, she seemed to go into a bit of shock – although she was quiet the whole time, she was really fussy for a long time after we got home. Oh, and in the morning we Baby-Bjorned our way to a nearby shopping complex for some diapers and baked goods. (For some inexplicable reason the foster mom’s set of instructions for Helena ordered us to buy her extra large diapers. We did, and they fell right off her- they are for babies that weight 10 pounds more than her…)
We’ve decided to divide and conquer. Last night Nikolai was on baby duty, so I could get some sleep. Ah, blissful sleep… I slept from 9 to 5, and awoke feeling refreshed. Helena had just woken, so I relieved Nikolai, gave her a bottle, and she’s now lying asleep again in her crib. Life is good!!
Anyway – yesterday we hung out here in the hotel room, mostly, and I was glad we did. We did go for a short stroller walk around the hotel, and she conked right out (yay! A stroller-friendly baby!), and later went out to find some grub- ended up with a good meal from a little local shop. But the roads around here are so loud, crowded, and polluted, she seemed to go into a bit of shock – although she was quiet the whole time, she was really fussy for a long time after we got home. Oh, and in the morning we Baby-Bjorned our way to a nearby shopping complex for some diapers and baked goods. (For some inexplicable reason the foster mom’s set of instructions for Helena ordered us to buy her extra large diapers. We did, and they fell right off her- they are for babies that weight 10 pounds more than her…)
We’ve decided to divide and conquer. Last night Nikolai was on baby duty, so I could get some sleep. Ah, blissful sleep… I slept from 9 to 5, and awoke feeling refreshed. Helena had just woken, so I relieved Nikolai, gave her a bottle, and she’s now lying asleep again in her crib. Life is good!!
Monday, September 3, 2007
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