Lunch, a Doctor's Visit and a Potty Surprise

When we came back from our park excursion on Tuesday we all met at the 3rd floor restaurant of our hotel for an "Americanized" Chinese lunch. It was held in a private room and Evelyn ordered for us again. It was again served family style.


Picture of me with my two babies. Ryan sat in the high chair for the first time. So far he has eaten every meal on my lap-- his preference! But since he sat in the stroller I thought we would try the chair. He fussed for a few seconds but seemed ok when he realized I was still there with him. Emma is to the right. Evelyn is behind us.


Emma's way of using chopsticks. I changed the settings on my camera after this because it had some funky setting where several red lights would go off before the shot (I'm sure its a red eye setting) and Emma -- and Ryan-- would either close their eyes or turn their heads when they saw the red lights. Mom is behind playing with her chopsticks.


During the meal. From left to right: Shannon, Ashley and Jim.


From left to right: Ashley, Jim, Shannon with Grace on her lap, Brook.

After lunch it was back to our room to hopefully get naps. However that was only a daydream. Both Ryan and Emma had fallen asleep on the bus and slept long enough that naps were out of the question.

The afternoon was not lost though. Ryan cried much less yesterday and even played with the girls laughing and giggling. Jenna got hurt on her head later in the afternoon and I kissed her head. Ryan crawled over to her on the bed and kissed her head too! Later he was giving her more kisses and when I asked for some he gave me 3 very slobbery kisses on my forehead!!!

At 5:00 a doctor that Evelyn hires came to our room to give Ryan a small physical. He said Ryan was very healthy, although very thin. He looked at his palate (as I had earlier that afternoon) and he agreed with me-- his palate is closed with the exception of small hole towards the front! His left gum line has a small gap and he is missing one tooth, maybe two.

This is wonderful news!!! I will, of course, have he checked out by a cleft team, but there is a good possibility he won't need surgery for several years now.

The group met for dinner in the 1st floor dining room at 6:15 because they were supposed to have American food. But a quick look at the buffet told us otherwise. It turned out that you had to order from the menu to get American food. Mom, Julia and I ordered Cheeseburgers, well done. But when they came out they were so rare that there was no way I would have even eaten in the US! Finally we got our food about 7:30! Jenna, Ryan and Emma were fine because the buffet was free for the 2 little ones, half price for Jenna (about $4) so we found them things off of the buffet to eat.

Now, finally the last part of my title: Potty Surprise. The Chinese start potty training their children very young here. Ryan did come in a diaper but I'm sure it was because he took a 2 hour train ride to get to Nanchang and I'm not sure how long it took to get to the hotel.

On Monday I tried to get him to use the potty chair that Evelyn had housekeeping bring up but there was no way he would even go near it. But yesterday morning (Tuesday) when he got up I took him to the potty chair and he went potty! Through the course of the day he pottied many times and pooped 3 times!!! When he has to poop he grabs his bottom and off to the potty chair we go.


This was taken in the morning. Can you believe this chair???? I wonder where I can find one of these-- but I think I need to buy another suitcase to bring it home!

So today we are off to the countryside to see farm animals and rice paddies. I am actually quite excited about this! Another adventure is in store!
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