Heidi Lau's

While my mom was here (she left on Sunday to fly out of Beijing on Monday), the one thing on my list of places to take her was my favorite Shenyang restaurant. It's not called Heidi Lau's. It's called Hai Di Lao Huoguo, which means Glory of the Bottom of the Sea Hotpot. It's fantastic. Heidi Lau would be proud.

My mom took a picture of us on our way. We live in the hip shopping district, so everything is within walking distance. Or you could point out how lame we are that we haven't explored anything in Shenyang beyond walking distance of our apartment. Both are true.

Hei Di Lao is a popular restaurant, so when you get there, there is often a wait-- in our case, about 45 minutes. They sat us down at a table while we waited and served us sour plum juice. The tables where we sat were either Chinese Chess boards or that one game that has hundreds of little round black or white pieces. I'm not terribly familiar with how to play either game, but they were available. Pretty cool.

You could also go get a manicure or hand massage. For free. My mom took advantage of that, but there wasn't time for me to also.

Once we got to our table and ate, they brought us our aprons. I got a normal apron this time, which was nice after wearing the frilly maternity apron all the other times we've come. I covered Naomi with Kevin's apron and tried to eat with her off to the side, dripping occasionally on the apron. Our waiter saw me struggling and went to go get me a stroller. Then I could put the baby down, wrap her in the fuzzy blanket he also brought, and eat with both hands if I needed to. Talk about customer service!

And where has Penny been this whole time? Well, in this particular restaurant, Penny has learned to cast off her fear of Chinese women running over to pick her up. In fact, when the waitresses come running, she puts up her hands and says, "Play?"

Then they whisk her off to the playroom. We only got one non-blurry shot because Penny was so avidly rocking on her horsie. They had videos playing, too. At one point when I went to check on her, they had a video of a dance routine playing. Penny was running and skipping around the room, waiving her hands and dancing along with the video.

When they returned her to our table, she had a new clip in her hair and a new little stuffed animal. Penny loves Hai Di Lao!

The food is excellent, the service is out-of-this-world, and the price can't be beat either. Our meal cost about 50 kuai per person-- which is about 6-7 dollars.

When you come to visit us, we'll take you to Hai Di Lao!

Heidi Lau's

While my mom was here (she left on Sunday to fly out of Beijing on Monday), the one thing on my list of places to take her was my favorite Shenyang restaurant.

Not everyone gets to ride a bullet train when they're a week old

We still don't know if Naomi's eyes are going to go blue or brown. They're brown in the centers but blue around the edges. Kevin keeps reminding me that even if they go brown, I definitely had a blue-eyed baby for a few weeks.

Here she is getting some sunshine to help her mild jaundice. And I think she's absolutely gorgeous.

We eventually took the train back to Shenyang. It didn't strike me until I was leaving the train at the end of our trip, but in some ways I felt very close to my great-grandmother (read story here). However, I am happy to only have two children and to have my mom along with me to share the burden of our two suitcases, stroller, toddler, infant-in-arms, and backpack. We barely made it with the two of us carrying everything!

Penny enjoyed most of the train ride. She likes the tray tables and the magazines in the seat-back pockets. Even though she is short enough to ride for free, we did buy her a seat. There is no way we could have managed with only two seats and a child on each lap.

Naomi enjoyed the ride. She went through several diapers and stayed awake most of the time. But she was still in her unaware infant stage, so she didn't have much to say.

I know this next one is a weird picture. I don't remember if it is a self-portrait or a Penny portrait. I think this is Penny's photography on display, though. The train oversold its seats, so they sold some standing-room-only seats. That's why there's a random guy leaning against the back of my mom's seat. He rearranged all the luggage, put ours up on the rack, and made a place for himself to sit. There were several people sitting and standing in the back and in between cars. I hope they got a discount.

Now we're back home in Shenyang. Penny loves her little sister. She misbehaves a lot more now that we don't focus all our attention on her. It took her 2 hours to go to bed one night. She kept getting up and turning on her lights to play. She does that and throws random tantrums-- ahh, the joys of introducing a new child to a soon-to-be-2-year-old's family. And potty training has gone out the window (not literally, although that would be interesting).

We gave Meimei her first at-home bath the other day. She seemed to like it, and Penny is fascinated with the new baby. She likes to push her in the swing (I now know why they have buckles on those things!), give her kisses, and sometimes smack her in the face.

I'm very happy I went to Beijing, but it's nice to be home. The exhaustion has set in, and I'm kind of an emotional see-saw some days (like today). I couldn't be happier about having my two little girls, but I don't know how I'll manage when my mom goes home, Kevin's at work, and our housekeeper doesn't come. I have so much help these days and it's still exhausting. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now I'm just grateful for all the help!

Leaving the hospital

I've been wanting to write more about our sweet little Naomi, but for some reason I haven't had the time! Now, I know what you're all thinking: of course not-- you have a new baby! Plus you have a toddler. There will never be enough time! But when Penny was born I did nothing but sit on the couch with her, giving me plenty of time to write one-handed posts on my blog.

Let me introduce the first difference between my girls: appetite! If you can imagine (or as you can see from the pictures on the side of my blog), Penny ate A LOT! When she would settle down to nurse, her average nursing time was probably 45 minutes. I thought that was normal, because for Penny, it was. But Naomi eats for about 10 minutes, then takes a break, and eats for another 10 minutes on the other side. It boggles my mind that a baby stops eating of her own accord. Totally foreign concept! But I'm liking it. It means that when she goes for 2 hours between feedings, it gives me about an hour and a half to myself. With Penny, that time was greatly reduced.

Here are some random pictures from the last few days. I'm so happy my mom's here! In addition to taking care of Penny and helping me with the baby, she also takes pictures! I always like having the pictures afterwards, but I never remember to take any. Thanks, Mommy!

Here is a family picture on day 1 when Penny first met Naomi:

Do any of you remember our exchange student, Kobe? He stayed with our family in 2001-02. Well, he lives in Beijing, and he came to see us. He hasn't changed at all, and here he is holding Naomi. It is his first time ever holding a baby-- I think every muscle in his body is tense. :)

Penny got to play in my hospital room, and I was SO HAPPY (ahem) she found these nursing covers that I'd gone out of my way and spent actual money on before we came to China. They make fun pig noses.

Penny loves her mei mei, and she is often very gentle with her (except this morning when she was whapping her head with a shoe). In this next picture, you can kind of see Naomi's newborn rash. On day 2, she developed a rash on her face and eventually on her whole body. It looked like a million mosquito bites, and her whole skin turned really red. It faded to look like acne, and now it's essentially gone. The doctors said it was normal and would go away within a week without any treatments. They were right! But I did notice we didn't take many pictures of day 2.

And finally, here is the hospital discharge picture. Don't worry, I took a cab home. I'm feeling marvelous, but not marvelous enough to shuffle home for 3 blocks. I stayed in the hospital for 2 nights and then left at noon on day 3. That's longer than I stayed with Penny, but it was much shorter than the hospital anticipated. I didn't need to be there, but since most people stay a long time, they kind of space out the tests and treatments they're going to do on the baby and me. So I had to pester a few people into completing them so I could go home. And now I'm home!

Oh, and they didn't make me take a wheel chair to the front door. They have them, and if I'd needed one they would have given it to me. But I have a feeling that if I needed a wheel chair, they wouldn't have let me leave in the first place.

And look how skinny I am! I still look quite pregnant (thank you, Kobe, for asking if there was still another one in there. See, I told you he hadn't changed!), but I feel like I'm fabulously thin. My clothes fit again (well, the maternity ones), and I can sit up or turn over in bed without needing a construction crane. It's lovely!

Little Naomi

When we lived in Idaho and had Penny, we lived so close to the hospital, Kevin threatened to make us walk there when it was time to have the baby. I shot that idea down-- and then spent a couple hours walking the halls of the hospital after driving there.

Right now we're staying in an apartment about 3 blocks from the hospital in Beijing. By the time we would walk out to where we could find a cab, we would practically be halfway there. So the plan from the beginning was to walk to the hospital to have our little child.

So my mom arrived at about 11:30 PM-- and at 3:00 AM my contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart. They had been happening since earlier that afternoon/evening, and I jumped out of bed and started getting ready to go. I had shown my mom around the apartment, showing her how to work the stove, AC, water machine, etc. I drew her a nice map of the area so she could find her way to the hospital to come see us. I packed my hospital bag (which was basically everything I brought down to Beijing, minus Penny's toys and most of my clothes). Then I woke Kevin up and we left!

The walk to the hospital usually takes about 15 minutes, but it took us 30 this time. I checked into the hospital at 4:30, and then at 4:45, Naomi was born!!

We may have jumped the gun a little by getting to the hospital so early. We had a lot of time to kill.

Oh, did I not mention? She was born at 4:45 PM-- 12 hours after getting to the hospital. But it's not as bad as it sounds.

I was having contractions 5 minutes apart, but then they'd slow to 10 minutes apart. Then they'd speed up to 5 minutes, but then they'd go down to 10 again. Basically, if I was up and walking around the hospital, they would be 5 minutes apart, but if I went back to my room and sat or lay down, they'd slow down again. I asked if they wanted to send me home, but whenever they would check for the baby's progress, there was always enough progress to indicate that I'd eventually have the baby and might as well just stay there.

So I read Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters (part of it). We watched "True Grit" (What a great movie! I love the characters, the story, AND the fact it was filmed in New Mexico). Penny and my mom came to visit us for lunch.

By the time 1:00 rolled around, labor had started to pick up, and it was time for the epidural. Getting an epidural isn't fun. I think the anesthesiologist's exact words were, "This will just be a mosquito bite. [prick] A BIIIIG mosquito bite." At the same time, my nurse was reattaching and fixing up my IV on my arm, and I got to experience two VERY intense contractions. Kevin let me squeeze his hand off while I just cried through it.

My doctor been checking on me throughout the day, and I was always happy that he was so patient. Yes, things weren't progressing quickly, but they were progressing, and we would just let nature run its course. At 3:00, since progress had been rather slow, my doctor came to discuss our options. He didn't want me to be in labor too long, because that can be stressful on the baby, and so we agreed that he would give me a dose of Pitocin. Then he checked my progress, and I was actually almost ready to push the baby out. So scrap the Pitocin idea. I was really happy with his willingness to accommodate the situation, rather than just go with the decision we had made.

So at 4:00, I pushed the baby out, and at 4:45, our little Naomi was born!

I was really fascinated by my new little girl. Soon I will know her better than I know most people on this earth, but right now I'm meeting a little stranger for the first time.

Kevin is wonderful with his new little daughter.

Naomi started sucking her thumb right away.

They bathed her right in our room.

Kevin and I decided that if she came out and had brown eyes, we'd get a chocolate cake. If she had blue eyes, we'd get cheesecake. We still don't know which color they are. They're lighter than Penny's super-dark eyes, but it's hard to say if they're blue. While we waited, we got a Black Forest cake. And I ordered cheesecake with my hospital dinner.

The room's AC didn't work up to my liking. As I was pushing, I looked around to see 10 people in the room at one point. It was stifling. Kevin waived a book to fan some air at me, and eventually they brought in an electric fan. It was much better, but it still felt stifling at times. So I just chose the pictures where I don't look especially sweaty. :)

Naomi's squished profile:
It was a long day for all of us, and we are so happy to have our little Naomi here with us!
Penny came to meet her little sister. So far she has been very gentle with the baby, and loves to give her kisses. She was a little over-enthusiastic when she wanted to hold her, but it's sweet to see her give meimei little kisses on the cheek.

One thing I miss while being here in the hospital is that I don't see Penny very much. I'm excited to go home soon to see my other little girl.
And one final picture of little Naomi to finish the post.

Birthing babies

It's been interesting being pregnant in China. A lot of people talk to me about it, as must be true of many places. Here, though, people are often surprised that I'm having a SECOND child! "So in your country, you can have two kids?" I'm often asked. I sometimes answer that we can have as many kids as we want. I'm not sure what I expect as a reaction from that, but usually, people just shrug and say, "Hm. That's nice." I kind of get the feeling that many people just assumed the whole world had the same 1-child policy.

I ran into a lady in the park the other day. She was there with her 3-year-old daughter and 7 months pregnant with her next child. There are a lot of exceptions to the 1-child-policy (including if both parents are only children, which happens more and more these days), and she was apparently one of them. We talked about having our second children, and while she did know that other countries were allowed to have multiple children, she was surprised that we didn't have to pay a fee for the second child.

In China, in some places and in some families, there is a lot of pressure to have a boy, so some baby girls would get aborted. I think we've all heard about that before. It's horrible, and as part of the effort to combat that trend, it's against the law to find out the gender of the unborn child. Unless you're a foreigner. Or if you know someone in the hospital. Or if you pay someone. But anyway, it's generally not known. Many people ask me if it's a boy or a girl, but more often, people tell me I must be having a boy. Part of this must come from the fact that Penny's a girl (and so the next one would be a boy), but people tell me also that since you can't really tell that I'm pregnant from the back, I'm definitely having a boy. "Could be!" is how I usually respond. (It's a girl.)

In America, we have this idea that for hundreds of years, Chinese peasants have been so hard-working and down-trodden that the women would work all day, go inside to have a baby, and then return to work in the fields right afterwards. That may have happened sometimes. It definitely happened in Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth, but times have changed. People are shocked that I'm out and about with only two weeks (then one week, then two days) before my baby's due. They say, "Woah, Chinese women wouldn't dare go out so soon before the birth!"

Most women here spend a pretty long time in the hospital-- maybe a week or two. And since like 75-80% of hospital births are by C-section, most women stay more like two weeks. Then there's a tradition of spending the first month indoors: there are things you should eat, things you shouldn't eat, rules about showering, and an expectation that you'll take it easy for the entire month. By contrast, they think we foreigners are crazy, taking the baby out after just a week or two. One taxi driver told me, "You foreigners are hard-core. You go into the hospital, have a baby, take a shower, and then go home again."

I only hope it's that easy! :)

Hotel Kunlun

When Kevin and I lived in Beijing back in 2006, he worked at a law firm, and I worked in a fabulous 5-star hotel across the street. We got to live in the hotel as part of my wages ("So I don't have to pay you as much money!" were my boss's exact words during my final interview), and we loved eating at the amazing restaurants. While I was planning this trip to Beijing, I looked into staying there, but it's quite a bit out of our price range. We did go to visit, though.

I have a few coworkers that still work there, and my plan was to go in, talk to the front desk, and then have them call my old office to see if I could go visit. But as I was walking in the revolving front door, a coworker I remembered actually walked in right beside me. He called another coworker, and we chatted for a while. They got Penny and me some juice at the lobby bar, helped me make reservations at one of the hotel restaurants, and were just gracious all around. It was great to catch up and chat with them.

Penny enjoyed watching the pianist in the lobby:

But she thought she could probably do just as well herself:
I love this flower arrangement on the table as you walk in to the lobby:
We had dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. I forgot to take any pictures, but it was lovely. There is a harp player in the center of the restaurant, and all the tables circle the outside. I remember loving one of their desserts, but the menu has changed a bit. The dessert I loved was tapioca with coconut milk and chopped fruit over the top. What I ended up ordering was tapioca with coconut milk and beans and corn over the top. I rearranged it and added my own fruit, and then it was pretty good. Kevin ordered what turned out to be a tiny pile of rice with sweetened-condensed milk and coconut milk over it with some mango slices. It was good, but a bit pricey. We loved that restaurant and went a couple times every week. The menu has changed, and it's a bit more expensive than we remembered-- but then again, we ate there for free when we lived there. It's hard to beat that!

The next photo is a tribute to my terrible photography skills. There are always fantastic cars parked outside Hotel Kunlun. When I arrived, there was a bright orange Lotus Elise parked in front of the fountain. As Kevin walked through the parking lot, he passed a yellow Ferrari. By the time we finished dinner and I got out my camera, there was this Aston Martin, as well as the black Bentley, which you can kind of see behind the fountain, to the left a bit.

McFreebies

I watched an interview with Usain Bolt on Top Gear, and he said that when he came to Beijing for the Olympics, he only ate McDonald's chicken McNuggets for days before his race. We almost never go to McDonald's in the US, but now that we're in China we go all the time! It also helps that there are 4 within a stone's throw of our Shenyang apartment.... one right under a poster of Usain Bolt, actually. We usually get McNuggets and some ice cream, and often a little cup of corn. As we're eating, the staff will bring Penny a little sample-sized ice cream for free. So cute!

At this visit (in the video), the lady brought Penny a coffee mug full of milk, assuring me not to worry because it wasn't cold. Honestly, when someone hands a brimming coffee mug to my toddler, my first worry isn't that it will be cold. But it was a nice, tepid, room temperature milk. And it was free. :)