babies lie (aka - while you were sleeping)

it's 1:51a on wednesday, august 17 back home in kansas and i just went across the street, in the middle of the afternoon in china, during a pouring rain to the 7-eleven primarily to get a slurpee. i want joy to try one here and a snoball in hays and let her be the impartial judge. unfortunately the rule of one-click-off comes into play and all they have for flavors of slurpees was a fanta pineapple flavor. i took pictures for you to enjoy and am posting them on flickr.

in case you can't tell, i think we're feeling a bit bored. we were told to be in our rooms today from 10a to 11a in case the american consulate needed to call regarding our paperwork and like good students we were all in our rooms by 9:59. i think if morgan wanted to he could, just to keep us busy and out of his hair, give us some location, a specific time, and any sort of task and we would all dutifully be there no matter what. midnight, be in the lobby, have to test to make sure the bus will hold us all. 3:03p be at the polish consulate for picture with local official. a must have in order to get your babies out of the country. we'd be there.

i realized i haven't described any of joy's cute little quirks. like how she thrashes before falling asleep. but she won't fall asleep unless i'm holding her. she rubs her face, no grinds her face into my shoulder. the typical baby generator kicks on and here head full of hair turns into this moppy mess until she finally passes out. or how once she's asleep i have to slowly ease her onto the bed because if she wakes up i'm holding her again. there's been plenty of nights on this trip where i've fallen asleep with a joy blanket. or how she can chug a full bottle in less then 5 minutes. making a this high pitched squeaky noise with the bottle as the air and milk struggle to pass through the same space. or how she literally rips at her hair when she's tired. pulling out pig tails, pony tails, anything that is in the way. or how she loves music. as soon as she hears it she does this cute little butt-wiggle, throws her hands in the air and rocks back and forth.

amy pointed out how difficult it is to deduce standard baby raising tactics in yuanling, china based on what you observe the baby doing. pretty impossible to do. amy says the girls are taking full advantage of the situation. babies lie she says. oh, yes, i get sugar in my bottle. oh, i can watch tv until 10p! my grandma in yuanling let me! i always get to play with the scissors. my yuanling grandpa let me drive the motorcycle. so, i'm suspicious of all the little grunts this girl is making at me.

well. i think we're going to venture out to the massive meat market across the street off the island. if we find it there should be some decent pictures for everyone. i aim to please. then more dinner somewhere. truthfully, the food here has been starting to catch up with me. doc amy had to dig into her bag of goodies to set my guts straight. so far so good. i just don't want my guts to be out of sorts on the 12 hour flight home! so i'm a little nervous about eating in general. but, since it is somewhat neccesary i think i'll risk it. tonight is daddy massage night. tomorrow we swear at the american consulate, have a group dinner somewhere, and the ladies get their massages. and then, finally, we pack up the head home. we essentially get friday three times. hotel friday is for packing and getting ready to go and ends when we get on the airplane at 9p. airplane friday is the 12 hours on the plane. and then there's LA friday where we land at 6p to spend the night until we can get on our flight to denver to get on our flight to wichita all on saturday.

i should post at least one or two more times before LA even if i don't really have anything to say! and, since my body will think it's 10a when we land in LA i'll probably post again from there as well. see you soon.