Dec 5: Yuntai Garden

Tomorrow, it will be 1 week since we met Nathan. How much more do we know about him?

1. He hates plane rides since there isn’t much room for him to move around.

2. He is independent in some ways. We play with him but he can play by himself for hours or until he falls asleep. He doesn’t need actual toys. He just plays with magazines, an empty bottle and Nelson’s T-shirts. Also, he likes to feed himself from time to time.

3. When he squats, becomes silent for a minute or has that strange expression on his face, we know he is pooping.

4. He is friendly to everyone and allows anybody (adult or children) to play or talk to him.

5. So far, he has been good when we go out on our tour with our guide. He only gets uneasy when we are in public eating places because he wants everything and anything. He even wants other people’s food. To prevent him from throwing a tantrum in public eating places, we have to keep feeding him just about anything that is on our plate. Once he doesn’t want anymore food, that is our cue to leave otherwise he will start yelling. When we get back home, Nelson and I will not be eating out for a long time.

6. Now that he is used to having us feed him, he will eat. Most of the time he wants to eat what we eat such as chicken, noodle, congee and some steam buns. Before we give him our food, we normally hide it first otherwise he will refuse his own baby food and fruits like bananas and apples. Pretty much, he is the boss. We feed him first then Nelson and I eat.

7. He drinks his milk on the side of his mouth. Because of his cleft palate, he can’t bite the nipple bottle in the middle of his mouth.

8. He has good memory. Our room at the Garden Hotel didn’t provide a baby tub. One of us has to hold him while the other gives him a bath. The bathtub has an extendable shower head that I use to rinse his body. He cries when I use the shower head though because he gets scared when I wash his hair with it. So after he poops and we remove his diaper and clothes, he already starts crying because he knows we will take him to the bathtub. The desk in our room is made of glass and low enough for Nathan to bump his head on it if he doesn’t look where he is walking. So far, if he gets too close to the desk, he actually looks up before walking towards to one of us sitting at the desk so that he won’t bump his head.

9. He allows us to cut his fingernails and toenails and use a nose aspirator to clean his stuffy nose.

Mommy, wanna come into my house?Mommy, can you find me?Who’s that handsome boy in the mirror?Look mommy, I finished my milk!