Wiggly Piglet’s Playpen

We arrived in the Philippines twenty four hours after we left our house on Wednesday night. Completely missed Thanksgiving (it’s already Friday afternoon). After we gathered our luggage (Mckayla’s car seat was the last piece of luggage to come out the belt) and went through the immigration and customs, we walked out the airport. Jackie was already waiting at the end of the ramp as I rolled Mckayla out the door. As soon as Jackie saw us, she immediately ran up the ramp to greet Mckayla. She was little shy at the beginning and intimated by my Aunt Pony and Jenni who were also very excited to see Mckayla. She made Jackie a little sad because she didn’t seem to recognize her. But the shyness didn’t last long, by the time we had lunch at their house, she was back to her usual self again, running around and chasing their dog Summer. And it didn’t take long for Jackie to re-establish her BFF status.

I woke up in the middle of night yesterday. Don’t know what time it was but still dark outside. I opened my eyes and saw MeiMei’s face right in front of mine. She’s asleep with her head on the pillow. She abandoned her usually spots at the end and top of the bed and wanted to cuddle. I stretched my arms, then I felt another body behind MeiMei. It was Mckayla, sound asleep also with her head on the pillow. And next to her, it was Ted. Also sound asleep and snoring.

After we change Mckayla’s diaper, we take her dirty smelly diapers to the diaper champ in the bathroom. We’ve been doing this same routine since Mckayla was born and Mckayla has been paying attention. Now when we’re done changing her, we hand her the dirty diaper and she walks it to the bathroom and toss it in the diaper champ. Then, she claps her hand to cheer herself on. She hasn’t learned to flip the handle over yet.

Mckayla’s already got a nice collection of shoes, thanks to her Uncle Andre and Auntie Margaret. And she even knows hat Andre brought her the most recent batch of shoes. Whenever she sees Andre, she points to her shoes and if she’s not wearing them, she drags them out from the closet and wants us to put them on for her. Every morning, after I get her dressed, she immediately wants her shoes on. If I put her socks on without her shoes, she immediately pulls them off. But once the shoes are on, she doesn’t mind them at all. Good thing she hasn’t developed any preferences yet. She’s content as long as she’s got her shoes on her feet.

We went out for Mexican food for lunch today. Mckayla’s molars are still coming are and she’s been very picky with her food. Usually we bring Mckayla’s food from home since I haven’t really given her any “flavored” food yet. I offered her couple pieces of chicken that I brought from home but she wasn’t very interested. And she kept pointing at the basket of tortilla chips that’s sitting in the middle of the table. I gave her a piece of the chip and she kept asking for more once she was done. I felt guilty about giving her chips, so we ordered a quesadlila for her instead. Earlier in the day, she really enjoyed the grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast, so I figured she might enjoy the quesadilla, too. And she did, she didn’t want to touch it at first when Ted placed a small piece in front of her. But after seeing Ted taking a bite, Mckayla started eating hers. And she also ate several pieces of chicken in between. By the end of the meal, she ate more than 1/2 of the entire quesadilla. And she was definitely full, she patted her stomach and we noticed her jeans were unbuttoned with her belly sticking out. Don’t know where she learned that from?

We went to Cornel/Kirsten’s house for a nice dinner tonight. Mckayla was the youngest of four kids there tonight.  Jordan was so excited when Mckayla showed up and brought out a bunch of her princesses to share with Mckayla. She even took Mckayla to her room to show off her “beautiful room”. She was so generous, offering all her toys and told her that she can take them home. Then , they both wondered off to the play room which was filled with a bunch of toys. I watched as Mckayla interacted with the other kids. Jordan, Micah, and Shaw all spoke Afrikaan, but Jordan has picked up a lot of English since she started preschool few months ago. Mckayla and Jordan were dancing along with the leap frog music table. It was so cute watching the girls playing together. Then they both attacked Micah’s Thomas train set. Mckayla was not very gentle and knocked over the rails several times. Micah kept looking up at me and tole me, “rails broken”. I tried my best to put them back together for him but I don’t think I did  a good job. It’s amazing to watch the kids interact and they seem to have a good time together without reallly understanding each other’s language. Mckayla the night owl was the only one still awake and playing when we left their house. The other three kids were out asleep before we had our desserts!

Margaret was playing with Mckayla earlier this evening. She showed me Mckayla’s “new trick” when I got home from dinner. Mckayla handed her the hair clip and pointed to her hair. Margaret ignored her and she did it again. Then, Margaret placed the little clip on her hair. She leaned in and remained still during the entire process. When Margaret was done and told Mckayla that she’s a pretty girl. Her face immediately lit up and she started clapping her hands to show her happiness.

Yesterday, when I came home from work, Nanny told me Mckayla refused to take her nap #2 in the afternoon. She looked a bit more tired than usual but was still active and playful the rest of the evening until after dinner. She started to rub her eyes and yawning. We put her to bed a bit earlier than usual. And she woke up just one time around four in the morning. Today, I was trying to put her to sleep just when Margaret and Andre woke up. They didn’t get to see Mckayla last night since they arrived past midnight. They were eager to see her and she was excited to see them, too. I tried to put her to sleep but failed. She kept crying and wanted to go outside. I gave in and let her out to play with Margaret and Andre. While we were eating lunch, she was getting very sleepy and kept rubbing her eyes. I took her to her room and put her down in her crib. She whined a bit but fell asleep quickly (I fell asleep too myself). I woke up and realized she was asleep so I went to the store to run errands and left her with Andre. An hour later, I got a call. It was Andre, asking if it’s okay to feed her cold milk from the fridge. She woke up crying when the door bell rang. I’ve been told baby transition to one nap per day at this age. It’s two days in a row now, we’ll see how she does tomorrow.