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Almost a whole month of no blogging...

that also means not reading any of the blogs on my blogroll.

The past month has NOT been fun, computer-wise. I can only play SNOOD so many times before I go crazy.

The country we're living in has a fire-wall the blocks Blogger (as well as a gazillion other sites), so we use a VPN to access those sights.  Now their fire-wall also blocks our VPN so we've had to get creative and buy a different VPN provider. So we're back. For now.

Let me try to catch you up a bit.

Did you know? Joelle is a child prodigy. 

Look at that face.  Why are we looking at picture books?  This is sooo beneath me.

Does she not have the most contagious smile?  When she laughs, it makes me laugh.  And when I laugh, she really starts to giggle.  So I laugh at her... which makes her laugh.

We sit and have these laughing fits for a good 10 minutes.... and then I say,

"Hey, I forgot.  What are we laughing at?"

A joke she totally gets, so she laughs.  Which makes me laugh.

(Wow, this is like a bad version of "If you give a Moose a Muffin.")

Joelle's favorite snack: her fist.

Um Mom?  Can we reschedule this photo shoot?  The light is totally in my eyes. 

As cute as this picture is, all I can see is the giant bag of dog food in the corner. ugh.

Hey, dog. You're crampin' my blanket.

There's more that's going on in the world of Joelle.  The biggest news is her latest well-baby check-up.  She got 7 vaccines, (5 were all-in one, 1 was oral, so she only got stuck twice.  She wailed so badly, it broke our hearts!) and was weighed and measured.  She's already 61 cm long, but there was bad news about her weight.  Not only had she not gained any weight in two months, she had LOST weight.

Here's the story.

About a month ago, Scott and I began weaning JoJo off of her late-night feeding, so she quickly began sleeping 9 hours a night. BabyWise, again, to the rescue.  Great, right?  Not so fast.  The supply-and-demand laws of breast feeding kicked in, and my milk production started to suffer.  But I didn't recognize the signs until it was pretty much too late.  I can't believe I didn't understand what was happening, but looking back it's perfectly clear.  She started becoming fussy all the time.  We thought it was because we were overstimulating her, or she had a tummy ache, or she had forgotten how to fall asleep on her own because she was in the stroller out on a walk so much.  I never thought she she could still be hungry after a feeding, because I had always had an abundance of milk.

While in Thailand, I could pump 5 ounces without breaking a sweat.  Of course, Joelle was eating 9 times a day, not 6.  When I finally started understanding that maybe my milk supply was getting too low, I tried to pump more to trick my body in to producing more.  I could only ever pump 1/2 an ounce from one breast, and maybe two ounces first thing in the morning.

After our doctors visit, I started trying to remember how many wet/ dirty diapers she'd had recently.  She'd had 2 bowel movements in the last two weeks, which What To Expect said not to be alarmed about.  But, her diapers weren't saturated with pee-pee, and even sometimes, they'd be dry.  As soon as I realized this, I felt panicky in my heart.  We came home from the doctors visit, fed Joelle that night and then listened to her wake up every 3 hours, hungry.  I was terrified of her becoming dehydrated.

So, Scott bought formula the next day and we supplemented one ounce at the next feeding.  What a difference it made.  Our happy, gurgling, drooling, pooping baby was back.  She slept a full 2 hours, and without any trouble at all, was back on her regular schedule.. even sleeping 9 hours at night again.

A battle rages inside me.  I feel like such a failure.  I had just finished telling a friend that I had made the decision to breast feed for a full year.  All this research, hours of reading the benefits of long-term breast feeding... for what?  Now that she's taking more and more formula, the law of supply and demand is still in action and I have less milk with each feeding, no amount of pumping seems to work. I pump immediately after a feeding, and hour afterwards and even woke up at 3 am to pump... but it's useless.  I lost this battle 3 weeks ago when I didn't recognize the warning signs.

I love breast feeding my child.  I love knowing that it's packed with nutrients that will help her fight off asthma, obesity, childhood cancers, allergies, and even simple things like a cold.  I love the intimacy of holding her close and giving her life from my body, not a bottle.  Plus, we're in a foreign country that does not really take pride in the quality of their products that are not made for export.  Two years ago, hundreds of infants died because formula producers were putting fillers in the powder, trying to up production while cutting costs.  We found a foreign brand, which I'm sure is fine, but still... is anything better than what God designed?

It's just over too soon for me. I know I should rejoice that I got 4+ months of exclusive breastfeeding, but it's not at all what I wanted or planned.  I should rejoice that it's not over yet... who knows how much longer I can supplement?

On to a happier subject...

Life in bamboo land is actually fantastic.

Scott is a substitute Oral English teacher now, and he's enjoying it.Though, I miss him.  Each class he teaches a little something about American culture, and gives them the second half of the class to use English to talk about that subject.  For example, last week he talked about dating and American culture. He showed dating clips from the Andy Griffith show, which they loved, and then asked them to write a paper about their "dream date."  Here's what one boy wrote:

 I would take Jessica Alba to Italy. I would rent a boat and take her on a long ride, then we will eat at the most famous restaurant in Italy.  Then we will go watch a movie.  And after, maybe we will kiss and some other things.

BWAAAHA HA HAAAAA!!!

Of course, Scott told him to "Get it, dog!"

One day, Scott asked his students what they would do with a Million dollars.  One student wrote:

"I would quit school and open a Pizza Hut."

Shoot for the stars.

Last night, Brittany babysat for us while we went to dinner with some friends, Joe and Violet.  We had a blast.  Joe and Violet are about to become parents... she's about 3 weeks away from delivery, so we have plenty to talk about.  We're in the same stage of life, we're the same age,  have the same ideas about child raising and she even loves green bean casserole.

Poor Violet's hands and feet are so swollen, so her husband has been doing all the cooking and cleaning.  After a dinner I asked them to let me do the dishes so Joe could have a break.  Immediately, they said NO and told us they can't let their guests do dishes.  But we explained that we aren't their guests anymore... we're friends!  and sometimes in America, a friend comes over to clean or cook without even asking your permission because they know you just need it.

Joe smiled and said "Ok! Fei Yan does the dishes." (Fei Yan is my Chinese name)

What a big step in our relationship!  In our almost 3 years in this country, we've never been good enough friends with anyone where they let me in their kitchen while they relaxed.  Nor have they been completely honest about how they liked our Western food... Joe is always quick to tell us what he likes and what he wants more of.  Would you believe it? He loves banana pudding.

~

I've made it a goal to leave the house at least once a day.  This has been an enormously helpful thing to do- not only good for making friends and practicing the language, but it's helped me keep my sanity.

Just the other night, I took Adrian (our 4 legged daughter) out to play and found a group of neighbors shooting the breeze... so I joined them for about 20 minutes.  After I left, I realized that the focus hadn't been on ME the whole time.

wow.

They've finally run out of questions

~

I joined a bonfire on campus one night while Scott stayed with JoJo.

My camera takes the funniest pictures at night. Ghost legs!

A new friend I made at the bonfire.  I'm going to send these photos into Ripleys and tell them my camera can capture the souls of those who haven't "moved on."  See in this picture below?  Some people clearly need to "GO INTO THE LIGHT, MR. HECKLES"

*obscure Friends reference*

That's all the tid-bits I can think of for now. Congratulations if you read this whole post!