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Today has significance as Abigail ate her first solid (well, non formula) food. We bought some stage 1 baby food at the local
grocery store. Applesauce was introduced at breakfast, and after a few grimacing faces, she ate a few mouth fulls. A little
more applesauce with her late morning bottle, and then Abigail was on to some peaches with her late afternoon bottle. Abigail
seems to be trying to eat the applesauce and peaches off the spoon as if they were coming out of a bottle. By the time we
finished with the peaches, she started to realize that she had to open her mouth so she could get the spoon into her mouth.
This afternoon, we took the famous "Red Couch" pictures. The Red Couch pictures are like a rite of passage for
families / travel groups that stay at the White Swan Hotel. This is probably the last chance for all of the girls to be together
in one last group photo. Before heading off to the Red Couch, Abigail is seen sporting her first pair of shoes, and squeaky
shoes at that.
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Abigail continues to be a happy, interacting baby. It is really getting clearer every day that she knows that we are here
to take care of her and love her. She appears to be showing normal emotions that a child should be showing - laughing when
played with, fussy when tired, and cranky when her diaper is dirty. She does not like to sit still for very long, so any
amount of movement helps keep her content (another Cindy trait). The one thing that she really enjoys is to be able to see
what is going on around her, watching out the window of a bus, out the window of the hotel room, or looking at Cindy, myself,
or herself in a mirror. One of Abigail's little things that she does is to make several different noises, ranging from a
low gurgle to blowing her lips.
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Today was a quiet day, so to speak, in Guangzhou. There was no official paperwork to do, so we went on an arranged tour to
several local places. The first stop was the Six Banyan Pagoda, also known as the Liurong Temple. A Buddhist monk blessed
all of the babies in the group. The blessing is respected as good luck by all of the locals, Buddhist or not. The temple
also has the three largest bronze Buddha statues in China.
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The next stop was the Provincial Art and Craft store. We picked up a tea set for Abigail to enjoy when she is much older.
The last stop of the tour was to the Old Chen House, which was built during the last dynasty of the Chinese feudal system,
before the Republic of China. The house was luckily not destroyed during the initial Communist rule because it was used as
a printing location for Mao's writings. The house is today, as it was 100+ years ago, when it was first built.
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