Hello Kitty Cafe

Earlier this year I read this blog post (click to read) about the Hello Kitty Cafe in Taipei, and thought it was so cutesy that I just had to DRAG Kevin there when we go to Taiwan. Yes, the service isn't supposed to be that great and the dinners aren't worth the money, but that's not what you're going there for. You're going there for the atmosphere, indulging the seven year old girl somewhere deep inside of you that still has a love for Hello Kitty lip gloss. I remember a time when a store at Glenbrook Mall in Fort Wayne near the ice skating rink was just heaven because it had a Hello Kitty section!

Anyway, we came to Taiwan equipped with a Hello Kitty outfit from my friend Rebecca. Thank goodness the pants have a drawstring waist, as little bug needed the waist cinched tightly to keep on anything 6-9 months in size. We mapped out the location (see photo below) hopped on the MRT, took photos of Hannah at the Sun Yat-Sen and Chiang Kai-Shek memorials, and then searched out the famed Hello Kitty Cafe.




























Mama orders a latte, Hello Kitty style.

And a pretty piece of chocolate cake. It's all about presentation.

Dada gets a smoothie. They don't serve soft drinks. He'd prefer a Diet Coke.

Dada's dessert. He wasn't so happy about being here, so Mama ordered for him.

After dessert we were brought a little plate of fruit and molded gelatin. Daddy stabbed the Hello Kitty's face to let Mama know what the thought of all of this Hello Kitty business.





That's okay. Mama's still having a good time, even if the rest of the family is starting to get a little fussy.

Can we go yet?
What did I think of the place? Not a place to bring a husband that's hungry for "real food" after walking around the cold and rainy streets of Taipei in January with a baby. Bring the seven year old daughter instead, but come just for dessert and drinks as the food is overpriced. She'll love it!

play, play, play

We've been having fun at home doing a lot of play, play, play with Miss Hannah. I think she's been working on our initiation into parenthood as well. We've seen puke twice when she's eaten too much and got upset or ate a lot and then stuck too big of a piece of rice cracker into her mouth. Our foam play mats have already needed hosed off in the bathtub, and we haven't even been home a week. Ew.

Here's a little video I made so you can hear her baby talk and see her crawl. Apparently the box that the exersauser came in is as much fun as the exersauser itself. Go figure. And please excuse the dog food on the floor. Thankfully she hasn't found the dog dish... yet. She's found every other little bit of everything on the floor that the vacuum didn't.



Here's some photos from our play during the last two days. I'm trying to get her on the move crawling and sitting up as much as possible. The first two photos are my favorites, and then there's a slideshow for the rest of the set.








She's been a little snotty and we're doing the saline and bulb syringe thing several times a day. I had no idea that bulb syringes doubled as medieval infant torture devices until now. Our house humidifier is working really hard, and we have a humidifier just for her room on order. Kevin has a very specific brand he wants after researching humidifiers, and lucky for me... er... lucky for Hannah... this manufacturer has one that looks like Hello Kitty. Yippie!

Hannah slept through the night for the first time Wednesday night. It's 3:52am Friday morning now and I'm awake for awhile after a diaper change and sucking the snot out of her because she couldn't breathe through her nose to suck on her pacifier. I hold her head and hands secure while Kevin does the torture... er... snot sucking. We gave the little angel some Miralax this morning in a bottle and now we've been graced with stinky tofu in the diaper on her own terms. Man, have I turned into a mom, or what? This post was supposed to be all about play, but got hijacked by snot and poop. Sorry.

Ding Ding Pharmacy

This post is mostly for other families adopting from Taiwan.

Before going home from Taiwan, I wanted to stock up on Hannah's formula (enough to get us through until her first appointment at an international adoption clinic) and extra pacifiers that were the same as the single pacifier she came to us with. I've heard of other adoptive families anguish when their Taiwan pacifier broke or became misplaced, and their child rejected multiple American style pacifiers.

Upon the recommendations of my adopting friends Judy and KB, we went to the Ding Ding Pharmacy in Taipei. It was a short taxi ride away from our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Taipei. I'd certainly want to take a taxi and not try to take a bus or the MRT, as I knew that our hands would be full carrying shopping bags with multiple cans of formula and other goodies that would hop into our cart.

I printed out the taxi card to Ding Ding available on Judy's old blog (click here for link). Because we went on New Year's Eve, we had someone at the concierge desk at our hotel call the store to make sure they were open. Our hotel's staff told us that they're open until 11:45pm every night. The staff checked the taxi card, and said that the only thing it's missing is that it doesn't say that the store is on the second floor. Uh... I don't think the taxi is going to take us up the stairs, but thanks. Heehee.


Here's a shot of me with Hannah in the baby carrier ready to find her some formula and pacifiers.


This is what the outside of the store looked like.


We took the elevator up to the second floor. Walking up stairs with a baby strapped to your front and you can't see your feet isn't fun.


The store was much larger than I thought it was going to be. Guess I got used to stores being much smaller in Taiwan, except for Carrefour and department stores. The store seemed like a cross between a Babies R Us and an a CVS or Walgreens. The product mix was definately focused on infants and toddlers. Here you could find baby clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, nipples, pacifiers, cups, spoons, baby chopsticks, strollers, cribs, medications, etc.


Here's the formula section. Hannah is on a Wyeth formula called S-26 SMA Gold for 0-6 months of age. The can says that it is made in Singapore, but Wyeth is an international company. I haven't been able to figure out if there is an exact equivalent for the product sold by Wyeth in the United States. I'm not worried about it. I'll just let the international adoption clinic do their stuff and tell us what they suggest at our upcomming appointment. We have plenty of formula to last until then.




There were at least three sections of pacifiers. Hannah's pacifier is one piece of molded silicone and has a long thinner nipple. The only markings on it said "US baby." We searched through the pacifiers and found ones that looked like hers and they said that they were made by a company called US baby (click for link), but were made in Taiwan. Pretty funny! There were a few sizes of the same pacifier. We popped Hannah's pacifier out of her mouth and held it up next to the pacifiers in the packages, and then had a staffer confirm that the pacifiers were the same.


They had all sorts of cute pacifier keepers. Of course Hannah went home with this Hello Kitty one! It even has a storage section inside the Hello Kitty head to keep it clean when not in use. We also got a pink Hello Kitty stacking formula dispenser that holds enough formula for four bottles. I carry it in the diaper bag.


And who couldn't resist a set of baby chop sticks? We got Hannah the training set with the frogs on them to the right.

One last thing. Don't bother with packing oodles of diapers to bring to Taiwan. Waste of valueable suitcase space! I had read other parents' complaining that the diapers that they bought in Taiwan had the old pastic non-adjustable sticky tabs and they wished they had brought diapers with the velcro-like tabs in the US. Upon the recommendation of Megan's daddy Kevin, we purchased a pack of a brand of diapers called Merries while in Taiwan. They had a regular kind and premium, and we purchased the premiums and they worked wonderfully wicking away our little piddlemonster's peepee and had the nice velcro-tabs for newbie parents trying to figure out how tightly to fasten a diaper around a wiggleworm. We bought our Merries at Carrefour, but also saw them at the Ding Ding Pharmacy.

Hanging with Cooper

We took our first little road trip with Miss Hannah today that involved a car seat and icy cold weather. She was bundled up in winter snow pants, a jacket with a hood, and had her fleece banklet from Jeri G. all tucked in around her. We learned that Hannah fusses while she is being strapped into the car seat, but falls asleep within minutes. I have a feeling that there will be several "It's night night time" car rides in the future to get her to go to sleep. Anyway, we visited Mama's work, went out for lunch where Hannah played the chopstick wrapper for 20 minutes while sitting nicely in the high chair, and made the journey to the "big city" in search of Babies R Us for more Born Free bottles.

On the way, I decided that we should call our friend Amy to see if she was up for a little visit. Of course, Amy was thrilled to have us over, and we had a lot of fun giggling at the differences between the bodies of her BIG "chunk of love" born in August and our little petite preemie born in January.

When we changed diapers, someone joked, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Daddy said sternly, "Hannah, don't look over there." She's not allowed to date until she's 30.

Hannah test drove Cooper's exersauser and had a great time... such a great time that we came home with an exersauser as well as more bottles from Babies R Us. Fun times!

Developmentally, Hannah pulls to a stand very well and is quite steady when holding on to something. She doesn't sit particularly well, as she tips over quite often. She crawls, but doesn't seem to want to work so hard at it. I have a feeling this is due to spending a lot of time in her crib, and I'm confident this will greatly improve as we have her on the floor playing and encouraging her more and more.

Last night was a great night for sleep. This is the first time that she only woke up once for a bottle. Sleep is grand! Now, if we could just get her to poop again without the need for a glycerine suppository. The prunes aren't cutting it, and she doesn't like baby pear juice. Sounds like Miralax is in her future.

photos of Hannah at national landmarks in Taipei, Taiwan

National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Video: Forever Family Day - Meeting Hannah Claire

We don't have words to describe our forever family day when we met Hannah Claire, but pictures tell the story well. Kevin and I both cried a lot that day. We just watched the video together as a family before posting it. Hannah cooed while looking at herself. Daddy remarked, "Look, baby. This was the best day ever."

sleep, revisited

Little Hannah has been really out of sorts over the last 24 hours. Yesterday at 3am when we gave her a bottle... she wouldn't sleep. After patting her back while she cried in her crib for a long time, we ended up putting her in our bed somewhere around 4:30ish. She slept for only half an hour, and then woke up with a meltdown. No matter what we did, checked diaper, rocked, walked, back patted, back rubbed... she could not get out of meltdown mode with screaming and hiccups. We were totally exhausted and were tired out of our minds. I finally realized that we hadn't tried a bottle again, even though it had only been a little over two hours since the last bottle. Daddy made another bottle while I unsuccessfully tried to rock and comfort her in our bed. Daddy returned with a bottle and she gulped it down. It made me cry... "I'm so sorry, baby. I had no idea that you would be hungry again already." The bottle put a stop to the meltdown, but she hiccuped and sniffled for a long while. We decided she wasn't sleeping, so we might as well get up, try to play a little, and have some food, and then try to settle back town. Kevin and Hannah watched Conan O'Brien together in the early hours of the morning, and she seemed fascinated with Conan... but didn't care for the guest Carson Daly. That's okay, babygirl. We're not fans of Carson Daly, either.

Then we had the bright idea to go over to Grandma and Grandpa's a little early for family Christmas. Grandma and Grandpa could play with Hannah while we checked out for a little break. At family Christmas we had Hannah open her presents early, as we assumed she's eventually fall asleep. Not so. She sat on laps while people opened her presents for her and she played, played, played. During Christmas dinner Mama and Daddy could hardly keep their eyes open, but Hannah was in her element in the high chair with lots of attention, rice crackers, sweet potato, and toys to play with. In the afternoon we finished opening presents and enjoying sweets. Mama and Daddy decided it was time for them to check out. Mama and Daddy took naps while the rest of the family played with Hannah. She did eventually decide to go to sleep, and Nana put her in the crib. She slept for a couple of hours, and Nana woke me up to give her a bottle. Ahhh. What a wondrous thing sleep is!

Kevin and I were too sleepy to even attempt to take photos today. It was all that we could do to keep our eyelids open. I'll try to post some photos once my family shares some with us.

Homecoming

When our plane finally touched down in Fort Wayne last night, I felt like I needed to pinch myself. This really happened! (AND oh my gosh I'm so tired and I need to wake up.) We were greeted by a sea of family, friends, misc. onlookeers that wanted to see what all of the excitement was all about. The security people looked pretty happy to witness the event as well. The photos pretty much tell the story. Thank you so much Sara S. and Amy for e-mailing me photos today!


"Are they here yet?"


We're here!


Happy Family


The junior members of our welcome home party. Aren't they sweet?


They all signed the welcome home banner that the Skinners made for Hannah.


Nana gets first dibs on holding Hannah first.


That's a happy Nana!


Hannah's Nana introduces Hannah to the welcome home party.


Amy moves in for a closer peek.


Nana decides to share with Grandpa.


Hannah likes Grandpa's silly faces.


Just wait till you hear his jokes, baby girl. They're even worse.


"You mean I have more grandma and grandpas? This is fun! What? I have two more grandmas and a grandpa in Florida that want to take me to Disney World??? This is great!"


This guy has some great daddy skills AND he makes great silly faces.


Oh, so this is my uncle Philip that you've been telling all me about.


So... when's this cousin going to be here, Aunt Christina?


Amy tells us how yummy I am and how Mommy and Daddy need to come to Fort Wayne all of the time and go on dates alone so she can babysit me.


The party girl starts to look pretty sleepy.


Mama and Daddy try to put me into the car seat and adjust it in the dark. That plan doesn't work out very well. They should have found a stand in baby that is about my size to adjust the straps on first. Luckily, there's another car seat is already adjusted for a long thin baby, so Mama and Daddy make the decision to use that one instead. Good thing... it's pretty cold out here for a little tropical Taiwan baby. Thank you to Uncle Philip for being on top of things and installing the new car seat so quickly.

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home... at 3:30am with sweet potato. I'll post more about our homecomming once I get some photos of the affair. I have a feeling Hannah's Nana and Grandpa took several... and if they didn't... I'm sure some of the other people in the crowd at the airport will e-mail me a few. We were greeted with a welcome home banner that people signed, balloons - pink with Hello Kitty!, and lots of hugs and kisses. It was so cute that there were so many little kids there running around, and we thank all of the families for coming out on a cold January night with your kiddos.

It took a village of people to help us carry all of our bags out to our car and my mom and dad's car. We had a little trouble in the dark trying to get little Miss into the car seat as it wasn't adjusted for her height yet. Thankfully, my cousin's little one just finished with his carrier style car seat that was already adjusted for Maddux's height, and it fit Hannah just right. Hannah's uncle hooked up the carrier base for us as sleepy Daddy and Mommy weren't too mechanically inclined after traveling for 28 hours.

Backing up...

Immigration in Detroit was just fine. Luckily we were off the plane pretty quickly and were in line before most of the hundreds of people that were on their with us. Unlike some other airports, they didn't allow adopting US families to the front of the immigration line, but we only had to wait about 20 minutes. We showed our passports and Hannah's paperwork stack from AIT to an officer who checked them over before having us go stand in "the blue line." There was only one group ahead of us in "the blue line" so that didn't take long. The officer was friendly, didn't ask many questions. I was holding Hannah, and joked that it looked like her paperwork weighed more than she does. The officer smiled at us and said, "I think you're probably right. Welcome home, folks." I was too tired to break out the little American flags that I had in the diaper bag... too sleepy for photo opps, just very thankful we didn't have any problems.

Daddy loaded up our luggage on two carts and Hannah sat on top a suitcase as I wheeled a cart through customs. When we were loading up our carry ons onto the x-ray equipment and VERY STRESSED about taking off our shoes, or belts, getting out my computer, and making sure that the disposable cameras containing photos of Hannah at the nursery before we picked her up didn't go through their machine... a lady remarked, "Oh... how cute! Where'd you get her from?" I was putting our stuff on the belt and trying to hold Hannah and pretended that I didn't hear her because I didn't have the time or patience to deal with adoption related questions right now. When I didn't reply after about five seconds, the woman remarked, "WELL... it looks like she doesn't have a very friendly mommy." Are you kidding me?!?!?! I'm going through airport security with a child and you tell me I'm unfriendly because I don't want to talk to you right now??? Whatever.

Northwest's WorldClub lounge in Detroit was a blessing as we were able to take showers, have some snacks, and try to relax a little bit during our four hour layover in Detroit. Hannah was fussy and mad that we wouldn't let her crawl around on the ground and explore.

Hannah has been pretty fussy since we got home. Last night she woke up three times. At 3am we decided that we were all hungry. Hannah had a bottle and some squash while we had pizza rolls and milk. We were awake and decided to start unpacking, but Hannah wanted to explore and would not sit in the Bumbo chair or play nicely by herself. She had to be held or wanted into what we were doing. After listening to so much crying I was on overload and told Kevin that I couldn't deal with this all right now. I called my mom at 4:20am and told her that she could come over ANY TIME today. Right now? Yes, right now. She said that she'd be right over. I took Hannah into our bedroom with me and we laid down together. She went to sleep after 30 seconds of back patting. Kevin later came in to put her in her crib, but I heard her start crying again several minutes later. Luckily, Nana was here to the rescue soon so Mama could check out for some much needed sleep with and turned off the baby monitor.

Sedona is still at my parents' house, and hopefully we'll be ready to add her to the mix once some more laundry is finished and things put away. Last I heard she's catching up on her sleep after spending nearly two weeks at Amy's house enjoying the most amount of attention she's ever had in her life.

Kevin and I are taking turns sleeping, doing laundry, and putting away all of our gear from the trip. I'm starting to upload more photos into our Flickr account, and hope to make some catchup posts soon.

Thanks so much for so many sweet comments and prayers. We're so blessed.

sleepy

Hi from the Detroit airport. We're nearly home. We're exhausted. Babygirl hasn't had anything but bottles and rice crackers to eat today, but we just don't have the energy or patience to deal with rice cereal or the mess of baby food right now. The pressure didn't bother her ears at all. She slept like a champ during several take offs and landings. There were a few meltdowns. She wants to get out and play and see everything, but isn't allowed to.

My mom and dad are arguing (joke) over who gets to hold her first like my sister and I used to argue over who gets to hold the cat first when we'd get home from a long car ride.