Day 6 in Hanoi - Yeah for Chianna's Passport!

Chianna woke up about the same time today, she usually gets up around 8am. Myke and I are up before then and start to get our selves ready so that we can give her our full attention when she wakes up. Plus, as we start getting ready and slowly making a little more noise and raise some shades in the room so that she can slowly waken up, we realize that she needs some time to get started in the morning.

We went up to breakfast, they all recognize her now and know her by name "Ngoc" is her Vietnamese name, is means Jade and is pronounced [NOP]. We have been calling her that rather than Chianna or Jade since she is used to that since there is already so much change in her life at this point, we will figure out a good time to start telling her that her name is Chianna; and I guess slowly integrate it in.


Learning to eat with her fork better every day.



She is such a giggly joy, you have no idea!



After breakfast we came back to the room and she immediately went looking for Ducky, who we had hidden in the corner to make sure we could get her out of the room for breakfast! But she found him & started playing right away. We called my Dad on Skype and he got to watch her play with Ducky "in action". She took some of her pretzel stick snacks and she was putting them in these little travel plastic cups that we brought along. She was transferring the pretzels from on container to a little in each and then all into one again. Then back and forth between the two baskets on Ducky. This kept her entertained for so long and she was on such a mission with it! I can't wait to get home and get her some blocks or something similar, she really seemed to love doing this. On second thought, maybe these containers are better than blocks!

Oh, and she is wearing her Coolie hat that we bought the other day, she also had Ducky wearing it too!







Then Thuy called and said that Chianna's passport is all ready!!!! YEAH!!!! We needed to go down and pick up her passport at 3pm and fill out some paperwork for the Visa. So we just hung out in the room for the afternoon, playing around and spening time together. She had some yogurt and fruit for lunch, which she liked very much. She also had a little pudding for dessert. She asked several times to take a bath. She gestures to Myke rubbing her hair as if washing it and says the word in Vietnamese. He told her, "No, not yet!" So then it came time to get ready to leave to meet Thuy downstairs and the plan was for Chianna, Thuy & I to go so that Myke could take a nap. I started to try to change her diaper and I needed to change her dress since she had spilled juice *all over* her dress, and she would not have it! She would not put a diaper on and started to throw herself around and start a tantrum when we both told her no when she asked for a bath again. So, I ended up leaving myself without her and felt so sorry both for her and for Myke when I left she was screaming and throwing herself around ont he floor! Uh Oh! But we could nto miss this appointment and luckily she did not have to go with us!

Thuy and I went to the Justice Dept, picked up the passport and we were back at the hotel in less than30 minutes. I called Myke fromt he lobby to see what was happening and he said he had just got her out of the BATH!!! Uh Oh, spoiling Daddy caved in! SO Thuy and I waited in the lobby for them to come down and we finished up filling out some forms for the Visa. Daddy & Chianna came down riding Mr. Ducky, and was all smiles! : )))

We finished up and decided to head out to eat some dinner. Thuy was impressed with how much she has learned from us in the few days since she saw her last. Chianna is so good at communicating with us. Thuy was also able to tell us some of the things Chianna is saying in Vietnamese. At one point, she called us "parents"!!! : ))) and when she was doen eating and she tells Myke to eat the rest of her food, she said "Finish this please!"

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and Chianna rode on Ducky, the same way, very quiet and observant of everything around. It was turning to dusk and all the lights were coming on around the city and it was very beautiful. There was a nice breeze in the air for the first time we have been outside.







But as we were walking through the crowded streets it seems quite dangerous, we have no idea how there are not more accidents and how we have not gotten hit about a million times already. As it got darker, the headlights were glaring in Myke's eyes and he was having a harder and harder time navigating the streets so when we got back to the hotel, of course, Chianna did not want to go in! Uh Oh! here we go again. . . .

She reconizes the hotel steps as soon as we get to them, by the way and she started vigorously sahking her head no. We said yes and she really started to cry. The people around here stare and on top of everything the damn street vendors were starting to surround us as we were trying to coax her inside rather than picking her up and carrying her. So, daddy had to carry her up and I carried Ducky.

We got inside and she cried for a bit, but then Myke got her to calm down by asking her questions and she calmed down and stopped crying. As usual, within minutes she had gone from tantrum screaming to laughing and giggling and smiling. She asked Myke for a bath again and he said "nooooo" and smiled and she smiled back and laughed almost as if to say, "oh well, thought I'd try it."

Thuy had told us that we have the medical appointment in the morning and have to be there at 9am - We both thought "oh no" because we know its going to be hard to get the little girl going in the morning for a deadline. So we decided that after the tantrum and she was so worked up and it was already after 7pm.

We slowly turned off lights and lowered volumes so that she would know that it is bed time. She gets quiet, as usual, and just watches her DVDs. But she was standing at the edge of her bed and did not want to even sit on it. I could tell she was so tired, no nap today and lots of running around and such, her eyes were heavy, but she will just not lay down! CRAZY! We turned off all the lights and the tv, so only her DVD was on real low and a dim lamp by Myke's side of the bed. I was sitting on the couch thinking that I might get some blog updates in, but not luck! She came wandering over to me in the dark to see what I was doing. She wanted to sit on my lap, so I picked her up and showed her pictures on the computer. We went through the pictures of her room and pictures of Yogi and Aku. Everytime I would lean back to try to get her to recline a bit, she would sit forward! LOL This little girl just refuses to sleep until she actually falls over! So after a little while of pictures and some quiet time sitting with mommy (daddy was already snoring away at this point) I put her into bed, she still would not lay down but did at least recline a bit to lean on her pillow and started watching Sesame Street once again. I think within 5 minutes she had fallen over onto her pillow and was asleep, and I finally got to bed too.

I am uploading videos from today to You Tube. It just takes too long for me to wait and we need to get moving here! So check them out: http://www.youtube.com/user/ssmshari