Bananas

When baby Jasmine was handed to us by her nanny from the Yangxi Social Welfare Institute last week they told us, "Chinese babies like formula mixed with rice cereal. And Chinese babies like their food quite hot. No cold food for Chinese babies."

All of the parents dutifully marked this down. We were also told that, "Chinese babies like to have their tummies covered with blankets when the sleep."

Got it.

So for the past week, I've been following the instructions. Three scoops of rice cereal, three scoops of formula, mixed with warm water, and voila, a dinner fit for baby Jasmine. It's quite a thick mix, but she really does like it.

This morning I thought she might like something a little different. So we gave her mashed bananas with congee. Congee is Chinese porridge, it's warm, with a bit of oatmeal mixed in. Baby Jasmine thought this stuff was amazing, especially when I mixed some bananas in with it.

We've been living in a very fancy hotel for a week, and I thought today I would try to bring some routine back into her life. Up for breakfast, a bit of banana congee, dressed, and out for a walk around Guangzhou.

We had a really good walk. She is a very cute baby, so she inspires lots of attention. She was in the stroller as I pushed her near the Pearl River today, when a Chinese Granny wanted a peek.

She stroked her face, then picked her up. And began showing her to all of her friends. She asked how old she was. I explained she was 8 months old. She gave her a hug. She wanted to know more, so I pulled out my handy, dandy, English/Chinese explanation card.

The cards say in Chinese Characters and English that baby Jasmine is a Chinese orphan from Yangxi, that she is an 8 month old baby girl. That I am from Canada. That I adopted her, and that now we are her parents. And that we are very happy.

The woman read this, closely, she looked at me, and held my hand squeezed it and smiled.

Then she explained this to all of her friends. They had quite a discussion about this. They were all chatting around the baby. They held her, and hugged her. Then the older woman helped me push the stroller.

After a few minutes, I motioned that I was going up another street. She waved good-bye. I walked about half a block, when the Chinese Granny was back. She handed me a small bunch of bananas for baby Jasmine.

We'll have to have some bananas for dinner tonight.