hello all, thanks for the emails. it's nice to hear from home. we're still in Nanchang and i have some time to kill so i thought i'd jot a line or two. we take off for beijing at 4pm. i still dont know if i'm coming or going. i just follow orders like a good husband! nudge-nudge-wink-wink. carol is napping right now with alana and had a little bit of mummy blues this morning. she is kinda tired cuz alana decided she wanted a snack at 2 this morning! i fell back asleep but carol didnt. welcome to parenthood! but you know, alana has this really gentle cry, she doesnt wail at all! its absolutely heart breaking. the only time she complains is when we wipe her snotty little nose, she doesnt like that at all! she lets out this loud NAAAAA! and then stops just as quickly as she started. i can make her laugh pretty easily and i just give her a tummy raspberry and she gives me a solid smile and a single HA!. her reactions are truly reserved. whether laughing or crying or babbling. she did start to imitate me by shaking her head left and right! it's so cute. i go "no no no" and she shakes her head "no no no". we did a group picture of the 8 little girls in our group and she just sat there without so much as a peep. this is a little worrisome. she is easy to go with strangers and does not put up a fuss. i guess it will take some time before she shows any stranger anxiety. --- yesterday was interesting. we were like rock stars!! we went shopping at a sort of pedestrian street that is popular with the locals.
all kinds of tiny little shops with more staff than they really need. a little 500 sq ft shop will have 10 employees! i guess when you have 1.3 BILLION people, they gotta do something. anyway, we walk into this place, kinda like Urban Outfitters without the fancy displays. we are immediately "attacked" by these 16 year old sales girls who almost started to fight over who would serve us! after one of them won us, she followed us with a trail of her coworkers who were pointing at me pushing a baby carriage. carol had bought a bunch of post cards from the dollar store back home and i open my pouch and handed a couple out and you should have seen the commotion this caused! it was hilarious! so i'm shopping around for stuff and our "designated" clerk was asking me to try stuff on. ok, i take off my jacket to try on one of theirs and this caused another wave of giggles. geez. wasnt sure if they were laughing AT me or WITH me! musta been my middle aged physique. oi. anyway, i pick out a few things and my clerk would sprint to the cash and come back to see if i was interested in anything else. BTW, alana was sleeping thru all the brouhaha and blaring techno-elevator-rock-classical-jazz-music. what a circus! carol and i were in stitches. i tried to get a group shot of all the clerks but they all suddenly vanished at the sight of my camera. the manager told "our" clerk to do her duty so at least i got a picture of her.
i still know how to play a crowd! HAHA!