Library, baby sign language, and poop samples

We took a trip to the library this morning and checked out a couple of books and a DVD on baby sign language.  We haven't watched the DVD yet, but we've looked at the books and they're very helpful.  I know quite a few basic signs from the kids I work with at school, but we found some more that we couldn't remember or hadn't learned yet.  We've been actively working with TongJie on the sign for "more," and he's used it appropriately several times now.  We're not certain that he's really made the connection as to what it means yet, but we'll keep working on it and see what happens.

Last summer, Melonie and Adam had kindly given us a ton of baby supplies and clothes that Drake and Levi have outgrown.  Before we left for China, I went through the box of clothing and took out all the 18-month and 24-month clothes and a few 12-month ones and then I put the rest of the box out on the shelves.  It turns out that TongJie is wearing 12-month clothes right now, even though he's almost 21 months, so he is a fairly little guy.  Today we finally got the box back out and dug out the rest of the 12 month clothes, so it's as if he just got a few new outfits today!  Actually, he's been wearing a lot of his 18-month things but they're just a little big, so I have no doubt that before we know it he'll have outgrown those 12-month outfits.  It's fun to be able to get some use out of them while we can though.  And he has a lot of clothes in the 18 to 24 range that people have generously given us, so that's really great!  

Since our doc appointment on Tuesday, we've been collecting poop samples every other day, and today was the last day that we had to take a collection.  I (Crystal) have absolutely no problem with all things poopy, so I have had the distinct honor of capturing the poo and placing it into the vials.  TongJie seems to have no problem producing it, either, especially since he eats so much!  It needs to be tested for parasites and things like that, so today after his latest offering, we took the bag of poop containers to the hospital lab because we thought we could drop it off there.  It turned out that we had to take it to the clinic, but I think we finally got it where it needs to go.  They will send the results to Dr. Davies' office at the UW medical center.

I took TongJie and Albert for a walk while Jeff made dinner.  I wanted to help with making dinner, but TongJie was hungry and fussy and it took one whole person to entertain him while the other person worked in the kitchen, so it was actually more helpful for me to just take him for a walk.  We saw Lisa, who lives nearby and had taken care of our house while we were in China.  She was working in her yard and it was fun to get to talk to her for a few minutes and for her to get to meet TongJie.  Whenever TongJie meets a new person, he just stares with his classic serious expression that you've probably seen from many of the pictures.

After dinner, we got to Skype with Melonie, Drake, and Levi and that was fun.  Yesterday I got TongJie into his crib at 8:45 and he was asleep by 9:30, so our goal today was to shoot for 15 minutes earlier, which we did.  He was in his crib almost exactly at 8:30, and what do you know, he fell asleep right around 9:15, so our plan seems to have worked.  At least for tonight, anyway.  Last night he did have kind of a hard time in the middle of the night, but it was nothing compared to a week ago!  We'll probably keep trying for earlier in 15-minute increments as long as it keeps working.  We don't want to suddenly put him to bed a whole lot earlier, or we're afraid he'll only sleep for a couple hours and then wake up like he was doing last week.  In reality, we have no clue what we're doing, but this seems to be working for him so we'll keep doing it until we get to a more acceptable bedtime, or until our little plan stops working.

Only a couple pictures for today, because I forgot to take very many.  I'm sort of lamenting that I didn't take any photos of the poop samples, but that might have been kind of weird, so maybe it's for the best.  These are two photos of Jeff and TongJie hanging out this morning.  He was kind of squirmy and didn't look too happy for the first photo!  (TongJie, not Jeff)