Tyler seems to be picking up English words pretty quickly. The first words this two year old learned are “no, no, no”. He confirms his understanding by accompanying his mimicked renditions of “no, no, no” with a finger wave and a smile for defiant emphasis.
I would calculate generously that 75% of the time when we need to say no to him he stops on his own accord. The remaining 25% end badly in some shape or form.
Because we have been eating most of our meals take out in our room, Tyler knows me as the man that comes with bags of food. I am generally greeted with him smiling and running to me. There are a lot of food options nearby so we have been able to get a good taste of things. We supplemented one meal for him with some gold fish crackers. Dexterity is not a problem for this kid, he was able to use chop sticks to eat several little gold fish. We have some pictures we will post later to prove this to the non believers.
We did go out to eat last night. The table and surrounding five foot radius looked like a rice bomb went off. I think he tricked us during our first trip into thinking he was a neat eater who was very attentive to our wishes. Either way I bought a double sized bottle of Cabernet to take the edge off bed time drama. For me, not him, relax!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Taipei 101
The new room has a view and is directly across the street from Taipei 101 which I was excited to find out has a KFC as well as being the world’s tallest building. See the link below.
Worlds Tallest Building Link
At 10 o’clock as we are fighting Tyler, literally fighting, to go to bed, it sounds like bombs going off outside our window. I scramble to the shades to see that every tier of Taipei 101 has ridiculously large fireworks shooting off. Some of these explosions seem to be coming right for us because we are on the 16th floor of our hotel. It was really nice to watch and it wasn’t like the fireworks set us back on getting Ty to bed. We were losing the battle at the time anyway. Here is a youtube video from a different night. The display we saw was much shorter so watch the first minute but notice the hotel in the lower right and you can see the rockets heading right for us.
Taipei 101 fireworks link
I was able to hold off for a few days but Sara and I decided it was time for KFC. Taiwan KFC’s have calamari as a side order instead of mashed potatoes….how great is that!
Tyler is definitely having some separation anxieties. Luckily he has bonded with Sara. Ty followers Sara around like a puppy and cries if he loses sight of her. The first trip to Taiwan this was not the case but he definitely understands to some extent he is leaving his nannies and friends behind. On the plus side he only wants Sara to change his dirty diapers so it’s not like he hates me or anything.
Worlds Tallest Building Link
At 10 o’clock as we are fighting Tyler, literally fighting, to go to bed, it sounds like bombs going off outside our window. I scramble to the shades to see that every tier of Taipei 101 has ridiculously large fireworks shooting off. Some of these explosions seem to be coming right for us because we are on the 16th floor of our hotel. It was really nice to watch and it wasn’t like the fireworks set us back on getting Ty to bed. We were losing the battle at the time anyway. Here is a youtube video from a different night. The display we saw was much shorter so watch the first minute but notice the hotel in the lower right and you can see the rockets heading right for us.
Taipei 101 fireworks link
I was able to hold off for a few days but Sara and I decided it was time for KFC. Taiwan KFC’s have calamari as a side order instead of mashed potatoes….how great is that!
Tyler is definitely having some separation anxieties. Luckily he has bonded with Sara. Ty followers Sara around like a puppy and cries if he loses sight of her. The first trip to Taiwan this was not the case but he definitely understands to some extent he is leaving his nannies and friends behind. On the plus side he only wants Sara to change his dirty diapers so it’s not like he hates me or anything.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Saturday Adventures
We got a call from Grace, our translator from the first trip, that we were in one of the largest multi-city Taiwan newspapers. Apparently it is very flattering according to the concierge who tracked down the article for us. We’ll need to get it fully translated when we get home so that we can make sure that is the case.
Our 15 minutes of Taiwanese fame has scored us a free room upgrade from the Hotel. We are now in a large suite with the best view available where fresh cut flowers and little gifts for Tyler were left. The second big plasma TV is the den is not necessary but we will deal.
We spent the morning at the pool. Tyler enjoyed getting his feet wet and throwing toys at me in the water. However, he was not brave enough to get in the water even with Sara holding him. He definitely trusts Sara more than me at this point. When he is uncomfortable or tired he is all over her. Basically he is a tiny version of me.
He was clearly tired but refused to nap when we got back from the pool. After a good deal of coddling, Sara decided she needed a shower. He stared at her, face against the glass shower door, to the point that I was getting uncomfortable. I was half expecting him to start whistling and clapping. When I tried to explain to him that he didn’t have enough dollar bills for that kind of view and remove him he put up a good fight. He’s definitely a hand full and then some.
Note to other first time parents. Swim diapers that slide up instead of unfold like normal ones add an additional layer of difficulty for changing when they include a double sized deuce.
P.S. Sara forgot the cord to download the pictures to the computer. I haven’t been able to locate a replacement. We may have to wait until we get home to post all the pictures.
Our 15 minutes of Taiwanese fame has scored us a free room upgrade from the Hotel. We are now in a large suite with the best view available where fresh cut flowers and little gifts for Tyler were left. The second big plasma TV is the den is not necessary but we will deal.
We spent the morning at the pool. Tyler enjoyed getting his feet wet and throwing toys at me in the water. However, he was not brave enough to get in the water even with Sara holding him. He definitely trusts Sara more than me at this point. When he is uncomfortable or tired he is all over her. Basically he is a tiny version of me.
He was clearly tired but refused to nap when we got back from the pool. After a good deal of coddling, Sara decided she needed a shower. He stared at her, face against the glass shower door, to the point that I was getting uncomfortable. I was half expecting him to start whistling and clapping. When I tried to explain to him that he didn’t have enough dollar bills for that kind of view and remove him he put up a good fight. He’s definitely a hand full and then some.
Note to other first time parents. Swim diapers that slide up instead of unfold like normal ones add an additional layer of difficulty for changing when they include a double sized deuce.
P.S. Sara forgot the cord to download the pictures to the computer. I haven’t been able to locate a replacement. We may have to wait until we get home to post all the pictures.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Friday Morning
With Tyler still leery of us it was very fortunate that Nicole the founder to his charity and 3 other children were also planning to take the high speed train back to Taipei. We are staying in Taipei which is the capital and need to finalize his travel documents here. The two hour train ride was non stop action. Ty cried for a few minutes and then fell asleep. Two other children though were running up and down the train car. The coke we gave them seemed like a bad idea and proved to be as much. Don’t judge.
We got tours of 2 much larger facilities in Taipei. One of which Tyler has spent some time over the years when he needed to be in the capital. There are older kids there and lots of people working hard at providing a stable environment. A few blocks away they have a facility for adults who are very sick. I think we found our new favorite charity. This one is hitting close to home.
Because Tyler has had a cough for a few days, and even though he has already been to the doctor once this week, Nicole suggests she take us to a clinic one more time before we take him back to our hotel. He has no temp, just the cough and spit up a little food which ended up on my shorts. The doctor prescribes some oral medication and one other type. Nicole’s English is pretty good so she tells me it is to be used if he wakes up at night because of the cough. Here is what I hear her say phonetically. “You put it in his azz-ole.”
I smile and joke to Nicole that he has a cough and not hemmroids using my words and hand signals. Sara is now embarrassed of me. This is getting awkward. She is repeating “put it in the azz-ole”. In the end the pharmacist does give us some suppositories and azz-ole is exactly what it sounds like.
Nicole and her assistant Hanna bring us back to our hotel and see us into our room. Tyler seems to be comfortable so they sneak out and it’s just us. Reality time! A few minutes later Ty is crying and he is in no mood for comforting. My Ferber technique shows no sign of progress so Sara trys picking him up. The melt down lasts about 20 minutes. He and I both are both soothed by HBO (also known as Home Box if you reign from some parts of Western MA) so the day comes to a comfortable end.
Midnight…some coughing leads to crying. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s azz-ole medication time. I look at Sara and say “God bless you”. Without getting too graphic the first attempt is…ahhh… refused. Sara is successful on try number two. There is a minor celebration, no high fives though…she hadn’t washed her hands yet.
We all got a good night sleep. Today we head to AIT which is our American Institute in Taipei for Ty’s visa. Before we leave we give Tyler a big bottle of some kind of PediaSure Nicole gave us which he sucked down. Now, while I am enjoying deep fried toast at an elaborate breakfast buffet, Sara is getting reacquainted with some regurgitated PediaSure. Poor kid is clearly still not feeling well and we rushed it with the full bottle. He and Sara need to go back to the room and change their clothes. I’m able to shake off the scene and enjoy another deep fried toast. I realized at this moment I am transforming into Pepere Gladu slowly but surely.
We get to AIT and have to kill about a half hour in the waiting room. We meet another couple from Texas who are adopting two children. Around the time they are saying that they are school teachers I get a full frontal blast of the remaining PediaSure. I honestly can’t believe there was that much chunky liquid in this kid. I’m in complete denial. I don’t even move nor does Tyler. Sara takes an anxious lap around the waiting room and declares that there is no bathroom. I haven’t moved despite the fact that my shirt and shorts are covered in what is approximately 12 ounces of upchucks. I’m still just looking at myself and Tyler in disbelief. A woman in the waiting room offers me a single tissue. Offering a single tissue in this situation is something my friends Mark or Eric would do, nostrils flaring, betraying their mocking.
Someone more serious brings a trash can. I’m able to scrape the biggest portion off into the can. Sara has located a bathroom on another floor. Tyler has a spare set of clothes in our travel bag. I on the other hand am not so lucky. I decide the only sensible course of action is to wash the entire front of my shirt and shorts in the sink so it doesn’t look like I messed myself before our visa interview. This is turning into a real life National Lampoon’s Asian Vacation. They made us check our camera at the security desk so you will need to trust me that the entire front of my shirt and shorts were borderline dripping wet during our interview.
The interview went well despite my appearance and they are just waiting on a currier to bring one more document. We should be able to pick up all our documents on Tuesday.
By the time we get back to the room Tyler is feeling a little better. He is keeping down small sips of apple juice and a few crackers. Apparently while I was at the store getting a thermometer, ginger ale, and snacks Tyler and Sara were playing well and he is repeating English words again. I use the word “apparently” though because this is all hear say…they were napping when I got back.
We got tours of 2 much larger facilities in Taipei. One of which Tyler has spent some time over the years when he needed to be in the capital. There are older kids there and lots of people working hard at providing a stable environment. A few blocks away they have a facility for adults who are very sick. I think we found our new favorite charity. This one is hitting close to home.
Because Tyler has had a cough for a few days, and even though he has already been to the doctor once this week, Nicole suggests she take us to a clinic one more time before we take him back to our hotel. He has no temp, just the cough and spit up a little food which ended up on my shorts. The doctor prescribes some oral medication and one other type. Nicole’s English is pretty good so she tells me it is to be used if he wakes up at night because of the cough. Here is what I hear her say phonetically. “You put it in his azz-ole.”
I smile and joke to Nicole that he has a cough and not hemmroids using my words and hand signals. Sara is now embarrassed of me. This is getting awkward. She is repeating “put it in the azz-ole”. In the end the pharmacist does give us some suppositories and azz-ole is exactly what it sounds like.
Nicole and her assistant Hanna bring us back to our hotel and see us into our room. Tyler seems to be comfortable so they sneak out and it’s just us. Reality time! A few minutes later Ty is crying and he is in no mood for comforting. My Ferber technique shows no sign of progress so Sara trys picking him up. The melt down lasts about 20 minutes. He and I both are both soothed by HBO (also known as Home Box if you reign from some parts of Western MA) so the day comes to a comfortable end.
Midnight…some coughing leads to crying. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s azz-ole medication time. I look at Sara and say “God bless you”. Without getting too graphic the first attempt is…ahhh… refused. Sara is successful on try number two. There is a minor celebration, no high fives though…she hadn’t washed her hands yet.
We all got a good night sleep. Today we head to AIT which is our American Institute in Taipei for Ty’s visa. Before we leave we give Tyler a big bottle of some kind of PediaSure Nicole gave us which he sucked down. Now, while I am enjoying deep fried toast at an elaborate breakfast buffet, Sara is getting reacquainted with some regurgitated PediaSure. Poor kid is clearly still not feeling well and we rushed it with the full bottle. He and Sara need to go back to the room and change their clothes. I’m able to shake off the scene and enjoy another deep fried toast. I realized at this moment I am transforming into Pepere Gladu slowly but surely.
We get to AIT and have to kill about a half hour in the waiting room. We meet another couple from Texas who are adopting two children. Around the time they are saying that they are school teachers I get a full frontal blast of the remaining PediaSure. I honestly can’t believe there was that much chunky liquid in this kid. I’m in complete denial. I don’t even move nor does Tyler. Sara takes an anxious lap around the waiting room and declares that there is no bathroom. I haven’t moved despite the fact that my shirt and shorts are covered in what is approximately 12 ounces of upchucks. I’m still just looking at myself and Tyler in disbelief. A woman in the waiting room offers me a single tissue. Offering a single tissue in this situation is something my friends Mark or Eric would do, nostrils flaring, betraying their mocking.
Someone more serious brings a trash can. I’m able to scrape the biggest portion off into the can. Sara has located a bathroom on another floor. Tyler has a spare set of clothes in our travel bag. I on the other hand am not so lucky. I decide the only sensible course of action is to wash the entire front of my shirt and shorts in the sink so it doesn’t look like I messed myself before our visa interview. This is turning into a real life National Lampoon’s Asian Vacation. They made us check our camera at the security desk so you will need to trust me that the entire front of my shirt and shorts were borderline dripping wet during our interview.
The interview went well despite my appearance and they are just waiting on a currier to bring one more document. We should be able to pick up all our documents on Tuesday.
By the time we get back to the room Tyler is feeling a little better. He is keeping down small sips of apple juice and a few crackers. Apparently while I was at the store getting a thermometer, ginger ale, and snacks Tyler and Sara were playing well and he is repeating English words again. I use the word “apparently” though because this is all hear say…they were napping when I got back.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
We made it. The travel to Taiwan was long but went relatively well. The only notable issue was an older woman sitting next to us who savored picking her nose and then rolling what she mined between her fingers until they dropped on the floor. No, I’m not kidding nor do I seek out body function humor. It just seems to find me. So, perfect traveling basically.
We made it to Tyler’s facility where there was a party for him. He looks good. They had Thai food for everyone including the kids. For those that are jumping to the conclusion that I am confusing Thai and Taiwanese food, I’m not. Just picture really spicy sauce, translucent noodles, shrimp and squid. Great taste when combined with the 90 degrees and no air conditioning. I was well lathered. Sounds like a great time to get our picture in the paper.
Surprise, here come reporters including photographers from two different news papers. Good thing I got a sexy hair cut. Did I mention that for several days some of the nannies have been showing Tyler pictures of us, telling him he is being taken to the United States? He understands only enough that this got him wound up starting yesterday and he didn’t sleep. When we showed up to the facility he wouldn’t even look at us and cried if we tried to pick him up. All the other kids were jumping into our arms. So back to press photos…I truly considered asking if it would be against their code of ethics if we used one of the non-crying kids as a stunt double strictly for the publicity shots. To summarize… sweat, crying kid, and good hair.
We are back at the hotel (which is really nice but also rumored to be haunted…more on that later) and Ty just stopped crying. He and Sara are both sleeping. If you recall from our last trip the two of them bonded over their ability to sleep often. I just finished wiping kid puke from my favorite Hollister shorts. I will fill in the story gaps tomorrow after we get some sleep. No relevant diapers to report.
We made it to Tyler’s facility where there was a party for him. He looks good. They had Thai food for everyone including the kids. For those that are jumping to the conclusion that I am confusing Thai and Taiwanese food, I’m not. Just picture really spicy sauce, translucent noodles, shrimp and squid. Great taste when combined with the 90 degrees and no air conditioning. I was well lathered. Sounds like a great time to get our picture in the paper.
Surprise, here come reporters including photographers from two different news papers. Good thing I got a sexy hair cut. Did I mention that for several days some of the nannies have been showing Tyler pictures of us, telling him he is being taken to the United States? He understands only enough that this got him wound up starting yesterday and he didn’t sleep. When we showed up to the facility he wouldn’t even look at us and cried if we tried to pick him up. All the other kids were jumping into our arms. So back to press photos…I truly considered asking if it would be against their code of ethics if we used one of the non-crying kids as a stunt double strictly for the publicity shots. To summarize… sweat, crying kid, and good hair.
We are back at the hotel (which is really nice but also rumored to be haunted…more on that later) and Ty just stopped crying. He and Sara are both sleeping. If you recall from our last trip the two of them bonded over their ability to sleep often. I just finished wiping kid puke from my favorite Hollister shorts. I will fill in the story gaps tomorrow after we get some sleep. No relevant diapers to report.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Travel Dates!
We finally have our travel dates!! We leave on September 1st and have our appointment in Taipei on Friday Sept 4th. We can't pick up his Visa until Tuesday Sept 8th so that means we'll have some time to tour around Taipei.
We'll be sure to keep the blog updated as often as we can.
We'll be sure to keep the blog updated as often as we can.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday's Web Chat
We had a Skype web chat with Tyler last night. He looks really good and seems happy. There was a nice man named Jack who was there with Tyler. He has done some work with the orphanage and has known Tyler for a while. Jack’s been in Taiwan for 55 years but was born and raised in New York.
Here’s a photo of Jack and Tyler.
Here’s a photo of Jack and Tyler.
At first Tyler was kind of confused about the whole web conference though. He couldn’t understand why we were on the computer calling his name and waving. This is about how the call went.
Maybe Mom and Dad are behind the computer…
Oh, wait, I have a very important call coming in and I have to take this…
Dad, the call must be for you…
Did I mention I got a new truck?
Eventually, because he’s two, he was done talking to us and we got a kiss goodbye. (OK, now my heart is broken…here come the tears)
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