Playground

Before grandma and grandpa came into town, it seemed like Meliya was timid around playground equipment.  On the left is a picture of Meliya on her first slide the weekend grandparents came in town. Her buddy, little S, is thinking, "what's the fuss about, slides are so fun!" 
After three weeks of active climbing, Meliya started changing her view. This is Meliya in Beijing. She was loving the slide.


Here she is on some of the other playground equipment and walking steps:

Ye Ye, Nai Nai

 
Alvin's parents visited us in our city for about a month.  They were able to celebrate Meliya's first birthday and we all just traveled to Beijing for a weekend before they left.  Meliya had a wonderful time with the grandparents.  She enjoyed coming out in the morning to play with Ye Ye and Nai Nai.  Ye Ye taught Meliya how to climb up the sofa and then down again, and Nai Nai taught Meliya how to play "Chong chong, chong chong fei" (while imitating a fly flying with the fingers.)  Today was the first day Meliya was without her grandparents, and she was actually kind of grumpy.  I think she misses them.

Even in the 4 weeks the grandparents were here, she was growing and changing.  Before they came, she only would walk about 4 steps with help, and now she loves to walk around with assistance.  Meliya really enjoyed the time with her Ye Ye, Nai Nai, and looks forward to the next time with them.

Happy 1 Year Birthday Meliya!

This last Sunday was Meliya's one year birthday. Alvin and I can't believe she is already one.

We celebrated by having a little get together at our house. Meliya seemed to enjoy it; esp. the birthday cake (which Alvin calls a birthday bread.) It really is an apple bread (with no sugar added) with yogurt as the frosting, and fruit on top. The comment we got was that "it sure tastes healthy." Hmm, I am not sure what that means, but Meliya really liked it. I picked 4 fruits to decorate the cake, but there isn't a lot of berries or peaches in this area around this season. So I chose 4 fruits. Can you guess what they are? (Hint: The middle one is not oranges)

Here's little M opening presents:

 I noticed that I didn't update everyone on what little M is up to the last two months. Well, right now she can only say mama. She uses Mama for mom, milk, and more. I guess mom can help her satisfy all three of these things.

She can't walk yet, but grandpa just taught her how to climb and get off the couch all by herself. She is a really good climber, and likes to do things by herself. She still likes tofu and cheese (not together), and she likes to go outside. She doesn't like to ride the animated rides outside of grocery stores, but she enjoys bike rides in her bike seat and sitting in the grocery cart. We love her so much and am so happy that she is one! Yeah little kiddo; you are doing great!

M at one year old:

Sunflower

One day, we noticed that there was a sunflower downstairs in our apartment.  I never noticed it even coming up, but it was now at the height of Meliya.  So we quickly grabbed Meliya, and shot some pictures before the flower was taken away.

Shanghai

Pool time

Meliya and I went for 4 days to visit my cousin, Richard, and their family. At the same time, my other cousin, Jennifer, was visiting with her two kids and her mom. We spent a lot of the time just at the apartment, enjoying the pool and the other amenities at the apartment.

Meliya was actually really clingy the whole time. She did fine on the plane rides, but she wasn't so keen on being held by others, unless she spent some time with that person. That made it hard for me. Still, all my relatives really helped out.

Olympics

In honor of the Olympics, the 2008 mascot

The last few weeks, Alvin and I have been watching Olympics at night. After a while, I noticed that what we view on prime time in China is very different from what we view on prime time in the states. First, a big chunk of the viewing time is spent on table tennis and badminton. One foreigner friend here, also commented on how a lot of shooting and archery is also shown. This is because there is a lot of medals won by China in these sports. There was some swimming shown, but mostly it was when China won a medal. There was also a lot of diving and some individual event gymnastics. I still haven't seen the women's all-around for gymnastics (which I still want to watch). I heard it was played in the middle of the night.

 The last few days of the Olympics (which included mostly track and field), the sports channels were not playing new footage, but just old footage of when China won medals. I have always been easily moved to emotions by the commentators, but once or twice when the Chinese announcers got really excited, I was moved to tears by the excitement. I had to remind myself a couple of times that I root for USA.

 Still, it was fun watching the Olympics. I wish I could see which US athletes were getting profiled in the states, but now at least I know all about the ping pong gold medal winners.

10 Months

Meliya is now over 10 months old. She had another month where she is learning a lot. Now she can do the hand signals for "more," "milk," and "all done." She loves to do "more," even for toys and for mama. She likes to finish off the sign for "all done" with "more." It is quite confusing.

She can now pull herself to standing position, and also get down.  Holding on to the sofa or table, she can move around.

She is starting to get more clingy to mama.  Before, she didn't fuss at all when strangers held her, but now she seems to care more.  Her favorite food is now cheese and her favorite book is That's Not My Train.  Her favorite page in the book is the one that say, "That's not my train, it's funnel is too rusty."  The picture is textured so the funnel feels like a nail file.  Meliya loves touching it.  She will flip specifically to that page.

She often has a crooked smile.  Unfortunately, we haven't been able to capture it yet. She has two top teeth coming in. Here is a glimpse of them: