A brighter day!

The boys woke up at about 6:15 this morning (although I found myself awake at 4:30 again)to MORE rain and clouds. We played a little, I blogged a little, and then we called home a little. By the time it was all said and done and I'd showered, it was time for the little man to take a nap. I ran out and got us some breakfast at another bakery we wanted to try while Steve stayed back since he'd gotten Colby to agree to lay in the pack 'n play to sleep.

I think that the agreement to sleep a bit in the pack and play was a telling one as it seems he is a lot more accepting of us today. He's still a daddy's boy, but mommy's okay today as well.

After Colby woke up we decided not to let the rain get us down, so we packed up and trucked off to a grocery store to see if they'd happen to have some new binks for Colby. They didn't, but we did get a giant jug of water for just over a dollar and some yogurt for Colby to try. They had an amazing selection of orchids and other flowers. The fragrance was intoxicating!

Poor Steve had to schlep the jug of water on the rest of our excursion (not fantastic planning on our part). We walked a little ways (wish I could insert a direction here, but I have no bearings - should've picked some up at that market with Sunnie and Bill I guess!) past Fang's and found a drugstore which decidedly didn't have any baby supplies other than wipes and shampoo.

Colby fell asleep in the carrier, so we decided to keep on walking to get him a good nap. Moving on, we walked through the charming neighborhood we found by accident on Sunday. There's an open air fresh foods market down one of the lanes there and it was neat to see all the fruits, vegetables, and meats. I'll have to take some pictures when we visit again, but we forgot to take a camera with us today(after I vowed NEVER to be without a camera again after the ox in the street incident in China). I saw a little variety store and decided to give it a go for binks. SCORE! They had two and we bought them both! We also bought a cheap knife so we can stop saying "That fruit looks soo good - if only we had a knife!"

As we walked along we saw several restaurants we'd like to try. We looked for ones with either a picture or English menu and the picture menus far outnumbered the English ones. We actually don't really care if we know what we're eating, but we figure that if there is no picture or English menu, we might have difficulty actually placing an order!

There's a covered traditional market (with a department store on the second level) not too far from there, so we headed there next to get out of the rain. Colby woke up on the way. Short nap. The fragrance of lilies greeted us, but was quickly replaced by food smells as there were tons of stands with all sorts of cooked and raw foods, vegetables, spices, meats - just about any culinary item you can think of. Colby started to get restless and we figured he was getting hungry, so we decided to stop back sometime to check out the department store. We picked up some "take out" from one of the stands (fried rice, noodles and veggies, and a favorite green veggie of ours) and walked home. We gave Colby some rice (which he snarfed down with glee), but he also dropped a fair share and then tried to pick up each grain and stuff it into his mouth. That's all fine and good, but in the process, he dumped out about 8x as much as he was trying to get in. As a result our room and everything in it (not cleaned again today because for some reason they didn't do it while we were out) is covered in rice. Lovely!

He's definitely coming out of his shell today. He laughs frequently, holds eye contact, and is playing more games with us. He's chatty today as well. He loves for Steve to do a "Colby press" and throw him up. Daredevil child! His info sheet said he likes to play "heads together". We weren't sure what that meant. Now we know. It means he loves to ram his head into yours - or your shin or whatever is handy and then laugh wildly. The weather is still dreary, but I'm so thankful that today is a brighter one in our family!

I wrote that earlier while Colby was chilling in the pack 'n play. He laid down for a nap (as did we), but woke up not quite an hour in just screaming, so I picked him up and he railed against me. I held him close and he fell asleep again on my chest. I managed to move him to the bed at some point and "family nap hour" turned into "family nap 3 hours". We just woke up before 7, so although he's clearly pretty tired yet, I'm wondering when (or if) we'll all get some sleep tonight. Colby didn't wake nicely. He railed and railed against Steve and we assumed it was all temper (this child can give Kailin a run for her money on temper!!) and he does come around slowly after sleeping, but it turns out that in our own just awake stupor we neglected to think about the fact that he was starving or detect that he'd pooped through. No parents of the year awards for us today! Ha ha.

Tomorrow I think we're going to try to head out to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial and a handicrafts market I've read about (since we won't need to spend half the morning calling home and blogging - ha ha ha). They're in close proximity to one another. It's supposed to rain again, but it's supposed to rain through Friday and if we put off all of our excursions waiting the rain out, we simply won't get to see everything we want to see. Putting something off because Colby needs to go slow is fine with me, but weather's not going to keep me down!!