Misc. Pictures and Chinese Baby Food

Here are some miscellaneous pictures of Annika from our last day in Guangzhou and our trip home.Over a business lunch at Lucy's, David asked Annika's opinion of the latest email we received from the office. I missed her laying her chin on the table as she concentrated on the screen. She loves the Blackberry almost as much as Daddy, although her favorite things are the pictures of the cute Chinese baby and the big brother. Any time David took it out she would angle her head so she could check out the screen.

It's much easier to get a good Red Couch picture when there aren't 16 other screaming, squirming babies and your in a comfy dress.

"Hey Mom, quit taking my picture and get me out of this box they call a bassinet. I'd much rather be sleeping on Dad right now." Everyone recommended getting one of these things on our way home. First of all, they had a very hard time anchoring it into the wall so that made me a little nervous. Secondly, they placed a cardboard box like you would sort mail into in an office mail room into for her to sleep in. The male flight attendant was going to just leave it at that, but the female attendant filled it with pillows and put a blanket over the top of them. She woke up as soon as we laid her in it. We didn't even bother to ask for one on the flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis.

I wanted to take our little American citizens picture as we came out of customs, but four carry-ons, a stroller, and three large suitcases made it a little difficult, so I waited until we got to the lounge area to take her first picture in America. She insisted on getting dressed up for the occasion, even wanted to wear her new shoes with the roses on the toes. Who am I to argue.

So on to baby food. Be sure that you don't have any baby food that contains meat products when you go through customs. They confiscated our last bottle. It was marrow and vegetables and I wasn't going to feed it to her anyway because how gross does that sound!!!! They were concerned because they weren't sure what kinds of bones it came from (no one could read Mandarin) I also ended up with a bottle of shrimp and vegetable baby food (I know some people that would have serious panic attacks over that one). It was in a three pack that wasn't labeled in English on the outside of the packaging and went directly into the trash once I saw what was in it. So two important lessons on baby food from China (1) read the small English label very carefully before using (although there are helpful pictures on the front of the jars as well) and (2) don't take meat foods through customs (although I think they are mainly worried about poultry).