Thursday, Sept 27

Today was a mellow day. We had an appointment to pick up Sasha's passport in the morning. That took about an hour. Not too long considering all of the people in the room. Kenny handled it all really. He just asked us to come up and sign a form before we got the passport. Sasha and I went back to our place and relaxed since we had an appointment at the SOS clinic at 1:30 and I didn't want to be late. I like the nurse and the doctor at the clinic. It is a nice, clean place and the doctor was very knowledgable. Sasha was still 12 1/2 pounds, I had thought she would have gained a little. She did have a couple days of hardly taking any formula so that was probably why. She looks bigger and seems to fill out her diaper better. I found out from the doctor that the mongolian spots on their back and bottoms (very commom dark blue marks on their skin) are already noted in their paperwork. In case you don't know, you should have your doctor at home note them down when you have your baby seen. I worked in a preschool for years and twice had an employee come to me suspecting abuse and showed me the mongolian marks. It is very common with asian children. I think the docor said 90% of the babies had them or some high number like that. She is on the small side percentage wise-3% on the chart for babies worldwide. The doctor asked me a few times if I had any questions and was definitely not rushing me through, which was great. My only questions were about a small rash she has on her head (he said they have sensitive skin and don't do anything to treat it-it also may be from the heat) and the shape of the back of her head. She doesn't have a flat part, but it isn't quite rounded either. He said it will be fine and change shape as she gets older. I think he said by the time she is 18 months old. We paid our $65 American dollars at the counter and left. I decided to walk home, it's only a few blocks away from the Somerset and Melia. Sasha and I walked around for a while and then went through this market place between the Melia and Somerset. I had been trying to find pajamas for Sasha and hadn't had any luck. I found some in one of the booths on the left side almost as soon as you walk in the market from the Somerset. They were the thin kind with the baggy pants and cartoony character on them. She wrote down 250,000 on a piece of paper. That was way too high, so I asked again. She wanted me to wrtie down what I wanted to pay on the paper as well, but I asked again and she showed me a bill to show me how much-20,000 duong. About $1.25. I bought them. I am going to wash them tonight so she can wear them tomorrow night. They are pretty cute and look really comfortable.
I was planning on going to the Hilton Hanoi today or out shopping by the lake, but when we came home Sasha fell asleep. She stil hasn't woken up. I am going to wake her up as soon as I finish this or she won't sleep tonight. I was also thinking about going to this restaurant by the teddy bear store, Nagu, but knew that I had a better chance of eating a warm dinner if I ordered in. So I called Luna d'autunno (11b Dien Bien Phu) and ordered some pasta. It was here in about twenty minutes and was great! It cost about $7. I have eaten there four times, but this was the first time I had it delivered. They brought it right to my room and it was still hot. Nice life I have here!
Sasha took a really long nap and when she woke up I was ready to get out of here. It was already about 8:00 pm so I just walked around the neighborhood for a liitle while. I watched some of the people close up their stores and other people on the sidewalks just hanging out. It was so nice outside! It was cool with a great soft breeze and the air smelled good. The rain really helped, before it rained it was warmer and the air smelled so polluted I didn't feel right being outside with her too long. We went back inside our building at sat on one of the lounge chairs. It was so peaceful and nice, we were the only ones by the pool but there were a few people playing tennis nearby. After a while Sasha let me know she was hungry so we came back upstairs. We played for a little while before I gave her a last bottle and she fell asleep. I leaned her up against some pillows on the bed to take pictures and she can almost sit up on her own. She can roll over from front to back and back to front and is good at scooting around on the bed and floor. She has started to get more vocal the last day or so which is fun.