Sleep... What's That??

Ahhh... isn't jet lag FUN?? I managed to stay up all day yesterday without a nap (from 6 am to 9 pm). It wasn't necessarily something I wanted to do - it was more out of necessity. The kids were up, so we were up. We messed up a bit & let Xandra take a "nap" around 4 pm, and she ended up sleeping until almost 8 when we finally woke her up. By that time, though, Milo decided it was about his turn to take a "nap" (he'd fought us on that when X went down & managed to keep himself awake all flippin' day). 

Thankfully, Xandra was still tired around 9, so she snuggled with me & we fell asleep in the reclining chair. But Milo woke up screaming around midnight, so I am once again running on 3 hours sleep. Not fun. 

I think Matt & I are going to attempt trying the sleeping in shifts one of our FCC friends told us to do. I drew the short stick, so Matt gets to sleep first. At least it gives me an opportunity to update the blog some more (the kids are doing really well playing independently- especially Milo!).

So, the day after we got Milo, we had to do all the government office stuff (sign papers, wait, pay some fees, wait, sign more papers, wait, sweat out almost 10 pounds, wait, wait, wait) - there aren't many pictures of that day. 

The next day, our guide took us to a temple (the name of which is escaping me at the moment). It was really pretty, but once we got "inside" it turned out to be a pretty touristy area full of shops where we were hounded to buy stuff. 

All we really wanted at that point was some clothing for Milo. When I asked my guide to help us find baby clothing, she took us to a shop that only sold the silk outfits. While I did want a couple of those for special occasions, I was really looking for "everyday wear." She finally took us to a small mall type store (reminded me of a Macy's-type store), where we promptly overpaid for outfits that still didn't fit him (I really need to study some more metric units!). 

We'd intended to go a couple more places after the temple, but we were getting tired by the time we got through the temple. We ended up waiting another 45 minutes while the guide tried to find her way back to the driver (while we tiredly trudged through the entire temple 2 more times behind her)- we were exhausted at the end.

The next day (I think we're on Thursday 5/12 now?- I lost track of the days), we went to the Shanghai zoo. Xandra had been bugging us about going since we found out it was close to the hotel. She was desperate to see pandas. The zoo would have been much better labeled as a park- the animal portion was just depressing. Almost all of the walkways weren't paved in the way we are used to (like concrete sidewalks), it was almost exclusively paver stones. While they were pretty, it was very uneven terrain, and a large majority of the stones were loose or missing. It became quite treacherous for Xandra. The guide took a liking to Xandra, and was holding her hand while she speed-walked through the zoo. Xandra ended up wiping out twice, skinning the same knee both times. It really put a damper on the outing.

 This was a beautiful area for the geese & ducks.

I just don't have the heart to put up the pictures of the very depressing animal conditions on the blog. It makes me sad every time I look at them. Just suffice it to say that's where they put all the concrete that I was desperate to see on the walkways. 

We were once again exhausted after this outing. On the way back to the hotel, the driver took us by the Bund to get some pictures. It was a beautiful area - very modern Chinese style on one side of the river & old British style on the other. But it was so smoggy, the pictures barely turned out at all. I'm going to try to play with them to see if I can jazz them up at all. I did pick up some postcards at another tourist gift shop the guide took us to- they have amazing pictures of both the temple we'd visited & the Bund. I'm going to have them mounted & framed up for Milo's room. 

 Matt snuggled with Milo for nap time. They slept this way for about 2 hours. :)

 Milo started copying everything Xandra did. I'm so glad we brought her on the trip!! They clicked right away!

This was one of the first smiles I was able to catch on camera! He's so handsome!!