After breakfast, we had to report to the lobby to meet the other Holt families in our group because we all took a bus to the consulate together. This was the first time we got the see the wonderful Holzmeister family again we were with in Beijing. It did the heart good to see Julie and Tom and the kids and meet their new little son Austin. He is so adorable and about the same age as Mila. The Holzmeister kids, Madison and Dillion, really took to Mila right away and just wanted to smother her with attention.
We were a little nervous about the visa appointment because it involved a medical check. We had seen this part on the show, "The Little Couple" and we knew if could be quite traumatic. Mila was a little fussy when we got there but was mostly ok through the various rooms we had to go to. All the drs. could talk to her in Chinese which seemed to calm her down some. One lady was laughing when she pulled down Mila's pants and saw her chunky little legs. We knew the last room would be the worst because that is where they check for TB and so they take her in by herself without the parents and give her a shot. We had planned before hand for this event and Baba was waiting outside of the from with a bottle for her. Luckily, this tactic worked because she did come out crying but she let Baba soothe her to sleep. It was really nice because then she slept for 3 more hours.
During her nap, Baba went out around the hotel and checked the 7-11 and the McDonalds. This is a very nice hotel with many things close by to do. That will help this week to pass. At 3:00 baba had to report to a meeting with Holt to go over paperwork for Mila's visa application. At this meeting, Holt walked everyone through the plans for the week and it sounds like we are in for some fun complete with a trip to a safari zoo and a river boat cruz.
For dinner, we went across the street to a restaurant called the Coffee Table which has an American menu. It was very good. After dinner we went to Starbucks for a hot chocolate and played in the room for a long time.
As we have already written about, Mila has had a hard time bonding with Baba and also with wanting to have meltdowns whenever she doesn't get her way. At first, both of these were really hard to deal with. However, today is the first day we decided to deal with these head on. Whenever Mila started to cry, both Mama and Baba would stop paying attention to her. Then as soon as she stopped, we would go back to playing with her. She seemed to get it that crying to get her way wasn't going to cut it. Also, Mama and Baba made an extra effort to be affectionate with each other and hug a lot as Mila watched. We think this helped her to see Baba wasn't so bad. By the end of the night, she was laughing and playing with Baba all over the room and wanted to bring him things to check out with her. This parenting thing is tough!
