War Ruminants....???

Well, contrary to Brett's last blog, we weren't visiting a farm museum about the history of 4-stomached Vietnamese animals....the War Remnants Museum was, however, very interesting! What stood out the most was regardless of whose side was being depicted, the horrors suffered by both soldiers and civilians were beyond words. It was especially difficult looking at the pictures of young children as we stood there holding Maiya, and being so thankful she was born in 2006 in relative peace. The infamous picture of Kim Phuc, running down the road with napalm burns, stood out, not only because of its fame, but because Mom & Dad had the privilege of hearing her story just a couple weeks ago when she came to speak in Listowel. While it was difficult to look at the exhibits, we felt it was an important part of Vietnamese history to familiarize ourselves with.

Today we ventured out on a more pleasant task - visiting a quilt shop. We had looked at their website before leaving, and finally made it there today. It's a not-for-profit organization that trains women in poor, rural areas to quilt, thus allowing them to develop skills in a trade that allows them to support their families. The detail in the quilts is amazing, and we bought a gorgeous wall hanging, that is almost the size of a twin bed. It will be a great keepsake for Maiya down the road.

Other than that, not a lot of news today. I've been feeling kind of rough for the last 24 hours, so Brett has been on Daddy duty a lot today. He seems to have the effect of a calm, soothing stream on Maiya, since she peed on him again today! We had her to the clinic again yesterday, and saw a different doctor since all the pediatricians are out in rural areas doing community work. We also had a great Canadian nurse helping which was nice. Maiya has already gained weight and is over 6 kg now! She discovered her toes finally today, and has been playing with them a lot. She loves having her feet rubbed, so my Dad will be quite happy to hear that, since anyone who knows him knows the first thing he does is get those socks off the babies' feet! She also loves getting kissed, and is now blessing us with lovely, slobbery, tongue-hanging-out kisses. She is generally quite happy, but once in a while gives us a lovely little screaming fit which we think may be due to teething. It seems to happen more when she looks at Brett though, so who knows....

Well, that's it for tonight. Keep the emails & comments coming (we added a place for you to post comments at the bottom of the blog if you're interested)! Our connection is a bit slow so we can't always reply to everyone, but we love hearing from you!

j