A Meltdown, it had to happen eventually

[Yes I know I'm a bit behind. Let me just say that I have a new found deep respect for those who came here before and managed to post something each day.]

Back to the rest of Wednesday......

After Annie's medical exam, Rie, Annie and I made it down to the Ben Thanh Market. I had seen the market from the van (I've seen a lot from the van believe you me) and the american in me thought "Oh it's big that means air conditioning". I'm soooo naive. Yes, actually it's more than big it's huge. But there's no a/c and it's packed with tons of different vendors. There's no such thing as ADA compliance here so at times Annie and I could barely walk down an aisle with her in the carrier. When we first walked in, we were in the clothes section but that's not what we wanted so we ventured out. Well we found the food section and that's definitely not what we wanted. Remember the market is jam packed full and their no a/c. Well it was much easier to find the food section than to get out. I think all of us (Annie included) were breathing through our mouths to avoid as much of the smell as possible. Finally we found an exit and flew for it only to be hit by a ricksaw driver who really, really wanted to know where we wanted to go. Once we had recovered our senses we ventured back in and found a few great treasures. Many of them are gifts so I won't elaborate but I will say that Annie will have a great tea set when she's older and I think it cost me less than $10 US (I bought several items from that vendor and the grand total was $14 US). After a while though Annie started getting fussy from the heat and it's very hard to keep moving when you really have no place to move so although the adults weren't done, the kid was so back to the hotel we went.


And then the meltdown occured. Annie is great at everything but going to sleep. I don't know if she's afraid she'll miss something or has just never gotten the comfort she needed but she cries and kicks and generally turns herself into a mess. I'd had a sample of it before but this was definitely classified as an A-one meltdown. The fact that the only nap she'd had was in the van coming back from the exam didn't help matters of course. So Auntie Rie and I missed dinner with the group and Annie and I walked, we rocked, we laid on the bed, I rubbed her back and scalp (one of Annie's self-soothing mechanisms is to scratch/rub her head) and then we did it all over a few more times. Finally we gave up and ordered room service. Rookie mom move, I can't eat without her on my lap (no high chairs here) and what do I do, I order spaghetti. Let's just say the way I ate is not how I would do it at home. And yes Annie likes spaghetti and no I didn't drop any on her. She also decided that night that it's cool to feed mommy. Yes cool but hard to eat a full meal want piece of spaghetti at a time.

Shortly after dinner (which was capped off my a bottle of formula). we began the whole walking, rocking and head rub routine. After close to an hour, Annie was asleep and within 10 minutes I was too.

No pictures (do have some for Thursday's post though) but here's a link to a picture of the market. http://www.myphotographs.net/vietnam/picture350.html