Day 4 (Wednesday) was the first time we struggled with a cranky, fussy baby. He started out fine. He slept through the night, got up and took his bottle, got a bath and had some play time. We decided we were going to go to the Ben Thanh Market with a couple of the other families.
Ben Thanh Market is this amazing, sort of flea market with row after row after row of people selling anything you can think of. There are T-shirts, shoes, hats, sunglasses, meat, veggies, dried fish, etc etc etc. Every step of the way you are bombarded by "Sir, buy this shirt!" "Sir, buy this. You need this!" "Sir, how much you pay? You love this!" There are two different kinds of vendors - fixed price and not-fixed price. Let me tell you that you had better have your negotiation skills honed because the people working the non-fixed price booths are TOUGH. Dallas did a pretty good job squeezing one older lady on an "Abercrombie and Fitch" collared shirt. He ended up getting it for about $6 and she wasn't happy about it... or at least that's how she acted. She probably paid 50 cents for it. We bought some other shirts, including two "Hard Rock Cafe Saigon" T-shirts. The funny thing about them? There's no Hard Rock Cafe in Saigon! At least not an official one.
Everywhere we went, people (mostly the women) would come up to Logan and rub his legs, ask his name, smile and just basically talk endlessly. Most know some English and you kind of just smile and say "Yes, yes" and hope you get out of there in a reasonable amount of time. They all mean well, it's just a little disconcerting having all those people touching your child. It's a custom here though so you kind of just go with it. I don't know many parents in the U.S. who would go for it.
Anyway, on the taxi ride to the market, Logan was a little cranky but nothing too major. We should've known something was wrong because he usually likes car trips. Walking around the neighborhood and through the market he would be OK, then fussy, then OK, then cranky. This went on for the 2 hours we were out. By the time we got back to the apartment, he just got fussier as the hours went on. He wasn't hungry, sleepy, dirty... he was just cranky and noisy. It wasn't until later in the evening that we found out what the problem was... the dreaded G-A-S! After he, um, released it he was fine. I think this was a big lesson learned.
Here's the bigger news... the agency gave us paperwork on Logan's beginnings. We have information on his mother and a bit of her circumstances. She was 21 when she had him and she abandoned him at the hospital where he was born. In Vietnam, everyone knows that the government will place abandoned children in orphanages with no questions asked so she knew he'd be taken care of. I hope you'll understand that this is all the information that we're going to share right now. It's important that Logan decide for himself how he wants to handle it someday. It's also important that he learn the information before all of the people in his life do. I think he'll appreciate it someday.
Otherwise, I (Scott) just had some paperwork to fill out at a meeting with all the other families and we pretty much called it a day. Dinner was uneventful at the Cafe in the lobby (other than the waiter, waitress and manager all coming over and spending a lot of time with Logan and asking a lot of questions). It's all just a day in the life in Vietnam.
Talk to you tomorrow.
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