It is amazing what blobs infants are. They start not even being able to see across the room. Their sensorium is so restricted. Around 2-3 months, the mini would grasp things if her hand accidentally ran into it. Around 4-5 months, she would grab at things within basic arms reach. By 6 months she was a reacher. Twisting and stretching, a-flippin, and a-floppin trying to get things in her hand and to her mouth. This of course made bath and diaper time funner.

In the past month or so, the mini has been perfecting her belly scoot which is starting to look like a proficient army crawl. It started with basic helicoptering, rotating on a point, and rolling over. It was fun to see her do combos of rotating and rolling to get closer to what she wanted. Pretty clever that mini. But now, she has given this up for the efficiency of beelining it to whatever has captured her attention, ya know: power cables, outlets, nightlights, tissue paper, all the things a parent really wants their child to be captivated and motivated by. This is a straightline directional scoot, scoot, scoot. Pretty cute.

Fortunately, at the same time she is developing and expressing her will, she is starting to become aware of ours. At about 9 months which she will be shortly, infants develop joint attention, the ability to look at a third object with another person. Joint attention is what allows a parent and child to look at a book together for example. Last time we read with her, I think she tried to eat the book. Soon, I hope, she'll be able to figure out that mommy is looking at the book and she is too. This, I hope-again, will help her to figure out that when mommy says No. Don't touch, that mommy's current will is the opposite of the mini's current intention. Right now, when she reaches for an outlet, I can say No. Don't touch, and she does look back at me before reaching again. I haven't figured out if I'm interrupting her course of action or if she's actually stopped her first course of action and is rebelliously making a second go of it. And I'm not sure if I should swat her hand or simply move her.

Ah the parent as child psychologist. Sigh.

Here's the latest in our adventures in church hunting.

With my mother in town, we thought we'd give another Chinese church a shot so this past Sunday we visited what seemed to be a or the significant Chinese congregation in the area. It was a cold and dreary day and service started at 9:30. Growing up we left home for church at 8:45, but most recently, I've been accustomed to a church start time of 10:30 and enjoyed the delicious lateness of it all. 9:30 is a bit on the early side but we managed. Their website had helpful information for how to get to the church buildings because you could see the church long before you figured out how to get into the parking lot. They very nicely had well-labeled visitor parking spots which were all empty when we arrived, so we picked one and then went in the nearest door.

The nearest door opened into a foyer ahead of what looked like a sanctuary. People bustled about while we four stood damply looking around. A couple people looked at us, but no one greeted us or moved in our direction. Finally my mom asked, "Can someone help us?" Pause. Then some guy put down his newspaper and responded. We asked where the English service was and the nursery. He took us back out in the rain down to another building tucked away. There we found both the English service and the nursery.

The nursery was behind a set of double doors that had been painted silver to mimic an institutional stainless steel look. In front of the double door was a "nurses window" with stern sounding signs telling parents not to forget their cards or that children could only be picked up if presented with their cards. So we stood in this line and thought, "Wow, they are really big on child security. Look they even scan barcodes on the back of cards. And are those photo IDs? Wow." We had maybe 5-10 min before the service started and felt we might make it on time. After waiting in line for 5 min, we got to the window ourselves and were give a form to fill out. So we get out of line and go fill out the form. Then we get back in line, hand over the form, and are given 2 stickers. One for the mini's back and one for us to use to check her out. Kinda tedious, but so far so good. We take her down the hall to the last room where they keep the little babies. The room was dark and we knocked. But I saw the room across from it was for nursing. The mini needed nursing, so I told N he and my mom could go to the already started service and I would nurse the mini.

In the nursing mother's room, there was another lady and her 14 m.o. son. The mini nursed, I made the smallest of small talk with the woman. I found her son's name and that was it. The mini nursed for quite a while, I changed her diaper and then went back to the room where we had been sent. Now a light was on, the door was open, and I went in. There was a woman in there, but she looked confused when I showed up. It turns out that the mini was the only baby that age and there were no caregivers for her age group, but I was welcome to sit in the room with her and play with her. And look, there was even a button for piping in the sound from the auditorium. She was nice and friendly but busied herself with something in the cupboards and dropping things on the floor in front of me for the mini to play with. And then she left. So there I was. Me, my baby, a bunch of toys, a large empty, cold room with a speaker piping in sounds from the auditorium. Mmm, why did I just go through that long and involved check in process? Why was I holding this check out sticker if I wasn't going to be dropping my kid off? If I wanted to play with my kid by myself for the morning, I could have stayed at home and listened to a sermon online.

The first church we visited didn't have childcare for us and we just kept her with us during the service. We've done that a lot and don't mind. The second church had a huge children's program and were really great with the mini, even having someone specially walk around with her to calm her when she was sad. This third church had all the airs of really putting a lot into their children's program which is probably why I'm so disappointed. If the woman in the classroom had offered for her to go up to the next grade and be watched there, or found someone who regularly attended to just pitch in for the day, or even told me to just go sit in the special area for mothers with young babies, I think I would have felt a lot better. But somehow she seemed to expect that I should stay in this cold room by myself.

The service that day was testimonies and baptisms. I think that's really great and I'm glad to hear about what God is doing in the lives of these brothers and sisters in Christ. But honestly, as a new person in a new place, it just magnified the sense of being alone. I had no idea who these people were apart from what they revealed in their testimonies through their disembodied voices. Also, I could sense the community and warmth these people experienced at this church and it contrasted so startlingly with what we were experiencing. As a mixed couple, we are never certain how a church community will see us. (This is weird in the sense that I don't think we worry about how his co-workers see us or how a bowling league would see us for example.) Apart from the woman in the classroom, the only other person that talked to us was a Caucasian guy, the only Caucasian guy I saw that day apart from N. I don't know what's worse, having no one talk to you outside the nursery like at the second church, or only having the one Anglo guy at a Chinese church talk to you like at this third church.

As I said, disappointing. Somehow my expectations were higher whether appropriately or not. This is the first church we're not returning to because of our experience there. But well, there are a lot of churches here so you gotta shorten the list somehow, right?