A Fisher out of Water: December 2011

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

None of these would constitute a post by itself

We went to Ai Le You the other day to use up our punch card. It's an awesome children's playplace that has several locations around town, one of which used to be a short walk from our apartment. That one closed, and instead of returning our punch card, we just went to another location and used it there. Penny loves it, and I'm really sad the one near us closed. I had been looking forward to taking Penny there all during the winter.

Anyway... we played there for a while, and right when we were about to leave, the staff there started dancing with the kids. We couldn't leave during that!! So Penny danced with the other kids, and I was happy to get some of it on video.

- Penny's favorite books these days are the Berenstain Bears books. Besides learning all about things like staying a week at Grandma's, dealing with bullies at school (she calls it "sad sad bear"), too much birthday, and everything else totally irrelevant to a 2-year-old's life, she's also become a big fan of the Bear family. They have a mom, a dad, two kids, and some grandparents. Wait a second, you know who else has a family like that? Penny!! So now I answer to Mama Bear, Kevin answers to Papa Bear, and occasionally Naomi gets called Meimei Bear. Kevin and I are sick to death of the books, but we're fans of the nicknames, so the books stay.

- Before we left Virginia, I was sure to be prepared for two years in a country that may or may not sell deodorant. I figured I probably went through a stick every couple months, more or less, so I got a Costco 5-pack. I didn't want to get caught unprepared, so I threw another 5-pack in my grocery cart. Then when all my stuff got shipped to China, I ran out of deodorant like the next day. I bought a new stick for the interim, despite my having 10 already in a box shipping to China.

That was 8 months ago. I finally finished using that one stick today. At this rate, I believe I am set with deodorant for the next, I don't know, decade or so!

- Our bathroom has an odor. In fact, all our bathrooms have an odor. We used to call it the China odor, but that's not a very nice name for the smell of crap and open sewers. We've called repairmen several times, and like our heater, usually they just come and do a temporary fix. So we just dealt with it, turning on the fan and shutting the bathroom door.

Finally, they've come and fixed the problem, sealing the space around the pipes under the sink in one bathroom, and resealing the toilet in our bathroom. I'm so happy my house smells so nice now! We have a wonderful, beautiful apartment, and I always felt so ungrateful to complain about anything. It's an awesome house! It's just hard to enjoy it when it's 85 degrees and smelling like a sewer. But now both of those problems are solved, I'm almost over my cold, and Christmas is right around the corner. Life is great! And aren't you glad I didn't make a whole post about that?!

- Down in our breakfast room, the BBC news is always on. Yesterday, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister of some sort was on, condemning the violence in Syria, I believe. Penny and Naomi like to keep up on their foreign affairs, so they were both watching intently. Penny turned to me and pointed out, "Jesus Christ!"

Um.... I wasn't too sure how to respond to that. I'm pretty sure I responded with the best response I could think of for my 2-year-old: "That's not Jesus Christ, it's somebody different. I think that's the Saudi Arabian foreign minister." I don't mean to overestimate my kids or anything, but I'm pretty sure she knew exactly what I was talking about. ;)

-Apparently my internet connection is back up to snuff. It was painfully, frustratingly, and horribly slow for the last 2 weeks or so. But it looks like I can go ahead and post some of the pictures I've been meaning to. Yay!

A rough few weeks

We're going on 2 weeks of cold/flu season here. The person I feel the most sorry for is little Meimei. She kicked off flu season in style by puking all over the place--while staying home with a babysitter, no less. A week later, she caught the cold the rest of us have been sharing. Then a few days ago, she decided to reach for some toys just out of her reach, toppling over face-first into our TV stand, leaving her with this nice red bruise across her face (see above). And if that wasn't enough, yesterday and today she just popped out her first two teeth! Poor little baby!
Meimei has been drooling profusely for about 2 1/2 months now. Right when she started, everyone chalked it up to teething. I know this last little while can be attributed to teething, but the first month and a half? I attribute it mostly to the fact that she leaves her mouth open and doesn't swallow. You try that! Teething or not, you're going to get some slobber on your shirt.
Now that the teeth have popped up, the flu has passed, the cold is getting better, and the bruise has faded to a soft yellow, things are starting to look good for our little Meimei. If the rest of us follow, we may get into the Christmas spirit again here pretty soon. Wouldn't that be merry?

Monday, December 19, 2011

A few weeks ago, Kevin and I had a conversation about my pathetic wardrobe. It pretty much consists of t-shirts and jeans. "How many blouses do you own?" he asked me. "Umm..." I mentally riffled through my closet, "...none." This turned out not to be true. I have a black button-up shirt that I haven't worn since having children. And since it has buttons, it counts as a blouse. But recently, I've had the occasion to attend events where my usual thought process of "what t-shirt would go best with this?" isn't entirely appropriate. I live upstairs from H&M, but after a few futile shopping trips where I ended up buying nothing but a couple more t-shirts to hang next to the ones of the exact same color in my closet, I realized I needed some help.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

A Murder...

... of Ravens

I like a lot of things about Shenyang, but its wildlife isn't one of those things. There are buildings and skyscrapers growing here like weeds and pavement as far as the eye can see, but nothing natural or growing. Actually, I take that back. I can see one old building that has some weeds growing out of its roof, and if I squint and look really far on a clear day, I can see part of a tree in Shenyang's park. So we're not exactly teeming with nature here.

But in the last week or so, a giant flock of birds has decided to make our apartment building their nesting place. I would prefer cute little birds that say "tweet-tweet" while they hop around pecking for seeds, but I'll take what I can get. Every night, hundreds or possibly a thousand ravens circle and swirl around our building before settling down for the night.

I'll admit it's a little creepy. The sun goes down here at 4:30, and giant black birds swooping past our windows in the dark is a little unnerving. Last night I peeked out Meimei's window to see four of them perched on her window sill with their feathers poofed up and heads under their wings. It was sort of cute, even if they were large, black, and only inches from my face. Okay, it was cute but creepy.

But I'm happy to have nature come visit us. I'm starting to ache for wilderness, trees, animals, and let's face it, anything that's not paved over with concrete. So I welcome the giant murder of ravens that come visit every night.

A Murder...

... of Ravens

I like a lot of things about Shenyang, but its wildlife isn't one of those things. There are buildings and skyscrapers growing here like weeds and pavement as far as the eye can see, but nothing natural or growing. I can see one old building that has some weeds growing out of its roof, and if I squint and look really far on a clear day, I can see part of a tree in Shenyang's park. But in the last week or so, a giant flock of birds has decided to make our apartment building their nesting place.

I would prefer cute little birds that say "tweet-tweet" while they hop around pecking for seeds, but I'll take what I can get. Every night, hundreds or possibly a thousand ravens circle and swirl around our building before settling down for the night.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Sauna no more

Since November 1st, our house has been a sauna. You've heard about this.

But as of last night, the heat is officially turned off! Yay!!! It only took about 8 or 9 calls to maintenance. . . .

Festivities

The whole week of Thanksgiving, I was really itching to start Christmas. I threatened to decorate about a week early, and I almost did, too. But then Kevin said that if I decorated early, he'd just open all his presents early. He knows me too well. That makes me soooo mad! If you open your Christmas presents early, then they're not Christmas presents. They're just random stuff that someone sends you. And if all your presents are opened, what are you supposed to do on Christmas morning? Yeah, answer that, will you.

So I put a wreath on our door and called it good.

I just didn't want our neighbor's decor to feel lonely. His had been up for several weeks already... which is ironic because he's super grumpy. Once in a while we take Penny to run around in the hallway and play soccer. If he's home and hears her, he opens his door and glares at us from his wreath-bedecked doorway.

Anyway.

Once Thanksgiving had passed, we moved full-steam on to Christmas! We pulled out the tree, tree skirt that I finally finished, and all our awesome decorations. We sang Christmas carols, listened to them on Pandora, and got out our nativity sets. We'd read Penny's little Christmas Story book, and once in a while we'd watch a Christmas movie like Charlie Brown or The Snowman. We kept it up for a couple weeks.

But for the last week or so, we've been sick. Well, Kevin was sick last weekend, and now Penny and Naomi both have something. Naomi threw up a couple times last week, and today I had the joy of cleaning up Penny barf like 3 times... so far.

I'm getting a little sick of watching The Snowman multiple times per day, but at the same time, I love it. It's only a half-hour long, so it doesn't glue Penny to the TV for very long. It doesn't have any scary parts like most other movies do. And Penny loves it! She tells us about the snowman, the rabbits, the flying, the mommy snowman, and everything else that happens. I feel like her brain hasn't completely shut off when she watches it. It's a good movie.

I'm hoping the kids get better soon so we can resume our Christmas festivities. I'd love to get out of the house occasionally, too. But most of all, I just hope I don't get it. I'm very grateful for being spared thus far, and I'll just keep washing my hands.

Friday, December 09, 2011

Now with a picture!!!

Aaaaaaaannnnd, we have a sitter!

(insert picture of cute, smiling, sitting Naomi)

She's six months old now, and almost to the day, she started sitting on her own. I'd put her in the bumbo, and when Ayi would take her to help fold laundry, she'd prop her up against a pillow or two. Now she can sit without either one! And just in the same few days, she's happier and much more interactive. It's like she knows she's a big girl and can be part of our big-person world.

Welcome to the world!

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Whining a bit

Let's just mention how I hate the new blogger interface. It doesn't work well with my crappy internet connection. Hence the lack of pictures.
But other than that, everything is wonderful. My kids both have colds, but only one has thrown up. But she's the baby, and who's to say it wasn't just an enthusiastic spit-up?
It's really, really cold here. When the wind isn't blowing, it's comfortably below freezing. Bring on that gust of wind, though, and the inner-Mongolian ice shoots straight through your soul. We never dress warmly enough for it. That's because.......
Our apartment is part sauna. I'm more and more annoyed with the place how it won't stay anywhere below like 75 degrees. Try bundling up and getting ready to visit the North Pole in that kind of atmosphere.
It's too hot to sleep more than a few hours at night. And our bathrooms smell.
That's all.
I had a new dress made. I'm going to go pick it up tomorrow. I hope it's cute.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

I've been slowly realizing how hopelessly unfashionable I am. It's not that my self esteem rests on how nice my clothes look, or that I want to impress other people so they think I'm cool. It's just that sometimes I'm getting ready for a dinner or something, and I realize that NONE of my t-shirts is appropriate for the occasion... but I don't have any other options. I was talking to Kevin about this the other day, and he asks me, "How many blouses do you have?" I thought carefully, mentally riffling through my closet and other boxes of clothes I might have. "None," I said truthfully.
This is sad.
I have a couple legitimate excuses. First of all, I've spent 18 months of the past 3 years pregnant. I have some cute maternity clothes, in case anyone was wondering. And then before being pregnant, I was hoping to soon become pregnant, so I could always put off buying new clothes by telling myself, "Why should I buy a new outfit? I'll just outgrow it in a few months." It didn't turn out to be true for more than 2 years, so my non-maternity wardrobe was wearing thin.
Also, as a college student. . . .

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Whew, we made it!

I took the girls shopping at Wu Ai today. Wu Ai is Shenyang's everything-under-the-sky market. It's so big it covers at least a city block, and it has like seven stories. The place is huge!!! We were there for 2 or 3 hours, and we just covered one small corner-- only three stories of the corner, too.
Now that it's December, the first floor is selling Christmas stuff. Imagine stall after stall after stall, each selling tinsel, lights, animatronic Santa Clauses,* ornaments, and Christmas trees of every shape and color. Now, take that image you've conjured up, multiply it by a million, decorate it like your tacky neighbor's light display, and drown it in tinsel. Okay, now you're almost there.
My personal favorite decoration I saw was a bright pink and red tree. It was a typical artificial Christmas tree, similar to the one in my apartment-- only red. Then it was wearing a fluffy neon-pink tree on top of its branches. Neon pink and glittery.
I needed some jingle bells, so after I found my tacky jingle-belled ornaments, I bought them and hurried out of there as quickly as I could. I've always imagined Santa's workshop as a happy, wintry little place where elves make toys one by one with hand tools. Now I know it's a sweatshop. And it's in China.
Taking the girls out shopping is no mean feat. I have to bundle them up in wraps that don't take up too much space. I load them and my purse/diaper bag into the double stroller. Then I hail a cab and unload the girls and my purse into the back seat. I fold down the double stroller as quickly as I can and heft it into the trunk of the taxi. Then I hurry back and jump in the cab with my girls before too large of a crowd forms. Then the reverse happens when we pull to the side of the road and hop out at our destination.
Shopping with two little girls is only possible with enough bribes. I bring food, enough to feed a toddler and her mother twice over. I packed cookies, fruit leather, and saltine crackers, not knowing ahead of time what she would prefer to eat. I've stopped packing drinks because they're too heavy, and we can just buy a juice wherever we go. Penny munched the saltine crackers, I ate the cookies, and Naomi drank milk. Penny played with the iPad while I nursed Naomi. It says a lot for the iPad that it wins the attention of a 2-year-old, even in Santa's workshop's wholesale outlet store.
While we actually shop, it's kind of hard to maneuver the double stroller through the aisles between shops. This isn't because they're particularly narrow, but because if I stop to look at anything for even a second, a crowd forms. It's usually the shop owner and the owners of all the shops nearby. They pat Naomi's hand and try to pat Penny's cheek or hand. Penny squawks, then closes her eyes and pretends she's asleep, while I brush any hands away. Sometimes I'll say, "Don't touch," or if I'm in a particularly chatty mood, "She doesn't like people to touch her, but Naomi doesn't care. She's not old enough to mind." Then Naomi gets all the attention, and Penny continues to fake sleep. When I'm ready to go and there's a crowd, I know people aren't trying to be rude-- they're just interested and admiring. And it doesn't hurt that they're saying over and over how cute my kids are. I don't want to be rude to that! But I also need to leave, and there's a crowd. So I've found the best way to go is just say, "Hao, wo men zou le." It means just, "Okay, we're going now." It's also a nice way to say goodbye if you're leaving, like "Okay, see you later!" When I say that, people just go back to their business and leave me to mine.
When we're not stopping but just strolling through the shops, it's fun to hear people tell their friends to come look at the cute little foreign kids. "Hey, come look at the little foreign baby. She looks just like a little doll!" usually followed by, "Woah, there's another one in the back seat! I thought that one was a toy doll! Foreign kids are all so cute!" I just smile and pretend I don't understand. Almost as often (like 1/3 of the time), people say, "Well, that stroller is pretty cool. Hey, come look at this stroller!" I do have a pretty cool stroller.
On the way home, it was kind of hard to find a taxi (impossible), so we waited a while for the bus. Penny spilled her drink all down her front and onto her lap, which isn't fun when it's warm, much less when it's well below freezing. Meimei got too cold, so I had to wrap her in my sweater on top of her snuggle suit. The plastic bag holding all my shopping spoils didn't like the cold temperature either, and it decided to split into about 6 large pieces. And our bus still wasn't there. Some helpful ladies helped me hail a cab. It wasn't an official cab, and I'm not sure how they stopped him, but anyway. He charged me 4 kuai more than a regular cab would have, but that's like 60 cents and it was worth every penny. Meimei slept on the ride home, and we had lunch and took naps. Obviously I didn't nap (otherwise when would I have written this beast of a post?), but Naomi did and Penny still is, two hours later.
If every day were like this, I would recommend everyone move to China with two young kids in tow.

*Bah humbug moment: The guy's name is Santa Claus. When you write 'Santa Clause,' you're talking about the fine print on a contract (a clause). And you look stupid. Get it right, people. Claus. No "E."
Ahem.
Um, here is some good cheer to sprinkle on that: ************ (see, snowflakes!)