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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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. . . . 

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!)

Sleepies

I don't sleep very well. It's not because of Naomi-- she sleeps like a log-- it's because of me. I just can't do it.
Sunday night, I slept great until 3:30 AM when the computer set up in our room (long story) went to sleep and left its screen blaring bright blue. I turned it off, hopped back in bed......... and just lay there until 6:30 or 7. Thankfully, though, our housekeeper comes on Monday, so when the girls took their afternoon naps, I got to sleep too. I slept for 1 1/2 hours and felt GREAT. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so rested.
Unfortunately, this meant that last night, I went to bed at like 10:30 PM, and I wasn't tired at all. I kept glancing at my clock every hour or two, and I think I finally fell asleep around 4:00 AM. Then I woke up at 5:30 to feed Naomi, and I've been awake since.
I pretty much hate it. 'What are the problems?' my mom is going to ask. Well, first of all, our apartment is too hot. We get sunlight all day long, turning our home into a solar oven. I open the windows and the door, which helps some, but with the 24-hour construction just outside and the pollution, this isn't as helpful as you might think.

Surpies!

These pies were buckled up more than anyone else in the car, I'm sure

Pies, get it? Yeah...my title sounds lame even reading it. And yet, that still doesn't keep me from deleting it. But this whole post is about pies, so consider yourself warned.
Every year I have to relearn how to make a pie crust. Thankfully, my first tries are getting better and better, and perhaps soon I'll be able to just make a pie crust without a practice one first.
A few weeks ago, I was feeling festive, so I made a pumpkin pie to start of the holiday season. I made it from a pumpkin I bought here at the supermarket. I've got to say, China's pumpkins are really tasty! America's pumpkins are bred to be bright orange, round, and hollow in the middle. The flesh is pretty thin and waxy, and it doesn't usually get eaten. But here, it's like they breed the food to be eaten, or something weird like that. I couldn't carve a Chinese pumpkin if my life depended on it, unless I had a power jigsaw. The hole in the middle is about the size of my fist, and the rest of the thing is wonderful orange squash. So I made one into a pie.
Then the other day at the Consulate, there was a Thanksgiving shindig where we cut to the good stuff and just had apple cider and pies. I made a couple of lemon-meringue pies, and since this is my blog, I am going to brag for a moment. Or a few moments.
Making pies while watching two kiddos is an all-day endeavor. I packed up the girls and the stroller to go down to breakfast, and we left from breakfast to get lemons and sugar from the grocery store. Fast-forward to 11:00 PM, and I finally took the pies out of the oven. Oh, I did a lot in between those steps, but for most of the day there was flour, half-made pie crusts, or partially made pies on the countertops.
While I make pies, I always remember that line from Mary Poppins: "Oh, that's a pie crust promise; easily made, easily broken." I'm not sure where she got her idea that pie crusts are easily made, because mine sure aren't! I made these wrong, forgetting to prick them before baking them. They still tasted wonderful, but the whole thing poofed up in the middle, bringing the sides down about an inch or so. Ugh! Live and learn. And relearn.
We don't have a mixer, so I called around and borrowed one. I pulled it out to make the meringues at 10:00, and..... it didn't work. Gaaahhhh! So I got out my whisk and started beating. I've made a hand-whipped meringue in the past, and it was all of one centimeter tall. Basically, it was like pouring scrambled eggs on top of the pie. But this time, I used cream of tartar (like the recipe calls for... whoda thunk!), and the meringue whipped right up into a 2" froth. I couldn't move my arm the next day, but it was worth it.
The saddest part of my Thanksgiving was that the lemon part stayed a little goopy, so no one really ate much at the pie party. Sadly, this meant I had to bring 3/4 of both pies back home, and even more sadly, I had to eat them all myself.
I might have to make another one just to numb the pain.

Wives and Daughters

Goodreads keeps sending me these emails asking how my progress is going on my book I started reading 150 days ago.
Not well, as if they needed to ask.
Wives and Daughters is by Elizabeth Gaskell. It was written 50 years after Jane Austen died, and it doesn't have quite as much of a literary feel to it. I think it was the pop fiction of its day. It has been a nice read.
At the beginning, I especially loved the father character. He is hilarious, and he also has a close and comfortable relationship to his daughter. Unfortunately, it's not called Wives and Daughters because it's about the dad. A stepmother enters the picture, and while she isn't terribly wicked, she does drive a wedge between the father and daughter. I found myself missing the father, which was probably the point, as the main character misses her father as well.
So I liked it for the first 550 or so pages. But now I'm on page 600, and for the life of me, I'm not sure I'll ever make it to the end on 644. These last pages have been torturous!
First of all, it's an unfinished novel. Gaskell died before it was finished, meaning that while I know what's going to happen (main character is single, long hoped for suitor is suddenly available), it's not actually going to happen. Not much motivation to get to the end when there is none.
Second of all, and most importantly, I'm sick of everyone getting sick and dying. I swear, someone gets startled by a thunderclap, and next thing you know they're sick, pale, and in bed with a fever for a few weeks. A bunch of the characters have already died, and none of them from any good reason. They just gradually felt kind of uneasy, and next thing you know, they're dying of consumption or something. I realize that back before they knew about germs, that's how they thought these things worked, but it still doesn't make for a very compelling read.
Okay, I should probably just finish the darn thing. Back in high school, I had to read Middlemarch by George Eliot, and I got about 600 or 700 pages in it before I realized the plot had never started. I just couldn't read another page of "a day in the life of a bunch of boring people in a boring little town called Middlemarch." I didn't finish it. I failed English that term and ended up with a C on my transcript my final semester of high school. I kind of wish I'd finished that one.... but not enough to go back and actually do it.
If any of last year's English students are reading this, please disregard the previous paragraph. I was always a perfect student and always did all of my homework. In fact, I read every single page of every single book my teachers assigned me.
Ahem.
So I'm going to finish the last 44 pages now. Don't expect an update on how it ends. Because it doesn't.

Saucy

On Friday afternoons for the last little while, some of my friends have been inviting us over to cook lunch and hang out. We went to my Japanese friend, Kumiko's house and made sushi. I missed most of the making part, but I was very helpful in the eating part. Then we went to my Chinese friend, Elaine's house and made wonton soup. Now I know how to make wontons! We all have kids about the same age, so we let them play and wreak havoc on the house, while we wreak havoc on the kitchen. Good times!
I really wanted to teach something American, but I couldn't think of anything cool. I could teach them how to make peanut-butter sandwiches. "Here, you take this knife, spread peanut-butter on the bread just like so, and then choose from this half-used jar of grape jelly, or perhaps some honey." I was less than impressed just thinking about it.
Ooh, I make really good cookies! We could make chocolate chip, or we could make sugar cookies and let the kids decorate, or we could make gingerbread houses!!!
Is there any wonder why Americans are fat?
So when I realized apples are in season, I bought a whole bunch and decided to make applesauce. It's not half as cool as sushi or wontons, but it's kind of cool. And I like to eat it.
I was worried how my friends would take it. I was imagining working to peel, cook, and then mash the applesauce, then displaying... tadaaah! the final product!... only to have some polite smiles, nods, and inner thoughts saying, "Wow, it's some overcooked, mushed apples." Or, "Mmmm, baby food."
I wasn't sure how it would go over, but it's something I like, something I know how to make, and by golly, it's the only American food I can think of that doesn't A) have a base of butter and sugar, B) drown in its cream-of-soup, or C) take an hour to bake.
It went awesome. We used my apple peeler/corer, which is pretty awesome and no one had ever seen before. Same goes for the food mill, although it's not as cool as the spinning apple peeler thingie. So we had fun making it, and then everyone happily ate some. Both kids and parents enjoyed it. Everyone ate some and then had seconds. But the best compliment was that everyone started making reasons why they needed to take some home. "Can I take some for my husband?" "I'm just going to take a little bit more for the baby to eat this afternoon." At this point, I don't even care if I get any of my tupperware back. People liked the applesauce!
And I know I shouldn't let my pride rest on this so much.
But I'm even worse at potlucks.

Water... Earth... Fire... Air

We have a little airbender in our midst. 

She seems to be a little disappointed that she doesn't look like this:

Such is the life

In our neighborhood, they're extending an underground shopping center and possibly doing something to the subway. I'm not sure exactly what's being built where, but I know there's a lot of construction around. This brings me to my first photo.

We see this all the time. Apparently in order to make ramps instead of curbs, the construction sites dump their extra cement on the roads and sidewalks like this. This one was very fresh-- you can tell because it doesn't have footprints or wheel ruts in it yet. Heaven forbid we should pick up those traffic cones and section off the wet cement. That would just be asking too much! (But to be fair, for what they're paying the construction workers here in China, it IS asking too much.) 

It's really not too much of a problem, because most of the time, the concrete is of such a poor quality that after it dries with all its footprints and wheel ruts in it, it crumbles into gravel and gets swept away. This doesn't make me feel much better, considering the building I'm living in is made of concrete.

Penny modeling her lovely scarves

There's a fabric market not far from our house. While we were out running errands (by which I mean shopping for fabric), we stopped by this silk shop. Penny had a blast sorting through their silk remnants, and we bought several (1 kuai each-- about 15 cents) to add to her dress-up box. Shortly after this picture was taken, Penny grabbed the yellow stool in the background and brought it over to the pile. The shop ladies were like, "Oh how nice, she's bringing a stool for her mommy to sit on."
Nope. She plunked it down for herself to sit on and kept rummaging through the scarves and bedecking herself in them.

Mmmmm... smoggy!

This is why I feel no motivation to exercise. I'm healthier breathing as little of this as possible. Plus, it's below freezing first thing in the morning and only slightly above in the afternoons. And see all that lush greenery? Oh wait, there isn't any. So we stay inside.

Celery is in season now. There's Chinese celery and Western celery. They're just different varieties of the same stuff. The Chinese celery has skinnier, leafier stalks and less of a flavor. But I bought some Western celery and made some stuffing to go in my chicken. Nothing like a little holiday cooking to make you feel at home. With the leftover celery we made ants-on-a-log. Penny enjoyed them. She ate the ants, ate a bit of the peanut butter, and then took a bite out of the back of the celery-- not along the ends or anything, but just right there in the middle of the log. I didn't realize how unoriginal I was by just eating them from one end to the other.

And of course we have Meimei. During our fabric shopping expedition, she was bundled up and sleeping in the stroller. During the ants-on-a-log, she was taking a nap. But when she does decide to grace us with her presence, she is a delight. Until she's ready to sleep again, that is.
She's working on some teeth, as you can see from the drool all over her bib. She's been salivating like this for over a month, so I'm about ready for the teeth. We started feeding her some applesauce sometimes. She has a little mesh binky that we can put some food in, and she takes her pears that way. Naomi is very good at turning from her back to her tummy, so much so that she thinks arching her back and flipping over will always improve her prospects. It's not always true, especially when I'm trying to nurse her.
All these new talents combined make for some uneasy nights. She doesn't wake up too much, but when she does, she's usually lying on her tummy with her face in a puddle of drool.

Can't stand the heat

On Halloween night, I heard water gurgling through the walls, ceilings, and floors of our apartment. Normally, this would be a cause for alarm. I read Harry Potter; I know where the basilisks live. But on that day, it was a welcome gurgle because it meant the central heating was coming on.
China still has laws about when certain parts of the country may turn on their heaters. Here it's November first. Other places, like Nanjing where I did a semester abroad, they don't have central heating, because southern China is supposed to be warm. (Yeah right.)  You can use space heaters and other electrical heating devices, but if your building has central heating, it can't be turned on until a certain date. It's nice to be reminded every so often that you're in a communist country.
So they turned on the central heating. Now we can't get them to turn it off.
Our apartment is luxurious and has in-floor heating, which I was excited to hear about after learning about winter temperatures here that dip down to -20 or even -40. We'll be so nice and cozy in our home. Our 6 south-facing windows also help warm the place, too. Problem is, it's not that cold outside yet. But the heat's on, the sun's up, and we're baking in our little solar oven. We had the maintenance staff come turn off the in-floor heat, but they could only find the controls for half the house. So half the house is kind of normal now, but in the other half, we're still running the air conditioner just to keep from sweating to death.
I didn't anticipate this, moving to the coldest place on earth and everything.

Cats again

I really thought I wouldn't write any more posts about my cats, especially since I don't have them anymore. When we moved to Arlington last year, we decided to give them to new homes rather than drag them all over the world with us. Howie found a great home with some New Mexico friends. He joined their family of a couple kids, a dog, and even a goat, if I'm not mistaken. They love their animals, and when we went to visit him, Howie was happy, renamed Sully, and well adjusted. Toby found a home in a little bit less-ideal situation: a family needed a mouser to keep their garage pest-free. The wife is allergic to cats, so Toby spent all his time by himself in the separate garage. They assured me that the kids visited him all the time, but I know how long that probably lasted. It wasn't ideal, but we weren't at a point where we could be picky.
It took me several months to be able to read Goodnight, Moon without crying at the part where we say goodnight to the kittens. But we're doing better now.
Fast-forward to this week. It turns out that Toby's family had been letting him go outside to play during the summer, but now that it's getting cold-- and some problems with a neighbor cat, I guess-- they feel bad keeping him shut in all winter. Plus, the mom is deathly allergic.
We've really missed Toby. He was our favorite cat, hands down. We're looking into pet shipping companies to see about sending him over here to us. It costs a lot, but maybe it will be worth it. Thing is, though, winter is coming. Airlines have regulations about what temperatures they will and won't ship animals, and the longer we wait, the more likely it is we'll be below their limit. Remember, Shenyang is like the coldest place in the world. It hasn't been bad so far, but it's supposed to get really bad in the winter. If we could have planned this starting a month or two ago, it would be much more possible.
Our next option: wait until we go back to the States and bring him then. Problem: we're visiting in February. I have no doubt it will be too cold in February. Plus, the family who currently has Toby didn't want to keep him all winter.
Ugh!
I have no idea what we're going to do.

Bold faced

Last night Penny told me her first lie. She was sitting on the potty playing with the iPod (this is normal in our house), and I told her to push the button to turn it off. The first time I told her, she ignored me, so I told her again. She held the iPod against her body, looked straight at me and said, "I did push the button." She kept her eyes fixed on me while her face looked guiltier and guiltier, the iPod music playing cheerfully against her body.
I know I'm supposed to be upset that my daughter has started lying, but honestly I thought it was hilarious and very, very cute. Oh, I didn't let her know that. I just ignored her and had her give me the iPod. But I'm enjoying watching my little baby grow up, even with these new developments.

Motivation: an addendum

The Zumba workouts I like are by this lady on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tiffanyloveszumba

They're posted song by song, so that's why they're only 3 minutes long each. But after doing like 6 of them, I was really sore. And that was with a terrible internet connection and stopping to select a new song after each one ended. Yeah... I'm out of shape. :)

And speaking of shape, I forgot to mention that just because I'm going to be 'bikini ready,' as the magazines call it, it doesn't mean I'll go prancing around in practically nothing. I'm a 1-piece girl all the way! This comes from a sense of modesty as well as practicality. I like my suits to stay where I put them, whether I go down a waterslide, go snorkeling, or chase a toddler around on the beach. One less thing to worry about. :)

Motivation

It's hard to find motivation to exercise when the air outside looks like old dishwater. I really think I'm healthier lying on my couch breathing as little air as possible than going outside for a walk.
However, in a few months we're going to Hawaii. You're probably thinking I'm shallow and want to make sure my body is 'bikini ready' so I can go strut my stuff on the beach. I went to Hawaii last year and saw entirely too many bodies heaping out of bikinis they shouldn't have been laced into in the first place. Compared to those images which are indelibly and horrifyingly etched into my brain, I'm fit and ready to strut my stuff. I'm always bikini ready.
But whenever I think about visiting Hawaii, I can hardly wait to get out and move: hike, swim, go for walks, enjoy the stars, jump up on stage for a touristy hula. I salivate over the thought of all that clean air I'll be breathing. But at this point, I'll probably go out walking for about 5 minutes before I'm winded and ready to head back in. I'll be the one heading back to the car because I'm too tired to keep hiking. Or (shudder) I'll get water in my snorkel, choke and die, and then the fish will eat me. Keep away from me, you humuhumunukunukuapua'a! I guess that one doesn't have so much to do with my being out of shape as my slight fear of snorkeling. But really, I would love to have the stamina to go do fun things from sunup to sundown.
So I've started an exercise regime. Last night and tonight (wow, already two whole days!) I found some zumba workout videos on youtube, and bit by bit (as the video would load), I'd shake my booty in front of the TV. Penny joined in after her bath (it was very scandalous), and even Kevin joined in for a few shakes.
There are tons of zumba videos online, but my favorites are done by this lady who has a VERY bright smile the whole time and finishes every dance with some clapping and a 'woohoo!' I wonder who was a cheerleader in high school....
Sometimes it helps to have motivational imagery or goals in mind. Here are mine:

To be fair, this is Beijing.

Thank you, internet, for your awesome picture!

Food storage

These days, everywhere you look people are drying onions for the winter. 

People have stacked up their vegetables on the front porches of stores, out their windows, even on the steps of a bank!

More onions, the tops all wrapped to make little bunches

Cabbages, too. I think some of these are for storage all winter, but people here make pickled cabbage, too. We're pretty close to Korea, but it's not kimchi. Kimchi is spicy pickled cabbage, and Chinese pickled cabbage is just pickled.

 I have been wanting to take pictures of the vegetable trucks for several days now. Every time I'd seen them, though, I was in a car zipping past it while my camera sat somewhere in my purse. I told some of my Chinese friends that I wanted to go find some and take pictures, and they both laughed at the idea. "Why would you want to take a picture of that?!" This is just so normal for them, like a mail truck or a lawnmower. To me, though, it's totally foreign!
Today I took a long walk and spotted these guys along the way.

On the right we have big radishes or turnips, the middle truck has  bags of sweet potatoes, and you can't really see the cabbage truck on the left.

But here's another cabbage truck!

An onion truck, half empty already

A cabbage truck. The one on the ground is actually on a scale to sell it by weight. I think the price these days is about 0.1 yuan per 1/2 kilo. That means less than 2 cents per pound.

This little courtyard was heaping with onions on the ground to dry, cabbages on the steps in the background, laundry hung to dry, and also strips of green turnip hung to dry. I usually just see buildings as I walk by, but I love seeing evidence of lives being lived.

Here's a close-up of the turnips hung to dry. It reminds me of New Mexico's ristras.

 Sometimes it feels like Shenyang is just a city: concrete, cars, pavement, and noise. But I love it when the humanity shows through like this. Happy fall, everyone!

Back in the day

I was talking to our Ayi today about Halloween. Penny accumulated a ridiculous amount of candy over the last three days-- more than any two-year-old should consume in a year-- and I was sorting it on the counter. I told our Ayi how when I was little, I'd bring home my candy and sort it on the floor, then my brothers and sisters and I would all trade.

Ayi responded, "Hmm... it was pretty different when I was little. I was born in 1960, right? So there had been a famine for the last 3 years, and no one had enough to eat. Then in 1969 there was the Cultural Revolution, which lasted 10 years, and it was pretty awful."

I really have no good response to that. 

One of my good friends here also mentions things from her childhood that remind me more of pioneer days or the Great Depression than anything I've ever experienced. But it was the 80s... same as me. 

She's from western China, and her family was quite poor while she was growing up. Her mom used to make all the clothes for her and her sister, using an old treadle machine that only had one stitch and needed oil all the time.

We were playing with Meimei's baby toys the other day. Who can resist crinkling the little crinkle-toys and pulling the string to make the toy wiggle? Baby toys are cool! My friend teased us, saying, "They didn't have cool toys like this when you were little, so you have to play with them now." We laughed and agreed. She continued, "We just played jump rope, hopscotch [called jumping houses in Chinese], and dodgeball." (It's a game they played with sandbags, but the rules are essentially the same as dodgeball.) 

My favorite story from when my friend was little, though, was about how they'd stock up with vegetables for winter. Half the house would be full of cabbages, carrots, and potatoes, and then over the course of the winter, they'd eat the veggies. In those days (日子不好的时候), those were the vegetables that were available, and that's what they'd eat. This morning, she told me more of the story: "Our house had two rooms. One of the rooms was where we'd live and cook and stuff, and the other room was just for storing things. The floor didn't have tiles or anything on it-- it was just earth like what you have outdoors. We had someone come and dig a cellar in that other room, 9 feet deep, where we'd keep the vegetables during the winter. When we needed to go get some, my mom would tie a rope around my waist and lower me down into the hole. Then I'd grab as many cabbages and carrots as I could hold, and my mom would pull me back up. It made me feel like I was being very helpful and important, that I was small enough to do that."

Sometimes I think that my children are being raised in a world completely different than the one I grew up in. But wow, the differences could be even greater!

Halloween Part 1

We have three Halloween parties to attend this year, and none of them are even on Halloween. And this is in a country that doesn't even celebrate it!

And here are the girls in their holiday finery. Penny is our little peacock. 

 Meimei is our little pig (in a blanket... ha ha ha!). Even though we don't feed her solids yet, she still knows what to do with a Snickers bar.

We had a great time Trick-or-treating at the consulate this evening, followed by an awesome party. There was some great food, games for the kids, awesome decorations, and even a haunted house that I went through while we were setting up for the party because I knew I'd be too scared to try it with all the special effects (black lights, strobe lights, voodoo doctor, etc.). It was super fun to work together as a small American community to throw a fun party. I've been starting to miss America and even feel a little homesick, but working on the Halloween party pretty much cured me. I'm now really looking forward to planning Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities with everyone here in Shenyang!

Gratitude

Tonight Penny was grateful for a lot of things in her prayer:
Mommy
Pants
Blanket
Chicken
Daddy
Books
Door
Stroller
Meimei
Books

Growing up

I have some favorite milestones, and this is one of them: Meimei learned how to play with toys! She actually did it last week, making her about 4 1/2 months old when she started. It makes me so happy that she can entertain herself just that much better. It's great. Now I have minutes at a time to myself.  

 Yesterday Penny took an outrageously long nap. By the time she hit 3 hours, I peeked in to check on her, and this is what I saw:

 She turned to me and very excitedly said, "Train!" She was watching traffic go by, and every time a bus went by, she thought it was a train. I taught her the word, bus, and then the next times she saw one, she positively squealed it.
Penny likes to say her numbers, both in Chinese and English. She sort of understands the concept of numbers. She knows when there is one of something, and then she points out when there are two of something, usually, "Two girls!" But "two" applies to anything more than one. If there's a picture with four rabbits, she'll say, "two rabbits," because there is more than one. When she counts in English, she says, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, twelve, fteen, twenty-one!" We used to live on the 21st floor of our building.
Penny often randomly yells out, "七八!!" which means, "seven eight!!" in Chinese. If you tell her a number, she'll say the next one, up to 10. She never says 四 (4), though. I don't know why. If you tell her, "一二，一二，" (1,2,1,2) she'll start marching around. That's how the army counts while they march, like our "hup, two three four," or "Left, left, left right left." Our Ayi taught her that.
And because I love analyzing my daughter's language, I think it's hilarious that she's started to call her stuff "my's," as in, "my's crayon," as she grabs it away from her friend.

Kevin officially said adieu to his youth this weekend by turning 30. We went to the fish store and got him some goldfish. The bowl in the above picture actually really sucks and killed one of the fish, so we ended up getting a little tank.
I'm growing up, too. For the last couple days I've skipped my afternoon nap, once by choice and once by necessity. Halloween is right around the corner, and considering we're in a country that doesn't celebrate it, I'm surprised to be preparing to attend 3 different parties. Wahoo! I'll try to remember my camera.

Uber-sick

I want to finish writing about our trip to Shanghai, but life keeps happening, darn it. This week I was deathly ill for a while. It turned out to be a 24-hour stomach poisoning of death. I'm not sure what it was I ate, but I've narrowed it down to two possible culprits. Our Ayi made us some liang cai (Chinese salad, basically), and I saw her put some tap water into the dressing. Penny also ate a bunch of it, and she wasn't sick, so it was probably the raw eggs in the muffin batter I munched on as I made muffins. I haven't felt that horrible since I had mono in 2004... also while in China. Anyway.
Having kids around while you're sick adds a whole new level of horridness. Thankfully, the girls felt wonderful, but unfortunately, the girls felt wonderful. I took Penny downstairs to play with her friends in the morning. This was before I realized I was feeling worse and worse, not better. So we went back upstairs, and over the course of the day, Penny watched "Wally" twice and "Beauty and the Beast" once. Then she took a delightfully long nap, and I was able to lie prostrate on my bed and moan. By some miracle, Meimei took two long naps and was asleep for most of the day. However, by the time she woke up in the afternoon, I wasn't able to sit up and play with her. I'd already called Kevin to come home, but he would still be about 45 minutes. I rolled over on my bed and began to use my greatest resource: my community.
When we first moved into our apartment building, it had only been open for a few months, and there weren't very many people living here. I was pretty bummed about it, but then I began to meet the people who do live here, and slowly people began to move in. Nowadays, Penny has 4 or 5 little friends her age, and there's a large group of German women. We all see each other every morning at breakfast, and ever since I've had Naomi, everyone has been telling me to call them if I needed anything.
So I called. I had my German friend Connie come take Meimei until Kevin came home. It took a few tries to explain this over the phone. At first she thought I was someone from the front desk. Yeah, her English isn't so hot. But my German is uber-nonexistent, so she trumps me on that. Connie finally understood me and came to grab the baby.
When Kevin came home, he went and picked up Meimei, whom they apparently didn't want to give back. She is, as they say, zuker-zuss. (See, I speak German!)
Kevin took both girls, and they played downstairs all afternoon and evening with the other toddlers and their parents. They ate cookies, chips, and candies for snack, and when Kevin took Penny to McDonald's for dinner, she came back licking an ice cream cone. Kevin would make a terrible mom, and I told him that. But he makes an awesome dad.
In the evening, he and our neighbor, Dan, gave me a blessing, then I went to sleep. In the morning, I had a headache, probably from not eating or drinking much of anything the day before, but otherwise I felt pretty okay. Back up to 75%. A passing grade, but nothing to feel proud of.
The girls didn't sleep so well on day 2, but you know what? They slept so well on day 1 I really couldn't have asked for anything more.

Going to Shanghai

China has a huge national holiday on October 1st. In 1949, this was the day Chairman Mao stood on the deck of the Forbidden City and gave a speech to the crowd gathered below, declaring the official beginning of the People's Republic of China. So it's sort of their 4th of July, except I'm not sure many people would confuse it with Independence Day. ;)

In 2011, everyone gets 3 days off of work and travels. Unfortunately, this meant that by the time I got around to planning our trip, 1.3 billion people had beat me to the punch, and there were no more tickets left.

So we went to Shanghai the following weekend. Happy Columbus Day!

We packed pretty light (1 suitcase, 1 backpack, 1 diaper bag, and 1 stroller), which made it possible for us to call it a vacation. We picked up Kevin after work and flew to Shanghai in the evening. It was Naomi's first time on an airplane, and she didn't do so well. Evenings aren't her best time, and she likes being put down when she sleeps. Good thing it was only a 2-hour flight!

Here we are, ready for takeoff!

Penny is so helpful in the airport!

 One of the places we visited Shanghai was the Apple Store. The screen on Kevin's iPad had broken, so we wanted to take it in to have it fixed. We went a day or two after Steve Jobs passed away, and there was a little memorial outside where people had placed flowers, pictures, candles, and apples with a bite taken out of each one. People came by to bow and pay their respects.

 One thing I didn't get a picture of was the bottom of this glass cylindrical entryway. They have some glass pieces criss-crossing the tube so that the refracted light on the floor looks like an apple. It was obviously designed by someone waaaayyy smarter than I.
We sat in the waiting room for a while before the iDoctors could have a look at the sick iPod.

Naomi and Dad

Penny was just glad the iPad still worked, even with its broken screen.

They had computers out for people to test and use, and this one had kids' apps.
Penny was pretty unhappy when we had to leave.

 The Apple Store, as it turns out, is right by Shanghai's iconic Pearl Tower. This overpass is a great place to view the tower and take a picture. The gardener came to talk to me for a while, and he said that last week, during the National Holiday, there were so many people on the overpass that you couldn't go up, you couldn't go down, and once you were up, you couldn't move at all.
I'm certainly glad we went when we did.

Please act surprised if we send this to you as a Christmas card

Or this one. Hey, at least it has all 4 of us in it!

Shopping in Shenyang

This afternoon, I went to a shopping center across town. Trying to hail a cab at 4:30 in the afternoon is a bit harder than I thought, though. Eventually, a cabbie stopped and helped me put the stroller in the trunk. He already had a passenger in the front seat, but that's a pretty common practice here, especially at rush-hour times, to double up on fares. Well, this guy kept pulling over for every flapping hand, asking them where they were going, and he didn't even start the meter until the third passenger. The third guy who finally joined our little taxi party was really, really dirty. I think he must have been fixing a car in a coal mine while chimney sweeping or something. I offered him a wet wipe, but he turned it down. It was more than a one-wipe mess. We eventually dropped him off. He ran inside to get his money, then ran back out to pay the cabbie.

Eventually we made it to my shopping center. I'd never been there before, and it was really swanky! There was a big haunted house set up in the pavilion, with people wearing vampire capes and lines of people ready to get in. I've never seen something so Halloweeny before in China. Further on, there was a life-size sculpture of Optimus Prime. If it had been daytime, I would have totally taken a picture. He was made with real tires and probably a real semi-truck! I'm not a huge fan of the Transformers movies, having heard better dialogue performed by kids playing with the toys, but this was an impressive display!

I did my shopping, finally buying Penny some decent winter clothes (from H&M; the one in my building doesn't carry children's clothes). As I was trying to catch a cab home, I walked by a store selling decent kids' clothes... for a fraction of the price. I spent all my cash in that store, leaving about 12 kuai for me to get home. A taxi would be more than that, plus no cabs were stopping. Let's hear it for planning ahead! So I took the subway home. Shenyang actually has a really nice subway system. Who knew?!

The subway cost 2 kuai, and on the final stretch toward home, I stopped and bought 10 kuai worth of pears. There are a million varieties of pears here in China. The ones I bought are my new favorites. They're about the size of a plum and a beautiful golden brown color. They're soft and taste really sour. I love them! They're called nan guo li, meaning "south fruit pear." Either way, they're wonderful.

When I got home, I literally had no money left. But I had lots of stuff, and that's what's important.

Bumbo-bee

Naomi is starting to enjoy sitting in her Bumbo. Whenever I say that, though, Penny corrects me: "Bumbo-bee." Let's have a look at our little girls in Bumbos, shall we? 

Naomi at 4 months (Oct 2011)

Penny at 3 1/2 months (Oct 2009)

When people start saying Naomi is chubby, this is the comparison I see in my mind. She's a skinny minny!

Not for all the tea in China

I'm really glad I'm a Mormon. Among other reasons, this means that when someone offers me a cup of tea, I can turn it down and blame it on my religion. "Oh, sorry. I don't drink tea." *smile*
The problem is, this doesn't really excuse me from all kinds of tea. Mormons don't drink tea-from-a-tea-plant tea. If there are tea leaves involved, we don't drink it. But in China, they make tea from all sorts of stuff. Often it's tea-from-a-tea-plant, but I've also seen buckwheat tea, flower tea, noodle tea, and all sorts of other herbal teas. I wish I was morally opposed to all of them.
Back when I was little, I discovered the peppermint growing on the banks of the irrigation ditch at my grandparents' ranch. It smelled so good! I picked a bunch and spent the rest of the day making and drinking peppermint tea. I probably drank over a gallon. Now, I've heard people say that peppermint tea is supposed to settle an upset stomach, but I don't think anyone would say that after seeing me heaving it all up that night.
I have a cold today. One of my friends told me to make a ginger and brown sugar tea, swearing it would heal me by morning. I smiled and nodded. When I got home from breakfast, our Ayi heard me sniffling and proceeded to make me some ginger and brown sugar tea. I sipped and smiled. I gave some to Penny. I stirred it. I tried going back and drinking a spoonful at a time, but man! I can't stomach the stuff! I'm trying to drink it. I want to be polite. I don't want to insult her by not drinking it But if I seem to enthusiastic, she'll make more.
Life is rough sometimes.

Toothbrush, umbrella, and a peeing baby

What do they have in common?

They are all things you grab in your fist.

Obviously. Well, if this answer's a surprise at all, you have underestimated my nerdiness.

See, in Chinese, you have measure words. We have them in English, too, like when you say "a loaf of bread" or "a pair of pants." You can't just say "a bread" or "a pants." You would sound stupid.

Same in Chinese! Except that you always have to use a measure word, and they put words into categories that you didn't realize exist.

For example, there is a measure word for things that are long and skinny, tiao. You might think a pen or a toothbrush would fit in this category, but they don't. This is for things like roads, fish, dogs, and strings.

Today's measure word is ba. 把。 You say it just like Scrooge would say before humbug. The left half is a picture of a hand, and the right part is another word that says ba. And you use it when you talk about things that have handles or that you grab with your hand, like toothbrushes, umbrellas, or even folding chairs.

And I've learned that 把 is also a verb meaning, "to grab," as in, "to grab a small child and hold him or her by the legs while they pee." We don't have that verb in English.

But having small children in China, it's a word that comes up often.

Our Ayi was telling me the other day that I should save on diapers by having Naomi wear open-bottom pants and ba-ing her whenever she had to poo. You just watch for the cues that she's about to go, and then you ba her and hold her over a bowl or something. That's what Chinese parents traditionally do and have always done.

"What do you think we did before we had diapers?" she asked me. Diapers are a recent import from the West, within the last decade or so. I don't think she believed me that I've never known a time BD (before diapers). I just checked wikipedia, and I'm pretty sure the West has used diapers since at least the 1500s.

I don't have confidence in my reading Naomi's signals, so I'm just going to keep splurging on diapers for now.

In China, where there are small children, you'll see parents ba-ing them. Little boys sometimes just have their pants (which are open at the crotch, you see) hiked up by mom or dad and do their business there on the street, by the trash-can, or in the middle of the play place. Little girls get ba-ed by the legs, butt hanging down and legs splayed, to do their business in the bushes at the park or whatever.

I've just been teaching Penny to go potty like a Westerner. Her best friend, Savannah, has been taught the Chinese way. I never thought I'd need to know that, but one time Savannah's mom took Penny to go potty. She came back and told me, "I took Penny to go pee, but I ba-ed her over the potty, and she didn't go." Well, yeah. I wouldn't have either. But a few minutes later she peed her pants. Awesome.

Today, though, the tables were turned. I took Penny to go potty and sat her down the usual way. She protested and refused to go. Ugh! So I asked her if she wanted to go backwards like Savannah. Well yeah, she wants to be like Savannah! So there I was ba-ing my little girl over the potty just like a Chinese mom. Never in a million years would I have imagined I'd do that.

I don't think I'll leave the diapers off Naomi or let Penny pee on the floor in Ikea. But then again, I never thought I'd grab my little girl's legs and hover her over the potty either.

Penny's poetry book

I've mentioned Penny's little poetry book in a few previous posts. I love it, and we read it together almost every night. This is what you get when you do that:

I think she's pretty wonderful.

Tutorial: Braided/Woven Rag Rug

I'm not sure why I was playing Monopoly without any money or properties, so it's a good thing I'm not blogging about that.

Obviously I've put this picture up because this is a tutorial on how to make the rug my brother-in-law is hovering over. Obviously.

I asked my grandma how she made these rugs. I assumed they were braided, but she explained and then showed me that they were actually woven. They take a while to make, but I love the results! Braided rugs in my experience tend to come apart when the seams burst. Enter woven rug, no seams!

I've made a couple in my day. The Sunflower one:

I started with two dark gold strips and one yellow, and then I switched to three yellows, three blues, three reds, then finally three greens. It's a little more confusing to work with all one color, which is why this wasn't my first one.

This lovely semi-round one is my first one. It's actually made from a couple U of U T-shirts. I remember that as I wipe my feet. :)

I used black and red throughout, then switched between tan, black, brown, tan, and then black again for the third strip of material.

It works best to use stretchy material for at least one of your strips. I've used old T-shirts in the rugs above (5 extra-large shirts for each one). Another one I made and gave to my sister used random scraps, both stretchy and not, and it worked just fine. I just made sure that at least one of the strips at all times was stretchy. The rug is a bit more forgiving this way.

Shall we begin?

Cut strips of fabric about 2" wide. I cut the shirts in strips vertically.

I also found that if I leave the shoulder seams intact (see below), a couple strips can be extra-long without more work on my part.

So you should have a pile of fabric strips.

Start by taking three strips and lining them up like so:

It helps if they're not all exactly the same length, so they don't all run out at the same time. (We'll get there later.)

Fold them in half, and then sew across the end:

Then you're going to start braiding the strips. The seam kind of gets turned inside-out like in the following picture. That's a good thing, because then it doesn't show as much.

I braided about 9 or 10 inches. This will give you an oval-shaped rug. If you want a circle, then a shorter braid would do that for you. Likewise, if you want a longer-shaped rug, make a longer braid.

The braid should be loose enough that you can easily put your finger through it, but not so loose that it gets misshapen when you do. My braid started out loose and then got tighter as I went. I did go back and fix that, making it all even.

So you start with your braid looking like this. The black piece on the right is coming out from under the middle piece, and the black piece will become the warp. On a loom, the warp is the string strung on the loom, while the weft is what goes back and forth, fyi.

See, the black piece goes down along the length of the braid:

Now, this is the only complicated part: transferring from braiding to weaving. If you remember the pattern of over-under-under, it might help. The far left piece (in my case a lovely ballet-pink) crosses over the middle piece (this is the over part):

Then it goes under the black and the green (under, under):

Pull the pink piece taut:

And put the pink piece out to the side. (This picture is possessed and won't load except sideways. Sorry.)

Now you take the green one over-under-under (over the pink one, under the black, and under one part of the braid-- green this time):

The black piece should still (and always) be pointing itself downwards in the direction you're going. The two other pieces should be out to the side. Now you take the pink one over-under-under.

Like so:

Pull it out and to the side:

Now take the green one over-under-under:

And out to the side:

Let's fast-forward to where I'm almost to the end of the braid. Now just like when you're crocheting, if you want to make a curve, you sometimes have to go through the same hole twice. So you can see where the green piece is coming out.

You send the pink one over-under-and then under the same piece as last time.

(I'm pretty sure you can't see what's going on in the above picture.... I sure can't.)

But in this next one, you can see that I'm pulling the green piece through a green loop of braid:

And in this one, I'm pulling the pink one through the same green loop of braid:

Double up on stitches until you round the corner. On this corner, there were about 4 stitches where I doubled up. I prefer to put two stitches in each hole for a while, rather than putting 4 or 5 stitches through one hole. I'm not sure that would work so well.

Anyway... continue down the other side of the braid. The black piece is still pointing downwards while the pink and green pieces do all the in-and-out weaving.

When one piece runs out, I just sew another piece on and keep going. In this case, I used my machine, but I've sewn it by hand when working in the car. If you want to change colors, you would just sew on a new colored strip and keep going.

When you're done with the rug, just tuck in the ends and hand-stitch them in place. This is the ugly side:

And this is the prettier front:

In the finished rug, it's hard to see where you started. I found the start of my braid in this rug, and I'm pointing to it. The braid continues downward. See, told you you can't see it.

This is a close-up of where I changed colors. I'm not sure why I decided to put this on here.

As a finishing touch, I took a strip of green material and wove it through the rug, kind of tying it all together. Otherwise the green border looked pretty random.

A few words of warning: as you go, make sure you're making a flat rug. This is done by making double stitches only when you need to (like when it would be a stretch to weave through the next hole). If you add too few, you end up with a bowl, rather than a rug. If you add too many, you get some weird warping that keeps your rug from laying right.

Example A:

You can still use it, but should you put it in front of a door, your family and guests might kind of hate the stupid thing. It works just fine for a mid-floor rug, though. Sort of.