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.