Lisis Go to China

Happy Father's Day!!

2010-06-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

The boys in their tailor made PJ pants. I got a great deal on this Pillsbury Doughboy fabric!! No one in China has ever heard of him, but I miss all his yummy treats!!

JUNE

2010-06-15T00:53:00.000-07:00

June was full of end of school activities. Nick's class put on a show about the Roman Baths - very funny!! And then had a Roman Day parade with all the Year 3 classes.

Nick's Teacher Miss Parker

Ian participated in Sports Day, took a field trip to the Wild Animal Park, and had an end of the year party complete with a water fight!!

Miss Virginia and Miss Megan

I was the class Mom for Ian's class and had my very talented tailor make aprons with the kids hands and names all over them.

The kids love to play "Pass the Parcel" - British game that has you wrap 16 small gifts each in a different layer of wrapping paper. So you start with a large ball - the kids pass it around while the music is playing - when the music stops the person holding the big wrapping paper ball unwraps one layer to get a prize. Sounds like fun - unless you are the one (me) who has to wrap this huge ball!!

Wild Animal Park

WATER FIGHT!!

What a Great School Year!!

Dulwich College Shanghai 2009-2010

1st Communion

2010-05-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

Nicholas spent this year going to catechism classes on Monday's after school and the day finally arrived to take his 1st Communion. I have to say there were many days of practice - Ian handing Nick his Flinstone's Vitamin while saying "The Body of Christ"! I had a little custom fabric market suit made for his big day. Overall the day was very special and we were very proud of him!

This is a girl from Nick's class- the girls just look too cute!

Rumble in the Jungle

2010-05-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

School is SLOWLY coming to an end and with that comes all of the year end activities. So today was Ian's school show called "Rumble in the Jungle." All of the Nursery, Toddler and Receptions classes came together for the cutest school I have ever seen. The costume details are amazing for children age 2-5! One advantage of being in China - cheap fabrics and cheap tailors. I plan on coming home with a closet full of fun costumes!! Oh wait - our house has NO closets!! So plastic bins full!!

Sports Day 2010

2010-05-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

So last year for Sports Day it was all about being silly and having fun. Three legged race, noodle between the legs, egg on a spoon, etc. This year at the Junior School the competition begins! Nicholas participated in the long jump, high jump, javelin throw, 200 meter race and many more. He walked away at the end of the day with 6 - 2nd and 3rd places ribbons!! He claims he is the 7th fastest runner in Year 3 (not sure how they figure this out, but OK)! WAY TO GO NICK!!! Unfortunately the WING house placed 4th out of 4, but fun was had by all.

Nicholas and his good buddy Dylan!

First Haircut

2010-05-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

So a few weekends ago we finally decided it was haircut time. I probably waited too long, but cutting the hair is like admitting he is not a baby anymore!! Goodbye Baby Kyle - Hello Big Boy! Yikes!

All 3 boys got haircuts that day! Here are the studs!

I like to call them my surfer guy, little man, and skateboard dude.

Where has the time gone?

2010-05-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well - I am extremely disappointed in myself and this was my fear about starting a blog. Once I get behind - it gets overwhelming and the thought of catching up is so exhausting that I simply give up. But lately I have been wanting to get back into it. It is hard to not be frustrated some days with the different lifestyle and the language barrier (did anyone watch the last episode of The Amazing Race?? Telling taxi drivers where to go can almost lead you to a violent act!!!). Blogging was like my outlet for the frustration and so now I am missing my therapy. So I have decided to quickly paraphrase the last 6 months and then move on. I hope to someday come back and put in photos and more details, but for now--here goes.

My sister, her husband and my cousin Daniel (who lives in Taiwan) came for a Thanksgiving celebration. I actually cooked a frozen(thawed before baking of course) Butterball Turkey (that I had to store in a friends freezer because mine was not big enough) that cost me over $100 dollars!! Now at home I usually buy enough groceries at the Shoprite to receive 3 turkeys free!!! So to pay over $100 for a turkey seemed crazy, but necessary. Overall our Sunday (the kids had school on Thursday and Friday- no British Thanksgiving) Thanksgiving was pretty good - including the cheese grits - which had to be supplied from the US (thanks Kim!). Also during this visit Mark completed the Shanghai Half- Marathon - his first ever!! And he ran so fast we almost missed him!! We were trying to find a good spot to settle in and watch for him when Ian yelled "There goes Dad!!" So no pictures of the runner in action. We were all very proud of this amazing achievement!! (1 hour 46 minutes - top 20 of Americans).

In early December we took a long weekend trip to Hong Kong for a little Western style living. We did Hong Kong Disney one day and explored the city the other day. We enjoyed some American food at BLT steak and had a great laugh at the wax museum! This picture won Ian 1st prize in the "Read a book in a strange place" contest.

We did manage to get a real Christmas tree!!! Our friends had left us an artificial tree and I just could not do it. In the past 12 years of marriage we have never had a fake tree and I was determined to get a real one. SO - I think these were flown in from Holand, it only live one week, and cost us a fortune, but it made my Christmas!!! No tying to the top of your car here - bicycle carrier transport!

Also in December our wonderful driver Mr. Xu told us he had medical problems and could not work for us any more. We are not sure what his medical troubles were or if he had any (the Chinese are known to tell "stories" instead of the truth when it comes to things like this), but we were very sad to see him go. He had been with us for the past 11 months and we had all grown to love him. He would play soccer with the boys, he lived through all my last minute adventures -i.e.- Wal-mart, and he and Mark developed quite a friendship on the rides to and from work. We outfitted his entire family (he, his wife and daughter) in Yankees shirts last summer and always enjoyed our Chinese lessons with him. There were tears shed (only by me) and he will be greatly missed!

Our next round of visitors arrived on Christmas Eve - Grandma and Pop. And they looked like Santa Claus when they arrived! Suit cases stuffed to the brim and a few special carry-ons. It was really great to have family with us for Christmas- made us feel not so far away from home. We had a nice time showing them around Shanghai and they took a long trip around China exploring Harbin, Beijing, and a Yangtze River tour. Then back to us for a few more days of shopping, eating and photography. They were already planning their next trip before they left!

On January 29th we moved from House 158 in Vizcaya to House 2 - still in Vizcaya. Our old house was OK. Our visitors would say it was good, but our new house is GREAT! We were fed up with the difficult landlord and the mold growing up the walls in many rooms. So our lease was up and House 2 here we are. The new street is just nicer - I can't help but sing the Jefferson's theme song every time I come home - "Well were moving on up....". Anyway - life is better in House 2!!

In February we took advantage of the Chinese New Year holiday and headed South to the Phillipines. We had a great time in Cebu - snorkeling, boating, finding shells and coral, and just relaxing. WOW is the sun hot there!!

Our next visitors arrived just in time to celebrate Ian's 5th birthday. Uncle Tom and Aunt Vicky came to Shanghai after a work conference in Beijing for Uncle Tom. It was great to visit with them and show them our city - I should say it was great for me and the kids to visit with them since Mark was away on business. He did return just in time to share a dumpling lunch and Ian's birthday dinner with them. It was great to have them and I think they enjoyed our new 3 wheeled mini- van.

"Hold on Uncle Tom!!" Thanks for coming to visit us!!!

Our most recent visitors were Nana and Papa Jo. They came only because we live here - my Dad has said many times "Visiting China is not on my bucket list!" But I think in the end they enjoyed their visit and went home with a few fun souviners. Nana even said she might come back alone sometime. We all made the trip to Xi'an together to see the famous warriors and they headed to Beijing to see the magnificent wall. Overall - it was a great visit for all!!

So now it is May and we are on countdown to coming home for summer vacation!! School is out in 36 days and we are hoping to be on American soil for the 4th of July!! YIPEEE!

Our little Model

2009-11-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

Mark was at our local import grocery store one day with Nicholas and Kyle and a woman stopped him and said he had the most beautiful boys and she would like to take their picture for modeling. He gave her one of our cards and said "Call my wife". Well after much bothering and many calls I finally decided to summit a couple of photos of all 3 of the boys to this agency. We took them all for a little group photo shoot and thought that would be the end of the business. Well they decided they really loved Ian with his light hair. His agent Sophie now calls for weekend photo shoots asking for "The lovely Ian". Here are some shots from his first gig -where he earned himself $100 in 2 hours for his college fund. Not too bad for a 4 year old! Still not sure if these clothes are high fashion in China???

Halloween Party

2009-10-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

I love Halloween! I loved Halloween in Briarcliff! I have always loved Halloween and spent every year as a kid searching and trying to come up with the best Halloween costumes I could think of. Luckily my Mom is very crafty and my dad is an engineer. Great team when you decide you want to be a shower! OK -so it was kind of a copy cat from the movie The Karate Kid, but it was a fantastic costume! My dad built a harness to hold the shower up and my mom decked me out with a cool shower curtain and fake water - I have to say I looked really cool! I think I even sprayed my already very hairsprayed wings (feathered hair) blue to look wet. Anyway- I decided we had to throw the best Halloween party to show those not so familiar with Halloween (our Dutch, Australian, and British friends) how we do it in America. So I whipped up some of my best scary snacks - I'm looking at you dip with witches nails, Candy Corn pizza, Brains in a cup, Worms in the dirt, etc, we played our favorite scary music, and had plenty of fun games - bobbing for apples, Halloween BINGO, Scavenger Hunt, cookie decorating and more. We hosted about 50 of our wonderful friends and had a great time!! And because we were hosting the party we had to have some good costumes - so we were all Mario guys. Mark was Mario, Nicholas was Wario, Ian was Luigi, Kyle was baby Luigi and I was Peach. With the fabric market and some major help from our tailor friend Mr. shang we looked pretty darn good. I am sure you would love to see some photos of the fabulous event, however, the person in charge of photo taking ( I won't mention any names) snapped pictures all night long and was so proud of himself to announce at the end of the night that he took over 100 photos! So I turned the camera on to scroll through the fabulous photos and the message popped up "No CF card"- hhhmmm so 100 photos became no photos!!
Here is one pulled from Facebook - it is all we got.

The little guy turns 1!

2009-10-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

Wow- I cannot believe my little man is 1 year old! I am sure I would be saying the same thing if we still lived in Briarcliff, but with everything we have been through in the last year - I really cannot believe it!! This guy has sat on The Great Wall of China before his 1st birthday! He has become a true China man over these last 9 months - he loves flirting with the Chinese girls, loves eating dumplings (he once ate 20 in one sitting) and eggy rice (fried rice) and loves watching Teletubbies in Mandarin. Many years from now I think he will have a fondness of all things China and not even know why - who knows! Anyway - we had a nice quiet night celebrating his BIG day!

On The Great Wall - 7 months

1st Birthday

UN Day

2009-10-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

Every year Dulwich celebrates United Nations Week with International activities, a food festival, and a dress up day. Nicholas dressed up in his Yankees best and we tried to make Ian into an Uncle Sam , but he was not too thrilled with his clothing choice. Thanks Uncle Ben and Ashley - I think he looks pretty cool in his Polo duds!!

Superheros

2009-10-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

Ian and our new neighbor and friend Reeves love to dress up as Superheros and they love to fight evil on our trampoline!!

School Camp Out

2009-10-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

One of the main events for a Year 3 student at Dulwich College Shanghai is the Year 3 Camp Out. All Year 3 students(second graders) sleep in tents overnight on the school playground! A few days before the big event we headed over to the sporting goods store to get his supplies - sleeping bag, yoga mat, and a torch (flashlight to we North Americans). Nicholas was soooo excited for this that the night before he decided to practice by sleeping on his bedroom floor. He got to share a tent with his good buddies Matt and Dylan and had a fantastic time! They slept over on a Thursday night and got out of school early on Friday at noon. I have asked him many times what all he did, but not much information was divulged. I just know he was taking a nap by 2 so I think it was a late night!

Sports Saturdays

2009-09-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

Living with 4 boys means that our Saturdays are spent doing sports. I think I have a long life of weekend sports ahead of me! No ballet classes - no manicure and pedicure parties - no shopping - sorry enough dreaming! Anyway - here are a few photos from Ian's sports class (they teach them how to play different sports each week - football, hockey, crickett, etc
0. And Nicholas decided to do baseball this fall. After lots of playing with Papa Jo over the summer he has gotten pretty good and Mark decided to actually commit to being one of the coaches!! They are all having a great time!!

Nicholas at baseball - on the White Sox team!

The Cheering Section:

Boys will be Boys

2009-09-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

"Nicholas had a little accident" is what the teacher said when I finally reached her. "How bad is it - does he need stitches - what was he doing?" I asked franticly. "It looks bad - no stitches - he was skipping rope, but he is fine now see you at 3:30?" So all day I was wondering what the details were - well - here he is - and school pictures tomorrow! Who would have thought skipping rope was so dangerous?

New Neighbors!

2009-09-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

I was definitely nervous and hopeful about meeting the new neighbors, but once again we have gotten lucky. Our new neighbors are Texas Longhorns - born and bread Texas(Mark and I have a special place in our hearts for Texas since it is where we met), but have been in China for a few years now. First in Shanghai - most recently in Hong Kong and are now back in Shanghai. So no strangers to the China lifestyle. They have 2 boys who are 5 and 3 so Nicholas and Ian are loving having new buddies across the street. As much as they enjoyed playing "Mums and Dads" with Sophia they were ready for some Mario and Batman play time with their new friends. Just a few weeks after moving in Trevor turned 6 and we all celebrated Spongebob style!

What Ian learned on his first day of school.

2009-09-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

Here is Ian again singing in Mandarin. We loves to learn these new songs and our Ayi says he is pretty good!

New Trampoline!

2009-09-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

As you know by now we are VERY sad that our neighbors across the street have left us to go back to Glasgow, Scotland, but they left us with a whole lot of loot!! Here is Ian and Kyle enjoying our largest hand-me-down gift. Thanks Wallaces!!

First Day of School!

2009-08-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

Well - we were suppose to start school on August 25th, but because of the H1N1 scare over here Dulwich decided we needed to quarantine ourselves for a week in our homes before starting school. So the boys and I enjoyed a few more days at the Vizcaya pool before we headed back to school on August 27th. This year Ian jumped up from the waiting list and got excepted into Reception (Pre-Kindergarten for us in the states) at Dulwich. So now he attends the lower school (Toddler, Nursey, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2) where Nicholas was last year and Nicholas moved up the the Junior School (across the street). A more challenging pick up and drop off, but great for them to both be at Dulwich (same holiday breaks).

Here are the studs dressed and ready for school and for play (there is a not hat no play policy).

Coming Home....or Leaving Home??

2009-08-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

It was definitely a weird feeling coming back to the PRC this time. After 5 weeks in the US, enjoying how easy life is in a free country where you speak the language and eat normal food, it was difficult to be excited to get on the plane back to this life so foreign from our own. Living here in China, I have gotten use to ignoring the background sounds and kind of living in my own world. When you cannot understand the language and you don't care to hear the sounds of spitting and urination - you learn to block it out. In fact I see many Western people in the shopping areas with their iPods on. I think they have the same feeling as me. Our first full day back in the US at my sister's in Chicago, we took the kids to the zoo. All day I felt like I had been a deaf person who suddenly was able to hear again. I was eavesdropping on every one's conversations and I felt like striking up conversations with every stranger around. Most of you who know me know I am a talker - well when you are riding in a car with a man who speaks no English and you have a woman in your house all day that speaks no English - it is that constant feeling of uncomfortable silence. But yet there is nothing you can do about it. I simply miss talking to people. I think it is the little things like this that I miss the most. Things that make you feel comfortable in your own skin. I kind of feel like I am wearing someone else's skin temporarily and it is not quite as comfortable as mine?

So- flight #1 was to the unknown - nervous, anxious, scared, unsure of what to expect, hoping for the best.

Flight #2 was in sadness - missing my friends and family already, knowing my good neighbors in China were gone, mourning the loss of the good food (I needed this one since I gained 10 pounds in the five weeks home) and finally knowing that my next visit back is a whole year away.

I once again enjoyed my extra large Dunkin Donuts coffee and then we boarded the flight back to the other side of the world.

New York, New York....

2009-08-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

So after a nice long visit in the Mid-West we headed out East for our 3rd stop on the Lisi US Summer Tour 2009. It is interesting how things in the Mid-West move so calm and slow and the minute you step onto New York soil we were off and running. We landed in Westchester on Tuesday night and had one week to enjoy all things NY. Wednesday was a crazy day of going from doctor to dentist to doctor to catch up on our annual check-ups. After all the business was taken care of we headed to the Briarcliff town pool! Boy was it great to be back to a place that feels so comfortable to all of us. I had sent out a late notice e-mail to many of our friends that we would be at the pool that afternoon and we were so touched that so many people were able to come and join us for a little swim (well play - it was a little cool and rainy)and some pizza. The kids were so excited to see their old pals and it was so nice to catch up a little on life at home. We wished we could have stayed longer, but I am afraid I just might have decided to hide in Elizabeth's basement instead of getting on the flight back to China. Maybe it was too early to come home?? It was so hard to see our house with someone else living in it(our course it looked great - in fact I think the yard is better now than when we were there)! We saw Daphne (our cat) walking in the neighbor's yard and I tried to call her over to pet her and she ran from me like a stranger. We needed to make the visit short for everyone's sake - so we cherished the one day spent with our wonderful friends and look forward to next year! Thanks to all!

Nicholas got to spend the night with his best friend in the whole world Patrick and is still talking about how much fun he had!! Thanks Patrick - for the great memories!

Once again Thursday morning we were off and running out to East Hampton to enjoy some great time with Mark's family at the beach. We had a great time just relaxing with Uncle Ben, Ashley, Uncle Andrew and Grandma and Pop. The weather was great, the sand was beautiful, and the sea was fun for all. This was Kyle's first trip to the beach and he seemed pretty comfortable playing, crawling and eating the sand.

Nicholas and Ian had a great time using the new boogie boards that Aunt Margaret restocked the house with!

We spent our mornings feeding ducks bread and feeding ourselves Dreesen's donuts. Afternoons at the beach or playing Putt-Putt golf (where Mark got a hole in one on the last hole and earned himself a free round for next summer) and nights toasting marshmallows and doing sparklers. It was a great way to spend our last few days in the US and we had a very tearful drive back to Westchester counting down the hours until we boarded that plane back to our new life. Thank you to Grandma and Pop, Uncle Ben and Ashley, and Uncle Andrew who made our last few days on American soil so special! Good Bye Summer - Good Bye East Hampton until we meet again next summer!

Home for the Summer

2009-08-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Well - our first stop on the Lisi US summer tour was Chicago for 4 days with Aunt Kim, Uncle Zach and Cousin Henry. Let me tell you Kim has said many times now she will NEVER take the 1st stop again! Four very jet-lagged travelers were not her idea of fun! And the littlest traveler caused us all the most pain! Fourteen hours in an airplane in Coach seats surrounded by Chinese people is difficult for anyone, but we managed to survive pretty well. No serious break downs by anyone. Nicholas and Ian had a pretty easy adjustment to the 13 hour time difference, but Kyle was just not willing to believe that night was day and day was night. So needless to say Kim and I were also up many nights enjoying the beautiful sights and sounds of the Baby Einstein DVDs (black market Chinese copies anyway- good to know they work in the DVD players in the US).

We did have great fun at the Brookfield Zoo checking out the dinosaur exhibit. Uncle Zach was nice enough to get up on Saturday morning and get us 2 dozen Dunkin Donuts and my favorite coffee!! YEA! We each ate 3 donuts a piece! Boy have we missed donuts.....and this was just the beginning of the US feeding frenzy!

Anyway - I got a fabulous haircut and color by Kim's very cool stylist Jenny - Kim and I did some quick shopping (thanks Zach and Rachel for the babysitting) and the kids had a great time hanging out with cousin Henry. By Sunday, however, Henry was ready to kick us out and get his Mommy and his stuff back to himself - so we hopped a quick one hour flight to Indiana for the second leg of our summer tour.
Now -first of all we need to say a big "THANKS" to Nana and Papa Jo for allowing us to stay with them for 3 full weeks in their normally quiet, peaceful, clean home. The 3 boys and I came and destroyed (Kyle's new nickname is "The Destroyer") the quiet, peaceful, clean home in the woods, but we had a great time doing it! Kyle was notorious for removing every door stop in the house and finding all outlets and toilet paper rolls!

Papa Jo spoiled the boys with fishing trips, putt-putt golf, and swims at the Country club pool with a slide!! The best part was when Papa Jo would go down the slide! He might be a 60 something, but he sure can keep up with these crazy boys! Almost every night was spent playing baseball on the front drive ......Papa Jo throws a mean screw ball!

Nana and I took the boys on many shopping trips(not their favorite activity, but much needed) to restock all the items we cannot find in China, a fun morning at the Children's Museum, and visits to many of the big playgrounds around Newburg.

Nicholas and Ian spent 2 weeks taking daily swimming and lessons and got quite good. Both passed their current levels and moved up to the advanced levels for their age groups. Nick also spent a week at golf camp perfecting his swings and putts.

We had nice visits with Nana's side of the family and shared some Chinese cheer with all!

And then our final HOORAH in Indiana was our 4th annual trip to Holiday World. Now we have been talking about this trip since last Spring after the announcement of the the newest ride "Pilgrim's Plunge"---the world's tallest water ride. Nicholas, Papa Jo, Mark and I experienced the "plunge" and lived to talk about it - so I guess it was worth all the build-up! It was a great way to end our Mid-West leg of the tour with a fun day of rides and slides in Santa Claus, Indiana. Thanks for all the great memories!

Temporary Ayi

2009-07-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

So - now that we know our neighbors across the street will be heading back to Glasgow we have decided to hire their Ayi (who they have had for 4 years) full-time starting in August. Because we have been such good friends with the Wallaces we see a lot of their Ayi Lina and the kids have really gotten to know her well. I am hoping this will be a good fit for everyone when we return from the summer vacation. In the mean time, Lina has been training a young girl Qi who has helped us out for the last couple of months - so on her last day she was quite sad to leave us(especially Kyle) and we were a little sad to see her go (but because she speaks really NO English it has been hard for the kids). Bye Qi - Good Luck!

Goodbye Wallaces!

2009-07-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

Well - we spent our last few days here in Shanghai with our great friends the Wallaces, who will be back in their home country of Scotland, when we return to Shanghai. They have been wonderful friends to all of us(even though Ian looks like he wants nothing to do with them- his usual picture pose these days) and we are going to miss them dearly. They have made our transition to Shanghai much easier and very enjoyable. We have had an open door policy so the kids have had a great time playing back and forth from house to house. I am losing my favorite shopping partner and Mark is losing his work out buddy. So today we said our final good byes before we caught our plane to the US. I know this is not the end of this friendship just the end of our Shanghai days! See you in Scotland Wallaces!

Summer Vacation!

2009-07-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

Wow - life here in China has gotten away from me. I guess that is good. Staying busy is the best way to stay sane here. Nicholas finally finished school on Friday, July, 3rd and Ian finished summer school on the same day. So there has been a lot of parties, concerts, speech days, etc. I am obviously behind on these posts so I hope to catch up soon. Anyway - we are in countdown mode now to come home. I am so glad we decided to come home for the summer! We are one of the few remaining soles here. It is 90 degrees with 100% humidity everyday - so we are either in the house or at the pool! We are planning a few trips this week with the neighbors and a few remaining friends to pass the days until our flight back over(I say over because the American flight we take really does go over the world- right over Antartica) the world. I cannot wait to be back in the USA! We have been here 5 1/2 months and we are all ready for a recharge of our batteries. The 3 boys are I are making the trip home alone and Mark will catch-up with us is 3 weeks at my parents in Indiana. America here we come!

DUCKS Music Show

2009-06-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Year 1 (Kindergarten) and Year 2 (1st Grade) students at Dulwich College DUCKS school put on a performance for their parents to show off the skills they have learned in music class this year. Nicholas has really loved the class and we have had a lot of practicing at home! Here is a clip from the African dance all the children did together. He is still stomping everywhere he goes!

Also some pictures from his class performance.

More Tunes in Chinese!

2009-06-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

Here is Ian singing his newest song in Chinese. Clearly this is "Where is Tumbkin?" to the tune of Frere Jacques. I wondered why he kept asking me if this was his ring finger!

Sleeping Shanghai Style

2009-06-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

Now I have lived in many different states and towns across the US - so I have seen my share of bugs. In Havana, Illinois, where I went to high school, the bugs were so bad in the summer "the fogger" would come around town every night spraying the bugs. "The fogger" was basically a pick up truck with a big machine that blew bug spray out the back. Kids would chase "the fogger" on their bicycles and get lost in a cloud of chemicals (hopefully they are all still normal after inhaling all the toxins??). After college I moved to Corpus Christi, TX and experienced bugs I had never seen before. They say everything is bigger in Texas - including the bugs!! I once had a cockroach in my apartment the size of a Almond Joy - I use this to describe the size because I really thought it was an Almond Joy - until it moved. Well here in Shanghai the bugs are like vultures! This morning I awoke to 4 mosquitoes on the wall about 6 inches from my pillow!! Just waiting for a feast. When you actually kill these mosquitoes, they leave about a pint of blood behind. Twice now I have gotten up in the morning to notice smears of blood in the sheets. After checking myself for scratches I realize that it is just me smashing mosquitoes in the bed. I am many nights awakened by a high pitched buzzing in my ear. One night I slept with the lights on and killed 8 in one night(with my fancy electric tennis racket bug zapper). Why am I such a mosquito magnet?? Someone once said - if you have blonde hair and eat bananas your are a target. Well I think I might have 2 hairs on my entire head that are truly blonde (the rest are helped by bleach) - I do still eat bananas. Someone said - if you have a sweet tooth you will be eaten alive (Ian and I both have a sweet tooth and we are the two eaten the most - so maybe true?) Anyway - to protect the kids they sleep in tents. The first few nights we had some claustrophobia attacks, but now they don't mind at all being zipped in and mosquito free!!

We walked the Great Wall of China!

2009-05-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

I am still amazed every time I say it! I never thought in my lifetime I would walk the Great Wall of China. Did I want to- you ask?? I am not really sure, but now that we live in China it was a must. When we found out we were moving here it was Nicholas's first request. So Nicholas had 2 days off school for Dragon Boat Festival and off we went to Beijing! It was a quick 2 hour flight from Shanghai (once you tackle a 15 hour flight any flight is quick) and we arrived Thursday morning anxious to explore Beijing. The rain put a little damper on our exploring, but we did make it over to Tiananmen Square. We were there just a few days before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The mood was very somber with the rain and the picture of Chairman Mao is kind of creepy to me - kind of like the man from American Gothic picture (we use to have it in our garage and it always creeped me out!).

We did have some time to enjoy

the fabulous pool at the Grand Hyatt!

Later that night we went to The Legend of Kung Fu show. It was kind of mix between a Broadway show and River Dance. It was fun and the boys watched most of it (before Nicholas feel asleep in his seat and Kyle asleep on Mark's shoulder).

The next morning we were up bright and early to have a good breakfast at the hotel before heading to The Wall. However, the big breakfast came back to haunt us when Ian got car sick on the 2 hour car ride from Beijing. Luckily he stayed in good spirits and we had some snacks to enjoy along the way. We could not have had a better day - the rain was gone and there were beautiful blue skies! We got tickets for the cable car up and the toboggan slide down. Now we were thinking fun - a cable car ride up - look around- take photos- hop on the slide down. Well - we had no idea there was a walk from the cable car to the toboggan slide - a long walk with 3 children. The wall was built over 2000 years ago so the path was no where near easy to walk. There were areas with narrow steps that were each about 2 feet tall! It is a good thing we did not know the details because we would have never done it - but we DID and it was AMAZING!! Here is a video Nick made for his class back in Briarcliff! I might have stole this from the TODAY show - I do miss Matt Lauer!

Right before the entrance to the slide down- we were taking a last few photos- when a friendly American woman offered to take our family photograph. We obviously said great and she captured a few shots. As we all headed for the slide, the "where are you from?" conversation led us to find out we were walking The Great Wall of China with John and Pat Dosher from Havana, IL with their son John with his wife and kids and their granddaughter. I was talking to their granddaughter and she said she was from a small town near Peoria and I said "I graduated from Havana High School" she said " I go to Havana High School!!" It was all so very bizarre! We had a nice chat and took a quick photo together! WHAT A SMALL WORLD!

As you can see from the picture "Tobogganing is so simple" - well we were a little frightened! Mark had on a backpack carrier and took Kyle and Nicholas in his toboggan. Ian and I have the need for speed so we followed them VERY FAST!! So much fun!

After a 2 hour nap/ride back to Beijing we headed to the Historical hutong area of the city. This is an area that still has the tiny alleyways that where created during the Zhou Dynasty (1027-256 BC). We took a rickshaw ride through the tiny village and enjoyed the sites.

Later that night we joined our neighbors(they live 2 houses up the road from us here in Shanghai) for dinner to eat the famous Beijing Peking Duck. It was quite an experience that even the kids tried. They bring "your" duck to your table and slice it up for you. Then you eat the duck rolled in a thin tortilla like pancake with toppings of your choice. It was enjoyed by all!

Our final day in Beijing was spent on a boat ride to the Summer Palace.

What a great trip!

Missing my girls from "the hood"!

2009-05-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

I am not sure why, but I got up this morning missing my friends from "the hood". It is Memorial Day at home, but not here in China. The town pool is opening, BBQ's are going on and Briarcliff is on my mind! I put on my red shoes (old heels I use to wear to work), closed my eyes, clicked my heels together 3 times while saying "there's no place like home", but no such luck. What I would give to be back in "the hood" hanging out at Jackson Park with the girls! Miss you all! Happy Memorial Day!

Can you say Shanghai with no front teeth?

2009-05-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

No front teeth!
Teeth here are worth 20 RMB and a $2 bill! WOW!

Pizza Party at the Lisi's!

2009-05-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

Friends of Dulwich hosted their annual Gala event at an Art and Lifestyle Center here in Shanghai. It was a fun night of drinks, dancing, dinner and silent auction. Of course, we forgot to bring the camera with us, but got a picture of the kids hanging out having pizza at our house while the adults were across the street having cocktail hour. A fun night was had by all! Yes our favorite pizza here in Shanghai is --New York pizza!

School Picture Make-up Day

2009-05-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

They did a make-up day for school pictures for anyone who missed picture day back in September. So Nicholas will make it in this year's yearbook! Here he is in full dress uniform looking sharp!

I love Spaghetti!

2009-05-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

My Mom's good friend and neighbor, Marcia, once told me she would make spaghetti and bring it with them to restaurants for entertainment/food when her kids were little. We had spaghetti for dinner this night and I decided to give some to Kyle to see what he would do. Well as you can see - he had a blast! Thanks for the tip Marcia - we will be bringing spaghetti everywhere we go! I have a 15 hour plane ride coming up with 3 children alone. How many pounds of spaghetti should one make for a 15 hour flight???

Rainy Days in Shanghai

2009-05-13T06:04:00.000-07:00

When it rains - it pours. Here in Shanghai when it rains - it seems to rain for days. We will have several really nice days and then it will start to rain and never stop. One rainy day we decided to get out some of our dress up costumes and put on a great show! Our other favorite rainy day activity is to head to the indoor pool - feels a little like we are on vacation!

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day we all went with 2 other families to the Westin here in Shanghai. The brunch is named "Best Brunch in Shanghai" by many different magazines, newspapers, etc. It had more food stations than I have ever seen! There was German food, Italian food, Greek food, Middle Eastern food, Seafood, on and on and on...

They had a separate room upstairs for the kids with a kiddie buffet (chicken nuggets, fries, fruit, ice cream) toys, movies, and Ayis to watch the kids! Entertainment was also provided for the adults in the form of singers, acrobats, dancers.... Amazing! In usual China fashion there was almost too much going on.

We all had a nice time and enjoyed some great food.

Me and my boys!

Sports Day at Dulwich College Shanghai!

2009-05-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

At Dulwich all the children from Reception (like pre-kindergarten - Ian will start in the fall) up to Year 12 are placed in a house. The houses compete in many different ways. If Nicholas does a great job on something at school he can earn a house point(a small laminated square with a duck on it). The children put their house points they earn in their house bucket. Nicholas is in Wing House and his colors are blue and white. On this particular day the children in Year 1 & 2 (kindergarten and 1st grade to us) participated in Sports Day. The houses are competing in little games against each other. The school really builds up the comradery and the kids were so excited to compete and cheering on their house. Everyone had a great time!!

Man on the Move

2009-05-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

I think I am in some trouble with this one!

Back to Century Park!

2009-05-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

Ian was off school Friday, Monday and Tuesday for the Chinese Labor Day. So on Monday we decided to head over to Century Park again - this time with his friend Max from school. Without all the crowds we were able to enjoy the little amusement park. The boys had a GREAT time!

Central Park New York vs. Century Park Shanghai

2009-05-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Us in Central Park New York!

Nicholas and Ian in Century Park Shanghai!

Today was Labor Day in China and luckily Mark got the day off. So we decided to head to Century Park for a picnic. The weather was beautiful and the park was packed! We had lunch, walked around the grounds, and checked out all the wedding parties!

Technical difficulties

2009-05-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Hi all. It's Pam's younger sister Kim. I'm afraid Lisis Go to China is currently being censored. Pam cannot access her blog at all for now. We aren't sure if it is permanent. If it is, hopefully we can get her up and running via some other blog tool, as she really enjoys sharing her stories and I think everyone enjoys reading them!

I'll keep you posted if she does have to relocate! Feel free to email her, as she is still able to access her email just fine.

I'm BACK!

2009-05-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

Yes - I am being censored here in China along with all other blogs. Yes - we have found a way to get around it. I will say no more. Check below for some catch-up posts.

Ladies night in Shanghai: Round 2

2009-04-29T00:47:00.000-07:00

Well- I was once again invited out for a ladies night (I guess I behaved well enough to be invited back again). The crowd was a little different this time. Mostly British women with children at Dulwich and a few Americans as well with children at Dulwich. We headed over to "18 on the Bund" for a night of all you can drink champagne. Now I have become quite a light weight in the drinks department - after a nine month hiatus and with nursing it does not take too many champagnes before I feel a wee bit (British talk) tipsy! Plus I pulled out my heels, which have also taken quite a long vacation(carrying a 10 pound baby is just not easy in heels). So the combination of all you can drink champagne and heels could be a recipe for a big disaster, but with the moderation lesson I have learned from my Dad (I finally get it Dad after all those agonizing rides to Thanksgiving dinner - I finally get it!) I was able to tell when one more champagne meant a crash and burn on the heels! So anyway - it has been quite an eye opener into stay-at-home mom life in Shanghai. I know I have talked about this in previous posts, but before I left I kept thinking "what is it that women do here in Shanghai?" Now I see the lifestyle that many women live by - 3 ayis - 1 for each child and 1 for cleaning/grocery shopping/errands/etc. 1 driver - to take you wherever you want to go or to do other errands for you. Pick up dry cleaning, get light bulbs, etc. One woman goes to the gym every morning at 7:00 am before her children get up - she stays at the gym until 9am. The Ayi's are responsible for packing lunches, backpacks, and getting the children to school. She stops on her way home for a massage - "must have a good massage after a workout". Back home to shower - out to lunch for a little food and a lot of cocktails. Off to shopping or spa. Ayi's get kids from school and take them to their after school activities. Home for dinner(cooked by Ayi) with children. Off to ladies night - Ayi's to put children to bed. Home from ladies night at 4:30 am. Now I am still considered a "newbie" here, but I just don't see myself ever turning into this kind of mom. Sure I have my Calgon take me away moments, but isn't part of being able to stay home to be with your children?? This life feels almost surreal. People say take advantage of it while you are here, but then how do you go back to normal? I still make the kids clean up their mess- they still battle with me and many families just let the Ayi do it, but no one needs to get that spoiled. Call me the mean Mom - I don't care. You make the mess - you clean it up (except for your bathrooms, laundry, vacuuming, dusting and the kitchen - maybe I am a hypocrite?)

Crowds

2009-04-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

Typically at home I do most of my shopping (groceries, target, etc.)during the week. The crowds are much smaller, shorter lines, easier to browse, etc. The down side is that usually I have at least 1 child in tow. So this makes things very unpredictable- some days great -easy to browse (child very entertained in stroller or cart) other days not so good- not even able to get everything on my list because of the screaming. Benefit of shopping on the weekend - leave all children with Mark. But with the crowds I usually get frustrated and end the trip early. Well - here in China - weekdays are like weekends in Westchester and weekends are like being at Disney World during Spring Break. Shanghai is a city of over 20 million people and they are all out on the weekends! So this particular day we headed to the B&Q (Home Depot of China) to quickly buy some patio furniture and then we were headed to Jade Buddha Temple for some sightseeing. We arrived at the B&Q early to beat the crowd and were pleasantly suprised by how empty it was. We quickly selected the furniture (a large table, chairs, umbrella, and stand for adults and a small table with 2 benches for the kids) and we had a few men helping us. As these men started getting multiple carts and loading huge boxes into the carts we tried to explain we wanted it delivered. We had bought a BBQ grill a few weeks ago and they delivered it to our house so we knew they delivered. Since the language is impossible I have really resorted to playing charades. So me pretending to push a wheel barrel was not getting the message across. Our last resort was our driver Mr. Xu. Now poor Mr. Xu speaks VERY little English, but we try with him all the time anyway. When I go and get him to help me he always says "Pam I no good". So we drag Mr. Xu into B&Q and tell him to tell them to bring to Vizcaya. So the men continue to load multiple boxes into carts and wheel them to the check out. At the check out, they are scanning all the boxes and Mark is ready to pay and all of the sudden they understand delivery. So they wheel the carts away and the woman at the check out clears out the transaction. We have now officailly been at the B&Q for one hour and we have not paid, but have convinced them to deliver. Needless to say we spent another hour trying to pay and arrange the delivery day. So after 2 hours in the B&Q everyone was starving so we headed to lunch and decided we just could not do the Jade Buddha Temple. We instead headed to Yu Garden to walk around. Yu Garden is a very touristy place so between the guided tours and some kind of food festival going on it was once again overwhelming. So we found Mark's favorite donut place and headed in for a snack. Of course the donut shop was empty(Chinese do not like sweets)- so we escaped the crowd and enjoyed a sweet treat!

Montessori Party

2009-04-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

Ian's school hosted a little Spring "Garden Party" complete with food, fun, and families from around the world. They grilled sausages that looked a little anemic to us and served them on hamburger buns. The rest of the meal was potluck - so very interesting selection of foods. I am sometimes guessing the contents of foods served at potlucks in the US, but here I can't even begin to guess. So we did a little tasting, enjoyed the games and crafts and met a lot of really nice people. (I was playing with my camera settings- so sorry for the poor photos).

What the bloody hell is Hamburger Helper?

2009-04-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

I have started this post a couple times and then had a hard time wording what I am thinking - so I keep saving it and them coming back to it. Well, the other day I was talking to some British women and one says "What the bloody hell is Hamburger Helper?"(When the import markets are low on stock they will fill an entire aisle with Hamburger Helper - I am not sure why there is an abundance of the stuff?) The other British woman says "I think it is seasoning to help you make hamburger patties?" Now of course I know what Hamburger Helper is - I haven't made it a lot at home, but every now and then when I am in a dinner rut I have been known to make a big skillet full of the stuff (Mark actually likes it). But do I admit to knowing what it is or play dumb like I am way too sophisticated for HH? They are both looking at me for the answer. So I start to explain what is in the mysterious box. "Well you buy a pound(or 450 gm in metric system) of ground beef and brown the meat. Inside the box is a bag of dried pasta and a packet of powdered cheesy sauce stuff that you mix with milk and pour in with the beef and noodles....?" "So it makes a skillet full of mush?" she asks. "Basically - yes". Of course they are looking at me like - you would eat that and feed it to your family? One woman says,"Have you looked at the ingredients in that stuff? I had no idea what most of the stuff was in there." So this starts me thinking about all the things I used to buy in the US - convenience items. These items are like drugs - you eat them and become addicted to them - wanting more and more processed sugars and carbs. So hard to eat just one. Then there are the commercials showing you and telling you how good these foods are - how easy to make - kids will love them, etc. Kids begging for this cereal and that cookie. It is really terrible. Since the only TV we get here for the kids is Nickelodeon and it comes from the Philippines we have none of this- if they ask for something I say "Sorry - only in the Philippines not here in China." There is such a weight and health issue in the US due to all these convenience foods and yet we are creating it ourselves. My neighbor recently traveled to LA on business and said he was shocked by the portion sizes at the restaurants. He asked for a half order of mashed potatoes and the waitress said "We can't do that, but we can give you a doggie bag to take home." He said "Why in bloody hell (very common British phrase) would I want a doggie bag of mashed potatoes!" Being here has really made me realize how truly addicted I was to all these tasty time bombs. But I must say the withdraw is hard. Mark and I many nights search for something sweet to satisfy that super sweet tooth we both have. The other night Mark discovered some candy in his jacket pocket left over from a trip to the movies in NY. A few rounds of rock, paper, scissors and then we decided to just share it - biting Starburst in half and savoring every morsel. Of course afterward I found myself craving even more - see?...like a drug! Is there rehab for this??

Fake Market

2009-04-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we decided to head over to the Underground or Fake Market (I should say one of many, but I think this is the most popular)here in Shanghai. It is located in the underground Metro station at the Museum of Science and Technology. It sounds all mysterious, but it really just seems like an underground mall with very aggressive sales people. "Lady want to buy watch, bag, scarf, shoes, etc." People are begging you to buy anything and everything from them. It is pretty easy to negotiate since so many of the shops have the same thing - so if they are not willing to take your price you move on to the next until someone will. We decided we all needed new sunglasses - including Kyle! So here we are looking extremely stylish in our new designer (fake) sunglasses!

The Boys!

2009-04-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the boys in their matching PJs from the Easter Bunny!

Also some practice with the new camera. Luckily -I have a good and willing subject!

A little taste of the Outback

2009-04-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

Nicholas finally went back to school on Wednesday (8 days of vacation is just a few too many) which left Ian, Kyle and I at home. Our neighbor up the road (whose daughter is in class with Ian) found this great little Australian Cafe in Puxi with a sandbox in the middle. So we hopped in our van and took a 45 minute ride to Sydney Cafe. There was basically a deck build around a sandpit with plexiglass all around. The tables surrounded the pit, but the plexiglass kept the noise and sand out of the restaurant area. Well the kids had a blast and Jane and I were able to enjoy a nice lunch with a glass of wine. Lookout Briarcliff - Pam's Australian Cafe with Sandbox coming in 2011! How great would that be! Picture Surfboards hanging on the walls - maybe a fake palm tree or two. I will keep the heat cranked inside so you feel like you are in Sydney in the summer time(which is winter in New York)! The food can be simple - kids menu with chicken nuggets, pizza, fish and chips with tartar sauce (Ian's new favorite meal) and for the moms soup, salad and flavored coffees. Of course lots of desserts including an ice cream bar(maybe not good if the heat is cranked??) for the kids - I am going to need to make up for this 2 1/2 year sugar loss! What a great way to escape the New York winter (which sounds like it has been lingering forever this year)! Anyone want to be my silent investment partner - Rick??

A Trip to the Aquarium

2009-04-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

The boys and I decided to take a little trip to the Shanghai Aquarium. Ian had already been once with his school - so he was our tour guide for the day.

Of course, whenever I tell the boys to pose for a picture I am never the only person taking their photo. So we learned a new phrase this week

"Bu Yao" which basically means -I do not want. So we were all 4 at the Carrefour (I am not sure what I was thinking - I don't take all 3 of them to a store in the US - why would I take them to the crazy Chinese Dollar Store?)on Monday and a toothless woman comes up to Kyle ready to grab him and I say "Bu Yao"! Well I am pretty sure I made her angry because she started basically yelling at me in Chinese, but she did not touch him! So all day at the Aquarium the kids were armed and ready with "Bu Yao", but luckily had no need for it. We almost had the whole place to ourselves. Lots of fun!

This is called a saw fish! We had to wait awhile to get this perfect shot!

There was a long moving walkway into a tunnel of fish, sharks, turtles, etc. We all thought it was really cool - except Kyle who got bored and decided to take a nap!

At the gift shop you could turn in these raffle tickets for your free pearl. So we turned in our tickets and the woman put on her rubber gloves, broke open the oysters and gave us 4 pearls.

What a great way to spend Nick's 8th and final day (thank goodness) of spring vacation!

Easter Sunday in Shanghai

2009-04-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny was able to find us here in China. We are never sure if we will be found here, but since the tooth fairy found us we think she told her American friends...Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. When the boys mentioned it to our British neighbors that the Easter Bunny came, they said he didn't make it to their house - so we decided it must have been the American Easter Bunny - so he only hit the American families? Anyway we got baskets of goodies and had a few eggs to find.

We decided to spend our morning participating in the Jinqiao Run towards Expo 2010. There was a 2K and an 8K race - so the whole family ran/walked the 2K and Mark ran the 8K. We all finished surprisingly well - Mark ran his 8K in 39 minutes - 350th place! Great time for him! I had Kyle in the stroller and Ian on the buggy board attached to the stroller and Mark ran with Nick, who was pretty fast and ready to run in his next competition. Fun was had by all of the fam!

We worked up a big appetite doing the walk/run, and then headed up to the Vizcaya Club for an Easter Brunch. The brunch included an omelet station, waffle station and lucky for us (and the white pants) a chocolate fountain. After the brunch they had an egg hunt for the kids around the pool - the eggs were just hard boiled brown eggs and the big prize was for the person who found the one ostrich egg (no such luck in our group- thank goodness!) Overall a pretty good Easter! Mark said one of the best!

Poncho's by Pam

2009-04-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

Whenever it rains I am so excited to wear my new fabulous raincoat, however, I am usually carrying poor Kyle and just trying to keep him covered with a blanket. So after a little brainstorming I came up with my latest design - children's ponchos! I used the same waterproof fabric mine is made of and a cute red, white, and navy plaid on the inside. It has holes in the front for his hands or on the sides. As you can see he looks adorable! And what a pair we make. Accepting custom orders now!

Eggs

2009-04-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all for the e-mails, calls, etc. with ideas for dying the brown eggs. I ended up buying the lightest eggs I could find and soaking them in bleach to get the Chinese stamp off which also made them a little lighter. The kids had a fantastic time and the eggs did not look too bad!

Ladies night in Shanghai

2009-04-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

We - The Ladies of Larch Road - like to try to get together at least every couple months for a night out with the girls. We usually pick a nice restaurant in Westchester and head out for a night of dinner, wine and woman talk(I will say no more and let the men continue to guess what we talk about until midnight!) So when my neighbor invited me out to ladies night I was excited to find out what kind of restaurant we would be going to. Well - ladies night is a little different here in Shanghai. My neighbor informs me we are headed to Hong Qiao (45 minute ride) to go dancing to the soulful music of Carlton J. Smith. So off we go in her van with the champagne flowing freely (since we are not driving and there is no open container law here). We arrive at a Marriott and head to the bar/lounge area to meet the rest of our clan - 4 Dutch women, 2 Scottish, 1 Irish, and good old Mid-western me. Now the ladies had warned me that he likes to draw attention to new people he meets and since it was the eve of my birthday- I knew I was probably in for some trouble. After a few songs, he called me up to the middle of the dance floor, had me sit on a chair, put a Michael Jackson type hat on my head and sang "You Can Leave your Hat on" by Joe Cocker from the infamous movie 9 1/2 weeks! Anyway - it was a very fun night of drinks and dancing with the ladies (Ladies of Larch - he is from NY and plays in the city all the time - so we will be going when I get back)! And as we were riding home( at 12:30 AM) in Brenda's blue Buick mini-van with the Chinese driver and 3 women speaking Dutch - I could not help but feeling like I was in some bizarre dream, but no - it is just my new life in China!

Sunday Sightseeing in Shanghai

2009-04-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful (except for the smog) Sunday in Shanghai and we decided to head into town to have a little lunch and check out the Bund. We had lunch at Din Tai Fung which in 1993 was ranked as one of the world's top 10 restaurants by The New York Times. They are famous for Xiaolongbao which are small steamed buns or dumplings available in many different flavors. Even our pickiest eater, Nicholas, polished off his share of the pork dumplings- so many we had to place a second order! Boy those Chinese know how to do "buns".

After lunch we headed down to "The Bund" - a less than one mile strip of waterfront area that separates Puxi from Pudong. It is lined with many restaurants and shops and has great views of many of the tall financial buildings in Shanghai. As usual our sight seeing turns into a sight to see for the Chinese people. A man came rushing up to us and in his best English he belts out "Welcome to Shanghai - now I take picture of your boys?" "NO" - we said and jumped into a cab back to the walls of Vizcaya to shut our door and try to escape China.

White Sweet Potatoes; Brown Eggs

2009-04-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well I am now trying to be creative and add different foods to Kyle's menu (have I said how much I love the baby food maker Aunt Kim sent us! So easy! My other 2 kids were Gerber babies all the way -so making baby food was not something that interested me, but this Beaba Babycook is the best!! Of course I have to plug it into an adapter plus 2 extension plugs to not blow it up, but sooo worth it!) Anyway - I went to the Carrefour yesterday to buy what I thought was a sweet potato. I came home peeled it and cut it open to find it was white with black spots in the middle. I immediately threw it in the trash assuming I had bought some weird Chinese root plant?? So I sent the label (written in Chinese) over to my neighbors house for her Ayi to read what it was that I bought and yes indeed it was a sweet potato? So I googled sweet potato to find that only in America are the sweet potatoes orange? We eat sweet potatoes for the carotene in them - if they are white - no carotene? So what is the point? So I headed to the import market to buy an American sweet potato. Success.

My other dilemma: brown eggs. Right before we left NY I was cleaning out the pantry and found a box of Easter Egg dye tablets. I don't know what made me think to put them in my suitcase, but I did. So everyone is so excited that we get to dye eggs. We are having the neighbors over and everyone can't wait to get the dying underway! However, all the eggs are brown. Will brown eggs work for dying? I stood in the row of eggs yesterday trying to find the lightest eggs possible, but they are still brown? We like to use white crayons to write on them and then put them in the dye? Will this work? The duck eggs are whiter, but they looked like they were pickled? Each one was shrink wrapped in the carton? This may be a huge disappointment? Any suggestions?

Still searching for the American Donut

2009-04-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

After the disappointment with the Dunkin' Donuts we have been asking around about where to find a good sweet, sticky donut. People say Mister Donut is the place to go, but Mark insisted he knew the place- Maisy's Donuts. So after sending our driver, Mr. Xu, on a wild goose chase and calling a friend and his wife (she speaks English and is many times my translator) we finally found Maisy's donuts. They looked beautiful and tasted pretty good as well. On my donut scale - I give them a 7. Keep looking.

Kid Expo Shanghai

2009-04-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

We got a flyer in a Magazine here in Shanghai advertising a Kid Expo at the Shanghai Exhibition Center so we decided to check it out. It was basically just a bunch of booths to stop at and get information about services provided in the community. Decathlon (a local sporting goods store) was doing sports demonstrations including fishing. So the kids could fish in a blow up swimming pool and take home their catch (goldfish). I don't know what it is about Chinese people and goldfish, but goldfish are everywhere - restaurants, school, grocery stores, etc. After waiting for quite some time and dealing with a lot of invasion of the personal space, we gave up on trying to squeeze between the herds of Chinese people smashed around the little blow up pool. The boys got a brief golf lesson and what kid doesn't love a blow up jumpy castle. Overall, not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday and it was free.

Carrots and Raspberries are not a good mix!

2009-03-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Kyle loves carrots and loves to blow raspberries while eating carrots!

A weekend of Haircuts

2009-03-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

Nicholas, Ian and I all got haircuts this weekend. Mark took the boys for their second haircut at Head to Toe Family Salon. He decided to treat them to a shampoo/head massage for an additional 10 RMB ($1.50). Nicholas was not so fond of someone touching his head - so lots of tears were shed during the hair wash/massage.

Ian on the

other hand likes a little pampering. I am determined to make him my manicure/pedicure partner before we leave here. Total cost for 2 haircuts with wash and massage : $12. My neighbor set me up for a haircut with a nice French man at Eric's Salon in Puxi. Laurent did a wonderful job and it was great to have my own head massage/shampoo with no children to be heard!

Ian loves radishes

2009-03-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today I went to a Parent/Teacher conference for Ian. In the few short weeks we have been here, we have seen such an amazing change in him since he started school. He is now writing his name and drawing pictures that actually resemble something. He is huge into phonics saying "Mom I am thinking of something that sounds like rrrr." He has started eating dumplings dipped in ketchup and he claims he loves radishes (this was fruit and vegetable tasting month). He tells us words that rhyme all the time - Kyle - smile. Here he is singing a song in Chinese that he learned at school! (We have no idea what he is saying?!?!)

Holy Cow

2009-03-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Today I finally took Kyle to the doctor for what was suppose to be his 4 month check up (he is 2 days shy of 5 months). (IBM has been a nightmare with our medical benefits and finally realized that Mark is not a bachelor and added his wife (me) and 3 kids to his insurance plan.) When the nurse put him on the scale she weighed him in kilograms -8.69. Then I asked her if she could switch the scale to pounds - up popped 19 pounds 12 ounces - "Holy Cow" I said. A few minutes later the nurse said, "Um excuse me miss - what holy cow mean?" Now my mom always tells a story about many, many years ago when she was potty training me that once when I produced a success I turned looked in the potty and said "Holy Cow!" I guess I have been using the phrase ever since, but how do I explain that to a Chinese person? So I just said, "It means Wow he is big!"

Heaven in a Plastic Bottle

2009-03-22T05:37:00.001-07:00

Since we have moved here to Shanghai our one daily treat from home has been our Dunkin' Donuts coffee with our Coffee mate creamer. We brought 2 giant bags of Dunkin' Donuts coffee from Sam's and a large bottle of self stable Coffee mate creamer(makes you wonder what is in that stuff that it does not need to be refrigerated and yet it is coffee cream? Would be a little scary in the US, but here - no big deal). We just ran out of the creamer last week and have been trying hard to find a Chinese substitute. I have bought a few varieties of powdered creamer, some sweetened condensed milk, and I found some little creamers like you get at a restaurant. Bottom line is that nothing compares to Coffee mate creamer. So Mark stopped at The City Shop(the best import market in Shanghai) on his way home from work on Friday and surprised me with 2 small bottles of Hazelnut Coffee mate!(for $7.00 each!!)When we first arrived in Shanghai we went to The City Shop and saw the creamer so my thought was that they stock Coffee mate here great - we will never be with out it. Well - you quickly find out that if you see something you want - buy it because it won't be there tomorrow. I am even finding that friends call each other when they find things and buy them all to share with their friends. Anyway what a great Saturday & Sunday morning treat! (thinking of you Traci Giles!) It would have gone great with the New York Times Style Section, but I read a UK InStyle magazine instead (also for $7.00). Sipping Dunkin' Donuts coffee with Hazelnut creamer and my eyes closed - it feels like home.

"The Batmobile"

2009-03-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

One day a week our driver gets the day off. We typically give him Saturdays off. So our main source of transportation on Saturday's is "The Batmobile". Nicholas and Ian love to ride in "The Batmobile" and it is a great workout for Mommy or Daddy. Mommy can also fill it full of groceries for a trip to the store. Kyle is still a little too small, but loved hangin' with the big boys to get his picture taken.

Beautiful Friday in Shanghai

2009-03-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I headed up to the roof top deck to enjoy the sunny 19 degree weather (everything here is in Celsius - 66 degrees F to us). I took a few photos with my new camera - wow- this is going to be a fun hobby to master! It is usually pretty smoggy here in Shanghai, but today it is pretty amazing. This is Claudine's (my favorite neighbor and shopping partner) house.

In the far background of this photo you can see the World Financial Center building. It looks like a bottle opener. In 2008 it was named the world's "Best Tall Building" by the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Cool. The building just to the right of this is Mark's Office in the Jin Mao tower.

The yellow bell tower to the right is at the middle of the compound. There is a great grassy area and a fountain where the kids play soccer or ride their bikes.

I put this one in to show the street signs - hence why we have a driver. All in Chinese and to us all the roads sound like Long Duck Dong Rd? The roads that surround our house - Mingyue Rd, JinXiu Rd., HeiSong Rd. and Bai Hua Rd. Where is Main St.?

How you going?

2009-03-18T05:40:00.000-07:00

Mark keeps telling me he doesn't know what to say when people ask "How is your wife adjusting to life in China?" So I have been thinking hard about how I am adjusting to life in China. Everyday at least one person says "How you going?"(It sounds funny, but this is how the Australian's ask how are you?). After a little brainstorming, I have decided I have progressed through the 5 stages of grieving. I am not sure what I am grieving - the loss of home? Anyway - the five stages of grieving are:

1. Denial - I was in denial until about 8 hours before we boarded the plane. As most people know, I found out about this little move when I was about 8 months pregnant. Therefore, I chose not to think about it until after Kyle's arrival. After Kyle arrived, I still did not want to think or talk about it. Until I boarded the plane I still thought we might not be going for sure.

2. Anger - there have been more than a few angry discussions about why we have to do this. I will stop there as to not air any more dirty laundry.

3. Bargaining - I feel myself bargaining with myself all the time. If these Dunkin Donuts are just like home, I will like it here so much more. If I can have one day were people don't stare at me and Kyle, life will seem more normal. If this mirror will actually fit in this frame, I will stop complaining about nothing working right.

4. Depression - I have up days and down days. I miss a lot of things from home especially friends and family, but overall - I think the days of crying are over.

5. Acceptance - I think I have reached this stage. I don't even look twice at a man riding a bicycle carrying a 6 drawer dresser, or the full pig hanging in the meat section at the grocery store, or the heavy smog that hangs over the city, or the guy cooking dumplings in the street cart outside Ian's school. I just say "Ni hao" and keep on walking. This is life in China.

I guess it is time to embrace my life here. Maid - Driver - Manicure, Pedicure, & Shoulder/Head Massage for $26 - fresh flowers for $2 a bundle - 78 degree weather- fabric market. Life in China is getting better by the day.

Success at the Fabric Market!

2009-03-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

So here is the raincoat! It looks great. And luckily it rained the day after I picked it up! I see many more designs in my future!

Dress up as your favorite storybook character.

2009-03-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

So this week at school was a book-a-thon. Nicholas had to read as many books as possible and we asked people to give him money for every book he reads (thanks for that 5RMB pledge from Grandmum and Pop)! The money goes to the Heart-to-Heart charity that helps children here in China pay for heart surgery. So all week were activities - I went to school on Monday to read books at the library with him, Thursday he brought his pajamas to school complete with Spongebob slippers to hang out and read books in and Friday was dress as your favorite storybook character. So luckily I had brought the wolf mask that I had worn when I was the Mystery Reader last year in Mrs. Smith's class. So he brought the book Mind Your Manners B.B. Wolf and I had a great costume made for him at the fabric market. He looked really cool and got lots of complements. We are going to get some really great costumes here!

Just Chillin' in China

2009-03-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

A Tooth Lost in China

2009-03-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Nicholas lost a front tooth on Sunday, March 1, 2009. We weren't sure what the tooth fairy was going to do now that we live in China, but Nick was pleasantly surprised when he got a $2 bill and 20RMB. He said "She knows we are from America, but we buy things here with Chinese money!"

The boy likes rice......cereal that is!

2009-03-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

When we lived in Aurora, IL and Mark was getting his MBA at the University of Chicago we met some wonderful friends Trong & Natalie Nguyen and Trey & Angela Parker. We all entered the world of parenthood within a few months of each other and started a little baby sitting rotation. Two couples would stay at home with 3 babies and one couple would get to go on a date. It was fun if you were at home or on your date and we saved a ton of money on babysitters (3 kids now cost almost $15/hr - except in China where it is only $3!) Anyway - whenever we would leave Nicholas, Trong would always joke about how he was going to feed him rice and teach him to use chopsticks while we were out. I think there were even a few staged photos of Nicholas with chopsticks. Well now we may have a real chopstick pro on our hands. Spending his first 2 years of life in China he may come home a rice and chopsticks kind of guy. But for now - he took his first bite of rice cereal. It started out rocky, but by the end he was grabbing my hand to help get it to his mouth!

Does your Wii speak English?

2009-03-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Ok - so I have been anti-Wii for some time. My sister has it - my mom & dad have it - many of the kids friends have it. The kids love it and overdose on it when we visit anyone who has it. I really felt like we did not need it. At home we have TV, we have the computer, we have Jackson park, we have the town pool, we have Nintendo DS, we have so many options - we do not need Wii. Well China has broken me down and all the boys are cheering. So the boys and I decided to get Daddy a Wii for his birthday. I asked one of the orientation people to help me out and find the best place to buy a Wii that is in English. She did some research and let me know where to go. So Ian, Kyle and I head into this very illegal game store to do the deal. Here in China they sell Japanese Wii or Korean Wii. The Korean Wii has been changed to English, but can play both pirated games or games from the US. Also he changed the plug for me so it can be plugged in here or in the US. SCORE! So I tried my best to negotiate a better price and only got him down about $15(well at least I tried). The games here only cost 5 RMB(75 cents) so he threw in 2 games for free. Unfortunately he only had Wii sports in Chinese, but the boys know it so well they have no problem knowing what to click. And I can pretend they are getting a little Chinese lesson while playing. It is really strange how the writing is all in Chinese, but they still speak in English - the bowling says "Nice Strike" - the baseball says "2 base hit(instead of double)"? A night of donuts and Wii in Shanghai for birthday number 36.

Wal-Mart Supercenter

2009-03-06T05:33:00.000-08:00

While Kyle and I were out running errands on Friday, I am looking out the window and I spot a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The exact same sign you would see in the US. I feel myself start to get excited. Doesn't Wal-Mart go in there with baseball and apple pie? What is more American than Wal-Mart? I tell the driver "Take me to Wal-Mart". He has no idea what I am saying. He calls his wife on the cell phone and I tell her Wal-Mart - OK, OK she says. We pull up to the big blue sign and I am so excited now I practically run into the store. I enter in the plant section - beautiful flowers and plants - nice - then into the grocery area - wait why is there a woman with an axe chopping pigs feet in half in the Wal-Mart?? Why is there a lady with a wagon putting quail eggs on a non-refrigerated shelf? What are those big bloody fish heads doing in the WAL-MART! Does Sam Walton know this kind of stuff is going on in Wal-Mart? He would be turning over in his grave if he knew this was going on in a Wal-Mart. I guess he was a business man and he knows what sells in China. I made one purchase - a 6 pack of Corona from the import section. I needed one to go home and cry into.

A Taste of Home?

2009-03-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

So after baking cupcakes for Ian's class and another cake for Ian's dinner, I decided I would suprise Mark with a sweet treat from Dunkin' Donuts for his birthday instead of another cake. There is only one in Shanghai(I knew because I saw a You Tube video of a guy finding the Dunkin' Donuts in Shanghai) and I decided Kyle and I would go on a little ride and see if we could find it. So I printed out directions in Chinese for my driver and he said he knew where it was! So off we go and here it is. I was so excited I was running with the stroller to get inside. Mark and I both love Dunkin' Donuts coffee! In fact my hope is to stay stocked with Dunkin' Donuts coffee for the next 2 1/2 years. We brought a few bags with us and we have received a few bags from home(thanks for helping us keep our stock sis - always happy to take as many as you want to send us). Well - it was no US Dunkin' Donuts, but some familiar things - the cups looked the same- and I think that was it. It looked like a groovy retro disco bar inside and I couldn't smell coffee or donuts. I smelled nothing?? When did they make these donuts? How can you make donuts and not get the sweet smell of donuts?? No ground or whole bean coffee for sale? Green tea donuts? So I got 18 donuts (I think the largest order they have ever had - they were all talking about it or me who knows?) and a small box of munchkins. I chose Boston creme, lemon filled, blueberry filled, and chocolate and strawberry with sprinkles. Once again things are not sweet here like in the US - so the donuts were more like bread with cocoa powder icing- not the wonderful sugar filled treats we love. I guess - it's the thought that counts and Mark was excited to see the box and eat the donuts that tasted like the box as well!

The I-man turns 4!

2009-03-04T06:29:00.000-08:00

It was a Batman kind of birthday here on Wednesday. Ian turned 4 years old and Superheroes are his favorite thing right now. He has a Superhero room, clothes, and games. He got a large Batman action figure from Nicholas, a cool bath toy(since they share the bath every night) from Kyle, a Bat mobile from Daddy and a remote control car from Mom. At school they had a little party for him complete with a Superman card and hat. He was a bit stubborn and did not want to wear the hat or open the gift, but I forced him to wear the hat for one quick picture. As you can see from the pictures the attitude was out in full force and there was no changing it. Luckily they are very understanding at school - kids are coming and going each week. Ian is still very confused about living in China - he keeps talking about going back to Luke and Jenny's(the people maintaining our house in NY)house. Anyway for his birthday dinner we had our neighbors over for cake, ice cream, and song. Overall, I think he had a pretty good day.

Designer PRL

2009-03-03T06:22:00.000-08:00

OK - so after my last post my Mom sent me an e-mail saying I sounded like I was trying to talk to a Chinese person. Here goes that crazy accent thing again. I guess after trying to communicate all day with people who don't speak English I start talking and writing very slow and with as few words as possible. It was late and I was tired - now I think I am adjusting so hopefully the accents are over - until I met someone else.

Anyway -I took my first trip to the fabric market today and I think I am already addicted! So much fun! My lovely Scottish neighbor Caludine was happy to expose me to the world of design. She is a pro and so many of the vendors know her - so you know she is there very often. I decided I would start pretty simple with a raincoat. It has been raining for 2 weeks straight(of course it will stop raining the day I pick up the coat I am sure). So I scoured the internet looking for what kind of style I wanted - button or zip, long or short, hood or no hood(so many decisions- I was a little worried I would have trouble because I sometimes take forever to decide and then second guess myself). I found a picture similar to this one and took it with me to the market. There are hundreds of "vendors" begging you to "make coat" or "make scarf" as you walk around through 3 floors of cottons, silks, cashmere, wool, flannel, buttons, etc. So I chose a navy waterproof fabric for the outside, a fun navy, green, and white floral cotton for the inside and white buttons. I had him add big pockets on the front and a small slit up the back. I am so excited to get it next week and all for 525 RMB($77). I also had a costume made for Nick. Next week is dress as your favorite story book character and lucky for us I packed the wolf mask I wore for the mystery reader last year. So Nick is going as BB Wolf dressed in a little suit I got made for $30! Design clothes - have them made - sell them on ebay? Who knows, but this maybe more fun than internet shopping?

Mr. & Mrs. Xu

2009-03-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

Our new driver started this week and we can not be happier with our choice to let Mr. Zhong go. Mr. Xu is a careful driver, he wears his seat belt, he does not smoke, he is super nice, etc. On Monday it was raining pretty hard, when we came out of school he was standing at the gate with an umbrella waiting for us. He helps Ian get in and out of the van and best of all - he let us put a NY Yankees hat in the dashboard - so now we easily find our van!

Mrs. Xu(not related to Mr. Xu our driver - just a coincidence) has started working for me as our Ayi. Let me tell you I have not seen someone clean so much. On Monday she is in the bathroom with bare feet, her pants rolled up to her knees, straddling the toilet, and scrubbing. She got in all the bathtubs to clean them. On Tuesday when I got home, she is outside on a latter scrubbing the windows. Wow- it is hard to not feel guilty as I am sitting with Kyle and hearing her working so hard, but it is really nice to have such a clean house and not be exhausted doing it. We are giving her a try for 2 weeks then going to decide to keep her or find someone else. Monday I was convinced this Ayi thing was no good - now Wednesday I am thinking not too bad.

Chinese in China

2009-03-02T05:57:00.000-08:00

Our wonderful neighbors across the street have been so kind to expose us to many new things here in China. On Sunday night they took us to a local Chinese Restaurant that is one of their favorites. Claudine warned me before we went to not be frightened by the snakes. Snake is one of their specialities and they bring out 2 for you to chose from, if you order it. Well we chose not to order it and lucky no one near us chose one either. The restaurant is family style with a large lazy susan in the middle of the table. So we let them do the ordering and really enjoyed all the selections. Even Nicholas found some things he liked including a roasted pork dish and the homemade dumplings. Everything was very fresh and tasted fantastic. Ian loves "China broccoli" - I am not sure how it differs from American broccoli, but I will just let him enjoy. A great time was had by all!

Dad & Mum = Me

2009-03-01T05:38:00.000-08:00

I saw this shirt and could not pass it up - now that I am a Mum! Too Funny. The hat is an adorable gift from Ashley and Uncle Ben. I have grown into it and don't I look so cute! Thanks guys!

A woman at church tapped me on the back during the homily today and said he was the most beautiful baby she had seen! Well I think so - but I am a little biased!

A China Moment

2009-03-01T05:06:00.000-08:00

Today as I was getting out of the swampy shower I was reaching for my towel and thinking to myself - I am so glad I bought these nice brand new towels before we left to bring here to China. They are big,(Mark was told by our orientation person - no tall man towels in China - you might want to bring your own) they are soft, they are white (right now but after a few washes in this water they will not be) and they smell pretty nice. At home I would not spend this much time admiring new towels, but here where everything is very cheap and dirty I really value the things I have from home. So I start thinking - why don't they sell nice things in China? or where are they all hiding? If these towels were for sale here - would no one buy them? Does the government not want people to have nice things? Yesterday I went over to my neighbor's house to meet a friend of her Ayi's who is interested in becoming my Ayi. So we chat for awhile about what her skills are and if she has any children and how she feels about 3 crazy boys. What hours she is interested in working and then she asks about pay. She wants 15 RMB per hour- what? If you read my last post you know to get American dollars you divide by 6.76, so $2.22 per hour. So she wants to come clean my bathrooms, scrub my floors, iron our clothes, cook us dinner, watch the children, make beds (I could go on forever) all for $2.22? Are you kidding? We pay Nicholas $2 a week allowance to do nothing really. It just doesn't seem right. Cheap labor - cheap goods. Are we in America just greedy and lazy or too demanding? Is China producing all these goods and shipping them to the US thinking they are the suckers who will buy this stuff - even though it cost very little to produce. After all this thinking, I hang up my wonderful new towel on the plastic hook on the back of the door and out pops the tag that says in big letters MADE IN CHINA.

Only 29 months Left!

2009-02-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

As of today we have officially been in China for one month. We stepped off the plane on January 27th with no idea what to expect and now exactly one month later - here are 3 things I have learned about myself:

1. My geography is terrible! People ask where are you from? I say, "New York" The response is typically Wow - I have been once I loved it or I have always wanted to go. Then I say "How about you - where are you from?" Wellington - Now I have no idea where Wellington is - so my response is ?? "I have heard it is lovely there in the summer?" It could be in Antarctica for all I know so that is not a safe response. I listen for the accent hoping to get a clue, but it is just too hard to tell. So I usually just say "Oh nice - how long have you been here?" Quickly changing the subject to avoid anymore geography trivia. Then I race home to goggle and find out that Wellington is in New Zealand. We really need a world map! Mum needs some serious help!

2. I am not too good with math in my head. (I need my dad- we would quiz him all the time on car rides -What is 2345 +7819? He is the fastest math guy I know!) I need a cheat sheet. I come from the time of calculators and my brain is just slow. People probably think I am crazy as I do math problems in the air - trying to carry the one. To get the price in American dollars you have to divide the RMBs by 6.76. I always feel rich when I take money out of the ATM. I withdrew about $120 and the machine gives me 8 - 100 Yuan - I can't help but think - wow $800! No such luck. When a box of Ian's favorite cereal Lucky Charms cost 80 RMB! Mum needs a calculator!

3. I am not good at understanding or speaking Chinese. Yesterday I got a furniture delivery. As the guys brought in the couch they started asking me something in Chinese - I said "no comprendo". Now why I thought they might understand Spanish when they don't understand English - I have no idea. Since the only other language I know any words are in Spanish - I chose to speak Spanish - which gets me no where! Mum is in desperate need of Mandarin classes!

When I was speaking to another Mum at pick up the other day she said "Shanghai is an exhausting city - don't push yourself." What is the saying - Rome wasn't built in a day. Well neither was China - and I have 29 more months to figure it out.

Ah - the Smells of China

2009-02-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Well- I am slowly (very slowly) getting the boxes from home unpacked. Even with Nick and Ian in school until 3pm, it is just difficult to get more than 1-2 boxes unpacked a day. Kyle is still a pretty needy guy. Anyway - as I am unpacking these boxes of clothes I am trying to decide if I should rewash all these clothes. My original packing process in Briarcliff was packing all clothes in tubs or laundry baskets that would then be packed in moving boxes, however, as I closely approached the weight limit the decision was made to leave the tubs and baskets. So all of our clothes have just been shoved into boxes - a little packing paper on top and then taped shut. If this was a move in the US I would be washing it all, but here I have chosen not to. When I pull the clothes out of the boxes and smell them - they smell like home. When I was growing up I remember asking my mom once "What do we smell like?" You know when you go to someone's home and there is a smell? Usually a nice smell, but different from yours. My mom said, "Next time we go away for a few days - when we come back you can smell our smell." So I remember whenever we would go away for a weekend or week vacation when we got home I would smell and smell and smell until I couldn't smell anything. I always thought our smell was pretty nice. So by washing the clothes here - I am losing the smell of home.

Here in China smells are strong. Detergents, cleaners, fabric softeners, food, smoke, etc. The water smells like the outdoors - or like a rain forest- maybe swampy is the right word? I am hoping to get to the flower market next week to get some plants. I figure if I put a bunch of plants in the bathroom maybe I can pretend I am in a rain forest while in the shower instead of here in China. So Mark calls yesterday to ask my opinion about the new van(we decided Mr. Zhong will go) and he says we have 2 to choose from - one is older with cigarette burns the other is newer, but smells. So I say "Smells like what? -Smoke? BO? Rotten Milk?" No he says - it smells like "China". Ah - Ok we will go with the older.

Rollin' in China

2009-02-24T03:36:00.000-08:00

Here is proof - I can no longer lay Kyle on the bed and just walk away. Let the good times roll!

First Batch of Cookies in China

2009-02-23T09:10:00.000-08:00

Ok- so finally I got some baking powder and baking soda (thanks to my sis) and decided I would try to bake some cookies. Here in China there is not a lot of sweet things. In fact I read somewhere that the Oreos here have there own recipe. They tried to sell the Oreos from the US here, but no one bought them because they were too sweet. It took them many different recipes to find one that was not too sweet. So I whipped up an old family favorite (recipe from Julie Rodgers) oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (however, I have been unable to find chocolate chips, but did find raisins so I substituted). I opened my new hand mixer (that they finally had back in stock) and went to work. First the butter is in gram measurements so a quick trip to the computer to find out how many grams are in a cup? 229.92 gms in 1 cup - I have 227 gms. Ok - close enough because that is just how life is in China. Sugar - it is soft white sugar? Like brown sugar, but white - weird but OK. Eggs - Vanilla - Flour - Oats - Raisins. So the overall dough was very dry - in fact I had to stop using my new hand mixer in fear I was going to blow it up. But I press on mixing by hand the rest of the oats and raisins. Is it dry because I was short 2.92 grams of butter(does it matter that the butter is not pasturized?)or was it the soft white sugar? Maybe the non-refrigerated quail eggs? The cookies themselves turned out OK. The kids came down to have one and I heard Mark say quitely to them "Tell your mother you love them and thank her for making them." He knew if nobody ate them I might just have a break down!

Football Stars!

2009-02-21T06:25:00.000-08:00

The boys are both playing football (soccer to us) and loving it! Ian practices on Monday nights from 4-5 and Nicholas practices on Wednesday nights from 4-5:30. They both play scrimmage type games on Saturdays. I like to hang out and chat with the other Mums at the practices. I have met a nice friend from Australia - Sydney to be more precise. Now I have never had an Aussie for a friend, but I really like her. When Mark and I first met, I loved the movie "Muriel's Wedding"(takes place in Sydney) and all the old Abba songs. I might have to go buy a pirated version just to bring back the memories. Once again I notice my Mid-West/now Australian accent starting to appear. I love this accent - I think more than the British? I have even noticed a change in the way Nicholas talks - I guess spending the day with Brits is starting to rub off on him. He now says "Mum - I need to use the toilet." Yikes!

Part-time Job?

2009-02-20T05:40:00.000-08:00

The Home Depot here is called B&Q. They are always looking for delivery people. Great way to get in shape?

Mr. Zhong: Should he stay or Should he go?

2009-02-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

So we have had our driver Mr. Zhong for the last 3 weeks here in Shanghai and now we have to decide if we want to keep him and this van or choose another? This whole driver thing is obviously new to us and it is taking a while to get use to. Most drivers speak VERY little English- so Mark chose Mr. Zhong because he spoke the most English. He is pretty good at knowing where I want to go when I tell him the address, but he is not the nicest guy I have ever met. I think a big part is due to the language barrier - he only knows limited words so when he calls me and says "You go out" - it sounds rude to me, but he is really asking if I need him. When we go to pick up the boys at school, everyone is in the same blue Buick mini-van so we are all trying to find Mr. Zhong in a sea of blue vans. Lucky for us Mr. Zhong got a Hello Kitty bobble head clock for the dashboard - so now we just search for the Hello Kitty (still waiting for that purse Mom). Mr. Zhong has long nails, he is a heavy smoker (not in the van) and he burps a lot out loud! Is there better? Could there be worse? We will see.

Health Report Results: I CAN live in China

2009-02-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

Once again my week started off by being picked up in a weird van by people who speak very little English to take me to some building in Shanghai. I had to go get residency permits for myself and all the children. It was again like being at the DMV in New York - take a number wait in line - present your paperwork. So as we are waiting our turn the woman with me hands me my Health Examination Record. As I am opening the cover, I am hoping to see a big red stamp that says DENIED, but no such luck. As I page through the report I find out I have Sinus bradycardia and Fatty Infiltration of the Liver. So the definition of Sinus bradycardia is a heart rhythm that originates from the sinus node and has a rate of under 60 beats per minute. Of course there are different things that cause this (heredity in my case- thanks Dad) one of which is being a well-conditioned athlete - so lets just pretend it is that one. The fatty liver was discovered when the woman was jamming the Ultrasound machine into my rib cage and saying "Release, Release". So I guess she was talking to my liver to release the fat? Their suggestions:

1. Take proper Exercise - even though I have a heart rate of a well-conditioned athlete?

2. Improve dietary habit - I agree since we had eaten nothing but McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's because we were afraid to try anything else.

3. More Rest - I would love to, but with 3 children (and the box spring I am sleeping on) it is almost impossible!

Housewife Business Cards?

2009-02-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

Before we left NY I had a lot of cleaning and sorting to do to get the house ready to leave for 2 years. So while I was cleaning and sorting I found a pile of old business cards and name tags from the many jobs I have had over the last 14 years. I have had 9 different professional jobs in the last 14 years. This is not counting my jobs at Bath & Body Works (found some old soaps while cleaning- 13 years old they had kind of lost their smell) and Eddie Bauer (we brought that baby furniture with us and will not be bring it back). Anyway, I have had at least 14 different business cards(in pharmaceuticals every time you change products you get a new card and I think I have changed every year)! I am really not that fond of business cards and thought my days of cards were over, but here in China all housewives have cards. The first Friday that I had wine with my new friends they each gave me their "cards". Now these cards have all of our names on them and a very detailed map of how to get to your house? In the US, I would not be giving people cards with detailed instructions of how to get to my house (I was once convinced that a car salesman who made me mad - had googled our address, came to our house, and stole my purse out of my car. I even went to the police station and filled out a report. While at the police station filling out the report the Stop and Shop called to say someone found my purse in a shopping cart -OOPS!) I definitely didn't give out my address freely - you just never know who you can trust. Here people are handing out cards like crazy sales people. The say "You have my card - call me - we will do lunch." Now the other thing I am finding out is that "doing lunch" involves a lot of wine. Since no one drives their own cars here - there is no drinking and driving issue. However, your driver is not always available - so you can hop in a cab - hand him your card and you will most likely get home. See the card is in both English and Chinese- so I guess it is kind of like American Express - don't leave home without it.

Happy 7th Birthday Nicholas!

2009-02-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

Well, today was Nicholas's 7th birthday and boy was he excited. He spent the whole week giving us a count down. Every morning we had to hear how many more days and where he wanted to go to eat and what he wanted to do. This was a difficult day for Mark and I. We spent the morning of his birthday on Skype with everyone. His cousin Henry's 2nd birthday was on Saturday - so it was really great when Nana, Papa Jo, Aunt Kim, Uncle Zach and Henry Skyped on Henry's birthday (Saturday night in Chicago) but Nicholas's birthday here in China (Sunday morning). We also got birthday wishes from Grandmum (her new name - she is English you know) Aunt Margaret, Uncle Dave, Hannah, Jared and Cole and Uncle Andrew(nice suprise). Then we heard from Pop and his best friend in the whole WORLD Patrick! It was so great to hear from everyone, but it also made Mark and I realize how really far away we are and that we have never celebrated a birthday without some family with us.

Some how Grandmum knew about our new favorite Yankees player and got him a Mark Texiera t-shirt (very exciting thanks Pop and Grandmum). We got him an air hockey table for the big basement that he and Ian have claimed as their domain. And Nana and Papa Jo gave him money to buy a new bicycle.

So we did our best to make it a memorable birthday for him. We took him bowling! In New York near our house there is a fun little bowling alley that is great for kids. They put up bumpers in the gutters so you almost always hit a pin - even Ian usually has a blast. Well the bowling alley here is about half hour from where we live and it is open 24 hours. The inside smells like an ash tray - because did I mention that everyone in China smokes - a lot. There are no bumpers for the gutters and they played Justin Timberlake on the stereo over and over and over. Now I guess I should not complain at least the music was English, but I am pretty sure I heard "sexy back" at least 10 times. Nick tried his best, but I think the high score for the day was 35 and he did actually get 1 strike, which made it all worth it. As I sat there watching (and holding Kyle) I could hardly fight back the tears (partly from being sad and partly from the strong smell of smoke) thinking about celebrating his birthday back home with family and friends. But I think we all tried to do our best to have a great day and on the way home we stopped at the bike shop to pick out new bicycles for both boys (thanks Nana and Papa Jo!)

After a celebration brownie, he thanked us for a great birthday! I hope we look back years from now and say "Turning 7 in China was so cool!"

(The yellow duck in all the pictures is Pluka Duck - his class pet. It was his turn to take Pluka Duck home for the weekend and write about what we did with the duck- hence the photos.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

It was a great Valentine's Day for me! My lovely Valentine got me a brand new camera and not just a point and click kind. I got a REAL camera with lots of functions and a big lens (Cannon EOS 40D). Wow! I am a little intimidated by it, but anxious to get started shooting. Now that I am a "housewife" I want to expand on all the hobbies I have been interested in, but have never had enough time to do - photography being one of them. Kyle and I now have from 9am - 3pm to explore the world of Shanghai and I hope to capture a lot of great things! Thanks feng mi (Mandarin for honey) I love it!

Ian's First Day of School (Finally)

2009-02-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

So Ian's first day of school finally arrived. Now I know originally I thought I might just keep him home with me until starting at Dulwich with Nick in August, but the guy is just bored. Part of the boredom is the fact that we have had only the toys we crammed in the suitcases for the last few weeks -so things should get better, but he was just too excited to go to school now to not send him. He talks about his days at CNS all the time and everyday at lunch we do the prayer "Dear Lord Jesus, be our guest and with this food let us be blessed. Amen" See I even know it by heart. So he was very anxious to start. Of course the night before we realize that there is no way that our driver can drop off Mark and Nicholas and be back to take Ian, Kyle and I to school so we must walk. It is probably about 1 mile to school (school started at 9am our delivery came at 10am so no stroller yet only baby Bjorn(painful)). Anyway we start walking and about 1/4 of the way there Ian says "Mommy call Mr. Zhong I don't want to walk". I tell him Mr. Zhong is taking Daddy to work now he can't pick us up. It is amazing how quickly these children get spoiled. So the entire rest of the walk was spent begging for Mr. Zhong!

Anyway - he had a great day. The teacher said he fit right in and had a lot of fun. He goes from 9am-3pm everyday and they serve him lunch. He brought home the lunch menu for the month (which keep in mind caters to all nationalities of children) and there are some real delicacies on there. Monday is Pancakes with mushroom whipped sauce, there is potato fritter and apple sauce, potato salad and brats, and cucumber with eggs and mixed veggies. The teacher said he could bring his lunch, but I didn't tell him it was an option. Maybe he will trade in his usual humus and cottage cheese lunch for beef with oyster sauce? You never know what he might do?

Christmas in February!!!

2009-02-12T23:39:00.001-08:00

Our shipment from home has arrived!! I cannot be more excited! We all feel like it is Christmas! Most of the toys that the kids got for Christmas were off limits before we left and went in the shipment- so you can image their excitement! When the movers arrived the supervisor said most air shipments are in 1-2 crates ours was in 14 crates! He said he has never seen an air shipment so big. We had 72 boxes a crib, a dresser, a rocking chair, and a high chair. IBM said 2400 lbs and I packed 2300 lbs. It was pretty crazy trying to figure out how much 2300 lbs was - when my mom and I were packing we decided my muffin pan was too heavy! As I am unwrapping the new muffin pan that we bought it seems really hilarious that we thought saving probably 1/16th of a pound was worth it! Anyway- the thing I was most excited to get was the brand new stroller that we had gotten from Grandma and Pop! About 15 minutes after the movers left I had it unpacked and Kyle and I were on our way! It was 75 degrees here today - a great day for a walk. LOVE the new stroller! Thanks again to Grandma and Pop!

Ayi?

2009-02-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

So about that cleaning lady - here in China everyone (and I mean everyone) has an Ayi. An Ayi is a maid, cook, babysitter, errand runner, etc. These women are usually Chinese, but can be Filipino (except they are illegal, but usually speak more English) and they make about $2.00/hr! Some women I have met have 2 Ayis? Everyone I meet says "Have you hired your Ayi yet?" Now I am really torn - at home in NY I worked part-time, took care of the children, cleaned(my ladies in the neighborhood knew this was my weak area), cooked, ran errands, I could go on forever since a woman's work is never done! Here - I am a stay-at-home mom (housewife is the official title here in China). So if I hire an Ayi - "what is it that I will do all day?" I asked one of my new friends. "You must be ready to lunch, if someone calls" she says. Now I am not one to turn down a lunch date to stay home and clean - so I think I would be available with or without Ayi. Kyle is still a little young to leave with someone especially who does not necessarily understand my directions so he would come with me and the other 2 boys are in school until 3pm (Ian starts tomorrow-YEA!). Cooking is kind of a passion for me - so I enjoy that. Maybe she could watch the kids while I cook dinner? Right now that is Nintendo DS time - so I am not sure they will want to play with a Chinese lady instead of Nintendo? I am all for letting someone else clean for me, but everyday from 8am-8pm? The house is a good size, but that is a lot of cleaning? Our house right now is kind of an escape from the craziness of China - do I want someone in my house all day. How can I be lazy and not feel guilty? I am so confused. Ayi or no Ayi? Maybe part-time Ayi?

Mr. Clean vs. Mr. Muscle: Round 1

2009-02-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

I really never thought that much about cleaners. I am a real sucker for a new product or a new scent, but I always seem to go back to good old Mr. Clean. There is something about Mr. Clean that- well- makes me feel clean? Maybe it is bald head? Maybe his extra white t-shirt, nice tan or his friendly smile? I have always wondered why the earring? Any marketing people out there know why? Anyway - his products always do the trick and leave a nice fresh scent behind. Here in China we have Mr. Muscle. First of all he is wearing a suit similar to Superman, but with a big M- OK so I guess superhero of cleaning? Then he his wearing a white sportcoat (Don Johnson like) over the super suit?And he has what looks like 3 colored sharpie markers in the pocket?(Now I am married to someone(I won't mention any names) who always carries a pen in his pocket- so he would say he is a man who is prepared for anything. I guess you should always be prepared when you are cleaning?) Anyway - Mr. Muscle's skin color looks like Nicholas's when he has the stomach flu- a grayish green. I think he is meant to have Asian skin, but his hair is black and wavy. I have not seen too many Chinese with wavy hair. To top it off he has on bright orange safety goggles? I don't know how many of us who clean wear safety goggles? But with the smell of the products you need a full face mask. So cleaning the bathroom has never been my favorite job, but at least I know after Mr. Clean I can take a deep breath and enjoy the added scent of Febreze and feel like the time and effort was not wasted. Mr. Muscle made me realize I need to get that cleaning lady hired today! Mr. Clean TKO in the first round!

Top 5 Things I am Missing from Home

2009-02-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

5. A soft bed (Chinese mattresses are rock hard - in fact I was convinced for days that this was just the box spring not the mattress, but our relocation guy assured me it is a mattress)

4. TV (I wouldn't call myself a TV junkie, but I do occasionally get hooked on The Biggest Loser, The Bachelor, or America's Next Top Model. Now I am lucky to find a 3 year old rerun of Grey's Anatomy or The Karate Kid part III.) I can't wait for my scrap booking materials to arrive!

3. Having a Car (It is nice to just call the driver when I am checking out at the store- he pulls up, loads the car and off we go. However, when you need something or want something after working hours - too bad.)

2. On-line Shopping (Mark, I am sure, is happy this addiction is gone, but browsing without being able to buy is just painful. Everyday getting email notices about big sales, but unable to purchase is torture.)

1. DIET COKE (Coca-cola Light is just not the same. Too sweet and too flat. This addiction I have had since college and did not want to give it up. Who would have thought all I had to do was move to China!)

My New Friends

2009-02-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

On Friday afternoon my neighbor across the street called to invite me and the boys over for a playdate. She has a daughter in Year 2 with Nicholas at Dulwich. I, of course, said sure and headed over at 4 PM. Her name is Claudine and she invited a few of her other friends over as well. Claudine is from London and has a lovely accent. Michelle from Detroit was there with her 2 children Malorie (in Nick's class) and Cameron, Louise from Australia, and Karen from Cleveland, OH. What a crazy mix of people! Except for the different nationalities I felt like I was amongst a good group of friends in NY. I don't know what it is with me and accents, but when I get around people with accents I tend to have an accent myself. As the day turns to evening and I am on glass number 3 of wine (hopefully Kyle will sleep well tonight) I am using my new favorite word "lovely" in every other sentence and with each time I say it my mid-western/British accent is getting stronger. I can hear myself sounding like a fool, but can't control myself. I finally realize that it is almost 8 PM and look across the street to see that Mark is home from work and probably frantically looking for us. I leave the children with my new friends and run across the street to get him so he can join us for a glass of wine. I am hoping the fresh air will pull me out of my British trance so my new friends don't think I am a complete fool! Anyway - we had a great time and things are looking better. Maybe life can be normal here in China?

Kyle

2009-02-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

Everyone has been asking about Kyle. His transition has been pretty easy. He is still eating, sleeping and hanging out. Here he is doing some tummy time. Hard to believe how much he has done in his 3 short months with us. He is the star of the show everywhere we go - who couldn't love that face (we know the Chinese do)!

A trip to Costco

2009-02-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

Here in China we have a Chinese version of Costco and so far it is my favorite place to go. So today I had our driver take Ian, Kyle and I over to Metro to do some shopping. Since our stroller has not arrived yet my only mode of transport for Kyle is the Bjorn. So I have Kyle in the Bjorn and Ian in the cart and a small group of Chinese people following me through the isles. People cannot get enough of the baby(I keep telling him to stop smiling and being so social, but he won't listen to me). It was definitely funny at first - now it is just annoying! At least 6 people followed me through the store. Grabbing Kyle's hand - touching Ian's hair. It is like they have never seen young American boys! We are like the Jackpot here! As most people know the Chinese government does not allow people to have more than 1 child (unless you and your spouse are both only children then you are allowed 2). So to see us all together - especially all 3 boys we are the talk of the town!

Anyway - back to the food - we have found out why the Chinese are such skinny people. PORTION CONTROL! Everything is in very small packages. Ian begged me for these ice cream drumsticks - they came in a package of 12 and the box was the size of a girl scout cookie box. I thought there must be a mistake - no way there are 12 in that box. Oh yes - there were 12. Mark can eat them in one bite!

First Week of School

2009-02-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

Well Nicholas had such a wonderful first week of school! They presented him with a certificate at an assembly to recognize him for such a great transition to a new school. It has been a real learning experience for us all. We are learning new words and phrases like "could I have a go?" and use your "rubber" to erase your mistakes. This is his teacher - Miss VonVoorst (sounds like an intimidating name, but she is just lovely (my new favorite word)).