There IS life on this Planet! (Also titled "Has Spring Sprung?")

Last week we had some truly beautiful weather. I think it is too early for spring to be here but for a few blessed hours it truly felt as though it had already arrived. I was out with the kids because we have finally, drum roll please...gotten Conrad a big boy bike! He made use of the training wheels for about a week because it is quite a bit heavier than the run bike he is used to, but within a week he wanted me to take them off and away he went! He's been doing so well. So we were out in the afternoon and it was as if our neighborhood exploded with people! It was great! I met about 8 neighbors within the space of about 30 minutes! Really neat, interesting, friendly people. Some with kids, some without. Some with kids Conrad's age. Some with kids Conrad's age that actually even speak English! It has been so interesting watching him throughout this process. He is so social; I don't remember being anywhere near that level of social when I was a kid, I remember feeling painfully shy but he will play with anyone, wants to play with everyone! And he now has 2 friends in particular, one that speaks English and one that does not (she understands a little but speaks French and German). And watching them interact has been so fun because they truly can play without the language barrier interfering. It is so neat. But the best part for me is that the Moms are women that I have really connected with and whose company I really enjoy! There is life on this planet and it is becoming a good friend!

At the end of last week, our Ayi started working. I think I am going to really like her. She speaks some English, reads and understand more (as I have always found to be the way when one is learning a language). She has a great smile, seems very hard working and eager to please and is very sweet with the kids, eager also to interact with them. They are warming up to her slowly, Viv is the hard sell, but I think it will not be much longer before they are comfortable with her. I got a good laugh the first day though because in showing her the mountain of laundry that has piled up while I have been trying to unpack the house, she pointed to the washing machine and asked "you teach me how to use?" Are you kidding me? Teach me Chinese and I will teach you how to use that silly machine! But as she has tamed the monster of laundry in 2 days, without anything looking any worse for wear and against the challenge of a seemingly hamstrung dryer, I suspect what she meant was more along the lines of "please tell me how you want the laundry done". Or at least that's what I'm going with. I can be honest, I have a laundry system. And it is framed by too many years spent using coin-op machines during the lean years when quarters were scarce: the load that continues on to the dryer, and the load that does not. Colors? Temperatures? Hah! That was a luxury! Isn't it more ecologically friendly to do all your wash in cold anyway? I can also admit that as time went on and I got my own washer and dryer (at the age of 28 I finally felt like an adult!!!) that system had worked well enough for me that I largely stayed with it. It helps that having been out of the professional realm for so many years my wardrobe has simplified itself immensely (not like I had that much stuff to be dry cleaned even when I was working in an office...) but I'm inclined to think that whatever damage can be done to my clothes has long since been done by me. And as hard as our water was in Indiana, I suspect my clothes feel like they are on vacation here. And Heinz's shirts....hah! I can see me trying to tell her how to wash and iron a man's shirt; I would feel like such a poseur! In Kuala Lumpur we hired a wonderful Filipino woman to do some housework and babysit (Miss Mabel, oh how I have missed you!!!) and, other than a few glorious months of Merry Maids after Conrad was born, it was the only time I have ever been lucky enough to have someone come clean my house. And she was so professional end efficient, she would arrive and just get down to business and it occurred to me that these cleaning people often know the business of cleaning WAY better than I do. I felt downright silly telling her what to do and how to do it. Now I know, you tai-tais out there are going to tell me "Watch out, don't get too trusting." And I know, I have heard the horror stories of the maid who vacuumed all the wood floors with a screw loose on the head of the vacuum, scratched them all mercilessly and didn't seem to notice the noise it was making as she did; or the one who mopped the oriental carpet; or even the one who was stealing toys from the 5 year old boy for her son at home. But for all the horror stories, there are many happy endings, many families that would not trade their ayi for anyone! For the moment we are figuring it all out, and I believe we will all be happy in the end. I'll revisit the laundry situation when I start buying silk shirts again.

Our love to you all, wherever you are in the world: whether you are covered in 20 inches of snow, or headed out to Lembah Kiara park for Mom's group in the 80 degree sunshine. We miss you all and wish we could be with you. Yes, even in the 20 inches of snow. Hugs~

‘Barney Houdini’ does it again~

So Barney “found” a new opening in the fence. Ah Barney, he’s like an octopus: if the hole is the size of his eye, he can get through. It was late on a Saturday, close to 9pm when I realized he was gone. And had no idea how long he had been gone. A dog can get pretty far in an hour, really far in 3. It was 3 days into Chinese New Year, the firecrackers had been going non-stop. If he was trying to run away from them, who knows how far he could go. I was sick to my stomach. How would we get him back? I couldn’t let myself think what might befall him if we did not. We have had to rely too many times in the past on his tag pointing the way home for his rescuers. And his nametag with our Indy address and numbers came off while he was being groomed at the kennel when he last stayed (while we were visiting in KL but more on that in a minute). I was kicking myself: “why hadn’t I had the foresight and organizational skills to get him a tag with our new address before we left the States???” I don’t have the brainpower to find decently priced dog food with trustworthy quality here, let alone find him a new tag locally. As I said, I was sick, that stomach dropping, oh my God, feeling. I have failed him. My “first” child. Heinz, my knight on his white steed, said “Ideally he has not left the compound. There are lots of dogs in the neighborhood; maybe he has just gone visiting.” And he got on a bike and went to canvas the neighborhood. It was cold and late, but luckily a few people were out and they directed him to one house, which directed him to another and although the people had left to have dinner, Heinz could see Barney in their garage, where they apparently had put him for safe keeping until they could figure out what to do with, or for, him. So Heinz left his card on their door and came home. They came home fairly late and called and said “Since it’s so late, rather than you walking over here or us walking over there, why doesn’t he just stay the night? Besides….our kids really like him.” So Barney had the family’s first Chinese sleep over! I got such a laugh out of that. And such a relief: not only was he safe, but well-cared for. It’s a small world. The family who took him in has lived most recently in Michigan for a few years but come originally from Westfield, Indiana, about 40 minutes north of our house downtown. They saw Barney’s Indiana rabies tag and laughed. They were pretty sure he hadn’t swum to Shanghai on his own, so somewhere nearby was another family from Indiana. They are dog-less at the moment because, after having had 2 dogs for years, the older one died a year ago and then the second died a week before they were leaving for Shanghai, in July. So they said having Barney for a night was a treat for them. Spoiled beast, he slept on the daughter’s bed! They brought him back on Sunday morning and stayed for a bit to chat. Since then the daughter has stopped by periodically to walk him. She enjoys it as much as Barney does. And I am as grateful for it as he is. My poor “first” child, he is low-man on our current totem pole, and his walks are quite infrequent. They are a very nice family, I made some biscotti for them to say thank you and stopped by to chat with the Mom. She told me how she had managed, in the short time he was with them, to contact a local rescue group for advice on what to do. I was amazed, and so grateful. “Basically”, she said, “we did what we would want anyone to do if he was our dog and had gotten lost.” What more could we ask for? So he found a new opening in more ways than one: he found us all some new friends. We are working on getting the fence fixed. When I told my sister Vickie the story she said “well, he can’t dig to China, he’s already there!” Ah, my real Chinese Dog.

So here we are, nearly 6 weeks since my last post. I cannot believe how much time has passed. And how quickly. Last time I wrote, it was about the plight of the freezing house. The condition lasted for 10 days. In the meantime, my husband was planning nearly 2 weeks of business travel and I was getting increasingly more annoyed that I would be left in the freezing house with no one but the kids for company. And Conrad, who NEVER gets sick, was sick for 5 whole days; but I guess that was kind of a blessing in disguise because he was more amenable to the lizard-solution: lying for extended periods, inactive, on the warm living room floor. That had certainly become my preferred position. But my knight in shining armor came through for me again. He surprised us with tickets to join him on his business trip to Kuala Lumpur. We stayed with him in his hotel for 4 days and then when he left to continue his journey to Switzerland, to the home office, the kids and I remained in KL for an additional week. Warm weather, friends we love, places we know; it was exactly what my psyche needed. He had arranged for the kids to stay with our friend Valentine and her family, one of my KL guardian angels, (you may remember my mentioning them helping me with my car accident last spring) and for me to stay with my friend Amanda, my other KL guardian angel who did so much to help me feel comfortable getting around on my own while we were living there. So additionally, after weeks of spending too much time on top of each other with no other social outlets, the kids and I had a much needed break from each other as well. I love my children dearly, but it was heaven. And I know I have not thanked my wonderful husband enough for that, so, Honey, here is a very public, probably long over due “Thank You, again!” I love you!

We returned home to a warm, heat-system repaired house late on a Wednesday, picked Barney up from the kennel (separated from his name tag but looking oh so shiny, fluffy and pretty!) and learned that the movers were coming with our stuff on Friday. Heinz would still be away until Monday. I was so excited to be getting my stuff, nothing like your own bed and favorite coffee cups, but this would be fun to manage the kids and the movers all by myself! But the kids were actually really good the first day. They each have an Ikea tent and had missed them while we were away, so they were quite content to spend much of their time in them while the movers unloaded the truck. Since then, I feel like all I have done is unpack, and unpack, and unpack some more. Where did we get all of this stuff? And, outnumbered as I am, it feels as though for every one thing that I get put away, the kids pull out two things. Keeping up with the mess of toddlers is hard enough on a good day…it’s like my old friend the sand hill: running, and running, feeling as though you are getting nowhere. But I think we have finally tamed the monster. I would say we are 90% done. And the organizational system might even make sense to someone other than me! But it’s that last 10% that can be the hardest isn’t it? If it was easy to find places for these things, they would already be home. Oh well. Maybe I just need to lose my emotional attachment to some of these things and say good bye? We’ll see.

An organized, relatively clean house is within my grasp. I feel so much lighter already. And soon we will finally have an Ayi (housekeeper/babysitter). We were unable to secure one before Christmas, decided to wait until after the western new year to continue the search, and were then told that if we had not found one by then, we would not find one until after Chinese New Year, midway through, possibly the end of February. I know, “Wah, poor me! No housekeeper!” But a key description of the position is “babysitter”. As I mentioned before, the kids and I spend too much time together, with no other social outlets. I currently have no social outlets, whatsoever. And I know they need some too. Conrad, especially. We are hoping to get him into a pre-school program, but most already have waiting lists, and are very expensive to boot. All the children we have met his age are already in school, so playdate opportunities are limited to nonexistent. And while trying to get the house in order, I have not had the bandwidth to devote either to a search to remedy that situation, or to keeping him constructively occupied throughout the day. As a result I am constantly at my wits end with him, I feel. Back on that sand hill I go, with the twist of a downward spiral into depression if I am not careful. I know that is a common side effect of the culture shock of a transition such as we have made but understanding it and being able to remedy the situation can be two different things. It is such a luxury, I know but with someone to take care of the regular duties of the house, I can focus on my children without the other baggage, and enjoy their company, rather than screaming at them for trivial things, because as my world has seemingly spiraled out of my control, I need to control the stupid (Conrad would say “Don’t say stupid, Mom!” I’ve made an impression with at least one good thing) tiny things that they do. Never before has the concept of the power struggle with toddlers made so much sense to me. But I still get locked in the cycle even as I tell myself “stop, you know where this is going and why”. So today I resolve to stop screaming at my children (The kids thank you again, Aunt Vickie, for introducing their harpy mother to Love and Logic!). The most shameful thing is when you hear them using your voice and words with each other. Ugh, what have I done? But again, as I have said, I think the better days are on the horizon, finally, and the hardest parts of the transition are nearly over. Soon I will have someone to help. I think it’s a fair trade for all that we have given up. Someone to help me read labels at the grocery store so that I don’t end up with water softener salt when what I needed was dishwasher detergent. The big bag, no less. Someone to watch the kids while I attend a language lesson so I can feel less completely separate from the world around me. Someone to tell me how the washing machine actually works before I ruin something in it. Or maybe once she is here, I won’t have to worry at all about how the washing machine works! Won’t that be nice?

We miss you all. We wish you all joy, love and luck throughout the year of the Rabbit! And hope, as ever, that perhaps the fortune this New Year bestows on you will bring you to our door for a visit. Hugs and love from the Eastern hemisphere~