Today has gone by quickly.

Poor Ezra went to get a physical today and they didn't prick his finger, they drew blood! Poor thing. But honestly, I'd barely had time to make him look away and ask him what color something was when they were finished. He was so good that he got a dinosaur toy. I kept telling him that I was proud of him because he was such a big boy to which he kept replying, "No, Mamma. I'm still a little boy."

We got in and out of the hospital, even though there were a gabillion people in there, in just half an hour. I find it so strange that Chinese women are so modest yet nurse openly without a care to cover up. Men come up and stare at the "baby" and it doesn't bother the women or their husbands at all.

Elias played Wii while we were gone. I think people should show this pictures to adults to talk them out of buying one.


Zuri loves, loves, LOVES to read!


Zuri can now climb up on the kitchen table. He's such a freak show but you gotta love the little thing.

An email I received

I find this email so cute. We should call it a kidgarden.

Hi Carleigh,

Ezra need to take physical examination before entering the Kidgarden. We will make one day to hospital next week.

And do you have inoculation card for Ezra? Kidgarden also need this.

We will also prepare 4 photoes for Ezra. I keep them which you gave me last time.

Elias' Birthday Party

He had soooo much fun! I just let the kids all run wild in the restaurant. I asked them to stay in the "kid area" but I'm sure they still drove people crazy.

Elias is SEVEN!

Apparently, falling last week in the stroller made Zuri's upper two teeth pop through. It looks a little weird, like the teeth are popping through too high in the gums, though. He'll probably need braces after this. I'm happy to say, though, that as of today, he now has three upper teeth and two lower teeth. I'll be happy when he is able to chew food better. Zuri began walking last week and refuses any other mode of getting around. It just happened overnight.

Ayi is back today. She brought us some sesame oil from her "old home." I have a love/hate relationship with sesame oil. I can't stand the smell of it until my brain processes what it is and then I enjoy it. It smells a little burnt. She told me that her younger son wants to go back to her old home next year to live with his grandparents because she spanked him. It must be hard. She also told me that her grandmother's feet were bound. I would pay for the trip if her grandmother would come here and let me see them. I'm kind of gross, aren't I?

Elias is seven today. So hard to believe!!! I know that "good" mothers use this time to talk about what a sweet baby he was, but I have to complain! He is growing up way too fast. He WANTS to be an adult. He asks about adult things and he has reverted back to the "why" stage just to carry on conversations b/c he LONGS for them. One of his favorite things to do is sit on the couch with Brad and talk about stuff. He stands behind me and reads what I'm reading or writing. It drives me crazy! It's like having a shadow that is leaning on me. I'm reading "Wild Swans" right now and there are horrible accounts of the communist war here in China that he shouldn't read. (If you want to know more about China, I highly recommend this book. It's banned here.) I'm taking him out to eat tomorrow night with some friends. I'm going to let them sit all by themselves and order whatever they want and give him some money to pay for it. I think he'll like that.

Ezra is reading so well! "Yook, Sayee! Yook! Tsee Pot go. Go Pot, go!" I don't know if I mentioned or not that my mother bought him a compilation of "Dick and Jane." I'm trying to figure out why we abandoned that mode of teaching reading? The best thing is that he loves to read. He'll get the book and go sit down and look at the pictures so that when we get to them, he already knows what's going to happen even though he technically hasn't read it.

They didn't have the lens I want but they've ordered it for me. I can't go down and pick it up today but perhaps tomorrow I'll post new pictures. I hope she doesn't sell it to someone else as has been known to happen many times to us. *roll eyes here*

Lots of IN-FOR-MAT-ION

Why, you may ask, have I not posted any new pictures of the boys lately? Well, that would be because my doofus husband, whom I do love dearly, left my camera attached to his computer at work and when he stood up, it fell off his desk. He even let me blame the damage on Elias for a while before coming clean! I have discovered, however, that I only need to buy a new lens; the body is undamaged. Hopefully by this weekend, I will have a new, better lens.

I was going to post video of the boys today. Ezra is beginning to read, Elias is reading really well and Zuri is walking. But why is it the kids never cooperate when you want them to? Ezra and Elias were reading poorly and Zuri was screaming crying walking toward me.

I have unfortunately discovered that Betty Crocker Vanilla Icing contains very little milk. I have created a new dessert made just for me--a couple of Graham crackers smothered with icing. Just what I need.

We went for a play date yesterday. Being the intelligent woman that I often mention, I managed to blow up their Wii by plugging it straight into the power strip (it only takes 110V and China uses 220V)and while I was trying to work this out, Zuri crawled up into his stroller, fell over backwards and busted his gums wide open on the tile floor. It bled and bled and bled. I felt just horrible. But a couple of hours later, he was eating salty french fries with ketchup from McDonald's so I think he's going to be okay.

I hate McDonald's toys. As soon as the kids forget about them for two seconds, they go into the garbage (or recycling). I sneaked the latest toy into the garbage can hoping that no one noticed it there. For some reason, Elias actually threw away his banana peel without me having to ask but he didn't notice the toy. But Zuri, whose favorite past times are playing in the garbage and emptying our drinking water from the bottle, told on himself for playing in the garbage--not by bringing the toy to me as Elias or Ezra might have done...but he came in carrying the old banana peel. He's SUCH a handful!

He drives me crazy when he stands outside the shower, where he can see me perfectly, and screams bloody murder but when I put him in the shower with me, he cries just as much because he hates the water. I have no idea what he expects! This morning, I tried something new. I turned the water on and let him crawl into the shower of his own volition. It actually worked but I took a quick shower and didn't touch him the whole time. Maybe we'll try that every time.

I wish the kid would get some more teeth. Two bottom teeth just aren't enough for the food he wishes to eat. That being said, sometimes, when he nicks me while he's nursing, I'm so happy he doesn't have so many teeth. I have no idea when I'm going to get that kid weaned.

I haven't had an ayi this week. It's been so long since I mopped these floors and folded clothes, I had forgotten how to. But Brad told me this was the cleanest the house has been since we've moved in. I'm not quite sure how to take that. haha. Chinese don't like to use too much soap and unless I specifically tell her to, she just uses water(with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms).

Well, some of our friends are back from holiday in Turkey. I am so glad. Not only because we really like them, but also because I'm tired of answering Ezra's question, "Are M&C back from Turkey yet?" Sounds so funny coming from a 4 year old's mouth. We're off to play.

Cheers!

Zuri has really gained some courage and is trying to walk now. A week ago, we claimed he was walking, but now, he's really getting it down pat.

We bought WiiFit today. We got it home and it's all in Japanese. They told us it was in English. I'm hoping we can just take the disk back over and exchange it without loading everything else up. Or maybe we can find a copy of it in English somewhere. We're enjoying playing it but I think we'd like it more if we could understand what was going on.

One morning last week, Zuri was asleep and Ezra came in and laid down beside him. He wiggled his fingers over the top of his head and said in a spooky voice, "I can feel his dream!" Ezra's been cracking me up with so many of his cute sayings lately.

We got a whole bunch of new clothes made at the tailor this week. Brad got some, um, eccentric pants made which I have a feeling will be a waste of money. He looks like Rodney Dangerfield.

My Lunch Date Today

Ayi sat down at the kitchen table with her lunch today and I could tell she was really sad. I asked her what was wrong and she started crying. She and her husband had been arguing about money, she said. He told her that she was taking money (“deceiving” him) and that she spent too much. She said, “I have to buy shoes and clothes for the kids to go to school!” I felt really bad. She makes almost twice as much as some degreed Chinese people but she has two kids and I thought that maybe it’s much more expensive than I had previously imagined.

I asked her several times, “Is there anything I can do? How can I help you?” No, she would say. There’s nothing you can do. And start crying again. She told me that she was really tired all the time; that she was sick last week and she asked her husband to wash the clothes and he didn’t do it and also some other things he wouldn’t do. So I said honestly, “I’m sorry to say this but your husband is lazy.”

Well, that’s when the truth came out. He’s lost a lot of their money playing Mahjong with his friends since he’s been laid off these past few months. I didn’t know what to say after that.

I oftentimes buy her children the unusual fruit or good cuts of meat (or even dinosaur T-shirts to match Ezra's) that they can’t regularly afford and I always feel a bit guilty and think to myself, “She would much rather have this money.” But now I am reminded there’s a reason for gifts like that.

Bad, BAD Tooth Fairy!

Elias lost his second tooth yesterday and that slacker Tooth Fairy didn't come. We figure she must be sick. But even worse, Elias put his tooth back under his pillow and then ayi made up his bed and the tooth is GONE.

Mamma has paid for her sins this evening sifting through the vacuum cleaner dust looking for the non-existent tooth...my throat and ears have now started itching with these allergies I have developed in my old age. My saving grace is my electric toothbrush which I use on my throat, roof of my mouth and tonsils. I think having the inside of your mouth itch is about the WORSE place you can possibly have itch--well, second only to lost limbs that still feel like they need to be scratched. I guess I should count my blessings.

Buses ROCK.

In all of my infinite wisdom, I never thought that I could have done what I did today. Being in an adventurous mood and wanting to teach the kids all about the aforementioned wisdom, I decided to take the bus rather than a taxi home from picking up some bread and rolls at our favorite bakery.

There are two buses that stop right outside our apartment and since the entire bus system is in Chinese and we can't read that, I had made a mental note of which numbers we needed to get on. Well, due to a taxi stopping in front of the bus stop and me not knowing you have to wave down the bus to get it to stop at the bus stop, we missed the first one. The next one that came around, we made sure to make it stop.

We got on and luckily, the driver was very nice and even picked Elias up to put his money in the slot, and off we went…in the wrong direction. I thought to myself that it will just go a couple of blocks in the wrong direction and then turn back the other way. Nope, it kept going and going and going…left Suzhou Industrial Park completely. There weren’t even real bus stops anymore…there were a few small signs but sometimes he’d stop and there would be no indication at all that that was a bus stop. Soon, there was no one left on the bus—just the three kids and I and we were out in the middle of nowhere.

The whole time, the older ones (Ezra especially) were freaking out. How will he know where our house is? Did you tell him where to go? Why is he stopping here? How do these people know to get on this bus? Why did we have to pay? The number of questions these children asked was endless. Well, eventually, they calmed down…but by this point, I was a little worried.

The bus driver finally stopped the bus outside of a whole bunch of construction work (like that’s uncommon in China) and began to tell me that we have to get off of the bus. I still have no idea why. I mean, I thought that buses just went in one big circle following their route and that eventually, we’d just end back up where we started. Maybe he was out of gas or something. At each stop and red light, I noticed he was turning off the engine.

I’m sure if I had pushed the subject, I would have eventually understood the reason but I didn’t care at that point in time. All I knew was that we were out in the middle of nowhere and being asked to get off the bus. He told me he would help me across the street with all the kids and that another bus will be along in a little while.

Luckily, right at that moment, an empty taxi came along. Our misadventure on the Suzhou bus system was complete. We hopped in the backseat and went directly home where I happily enjoyed a nice, cold bottle of Perrier.

Our satellite

I noticed many, many months ago that when they installed our satellite, they put the dish up only using three of the four screw holes on the rectangular base . I kept wondering when or if it was going to fall and hoped that there were no cars or people seventeen floors below when it occurred.

But before anyone starts picturing a massive crash, lemme tell you that nothing happened. The satellite's functioning is dependent upon the dish being attached to the wall properly. I found this out last week when we lost all signals to our satellite and thus, missed some of the Olympics. The workers showed up to do the repair and requested a hammer and began banging on those SCREWS to get the satellite to begin working again. Yes, it was working again but how long will screws, that are coming lose and have been hammered back in, hold? I was totally blown away that they thought this would repair the problem. (Hahaha, not really, I've lived here three years--I know how things are done.)

I'm quite sad that I don't get to report that the satellite then fell to the ground. Apparently, they got their brains turned back on and decided to reinstall the dish completely. They removed it from the concrete wall and then even put new screws (I'm completely surprised that they didn't put the old rusty screws back in). Don't go giving them too much credit, though, they still tried to save a bit of money by only using three screws. *roll eyes* This country...

Two Elias funnies.

"My shoulders hurt because my arms are so heavy because I'm so strong." And later, "I'm really strong. It's really easy to hold my whole body up."

"Zuri thinks it's a lot of fun to play in the garbage. But I don't think it's fun at all."

We swam at the pool today. We thought about buying a membership but a family membership only includes two children. So we'd have to buy a family membership and then a WHOLE OTHER membership. If the Chinese were allowed to have more than one child, this wouldn't be the rule.

Check out Zuri's Slide Show.

Our family's heirarchy

Brad and I argue over the stupidest things. I think because very few people can understand us, we just argue out loud in public. Who am I kidding? Brad and I will argue at any time. My mom says we enjoy arguing. Maybe so, but today we argued over who got to be the boss. Yup, I'm not kidding. To make a long story short, the kids wanted to go to the toy store and I wanted to go around one way to explore a new street and he wanted to go the way we always go. So I told him that he was NOT the boss at home, that I was. But of course, we ended up going the way we always go. Sadly, my employees do NOT respect me.

Just a-thinkin'

I was cooking dinner tonight and thinking about how much fun we're going to have this coming spring when my in-laws are visiting us for at least three weeks (they're welcome longer). I honestly thought it was never going to happen. But I think it will be nice payback to have my MIL sit down at the table and watch ME cook for once. Although the thought did cross my mind that they won't like how I cook but luckily, there's a Subway, KFC and Papa John's--all just around the corner (albeit different corners).

So, Sue and Terry, looking forward to your visit and hopefully, by then, Brad won't be working such long days. Love you!

PS Zuri has taken six steps at a time! :)

Ezra wants to be a chef when he grows up

Tonight is Chili Mac night. I thought I'd go all gourmet on everybody and make it from scratch and everything. I was going to add a salad but since I've already eaten and I am the only one who would appreciate such a thing, I think I shall just save it for tomorrow.

I went ninja on ayi today and starting cleaning up the piles of things that unfortunately sit around my house for days at a time before I start organizing them. She even had to pull out what we Americans call a normal size garbage bag (she would probably call it gigantic)for all of the trash. She also scored a whole bunch of new toys for her kids with only minimal crying from mine. I think her kids probably have as many toys as mine do now. I gave her half or maybe more of ours.

Darn it. Zuri just escaped out on the balcony with the other two, crawled into the baby pool and is completely soaked. Carleigh out.

Ezra's voice.

We had a pretty good weekend. A Subway (sandwich shop) has opened up at the neighborhood center. I think it's funny how much the Chinese LOVE Subway. There's always a long line and they can't keep bread baked. We got white bread, steaming fresh from the oven, yesterday because that was all they had. If they ever run out, I wonder what they'll do.

It's kind of like over at Auchan, the workers drive us crazy stocking in the middle of the day. There's already tons of people there and then, you've got big ladders and crates in the middle of the aisles. The thing is, when you've got a gazillion people in your store and the shelves are running low, you gotta do what you gotta do. Life in a big city...

When I change Zuri's diaper, he always goes straight for his "binkie." So what I'm trying to figure out is HOW that can be so funny? It's like watching a clown do magic tricks to Elias and Ezra. They laugh--every.single.time. I mean, come on, doesn't it get old after a while?

Apparently, Brad has been talking to Ezra about puberty. Ezra asked me yesterday, "When I'm five, will my voice change?"

It was so hard to hold a straight face. "No honey, not 'til you're about 13."

Day 5&6 in Malaysia

On the way in the night before, I could look out the plane's window and see the moon reflecting off the water for about 10 minutes. I couldn't figure out if this was some kind of illusion or if it was actually the ocean. But when we woke up the next morning, I knew exactly what it was.



Langkawi Island is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I would stand up on a rock beside the hotel's pool ( Westin Langkawi Resort and Spa)and just sigh over and over again at the beauty surrounding us. Our hotel was also out of this world. When we arrived, they greeted us with freshly flavored water and cool, scented cloths to wipe off with.



We just sat around the pool all day and enjoyed swimming and the sights. That night, we went to a local joint to get one of the things Malaysia is famous for: satay (we might call them shish-ka-bobs).

Elias found a huge, dead crab on the beach (they were all over):


It became a toy in Ezra's hands:


And also a toy in Brad's hands:


Our pool (there were actually a few pools but this was the best for us):


Langkawi Island, famous for eagles and marble (that's what Langkawi means):


Elias held an eagle:


And I did too (yeah, those aren't the same eagles):


The next morning, we woke up and after checking out, hired a driver to take us on a tour of the island. We enjoyed Underwater World and a cable car ride over the jungle into the mountains.

Elias and I woke up early to look for shells that washed up overnight. We found three sand dollars:


I was sad it was really cloudy on the second day so we couldn't see very far and clouds rolled in that eventually blocked the sight completely but we enjoyed it while we could. It is the rainy season, so I think we were lucky to have one beautiful day:


At the top of the cable car, we bought ice cream...Ezra can turn anything into a toy:


Elias' blog has a video of us going up in the cable car and a video of the view from our hotel.

When we got to the airport, we found out that our flight back to China had actually left at 1:40 in the morning. I think that's what we get for not double checking our tickets (and for listening to other people). We had to buy completely new tickets due to some restrictions.

Yeah, always double check.

Day 4 in Malaysia

Finally, Brad didn't have to work. I spent most of the morning arranging for a side trip to Langkawi Island but when I finally got a flight and accommodations arranged (we couldn't get a flight until 9 that night), it was off to Center Market for some souvenir shopping.

I was so surprised how expensive everything was. There was some bargaining but really not much. But we did buy a weird mask hand-carved out of bamboo roots, some traditional Malay puppets and wind chimes (that I have from every country we've visited but Japan). We also got to try some fresh soy milk. We watched them scoop out what I guess was the fresh mashed soy beans and mix with the various ingredients. It was so good!

After a few hours and many ringgits later, we were off to the airport for Langkawi Island.

The street Center Market was on:


In the food market where we ate rice with small black bugs in it because we were hungry: (Really, I just let everyone else eat it because I figured it wouldn't kill them and I just went hungry. No one else pays attention to things like that except me in this family!!)




A couple of cute boys at the airport: