Halloween 2008

Elias is Four Arms, Ezra is Wild Vine (both Ben 10 guys) and Zuri is a dalmation. I had a woman down the road make Zuri's costume. It looks professional. She did it for about 8 bucks. Zuri's and Elias' look like Brad and I did them...and we did. haha.

They are curled up on the couch watching "Monster House" and eating Halloween candy and some eyeballs Ezra and I made today using a peanut butter ball recipe and white chocolate with M&M's as the iris. It was so funny, there is a 3 minute video of how to make the eyeballs and Ezra kept watching it to see what the next step was. If I didn't do it exactly like the woman in the video, he was sure to correct me.

The boys' newest cousin

I have to return the favor...my brother is so funny. Look at this picture he posted on his son's, Xave's, website:


And by the way, their other new cousin, James, is also a handsome little devil:

I just have to do everything myself, don't I?

Picture of Zuri

Decisions, Decisions

Once, when I was younger, my mother and I were sitting in her room talking. I was sitting on her bed and she was sitting across from me in her green, lazy boy-like chair. The foot rest wasn't up (it didn't have one) but she was leaning back in the chair creating a space about 4 inches high under it.

My cat, who is fat and gray now but was quite young then (always fat), walked in and stood in between us. As a joke, we both started calling, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" to see who he would go to and thus, which of us he liked better. He stood there between us, he would look at me and look at her, look at me and then look at her...and then he made his decision.

He tried to squeeze his big, stupid head into that small space underneath her green chair.

I am only reminded of that right now because I have a quiz tomorrow on Chinese characters and I also need to finish up Ezra's Halloween costume. I thought about it and thought about it...and decided to blog instead.

But unfortunately, I have nothing to blog about...so "Friends" it is.

He can't reach the numbers yet...

Zuri scared me to death this afternoon. Elias and Ezra were getting ready to go outside and play with their friends and they had called the elevator. We were standing outside the elevator talking to the mother of their friends.

The elevator came up, opened and before anyone knew what had happened, Zuri was on it and on his way downstairs all by himself. Oh buddy, he freaked out. We could hear him screaming.

I took off down the stairs, hoping he had gotten off just on the floor below ours, floor 8 (this isn't an exact explanation because there are actually 2 floors on each floor--you push 9 to get to our apartment but we're really on 17 and 18). No such luck, but the other elevator came to 8 and I hopped on it but it went up to our floor!! Brad said that Zuri's elevator had gone all the way down to 1 before it stopped (he was watching the numbers) and so I started to go there. For some reason, though, on the way back down my elevator stopped at 8 and so did Zuri's. Our elevators arrived there at the same time basically and I saw him run off towards where our door is on the floor above.

I only knew to get off because I could hear him screaming bloody murder. I was almost in tears because I was so happy that he hadn't gotten off on the first floor. Oh, there are some dangers there he could have gotten into. Or what if someone had taken him into their apartment? Do you know how hard it might have been to find him? What if he hadn't started screaming when the elevator started moving? We wouldn't have known where he went. We were so lucky.

He wanted to comfort nurse and nurse and nurse and would cry when I sat him down for around half an hour. Poor baby! He was freaked.

I wonder if someone found him but sent him back up to 8 thinking that's where we lived? I don't understand why his elevator stopped on 8. (I do have an explanation for why mine did.)

Anyway, all's well that ends well but it could have been disastrous. I know this is a bit confusing but it's a difficult thing to describe! He went down 16 floors and back up 14 all by himself on the elevator!!!!
__________________

And another thing!

When I went to Elias' school today, one of the British teachers, who has a six month old, said to me, "Wow, you sure to make them all the same, don't you?" Then later, "Well my husband is Irish and I'm afraid that my son's hair will turn red like that."

I joked, "Hey, I take offense at that! Look at this beautiful copper color!" and rubbed Zuri's hair.

She started stuttering, apparently thinking that because I don't have red hair (mine has mostly faded) that she could say whatever she wanted. "Oh, well, that's a pretty color, I'm talking about the BRIGHT red and you know, all of the freckles."

Well, after this, I wasn't joking anymore. Yes, my kids have freckles.

Part of me wishes that I had told her the truth about her daughter. Because ya know what? I have never thought her daughter was anywhere near pretty. Even with red hair my kids are all three 100 times cuter than her pointy-nosed daughter (who yes, has freckles but not red hair). But I just couldn't fight insult with insult.

Bullies

I can't STAND them. It's even worse when you are watching your son get bullied by a bigger, older kid, with the bully's parent sitting right beside you and you finally get up and go let the kid have it.

Yup. I had watched too many things happen to Elias in Taekwondo--the target waved threateningly in his face several times (Elias said he actually hit him with it), a heel attempting to come down on top of Elias' foot several times, and the straw that broke the camel's back: rather than clapping hands with Elias, the kid was slapping him in the face. He wasn't just playing around, trying to aggravate him. His intent was to hurt Elias, you could see it in his eyes.

I let him have it and when the teacher walked over, I started all over again so that there would be no question that I was unhappy and I heard the teacher say, "You can't come back if you do it again." His mother never even noticed! His older brother was also acting obnoxious--I imagine they need more attention at home.

The kid kept looking back at me with fear but he deserved a swift kick in the a$$.

Yes, my cooking has changed

Tonight for dinner, we had a weird kind of amalgamation of food. We had cabbage sauteed Chinese-style with chicken, carrots and celery. We had a Dutch apple salad and we had some German fried potatoes...all of which I've learned to cook since arriving here. Truly eclectic. But the funny thing is, the kids ate and ate and ate. The two older boys ate their whole plate and then ate about half of a second plate. The only thing that wasn't eaten was the walnuts in the salad on Ezra's plate. Zuri also ate a lot of everything but I only gave him a little bit of cabbage for fear that his body wouldn't digest it.

Back to the grindstone.

Well, now that we have officially ended the week off to celebrate the Chinese Independence Day (which, believe it or not, is actually when the Communist government gained control and the Guomingtang (KMT) were forced to Taiwan), it is time for everyone to get back to school (and Brad to work).

I could NOT wake up this morning. Zuri was up all night wanting to nurse and I am trying to sleep train him again. I also drank a diet coke pretty late at night so after he woke up crying but went back to sleep, I was up running on a caffeine high. Not much fun.

So, this past week, I think we went to six different dinner parties. As your kids grow up, they certainly bring a whole new level to your social life, don't they?

Sunday, I went to the fabric market with a friend and bought material to make the boys their Halloween costumes. I showed Ezra the green fabric, and he knew EXACTLY what it was for and freaked out laughing--Ben 10's Wild Vine. Elias will be Ben 10's "Fire Guy" (that's not his technical name) and Zuri will be a Dalmation. I REALLY need to get on this because I have no sewing machine and even fewer skills with a needle, haha.

But while we were there, I found some fabric that looked like I could possibly use it to look like fire in various places on Elias' costume. It's like fringe that stands up. It's red with a shiny yellow undertone. I asked the lady (in Chinese) how much per meter and she told me 8 yuan. So, I left and came back maybe 15 minutes later and asked for half a meter. Well, she thought I said EIGHT meters and started shelling it out. When I corrected her, she started making fun of my pronunciation which really pissed me off. I had said it wrong and I'm usually almost perfect but I certainly don't make fun of her for saying HILO! for Hello (although if it happens again, I will).

Anyway, she apparently had been counting how much money she was going to make on eight meters and now it was suddenly down to half a meter. I'm usually so careful but I learned a valuable lesson: apparently when you leave the store and come back, the price just might double. I was pissed and told her I would not come back. Really, she just handed me back the wrong change and so my only choice was going to be to get the police to come to get it back and what was I worried about? $1.50.

But honestly, the more I think about this woman, the more I want to go to one of her competitors and just hand them 100RMB note right in front of her. Bi-atch.

The Chinese said, "Happy Independence Day!" yesterday

So, I never knew a stay-at-home vacation could be this much fun but boy, we've been having fun this week! We had to work/go to school Saturday and Sunday, but we have had outings every night. Tonight, we went over to a couple of friends house who made us some gumbo. They are from the north and they wanted to make southern food. I thought it was kind of funny because we don't really consider gumbo as southern food (yeah, Cajun people live in the south, but they aren't southerners) but ya know what? I NEVER want to turn down free gumbo. haha. I made a seven layer salad.

The other night, Brad cracked me up when we went to a friend's house for a bbq the other night and the party consisted of a New Zealand/Singapore family, an Australian family, a Brazilian family, a British family, and us, the American family. In a rare occurrence around here (usually there is no separation by sex), the women sat around the table and had no problem finding things to chat about. The men sat around in the living room and Brad said conversation was so difficult! He said they started with music. No one knew the same music. Then they went to sports. No one followed the same sports. Politics? Nope. There were many other attempted conversations that kept dead-ending. He was ready to go waaaay before I was.

So, what do women find to talk about that is interesting, no matter what country you're from: recipes, child brain development (we're also all teachers), differences in men and women, books we've read, drinks we like to drink, etc. Women can shoot the shit about anything, can't we?

I learned you must never ask "could" but ask "would" when asking a man to do a chore. But I cracked everyone up with the story about how that day I had asked Brad very nicely to bring the vacuum cleaner up. "When you have time, will you please bring the vacuum cleaner upstairs?" Now, everyone knows that means in the next few minutes...an hour later, I came downstairs and got it myself. I told them MY mistake was not saying, "Bring the damn vacuum cleaner upstairs NOW!!!