The last two days have been a bit rough around the edges in our house.  I slept about 90% of both days, save for drinking gallons of water (and the consequential million bathroom trips).    Finally, at about 11:00 last night, after 15 days of labor, Stonetta joined big brothers Stoney and Stoney, Jr in Stone Heaven.  I’m not grieving the loss of her in the slightest.

I got the first pains from this stone the day after Christmas break started and it went away the day before break ended.  I feel a bit rotten that my kids spent most of the break taking care of me, but this is life, right?

With the help of Percocet, we managed to have Christmas @ the orphanage, a Boxing Day party, and an insane New Year’s Eve party featuring a total of 48 guests smashed into our far-too-small-for-48-guests 1100 sq foot apartment!  Not too shabby.

Some (yes, some- there are several guests not featured here!) of the guests:

It was a tight squeeze, but it worked…

I always love to admire the pile of shoes when you gather a crowd indoors in China.  Everyone, young and old, sheds their shoes instinctively as they walk in the door.

I think there was room for more in the kitchen!

On New Year’s Day, I had an acupuncturist come to the house.  He is Family and he was really nice.  I’d never had acupuncture done to me before, so I was a mixture of skepticism and nerves before he showed up.  But it didn’t hurt and he ended with a really nice therapeutic massage.  It cost $10 and he came to my house.  I mean, really, can you beat that price?  I doubt it!  And disposable needles, so that’s a bonus.  I’m all about staying disease-free!

He spoke a decent amount of English and talked to me a lot while applying the needles and then during the waiting time before he took them out.   The Chinese have ways of reading the human body that amaze me.   During foot massages, I’ve had them tell me I’ve got a problem with “X” and 9 times out of 10, they are completely accurate.  I’ve even been told in advance that I had a kidney stone coming (Sadly, they were right on that one).   Isn’t that amazing?  Just from touching my foot they can tell that stuff?!?

Anyway, he looked at my tongue and felt my pulse and felt various spots on my feet and calves.   He told me I was falling apart- that my kidneys and liver and heart were pushed too far.  He was telling me that I’m too busy and I do too much and that I can’t push myself while I have the stones.  It was something I *know* in my head but I have a hard time obeying.  I like to push myself a bit too far.  I’m not into sleeping for a whole week and losing what feels like days upon days of time that I could be *doing* something.

But he was telling me different ways that my body is falling apart due to the stress of pushing through the pain.  And he reprimanded me that instead of taking painkillers so I can “keep going” that I need to listen to my body- if it is in pain, I need to give it time to heal and not push push push.  And if I don’t obey that and I push push push anyway, I’m going to break down.

I think I push myself even more here because I feel a certain responsibility to “do” things.  And I look outside and see the trash guy biking his trash cart around in the snow, loading up mounds of trash day in and day out.  Surely he’s got back pain, sore feet, and a laundry list of other complaints.  But he’s there every day doing his work.  And so I think I have to do the same.  But sadly, that pushing comes at a cost- the life expectancy for a manual laborer here is not that great.

So I slept the last 2 days.  I gave myself permission to just stop and not “do”.  The world won’t fall apart without me!

So that’s my New Year’s resolution.  To chill out.  To rest in Him.  To trust that His plans don’t include me pushing myself to exhaustion.

Happy New Year’s Eve!  Well, in a few hours anyway! 

I was feeling guilty about depriving all of you of good taxi stories.  So I took my fave taxi driver (Driver Wang- I decided to start using his name so you can “remember” him- he’s the same one from yesterday with the Backstreet Boys) today to go visit a fabric market.  I bought a sewing machine because they are cheap and I often have tiny things I want to fix on things and I feel like it takes more time to take it to the alterations lady in the basement of our building than it would take me to fix it myself. (side note: her husband is our landlord and he lives in the bike-parking garage below our building- his wife lives in an apartment in the complex- I’m not sure how that all works out and it is really a lot more details than necessary for this story)  I was feeling kind of guilty about buying one, going “Hmm, it costs me about 60 cents to get a pair of pants hemmed here.  And if I pay 10 cents per spool of thread and $50 for a sewing machine, I need to hem about (a lot, not really gonna do the math there) of pants to make this worthwhile.”    This is what life overseas does for you after awhile!

Anyway, on to the taxi.  Driver Wang knows quite a few English words.  He busts them out at random moments, spouting out things like “watch” “shoe” and “window” and then grinning and/or laughing.

Today, he talked to Katie for awhile.  Katie is pretty picky about who she talks to in Chinese and he’s not on her “favorites” list. I told him that in the west, we teach our kids not to talk to strangers, so she sometimes she feels a little bit scared.  He thought that was hilarious and said “Everyone would know if someone stole your child.   No one would see them and think they’re a Chinese child!”  Good logic, but still- stranger danger- hello, we had DUSO when I was a kid!

He said she was cute and this inspired him to work on his English some more- specifically how to tell someone they are ugly or cute in English.  So I taught him “cute” and “ugly”.  He practiced for awhile and then exclaimed “You! Cute!” (in his voice it is two sentences and they both definitely have exclamation points)  He seemed really proud that he’d come up with adding “YOU!” to the beginning of the word cute.  I was contemplating correcting his grammar and letting him know it should be “You ARE cute.”   So we continued the drive, him exclaiming repeatedly “You! Cute!  You! Ugly!  You! Cuke! You! Kugly!  I forgot how to say the words! You! Kugly!  You! Cuke!  Oh!  Cute!  You! Cute!  You! Cuke!”   During all of this I texted Keith so I could control my laughter *and* remind myself to tell him about it later.

It got even better when he added “I love ME!  You cuke!”   At this point, I stifled my giggles and asked him “Is it okay to tell people ‘I love me!’ in China?”  He looked surprised and said “Of course!  I can say I love me, I love you!  I’m cute, You’re ugly!”  And then of course he slipped to English and added “I love ME! I cute!  You kugly!”

I’m starting to think that if I need a sitcom or some comedy relief I just need to go call up Driver Wang.

Unrelated to this, I have a few photos of our friend’s little girl.  She’s soooo cute and at 2 1/2 months she’s super chunky and has tons of hair!  Love it!

Katie loooooves baby Jin Xuan.

Asleep on Mama.

Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR’S EVE!  And remember to tell someone “I love ME! You’re ugly!”

First, a taxi driver story.

I got in a taxi today with Eliza, headed to Metro (like Costco, only NOT).  It is a longish drive to get there, and I had one of our “regular” drivers.  He has been featured on the blog before re: asking why Emily is skinny and I’m fat.  He’s a gem of a guy, always good for a laugh.

Today, his topic of choice was the Backstreet Boys.  Great topic, right?  He was playing Backstreet Boys songs for me and asking me to sing along.   We’re talking “I Want it That Way” and other gems circa late-1990’s.

After I indulged and sang along a bit (yes, sorry, I do know all of the lyrics to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”) , he asked me to translate the meanings of each song.  He loves the tune, apparently, but he wants to understand the deeper meanings behind the songs.   It has to be one of the oddest half-hours of my life- actually listening to the lyrics of each song and explaining “See, he’s sad because his girlfriend left him- and he’s saying that if she will love him, he can forgive her for anything bad she’s done”.    And “He thinks everyone should dance.  (thinking: hmm, how do I translate rock your body?)”

In completely unrelatedness, I have a few knitting/crafty things to share.

I’ve been knitting like a fool while I battle these kidney stones.  Apparently sharp, pointy things are a good antidote to pain.  I’m not sure the reason, but it does help me a lot!

A hat for myself:

We had a scarf that had felted (a gift from my HK roommate!) and it needed a new purpose.  I found a great pattern online >>here<<.  I cut out the shapes and slip stitched it together… so easy!!   They’re actually mine, but Eliza is a cute model.  If you have any felted (shrunken) sweaters, I highly recommend the pattern!  It is super fast and simple! And they’re REALLY cute!

And a scarf I hand-dyed the yarn for… this is mine…

And the same scarf, in blues for one of Keith’s teacher’s aides.  I love that this pattern is reversible- the cables are the same on both sides.

Have a great day!  We’re having a New Year’s Eve party on New Year’s Eve (wow, redundant much?  Isn’t that like having a 4th of July party on July 4th?).   Should be fun!

I was hoping those two topics- kidney stones and Christmas- would be entirely irrelevant to one another.   But Stonetta (I’ve had Stoney & Stoney, Jr. so I figured it was time for a girl in the family of stones) has decided she wants to stick around awhile longer.   Regardless, we found time for some Christmas fun.

Our family’s Christmas card this year:

Our girls enjoyed opening presents from America! :)  We still have a few packages en route, but we had plenty of good stuff under the tree!  Thank you to family for the great gifts!

From Keith & I, the girls each got a hanbok (Korean traditional dress).  They’re thicker quilted ones and the girls both had been asking me to buy one for them.  Since we’ll be in Korea for the lunar new year we thought it would be fun to take a hanbok with us for them to wear.

After our family morning and Skype phone calls to the US where other family were celebrating, we headed out to the orphanage to share the day with 2 beautiful little girls.  They both have awesome stories and yes- both of them are heading to America in 2009.  I won’t share more other than to say that I love both of them to pieces and am so excited to see their little lives develop and blossom!

While walking back to the orphanage with them, we ran into a guy on a bike selling helium balloons- they were tied to the back of his bike.  We were with another family and we got a crazy whim to just buy all of them… Keith chased the guy down and I bargained with him… we settled on all 30 balloons for a decent price.

Our friend’s 4th grade son did the honors of carrying all 30 balloons.  If you want to get a million crazy looks, this is the guaranteed ticket to success: 2 caucasian families with a total of 3 Chinese children (our friends have one adopted daughter- so 3 total) and 30 balloons.

So that was Christmas!  We followed it up by taking the subway over to Coldstone Creamery.  The subway in Tianjin only has one line running right now- the others aren’t completed yet- but the line that is open runs between the orphanage and Coldstone.  I’m sure it goes to other places as well, but that’s about all that I need to know about it!

Last night we had a WiiBoxing party for Boxing Day with several families at our house.

Today, our friend WeiWei is coming over with her sweet 2 1/2 month old baby girl!

So that was our 2nd Christmas in China.   I’m just trying to keep going through all of this while not taking too many pain pills!   I have spent lots of time googling all sorts of remedies and pain solutions.  I love the people who suggest “learning to cope” with the pain of a kidney stone without taking pain medicine.  Right.  I’ll cut your arm off with no pain meds.  Enjoy!  I’m sure it will be a blast!    I actually ended up buying a TENS machine like chiropracters use.  I got one inexpensively here and it helps a lot and is nice and portable.  But sometimes, even that isn’t enough.    And that is why we have doctors who give us the good stuff, right?

Have a fabulous week!  We have one more week of break ahead of us and we’re looking forward to it!

Sunday was an exciting day!  We woke up to a fresh blanket of about 6 inches of snow!  It rarely snows here, due to the extremely dry climate.   The scheduled fellowship children’s Christmas performances were cancelled, so the Keith took the kids out to play in the snow.

Those from super snowy climates might giggle over 6 inches of snow shutting the city down- but the snow plows here in TJ weren’t quite as effective as the ones I’m used to in the US!

In front of the local liquor/cigarette store, they had a snowman- complete with a lovely cigarette crown. It’s classy.

Oh, and by the way, all of the Chinese snowmen we saw had just a head and body.  Interesting!!!  I am used to 3-ball snowmen!

After the snow, Eliza lost a front tooth.  She was wanting her tooth to come out before Christmas for two reasons: 1. So she can sing “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” and most importantly 2. So she can match her “best” friend Maya.  Much to her joy, they currently have two front teeth completely gone and 2 new bottom teeth partially in.   They’re little blonde/blue twins right now- wanting to do everything exactly alike to the point that it drives their moms to insanity! ;)  We even got a little snowflake taped to our door the other day from Maya that said how much she would miss Eliza because she (Maya) was going to Beijing for the day.  One day apart- I’m sure they’ll survive!

Keith and I finished off the day by attending our first CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) game.  We saw Tianjin v. Shanxi.  I can’t believe we went a whole year not knowing they had a CBA team!  Anyway, Bonzi Wells, a former Ball State player, played for Shanxi in his debut CBA game- getting 48 points and helping them win 106-105.  It was such a close game and we loved the chance to see some basketball again!  And you can get 1st-10th row tickets for a whopping $9 US!  Not bad not bad!

Our error here, however, was that we’d been told taxis were hard to get when it snows. We trusted this advice but figured after this sporting event there would be enough taxis.  Wrong, wrong wrong!  We ended up out in the blisteringly cold wind walking for 45 minutes until we finally found a taxi- I think if we’d walked a different way we would have ended up HOME before we got this taxi.

Keith actually pulled a good move to get the taxi we ended up with- he saw a taxi way up the road pull up to drop someone off, and he went flying out in the street racing toward the taxi and jumped on the taxi, claiming it before anyone else could.  The driver told us how smart Keith was because he said if he hadn’t done that we would have lost it.   I was proud! 

Saturday, Keith and I attended a Christmas banquet… it was fun to see all of the high school students in their fancy clothes!

And now we’re just enjoying a quiet Christmas eve, planning to get delicious Thai food for dinner… Christmas day here will mean cinnamon rolls, stockings, and presents in the morning here at home.  Then we’ll all head to the orphanage- we’ll be delivering news to a little girl that she’s going to be adopted (what an awesome Christmas present!!) along with some presents from her new mom and dad! :)  We’ll take a kid to McD’s to celebrate Christmas dinner.  Nothing says Christmas like a Whopper and fries, right?

Our lives are certainly not the same as they were in America at this time of year, but we wouldn’t trade it for the world!  Have a great Christmas and celebrate His love for us!

Eliza lost her front tooth after her birthday party last week.  Her other front tooth is very wiggly so we anticipate another “new smile” shortly.  So, while it is still accurate, I’ll share her “current” new smile:

I’ve got yet another kidney stone (3rd since October if you’re counting).  I’ll be honest that I’m having a bit of a pity party.  I feel like I haven’t had a chance to recuperate and get life back in order since the last one passed 9 days ago and already I’m going to be slammed back down into a pain-medication-haze until this one passes.

I know it could be worse, so please refrain from any “at least you don’t have ___” stories.   I know I have a lot to be grateful for this Christmas, and I am.   I’m just also admitting that I’m having a hard time- in pain, missing family, etc…

His mercies are new each morning, and I’m thankful for that.

And I’m thankful for the “helpful” advice I get passed my way.  Everything from “drink castor oil” to “drink 10 gallons of water a day” to “get in a bathtub and eat a whole watermelon and pee into the bathtub.”  The latter advice I have refrained from following in its full- I like watermelon and I like baths.  Sitting in my pee? Not so much!

All of the above advice comes from fellow foreigners.  The advice from Chinese people is singular in tone.  I kid you not.  Everyone from taxi drivers to ayis to fellow teachers asks me “What kind of water do you drink?”  When I respond that I drink the filtered, purified water in big jugs from the drinking-water company they shake their head as if to say “Well, what do you expect, ya stupid foreigner!!?!” and then they lecture me on why I need to drink the “expensive” mineral water from the store.

I’m starting to wonder if there is some truth in it.  I mean, my ayi freaked out that the cost of the parmesan cheese I buy to make lasagna went up 3 mao (that’s about 5 cents).  She goes nuts when broccoli is 2 cents more than the last time she bought it.  But she’s telling me to buy water that would cost me about 15 times as much as the water we currently use.  She never ever ever ever ever suggests the more expensive product.   And yet she and her fellow countrymen are all giving me the same advice.  Interesting, isn’t it?

Last Chinese New Year, we made a decision that we would NOT endure another 18 days (and nights- we shall not forget those nights!) of fireworks.  We would eat only beans for the year to save money for the flights if necessary, but we would not under any circumstances be here for Chinese New Year.

So, drumroll please… we are headed to Seoul, South Korea for 8 days this January!  We are excited to visit the home country of many of our students and friends!

We’ll be there Jan 23-31 and we are all thrilled- especially Katie who thinks she is going to meet up with one of her classmates who is moving back home to Korea next week- she doesn’t quite understand the concept that South Korea has a lot of people and the chances of her randomly meeting up with her 4 year old friend while walking the streets of Seoul are pretty slim. 

I have two good taxi stories for today, since I’ve been remiss in sharing good stories lately.  They’re actually from the same day…

Story 1:

I hop in the taxi and ask to be taken to the bank so I can do some orphanage finances there.  It is about a 30 minute drive to this bank, so we have plenty of time for banter.   He wants to talk about politics.

There is a Chinese phrase “ting shuo” which means literally “heard said”.  It is the equivalent of saying “I heard it through the grapevine…”  I have a general distrust for anything that anyone has “heard said” because who knows if the person you were hearing say “xyz” actually has a clue about “xyz”?

Well, this taxi driver had “heard said” lots of things.  First off, the Clintons are getting divorced.  I said I hadn’t seen that in the news.  But he insisted he’d heard it.  Ohhhh, okay.  In *that* case…

We stayed on the Clintons for quite awhile, rambling through all of the reasons Hillary doesn’t really love her husband.   And since Mr. Random Taxi Driver “heard said” all of these things, I’m pretty sure they’re true.

We carried on the rest of the drive through Nixon and Obama and black people.  You know, the usual things you talk about in a taxi on the way to the bank.

Story 2:

I left the bank 3 hours later, hungry for lunch- specifically, hungry for Vietnamese noodles.  I got into a taxi and couldn’t remember anything I wanted to say.  I just mumble-stuttered (mumblered?) “I want to go to this restaurant but I don’t where it is, or the name of the restaurant, or how to get there.”  The taxi driver stared at me, like “Seriously, did you just say that?  What do you want me to do, read your mind?”

I named a couple roads I thought the restaurant was maybe on.  Nope, nope, nope.   After 3 failed roads, he called his girlfriend and told her about the crazy foreigner who wanted to eat Vietnamese noodles but doesn’t know where they are.   And then he hung up and drove me directly to the restaurant- apparently the girlfriend knew all along!  Thank you Taxi-Driver-Girlfriend.   The noodles were super delicious.

Have a great almost-Christmas-week!!  I’m substitute teaching 1st grade (i.e. what was I thinking???).

Thank you to Dan Kennedy for taking photos of the party!

We had planned a joint birthday party for Eliza & Mia- their birthdays are 11 days apart and with Christmas it just seemed like compacting the number of of cupcake-laden days of kid-madness was probably a good idea!   Sara’s grandma passed away this week and she flew to America to be there for the funeral, so Dan had to step in and be the best little replacement-princess he could be.

Did he do a good job?

We purchased these wild Chinese birthday candles we’d heard about from friends.  You light the center of it and it has a ring of smaller candles on “petals” closed up around a flower core.  After the candle is lit, it shoots flames from the center and then sings Happy Birthday and opens up, to reveal two rings of small candles.  WILD stuff, eh?  I don’t know if it would pass safety regulations in the US!  Emily & Tamara- we are bringing these home for the boys’ birthdays this summer, ok?

We had cupcakes and the candles were too large for the cupcakes… ha.  Eliza was scared/entranced by the flames…

After opening up…  we had two of these going at the same time, so it was pretty wild/scary/fun!   (Note: Yes, our children have colored on the walls of our apartment here.  The paint is NOT washable either!  Ah, well.  This is life with kids!  Katie even drew a self portrait on her wall in her room!!)

Katie & Rose

The Kennedy sisters, Hannah and Mia.

All of the girls!  We had a few out sick but it was a good party!

Tasty cupcakes!

We have a busy last week of school before Christmas break.   I know we’re not the only ones running at breakneck speed this time of year!  I’m just thankful to be kidney-stone-free to enjoy Christmas!

Hope you are able to take time this week to reflect on the gift of His Son and the gift of Love that this season of Hope offers to us all!

I can’t believe Eliza is already 6.  I know, every parent says that on every birthday, filling in the name and age appropriately of course.

6 years ago… my giant pre-eclamptic hands swallowing her up…

And last night on the webcam:

Happy birthday little E-buggity-boo!  We love you sweetie!!

And a few highlights of this week…

Katie falling asleep in her tiara (she slept that way all night long):

And a few from the girls’ Christmas play:

Have a great weekend!   We will be having 15 little girls over on Sunday to celebrate Eliza’s (and her friend Mia’s) birthday.  Eek!!

Great day in our house yesterday- first off, my kidney stone that had been giving me grief for 8 days finally passed (yay!!!!) and second, I got to share Christmas with the kids at the orphanage.

Since the Chinese do not traditionally celebrate Christmas, the kids at the orphanage aren’t too familiar with the traditions of this holiday. Tuesday morning, we had a real life 6 foot tall Santa Claus visit the orphanage and share joy with the kids there. Each child got a hat and scarf and mittens and a bag of candy. We sang for them (and they sang for us!) and they shared just as much joy with us as we managed to pass to them!

Sorry, I was using our cheap pocket camera- photo quality isn’t the best!
Watching Santa Claus…

Saying thank you… the boys’ hats all have Automan on them!! They were super excited!

Isn’t this a handsome young guy?

These kids are awesome- I just love every single one of them! Even if I shine the flash too brightly in their little faces!!

This sweetie has a special place in my heart! I can’t wait to share her full story in a few months when the next chapter has begun! Let’s just say the future has amazing things in store for her!

I think I really feel like Christmas is here now!