reflections: unnoticed mercy

There's some things that have been swirling around in my head for a while lately, but I just haven't taken the time to write them out.

If you'll remember back to those days in hong kong, you will remember that funny though those blogs may be, there was a hint of anger and irritation to them. The honest truth is that I was not necessairily angry at God, just irritated in general. The biggest part of the anger came from my mind trying to piece together "whys" and "hows" that the human race always tries to find when tragedy strikes. At that point, all the facts indicated that the kidney stone and its complications led to the miscarraige of the baby. That tasted like gravel in my mouth. It made me angry. Of all the times I could have had a kidney stone, why then? Why even at all?

Now that the emotions have receeded and life is back to its very normal routine, it's really easy to forget that all that drama even happened. But after coming home and doing a little more research, the more probable scenario now seems that the baby was already dead before the kidney stone ever reared its head. This is not necessariliy based on solid, undebateable facts, but generalizations for what ought to be normal for when heartbeats show up on ulrasounds and gestational age and things like that. If it were true that the baby had already died, then the appearance of the kidney stone was - contrary to what I have been calling it all this time - an incredible act of a merciful God.

If the baby had already died and I had no kidney stone, there would have been no reason for me to fly to hong kong. All the emotion and pain and uncertainty would have come like a thief in the night, so to speak, and it all would have happened here in my asialand home. I would have been going to the hospital down the street, simply out of necessity. I would have all the memories of that event locked in my mind, and it all would have been in my house, in my city. No kind nurses who stayed by my side, no chance to look at the baby after it came out, no doctors that spoke to me in english, none of that special time after it was all over to savor those free days with my family and regroup. No time with friends, no late night card games, no outback, no cheetos. That perspective changes everything for me.

Even though I wasn't mad at God, I felt distant toward him. Maybe sort of like passive-aggressive. Maybe. But just looking at things this way - what could very possibly be the most accurate way anyway - gives Him glory for His mercy at a time when I thought He was anything but merciful. So, for all of you who hurt with me during that time, I wanted to share my newest revelation. I was wrong. He has been much more merciful to me that I thought or deserved.

Friday, again.

well, it's friday today and besides that meaning it's the day after Thursday (which implies my sacred ritual of the $7 foot massage), it also means that's the time I usually have the afternoon to lounge around in my bedroom on the computer while josh is busy with other stuff. So, there you have it: Friday=blog...most of the time. :) Hopefully, if all the cords and switches are aligned correctly, today Friday will also equal pictures. Today, as was the case last Friday, Chicken Fried Steak is on the menu for tonight...and, I'll have you know, last week was my best ever CFS! And the greatest part is, all I do is bread it and fry it. My house helper preps all the meat and breading mixture and it's all set out nicely in little bowls and platters, just waiting for me to heat that oil. Yum.....

I just have to say - it is stinkin hot here. This week, in my opinion, has seemed nearly unbearably hot! Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that every morning/early afternoon this week I have been out toting the little ones around, but still...I am pouring sweat by the time I walk back into my air-conitioned oasis that also doubles as my home. My children's cheeks are flushed every time, and they pack away the water like you wouldn't believe. And it's not just hot, it's humid-hot, humid-no-breeze-hot, making it feel like the Sunday Mr. Woods won his most recent major and set records for heat index. I didn't really imagine that people kept track of that sort of thing, but apparantly they do. When Tiger won those few weeks ago, it went in the record books as "hottest final round in a Major," which I guess falls right under "rainiest final round in a major", or "coldest final round in a major"? hmmm, anyway. It's hot. Period.

Yesterday's errand was simple enough - to go buy a light bulb. Not just any light bulb, of course - it is the light bulb that sits right over the sink where josh shaves. He has truly missed the light during its darkened absence. My house helper and I wrote down the serial number on the light, and after discovering that this is a special light (ie, it cannot be bought at a grocery store), we made the trek across town to a big lighting emporium. We located what we and the saleslady thought was the right thing, and managed to buy several other things in the process. One of those "things" was an extension cord - you wouldn't believe how hard I've searched for a simple extension cord. Long power strips and cords are in over-abundant supply, but that's not what I was looking for. I needed just a few extra meters of cord to help my lamp plug in to the nearest outlet. I guess yesterday was my lucky day, because at the lighting emporium, I got to watch a lady MAKE an extension cord for me. Hmmm. Yeah, that's what I thought. It was a twenty-something girl whose miniskirt barely served its purpose, armed with a screwdriver, open wires, and a two-year old who was way more comfortable around electrical appliances than he ought to be. But, in the end, my skepticism ebbed...it worked. At least, so far...

Today's errand involved walking down the street to get more cheese...and, boy do we go through the cheese! So the girls and I walked down the street to the grocery store, through the chaotic twists and turns that our nice tree-lined street has become since a road-repairing campaign. Anyway, one of emma's favorite things to do it look for caterpillars and roly-polys. Whenver we go out, her first item of business is to find a stick or other long implement so that if she happens to see a roly-poly, she has the necessary tools to make him roll up into his little ball. Truly, she loves it. Not as much as she loves Mater, but she loves it. Today was a bummer because she found a great stick, but no roly polies. We did see a bulldozer, and Emma decided that was pretty cool.

I'm not such a big fan of the rumor mill, but it's alive and kickin out here. Remember my landlord, the fabulously wealthy, super-connected entrepreuneur? Well, she kept telling me over and over and over that her friend was preparing to open a western restaurant here in our city. It was a really famous American restaurant (yeah, sure) and it was coming here. Asianese people think first of all, that KFC and McDonalds are the same, and secondly, they think "What other kind of western food could there be that KFC and McDonalds doesn't have?" So you can imagine my non-excitement when she's trying to get me all pumped up about a new western place coming in here. It was so good that, apparantly, she didn't even know the name of it. hmmmm, that's how good it was. Finally, after WEEKS of hearing her talk this place up, we made her ask her friend the name of the place. I'm not banking on it. I'm not even expecting it be here within a year, but supposedly, it's on its way. What is it, you ask?

Applebee's.

:)

We had a little friend over to play a few days ago, a little asianese girl that is a friend of a friend. I've told you before that emma usually has 3 mornings a week where we have special language games with her, but this week we changed it up and invited over a friend to play for one of her language mornings. We colored Dora color sheets, read books together, and played musical pillows, one of emma and mantha's very most favorite activities...probably because in involves jumping and trouncing on pillows and that perhaps makes them feel like they're getting away with a little extra deviousness... The results were pretty incredible - since her little friend left two days ago, Emma has been more willing to speak asianese than ever before and has even carried on little conversations with us, consisting of several questions and answers. It's an understatement to say that she enjoyed playing with the friend more than she enjoyed talking to me and my house helper. So we hope that can become a normal part of emma's week, and of course, in the process she makes friends and has happy times.

Last weekend, daddy let momma have the morning to go to one of my favorite places to window shop while he took the girls out to play. They went to a park in our city that has a nice lake inside...and emma got her choice of whatever she wanted to do. I was so surprised to see the picures of emma and mantha on top of the ferris wheel! Josh relayed to me that they both enjoyed looking out at the city and the boats, and especially that yellow car that always seemed to stay right behind them...

Anyway, by the time they made it to the ferris wheel, both the girls were really tired and the multi-million dollar camera's flash was running low on juick...but I thought the pictures had a fun feel to them, since part of the skyline is in the background.

Emma and samantha sure have been keeping busy, with all the phone calls that they must be getting from you guys and mater and sally...those are some interesting conversations! Clara, we hope you come soon because lots of those phone calls seem to be from you, too!

More of emma's friends include Baby Jenda, a foreign friend of hers who came over to play a few days ago. Jenda's parents were brave enough to let emma have a shot at holding her...and I'm not sure who was more curious about who! (The next photo in this sequence is baby jenda almost falling off the couch...!)

While were in hong kong, our friend Biji bought emma and samantha princess tiaras...except emma thinks she is TWICE the princess and nabs mantha's tiara. The Book does say that two is better than one, but I don't think this is what it meant...

But I do think she is the lovliest of all lovely princesses!

Last but not least, two extra pictures, just because they're cute...

When there's no where else to sit, samantha gets creative and bounces on the ball...

What this picture doesn't tell you is that samantha's newest feat (as of about a week ago) is climbing at warp speed onto anything taller than herself. It takes her less than two seconds to make it to the top of the dining room table chairs (and if they are pushed in far enough, she'll manage to stand ON TOP of the table, ohmywordgivemeaheartattack!). Check - fell off the chairs. She also very deftly scampers on the couch, and check - knocked off a spindle of CD's, and check - fell off the couch too. But in her quieter moments, when she's content to sit and read books on the couch, she seems all grown-up and big-girlish. How can that be? and then, every so often, you'll catch a scene like this and your heart will laugh with them as they savor the joys of childhood...

when Dora gets ousted

What sort of shake-up in world events could cause Dora to fall from her pedestal in Emma's life? It was a shocker to me, that emma would ever be willing to consider choosing another movie over Dora. Simply unheard of. That is, until she watched Cars. Emma has only seen 30-minute segments of Cars twice in her entire life, and yet it is by far the most requested video in her life. She remembers details from the movie with remarkable clarity: that mater can drive backwards, that Sally likes Lightning McQueen and that Lightning McQueen helped the blue car when he flipped over his wheels. She has multiple converstations on her cell phone with mater every day, just to catch up I suppose. She often tells us that Mater or Sally wants to talk to us, so we happily oblige.

Today when both the girls were taking naps, Josh and I ran out to take care of some errands together. While we were shopping in Wal-mart (childless, mind you!) we remembered that emma was out of toothpaste. Right there staring at us in the toothpaste aisle was an Oral-B Childrens' toothpaste with Mater and Lightning McQueen on the tube. The matching toothbrush was right next to it. We giddily threw them into our basket, knowing how excited emma would be when she saw them. Tonight, at the appointed toothbrushing hour, I nonchalantly brought out her toothbrush and as josh was brushing her teeth, she was mindlessly looking around as usual...when, her eyes drifted to the handle of the toothbrush. Her eyes opened really big and she exclaimed, with a full mouth of foamy toothpaste, "Look at my toothbrush!" She was way excited.

We went to pizza hut tonight - an unplanned trip, but a fun one - with our friend and her son. Emma and Samantha enjoyed taking turns running through the restaurant, delighting everyone with friendly hellos and smiles. We enjoyed the two-mile walk home like we usually do after Pizza Hut...just because we eat so stinking much when we go there. The soccer stadium next to the pizza hut is usually filled with old men flying kites and middle-aged women carting their pampered pups around; those two are usually a winning and fail-proof combination for the girls.

I havent' really had a lot to blog about lately, just life as normal here. I'm trying to think of unique topics to keep you all returning to my blog, but perhaps it will just have to wait till next time. We've gotten lots of cute pictures of the girls to keep posting, if I can ever motivate myself to do it.

silence

sometimes silence is SO deafening, you know? Josh and I debated for a bit over whether or not his post about Swiper and his swiping would possibly have been offensive to any of you...and me, in my great naivete said, "I think people will think it's funny and just consider it as normal problem of a second langauge." But in the days since then, my great commenters have mysteriously disappeared. So if any of you were reading your computer screen, with gaping mouths at our audacity to say what we said about ol' Swiper, I do truly and sincerely apologize. After talking with some of our local friends, we found that the Asianese use of it does not carry near the intensity of meaning that the translation the dictionary provided in English does, so it's nice to know that if emma does go around telling swiper not to swipe, she can do it in asianese at no risk of offending others.

Ok, anyway - I have two new posts that you might not see because they got posted out of order - I've been working on them for a while and I guess blogger posts them in order of the day I started working on them. But - go the right hand side where it shows my recent posts and check out these two:

the almost overlooked vacation -pics of that vacation we took before all our medical stuff happened
my cheating heart - a true story about infidelity and having fun at the park with the girls

hope you enjoy the pictures!

raising what...?

'Tis me, papaeggroll, with what I truly hope is an interesting, funny, and NOT offensive post. It's life for us here.

It's said that 80% of the things Americans buy are made over here in Asialand, which is scary on the one hand (from the recent quality control issues) but good on the other as it makes those goods cheap because they are made in an area of the world where labor is cheap. ($0.50/hour versus $10-12). Being here, though, it is amazing how difficult it is to find those things. There's not just a shop called "stuff we export to the USA and Europe" around the corner, but instead, its more of an adventure. You'll never know where these items will show up. Every month or so, we will run into some of these items, usually at a random shop on the sidewalk or in a local shopping center. There are two kinds of sellers: (1) those who don't have a clue what this thing is or what it would cost in America, and (2) those who do know and know when they see an American looking at it, it can be sold for more than they would sell it to a local Asian person. We like the first kind better.

So, a few examples to wet your tasts buds for what you too could buy if you come to Asialand.

(1) A few years ago, a good friend ran into some W_illiams & S_onoma cookbooks. It was a local bird and flower market; yes, that's where they sell birds and flowers, but they also had a book section along with a fake old coins section. Retail value of the cook book: $29.95. Your price here: $2. At the same market, we also found "The L_ion, the W-itch, and the W-ardrobe". M_ardels was selling it for $12; we picked it up for $0.75. When we went back to the states last year and walked into B_arnes_&_ N_oble, it was like being back in the bird and flower market. We spotted at least 20 books on the "newly arrived" section that we could find at the bird and flower market. The factories for the books, we guess, are somewhere in the area, and the books we buy usually have some type of defect like a page is upside down, or the book was cut incorrectly, but they are still 100% usable.

(2) Toys are another huge item. Any stuffed animal you kind buy in the states (just about any I should say), you can find here and not with the expensive price tag.

(3) Clothes are a different animal. The Chinese M_ophia is huge in south america and eastern europe. You can find fakes Louis V_aton, guc_ci, anything. But the people selling these things know they are selling fakes. But when it comes to kids clothes, you just can't tell, except maybe a method spotted by Mamaeggroll. We can find C-irca (t-arget brand), G_ymboree anything, T-ommy, you name it. Each garment has all the tags, the tags have the right crease with the right price (for America), no Asianese, but here's where we can separate the fake fakes from what could be the real, or at least the real fakes--if the washing instructions are in perfect english. If the instructions are just in symbols, like an X over the symbol for a dryer, then its a fake fake. The G-ymboree stuff (and C-irca too) is in perfect English AND Spanish. Nice winter sweater for 3 year-old retails for $60 in the States; here just $8, and it's held up in several washes (also another good test for the fake fakes and real fakes).

(4) Last but not least, DVDs. All nine seasons of Seinfeld if you buy it new will run you about $250-300 if you find a good deal on line. Here: $60-80 (we have not bought them by the way...), albeit, they are pirated, illegal, and the quality is almost as good as the originals. Movies that will cost you $12-20 in the states will run you $1-3 here, such as Ba-by E-instein, W-innie and P-ooh, and oh yes, the beloved D-ora. Oh D-ora, if you only knew how much big sister eggroll loves you so. So, papa and mamaeggroll broke down and bought what seems like the whole first season. Here's the surprise though.

In the States, D-ora speaks English and Spanish. Here she speaks 90% Asianese and 10% English. So, make the best out of a weird situation, and we turned these movies into one of the ways Emma "studies" the langugage (the reason I say "study" is because at this age she just acquires most things; there's no study involved; hence the fact that she can watch a video once or twice and pick up on some meaning and being saying it around the house the next day). Translation is an interesting issue (and has much to do with the reason why I'm posting, so stay with me). The mild expletive "oh my" or "oh dear" in English is translated into Asianese as "oh my G**!" That's not exactly an Asianese phrase I want my child mimicking. Other than that, I watch the episode before she does both to make sure it doesn't have that phrase and to pick out phrases I do want to use with her after she has watched it. As any of you who are familiar with the show, you know about S-wiper the Fox. If you don't know, he's a fox that likes to steal stuff and cause trouble for D-ora. D-ora has this nice phrase in English that says, "S_wiper no swiping", they say it three times, and it makes him run off and not steal whatever he was going to try to steal. One day, we heard Emma repeating this phrase in Asianese a lot, and we didn't think anything of it, except that it uses a word in Asianese that I didn't know. So, after a few months of her watching D-ora in Asianese, it just happened to be that today I decided to look up the word, wondering what in the world it meant. "To raise hell" That's what it means, so in Asianese, D-ora says "hell raiser, don't raise hell; hell raiser, don't raise hell, hell raiser, doooon't raaaaaise hellll!." Three times just like that, and "hell raiser" goes away and plans when to "raise hell" another day.

And you thought American cartoon TV was getting bad...

the almost overlooked vacation

Ok, here I am posting some vacation pictures...yeah, that one vacation we took ages ago. My grandmother told me that since she's never been to where we went, we had to take lots of pictures for her, so this post is for you, nana!

We caught samantha in a great mood at the airport, and even though we were using the stepchild olympus camera, we got some cute pictures of her!

On the plane on the way - we had intended to take the overnight train down there (I mean, as a child wouldn't it seem fun to sleep in a train? We thought so too!) but due to the usual complexity of booking train tickets here, it didn't work out and the plane was almost as cheap. Emma is eating her most treasured food in the entire world - Dora Fruit Snacks. My parents randomly sent two boxes in a package a few months ago, and I was wise to never tell emma we had them - unless of course, she needed (or deserved!) a special surprise! But then...the dora snacks became the all-encompassing focus of her world. She would ask for them every time she woudl go to the potty, every time she obeyed, every time she woke up from her nap, after every dinner. It was "dora snacks" all the time. If you asked her her favorite food, she'd say (and still will say) "DOOOORA SNACKS!" So, on the trip, she got one package of dora snacks for every day, which she could eat at a time of her choosing. After two out-of-town trips, there still providentially managed to be two overlooked packages in my purse that surfaced the first two nights I was in the hospital in hong kong.
Oh, boy...did we eat! It was nice eating out - and eating western food - but the food was a little disappointing. Maybe we're getting TOO accustomed to eating good western food at home - though it was great not having to do dishes or sweep up the mountain of peas that seem to inevitably appear under samantha's chair! At Tony Roma's...where emma ferociously took out her corn on the cob...almost as ferociously as daddy took out his Carolina Honey's ribs!Playing at the park down the street from our hotel/apartment. Green grass is a lovely sight, I tell you; especially when there's a cute mantha walking in it!

Should this picture go in the food category? Hmmmm...we took this one down the street from a lebanese restaurant we ate at our last night there, and wowza (thanks for the use of the word, rachel!) was it tasty! Too bad we didn't find it the first night, but alas, that seems to be a common thread of our vacation meals! Just mom and the gals by a pretty fountain...One of samantha's first real attempts at playing with other kids, at a public square by our hotel......but she was quickly distracted by the pigeons. I have no idea why asianese love pigeons so much. They feed them, chase them, and showcase them in every park in the country. I'm sure they make an easy buck off the pigeon food they sell, but still...it's so predictable it's funny.But since emma's parents won't buy her any pigeon food (what IS the pigeon food exactly? does anyone know?), this little girl shared her pigeon food with emma and she had a super happy time throwing it at the pigeons and watching them peck at it.
I'm a sucker for pictures...even ones where samantha has that "huh?" look on her face... :) Tourist city + famous river + kids = gotta take a boat ride
Unfortunately the sky was hazy that day - anyone surprised? - but it was fun. The girls got to see lots of interesting boats and waterfront activity on the boat, and it was just long enough to enjoy and just short enough to keep them interested...
Another family picture at little market thing we visited. You would not believe the insane amount of attention we attracted in trying to get a family picture! But I liked the environment - it reminded me a lot of the touristy places near where we used to live in the south.

The serviced apartments where we stayed had a nice warm pool where emma could get more confident in her ability to swim by herself - and she loves it, loves it!

And this was taken on our last day on the way to Toys R' Us! Woo hoo! Emma came out with a big bag of new blocks that have seen lots of action since coming home.

So there you have it - pictures of our nice vacation that almost got lost in my camera.

Recommended Reading

I wish I could say that I haven't blogged in over a week because I've been insanely busy, though that is partly true. Today (Friday) is the first naptime (read: mom-time) I've had all week. I started asianese tutoring up again this week, and even though it is incredibly helpful to my progress, it saps all my free time. And there just seems to never be enough free time! But, anyway, that's only part of the story.

The other part of the story is that the little free time I did have was being mostly dedicated to finishing a book I had started reading: O r a c l e B o n e s by Peter H e s s l e r. It follows the first book he wrote several years ago when he was a volunteer English teacher in the asianese countryside. It was a fascinating account of his experiences, and he was able to verbalize so many experience that we ourselves have had. So, anyway, I was excited to read his new book and ate up every detail - I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that it trumped the next fiction book I had waiting in the wings, quite a rare occurrence. So, for Christa and Phonse and all the other readers out there, reading a copy of this book will give you a really great idea of the great difference in mindset and ideology we face so much out here, and I think it's a great read.

mantha x 25,000

here are some - only a very small fraction, I tell you - of the pictures that have been taken recently of our girls. So we will give your hearts a little photo feast of samantha, who alternates between saying "yesssss" to every question, or saying "nnnnnno". She can always manage to say "nnnnnno" when we ask her if she is tired or if she wants to sleep, but sometimes answers incorrectly "yesssssss" when we ask her if she wants a flick on her hand for being disobedient. She's a sneaky little character, I tell you, but she's so dear (when she's not whining for mama!) and when she blathers out her baby imitation of "I love you", well...your heart smiles. So, here she is, in all her mantha-ness:

my cheating heart

I've committed my first act of photography adultery. I didn't plan it; I'm sure no one ever plans these things. It's just that the cool rains came in last night, bringing an unexpected reprieve to the scorching summer heat. The winds were breezy, the air mild. It was a last minute decision.

I decided to take the girls to a park down the street to enjoy the outdoors and try to kill some time since samantha has decided that she no longer is cool with taking one nap a day, but can barely keep herself alive past lunchtime. I thoughth I'd do my part to help out and take them out. There was actually a moment of hesitation. A split second...then I decided against it.

The shiny, new, clickety-clack camera was just too big, and I was just too small. I already had both girls and the stroller; I didn't think I could keep up with it and manage to get any pictures while trying to corral my little tornadoes.

So I reached for my old flame, the sleek and compact Olympus, who had served me well for so many years. It was much easier to slip into my previously mentioned non-existent purse in case some fabulous photo op arose. Even though I felt guilty for not bringing the bohemoth with me, I'm glad I at least brought the Olympus. The guilt will go. The pictures and the good times will remain:

When we first got there, we had a fun and very educational science lesson as emma admired the lily pads and the giant blooms. We talked about how the flowers open and close, and then she said, "Mommy, take a picture!" Oh, ok.

Then, just down the path, we heard the faint echo of music so we followed our ears to find a "band" all set up in the middle of the foresty part. The girls swayed and danced to the music, and shortly after arriving, a sweet grandfather-type offered Emma one of what he was playing - one of those little stick things that you hit. Emma jumped up on a rock next to him and joined the band, to the delight of all those watching. Samantha alternately danced and chased ants, but after a while, she was offered a little stick thingy too. The girls had a FAB time with the band.

When the toddler attention span expired, we were off to find more adventures. Emma chose a path to our right, so the girls had fun exploring it together. When emma stumbled onto a caterpillar, she was thrilled! She crouched down really low and just watched him slither away. I think he wans't actually a caterpillar, but I'm not so up-to-date on those sorts of things, so I just told her it was a caterpillar.

So even though these aren't Canon-new-flashy-camera pics, I think they were great for the purpose. Here's to more sunny and happy days...