Lane Reconstruction

I'm feeling nervous.

A small brick wall has grown around our garden. Its about 4 bricks high, roughly made of old bricks and a mud mortar. It edges the public walk, and so meets up with the line of trees which surround our small garden.

I'm nervous that this wall will continue to grow. Many workmen stand gathered near the wall, riding on the exercise playground, mixing more mortar, smoking cigarettes.

It seems that the wall around the public garden across from us has come down as well, and I am hoping that they have moved from my low wall onto the next one.

I do not feel confident.

Today, light streams in through our french doors and our many beautiful windows, filtered by the tall trees surrounding our garden. It makes the kitchen feel brighter, makes the entire house warmer, and adds a lovely glow at the right time of day.

Should that wall rise further, we would look out our windows onto what would have clearly become thin bushes, only lightly masking the lumpy wall behind them. Our garden would no longer get any light. We would no longer have access to the exercise playground, and I certainly couldn't send the girls there alone. I would feel cut-off from the lane.

Still no work on our wall. The men seem to be working on the opposite garden now. Still, I am nervous.

Christmas Traditions

The day before we left Chicago for Shanghai, Dave and I sat around his family dinner table with a few of his family members discussing family traditions. Dave's family has observed the same Christmas Eve and Christmas Day routines for years - they have very clear Christmas Day traditions. His brother in-law shared how his family has NO Christmas Day traditions. He was quite adamant about the lack, and his wife agreed. No routine for the day.

I sat quietly, thinking about what my family's traditions may be. Our Christmas Day has always been rather simple. Presents immediately in the morning, but only after everyone was awake. Breakfast afterward, something tasty but pre-made, like coffeecake. Dinner of ham or turkey at around 1:00pm. And an otherwise quiet day spent playing with new toys and enjoying each other's company.

Not a day filled with tradition.

But what I've come to realize is that my family's traditions come during the Advent season. We have always shopped together for a live Christmas tree. I have memories of trudging through snow deeper than my ankles to find the perfect tree; always passing up the first one that seemed pretty good, only to return to that perfect tree after our boots had let in the wet and the wind has seeped into our ears. Hot chocolate and candy canes while we stood around the little window to pay, and feeling far away and in the midst of a forest. We bake. We bake cookies like nobody's business - a cake saver full of sugar cookies, some frosted and some left plain; my grandmother's snow-on-plowed-field recipe; cherry bon-bons; peppermint patties; macaroons; and always at least one new recipe. And then there's pie. My mom would make 2-3 pies for Christmas Dinner, leaving her cooking them throughout the upcoming week. The weeks leading up to Christmas would see her counterspace lessen on a daily basis, as tins of different types of cookies and pies began to pile up. And the Advent Calendar. We read the same Advent Calendar together every night of Advent for as long as I can remember. I now have the calendar, and we've been reading it with the girls this year.

So, to return to our home on December 21st did not leave me too disappointed. I experienced my family's traditions this year. We picked out a live tree with Nana and Poppa. The girls helped my mom make Christmas cookies. We decorated the house together. And we all read the Advent Calendar together in a hushed silence, every night. These are my Christmas traditions, and I loved sharing them with my whole family.

So, this year we began creating our own Christmas Day traditions. For Christmas Eve dinner, we planned a homemade Italian pasta dinner, followed by Christmas cookies and hot chocolate while watching a Christmas movie. Dave picked up The Polar Express on the way home from work, and I spent all afternoon making manicotti with homemade sauce. It tasted wonderful, but one piece filled up Dave and I. The girls were too tired to try any, still suffering from jet lag. We packed them off to bed at 7:30, with promises that Santa might come early if they went to bed. They were sleeping by the time we finished the final Advent story.

Tomorrow, we'll share Dave's mother's cardamom coffeecake for breakfast; a turkey roasted for us by the kind folks at the Hilton hotel with homemade stuffing, cranberries and potatoes, and a lovely bottle of wine; plenty of hours of playing with toys, and a few hours of cookies, hot chocolate and Christmas movies. Just like the good old days.

And then supper at a local Chinese restaurant.

Family Jet Lag

Dave and I once visited his sister in Vienna. After sitting awake on the airplane all night, we gamely stayed awake all day and laid our heads on our pillows around 8pm that night. Exhausted and sleeping in a dark basement, we both fell sound asleep. And with no clock and no sunlight filtering in, we slept until 4:00 the following afternoon - 8am in our home timezone. We struggled to adjust to Austrian time the rest of the week.

Learning our lessons well, Dave and I have always strive to put ourselves immediately on local time when we travel. However, traveling across 14 hours with young children made this approach impossible. We quickly learned that the way to adjust very young children to jet lag is simply to follow their schedule. When a young child wakes up, wake up with them. When a young child gets sleepy, go to bed with them. The family will have adjusted to local time within 3 days, guaranteed.

It seems we have outgrown this strategy.

We arrived in Chicago the evening before Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving in the midst of a wonderful family gathering, and didn't allow anyone naps. We all fell asleep in the car on the way home that evening, and slept soundly through the night, exhausted. With earlier than average mornings, we had adjusted the local time as quickly as that. We should have followed that example this time, but instead sent everyone to nap yesterday when Sophia got sleepy. We all managed to fall asleep by 3:00 in the afternoon, and could each have kept going well past 5:30 when I woke up.

So, here's the new rule:

For children still napping, and too young to understand that darkness means sleepytime, parents need to follow their lead. As with newborns, sleep when the baby sleeps.

For anyone old enough to push through naptime, place yourself on local time immediately. No naps on that first day back.

Luggage Arrival

The whole house was sound asleep, as well we should have been. Lilly tucked into her bed downstairs, and a sick Sophia snuggled between Dave and I in our bed. So sound asleep that when the doorbell rang, we all panicked. The doorbell rings in our bedroom, with a song that fills the entire house. And so when that song began to play at 1:15 this morning, Dave and I began running around like chickens with our heads cut off. What was that song? Why was it playing so loudly? Why wouldn't it stop?

We finally realized that someone was pressing our doorbell repeatedly, causing the loud music in our sleeping chamber. Dave threw a T-shirt over his boxer shorts and raced downstairs, hoping to stop the noise before it woke the children.

A man stood at the darkened door, and beckoned Dave out into the lane with a luggage tag. In only a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and now tennis shoes, Dave walked down the lane and to the truck sent by the airport which sat parked on the street. The nightime delivery man apparently does not physically carry luggage, but only transports luggage. So, half awake, Dave carried three 50 pound bags down the lane. And then collapsed back in bed, for another 3 hours of sleep.

All of our dirty laundry has arrived, safe and sound.

The Family Returns

After a ridiculously long day yesterday, our family has returned to Shanghai and all managed to stay in bed until 5:30 this morning. Just for fun, allow me to provide you with a run-down of our day yesterday.

7:00am - left Dave's parents' house, right on time
8:00am - Entered the expedited line at O'Hare Airport
Dave has enough frequent flyer miles to be in their Premier Executive class, and supposedly not have to wait in line at the airport. But yesterday, as most of the airports on the East Coast were sitting quietly closed, O'Hare was a mess and we stood in line for an hour.
9:00am - Moving from one line to the next, we stood in line at security for another half an hour.
9:30am - After grabbing a quick few snacks in lieu of breakfast, we boarded the plane immediately.
10:01am - The time the plane was supposed to take off for Shanghai
12:30pm - The time they announced we would be using a different plane for our flight to Shanghai, and asked everyone to deboard.
12:40pm - The time they changed their minds, and decided that this faulty plane would do.
1:00pm - The approximate time we actually left Shanghai, after sitting on the plane for an additional 3 hours. Lucky we had bought those snacks, because this pregnant Mama would have really been a mess by then! Luckily, the girls played like little angels and everything went smoothly.

In fact, most of the flight went smoothly from that point. The girls received children's meals, and they came early each time. The girls played well, although they only slept for about 2 hours each. They spent a lot of time in front of movies, and remained surprisingly happy. I ate well enough, and didn't really begin to feel bad until the last few hours of the flight.

However, something hit Dave about 7 hours into the flight, and he spent the remaining 6.5 hours as curled up in a ball as a 6 foot 3 inch man can manage in Economy Plus. He threw up as the plane was landing, and so felt better as we pulled out children and multitude of stuff through customs and on to baggage claim. Where we only retrieved 5 of our 8 bags. The boxes with Christmas gifts all arrived, so that's good. But all of our clothes presumably stayed in Chicago while we sat on the tarmac for hours. Here's to hoping they arrive in Shanghai this afternoon.

The family went to bed at 6:30 last night, 36 hours by calendar from when our family awoke. Actually, only 22 hours later - but that's an awfully long time for a 3 year old to stay awake. We all crashed until about 1am this morning. But my wonderful children saw the darkness outside, and each managed to fall back asleep with me until 5:30am. Running on a good 11 hours of sleep, the three of us are feeling good. Dave's still upstairs feeling crummy, but the hard part is over. I can abide with a sick husband when we're at home.

All things considered, this time was perfect. We made it to Chicago in time for a huge family Christmas around Dave's grandmother. The girls and I spent the bulk of advent in St. Louis with my family, going to our home church, shopping for Christmas trees and making holiday cookies. We spent time with every aunt and uncle (minus only 1), and we returned to Chicago on the day that Great-Grandma passed away. The entire family was blessfully able to participate in her funeral and burial, and to spend more time with Dave's extended family. The time was a wonderful blessing for our girls, for Dave, and for his mother and family.

And to be honest, I'm glad to be home just now. We've got a few quiet days to adjust to Shanghai time before diving into our own, small Christmas festivities. This will be a year for creating our own family traditions, and enjoying Christmas in our own cozy home. As much as I love a large Christmas, I'm really looking forward to our quiet event.

Randy's Disappearance

Dave has been back in Shanghai for 1 week now. Through that time, he never saw a trace of Randy the Rat. It seems that Randy had ceased his battle, because the heat and the water both continued to work and a person could again walk down the lane without taking their life into their hands. (When I took the girls to school before we left, the Chinese workers in our lane very kindly carried the girls out on their backs.)

Last night, he left a roll sitting on the kitchen counter.

This morning, a whole roll remained on the kitchen counter.

Meanwhile, Dave decorated the house for Christmas this weekend. When he pulled down the box of decorations from a high shelf, he was showered with rat pellets.

At least he wasn't showered with a dead rat!

Peace and Quiet

Sophia and I went for a walk through my parents neighborhood this morning. This same neighborhood is where Dave and I used to live, and we passed Sophia and Lilly's first home. It is an urban neighborhood, in the smaller city of St. Louis.

Sophia asked a question: Why is it so quiet here?

Mommy: Hmm, what sounds are missing?

Sophia: Cars. Lots of cars and bikes.

It may be an urban neighborhood, but its no match for the ceaseless noise and the endless people, cars and bikes of the streets of Shanghai!

Update From the Front

Be wary of waging war on foreign soil. Our adversary, Randy the Rat, is Chinese and clearly brings the benefit of guangxi to his battle. He may be slowly starving to death, and periodically freezing, but he is well enough connected to wear us down as well.

Yesterday morning, workers awoke us at 6am by swinging pick-axes and driving jackhammers into the concrete in our lane. The picture below shows the progress by the time the girls walked to school at 9am:

See the green number 8 on the right? That's our house, our front walk. Our bedroom window faces this. Our front walk is, well, unwalkable.


The sewer line is being replaced. The workers, clearly directed by Colonel Randy the Rat, turned off our water and "forgot" to turn it back on for most of the day. When they needed electricity, Colonel Randy the Rat apparently gave them permission to connect to our power lines. It is possible that our electric bill will have powered the replacing on a sewer line for the entire lane. Wendy thinks this is unlikely, but I wouldn't put it past that wily rat.

He won the battle. We've left town. I'm writing from Chicago.
But he hasn't won the war. Wendy called the Pest Control Company back again, and they are under strict instructions to "do what it takes." We will return to a rat-free house. Or, at least, a house with a dead rat somewhere inside.

And I'm kidding - although I am writing from Chicago, its not because we couldn't fight this silly rat. He may be gross, but he hasn't managed to kick us out of our house. Dave's grandmother is very sick, and so we moved forward our home leave. On Sunday night, with the status update on Great-Grandma, we decided it was time to go home. We flew out today. The last two days were a whirlwind of packing, shopping, and making loads of phone calls. But this is certainly the right place to be right now.

The girls and I will be in Chicago through the holiday weekend, spend the next 2 weeks in St. Louis, and then return to Chicago for our final week in the states. Dave will join us on the way to Chicago, having spent 2 weeks alone (with a dead rat) in Shanghai. We will all return to Shanghai on Dec. 20th to enjoy a quiet family Christmas in our certainly rat-free home, having finally emerged victorious - I am confident.

War of Attrition

Our rat has not succumbed to any of our traps. He has not eaten any of the bright blue poison balls. He has not given in to the temptation of treats hanging inside a metal trap. And he has actually moved glue traps out of his way rather than step on them.

So we seem to have engaged in a War of Attrition - and our side has much greater resources.

We have removed all free foods. The bowl of fruit sits vacant and lonely on the kitchen table, while the refrigerator is full of chilled produce. The sack of flour rests neatly inside a Ziploc bag. Loaves of bread are stored in the oven. And bags of corn flour and chocolate squares rest inside an airtight box.

Every food in this house rests inside at least one air-tight container.

We rinse the dishes after dinner, and we take out the trash twice a day.

Unless he is eating the plaster in the walls of the stuffing in the couch, this rat must be slowly starving to death.

But the powers that be saw the starvation diet as too slow, and notched up our military strategy.

The heat has gone out in our home. Although the taps all run hot water, and the stove displays lovely blue flames, our radiators all sit cold. The outside temperature is 41, and the inside temperature can not be much higher than 55. We're cooking dinner now, which keeps me warm. And we've got thick blankets on our beds for later. We can stand the cold until the landlord deems it appropriate to send someone to repair the radiators (as a sidenote - I would expect immediately to be the appropriate time).

I just hope I'm not the one to stumble across a frozen, emaciated rat.

There's a Baby in There!

I visited my OB on Thursday morning. She ran various little tests - blood work, disease scans, urinalysis, asked some questions. And she did an ultrasound. It seems that in China, ultrasounds happen at the drop of a hat. Unlike in the states, where a girl is lucky to get 2 in the course of her pregnancy. Here, I had a 13 week visit and so I had a 13 week ultrasound.

And oh my goodness - there is really a baby in there!


With my previous pregnancies, I had a big ultrasound at about 22 weeks. This was an amazing time for me. We saw the baby for the first time, and we learned the gender. The sickness of pregnancy became the development of a child. With this picture, the pregnancy became a child that much sooner. And the amazing thing about a 13 week ultrasound is that we're still in the 1st trimester, and so the entire child can be seen in one picture. Were this picture less pixalated, you could see his head, his body, his arm and both of his legs. That's a little baby in there!

And the results of the survey:
The folks at Uncle H-- were 4 for 4, and we were 2 for 2.
But those of you who posted were 20 right, 10 wrong, 1 uncertain and 1 person with twins!

That gives us states of 26 right out of a sample size of 36 babies. They may not be 50/50, but with such a small sample size I'm still comfortable with our odds.

its in the house

11:50pm

The rat is in the house.

A Good China Day

8:30am
The family bed awoke, and Dave and Lilly bravely went downstairs to explore the various mouse traps set throughout the house.

9am
No rats or mice in the traps, so Dave made waffles, bacon and apples. We talked to Nana and Poppa via Skype.

9:40am
The landlord's contractor arrived. I had greatly feared coming downstairs first thing in the morning. I had no desire to see a mouse dying a slow death on top of my kitchen cabinets. My second fear was greeting and working with this morning's contractor. You see, a pest control company came to our home yesterday afternoon with a mouse-free guarantee. They left behind glue traps, poison pellets, and a big hole in the side of the wall that they refused to seal. So, after many phone calls to many different people, a contractor arrived this morning to fix the hole. I had no expectations that he would complete the job, but I was pleasantly surprised. He climbed right up onto the neighbor's higgledy-piggledy roof (none of us would have been surprised to see him fall right through) with a bucket of mixed concrete. And he tightly packed every pipe going into our home. He either sealed the mouse into our home, or outside of it. But he certainly left no holes. And he was done before we had even finished our waffles!

10:00am
With waffles and bacon chased down by grape juice, and the table cleared away, Dave took the girls out to color the lane with sidewalk chalk. They moved onto sports gear, and enjoyed a chilly autumn morning outdoors while I tried to make my first ever pie crust. I began work on it promptly at ten, cutting my butter into exactly 1/2 inch squares and measuring all of my ingredients just so to be fully prepared for this intimidating task.

11:30am
I followed every procedure, down to the last detail.

1:15pm
Everything went smoothly. The apples smelled delicious. The crust laid out well.

2:00pm
It even transferred beautifully from the tabletop to the pie plate. I began to pat myself on the back. Who says making a pie from scratch is so hard?

3:00pm
Wendy arrived to babysit for our Saturday date. I put the pie in the 375 degree oven. I began to clear up a bit, when I noticed smoke coming from the oven. I whipped open the door, and saw the egg wash dripping from the pie onto the oven floor. With cloth hot pads, I pulled the doughy pie back out of the oven and set it on the stove. I watced the bottom of the oven spew out smoke, and tried to come up with a solution. Nothing brilliant appeared.

3:15pm
A small shard of brilliance. Turned off the gas to the oven, used a wooden spoon and a wet washcloth and cleaned the base of the oven. Replaced the wet with a dry washcloth, and finished the mopping job. No more smoke - very nice.

3:20pm
I turned the gas back on, and waited for the oven to get back up to 375.

3:55pm
It didn't.

4:00pm
Dave and I left on our date. We left Wendy in charge of the pie. Now is a good time to remind you that Chinese people don't bake. They don't buy flour or butter. They don't have ovens in their homes. I had Wendy monitoring my first pie crust, which had baked for 10 minutes and then sat on a countertop for an hour. What's done was done.

4:30pm
Dave and I reached the Fabric Market. For a total of 3,750 RMB we began the tailoring process for 3 suits of Super 180s Wool suits with silk lining, 10 work shirts, a pair of jeans and a white cashmere scarf. That's about $500.

6:00pm
We reached our dinner destination, Yu Xin Sichuan Restaurant. It was a thoroughly Chinese restaurant, with red decor throughout, wait staff bustling around the many corners, partitions between every table, and a long menu full of photos. And nearly every food on the menu had been cooked with chilis. The meal was delicious.

7:30pm
We stopped at the video store on the way home. People don't rent movies in China. We buy pirated versions at full-blown stores with really interesting selections. Yu Xin was near one of our favorites, and so we perused. With a baby in my belly, we find ourselves watching movies more frequently, and so we grabbed movies freely. For 126 RMB we walked out with 9 movies and 1 season of Entourage. That's about $20 - heavy spending at the video store.

8:00pm
We walked in, and put the girls to bed. A very strange looking pie sat on top of the oven. We haven't tried it yet, as our bellies are still too full of Sichuan peppercorns. But by about 9:30pm...

Rats! continued

When we called the landlord about the rats, we said that a Pest Control Company would again need to come to our home.

She said we should get a cat.

After much wrangling between her and our agent, and then much wrangling between our agent and the Pest Control Company, a technician will arrive at our home at 1:00 this afternoon.

My understanding is that sticky traps are the most common form of mouse and rat control in China. This is where they lay out a very sticky piece of paper. When the rat steps on it, he can not remove his foot from the paper. My further understanding is that when the rat begins to panic, he may tear himself apart in fright.

I am not looking forward to such a greeting tomorrow morning.

Upon further research, I've learned that sticky traps are generally thought to be inhumane in the west. It can take a long time for the mouse to die, and our household will be forced to listen to the sad cries and struggles all night.

I told Wendy that maybe we will just leave town this weekend, stay in a hotel, and return on Monday... after she has already arrived.

She says I am weak.

Rats!

Well, we sort of expected it.

Tuesday night, as I lay in bed reading, I heard some noise downstairs. Worried about burglars or sleepwalking kids, I went down to check. All seemed in order.

The next morning, Lynne found teeth marks in the butter. And Wendy found a half-eaten apple.

We put out a trap last night. Apparently we should have had Wendy help. We used cheese (just like in the cartoons, right?). Apparently Chinese rats, like most Chinese people, don't particularly like cheese. Wendy said pork would work better. We'll see.

So this morning I came down and ate breakfast on the couch. Hearing a noise, I looked over and saw a long tail scurrying up the wall.

So the exterminators gave a bid today and should return tomorrow to begin the extermination. This is China.

The Baby Predictor

We had some of Dave's coworkers over for dinner on Friday night. This was a pretty Chinese crowd, which is always fun. Discussions about whether or not you can eat broccoli raw and stories about feeding crabs to the pigs bounce over the table and the piles of food. Dave announced the baby at dinner that night as well, which received much excitement and many questions.

We also learned that the Chinese can predict the sex of the baby. A particularly urgent need in a country where ultrasound technicians are forbidden by law from revealing the sex of the baby. Nina shared a spreadsheet with these inputs: Month of conception and Mother's actual age at the date of conception plus 9 months. Apparently, these inputs have made accurate predictions among Uncle H--'s new babies over the last year - 100% accurate. This is over a sample size of only 4. Still, when we looked back at our two babies, the predictions were correct. That brings us to 6 out of 6 - still 100%!

So, all you Mamas, we need your help. Let's put the predictor to the test. Try to remember your details, and post the accuracy in a comment. Dave's hoping to discredit the thing - it says we're going to have another girl!

生男生女圖 Boy or Girl? 中國在七百年前的皇家墓地裡發現了這幅生男生女圖。 這幅圖現在保存在北京科學院。它已被成千上萬的人所證實。據說其準確達99%。 豎行﹕懷孕的月份 橫行﹕年齡 (懷孕時的歲數 + 9個月) 交叉處即為結果 (男孩或女孩) 網主及一些朋友們測試近20個小孩，全部正確。讓人驚嘆﹗您不妨試試。

男 Boy = 女 Girl = Mother's actual age at the date of conception plus 9 months "母親年齡" /懷孕月份 Month of Conception 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 1月 Jan 2月 Feb 3月 March 4月 April 5月 May 6月 June 7月 July 8月 Aug 9月 Sept 10月Oct 11月Nov 12月Dec