A Day in the Life

I am aware that my recent posts have leaned more toward the negative than the positive. I do not mean to give the impression that we are miserable here. Quite the contrary, I feel as if I've carved out a pretty good life for myself and as if Shanghai is my home. I just tend not to blog about the positive because it feels rather mundane. Still, I thought I'd let you in on our days' plans.

8:00 am
The girls and I wake up. They may have been in their room talking for up to half an hour, although I doubt it. Usually they've woken me within 10 minutes of their own waking.

8:45 am
After nearly an hour of play time, the girls are at the breakfast table, leaving me running back and forth trying to keep them satiated and happy. Breakfast is always like this, although rarely the other meals. Maybe because I let them play until they're starved. Maybe because I don't eat breakfast myself.

9:45 am
We've finished breakfast, gotten dressed, and managed to find shoes and socks for all 3 of us. We're out the door, S-- in the stroller and L-- walking. We're headed toward the playground where we will meet a friend.

Noon
L-- has requested pizza for lunch, and it sounds great to me. The complex has a small restaurant in its clubhouse, which delivers for no fee. We order a pizza for 35 RMB - about $5. They promise to deliver in 20 minutes, so we walk slowly home and play until it arrives.

12:20 pm
The delivery man has brought our pizza. The weather is beautiful - weather.com says 75 and sunny. So we've moved the girls' play table to the balcony and are eating our lunch in the open air. We watch the boats go by on the river. We watch the workers doing construction on the street below. We enjoy this beautiful day from the relative safety and comfort of our balcony.

1:00 pm
S-- is done. Usually she lasts until 2:00, but she has fallen apart and is begging for a nap. I oblige.

1:15 pm
Its important to me that the girls naps overlap for at least an hour, so L-- and I lay down to read books together and eventually sleep. Now that she has moved on from the crib, I need to lie down with her for naps or she will get up and play. She tends to nap in the guest room for just that reason. So we read for about 15 minutes and then both of us enjoyed a nap.

2:00 pm
I awoke as our ayi let herself into the apartment. Closing the door on L--'s sleep, I went out to give her a few instructions and then bake some cookies and check email.

3:00 pm
S--'s awake. Sometimes I get as much as 3 hours in this window, but today 1 hour will have to suffice. The good news is that when only 1 girl is awake, she tends to play independently quite happily. This explains why I'm blogging at 3:30.

4:00 pm
L-- will be awake by then. We will have some more organized playtime - maybe head to the playground to find some friends.

4:30 pm
We are having dinner with Dave and some friends on the other side of the river, so we really need to head out by now. The traffic to get through the tunnel is murder, and we'll still have to pick up Dave on our way to the restaurant. We're prepared for about an hour in the car right now - maybe more.

6:00 pm
We're meeting friends for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We've not had Mexican since we arrived in Shanghai, and are looking forward to what claims to be the best in town. Just like burgers, we figure we need to be a few months away from the authentic version to appreciate it.

7:45 pm
We'll probably tear ourselves away from the margaritas and the conversation at about this time, so we can jump into the car and head home. If the traffic works with us, it could take us as little as 20 minutes to get back home.

8:30 pm
After baths, jammies and stories, the girls ought to be in bed with the lights out. Dave may work, but hopefully we'll be able to watch tv. We only get a few English channels. A few movie channels, that only show outdated movies; ESPN and Star Sports which do not lean toward American sports (they did not air the KU championship game!); Discovery, which keeps us amused for up to half an hour every once in a while; and CCTV9, the Chinese television's only English speaking channel - the go to place for the government line on anything, mascarading as current events. We'll pop in a tv show on DVD - we bought the entire first 3 seasons of Entourage for just over $2 on the street a week ago and have been working our way through it.

This day fits our normal routine, and looks much like the past 2 days. Tomorrow will be quite different, as its the weekend and we have Daddy all day long. We're heading to an EcoDesign Fair to find inroads into organic food and sustainable living in such a polluted and large city, and then Dave will head off during naptime to play in a basketball league with some of his co-workers. Dinner will be at home - if we're good, we'll have leftovers; if not, we'll order delivered Indian food.