The Sleeper

Lena wants to be carried up to bed every night, but she's figured out that she has to walk upstairs on her own 2 feet unless she's asleep...so what does she do? Every night as soon as we close the last book and she knows its time to go to bed, she quickly shuts her eyes and pretends to be asleep. You'd believe she's really asleep, right?

Decision to Blog

I went back to work a few weeks ago and I thought that would be the end of the blog, the blog is a great way to let people know what we're up to, but it's also a great alternative to hand-writing a journal.  I had these visions of creating some sort of beautiful scrapbook of each of our trips to China, I had visions of spending the next several years keeping a memory-filled, mushy journal that I could present to Jun on his 18th birthday, and even had visions of keeping a second memory-filled mushy journal which I would present to Lena on her 18th birthday... I was actually thinking I'd also print a fabulous photo-book EACH year for EACH child...  but 3 weeks into my return to work and reality has made it painfully obvious that none of those things will actually happen.  But, I also realize I really do want some way to document our not-so-special events in daily life because they are what create special memories.

I want to remember making tea eggs with Jun and Lena for Chinese New Year a couple weeks ago.

I want to remember how proud they were of the fact that they cracked the eggs and made the broth the eggs cooked in for the next couple hours.  I want to remember that Lena at 3 eggs in one sitting!

I want to remember that Jun matched her egg for egg while holding onto the stuffed penguin.  

  I want to remember creating our Chinese NY banners for the Year of the Snake,

Jun's wish to have a Phoenix

Lena's wish was for... well, we weren't sure, but she had a lot of fun making her banner.

 And I want to remember how happy both kids were when Todd pulled out a pair of snowshoes for each of them when we got our last big snowstorm.  

 Sitting at a computer is something I'll spend a few minutes doing at the end of the day.  Downloading a few cute pictures is something I can spend a few minutes doing.  So, I hope my kids don't mind, but I'll have to figure out how to make books out of the blog and that's what they'll get on their big birthdays years down the road.

Making Eggs

My sister started making her eggs when she was 3 years old.  She got them out of the refrigerator, scrambled them, and then cooked them.  -I never thought much of that until I became a parent and thought about how badly I wanted Jun to stay away from the hot stove AND how much more time it would take to have him "do it himself" than if I (usually Todd) just did myself.  -But Jun is finally starting to want to become more independent so he now makes his own eggs.  He does a good job at 6 yrs, but my sister made her own eggs at age 3?  If I couldn't remember it so clearly I wouldn't believe it was true.

It Snowed

Lena was amazingly excited to come home from daycare yesterday and see fresh snow!  I couldn't get her to put the shovel down and come in the house. (BTW, that's not a giant snot coming out of her nose, it's a snowflake that came out sort of strange in the picture)

Jun on the other hand saw the snow, told me he was cold, and asked if he could go inside.

Can you guess which child is from cold Inner Mongolia and has been home with us for 2 winter seasons and which child came home with us just 6 weeks ago and is from super warm Guangzhou?

Bath Time

Jun loves to take a bath.  He hops in as often as we permit and stays as long as we allow.  He fills the tub with toys, he plays, sings, and floats, and only gets out after he’s thoroughly pruned and all the water has drained after we pull the plug on him. 

  Lena also loves the bathtub, but generally gets in, plays for a few minutes, gets the job done, and then hops out.  Lena is never in the tub long enough for her hands or feet to prune.   But then one day last week she got in the tub and started playing and didn’t want to get out.  So, we let her stay in and stay in and stay in…. and then suddenly she looked down at her hands and they were shriveled up!  And she jumped out of the tub as quickly as possible.  She kept looking at Todd and I and looking at her hands and feet and looking back at Todd and I and then looking at her hands at feet… I’m not sure what she thought had happened to her, but she didn’t see any humor in the situation and she has not stayed in the tub for more than a few minutes at a time since.   When we showed her Jun’s shriveled feet and hands a couple nights ago she was not humored, she was concerned.  And when Jun, Todd, and I all laughed at her concerned reaction to Jun’s feet, she looked at us like we were crazy.  Poor kid, she’s never gonna dare to spend more than 5 minutes at time in the tub again.  

Little Girl Clothes

Todd: "Okay, Lena's dressed and ready to go."
Jun: (Runs in Lena's room to check things out). "Mommy, how come Lena gets to wear pajamas to church?"
Me: "no one wears pjs to church, what are you talking about?"
Jun: "Look at her!" He says in disgust as I walk in the room.
Me: "Todd, you got her dressed alright, but you got her dressed in her pjs!"

Todd's having a tough time figuring out all the little girl clothes we now have in the house.

Happy Birthday Jun!