Clothes tend to be a bit of a problem for us living overseas. Generally you have two choices. Find night market clothes which are ill fitting and fall apart. Or go to the big department stores and pay $50 U.S. dollars for a t-shirt. Pass.
So that is why I shop like a mad woman during the summers. Trying to guess and gauge what children will need and what sizes they will be is stressful. Though for the most part I did an accurate job.
Kohen usually has a growth spurt around the beginning of a new year. I didn't want to buy him a bunch of new pants last summer when I knew he would grow out of them right around the time it turns into short weather. Consequently he has been sportin "capris" these last few months, and there ain't a thing I can do about it. (Note: I had bought 2 pairs of jeans in the next size up but they are like 5-6 inches longer than the previous size, what's up with that?!)
Then over the last month or so I noticed an alarming trend. Holes in the right knee of - as of today- literally every pair of his pants. I have no idea what exactly he is doing but since even his pajama pants (far right) were not spared, it has to be something I've witnessed before, right?
It's just interesting the things that you let go and that you find don't really matter. When I lived in Boise especially, I felt a pressure to have all of my kids neat and tidy and perfectly dressed and pruned- especially for church. I love that there are no pretenses like that in our Ward here. We go to church with some of the most humble men and women and I honestly feel ashamed if I catch myself worrying about one of my children looking or dressing a certain way that I "never" would have let happen in the States. It's so superficial it kind of makes me sick.
Not that I don't love my children to dress nicely in clothes that fit and that don't have holes in them! And I loves me a matching bow to go with any Sunday dress. But I feel like 2 years ago, letting Kohen go to school with a small hole in the knee of his "capri" jeans would have been completely unacceptable. And though I don't enjoy it now, it is what it is.
I think of the Filipina women that I know who work in a different country than their children to be Domestic Helpers (aka: work their buns off) just to send home meager $ to their families, and it humbles me right down to size. Especially when they graciously take Kohen's holey, worn out jeans to send to their own children.
At any rate, for Kohen's sake, I'm hoping for short weather soon. I have a feeling whatever he was doing to the knees of his pants, he isn't going to be doing on his bare knee more than once.
Well, it's official. I'm one year older. I remain doubtful about the 'wiser' part.
Cakes in Taiwan are beautiful. They are decorated with no detail overlooked. But they taste like... well, more like bread actually. It is one of the great Chinese cruelties from a Yankee's point of view. Where we use Cups of Sugar, they are using Tablespoons. It makes beautiful looking cookies and doughnuts really, REALLY disappointing.
This year Kohen had a great idea though, he suggested Nathan make me one of his Dutch Oven Cobblers for my birthday cake. Completely selfless intentions on Kohen's part I'm sure. But, it was a great idea either way.
Sooo we got to share the best cobbler ever- apple, if you want to be specific with what you drool over.
It was so tasty that it was a darn good thing there was enough to share!
(In case your thinking I hit that magical age where I suddenly let everything go, that's not quite the case. The pj's and au' natural look were courtesy of me feeling a bit under the weather. Nothing a little cobbler couldn't overcome. Sorry, my self esteem just turned a year older and demanded this disclaimer.)
If I were being honest, part of why Ander has been M.I.A. from the blog lately is because he is way too busy to sit still, let alone smile and look towards a camera. When I try I end up paying for it:
Why does he look giddy? Because he just whacked my keyboard as hard as he could, a favorite past time of his. And yes, he always is that proud of himself after.
And otherwise I get a lot of shots of him running this way...
And running that way... Riveting stuff, ya know?
**Overall, at 18 months Ander is a really great kid. A few things that I've found to be atypical is that he doesn't play with toys. I mean, occasionally he will play with a hotwheels car at church for a few minutes, but inevitably that turns into hurling the surprisingly heavy piece of metal at the Chinese guy's head, sitting in the pew in front of us.
**Which brings us to the subject of throwing and kicking, most of the time, balls. But if he has the phone in his hand and he decides to to pitch it, you can kiss that phone good bye. Because this boy can throw, and kick, and he does it all the day long.
**As I mentioned he doesn't like toys. So that leaves house hold items. He wasn't fooled by the fun little tyke-ish phone he got for his birthday, he only wants the real deal. He doesn't leave the phone alone for anything. He turns the answering machine off and on constantly, makes our IP phone beg for mercy and/or retirement. He runs from cupboard to cupboard taunting us that we haven't put child safety locks on them, and he really enjoys rearranging the kitchen while I'm cooking. I do hope our belongings can hang on until he moves on from this stage!
**Ander is a rough-houser and a wrestler. If any of the kids are sitting on the floor he will come up from behind and jump on their back, hoping to get something good going. We've been told they have to watch him in Nursery because if Ander sees an opportunity (so, any poor babe sitting on the floor) he will try to climb on their back. Kohen will indulge this kind of play anytime, anywhere so Ander lucked out there.
**One problem is that Ander figured out how to tackle Aly, and in the beginning he even got Kohen a couple times when he was caught off guard. But Ander comes up behind Aly, hugs her around her waist, then drops his weight and twists to one side, taking Aly down EVERY, SINGLE time. The thing is, Aly usually falls right on top of him so we've had occasional tears over that but it doesn't seem to stop the kid.
I've tried several times to get video of this but it happens pretty spontaneously. Kennedy was being a good sport one night and letting him "get her" and you can get an idea of his tactics.
**Another thing I'm hoping is just a phase is recently being accident prone. Nothing serious, but I have glued his eyebrow shut twice in two months, and he also fell and bit into his lip pretty badly. It took several weeks to heal (which seems a long time for a cut in the mouth) and is the first time I really waffled about him needing stitches. Of course all of these things seem to happen when Nathan is not home. Let's hope it's just a phase, shall we?
**Talking? This subject should be easy- Ander doesn't speak. "Dad" is the only word he will say consistently. He knows a few signs regarding food and he seems entirely satisfied with that. He is capable of saying about 10 words but he just won't. So there you go.
**Lastly, Ander is a serious mama's boy and I adore it and eat up every second. I've never had one of my children be this old but still climb up in my lap and snuggle in to watch 30+ min of a movie. He just plugs his fingers in and snugs and I eat it up, willing these moments to stamp into my memory! There is just something about a person who goes 100 mph all day who will only stop for a snug from you.
**So to overcome the picture problem we've been having, I took the camera into his room when I went to get him up, because he is super happy and gloriouslycontained! Wahlah!
PS- contrary to what this post would have you believe, Ander does in fact own clothes and even wears them on occasion.
Last weekend I was able to go to Hong Kong to attend the Asia Women's Conference again. It is kind of like a Time Out for Women but specialized for expatriot women in Asia. Since I have spent the last 9 months, at least, chasing after Ander during church and never getting to hear more than two sentences strung together, it was so nice to get to choose which classes I got to go to and what I wanted to learn about. It was great.
We had one lady who spoke, tell us all about this orphanage up in the mountains outside of Cheng du, China. She had video of the children and some of the English songs and things they have taught them. I felt so humbled and privileged to be able to do a service project while at the conference, for these sweet children. We spent quite a bit of time making alphabet cards (among other things) so that each child would have their very own set. I love how living over seas seems to bring more opportunities to be involved in things like this.
What was not cool, however, was the frantic text I received from Nathan shortly after 5pm on Friday. He had tried to call but for a time all of the lines were busy. After the earthquake hit in Japan it was only a matter of minutes before Nathan received multiple texts and emails from TAS and our car leasing company etc. warning us of the tsunami warning that had been issued for Taiwan.
There was also one for HK and Nathan new that our plans likely involved being somewhere around the harbor that evening... Thankfully we were able to confirm shortly thereafter that although Japan was just beginning to understand their crisis, we were in no real danger in HK or Taiwan.
Largely unaware of how bad things were in Japan, we headed out for a girls night in HK.
Ahh, there is just so much to love about Asia. Here are two puckered examples.
This is a store we found in a night market that had all these wigs and hair pieces...
I would've pimped out my girl's dress ups if the stuff hadn't been so expensive. It was almost like they were selling this stuff to be worn seriously... Curious.
Aly saw this picture and told me that our hair looked "lovely".
One thing about Asian Night Markets is that your poor nose will be subjected to all manner of offensive smells. By far the worst offender would be Stinky Tofu. That stuff will burn your nose hairs out. And it's unavoidable. So at dinner that night I received a special gift in the form of a lemon wearing panties. The original purpose of the "panties" is to keep the seeds from falling in your food when you are squeezing the lemon juice onto your food.
But, because I am resourceful I brought the lemon wearing panties out on the town with us. Every time there was an offensive smell, I sniffed away unabashedly. It worked like a charm. Except with the Stinky Tofu. The lemon didn't even take the edge off.
Saturday after classes we headed to the Hong Kong temple. It was a great way to end the conference.
Nicole? Um, how is it that this is the only picture I have of you from the whole weekend?! Not okay!
Me with Lori, my roommate this trip. You know, if you stay up late enough in the night you really get to know your friends a lot better. You are welcome to use my lemon, Lori ;)
PS~ Nathan gets the father of the year award because two of the kids had the stomach flu while I was gone and the other two had nasty cough/colds. The flu resulted in a lot of carnage. It was gory and Nathan was exhausted- but I still came home to a clean house and children in bed. How is it that he does my job as well as, if not better than me?! Thank you and I Love you Nathan!!!! xoxo
Are you familiar with the new craze that is Angry Birds? Well, shortly after Nathan discovered it, our children were introduced. In the game the birds are angry because the pigs stole their eggs and so now you sling shot different birds at different structures with pigs inside, and try to knock it all down. It's fairly addictive.
Last week when Kohen was home with a cough/cold I came upon his own home made version of Angry Birds. Everything was there, the different sized and colored "Birds" ^....
And then his elaborate structures with "pigs" (represented with knights) that he would then try and knock down with his "birds". He spent forever setting it up and knocking it down over and over.
You can accidentally waste a lot of time playing Angry Birds on your phone or iPad. Turns out you can do the same playing it in real life. Somehow I'm fine with that.
I looked out the window the other day to check on the kids and look what I found. One of those moments, those rare moments in parenthood where you let yourself think, hey, we might actually be doing alright.
Aaand then those moments eventually melt into some sort of sibling scuffle, so I was grateful to have captured this one for my own memory.
*Curls are thanks to Curlformers. Love em. (view courtesy of our farmer neighbors)
A recent conversation with AlyCat at dinner:
Aly: Mom, where did Sammy go? You know, the one from Child's World?
Me: She lives in China now, remember?
Aly: (Horrified) They put bandages on her toes and bent them off?!!!
(I believe she would be referring to a time when she overheard me explaining what foot binding was to Kennedy... woops)
