Uninvited House Guests

I have been putting off writing this post for over 4 years now. Largely for selfish reasons, like not wanting to deter would-be visitors. And also because for the first few years I was too traumatized to speak about it. Without weeping that is.
But as we begin our 5th and final year in Taiwan (future destination, currently unknown) I feel like it's time to stop protecting you and just have out with it: Taiwan is full of grotesque, overgrown, creepy pests. I suffer from PTSD from my countless surprise(!) encounters. Here are just a few examples of what we deal with.
Let's start off with a softball:

ANTS.
Cute little ants. Nothing too bad about those. Until you are sleeping with them, bathing with them, and casually eating them at every meal.

They come in waves throughout the year. A child drops any food on the floor and it will be covered black with ants in mere minutes. Nothing can be left in the sink, on the counters or floor or you will have an all-natural organic carpet of ants on every possible surface.
Boil noodles for dinner and a few ants will always bubble up on the top for good measure.
My favorite though is soaking in the tub. I open my eyes to see drowned ants floating all over in my bath water. I just close my eyes and pretend I'm having an exotic spa treatment involving pepper.


LIZARDS
At first I thought these little dudes were the good guys. They soundlessly scamper around the floors and ceilings feasting on, well in our house, probably the ants.

They leave a trail of little mouse-like droppings all over which is "fun" but what really gets me is that they will just up and die anywhere. You'll find a finger-sized corpse rotting in your pantry, for example.
My least favorite story happened when I opened a cupboard above my head to get a recipe book and something dropped on my upturned face, sliding down my neck and chest before I realized with horror it was a lizard in the latter stages of decomposition.
How Nathan kept me here after that incident? Two words: Dark Arts.


COCKROACHES
We're having fun now, aren't we? Cockroaches come in various sizes, but mostly large. They'll turn up anywhere, especially in places you don't seal up tight, a completely random example would be that $10 bag of chips your kid didn't bother to close properly. Cereal boxes in the States sometimes have surprises in them, well guess what? So do chip bags you leave open in Taiwan!

Fun cockroach story, I'm driving down the road one day, blessedly alone in the Odyssey. I am stopped at a stop light when I get this feeling I'm not alone anymore. I look over in the passenger seat and there is a cockroach the size of my pinky riding shotgun like it ain't no thang. I had to invite him to leave. Immediately. And by leave I mean die.

SPIDERS
And there it is. The giant dirty secret. Spiders. Arachnid-disgusting-us.
It has been well established on this very blog that in pre-Taiwan life I didn't hesitate to throw a shoebox over a spider I deemed "big" before using a life-line to phone a friend to come and do the dirty work. Well, survival can force you to face lot's of things you'd rather not.
It was a few months of living in Taiwan before we began encountering their brand of overgrown spiders. Do this exercise for me. Touch your pointer fingers together and your thumbs together and make a circle. That would be the size of an average spider. The kind we find in our house. The kind that eat the pinky sized cockroaches.

 In our last house they really liked Kohen's room. A 4yr old Kohen woke up with a big ol spider on the wall next to his head. He was thus scarred for life and too scared to go to bed in his room. Finally a genius friend of mine suggested a mosquito net over his bed and that thankfully helped. He drew a picture of his experiences in therapy KA.

A quick getting to know you guide to Taiwan spiders:
They are smart.
They are wily and faster than you want to imagine.
They are ginormous, conspicuous beasts.
They like to show up when Nathan is out of town.
Sometimes they are so big that when you take a picture? they have red-eye:

Come visit then? 
Hope to see you soon!

Take 2, Eye Surgery

This was not a relaxing summer, let's just start with that glaring fact. Being displaced for what ended up being 8 weeks was not ideal. We packed up and moved 7 times within those 8 weeks, and changed cars so many times I lost count but it was more than 10, that much I know (in 100+ degree weather as I'm sweating and cursing trying to get carseats and booster seats wrestled over and buckled in, kill.me.now.). We will be forever grateful for my sister's friend who heard of our plight and offered us their car without even knowing us. That is true Christianity people. And for Nathan's parents who took pity on us and lent us their car as well. Bless you! (A Thank You to everyone who helped us with rides, gathering our stuff from across the valley, letting us crash in your homes etc., we needed lot's of help this year.)

This was also the summer of redo's, which is fine if you are talking about an awesome massage or amazing food instead of root canals and surgeries. I had a root canal done soon after I arrived home. As a bonus I had some serious pain for weeks after. Then in an attempt to fix an old root canal the dentist spent forever trying to get into an overlooked canal but in the end had to send me on to an Endodontist, who finished the job over 2 long appointments. When I later went back to the dentist to put the crown on it didn't fit and he had to do another one. I bet I spent a solid weeks worth of summer vacay not-numb-enough with a drill squealing away in my head..

But enough about me. 

Ander's initial eye surgery left his eyes somewhere in between where it had been and where it needed to be. A few days before we were scheduled to head home we were told he needed a 2nd surgery. We extended our stay and headed back to the hospital.

 This time they got it right with the anesthesia and pain killers and the process of waking up was much better than the 1st time. The surgery was done on the outer muscles of the eye where they take out a section of muscle. It causes more swelling and usually more pain as well. This particular surgery typically takes longer to heal too.

We don't have graham crackers in Taiwan so after Ander had been resting at home post-surgery for quite a few hours, eyes still tightly closed, I asked him if he was hungry to which he nodded and said, "I want graham crackers." I was so surprised by his specific request! But Auntie Natalie came through and he devoured graham crackers and teddy grahams with his eyes closed.

 About 48 hours after the surgery he looked like he'd been beat up pretty good. Lot's of swelling, especially in his left eye. And his eyes pulled outwards a lot, and even though we'd been told to expect this, it was still distressing to see.

 As the swelling went down, sometimes his eyes looked pretty good, and sometimes one of them would wander off and do it's own thing...

And his left eye had this big bulge where the stitches were so when he turned his eye this big 'ol bulge would swing out, it was a stomach turner! But at his 2 week appointment he measured really good and we've been assured things are moving in the right direction. 

This was taken this morning while Ander experimented with blueberries in his ears as ear plugs, but his eyes look pretty darn good. When he is tired they seem to go out more often, so with jet lag factored in I'd say it's looking stellar. 

As difficult as this summer was logistically, we were so grateful to be in the States and have good care. 

Ander's Eye Surgery

Part of why Nathan and I were so worried about missing our connection on our way home this summer was because we didn't want to miss Ander's appointment with the eye specialist the next day, a Thursday. We were so grateful to make the appointment, even though we were all jet lagged. 

The Dr. was amazing (or maybe my acceptable standards have just really been lowered in Asia!) his staff was competent and they knew what they were talking about. Due to the nature of the recovery and how long they want to watch it, when it was decided that surgery was what needed to happen, it needed to happen right away to have time to keep tabs on him during the healing. I was so thankful that Nathan was there for it! The next morning, Friday, Ander had surgery for his non-accomodative Estropia, Strabismus, and Ambliopia.

 The hospital staff was wonderful. It was such a treat to understand every word that was said!
We did hit a small speed bump, however, when we were brought back to see Ander in recovery and he had had to be sedated again. The head nurse was not happy that they had had to do that. She said for reasons we don't know the anesthesiologist sedated Ander but chose not to give him a pain reducer which they typically do. So when he woke up instead of it being a slow realization that his eyes hurt, it was sudden, crazy, bad pain. He had pink tears streaking his cheeks as he laid there in the hospital bed. Mama did not like.
They monitored his heart rate very closely and when he started to wake up again he was still hurting pretty good. The light was pretty unbearable, initially.

 He wasn't supposed to rub his eyes but the stitches that were in them really bugged him. He was such a good boy and had more self control than I would have had. We found that having him hold his blankie over his eyes helped soothe and calm him and keep out the light.

 At home Nathan came up with this clever idea. Ander didn't open his eyes enough for us to see anything until 8 hours or so after the surgery. We kept it dark and offered him ice cream to try and get him to eat.

 At 10pm he finally opened his eyes and had some ice cream. The inside corners of both eyes were quite red and tender, it was described to us as a bruise, and it's normal and to be expected. He really bounced back after the first 24 hours though. So strange to see his eyes more symmetrical, it almost didn't look like him!

The first post-op Dr.'s visit was positive. Everything is healing fine. These surgeries often need another surgery or possibly a third to do some tweaking on the muscles of the eye to get them centered, symmetrical and working together. His left eye is still pulling in some but it is much improved so far. We are still waiting for it to finish healing and for the muscles to settle into how they will work and function.
It was unexpected timing for the surgery and it consumed our first week or so in the states, but we are so grateful we were able to meet with great Dr.'s who have the expertise to help him. A major step in the right direction!

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 2013

At the end of April we got the sad news (I still contend that "devastating" wouldn't be too dramatic to say) that our friends and neighbors the Stathams would be moving. 

It didn't take us long to come up with a plan to have one last hurrah. Managing for all three couples on the lane to go to Sri Lanka last year was a bit of a miracle and we knew it couldn't happen again in such a short time. Instead we decided that the Chiles would go on a weekend getaway with the Stathams and I would hold down the lane and all 14 kids (I did have some help) and then Nathan and I would take a turn on a weekend getaway with the Stathams while Carrie held down the lane. 

My turn wasn't actually that difficult, our biggest challenge was on Mother's day getting 14 kids to church, through church and home again!

But pretty soon it was our turn to go and on a Friday morning after we got the kids on the bus we headed with our friends to the airport. 3 hours later we were in beautiful Kota Kinabalu Malaysia.

We stayed at the Shangri la and wow, it is the nicest place that Nathan and I have ever stayed. We felt spoiled! We were greeted our first evening with the most amazing sunset. I haven't changed any of the pictures at all, it was actually that vibrant and breathtaking, if you can believe it.

The next morning Nathan and Jeremiah hit the golf course bright and early. Brandie and I slept in a bit and then headed over to the spa. It was the best spa experience I've ever had. It was amazing. I felt so refreshed and relaxed after. 

 (Mt. Kota Kinabalu in the background)

 It was literally 72 hours of pure relaxation, cooling off in the pool, or reading a good book under an umbrella next to my favorite guy and our good friends. Each evening Nathan and I would go to our balcony and fill up the outdoor tub where we would read together while we watched the sun go down. It seemed like each sunset was trying to out do the last.

 The Shangri la has an Orang utan Preserve and Rehabilitation Center (I was surprised to discover Americans are some of the few who pronounce it "Ah rang a tang") on their land, so you can go and see them in their natural habitat during their feeding time. When two of them swung through the trees we could tell right away which one was 3 yrs old, it was totally Ander with fur! Right down to when he climbed over where we were all standing and decided it was a good time to pee.

 It was pretty fun to get to watch them for a while. They are fascinating creatures.

Nathan and I decided we were celebrating his finishing teaching early morning Seminary this year. I can't believe we did it! Well, mostly him, but it was definitely a team effort and balance. It's incredible what this man successfully juggled this year. I literally could not tell you how he pulled it all off.

We were so grateful to just have a few hours alone this trip. To have a conversation from start to finish uninterrupted by children. It was wonderful to reconnect. It was a blessing to be able to go. By now it's becoming clear to even me that I am in denial our friends are moving, as that was actually the whole reason for our trip! 

It was a wonderful weekend full of laughter and relaxing with great friends... and 3 unbelievable sunsets.

Father & Sons 2013

Last year the Father and Sons campout ended up taking place in our yard rather naturally after it had been rained out. Of course once the decision was made to cancel the campout, it quit raining and everyone decided to just throw up tents at our place instead. It was cool how it came together. 

It was little less cool this year when it was planned to take place in our yard. Mainly because someone making decisions is not a fan of camping and this would ensure that they could go home and sleep in their own beds.  

Nevertheless! There was a great turn out and everyone had an awesome time. 

I had to lean way out of the bathroom window to try and get a picture of the tent city that popped up in our yard. There was probably 6-9 tents but a lot more dads and sons came and hung out before heading home to their own beds. There was a nice little bon fire and they had a delicious dutch oven dinner (tasting it was the best benefit of hosting, yay!) and little boys running around unreasonably dirty considering they weren't actually in the wilderness.

 A few of the survivors the morning after.

Nathan was a bit busy and didn't manage many pictures, but sometimes you just gotta live in the moment. Ander may have been brought inside to his own bed around midnight but Nathan woke him up and brought him out for a delicious breakfast with his brother and Dad.
The tent city was broken down and our yard completely back in order by 10am. I was impressed.
I love when Nathan gets to spend time with his boys!

Mothers Day 2013

I'd like to open with a bit of honesty. Some mother's days are not good days. There have been a few where I wanted to stand up and rebuke the overly sappy and exaggerated things being said about "perfect moms" from the pulpit. I want to boo them like the old lady in Princess Bride.  

But alas, this Mother's day was a great one. No booing required. 

It started out with Nathan rolling over in bed and saying, "If you could have anything for breakfast what would it be?" I don't love traditional American breakfast foods (okay, I do heart bacon) so I was being a little cheeky when I replied Dahl Makani, my favorite Indian food. Without hesitating he said, "Okay." and hopped up to go get my breakfast. I couldn't believe it. Anticipating that I would rather have left overs than breakfast food he had bought my favorite food on Friday and hidden it in the fridge. It was the best start to a great day. He had totally surprised me.

I loved my "Happy Matures Day" mint plant grown by Aly. Matures day might be more fitting, huh?

My Mother's Day picture with my favorite little people in the world. They even kind of, almost, nearly cooperated taking the picture. See? A great day!

Snail Trail

I love my kids playing together outside. Love, love, love it. They all went on a snail hunt the other night and because we've had a deluge of rain recently there were a plethora of giant snails climbing all over. It was a great night for a snail hunt.
I was, however, less excited about the evolution from snail hunt to "snail massages".

Landslide on our Mountain

Over the last 12 hours we've had a torrential down pour, not terribly uncommon this time of year. But this morning Nathan drove past this very spot on his way down the mountain, and when he came back a few minutes later, this mini land slide is what he found. 

It doesn't seem too scary, until you see the taxi underneath the wreckage of broken trees and foliage. 

 Nathan said the man in the blue shirt is the taxi driver, so it appears he was unhurt.

 But from the looks of it, I'd say today is his lucky day. Wow.

Put Her There!

We live in a world where contracts are made to be broken. Americans are so litigious that it is hard to think any other way but defensively. Long gone are the days of "My word is my bond". Anymore, a good strong handshake is merely a formality and never an actual binding contract. 

Or is it?

The other day I was waiting at a light. The light turned green and traffic started moving along slowly with me at the back. All was well until a car parked on the side of the road suddenly pulled out and hit me. 

Annoyed, more than anything, I took a deep breath and got out of my van. 

The Chinese man was already out of his car shooting rapid fire Mandarin my way until I turned my head and from behind my black hair emerged my white face and he instantly stopped short and put his hands up in the air, turning away from me like, "You have got to be kidding me!" 

I walked around to check for damage, just paint transfer and a minor scratch, no big deal. I look at his car, a little body damage. He starts speaking very urgently to me again and then says his first English words to me, "Ok? Ok?" Like, it's fine, let's just call it good and go.

Umm no. Not ok. 

I understand quite a bit more Chinese than I can speak. What I was not hearing in his rants were any of the familiar apologetic phrases that I expected to hear from someone who was so clearly in the wrong. So did that mean he didn't think it was his fault? We can't just drive away without him at least admitting wrong doing! But I was now late for an appointment and not in the mood to do the song and dance with the Foreign Police.

So I did what I think most people would do. I grabbed my phone and started taking pictures. I got the scene, the damage on my car and his car, followed by his license plate. 

He starts getting more agitated. 

In Mandarin he is asking each and every passerby on the street if they speak English. 

About this time, a friend of mine had pulled over and come up and a worker tending nearby greenery also comes over and says in surprisingly good English, "He wants you to delete the pictures before you leave." I replied, "I am not going to erase the pictures, I will keep them so he can't say I did this."

Understanding seemed to dawn on our impromptu translator, he turned to the man who had hit me and explained the problem.  All of a sudden he got it and began saying to me, "Sorry. Sorry." finally apologizing. 

The translator then told me we must shake hands. What? Hmm... Awkward......but okay.

And that is how my friend got an official, totally-wouldn't-hold-up-in-court picture of us shaking hands. 

The funny thing is, as I drove away I thought, that handshake actually did make me feel better. The damage to my car was so minor and body work is very cheap. I just wanted him to say, Hey, I  am so sorry about that. It was an accident. 

 Sometimes it is refreshing to live in a place where an apology and a handshake can still make everything right. 

PS- I still laugh until I'm crying when I look at this picture... I love this quirky little country.

PPS- I feel pretty confident I could've taken this guy, if it'd come to that. 

Enablers

For the most part, Scarlett's big brother Ander has taught her everything she knows...

 But this was all her.
When I went to investigate a strange tinking sound I found Scarlett precariously perched on top of the piano. She was throwing the little decorative rocks and was pretty dang pleased with herself. Not dissuaded at all by my sudden appearance, she was reaching for another rock when I snapped the pic.

 Scarlett has recently turned into her big brothers protege'. He has bequeathed his vast wealth of knowledge to his quick-study baby sister. 

Sure, they laugh and wrestle and play pirates, with Ander fitting Scarlett with a too big pirate hat and trying to help her get a make-shift sword to stay in the elastic band of her pants. But he also teaches her how to climb up on the counters, leverage her weight to open the fridge, and climb in the pantry to retrieve snacks. And should she need assistance, he is of course always there to offer her a boost.

                                         

Mei Mei is pretty proud of her new skill set, proven as she gleefully scatters the napkin pile off the table for the millionth time. And be warned, if there are any liquids on the surface she has scaled, she will empty them all on the floor before you ever realize she was even on the counter. 

It was actually in a pretty quiet moment that I had the epiphany that I was in the grips of some serious toddler tyranny.
They both love the same blanket which is fine, we have several. But I've noticed my two self soothers put their fingers in their mouth whenever they have a blanket. I've tried really hard lately to keep the blankets in their beds to help minimize the fingers in the mouth. But they've taken to sneaking them whenever possible.
The other night I witnessed Scarlett, the girl who is so stingy with her words, bring out two blankets she'd scavenged up, casually handing one to her brother saying, "here doh" before she crawled up on the couch beside him and they both assumed the position.
It dawned on me then: they are totally enabling each other.

I absolutely love that they are buds, I really do. I'm just not sure it's worth the knowledge transfer that is  going on. The only thing trickier than one Ander is two!

21st Century Tattling

Boy times have changed since I was a kid. When I had a grievous tattle to tell -and believe me, I always did- I had to dramatically leave the scene of the offense, track down a parent, gain that weary parent's ear and then try to explain the affront with the most positive slant for me and the most traitorous for my sibling. The anticipation of whether or not said parent would deem my tale worthy of further investigation was the stuff a splendid childhood was made of. 

So when Kennedy bypassed all of the drama by instead swiping my phone to gather incriminating evidence in a self-righteous silence, and then casually handed me my phone back with the instructions to "see for myself", I knew for sure that times, they are a changing.   

 First I discovered a picture of Kohen eating a good choice food, an apple. I wouldn't be in a dither about that in any scenario I can think of so I eventually concluded that she wanted me to see that he was outside with just his socks on + eating an apple right before dinner. Surely this would illicit a parental response, right?!

Kennedy then moved on to catch Aly, likewise apple-handed, but she was going to use scissors to cut the apple, and that could go bad quickly... but still nothing much out of the ordinary...

... Until I flipped to this picture. Which is two training wheels that appear to have been covered in what? oil??? No........ paint!

 Having finally gotten my full attention I quickly swiped to the next picture and Kennedy announced with barely contained excitement, "Aly used the training wheels to paint the outside walls!"

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. When I saw that last one, there were only a few choice ones that came to mind.

Kennedy's Night Out With The Rents

After waiting patiently for her siblings to go, it was finally Kennedy's turn. She wanted to be surprised, but Nathan and I knew exactly what we wanted to do with Kennedy so it was easy.

 Indian food! Mom and Dad's very favorite food in Taiwan (ahh, the irony) is often brought home on weekend nights as take out. But it's only for Nathan and I once the kids are down. Kennedy has had lot's of tastes over the years but was so excited to be in on the big kids dinner.
I actually have a Pavlovian response when I see that food, mmmm.....

 Kennedy has a serious love and devotion for anything sweet. This mango slush hit the spot, she was giddy. There was so much that she had her fill and then some.

For our activity we went for foot rubs. Normally Nathan and I enjoy some light conversation before lapsing into a relaxed silence. Not tonight! Kennedy seized the opportunity to chat us up and hardly stopped to breathe. It was so cute, actually. Though about 45 min in, Nathan and I started making eyes at each other like, "Wow!" Her ability to make the most of her mom and dad time superseded the relaxing effect of foot rubs. It was a good trade though, and I know pretty soon I'll be wishing I didn't have to pull info out of her. (And that's 95 up there, for those who recognize the dexterous genius at my feet :)
We rounded out the night by letting Kennedy pick out a doughnut at Mr. Doughnut. She took the picking out process very seriously.
Highlight:
Spending time with one of our children who can actually have a thoughtful conversation and realizing that though she is small and looks young for her age, she is maturing and growing before our very eyes. We loved hanging out with Kennedy!