I Don't Negotiate With Terrorists...

…Unless they belong to me. In which case I do negotiate with terrorists, and I do a lousy job at that. Case in point, Scarlett and I at lunch the other day:

M: How about Pb & J for lunch?

S: How about with chips?

M: Like chips with your sandwich?

S: No, like… just chips.

M: How about you eat your sandwich and some veggies, remember the dr. said to eat lot’s of veggies! Then we’ll see about chips.

S: How about I eat some sandwich and you get me chips and candy corns.

If I count the “corn” in candy corns, that’s a win for me, right?...

Beginnings and Endings in Taipei

Sunrise, our first morning in Taipei 

The sun sets on our time in Taipei

First and last day of school

2009

Shilin Night Market

2013

"Hosting" (Part 1)

It's my Birthday week. So at the very least our visitors timing left something to be desired. But after 3 rounds of notes coming home from one of the kid's class with the cheerful message, "Someone in your class has lice!" I wondered how long we'd make it before our luck ran out.
Click, click, click, BANG.

There are so many moments in motherhood that you never forget:
The first time you hold your child in your arms.
The first time they head off for school.
The first time you find lice crawling in their hair.

This morning I discovered one of my children had become a host to some unwelcome guests.
In my horror I immediately used a life line and called a friend. She-who-shall-remain-unamed recently endured the same trauma with her kiddos. She was calm and collected and told me exactly what to buy and how to proceed. Our heads started itching like mad just from the conversation.

It took me 2+ hours to clean and comb through Ground Zero Child's hair. It was highly memorable, but more in the "remember to work through this with my psychiatrist" kind of way. I'm treating all of us even though no one else (yet) has any signs of it. I want to minimize a reoccurrence since, in the words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for dat!"
Before today I had no idea that terms like "lousy" and "nit-picking" were so nasty and insulting.
They say you learn something new everyday. I feel certain I could've done without this knowledge. On the bright side, I'm extremely grateful we sprung for the large capacity washer/dryer.
Good. Grief.

Love in the Time of Lice (Part 2)

After 7+ hours on my feet treating and combing through all 5 of the children's hair (and finding nothing, thankfully, other than the initial discovery) Nathan and I had finally gotten the laundry started and the children down to bed.
Though we were bone-tired we still had to treat each others hair.
Now I don't know about you but when I was falling in love and imagining Nathan and I's grand life together, I never could have conjured the scene we found ourselves in that night.
After an extremely exhausting day, watching my husband part, comb, and search through my wet hair like a mama chimpanzee, both of us without shirts, in the garish light of the reading lamp we'd brought in to help with the inspection, culminated in about the most unflattering reflections I could ever hope to see of the two of us.
At one point Nathan got my long hair hopelessly tangled in the de-lousing comb, and I mean hopelessly. As  he held up the giant mess of hair and comb from the back of my head, he shrugged his shoulders and said "Sorry!" in the best Gilly impression ever, and suddenly we were both laughing hysterically.

Later that night as we got ready to end one of my least favorite days of parenthood yet, I reflected on what true love is.
I want to teach my children that when they are looking for their future spouse that sheesh, there is so much more to consider than just "love". You have to choose someone you not only want to share your best times with but someone who you want to go through the very worst and hardest things in life with.
It's like picking a partner for the Amazing Race. You are gonna see some unforgettable things and have some breathtaking experiences. But there will also be times of disappointment, frustration, functioning through mind bending jet lag, and stress enough to test the strongest relationships. So the question is, who do you want to go on that journey with?
Who do you want delousing your head? And better yet, who could you actually laugh hysterically with in the middle of the whole sordid experience? Because that my friends, is true love.

Anyway, if all of this talk of lice has your head itching like crazy, I have just one word: "Sorry!"

Mother Scarlett

Only one of my 5 children has been much into dolls and babies. However, Scarlett is SO into babies that she has made up for everyone and then some. At Christmas when she spotted the shelf brimming with dolls she was distressed and pointed to them saying, "My baby!" and then doing a couple of panicky breaths as if we might just move on. As soon as we handed her one baby she would repeat the chubby finger pointing at the remaining babies and be stressed until we placed another in her arms. Then the whole scene repeated until she had a solid dozen babies in her arms. 

We have entered a phase where I struggle getting her into the car without several babies tagging along. And then another struggle of how many babies are coming into the store. Me: none. 

Scarlett: Just these 8 that I brought!

She and Ander got the bitty twins for Christmas but Ander shares custody. Ooor Scarlett kidnapped the baby boy, whichever way ya want to see it. She calls the girl "baby Scarlett" and the boy "Diego"... there is a striking resemblance... 

She gets defensive sometimes when I try to take pictures of her and her babes, look at that mother lion glare! 

Last week Nathan and I were at Ikea. We stopped in the kid area to let the littles play with the toys they have out. It didn't take long before we noticed Scarlett was involved in a pattern, setting up the Ikea-Home-for-as-of-yet-Unpurchased-Babies. She had discovered the big bin of plush baby dolls. Gender or race matters not to her. She was very busy lovingly tucking babies into all of those empty beds. 

 She found a basket of food and set off to feed every baby.

 Then she discovered a ladle and was giving them all drinks before bed. Nathan and I just sat there in awe of her. It was one of those (rare) moments as a parent that seem to make it all worth while. For a bit anyway.
Here is a short video showing all of the baby dolls in the beds. When she ran out of beds you can see at the end of the video on the left side she has started putting babies to bed on the shelving. A friend had commented, No child left behind, and that is exactly right. Her little heart seems to have room enough for all.

Moving Makes Me Mental

I've realized a lot in the last seven weeks, mainly that I'm not nearly as detached from worldly possessions as I would have thought I was. Turns out, I want my stuff! Or at least my bed. I've been in an abusive relationship with an air mattress for almost a month now and I think it's time to break things off.
Some trials become so tedious and heavy that you start to wish for a change of hardship just for something different, I call this request a trial transfer. A good example would be pregnancy. By the end you are saying, "Please get this baby out of me!" Even though you know that just rings in the new trial of Zombie Motherhood where you function without sleep, with sore everything, while serving tiny minions at all hours, day or night.
Moving internationally is a lot like that.
I'm so ready for a trial transfer from this empty house where a 4 year old Ander is, not figuratively, but literally climbing the walls. I'm so ready I may weep tears of joy when the moving van pulls up this morning. Sure, it heralds in untold piles of boxes and innocent movers endlessly asking "Where should this go?" until my ears bleed and my head answers, "I DON'T KNOW!" But my mouth is forced to give a civilized and decisive answer. There will be lot's of "Why did we keep this?" and even a few regretful, "Why didn't we keep that?!" And at the end of the day the movers will drive off into the sunset leaving me with piles of "things". And by then I may start to feel repulsed by all of our "stuff" and "things" closing in on me. I will probably think to myself, if I was asked to walk away from my worldly possessions right now, it would be the easiest decision ever.
That, good people, is the insanity of moving. I've wondered why few of my friends have talked specifically about how difficult it was for them to move. Then I thought, maybe they just have more self control than I and don't talk about it publicly. But I think the answer has more to do with how the very instant it's over, you lock those memories behind a very sturdy door and throw away the key.
So today, I'm just hoping I find that key in my shipment.
And my bed...
I really miss my bed.

Nomads

Nomads, wanderers, gypsies, aaand Jensens. Over the last month or so we have felt akin to those in the world who roam and move often from place to place.
After our our delayed flight in Japan gave us the "opportunity" to spend the night and day there, we finally made our way to Houston. Our dear friends the Furni offered to watch our jet lagged kids while we house hunted in Dallas, because they love us. We took Ander with us because, well, we love them.

We lost a day house hunting but over the next few days we were able to find a lovely house not even a block away from the elementary school(!). Next on the list was to gather our chicks up so we headed to Houston and then we were able to spend a day with our friends back in Dallas.
The next couple of days were spent running errands...

(photo creds go to Kennedy)

...And car hunting... with 5 kids in tow. On a separate but related topic, I was struck with an idea of how we could really punish the non-violent criminals in our nation.
Not wanting our children to spend hours (I'm talking double digits) on the iPad we let them work on their "problem solving skills" and "interpersonal skills" for large chunks of time while Nathan and I left the car to wander a car lot. Those were long days for everyone. Eventually we found what we needed, and it was in the nick of time before we had to pack up and go to Boise for our first Christmas there in about 6 years.
In case you're wondering what it looks like to live in a small space and then try and do the laundry/organize/pack all in the same small place? Umm, something like this:

(I'd like to title this picture "Erin's personal hell")

But the next day when our 2 short little flights had us to Boise by early afternoon, we were all in awe of how slick the travel was. Glorious! Punctual! Short! 

We arrived in frigid Boise (about 26 F/ -5 C.) and all of my kids were ecstatic to see snow, even if it was the dirty weeks old mounds left about. Ander had a cruel shock when he excitedly shoved his hands into snow for the first time and got two big fist fulls. It took about 3 seconds before he was crying in pain from the cold. Ouch! And there were other signs that they were novices, like when I found Kohen warming his hands in the exhaust of the rental car. We had some teaching to do!

Nathan's sister Tara met us at their parent's house with head to toe snow clothes for all 5 of the kids that she had gathered for us (she is my hero!). We were teaching the kids how to put on the clothes so they'd know the best tricks, when it suddenly started SNOWING. We couldn't believe it. 

It was a Christmas miracle! It was like heaven sent that snow just for my kiddos. What a great memory. It was the perfect way to start off our Christmas vacation. 

Pack Out From Taipei

This morning my fragile bubble of denial was burst when a herd of packers swept into my home and began wrapping up our life in Taiwan both literally and figuratively.

Moving is never fun whether you are moving across the hall or across the world. However, international moves have this nasty side effect of leaving you without your belongings for 6 weeks to 3.5 months while everything sails on a freighter across the wide ocean, leaving you to wonder if they power the thing with sails or what?!
When we were packed out from California I had no idea what I was doing and looking back I have to give myself credit for doing a pretty dang good job with zero guidance. Having said that, I have been so grateful for all that I have learned so that I could apply it to this move, bringing my stress level down out of the red zone. I am even more grateful that on this end of things, 98% of my friends here have experienced the gauntlet that is international moving and therefore have been unbelievably understanding and helpful.
But at the end of the day the reality is, we are still moving.

I am not usually one to cry but lately I find myself emotional at the most unexpected and embarrassing times. We had a little Farewell luncheon for Kennedy and her 4 good friends came. They are four of the sweetest, most well mannered girls and I sat there holding back tears, overcome with gratitude that after years of praying for Kennedy to find true friends and be in healthy friendships, our prayers were answered this year. Fully and generously.

In a stroke of genius our friends threw us the most amazing Festivus Farewell party, our 5th in Taipei. It was a month early since Festivus should be Dec. 23 but we will be gone. That night I laughed so hard my stomach was sore for days afterward. Several of our friend's "Grievances" got me emotional, one in particular, I was laughing so hard I was tearing up, then all at once it hit me- how much we loved these people, how much they loved us, and how much we were going to miss them- and suddenly I was doing the strangest sob/laugh combo you never want to see.

The common denominator in these inconvenient emotional outbursts is gratitude. Overwhelming gratitude. When I think about how these last 4.5 years have stretched us (often painfully) and how much it has made us grow, I turn into a cliche'. "I"m overcome", "I'm overwhelmed",  and "My heart is full."
Everything is happening so fast and our days in Taipei are dwindling. I just had to write the way we feel and why we feel it before everything is overshadowed by us missing our friends and this country we have truly come to love.

Bali, Indonesia

The stress over the last while has been significant for Nathan and I. No matter how much I try to portray a front of keeping it together, my body betrays me. My hair is falling out by the fist full, acne has been a constant companion and other even less savory body rebellions. Due to our commuted time in Asia Nathan and I decided to take the family trip we'd hoped to make this year to Indonesia by ourselves. It was an intensely needed break. 

Nathan travels a lot for work. The upside is trips like this where we use miles for our flight, and points for our hotel. That left us only paying for the first two nights we spent inland in Ubud. Not a bad deal.

We enjoyed taking in the countryside on our drive in. We stopped to take pictures of some of the rice fields as the sun was getting ready to set, it was stunning. 

The thing about the clouds that make for a beautiful sunset is that sometimes they bring rain with them. In this case, the first torrential downpour of the rainy season. By the time we got to our bungalow we were soaked. A comedy of errors ensued, a river of water pouring down the wall inside our room, for example, out of food at dinner, and the grand finale, Nathan being badly shocked by the faucet handle on the soaker tub. 

 But the gorgeous view at breakfast washed all of the frustrations away...

That and when they changed our rooms to an even nicer one for our troubles. Way to take one for the team with that shock Nathan!  The outdoor reading bed and plunge pool were an unexpected bonus. 

We were there over a Hindu holiday so literally everyone was headed to the temple along with us. At this particular temple called Tampak Siring the people wash in the water, cleansing their bodies but symbolically cleansing their spirits. 

 Usually there are a handful of people in the water, but on a holiday their were crushes of people.

 But still neat to witness anyway.

 We had noticed people walking around with rice on their foreheads and wondered what part of their ritual it was. We met these nice girls and one asked if I would like to have this blessing. They use the Plumeria flower to flick the blessed water on you.

 You drink some of the water out of your palms, three times, before they put the rice and water mix on your forehead and the base of your neck. It was a beautiful blessing.

 I loved the colorful offering baskets stacked at the temple. All day we would see women walking down the streets with these balanced on their heads.

 Next we headed out to the rice terraces. I have had a burning curiosity about the specifics of farming rice since before I moved to Asia. It has only increased since so this was so cool to me, having my questions answered. I did not know that rice looks almost like wheat when the grains grow. How cool is that?

 The above picture is extra fun, if you notice my left foot, I almost got my wish to work in a rice patty! My foot slipped off the edge and plugged deep into the wet mud the rice was growing in. The rice worker who had offered to take our picture was mortified and insisted on washing my foot with bottled water. I mean, hey, I can take a little mud! But it was kind of him to help.

You can see here the rice on the right is lighter and ready to be harvested. It is harvested similarly to wheat. 

Terraced rice pattys are easily one of my favorite things we've seen in Asia. Amazing.

 The next day we made our way out to Kuta and the beach. Turns out this is the site of the 2002 terrorist bombing of a nightclub that killed hundreds of people. There is a large memorial at the site that took me by surprise. As did the increased security. To drive in to our hotel there was a bomb sniffing dog, the inside of the car checked, in the trunk, under the hood and under the car. Any time we went into the hotel we had to go through a metal detector and our bags were scanned. I appreciated the security but feel sad that it is deemed necessary. 

Without altering the picture in any way, this is the sunset we witnessed our first evening. We sat out on the beach and drank it in. We spent our time in Kuta mostly just relaxing and reading together, bartering with the locals in their market and eating good food. 

Not bad for our last trip exploring Asia. 

I'm Baaaack!

I bet ya thought I was done. For good. Nah. I couldn't let my blog die on an ugly spider post! We've just had a difficult few months. Stress filled, limbo-land and so much drama I didn't even know where to start. So I just didn't. I spared everyone the gruesome play by play. And how nice is this? Now I can report our plans without months of "maybe's".
So here is the long and short of it: We are moving to Dallas Texas at the beginning of December. We are gonna catch our breath for a hot minute (or maybe 18 months or so) and then we plan on heading to South America, though it is still undetermined exactly where. Any advice on amazing places to live in S.A. are welcome!
So as you can imagine, previously things were stressful because of the unknown but recently switched to the equally evil, stress from the known-all-too-well. International moves are... involved.  And by all accounts, repatriating is a beast, so I'm super looking forward to moving home with the inevitable, "I somehow don't quite fit in anymore". But hopefully those feelings will be short lived.
Overall I swing wildly back and forth between being unbelievably excited to go home to America, to coming apart thinking of leaving Taiwan. In example, I'll be driving along day dreaming about what it might be like to walk into an American store and shop for my children for Christmas... endless possibilities! Then I'll gaze out at the gorgeous Asian, jungle covered mountains that I love so much and think, How can I leave? This has become home! Cue the waterworks.
I'm sure their will be a sappy, I love Taiwan! post somewhere in this blog's near future. But until then, here's to being back at blogging!

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!