Five in a Row

I decided recently that we need some more structure to our days and partly influenced by some of my neighbors, decided to try out the curriculum Five in A Row.  I have been hesitant to say we are "homeschooling" this year.  Austin is five and has a late birthday and is already reading...I didn't feel the need to do any formal kindergarten this year.  But after hearing about Five in a Row, it seemed like an easy fit to make some structure out of things we already do anyway (like read books and color).  The way it works is each week you use a different children's book (mostly classic literature).  You read it every morning, for five days in a row but use the book to teach a different subject each day- social studies, literature, art, math and science.  The book has the ideas all prepared, but lets you choose which one is best for your child.  It is most suitable for kids age 4-8 and if I were doing this more formally for first grade, I would probably add more math and phonics/reading.  But it uses reading books- something we already love to do- and then you teach something simple that is drawn out of the book.  Both boys get something out of it and so far ( two days into it, so not very) have had fun.  This mainly teaches love of learning.

 The first book we are doing is The Story About Ping, a classic I loved as a child and we happen to own. Between people in this area, all of the books are available to borrow.  And there are websites with downloads for almost all the printable things that would make it easy- like blank flags of China, maps, etc. Ping happens to be set in China and the first social studies day was about China...pretty easy for us!  We learned about the Yangtze River, colored the flag of China and talked about some distinctives of Chinese culture that we observe.  Then, we went out for lunch and ate duck ( this didn't seem to traumatize them too much, though I wondered). Today we learned about a "classic story" and what fiction is, using the "once upon a time" phrase so they each wrote a "once uponce a time" as Austin calls it, story. Well, Bennett drew about 10 pictures and I wrote down what he told me was happening. Mostly a story about a train losing his caboose.  Austin wrote a story called "Me and the Dog". So far it has been fun and manageable with a 4 month old in the mix. We spend an hour or less on it, but it helps start our day.  So as soon as Lucy goes down for her morning nap (between 8:30 and 9:00 usually) we start.

 Bennett was quite taken with the duck serving platter it was on...he kept talking about it.  Austin had two duck wraps- Peking Duck is traditionally served with cucumbers, green onions, duck sauce and wrapped in a mini-tortilla. Pretty good, though it is a little too fatty for me but Chris loves it.  Both boys did too.

I am NOT a structured or especially disciplined person, so I hope I can stay consistent with this...it will be a challenge for me, but good practice for next year, when school might be more structured. So far, so good.

A Little Culture

One of the more popular local things to do during the New Year week is to go to a "Miao Hui" or temple festival/carnival.  There are quite a few throughout the city, held at historical temple parks.  They have food, games, reenactments and so on.  We have felt lately that we have not been interacting with the local culture as much as we would like and thought maybe the kids would enjoy it.

However...the problem with enjoying the local culture during a holiday in which everyone is off of work and 17 million people live in your city, is this:

 And this:

So, we slowly made our way though the crowd for about an hour.  Needless to say it was not the kind of event to help our children engage the culture, however much the "culture" tried to engage them by taking their photos.  That was about all we could handle...then when went and ate burgers. So much for cultural engagement.  Sometimes it just is too hard. :) 

Happy Year of the Dragon

新年快乐！ Happy Chinese New Year!  After now having several years that we are actually in China (and not Thailand) for Chinese New Year, it is starting to feel like a familiar holiday that we actually have traditions for.  It is a pretty fun (although loud) holiday.  Sunday night (new year's eve) we made jiaozi with our neighbors.  Angie made them all "guo tie", which means pan fried and the yummiest kind I think. I made my very un-traditional apple jiaozi, which are deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar.  Chris likens them to a McDonalds' apple pie, though I like to think they are a little better than McDonalds.

Then Monday night after dinner Chris took the boys along with several neighbors to light sparklers and shoot some more tame fireworks/toys. One was a frog, a panda that spun and shot out sparks and one that shot up more like a traditional firework.  Austin seems to have totally overcome his former fear of the noise, but Bennett was a little afraid.  However, he still had fun.  

This is Chris' year.. he was born in the year of the dragon.  It is starting out with a bang here, as usual but we spent most of the last two days trying to keep warm at home.  Happy New Year!

The weather outside is frightful...

As in the air quality.  Yesterday and today were particularly bad. Most days I don't bother to go to the US Embassy's air quality index, because, well, it doesn't do much except make me worry.  Austin does NOT have TB, thankfully.  I have not seen much change since he has tried this inhaler, so we are hoping he does not have asthma.  But a new doctor we saw for this TB reading said often several colds together seems a likely explanation, but the air outside an certainly irritate or cause a reaction.  For years we have been talking about getting good air purifiers.  So yesterday we had a free home assessment from one of the top purifier companies. A(n american) woman came to our house with 2 air purifiers and a air quality tester.  So she came on a particularly bad day.  The US "healthy" air level is 100,000 somethings units of particles.  When she came is was 1,500,000 outside and one million inside our home.  Yikes.  After 10 minutes of running the smaller purifier in the boys' room, it had cut to half a million. So, we are thinking about getting them.  They are a chunk of change - sometimes 1/2 to one times more than in the U.S. (where you don't need them nearly so much), though the ones we are looking at seem the best buy for good quality ones.  You can get three of them- one large and two smaller, bedroom units- for the price of one of the most top of the line brand, IQ air. And from research we have done they are almost as good at filtering out the junk.

In addition the to frightfulness of the air, it has also been very cold.  I don't have an iPhone or any weather update I regularly look at, except for this spot outside my kitchen window.  This pipe carries away steam from our heating system.  If it is pretty cold outside, there is usually a little icicle formed on it.  When I looked out today and saw 4 large icicles, I knew it must be cold.  Sure enough we looked it up and it was a whopping 14 degrees F.  However, we did have a clearer day today with some blue sky showing.  As much as I dislike the cold, I will take it over pollution. And as you can see beyond the icicles, red lanterns have appeared for Chinese New Year.  The big day is Monday, which means fireworks have already started and we are in for a noisy week, to say the least. 

No post would be complete without a peek at Lucy...this is her favorite toy at the moment.  She can grab it and chew it and loves to hold it.  We also are confidant that she will be a brown eyed girl now...they are mostly brown now and so pretty.

X Ray

Well, today we had to take our first child for an x-ray...but thankfully nothing was broken.  Last night Austin accidentally knocked over this heater (it was off and not hot- it doesn't get that hot anyway) that Xiao Chen had left with us onto his foot.  It is really heavy and he would not walk on it last night and it was a little swollen.  He still wouldn't walk on it this morning and I have had two friends whose sons' both broke those same two bones on the top of the foot recently.  So Chris took him in to have an x ray, but thankfully they were not broken, just badly bruised.  He is supposed to stay off his foot for the next few days, so he is crawling around the house but mostly refusing help and sleeping in his tent on the floor of his room.

Friday we had also taken him into the doctor about his chronic cough.  The doctor thinks it is likely a succession of colds he has had...though I am not so sure he really has had some form of cold for 3 months.  He said he did not sound asthmatic, but gave us a ventolin inhaler to try for a couple of weeks.  If it is noticably improved, than we might explore that possiblity further.  He also tested him for TB, though he thinks it highly unlikely.  But when you live in China and cough a lot, you have to make sure.  So, we have seen a lot of the doctor the past couple of days.  But I am thankful to be in a city where there are good doctors! Today I also went to another one of those book fairs and got 40 more books!  I just can't resist good books, especially at these prices when we live in a land lacking English libraries.

Well, I am also tired from doing what used to take Xiao Chen 20 hours a week to do in our house.  Good night!

Another day

Well, we are moving ahead with life as it comes.  We said our last goodbyes to Xiao Chen today.  Definitely sad for all of us, but we are praying things will go well with them as a family.  They get on a train in the morning for a 19-hour ride.  We also got Chris back (at 3 am last night), though he was out again tonight for a meeting.  Tomorrow we are going to breakfast as a family, with a doctor's appointment and grocery run planned too.  Austin has had this hacking cough for almost 3 months now.  I think it is most likely what is known as the "(insert out city name here) cough"...pretty common with the air here.  But we want to make sure it is nothing else.  We are thinking about finally investing in some good air purifiers...really a must here but the exorbitant cost has kept us from doing it before.  But we think it is time so we may investigate the options soon.

Otherwise, it was a fairly normal day around here. I am trying to quickly establish a new cleaning routine, since things will pile up pretty quickly without a helper.  I need to really stay on top of the dishes and laundry...wow those things pile up so fast.  Think my nights after the kids go down will look a little different now. Austin was so sweet though...he said he will help me a lot now that ayi is gone. He attempted to mop the other day...he probably would have done a great job actually except for the fact that he decided to also mop the outside back steps, which of course were filthy.  So that ended the mopping session inside the apartment.  Maybe this really will be a good time to train the boys more in picking up and doing chores around the house.  Though they do have some jobs (setting table, putting pajamas and clothes away and picking up toys) they don't always get done and usually someone will pick up after them.

Well, hoping to get to bed soon.  Lucy seems to be having a growth spurt (I hope and not a new routine) and has been up multiple times a night wanting to eat.  Better sleep while all is quiet.

Second Fiddle

For most of my boys' life, they have been very attached to Mommy.  Chris has suffered through many times of hearing both boys say " I want Mommy to do it"  "I don't want Mommy to go, you go" "Just Mommy can hold my hand".  I have sympathized and often longed for the day when I had a little more space.  Well, it seems that day has come with Austin, but it is not what I thought it might be.  Austin and I have had lots of head-butting lately.  It often feels like he will not respond well to requests to obey and at times he has been disrespectful.  I have also been much busier with Lucy's arrival and the large amounts of time needed to feed and care for a newborn.  So the other day Austin asked me "Mommy why are you always mad at me?'  Ouch. That made my heart really sad and so after a day or so I asked him why he thought I was always mad and I apologized for coming across that way.

I thought we were reconciling well and initiated planning a date with Austin.  His response was "when can I have a date with Daddy?  I like dates with Daddy better than you".  I was a little sad to hear that but tried not to dwell on it.  Than he said "And I like Daddy better than you."  This one was harder to take and I was feeling rather sad.  He said Daddy was more fun than me and "because he is a boy and stronger than you".  Well, that is certainly true and I think as Austin gets older he is relating to Daddy more and they have more in common (wrestling, funny jokes, lots of physical play).  I am thrilled in many ways that Austin loves his Daddy and that Chris' "turn" has finally come with Austin.  But, I was still a little sad to hear those words.  Chris assured me..."Don't worry, Bennett still prefers you over me".  Ha.  In any case, I am now playing second fiddle to Chris with Austin. Chris left for a trip today and Austin asked why I couldn't go instead and Daddy stay home?  Hopefully Austin and I will have a good time together while Chris is gone and have more one on one this month during his winter vacation from school. But for now, Daddy is king around here :)

100 days

 Friday January 6 Lucy was officially 100 days.  In China this is a big milestone, usually celebrated with a big party and an official photo shoot at a shop.  We did not have a huge party nor an official photo shoot, though I would like to do that soon.  However we did have some dinner plans with a few friends and we did take some of our own pictures.  She is getting big so fast and started laughing this week.  A cute little giggle- it is so girly already.  Here are a few, very unofficial pictures of our little sweetie!

Goodbye, Chen Ayi

Well, it is a sad day at our house today.  Our helper, Xiao Chen, has had a challenging fall with her family.  I won't go into details here, but in large part due to a hurtful family situation and also in part due to being kicked out of their second home this year, she and her family are moving back to their hometown, a 19-hour train ride from here.  This Friday (they have to be out of their home Wednesday).  So we are really sad. And she is sad...this was not her choice. She feels like a member of the family and was the best helper we have ever had by far...LOVED our kids and they love her, amazing cook, I never really had to instruct her on what to do...she knew the way I did things and got it done.  She has become a good friend.  And her reason for leaving is also sad and I know she will have some hard days ahead when she returns home.  We are praying the Lord will lead her back here, but not holding our breath.

Other than greater factor  of losing a good friend practically it will also impact my life a lot.  Anytime I do errands or meet with other women is on a "Xiao Chen day".  She cooked dinner Tuesdays and stayed til 9 pm Thursdays...feeding and caring for the kids while we actually had a regular weekly date night this year.  Not to mention the dishes, mopping, patiently teaching our kids Chinese and a zillion other things I am sure I will discover after she is gone.  When we told Austin, he asked why can't she find a house around here?  Or if not live with us?  Or if not couldn't we move with her?  He said he could go to a new school if he had to move.  When Bennett plays toys, he often makes up the members of our family with Legos or CARS cars...Xiao Chen is always included with Chris and I and the siblings.

With Chinese New Year around the corner, we probably will not look for another helper this month.  Then we probably will just look for someone temporary and far fewer hours from Feb-April, since we are planning a 3 month trip to the US this summer.  So next fall I will see if she is for sure NOT coming back...and if not look for someone more full-time then.  I know I will want and need someone new, but at the moment it feels a little like trying to date someone right after breaking up with someone else (not like this is a "break-up" in the sense that either of us chose this).  I'm not quite ready to find someone else.

So Tuesday will be our last day with her (and Chris will be traveling that day)...pray for us that day and especially for Xiao Chen.

Watching Trains

 When it turns winter and all the leaves are off the trees, there is a good view of both the train track and subway track that run parallel to each other beyond the back gate of our complex.  Austin used to run to his bedroom window every time a train passed.  Now it is Bennett's turn to be really into watching trains, though he watches and waits for much longer than Austin ever did.  He will do it at different times throughout the day, but especially at nap I have found him like this.

And this...

And then the other day I found him sound asleep in this chair, right in front of his usual perch.

Lucy is well-loved by her brothers and recently the recipient of many toys as you can see below.  She is starting to notice toys and grab them a little bit, though not quite as enthusiastically as her brothers like to give them to her.