Bullet Points

• We are moved into our new place. The move went well (according to Chinese standards). We are still unpacking.
• I am exhausted.
• Sean is studying 2 languages now and is also exhausted :)
• New place is super convenient and very loud. We witnessed a 1 am fight in the street the second night we were here, cops came and all. 
• We made a rule at this new place that C can't come in the kitchen without asking, so now he stands on this mat outside the kitchen and says [all in one breath], "May I please come in you will say 'yes you may'"" (I love the 'you will' part of that...)
• Thankful tree #2 is up as of this afternoon
• I am NOT thankful for the number of times C peed in his pants today - total potty training regression going on here
• A neighbor turned off the electricity to our whole building this morning because construction workers in one of the apartments were 'making too much noise' with their power tools. Hilarious, so we were all without until my wonderful downstairs neighbor realized what had happened and flicked it back on. 
• Still no internet - maybe another week...
• Very excited to see a friend from college in a few days, she teaches out east and is coming to visit soon!
• I went in to C's bedroom last night because he was still talking to himself at 9 pm. I laid with him and after a few minutes our of no where he said, "GP [grandpa] is same like chippie [chips] right Mommy" - yep buddy those do sound the same. 
• Many times during the day my heart just hurts, for us and so many friends that struggle through infertility. I am wondering when a day will come when I don't think about those babies that 'should have been'
• I feel like I have way too many emails to reply to right now and should be doing that but am going to go read instead - maybe tomorrow I'll get to those emails
• Watched the old Lorax cartoon today and liked the message from it, "I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees..."

On The Move - Again...

I counted it up and in the nine years we have been married we have moved nine times. Today marks the tenth place we have moved to. The longest we have stayed in one place without moving is 2 years,  the shortest 3 months. And here we are on the verge (literally movers are on their way here - and proving to us that starting at 9:00 am was just an estimate in their eyes as it is 9:48 and they are not here) of another move. This move is within the same city we are in now and has lots of benefits attached. But it is still a move. Which means packing, and organizing, and painting, and dealing with Chinese zhuang xiu'ers, and lots of heavy lifting for Sean... well you get the picture. So in honor of our move I would like to say a few things about our past [major] homes. I had way more pictures to put in this post but blogger is being ridiculously slow at loading them and I am so not in the mood for finiky loading today.

SUNDBO

Our first apartment was a student married dorm at Briercrest...LOVED that Sundbo place :) Great memories. I sobbed the day we left there. We had lived there 2 years and we first 'learned' to be married there (um we are still learning...)

WOODSONG 

Our first real apartment. The only place that we ever really felt like a 'normal' couple. You know with jobs, and rent. Lots of good youth ministry in that place. Plus the Polkies were our neighbors and how great was that (It was to get even greater in the future - just read on). Paulina once came an rescued me from a creepy wounded bird outside my door there. We [Sean and me not Paulina and me] prayed over and made huge decisions about our future there. 

LIANG YUAN

First apartment in China, so of course holds special memories. Learned to speak Chinese while living there (still learning). Went though all the emotions imaginable of leaving home and coming to a very foreign place. Bathroom was horribly stinky. 

This is all the luggage we brought to CN in 2005 - of boy have our belongings grown since then...

Here is Sean all packed up ready to move out of our Liang Yuan place - as you see we collected a book shelf

CHUN YUAN

Oh that sweet little place. This was the first real place that felt like home to us. We picked out and bought furniture for the first time in this apartment. We loved this place. We had both sets of parents and some siblings and the Polkies, and Iggy and the Gloglix-Del Kauffmans all come to stay with us there. This was the place we have lived the longest. We dreamed about getting pregnant while here, were devastated to find out it would not be an easy road, and later we took our positive pregnancy test there. And got to watch my belly grow there. And got to bring a 4 week old Caedmon home to there. 

Us the day we moved in there. Unpacking and getting settled was so much easier without a toddler.

Here is the little bean we brought home to this place

CEDARBROOK

While we were in the States for 10 months in 08-09 we were sooooo blessed to live with the Polkies. What a special experience that was. Friendships grew, we leaned all about being first time parents together, we watched lots of Office, were introduced to the art o Blitzing, ate Ecuadorian food, and get beaten over and over during Mario Kart tournaments, washed a TON of sippy cups and baby spoons, watched movies on the lawn....and seriously had too many great times to even start writing about here. 

JIN SHI QI

By far nicest place we have got to live in. We can see the mountains from this apartment. Though it has only been one year here there are many things I'll miss (though we will only be 25 min away) about this place. I love the Mommy and Me class I got to do here. I love that everyone in this complex knows Caed or Kai Kai, and it is a BIG complex. I am glad to see that we have in some way made a positive impact on this community. I love the guards here, one even offered to come to our apartment and make us dinner the other day! I love the cleaning ladies, and the shopkeepers. But truth is we have experienced more heartbreak and sadness here than any of those other placed. We have grieved endless hours for tiny little lives that were lost. There have been more tears cried here than any other place.  If you read our blog regularly I am sure you know what kind of a year it has been for us here, and that I am happy to leave behind. I am not happy to leave the two bathrooms and the pantry though...

And so now we will see what the Lord has for us in our newest place of dwelling. Oooo and how long we will be there :)

Community Fun And the One Child Policy

Last Tuesday I made play dough for our Mommy and Me class. It was so much fun! All the ladies asked me how to make it which was easy to explain minus "Cream on Tartar" - which they don't even have here!

The greatest part was realizing AGAIN the big cultural differences between us and the Chinese. I was showing them how to 'use' play dough and I started rolling a little piece in my hands and said, "Look I am making a little ball." To which they all got excited and told the kids, "Look LaoShi [teacher] is making tang yuan [a little sticky rice ball]." From then on they made all sorts of play "Chinese" food, dumplings and pot stickers and stuff like that.

Can you see Caedmon 'protecting' all his things in this picture.  Despite the LONG talk we had before class about sharing the play dough... Oh Boy.

After class I went to a neighbors house with another woman and their grandkids. As the kids played I was talking with these two ladies who both have daughters that were born in 80' and 82' (I was born in 81). Both of their daughters are only children, as the one child policy was instituted in 79. And so they both have only one grandchild each (who are Caed's age). I asked them if China hadn't made the policy would you have liked to have more kids.
[side note - Caed spilled gatorade on my computer and now the 'question mark' key doesn't work - so from here on out no question marks on my blog]
One woman said YES, she for sure wished she could have had more. The other woman said no. She said that her husband worked in the city and she had to work too, so having more kids would have been to difficult with her lifestyle. I found it so interesting to talk to these women, who are my mom's age. I obviously know what it feels like to be restricted in family planning due to infertility, but I can't imagine how it would feel to be in their shoes. 

My Day in Pictures

The paint cans near the door waiting to make beautiful the walls of our new apartment (we will paint there hopefully this week)

Thankful Tree take 2 - a work in progress

huge pile of clean laundry to fold (which will happen while watching Matrix 2 tonight, we are on night 2 of the trilogy)

Pile of clean dishes needing to be put away, see the 200 kuai hanging up in the back, yep I  most definitely did wash clothes with money in the pockets today

banana bran muffins turned into bread since halfway through making I realized I already packed the muffin tin (in the oven right now - 30 minutes left!)

the dehumidifier tubs that I washed out today, getting them ready for our new place

wish list :)

Caed's deconstructed bed. He is pretty excited to sleep on the floor for a few days

The furniture ready to be moved

All the other stuff I have already packed up

Mushroom Spinach soup I made today for lunch, not a great pic but it was very yummy! Only mushrooms, onions, garlic, water, beef bullion and cut up spinach.

Who's Bright Idea was THIS!

There are so many parts of moving that are not too fun. One of which is dealing with these carpet squares. They are just 'play foam' that we put under the carpet to keep the floor warmer and softer. Now usually this job (pulling them up and putting them back down) isn't that big of a deal. Until we pulled up the living room carpet (this carpet and the pads underneath were here when we moved here last year, the couple who lived here before us put them down) and found this...

Not just normal one color no pattern squares oh no...

Patterns. Animals. TONS AND TONS of little foam pieces that of course fall out while you are trying to move them. And end up all over the place, and are some what tricky to get back in...

Give Thanks

I am thankful. I want to be more thankful. I want to everyday remember to THANK the Lord for everything he has done, is doing and will do. 

Ooooo I am so excited about this project being done. I used two pieces of Styrofoam board taped together to make the base. Then used pieces of paper (in blues and browns) to make a collage. Glued it down. Then modge-podged it onto the board. 

Then the greatest part. I designed the words on PSE. Then went to the local print shop and had them laser cut it out of black contact paper (like making a decal) for only $1.80 - Plus they remove all the excess for me - even the little circles inside all the 'o's'!!!

[this is just plain exciting to me!]

Then carefully applied it to the board.

Finished! It will go in the living room of the new apartment, which we will hopefully move into next weekend. 

This project was inspired by something I saw on jonesdesigncompany.com - She used book pages as a background and then painted on words with black paint. 

And this is another project I did today. I forgot to take pictures along the way though. But I have one more to do, so when I make that I will post some pics and tell you how cheap and EASY this was :)

Mustache

My friend Wray sent us these mustaches a while ago. 

Caed thought it was so funny at first but did NOT want his picture taken with it on.

Sean with blonde mustache

Pretend Party

I found these fun magnet numbers here the other day. Caed has had an especially hard time being interested in numbers and counting (though I have tried SOOO many things to help him). He loves colors and letters though...

Anyway I wanted to play a game where we matched the numbers to the big number at the top. After about three matches he got bored. So we quickly changed it into a pretend game. 

The numbers were all on their way to different parties. They wanted to go with their friends (4s with 4s etc). Then when they were all together we thought about what kids of foods they would eat at that particular party. And there you go, that is how he finished the activity.

Here he is telling the 3s what they were going to eat at their party.

There is no hope for my spelling abilities...

Do you remember a few weeks ago I wrote this post here about the buffet project I made?

Just today we has guests over and someone said, "I think you spelled Romans wrong." Which of course I had - romnas. Now if you know me you will know that spelling is my GREATEST weakness (odd for a English as a second language teacher eh?) Usually I rely on my mom to help me with my spelling mistakes :) She was looking at a scrapbook I had made for Caed once and found TONS of mistakes. I finally said, "I don't even want to know anymore, it is okay when he gets older and reads his book he will know that is was for sure made by his {spelling challenged} mother." And if you read this blog (especially the old posts where I hadn't figured out how to turn on spell check!) you are also familiar with my spelling woes. 

I Want to Be a Mommy - like you!

Today I was taking Caed's clothes off for a bath and I found he had one of my hair ties around his arm. I asked him why he had that on and he said, 

"I want to be a Mommy like you!"

Also this morning we went to visit JieJie at her new place and she, her cousin and Caed were jumping from the bed to the floor pretending to jump into water. I said, "Wow you look like synchronize jumpers!" C asked, "What does that word mean?" So I told him, then he goes, "Oh Mommy I just like that new word a lot!" Oh and also the girls really liked my hair today. They told me, "Auntie your hair looks so pretty when it is SOOOO big like that (i.e. frizzy)" haha. 

Lastly we were watching Little Einsteins before bed and it is a new one where Rocket has a grandma who is a purple Rocket. I asked Caed, "What color is your grandma?" And he thought about it and said, "I don't think she has a color Mommy."

Another idea from the countingcoconuts.blogspot.com is muffin tin meals. We did our first one this week and it was a HUGE hit. I am not exactly sure why, but we have trouble w/ Caed eating so anything that helps is okay by me. He kept saying, "Oh it's my muffin party meal!"

Another thing I have been working on is something to hang over the couch when we move. I decoupaged (is that a word??!!) all these paper scraps to a foam board the other night. I will go and get some words cut out of contact paper and stick them on top. Finished product coming soon. 

A Dreaded Day

Today is a hard day. It is the day that our babies would have been due had we not lost them last summer. A day that I have dreaded for the last nine months. A day that makes me want to curl up in a ball and lay in the bottom of my closet and cry the day away. 

I think this whole last month has been hard for a number of reasons. My hope is that after today I can just move on. We will see. 

Since we have been so busy this last month (with having a local family living with us) I have had little time during the day to think about the lives that we lost last year. But then night comes and as soon as I lay my head on the pillow, these lives are pretty much all I think about. There is this song by Downhere the first line is, 

When everything is wrong
The day has passed and nothing's done
And the whole world seems against me
When I'm rolling in my bed, there's a storm in my head
I'm afraid of sinking in despair.
CHORUS:
Teach me, Lord to have faith
In what you're bringing me will
Change my life and bring you glory 


And I pray that over and over. That God would give me faith to trust him and understand that he has a reason for all this. But let me be honest - I just don't see it right now. I have no idea the 'whys' behind all that has happened this last year. I feel very forsaken and forgotten (hard to explain here but these feelings don't come only from our infertility). I keep trying to speak truth back into my life (Never will I leave you never will I forsake you ----- and ------ Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord) - but it is hard. I don't want to be the 'example'. I don't want to have the story that encourages other people going through similar things right now. I don't want any of this. I keep thinking of the verses in 1 Peter 1:6-7, and wondering if my faith will ever be genuine enough...


In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.


Sean is still out of town until tomorrow. I wish he was here but I also tend to feel guilty for crying in front of him too much. He has been great, but come on a crying wife gets old. So this week while he has been gone I have been working on getting all my tears out. 


I am so ready to move on. To feel joy and hope. Hard part is we still have no idea what the future will bring for our family. Even if we were to try again I feel terrified that we still won't get pregnant. As of right now the fear definitely outweighs the hope of another child. 


*And I also do feel guilt for complaining or having such a hard time with this because we have a little miracle already. And I know so many out there are wishing and hoping for that. 


So I will press on. And mourn the lives that we could have met today had God willed it. I will play with my son (he has been bugging me to play battle the whole time I have been writing this). I will kiss him and love him and hug him way more than he wants. And he will continue to bring me his big night night (blankie) to make me feel happy :) And I'll pray (like Jim from The Office :) - "Lord beer me strength!"

Let's Go Fly a Kite

With Sean gone we have tried to think of activities to keep us busy. On Sunday Caed, the mom and her two kids living with us (though now they have moved out), and I went to a big field to fly kites. This is like an un-official kite-flying-area. Right next to the field are rows of people selling kites. I told Caed to pick out a small one (for 1 dollar!!!). There were fish and planes but he insisted on buying this one (a butterfly girl he called it). 

Caed and JieJie retrieving the kite after it flew away b/c we didn't realize the string on the reel wasn't tied on. 

Caed got boerd with the kite flying and decided playing in the dirt was more fun. This little girl followed him around the whole time, doing everything he was doing and petting his hair. I am sure his mom was not thrilled she was scooping dirt onto her pants...

We got the kite up! See it in the background?!

The kite buying area. 

Another Reason I am Sad to Move

Our Tuesday Mommy and Me class (well mostly grandparents and me) has been going on for many months now. It has been a great way to get to know people in our neighborhood and serve them. Plus it is good practice for Caed, and he likes playing with his friends. 

We will still come back up to this apartment complex once a week to look after a friends place who will be in the States for another year. So when I do that I will take Caed out to the central guang chang (wow I really cannot think of the English word right now - maybe quad?) to play. 

But moving means starting over in another neighborhood. Ahhhh again...

Organize It! And a longing for an older sister...

Sean is out of town for a while. I have tons of stuff I want to post/blog. It has been an especially hard week for me because we are coming up on what would have been our due date had our FET this summer worked out. I have been quite emotional - but that will be a post for later on this week.

And now some pictures and stories to make the grandparents smile.

Last week out friends from the States returned here. They have two kids 4(girl) and 3(boy). Caed is in love with the older girl A. they were over here playing on Sunday and he just followed her around. Then the next morning he woke up and was playing with his Noah's Ark little people set. He was putting all the matching animals together and said, "Look Mommy they all have sisters!" I asked him if he wanted a sister and he said, "Yes, but I need a BIG sister like A."

The next day we went to their house to play. When we first got there the kids were trying to put slippers on Caed and i don't know what was going on in his mind but C just broke down. He started squealing and being all clingy. I think he was just overwhelmed with all the interest in him. (He has not played with English speaking kids in over 4 months now - except for a little in Thailand). Anyway he got over it and had tons of fun. At one point he said, "Mommy I just love A's crayons, they are so beautiful."

Yesterday I told him we were going to go over there to play with T (the boy) and that A was at school. he said, "Okay but I like A the best."

Then at home last night he said, "Let's play pretend I'll be A and you be T Mommy."

Guess he is in love :) But seriously he is very partial to his JieJies (older sisters)

Lining up paper cups to make a snake. 

What happens when C is able to open the box of toys in his room when we put him to bed. All the cars are sorted by type and lined up together. All the sea animals are grouped together too. Hey at least he is  catching on to the whole 'sort by type' thing we to at school. I love how he fell asleep right there.