Another Week Flew By

On Monday we woke up to a heavy rain. I love rain. Zhang and I took the kids to register for “kindergarten”, but I think we should all consider this pre-pre-pre-school.

Registration went OK. I confirmed that Schäfer could say “potty” and “hungry” in Chinese.

I asked if he could just attend for a few hours each day. They needed to check with the director. On Monday afternoon, I received a call saying he would be admitted and if he attended 5 days a week from 8:30 – 11am then his semester fee would be 350rmb or $51.21. (Basically, we’re not doing breakfast or lunch at the school so that saves money).

They totally understood that I needed to teach him his “mother tongue” in the afternoon.

Every child is different. Schäfer is extroverted. He sticks his head out the bus window and talks to the complete strangers standing at the bus stop. He also likes to be with his neighborhood buddies. So, we’ll see how he handles school 5 days a week. If it’s too much, then we’ll drop back a day and see how 4 days a week goes.

There is some confusion as to how to get his immunizations approved. Local children have an official printout from the local hospital that does all the immunizations. Well, we don’t have that print out because we didn’t go to that hospital.

We also need to go get a health check at the good ol’ Women & Children’s Hospital which is where I had all my pre-natal care. It will be fun to go back! I seriously have some funny stories sweet memories from there.

The rain made the weather “so cool” (less than 90) so I baked Amish white bread, sour cream muffins and yogurt muffins. I’m trying to seize the baking opportunities before the summer furnace kicks in.

Jie Jie has been coming up to play with Schäfer. He loves her. The feeling is mutual.

We’ve changed our play times to match his buddies. We are now outside from 8am-10am. By 10, the sun is just blazing so we come inside and then he does his 1.5 hours of play with Ayi.

Some pretty in-your-face discipline issues are back. We thought they were taken care of and our sweet boy had returned, but unfortunately they are back and we are standing our ground every day.

He is especially trying to challenge me on…well, everything. It makes me tired. But I do love him. And just between us: I love the two’s. He’s so playful and active and funny.

See: playful, active and funny!

I’ve finally got a bloom from my Nasturtium’s. I’ve tried everything to get them to bloom: under watered them, watered them, ignored them, talked to them, etc.

I think I’ve finally got the right balance so one or two are starting to bloom. The rest of them are just vines, vines, vines. Should I cut them back?

My ivy is out of control. I think I need to re-pot this into 4 pots. Suggestions? Should I slice it up four ways like a pizza and hope for the best? Should I cut these long vines?

On Friday Schäfer had a big surprise: Mi Le was back to visit his Grandma! When they saw each other, they ran and hugged and hugged and hugged. I seriously think there was a theme song playing in the background.

When Schäfer went down for his afternoon nap, I wanted to make Hubs a bread pudding (one of his favorites). As I went to get the pan out of the cabinet, I noticed bugs in the cabinet.

I won’t go into details (and I will for sure spare you photos!), but everything in the cabinet had to be washed and the cabinet had to be sanitized. Hubs did find the source of the problem: our spring form pan wasn’t cleaned properly (I had no clue there was a secret inner layer) so there was cheesecake hanging out in the cabinet.

It was a great afternoon to receive a care package from Nanamaw.

You’d think Schäfer had never seen a toy truck before by how excited he got over his new Range Rover. Yes, he slept with it that evening.

Saturday was the usual. Bike ride for Hubs. Some work. Out in the neighborhood for us. Schäfer enjoyed his first popsicle of the summer.

On this Sunday morning, Hubs and Schäfer made a dairy run to the farm. Schäfer loved seeing the cows and pigs, but the biggest news is that the “Farm Nai Nai” gave him an ice cream cone! And the second biggest news was that the taxi stopped for gas on the way back!

Hubs turned our kitchen into a science lab with all his diary doings: cottage cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, mesophilic starter, thermophilic starter, pasteurizing milk, and eventually vanilla frozen yogurt and the best strawberry frozen yogurt.

I consider his strawberry frozen yogurt to be one of the best foods I have ever put in my mouth. YUM!

On Sunday evening, we went to the grocery store where I let out a squeal when I saw: COKE ZERO. Yep. It was a bountiful harvest. In fact, there was an entire refrigerator by the checkout line dedicated just to Coke Zero.

I planned on being on Cloud 9 for at least a good solid week, but as soon as we got home we started receiving calls about Swine Flu concerns and some American students who are coming for a culture exchange program.

It’s midnight now so we’d better go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day. Thank goodness there’s a Coke Zero in the fridge.

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