Things that I did today - 08/27/2017
If you've been waiting for a brilliant update on the blog... you'll be disappointed. I just think this might be better suited to save here than on the Facebooks. Photo credit to my mom for not only using landscape mode, but also for getting all four kids doing the same thing at the same time.
Things that I did today, mostly because adoption.
- Woke up at 7:03 wondering if today is the day the kids learn to sleep in. They didn't.
- Wrestled a half naked child who didn't want to put on clean pants.
- Shouted "NO" repeatedly like it would make a difference.
- Made frequent visits to the bathroom to avoid hearing "I have to go potty" somewhere in the back 40, far from civilization, and not willing to risk that it is just a #1.
- Walked briskly like I was being followed to avoid being seen on the way out of nursery door.
- Knowingly let a kid walk down steps in a swimming pool because using words wasn't going to teach a lesson.
- Saved a kid from drowning because he didn't know his limits going down the steps in a pool.
- Rode a pink scooter. No, there are not any pictures.
- Stopped at an otherwise avoidable gas station to buy a Cherry Coke... because I had to stop for someone to use the toilet and it required a key on a stick.
- Carried a child wearing nothing but a t-shirt (as pants) out of a church because said child had that large of an "issue" prior to making it to the commode.
- Speaking of commode... I really just wanted to write this post so I could say that Central Wesleyan Church has incredible plumbing. In an attempt to clean some super hero briefs, the toilet sucked them down the pipe never to be seen again. Subsequent flushes assured me that no flooding will (immediately) result of my loose grip. Thankfully the pants I rinsed did not follow along.
- Gave three kids a total of four baths because I couldn't tell the difference between a milk spill... and not a milk spill.
- Was reminded that for all the stress, bathroom adventures, and unknowns that are face each day that little boy sure is a handsome fella' and I'm glad he's ours.
The First Week Home
Kristi is hard at it tonight writing up her thoughts on one things or another. I could ask her but it would be more fun if you just read it yourself. I'm guessing her insight will be more robust than mine, and in fact he had his first state side medical visit earlier this week that is probably best detailed by my wife.
Update: I assumed my wife was writing about his health so I wrote the previous and following lines. I then told her that I assumed she was writing about the doctor and she said "Nope". So let's just agree that at some point we'll give you the proper details, it just won't be tonight as I assumed. Shame on me.
Spoiler: There are a few "surprises", but overall he's as healthy as we expected and the doctor even mentioned his belly as proof that he was well cared for. Future tests and scans will provide additional direction on how to best address his current and future health needs... but again, he's a pretty healthy and pretty cool dude. I mean, who else can rock sun glasses with one ear? (Credit to Kristi for both the photo and the placement of the glasses)
It seems that the question of the week has been "how are you doing with your jet lag?" To be honest, I don't know. Kristi and I have had an incredibly fulfilling, frustrating, frightening, and fun week. Most nights neither one of us is able to sleep for any extended amount of time due to the children, so I can't tell if I'm jet lagged, exhausted, or both. Joshua is like a new born in the body of a toddler with the brain of a four year old. He goes to bed well but after 11:00pm all bets are off. Some nights he'll get to 6:00am, other nights he likes to party every hour on the hour. Thankfully Kristi has taken more than her fair share of the early morning child wrestling.
Joshua also runs around the house with the spirit and craziness of a toddler, but with better coordination, speed, and destructive skills. He is also incredibly adept at recognizing patterns. As a family we hold hands and pray before dinner and even though he's always ravenous he sits in his chair and spreads his arms while bowing his head even while the rest of us scramble to sit. I also hear he's pretty good at some simple clean up and other routine things around the home. He also seems to be doing quite well with the neighborhood kids. He at least tolerates new people and spent a few minutes on the trampoline this weekend.
Today we also managed to take all the kids on a short hike at Van Raalte Farm. All of the kids had fun, most of them stayed dry, and no one got lost. For too long. Here are a few highlights.
The photo of Kristi and I on the bench, with Ben wiggling behind us and Joshua trying to get up on Kristi's lap pretty much sums up the week. Joshua trying to get Kristi's attention, me trying to hold Kristi's attention, and the rest of the kids just kind of doing their own thing in the background.
I know you aren't supposed to write anything on the Internet if you don't want people to read it, misinterpret it, or use it against you at an inopportune time. I'm going to anyway with this caveat: I find there to be an interesting juxtaposition between our blessings, our happy times, the sad times and struggling of others, and the outright feeling that I'm tired and frustrated with a few things. I do not take for granted the blessings that have been bestowed upon my family, nor do I want to make light of the struggles of others. I just want to share my thoughts a little bit.
In reality I have it easy. I get up, kiss all four kids good bye and go off to my safe space. Work. At work I get to sit at my desk and interact with clients who are interested in our new son, and I even get to help a few clients out with problems of their own. Most days I love solving IT problems for my clients and it was a welcome relief to get back to it this week. I'm also quite happy to say that I don't think I royally messed anything up. If I'm correct, I've done way worse things fully coherent and rested than I did this last week. That said, I'll honestly admit I wasn't up to full strength at all. Having been out of the office for nearly three weeks it is hard to remember the day to day things that had been happening prior to the trip and that was a little frustrating, but I also felt like I had a few moments of clear thought from a fresh perspective. After work, I come home to eat dinner, play with the kids and then put them to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat all week long. Kristi is the saint who is at home with the kids, or driving them around, or trying to figure out what to do with two sick kids and two healthy and wired kids during a rainy first day of spring break. I cannot tell you how excited I was for work on Friday. As a fun side note, I also honked at a car while driving this week just to make it feel like I was back in China.
As I review the last week, and again I get to play work so I have it easy, I'd say that Joshua is doing about as well as expected. He's social, full of life, eats wells, empties well, and overall is adjusting pretty well. Sure he screams, throws tantrums, waves his arms and yells incoherently, but so do I. The real surprise, to me at least, was the behavior of the rest of our children. In my mind we were to go to China and bring back a boy and Ben would be a good boy because he got to spend the whole time with us, and the girls would be happy we were back even though they had fun with the grand parents. I think I underestimated the change a new member of the family brings. Each child is simply coping in their own way. In the midst of parenting one slightly needier child, we now have a total of four kids who each need a little extra grace now and then as they figure out what this all means. To put this in simple terms each child knows the rules and the expectations and I'd say they are slightly less compliant with the rules and expectations. We have three little role models for Joshua and I (see this is really my problem) wasn't ready for the role models to need a little time to warm up to their responsibility. No one is really being a big stinker, just a lot of little things that add up over time.
So what to do? I could wine about it but that seems fruitless. Actually, Kristi and a daughter got to spend time at Beauty and the Beast over the weekend, and Kristi will take the other daughter for a manicure or pedicure or something next weekend. I should say that the movie itself was great, because Joshua, Ben, and another daughter went with me to run a few errands. The fact that Joshua didn't thrown a complete tantrum without mom is a pretty good indication that he's attaching to the family pretty well, even though he prefers Mom about 1,000,000:1. I'll make time to spend an hour or two of daddy/daughter time with the girls at some point in the next week or two. It is amazing how one extra busy body makes planning a night or afternoon out that much more difficult.Ben too is having a few issues, but as a true man he just eats them and doesn't say anything... his behavior lets us know something is up, but I suppose he too is dealing with jet lag, going back to school, and a new bunk mate.
I guess I could have summed this all up by saying we aren't sleeping well, our kids are coping, and we're just tired. Tired, but incredibly blessed. Kristi mentioned last night that despite all the "MOMMA, MOMMA, MOMMA, MOOOOMMMMAAAA" shouting she hears during the day, the belly laugh of Josh is a sweet an encouraging sound to hear. As I think we've both said before he fits in so well in our family.
Week one is in the books and we survived. We've had one wet bed, one lost tooth, one fell out of bed and got stuck between the mattress and the bookshelf, a handful of scoldings, a bevy of belly laughs, and despite the fact that I can barely understand a single thing that comes out of that boy's mouth, he feels like he's been here forever. Here's to week two.
Opposites Day
As I sit here looking out our hotel window I feel it necessary to tell you that in my house we celebrate Harry Potter. First we celebrate the books, then we celebrate the movies (as it should be). Are these books about witches, wizards, and sorcery? Yes. Are there also redemptive themes that we can emphasize and use to educate our children? Kristi and I certainly think so.
If you haven't read the books or seen the movies I will not wait for you to do so. That is something that should be enjoyed slowly, like a cigar around a campfire. It isn't something you should do while you know someone is waiting on you. Why do I bring this up? Great question...
Do you love yogurt this much?
After starting our day at breakfast we took a short bus ride to the local pearl market. The weather is warm but rainy and I figured we'd be outside in make shift booths getting drenched while shopping to support the local commerce. According to our guide there are quite a few small businesses in China and many of the owners have little to no education in running a business. They just try because they don't have any other options. Instead I was pleased to see that that "market" was actually a five story building with a common area in the middle. I'd consider it a mall in China as many malls are multiple stories high and consist of many different stores all under one roof. I handed Kristi my wallet and said have fun sweetheart (major points right?) and off she went. Actually she and Ben picked out some nice necklaces for the girls back home and a jade "life saver" for Ben. It's actually a necklace too but it looks like a lime green life saver. I was off taking Joshua to the sitting room while they did their shopping.
If you aren't familiar with my family here are my two daughters who had to stay home for this adventure. Madeleine is on the left and takes after her mother. Kayleigh, the sophisticated one is on the right and is the spitting image of me. If you believe that I have a Nigerian prince I'd like to introduce you to.
Having completed our shopping at the pearl market we wandered up to the silk embroidery store where we were just going to browse... until we saw some nice wallets that replace failing wallets back home. The best part of the store was they took American Visa!!! We are in a weird quagmire of not having enough cash on hand, not wanting to take out too much RMB cash that we have left over at the end of the week, and having American money that is difficult to turn into RMB. So if a store accepts the "American" Visa we are fans. (Turns out Visa isn't really everywhere I want to be) Our final shopping destination was Shamian Island which is home to a little store called Jenny's (they too accept American Visa) where we were able to get updated Chinese clothing for the kids. Shamian Island is also where we get back to the Harry Potter nonsense at the beginning of the post.
Shamian Island must be cool because it has it's own Wikipedia entry. I do not. The Island was a French and British hotspot back in the day, and legend has it a prominent Chinese girl married a British Sailor and the powers that be jailed her entire family because of the marriage. I'm not sure if they were upset she married a Brit, or a sailor. Regardless you can see on parts of the island that there is a great deal of French architecture in the buildings. Our guide mentioned New Orleans and it was clear walking through parts of the Island that it could be mistaken for parts of the New Orleans.
In the Harry Potter books there is a place where the students get their supplies located in London called Diagon Alley. It is a nice place with nice clean stores and everybody who is there seems to be having a good time and a good if not great life. Our first stops at Shamian Island were like that. Nice, clean, and fans of the Oxford Comma.
However, somewhere near Diagon Alley is another place called Knockturn Alley. Knockturn Alley is the place you tell your kids never to go even if they are with a friend. It's a place where even if you need flesh eating slug repellent, you don't exactly announce that you are going there. When all the shopping was done we walked to the "other side of the river" to the market where they had weird stuff. Fish scales, scorpions, deer parts, bugs, herbs, spices, and a variety of other things were all over this part of the island. This side of the Island made it click that todays' topic should be opposites, or the difference between Diagon and Knockturn Alleys.
The pictures don't necessarily do it justice, but hopefully you can see the difference walking 1/8th of a mile makes. Kristi mentioned it was a little uncool, unfair, or just plan cruel to parade a bunch of Americans past these people as if they were some sort of side show on the trip. I hadn't given it much thought but she's probably right (you can count that one sweetheart) in her statement. There are probably many deep conversations that could be had, but the very bottom line for me is that there are people who have some and are working to get more, and there are others who have even less, but they too are working to get more. Regardless of class it seems that everybody is taking responsibility to try and do something to make a living. I think that is the end of my deep thoughts for now.
At the conclusion of the Island adventure we stopped for a treat at Subway. It was a meal of firsts as both Josh and Ben learned they can eat ham and cheese! As a father and fellow picky eater I was quite proud of boy #1. Boy #2 seems to eat most anything so he's already cooler than me. Upon returning to the hotel we took a quick nap, family hot tub session, and then it was off to a local noodle shop for dinner. Kristi even managed to get a photo of me with noodles in chopsticks. Who needs portion control when you have chopsticks? I get so tired of trying to eat I just give up.
Joshua seems to be doing very well and is responding quite well to the family so far. I'll stop short of making any bold proclamations that will come back to bite me, but he's a little guy with a big personality so he'll fit in quite nicely.
Dear Vladimir
Hey Vlad,
Can I call you Vlad? I'm just going to try it and see what happens.
How's it going?
Turns out not so well now that I Googled how to spell your name. Sounds like you need to get a few things in order. Good luck with the British Troops and all... Enough about politics though, I want to talk about hacking.
Earlier today my wife and I took our newly adopted son to the doctor where he was poked, prodded, and otherwise boy-handled until he was crying and sporting quite a nice bland brown band-aid. The good news is that he's ok, nothing out of the ordinary and we may even have received good news that his hypospadia may not be an issue. If you don't know what it is don't Google it at work. Here is a hot pic of us at the doctor:
While Josh is getting examined Ben is brushing up on his playlists, podcasts, Khan Academy courses, but most of all Angry Birds 2.
After the doctor's appointment I ventured out for bread and other items so we can make our gourmet meals in the hotel room. Nothing beats a "free" sandwich for the week at a price that beats a single bottle of Evian here in the hotel room. I managed to navigate an underground train entrance, an overpass, and I even paid with awkward change just to confuse the nice teller at the store. Somehow I thought an extra 2 RMB would make a difference. It didn't. Having finished our lunch Ben and I wandered the grounds and then met with Sir Richard who put our papers together for the consulate meeting on Tuesday. Following that we went for a family swim in the freezing pool and pouring rain that will be a good story someday I'm sure. Here's a hint: we ended up wet.
Now comes the point I wanted to make. Dinner. Last night was gourmet nuggets at McDonald's which means that tonight old fashioned Chinese food was on the menu. Being the man of the house I chose a spot and we set off dodging raindrops on our way to dinner. Our first choice was a bust as the Chinese food didn't include noodles which is the extent of Ben and my "Chinese" food. We hit a few other spots including a Korean Barbecue, and Japanese sit down, and we finally ended up at Paddy Field Irish Pub. That's right, only a true man with unquestionable navigation skills can set off for Chinese food and end up in an Irish Pub.
Whilst we were enjoying our slightly pricier but oh so delicious mistake in navigation it came to my attention that the POS (Point of Sale) systems employed by the Guinness guzzling gestalt showed a pretty prairie picture on screen when switching between windows. Now, to the untrained eye this may have appeared as nothing but a mere personal prairie preference for one's desktop background, ahhh but to you and me, Vlad, it was the tell tale sign of an out of date POS system that is in dire need of an upgrade. That's right, they are running Windows XP! (Insert scary sound effect here).
April 8th, 2014 was the final day that Microsoft sent out security patches for much beloved and widely deployed Windows XP operating system. At the time it was a bittersweet day as Microsoft was pushing the Metro-themed and mightily confusing Windows 8 variant, and Windows 7 just hadn't had the deployment reach that Microsoft was hoping for. I'm sure that Paddy Field is just one of many local establishments that are still making their money using antiquated and highly vulnerable software. So, Vlad, I ask this of you: Please stop messing with Americans in the United States and instead mess with unsuspecting tourists trying to get a good burger in the middle of China. These poor desperate chaps will walk through pouring rain storms with a single umbrella amongst four of them to get their grubby hands on a greasy burger or fabulous chicken fajitas (only $10.99!!!) and their credit information is prime for the picking.
For a quick recap we have:
- Joshua has so far passed all his medical exams
- Ben still likes to swim even if the water is 20C
- Steve still struggles with Chinese Food
- Kristi is likely on her way to sainthood for this trip
- Russia should spend their time compromising POS systems in Guangzhou and leave America Alone. If they are in fact doing anything. (Don't want to get busted for libel)
That is my quick recap of my day and for the credit conscious consumers worried that the old POS system is going to ruin me... I paid cash.
Don't forget to check out www.kristivandyk.com for the real story of the day.