Flush Nothing Down Paper Toilet

Anthony is back from Beijing – he had a great trip and I am just glad he’s back. It’s no fun when he’s gone. The girls were very difficult to handle this time around, often making me think that I’m just not cut out to be a mom. I know that’s not the truth, I think it’s just that I’m not cut out to be a SINGLE mom, kudos to all those single moms out there, I don’t know how you do it! I find that I have very little patience when Anthony is not around and I haven’t figured out why yet. Anthony pointed out that maybe I spend too much time cleaning up and picking up and doing things around the house and not enough time paying attention to the kids. Probably true in a way, but so hard to find that happy medium. When Anthony used to travel back home, the girls and I would get into a routine and it was fine, it was actually quite enjoyable sometimes, just me and the girls, but here, it’s a completely different story.

One fun day was Saturday, I took the kids to BBSmart where some of our friends were playing – so they got some exercise running around and got to play with some of their friends. Then in the afternoon, I took Ashley to see “Robots” with some friends while Beth’s helper watched Liz (who didn’t seem to care that I was gone!). Ashley loved the movie and it was so nice doing something with her all alone, without Liz or Anthony. We had dinner afterwards with Beth, Ingu and Claire, but that was trying since it was late and Ashley didn’t want to eat anything I had ordered. Other than that, it was nice.

Anthony’s birthday was yesterday. I made him a cake – Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix with homemade chocolate frosting. First time to bake a cake in a convection oven, using Chinese instructions (they covered up the English instructions with a Chinese sticker and I couldn’t get it off), it turned out GREAT! It was so yummy!!! The cakes they make here are just not sweet enough and the frosting they use is pretty nasty, usually whip cream based and more dairy than sugar. Probably healthier for you but not as tasty! Anthony was very happy with it and so was I. We all went out to dinner at Amaroni’s – an Italian restaurant. Although it was good, I think he would have preferred dinner with just the two of us, the kids are a bit difficult to handle in restaurants now. Liz is at an age where she absolutely refuses to sit still any longer than it takes to consume her food. Before the food comes and once she’s done, she just wants to run around or sit in our laps making it hard for us to eat.

I got a parking ticket this morning – ugh. Parked in normal spot in front of Ashley’s school to drop her off – they don’t have any designated parking and all the open spots near the school are red lined, meaning no parking, but really no choice, plus it was raining. Police came by and ticketed me for parking illegally. Supposedly they’ll mail the ticket to whoever owns the car (the leasing company) so everyone at Anthony’s work will know that we got another ticket. Nice, huh? Guess I’ll have to be more careful in the future.