Weekend and Acupuncture

Time sure does fly by when you spend your days in the bathroom or in bed, wallowing in misery…ok, so it’s not that bad, but if in the future, say 2 – 3 years from now, I mention wanting to get pregnant again, please remind me of how awful this has been!

The girls started at Princeton Children’s Preschool . It has gone really well. Liz did cry and put up a bit of a fuss, but after we would leave, she’d calm down and be just fine. On Monday and Tuesday, I picked her up after lunch and then attempted to have her nap at home, which she would have absolutely none of. This in turn made us both exhausted and cranky. So, Wednesday, we left her at school for naptime and of course, she went right to sleep with all the other kids (little brat!). Thursday, the girls both went ½ a day and then we headed off for TaSheen Resort west of Taipei City. It took about an hour to get there. It’s in a beautiful mountainous area. Anthony had a work function going on Thursday and Friday out there and we were lucky enough to get to tag along. We had a fun time and Anthony’s coworkers even embarrassed him by making him get up in front of everybody and they announced that it was our anniversary and made him give me a toast and speech. He was quite embarrassed and unprepared. It was a nice gesture though and fun to have such a big deal made out of something we’d pretty much almost forgotten about. They also had a small cake waiting for us in the room with a nice card wishing us a Happy Anniversary.

On Friday, after I was able to get up and going (that took a while, didn’t feel too well), the girls and I hung out at the pool while Anthony had some conference calls he needed to make. We left the resort around 2pm and decided to drive the long way home – going up and around the west coastline back into Taipei. We stopped in a town called Bali and went to Taiwan’s Architecture Museum. That was a pretty cool place to visit. Ashley did like it much as they had slanted walls that seemed like they were closing in on you and some dark rooms with exhibits. By the time we were done walking around there, we were all beat and tired and ready to head home.

The rest of the weekend was a blur, we didn’t really do much with the kids during the day and I pretty much stayed in bed resting and trying to keep food down. Anthony and I did go out for dinner Saturday evening for our anniversary – to a really good Teppanyaki place in Taipei 101. It was a full 5 or 6 course meal and we were stuffed! The food was delicious! We also went to see a movie and arrived home at 10:30pm to the sound of Ashley screaming. It turns out she didn’t want to go to bed and Miss Wu kept taking her back to her room to lay down and she started throwing a big fit. Nice way to come home, huh?!

I have started acupuncture for my “morning sickness”. I started last week – the doctor put 5 tiny needles in my ear and I kept them in there for a few days. When I went in to start, I was a bit dehydrated, so the ear ones were not only for the stomach, but nervous system and brain function (interesting, huh?). After a few days, he took those out and started regular acupuncture. 6 needles in all – 4 in my legs and 2 in my wrists – it is quite calming for the most part. The needles in my legs don’t hurt a bit, don’t even feel them going on, the ones in my wrist are a different story. He has me put them in a weird curled up position against my belly while waiting about 15-20 minutes under a heat lamp. It isn’t so much a sharp pain as just a dull ache in my wrist area, unless I move them, then it’s a sharp pain. Overall, it’s not too bad and something I’m willing to continue doing to see if it will help. So far, it hasn’t helped one bit. He wants to see my 3 times a week, so maybe it will get better.

It’s now Wednesday and a typhoon is headed our way - looks like a big one. I’ll keep you posted on how we’re doing.

New School and Vacation Plans

Don’t know why I have these “brilliant” ideas. I thought today would be a great morning for going to the local fruit stand to get some fruit – it’s about 3 blocks away – and it’s only morning (can’t be that hot outside!). I walked with Liz in the stroller to discover that the fruit stand wasn’t open, ok, well, I’ll just walk the other block to the local market and get some fresh produce that I need. So, we walked through that, had a great time, bought some salmon, potatoes, onions, broccoli, a hat for Liz (50 NT!) and some cashews. The guy at the fish stand was really sweet, talking to Liz, showing her fish – he had a parrot fish, which I find to be one of the most beautiful fish in the ocean – it was sad to see it there, I’ve never thought of eating one – but it was also beautiful to see out of the water – amazing the colors it has. I had always thought the colors on those fish were so brilliant because of the water and the reflections from the sun, but that is not so. Anyway, I started to feel a little off, so we started to heard back home – boy, it’s a LONG walk home when I feel like puking! In the heat, I was so hot and my stomach was churning. I was walking along a major road though and didn’t really want to give up my breakfast in front of all those people. I managed to make it home (of course, the elevator was on the 10th floor and I had to wait for it come down – argh) and to the bathroom, thank goodness. Guess I’m just not ready to venture out yet in this heat and humidity, with the smells of a market. It did feel good to be out, before I started feeling icky.

We ate last night at a local restaurant – the menu was all in Chinese and Anthony did his best to order something. The tea they served at the place was superb – the milk tea was YUMMY! The food was ok, but I think if we knew what we were ordering, it would have been better. I told Anthony it was nice to go out, to eat local and feel like we actually live here rather than that we are just passing through this place. Sometimes I get that feeling, that we are just biding our time until we leave and not really experiencing all that Taipei has to offer.

I’ve been looking at local preschool/daycare centers for the girls. We got the rate sheet for Ashley’s school for the fall and decided to try and see what else we could find and compare prices (something I didn’t do before). I had just heard how good her school was and all the other expats sent their kids there, so I didn’t do a lot of research on other places. I looked at a place right down the block from us – it was TINY – but they had about 10 students – range in age from 3 to 6. The girls would be in the same classroom, with one Chinese teacher and a foreign (English) teacher a few hours a day. They did outings and field trips and provided lunch. It was a decent place, not the cleanest, but it looked promising. The cost was about ¼ of what we currently pay for Ashley’s school! Yesterday, I looked at another place, near us, called Princeton school. I really like it. It’s colorful, full of books and games and toys, age range is 2 to 6, low student to teacher ratio (both girls classes have 4 students enrolled for fall), Chinese teacher and English teacher, gym room with foam padding, safety concerns, great bathroom with little toilets for the kids, cameras in all the rooms so you can watch the kids from downstairs without disturbing the classrooms and so much more. The tuition is about 1/3 of what we currently pay, which means we can have both girls go for less than what we were paying just for Ashley! That part I am happy about. We’ve decided to go ahead and enroll them starting next week. Liz just isn’t getting enough social interaction with me at home feeling icky all the time, we think it’s best that she start going to a preschool. She seems very excited about it when we tell her she’s going to go to school with Ashley. I’m sure that won’t last, but we’ll see. Ashley is very excited too! Her first comment was “They have English!”. The kids won’t be getting exposed to as much Chinese, but I think for Liz, that’s a good thing since she’s not even speaking much in English. For Ashley, I have mixed feelings on that. She knows a lot more Chinese than she lets on and I just hope that maybe with a class of English and Chinese, she’ll feel more free to speak both languages, like she’s got a choice and isn’t being forced to speak Chinese. Seems like she’ll speak Chinese out of the blue when we don’t expect it, but if we ask her to speak it, she won’t. They’ll go three days next week (Liz ½ days, Ashley all day) and then Thursday and Friday we are going to a little resort with Anthony’s work for a “team building” time. The girls are I just plan on hanging out at the pool while Anthony does his work stuff. I’m hoping it will be fun, should be nice to get out of the city for a bit and stay in a hotel.

In the beginning of September, we are planning a trip to Green Island, an island off the east coast of Taiwan (http://www.greenislandadventures.com/). Should be fun, yet interesting with 2 kids in tow. We have to take a 6 hour train ride from Taipei to a harbor, then a ferry to the island. Only way to get around the island is by foot or scooter – so we get to try our hand at scooters with kids. It’s a small island and should be fun to explore. They supposedly have excellent snorkeling, I really hope so as I could use some relaxation with the fishes.

Cute Kids Through Fatigue-Tinted Glasses

This is a husband post [see, it happens... sometimes... :) ]

Just wanted to share a little life with the kids with you.

To start, of recent Liz has been very co-dependent in her sleeping, she refuses to sleep in her bed unless one of us is in the room (and since she learned to climb out of the crib, this became a problem not so easily glossed over with a closed door and desperate apathy, plus this past week we moved her to her toddler bed).

If we’re lucky and trick her or outlast her, she’ll fall asleep in her room, but 1-2 hours later, you'll hear the quick slapping sound of little fat bare feet on the cold tile floor as she comes running in. Usually, I’ll hop awake to get her and spirit her back to her room before she wakes up too much and lay her back down.

The first two or three times in the night I do a good job, then I start moving slower and she penetrates deeper into our room, towards her exhausted goal: Mommy. Anyway, to fight this off, last couple of nights we’ve been letting her sleep on the floor in our room on the princess couch. And this works well, so far, at least up to about 6am or so, by which time Ashley has usually joined us in bed. Then Ashley starts waking up and she is rarely quiet about it.

Anyways, this particular morning, Ashley’s in bed, starts waking up, and I send her to her room until 7am (that’s the ‘official’, if not well-enforced, rule - for Ashley, anyways). I try to get her there as quickly and quietly as possible, so that Liz is not woken up. C’est la vie, it does not work. And around the time I’m groggily returning to the land of some sleep and no rest, Liz is waking up and getting in between Kimberly and I and our sleep - in our bed. So, I'm down to “just go to the living room or something, please!” This directed at li’l 2-yr-old Liz, who kind of conforms (not quietly by any means), while Kimberly and I do our best to try to go back to sleep.

Fast forward about 30 minutes of what in some under-developed situations such as ours will be termed ‘sleep’ – and I finally get up to check on the girls. And thus get one of the wonderful tableaus that makes the rest of it endurable (which about 50% of the time are tableaus that in themselves are not within the ideal bounds of discipline, but hey, who's counting…) So, I’m assuming that Ashley is still in her room until 7am (pseudo-time-out), and looking for Liz, but Liz is nowhere to be found. Finally, against better judgment (who’s kidding here, I no longer have ‘better’ judgment, the kids have whittled my judgment options down to one pathetic lump of proto-judgment), I go into Ashley’s room.

And there are my two and four-year old, sitting quietly on Ashley’s bed at 7am in the morning, wearing bathing suits (Liz is not in her state-mandated diaper) and working their way through a container of Pringles. To fully paint it, this is one of those ‘frozen tableau’s’ – where they stop and stare at you, knowing that they’ve probably done something wrong, but not quite sure what (or at least not quite willing to ADMIT they know what). Later it turns out Liz might not have her diaper on, but at least she put on a pair of Ashley’s underwear under her bathing suit.

Cute, adorable, and without any redeemable value – except another sweet memory of semi-innocent beautiful mischief.

p.s. I apologize that there was no property damage (which it may sound like I was leading up to), just kids eating Pringles in bathing suits at 7 in the morning, but I swear, it was very cute. And next time, I'm sure I'll have some real damage to discuss...

Groceries

I made it out of the house today! That's pretty good for me lately. I took Liz up to Taipei 101 to get some things at Jason's Marketplace (a high end import supermarket). I decided to post how much some of the items were that I bought. Keep in mind that almost all of them are imported and this is a higher end store, so prices tend to run expensive. When I sat down and figured it out though, I realized that we really pay for our comfort food from home!

12 oz jar of Planters Peanuts 139NT ($4.50 US) ON SALE!!!

24 oz jar of Treetop Applesauce 109NT ($3.50 US)

23 oz bottle of Eggo Syrup 209 NT ($6.75 US)

20 oz can of Dole Pineapple slices 109NT ($3.50 US)

15 oz can of DelMonte Pears 99NT ($3.20 US)

3.5 oz can of black olives 39 NT ($1.25 US) ON SALE!!!

1 box of Jello 59 NT ($1.90 US)

1 tiny watermelon 199 NT ($6.40 US)

Our BIG news

Well, I guess it's about time I post our latest news. We always seem to have something going on. Many of you already now this, so it won't be a surpise, but....we're having a third kid! Yep, I'm pregnant - again. We found out right before our trip back home to the States so I was able to see my doctor back home to confirm everything. The due date is February 26, 2006. Our current plan is that we go back home to the States to deliver the baby - leaving Taipei sometime in December. This will mean that Anthony will be traveling back and forth from Asia to the States quite often while I stay at home with the kids. It'll be difficult, but I'm very happy that I'll give birth at home.

It's been a fairly difficult pregnancy so far, I've been really sick and tired. The doctors here have given me some medicine that has helped a bit with the nausea/vomiting, so that's good. I'm hoping that it will all ease away soon. I went yesterday for a prenatal visit with a doctor here in Taiwan - she was pleasant and spoke good English. We heard the heartbeat (at 10 weeks) so all is going well at this point. I've lost some weight from being sick, but I have no doubt that will all come back in the next few months. I'm starting to do a bit of reading on natural childbirth as I've been thinking of maybe trying it this time. I haven't made up my mind, but I do wonder what the whole experience would be like without any drugs.

We are excited and looking forward to the next year and all that's going to happen. I am hoping to find out the sex of the baby at our 20 week ultrasound - I know we have been surprised 2 times now, but this time, I just think it best to find out ahead of time to make it easier for preparation. If it's a boy, I feel like I'd have no idea what to do with him! Gotta prepare for that! We will be happy no matter what the sex, boy or girl. The girls are excited - Ashley says she wants a baby brother and Liz is just excited about a baby. She loves them and I'm hoping that will hold true in the future.

Cost of Milk

I just figured out how much we pay for milk here – we pay 65NT for a quart of milk – that is about $2.15 (US) per quart of milk – which is $8.60 per gallon! Wow, that’s pretty steep. We go through about 2 gallons a week – we get it home delivered every Tuesday and Friday. Now, this is organic milk, straight from some farm on the day we get it delivered, but still…that’s expensive.

Back to the Daily Grind

We are back home in Taipei. Got back 2 weeks ago, when a typhoon was hitting the island! Of course, what else would be expected of us. I swear we just attract the water. We landed in Tokyo and waited the storm out there for a few hours. They told us it would be a bumpy ride (I was really hoping we would just stay the night in Tokyo) but they were going to fly us in on the backside of the storm. The flight really wasn’t that bad and I managed to sleep through the majority of it, so that was good. We got back pretty late at night, I think around midnight. The girls took a long time getting back to schedule. Elizabeth figured out how to climb out of her crib the first night we were back! So, everytime she woke up, she headed into our room or the living room to play. It was quite frustrating. She’s still waking up super early – between 5 and 6 am, but at least Ashley is finally back to sleeping all night.

We had a great time back home in the States and really enjoyed seeing family and friends. I got to celebrate my birthday with everyone, so that was wonderful. The girls really had fun with the grandparents (thanks granddad for the pool!). It was great staying in our house and we felt completely comfortable there. I was sad that it was such a short visit – 2.5 weeks just isn’t enough time to see everyone and spend quality time with all. It also isn’t enough time to get kids adjusted to the time zone difference and then do it all over again on the way back. UGH. That is the one thing that really bites about traveling with them.

Ashley is back in school – for summer session. It’s a smaller group and she’s got the “baby” class in with her class. When she started going back, she asked why her school was different and said she didn’t like it. I explained to her that it’s different because there are some new kids and lots of kids are still in the States visiting family and that the whole school is all in one classroom for now. They are remodeling the upstairs where they had some water damage from the last typhoon – so the two classes that were upstairs are downstairs for now. She seemed to understand all this and then was fine with her “different” school. They have outings once a week and do cooking, music and gymnastics during the summer session, so she actually is enjoying herself. Today, they made sushi – not that she would eat any of it, but she did have fun making it. I went to pick her up and she was sitting eating pretzels while the rest of the class ate sushi. At least she was eating something, right?!