We've moved

We are moving to Beijing, China and so I've started a new blog - here's the link:

http://armstrongsfromtexas.blogspot.com/

I'll be posting about the expat life in China with three small kids.

It's getting closer

Our official leave date for Taiwan is now December 13! I can't believe it's so soon - less than three weeks away. We are going to Beijing for a week before flying to Arizona to visit with family for Christmas and then home to Texas right before Christmas. I am starting to get really excited. There's quite a bit to do before we leave, mainly just figuring out what to ship home and what to keep here for moving onto China next year.

The girls are doing good. I think it's starting to hit Ashley though that we are leaving and it's gonna be a bit hard on her at first. We were at Chili's the other night and she was in a really funky mood - not wanting to talk to Winter or go inside and play with all the staff, which is what she usually does. She actually started tearing up when I asked what was wrong and why she didn't want to go see Winter. She wouldn't say anything, but we finally figured out that she'd seen some boxes we packed up in the living room and had realized we were moving. She said she would miss Winter - we'll miss her too! Once we talked a bit about it, Ashley was happy again and went to talk with Winter and staff. Winter gave the girls some princess charms - too cute. We keep talking to the girls about going home to see all the grandparents. Last night at dinner, Liz said "go grandad's house" and kept pointing to a picture we have of the girls and grandad - she's very excited to be going.

They both started ballet class last week - it was interesting. I think I'm gonna have to leave next time so they pay more attention - as Liz kept coming out to see me and hang with me instead of stay in the class. They looked so cute in their little outfits. Liz did about 1/2 the things that the older kids did. The class is pre-ballet, so it's from ages 2-4 - both girls are in the same class. With Ashley's gymnastics class on Thursday and ballet on Friday, I noticed a bit of a trend that we're gonna have to address with her. It seems that she's gotten used to a lot of one on one attention in a classroom setting. So, when she doesn't get the attention she wants, she acts up - interrupting teacher, saying inappropriate things, acting inappropriately, etc. When she didn't get the attention she wanted in ballet, she went off in a corner and didn't participate in the class for about 15 minutes. I've spoken to her about it, so we'll see how this week goes. I guess it will be interesting once we are back in the States and she's not glorified for being white and cute anymore, how much her attention grabbing skills will be used.

The baby and I are doing just fine. He's kicking and moving all around like crazy. I can't believe that I have three more months of this - he seems to be so big already, I don't know how my body will handle the rest of the pregnancy. The yoga has helped and hopefully, I'll be able to continue taking that once I am back home. I have started to have lots of ligament stretching pains, along with the sore rib spot that I've had with all my pregnancies. I bought a pregnancy belt the other day, which helps to lift up my belly and give my back some support.

I got to watch the Vikings play football today - that was fun, especially since they won and beat the Packers. We get Sunday and Monday night football games here but it's rare that we actually get to see one of our teams play. Anthony has gotten us tickets to go to a Cowboys game up in Dallas while we are visiting his family. That should be fun and something we are both looking forward to.

My family's expanded!

My little brother and his girlfriend had a baby boy 2 days ago - Carter. He's a cutie from the pics I've seen and I hope that someday soon I'll get to see him in person. That's what really bites about families living so far apart from one another these days. Ashley and Liz have four cousins, all within 4 years of each other and they probably will never have the opportunity to spend much time together. Each family lives in a different city or state than we do (obviously now, in a different country, too!). Anyway, it's exciting news and I wish the best for my bro and his new little family.

Not much happening here, starting to kind of clean up stuff to get ready for the move. Going through paperwork, tossing things we don't need or use, etc. Also, the cool/cold weather has hit here (although you wouldn't know it since I slept with the air conditioner on last night!) and Ashley has almost nothing warm to wear and what she does have - not much of it matches, so she's in desperate need of clothes. She's getting to an age or stage though, where she wants to pick out her clothes so she can wear what she likes, not what mom thinks she should wear. She's really into fashion - funky, fun, colorful stuff - nothing just plain Jane boring. I put on some black, pink and white striped socks the other day and was told how cute my socks were! She's pretty funny right now. I did go shopping today and bought her some clothes that I found at an outlet store - mainly "The Children's Place" clothing - some really cute stuff, or at least, I think so, we'll see what she has to say!

First the Oven, then the Bread Machine

I am beginning to think that rejects get sent to be sold in Taiwan at an inflated price and then break so that you have to replace it. First, our toaster oven went out. This is owned by the landlord and of course, trying to get the landlord to replace it is near impossible and trying to get it fixed takes forever since we have to go through our rental agent, who goes through the landlords rental agent who has to talk to the landlord about what to do, who then tells our rental agent who then forgets that we needed something done and never gets back to us. It's really frustrating. So, I just bought a new oven which we'll take with us when we move.

Last week, I tried to make some bread in the machine and it never did rise or cook properly, so I just figured I'd gotten the recipe wrong or the yeast was bad. But then today, I tried again, using a bread machine bread mix, which you can't really go wrong with, and nothing happened. It stirred everything up into a goey mess, but it didn't cook it. So, our bread machine is broken. We got it from Costco, so I'm gonna try to see if we can get it fixed instead of chalking up another loss.

Both these items are less than one year old and it's not like they are used even on a weekly basis, so I'm at a loss as to why they are breaking. I've noticed that things tend to break here easily - cabinets, furniture, appliances, plastic things, etc. I just don't understand.

It has finally cooled down here, a cold front came through yesterday, thank goodness. I was getting REALLY tired of 90 degree weather, even though almost all my maternity clothes are summer clothes. It's so nice to go outside and take a walk in the cool breeze instead of sweating up a storm just walking to the park.

I did my glucose test yesterday and I passed! I was a bit worried and really didn't want to have to sit for three or four hours in a crowded busy hospital getting my blood drawn again. If you live in the States, u should be very happy that you get to drink an orange flavored sugar drink for your test. It's just pure sugar here that you mix with water and it tastes just like sugar or syrup - kind of similar to Karo Syrup but not that thick - not exactly fun to drink. It's quite gross. Anyway, I passed, so that's all that matters.

Weekend

We had a good weekend. Anthony took me out Saturday night while Ms. Wu watched the girls. He took me to a place called the "Swiss Chalet", which is, well, swiss food. We ordered fondue - both for dinner and for dessert - the dinner was just meat, which we'd not had before, so we experimented with how to cook it until we figured it out. We tried asking the waitress how long to cook each meat, but she didn't really answer - you'd think she'd know, but maybe it was because she spoke very little English? Anyway, the beef was really good, the shrimp good and the chicken was just ok. We had chocolate fondue for dessert, which was very tasty. We got home at 10:00 and were told the girls were asleep, but that Ashley had gone down at 9:30, which is very late for her. Ms. Wu left and we went to check on the girls, to our surprise, their light was on and they were happily playing together with Barbies! Too funny!

We went to DaAn park today, taking the girls rollerblades, so they could practice. It was packed at the park. I'm not used to going to the parks during the weekend, only during the week, so it was a bit of a change to see so many people around. After naps, we took the girls to see "Chicken Little" - it was just going to be Ashley and me, but we decided to try and see if Liz could make it through a movie - no such luck, Anthony left 1/2 way through and took Liz home - she just couldn't sit still or be quiet. Ashley loved the movie though and sat mesmerized through the whole thing. I thought it was ok although I really don't understand why SO many Disney movies have main characters with no mothers. Ashley and I also went out to dinner at her choice of restaurant, which was Chili's of course "since Winter will be there" was her reason (Winter is a waitress at Chili's that is always wonderful with us and the girls - she gets them little gifts and plays with them often letting Anthony and I eat in peace). It was nice spending some one on one time with Ashley. We also went walking around doing some window shopping - she loves looking at Barbies, My Little Ponies and Horses. Barbie has come out with some new fairy tale thing involved a pegasus which she has fallen in love with - her favorite thing right now is horses, ponies, unicorns....u get the picture.

It was a good weekend overall although I think it will take me a few days to recover from all the activitiy - my legs and belly are a bit sore from all the walking, along with my Yoga on Saturday.

Interesting Ultrasound

I had a high level ultrasound a few weeks ago where they measure, count and look everything over to make sure baby is developing properly. We had this done at the Private Clinic next to ChungShan hospital. The tech was very thorough, even making sure he could count fingers and toes. The size of the baby is good for our due date and everything looked great. We got a few photos, although nothing really good - no profiles or hands waving or anything. After it was over, the tech was trying to portray to us that an ultrasound does not guarantee that the baby will be 100% healthy and normal, but it was quite interesting how he told us this. He would say things like "the baby may have a mouth, but may not be able to speak, the baby has two eyes, but may not be able to see", etc. We understood what he was trying to convey but it was a weird way of hearing it.

Baby Update - 24 weeks

I am now 24 weeks pregnant and little Junior is starting to get very active. I went to the doctor today for a checkup - here, I just go when we think it's time, no appointments, no reminders. It had been over a month since I'd last seen my OB and I know that the glucose test is around 24 weeks, so I went. For some reason, the hospital was busy, lots of kids and adults, sick kids and adults, I assume, standing around coughing and breathing the same air as myself, a healthy pregnant woman. That is one thing I REALLY don't like about the doctor visits here - everyone is all together, sick and well, sure makes it a lot easier to pick up nasty little germs. Anyway, saw the doctor, all is well. My weight is the same as the last time I had a visit - so I got a stern look for that. I had to remind her that I'd lost a bunch of weight from my last sickness and have since gained it all back, so I've actually done quite well. She listened for Junior's heartbeat and found a very muffled, but steady one after prodding and poking and hurting me for a few minutes. She said Junior must be way back by my spine so it was hard to get a clear heartbeat. He was kicking the doppler wand anytime she stuck it in my belly, so I know he was doing ok in there. For my glucose test, the pharmacy gave me a bag of sugar - at least that's what it looks like, told me to mix it with 200cc of water, drink it in 5 minutes and come to hospital to get my blood drawn exactly one hour after drinking. I will do it on Monday. It cost me $150 NT (about 5 us dollars) to get the sugar - apparently the National Health Insurance does not cover the cost of the test here. Makes me wonder how many women elect to not have it done then and whether it's even a cause of concern for the Asian population.

I haven't been sleeping too well. I take a long time to fall asleep, usually because that when my body starts aching from the day and Junior wakes up and starts kicking/punching. I have been having these really sharp shooting pains on my right side at night that are very bothersome. Doc said it's probably a nerve and that only time will make it go away. I sure hope it goes away soon. I'm exhausted in the mornings, try and take naps in the afternoon and am ready to go back to sleep by 8pm! It's really sad.

I am taking Yoga classes once a week. The instructor does the class in Chinese, as I'm the only foreigner in the class - but she'll occasionally switch to English if she sees me looking lost or confused. I was really sore after last weeks class so it is doing it's job! I've also noticed that a lot of the poses we do open up the pelvic muscles and are often poses that you see in natural childbirthing techniques, so hopefully, this is getting me ready.

I'm currently reading "The Birth Book" by the Sears duo. It is a very good read and has give me some great information on attempting to labor and birth naturally. I'm actually starting to look forward to my labor and my whole birth experience with this one. I even dreamt about it last night! Definitely a different mindset than with my others ("Just give me the drugs as soon as I have my first contraction!").

The Next 6 Months will be Interesting

I guess it’s time to update everyone on our living arrangements, meaning where we’ll be living and when. Our current plan is to leave Taiwan in the middle of December to travel home for the holidays. We will stop in Arizona to visit family there before heading home to Austin for Christmas and New Years. I will stay in Austin with the girls and Anthony will travel back to Taiwan for work. He’ll come back to Austin in February, hopefully for the birth of the baby. Then a week or so after the baby is born, he’ll head back to Asia. We aren’t sure yet if that means Taiwan or to the new city we are being assigned to – BEIJING! Then, sometime in April, depending on when the new baby is at least 6 weeks old, Anthony will come back to Austin and pick us all up and we’ll all fly to Beijing where we will live for at least one year. Pretty exciting, yet, nerve wracking at the same time. I am sad to leave Taiwan, as I’ve made some good friends here, but we always knew we wouldn’t be here for long, such is the life of an expat. I am excited to be coming home for a few months, even if that means living life with 3 kids and no husband around! It will be a hard and trying time for all of us, I’m sure. We’re working on whether to put the girls in school for a few months while home or to hire someone to come to the house to help out. Maybe both, we’ll just have to see how that plays out.

I realized this last weekend that Ashley will be starting kindergarten in the fall, so we have a new dimension to our relocating that we haven’t had to worry about before – making sure there is a good school nearby where we live that Ashley can attend in Beijing. The one that I know of in Beijing is the International School of Beijing, which is not anywhere near where Anthony works. So, it will be interesting finding housing there. I can’t believe that Ashley is almost old enough for real school! How time flies.

We are keeping an eye on the bird flu situation. I am not concerned right now, here in Taiwan, as health officials tend to be on top of things and let the public know quickly about outbreaks, as well as all the embassies here. There has been no human to human contact that is known from the virus and we don’t hang out around any chickens, birds or ducks, or in the live markets, so we’re fine. I am keeping an eye on China though – heard a report today about hundreds more birds they found contaminated, but still no human to human contact. During SARS, China tried to hide how many people were infected and limit the amount of press that was released about it. I am really hoping that does not happen this time!