My House Smells Like Easter Eggs...

Well at least it smells like the stuff that you dip the Easter Eggs in. I think the Easter Egg dye is basically vinegar with food coloring (at least if my memory serves me correctly). We had a bunch of new furniture that has been delivered to our house last week, with all the wood furniture, the stain on the wood is fairly new so we have some strong fumes floating around the house (the only good thing from the fumes is that my kids sleep later in the morning, this I presume results from them sucking in the fumes all night long). To eliminate the fumes, we read that it is good to put vinegar near the source of the smells. The only problem is you are replacing the bad smell of stained furniture with the awkward yet strong smell of vinegar. So I am not sure vinegar takes away the smell, but it definitely replaces the bad smell of stained furniture. I guess all I need to do is fry up some potatoes so my house smells like Thrashers…that might actually be a good thing.

Free at last, Free at last.....

So I won't take this statement all the way because it really has meaning and let's face it, this blog doesn't have much meaning.

Today, just about 1 ½ weeks after breaking my little toe, I was able to rid myself of the modified cast and crutches that I was given what I have been calling a "geisha" shoe. Even though I move slower then a 90 year old Chinese woman, it is 100 times better then going around on crutches, those things just become a hassle mostly when it rains (which it has been for the last 3 days) and also because I mostly use Public Transportation with lots of people on it, so that has not really made it easy getting to and from work.

Anyway, the geisha shoe its not the most fashionable thing in the world, but it definitely is good since my toes is not totally healed. The doctor did say that I have to avoid running marathons for the next couple of months, which ends up not being all that bad because I have not even ran a marathon and the broken toe is an added incentive to avoid it in the near future.

Dr. Nick, is that you?

For those of you that might not of watched the Simpson's (yes I know that the show is still on TV with new episodes, but let's face it, it's run was over like 8 years ago), the reference to Dr. Nick is Dr. Nick Riviera as pictured above. He was the quack doctor that would always show up when someone needed cheap medical aid and he was always the one who would say something to the extent that he had no idea what he was doing.

That being said, I reference him because my orthopaedic doctor yesterday reminded me of Dr. Nick. I go into his office and he takes about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on his computer in his office (I know that doctors do not need to be techies, but they should know how to turn on their computer). He shows me the X-Ray of my fractured toe looks at it and proclaims that it is a total fracture and that it will need to be repaired. Then he turns to me and asks what I want to do. Well not being a medical expert, I said, "I have no idea, whatever you think is best." At which point he sits back in his chair and thinks for a while without a response. He then runs out of the room and comes in with a finger splint. After examining the finger splint, he noted that my small toe would be too small so he sat thinking for another couple of minutes. Then he looked at me and said, "What do you think we should do?" Typically if a doctor asks this question I think he is asking it in a rhetorical sense, but for some reason I think he was actually asking me what we should do. I suggested that we do whatever heals the fastest and he agreed.

In the end I am not sure if he decided or if I decided on the final treatment (as I was kind of giving him suggestions), but we decided it would best to try to pull the toe back into a position of where it would heal faster and then put a modified cast/splint on it so that it would not move or be able to have weight on it. So in the end he pull it back into its original position as a toe. My toe was numb, but he did keep pulling and tugging on it and kept looking at my other foot, almost like he had never seen what five toes together should look like. Anyway, he got it back into place and says that I will be on crutches for 2 weeks. I hope my toe is still there after the 2 weeks, I am waiting in anticipation.

It's Broked

On Sunday night I was getting out of bed to get a drink of water when all of the sudden my right leg gives out from under me. Since I was in a haze I didn't notice that my right leg was asleep, probably from sleeping on it the wrong way. So I collapsed much like a newborn calf would do when they are first trying to stand. Again since I am only half awake, I start getting up and notice that there is a throbbing pain coming from my right foot. My wife woke up in the same hazy state and was babbling words that I had not idea what she was saying as she was still waking up. I just told her to not worry about it and she rolled over and went right back into her REM sleep. After icing it overnight, I woke up and I could hardly walk normally on it so decided to go to the doctor in the morning.

Come to find out that I broke my pinkie toe last night. In the grand scheme of things, it is not a big deal, but it is pretty annoying. My first doctor's appointment just confirmed via an x-ray that I had a broken toe, the next appointment as described in my next post, was an interesting one with my interesting doctor finally deciding to put me in a cast, so I've been sidelined for 2 weeks on crutches. Now I am not a crutches expert, but after going like 200 feet on those things I am quite winded, it either shows that I am really out of shape or it shows that crutches are not as helpful as they were designed. Oh well, it will be a good workout during these next couple of weeks.

A little PTL Time

So we decided to add a little flare to our dinner time prayer by adding clapping to a beat (quite a big step for our dinner time prayer). Well both the kids had their eyes closed and we were clapping and singing the prayer. When we got to the Amen part, Renee turned to Maddie and said, "Maddie?" Trying to get Maddie to also say Amen, but all of the sudden, with her eyes closed she had some sort of uncharacteriscally charismatic moment when she extended her arms out and proclaimed, "PRAISE THE LORD!!" Being attendees of Presbyterian churches, Renee and I were quite taken aback by such a charismatic moment at the end of our prayer. Nonetheless, we looked at each other and couldn't help laughing out loud. It was by far one of the funniest things to happen in our house in the past couple of months.

By the way, after asking Maddie where she learned to do that, she just proclaimed that she was not sure, which could only mean that it was the Holy Spirit getting her pumped up from our clapping and singing.

The Incredible Renee

One of our main forms of transportation over here in Shanghai is the taxi. Some taxi's are maintained well, others seem like they are about to fall apart every new mile they drive. Just the other day, Renee and Maddie had finished some grocery shopping and were attempting to get into a cab outside of the store. Renee attempted to open the door once by pulling on the handle, but the door didn't open. She tried again, and again, no success. The final time she really put her back into it and, in a Hulk like fashion, ripped the door handle right off the door!!!! Yes my wife has found her inner strength and was able to dumbfound the taxi driver into thinking that maybe she is some sort of covert Olympic Weightlifter. The taxi driver had to climb into the cab to let them in from the inside, a nice jester since Renee had just destroyed this guy's only source of income…I mean how does a cab driver make money if people can't get into his cab?

Heart Breaking

On Sunday morning, Maddie was sitting on our bed as we were changing our little guest. All of the sudden, Maddie started saying that her stomach hurt and that her back started to hurt. We asked her what was wrong with her and, in classic form, she replied by saying, "I think…I think…I think my heart is breaking." I had to stand there and try to hold myself back from laughing really loud as this was a classic line. I guess I can contribute her knowing about heart breaks to her watching those Disney Princess movies, but it was still a classic line.

Just some pictures

A "friend" of ours has been busy as of late so we have had the opportunity to look after their baby (note that this is "un-related" to an earlier post). Attached are some pictures of the baby for you all to enjoy:

My daughter...future influential dictator

So before bed tonight we asked Maddie and Jacob to clean up their toys and we told them we would help them. So Maddie comes into the toy room and begins to clean up as we all sang the clean up song. About 30 seconds into cleaning she stops cleaning and climbs onto the couch and proclaims, "Alright, I'll sing the clean up song while you guys clean up." Upon which she began to sing the song while directing us to clean up. For some reason, instead of getting upset, I felt that just because someone was singing the clean up song that I should continue to clean up, so I did. Man my almost 4 year old has down the whole psychology of "how to be a dictator without people even realizing it"...watch out Germany!!!

What Time Is It?

Yesterday morning my body was telling me to wake up, but when I rolled over and looked at my clock it said 2am. So I denied what my body was telling me as I knew that I still had another 3 ½ hours to sleep (note that I had a split second where I thought that I felt really refreshed and that this might go down as the greatest night of sleep ever with over 3 hours of sleep left). I turned over and went to sleep, but my body woke me up about ½ later. I seemed to think that my body was trying to tell me that I have had enough sleep for the night, but I was thinking why the heck should I be getting up at 2:30am? I sat there with my eyes open and started to listen, I heard some birds chirping. Now that is weird, I thought, why is my body insisting that I get up and at the same time why are birds chirping at 2:30am?

So I decided to get out of bed to do some discovery, as I walked towards the bathroom, I noticed that it was unusually light outside and as I approached another clock I noticed that it was, in fact, 6am in the morning. Hmm…now that makes sense as to why my body was trying to wake me up. Turns out that one of my kids was playing with my clock the night before and turned the time by about 4 hours. Makes me feel good that, if the world did not have alarm clocks, my body would still be waking me up like clockwork (no pun intended).

Just not right

I think my daughter, at the tender age of 3 ½, has already lost her admiration for her father. I mean, I always thought that kids would really look up to their parents until at least 5, but my daughter has already begun to wonder, "Is there something wrong with the Dad I was given?"

Let's take, for example, the other day. I was having fun with my kids and we had some music playing while Maddie and Jacob were eating lunch. I decided to get up and show off my styling dance moves (sorry folks, but there are yet to be any published pictures or videos of these moves, so don't ask). When I started to gracefully get "down with the music" (as they say on the streets…of Shanghai), Maddie started looking at me as if I had no head. She began to shake her head and proclaimed to me, "That's just not right." I guess my daughter cannot truly appreciate the artful form of dancing that I employ, oh well, it will come with time.

Fire in the hole!!!

Over Christmas we bought Maddie a teddy bear that you can put in the microwave and it warms up (like this kind). Maddie named the teddy bear Freddie and has many warm nights sleeping with him (as the whole point of putting him in the microwave is that he stays warm for about an hours or so).

Last night I put Freddie into the microwave to heat up for bed, I left to get her ready for bed and Renee then walked into the kitchen and noticed smoke in the microwave and when she opened the microwave she was welcomed with the smell of burnt Freddie, yes Freddie had caught on fire in the microwave and a hole, right around the butt of the bear, was formed because that was the part of him that, ironically, caught on fire.

Everyone was okay, but our house smelled like clothes would after a bonfire, and I had to go into Maddie's bedroom and break it to her that Freddie would not be joining her for bed tonight. Upon hearing this she asked me what was wrong and I told her the truth that Freddie caught on fire and was burned (maybe not the best time to tell the truth). She was curious to see what this meant and started walking towards the kitchen and when she saw that Freddie was on the kitchen counter with a hole in him, she just started to burst into tears and yelling if Freddie was going to be okay. We told her that he was going to go to the hospital and see the doctor (Dr. Magoo) who is a burnt bear specialist. She could not fall asleep without Freddie as she was pretty shaken up by it (I mean who can blame her, if one of your friends had a hole burned into their butt, you would be distraught too), so Renee performed emergency surgery and bandaged him up so that Maddie could sleep with him. In the morning, Maddie's room smelled like someone was roasting dead bugs all night (which couldn't have been healthy for her), but she was happy and had a great night's sleep (probably the toxic fumes), I guess Freddie will just have to live with a big bandage over his butt until he is retired.

The sick ward has been moved to.....

Our apartment. Yes, turns out I had no room to complain about working over the weekend because, some would argue, that I had the good end of the stick working over the weekend in that nowhere town in China. You see my wife was at home tending to our sickly kids. They have both come down with a case of hand, foot and mouth disease. Personally I'm not sure if there is a disease that has more body parts in its name other then the infamous ring finger, oesophagus, eye, spleen and femur disease (a dreaded disease well known by the bourgeois in the heartland of Finland).

Anyway, Jacob was the first to come down with it and word from my wife wass that he didn't eat for a couple of days because it hurts too much to swallow. His alternative was to run around with a big fistful of food in his mouth looking like he is a baseball player chomping on tobacco. Maddie was the second to come down with it and even though mommy has told her that she has to take medicine in her mouth, she has exclaimed out loud, "I don't want to take medicine in my mouth, I want to have medicine in my butt." I really hope she grows out of this stage of no medicine in the mouth, because the alternative is just hard to swallow…..come on…come on, that is a good pun you will be using for years to come.

I'm allergic to myself

Knowing that it would be pretty cold down here (considering most of China is experiencing one of the worst winters in decades), I packed a couple of sweaters to wear to work over the weekend. One of the sweaters that I packed I hadn't worn in a really long time. I spent this morning having snot rolling out of my nose from sneezing and having constant tears in my eyes, so I first theorized that maybe I have become allergic to myself. After thinking about that for more then 2 seconds, I concluded that I am not allergic to myself, rather I am allergic to the old sweater that I haven't worn in a really long time. As relief came over me that I was, in fact, not allergic to myself, I decided that it is probably best that I not wear the sweater anytime too soon.

Who Is She?

Maddie and I had an Abbott and Costello type of moment last week one night after work. I got home and said my regular hello's to all in the house when Maddie came running up to tell me about her time at the playground. I will put the following into a narration format, so you can get an idea of why I was so confused. When Maddie was done with the story she ended with:

Maddie: and when we left is she said goodbye.
Me: Oh that's great Maddie, (I didn't actually think anything in the story was great, rather I was just trying to give her positive reinforcement) so who is she that said goodbye?
Maddie: No dad, is she said goodbye to us at the playground.
Me: Who is she that said goodbye to you at the playground?
Maddie: Is she said goodbye to us at the playground.
Me: Okay, but what is the girl's name that said goodbye to you at the playground?
Maddie: Dad, is she said goodbye to us at the playground.

Maddie then looked at me as if an alien had just landed on my head and went running off to play some more. I also felt as if an alien had just landed on my head, so I asked Renee who the girl was at the playground that said goodbye to them and Renee replied it's Maddie's playrground friend named Ishi, at which point I just felt like sitting down for a couple of minutes to let my brain rest.

Congrats

Over the weekend, my sister got engaged to be married, so big fat Congrats to her and her new fiancée BJ. The preliminary plans right now look like they are going to be married in November and they will do a destination wedding in the Bahamas. Can't wait to go to the Bahamas, although the trip from Shanghai to the Bahamas is not the shortest, but it should be fun.

My wife is a Supernova

As many of you know, I am a very cheap young man, thus during winter I try to convince my family to utilize as little heat as possible in order to save money on the gas bill. As a result, our bedroom tends to be pretty chilly (or on certain nights, cold). Since I am so stingy about turning on the heat, not only do we pile the blankets onto bed to keep us warm, but Renee also piles on layers of clothes to help keep herself warm during the cold of the night (not to mention those times that she might have to get out of bed during the night and endure the frigid temps).

The only issue with the fact that Renee has about 6 or 7 layers on, is that she radiates heat during the night. I mean, I try to get close to her to get a little warmer and I can only get within an arm's length of her before the heat radiating off of her body makes me too hot and I have to pull away. I mean I am even scared about getting some sort of heat stroke from laying so close to the "daughter of the sun." I even think that I will have to lather on some SPF 50 to prevent myself from getting sunburn…I mean it's pretty bad. I guess I have 2 choices: 1. turn on the heat and actually get to sleep closer to Renee or 2. keep the heat off and hope that my wife does not get to the point where she is literally melting me as I get into the bed (picture me being one of those guys from Indian Jones who is looking while the Ark of the Covenant has been opened).

I think I'll take my chances with the whole melting thing.

How old am I?

Yesterday our Ayi came in announcing that it was her birthday…something that confused Renee and me because she also had a birthday on December 9. The short way of explaining it is that according to the lunar calendar (the calendar traditionally followed here in China), yesterday, January 16, was in fact December 9 on the lunar calendar, so she did in fact get to celebrate her birthday twice, which could be a concept I adopt since my Company gives me my birthday off, so I could get 2 birthdays off a year.

The bigger issue that I have had is reconciling what my age over here is supposed to be. You see, at birth, the traditional Chinese would consider their baby to be 1, not 0 as we are used to in the US. So I think, over the past year and a half, I have been incorrectly telling people that my age (and I will use current age here) is 27, when here in China I am actually 28. It ultimately doesn't matter as most people assume I am around 33-35 when I am walking around with Renee, Maddie and Jacob, which really came to light when I met someone this weekend who told me that he had graduated from Towson High School in Baltimore in 1987 and when he asked me when I graduated I was kind of embarrassed to say that I graduated high school in 1998 (to all you young'ns reading this, that is still fairly recent). I guess it doesn't matter if people think I am 35 or 30 or 28 or 27, all I know is that I was born in December of 1980, so whatever age you want to say I am, I am fine with it.

Am I the San Francisco Treat?

One of the main reasons that the past couple of weeks have been crazy is that I have been spending much of my free time studying for this darn CPA Exam that continues to haunt me. So on January 2, I hoped onto a plane and headed back to the US for a quick couple day trip to take the exam. First the plane ride was smooth and easy, actually when I travel alone on a 10 hour plane ride it doesn't feel like it is that long.

We arrived about 2 hours early, so I was able to get some shopping in before heading to my hotel room for some final hours of studying and sleep. I took the tests the next day and went back to my room to crash.

Today has been interesting because there is a huge set of storms coming through town over the next couple of days, today was really windy and rainy, to the point that I was turned away by some of the stores I needed to get stuff in because their power was out. The same flight that I will be flying out on tomorrow was delayed today by 6 hours because of the weather. I am hoping that the weather is not as bad tomorrow (although it is still supposed to have periods of T-storms and rain) cause a six hour delay is not going to sit well with me. Oh well, what is six hours when you have a 13 hour flight to look forward to (don't write me any messages about this, the flight from China to SF is 10 hours, the flight back to China is 13 hours, ask someone in aviation why).

Anyway, my visit has been okay, but I can't wait to get back home with the family.

Happy What???

Last year we began a new tradition of making a birthday cake in celebration of Jesus' birth on Christmas Day. Renee is doing a talk with the high school and middle school students today at church and wanted to go through some of the traditions that different families have at Christmas, including ours of baking a birthday cake. In her haste, Renee wrote the following on the cake:

I guess we have been in China too long as our spelling is getting pretty bad. But indeed, Happy Birtdady Jesus.