It's Monday. I like Mondays. I get to attend the Monday morning weekly meeting at the office. It's mainly in Chinese so I can focus on it and understand and it for a while and then I tune it out and think about what we'll eat for supper this week or where Phil and I should eat lunch. I attend because I'm a coworker that never works at the office so I like to show my face and support for what's going on.
The first time we came to Chengdu was the summer of 2008. I liked it so much. When this year's summer started I couldn't figure out why I had liked it so much. For the last couple weeks I've been reminded why. It rains often and we have thunderstorms. We also get clear days with hot, hot sun. I like all of that. We had a thunderstorm 2 nights ago that was unbelievable. It lasted almost all night.
Last week and this week I'm getting to help out a new mom who's daughter is just 2 weeks old. She's a single mom with no family around to help. I loved being able to give her pointers on nursing and sleep patterns. I loved holding the tiny girl who falls asleep almost instantly when she's held. She just stares at your face and then her little eyes get lower and lower until she's out. So sweet.
Helping out this mom reinforced that I'm really satisfied with having 2 kiddos. I loved holding Baby but I didn't wish for my own little newborn. I also saw how having my 2 gave me the experience to help this mom but also having the 2 gave me time to be with her. It was a good thing for me to see because although I haven't wavered for awhile about the number of kids we want, it did help me see how with what we do and want to do and where we live and want to live it's a lot easier with fewer kids.
It's amazingly gray out this morning but it's not that horrible low gray that consumed the whole city during the winter. It's just the gray of the sky soon before a big storm dumps on you.