Skip to main content

office sitting

The girls and I are back at the office for a few days and nights. We may be here until we go back to Xi'an. Depends on when my folks return...no need for us all to share a room again when we could be at Dave's house. Dad and Mom are back in Wuhan waiting for their visas to be renewed.

So hard sharing a room with Madeleine and Lilian. One or the other is doable but last night I had one girl on either side of the bed - not in the bed but Maddie was on a pallet and Lilian in her portable cradle. Everything went okay until about 5am when Lilian let out a sharp cry waking both Maddie and me. Maddie started crying and so was Lilian and it took all I had not to join in with them. But we all settled down and got another hour and half sleep before the day officially began.

Phil's out of town again. 5 nights this time. The days I can handle fine but the evenings are a pain when we're here at the office. It's a vicious cycle if and when one of them starts crying. There are often others here and so taking Lilian out of the room is tough. It's usually noisy, bright and busy in the main room so that's no good for settling a kid. Plus, I usually have 2 or 3 overally helpful people asking questions or giving advice concerning why Lilian is crying (this does not refer to you, Dad and Mom) when volunteers are here. This is annoying to no end. And an annoyed mom is no good for settling a kid, either.

So, thankfully this week is a low-key one here at the office and for the first half we'll have it mainly to ourselves. After that we'll just have to deal with it for a few more days until we get home.

At times I feel like a big fat wimp. I'm really just being a stay-at-home mom with a husband that travels. There are lots of woman who do that. But when you throw in the living arrangements we have now...well, then I feel better and less of a wimp. But I think the biggest struggle I've had during this month is fighting the idea and feeling that I'm a loser as a mom and wife. I'm not one to share such personal details on such an impersonal form of communication so I'll just leave it at that.

When I do become a full-time stay at homer I know I need several things: an elevator - Dave's apartment is on the 5th floor with no elevator, absolutely crazy with 2 kids and all their junk. A routine - we need play groups and kindergarten and swimming lessons and NAPS to keep us all entertained. We need friends. Right now Madeleine has no one to play with and I have no Mom to just sit with while the kids destroy their room.

I honestly don't know how a single mom with a kid or two does it day in and day out. In the past I worked with single moms and several of them had 2 or 3 kids. I now totally respect those woman and I totally understand why their kids ran around like zoo animals yelling the F* word. Oh, and that whole, "Don't let the TV be a babysitter" thing is beyond ridiculous. If you have a TV and you have a kid...you've done it.

Okay. I feel better.

Popular posts from this blog

moving time

Well my house looks like it did at some point when we moved here about 2 years ago. Boxes lying around, no pictures up, hammers, cleaning rags and tape sitting in random spots around the living room. It's a mess. Another move, more good-byes and mixed emotions. I'm going to miss... ..real CH food whenever I want it for dirt cheap, ..a tailor that made all my curtains and waves to me every time I walk past her shop, ..the little boy who's parents own the light bulb shop and yells, "hello!" every time we pass by, ..all the little kids that very politely say, "Ayi" (Aunt) when they pass me, ..our first friend in Chengdu who owns a local shop and buys birds as a hobby - bird guy, as we call him, ..the best dumpling makers, the steamed bread makers, the shopkeepers that deliver our milk for free and know our address by heart, ..the courtyard of our complex where Maddie can play by herself or with her friends while we keep an eye on her from our 4th floor, ....

Fickle ol' solidarity

At some point in March when this virus deemed that it had spread so far that it could be called a pandemic, I told the girls they should do video journals to remember the days of living in a pandemic. Here now in the middle of April, I realize that I need to write for myself and the girls can just have lots of regret when they're older because they didn't do what I said. When the whole world started moving to stay-at-home orders, I felt such a strong sense of solidarity.  I looked at all of us (literally all of us - okay, most of us) in our different areas of the world facing this beast together.  Jimmy Fallon's wife filmed him hosting from home.  John Krasinski started SGN in his home office.  Everyone was joking about toilet paper, sweatpants, and cutting your own bangs. Italians were singing from their balconies.  Wuhan folk were singing from their high-rises.  Hospitals in NYC were being surrounded by patrol cars each evening with lights flashing and ...

spring rain and various randomness

This morning feels so fresh.  Apparently, we had rain last night and the air is cool and clean now. I would love to be on a farm doing the morning chores and then coming in to a big country style breakfast.  With biscuits and gravy, of course.   I have two never wavering dreams for my life - one, have a small farm with goats, chickens, sheep and a dairy cow or two. Two - buy a house on a lake (ideally in the NE or NW of the US) that is used several times a year for family gatherings.  I want us to be the great, great, great grandparents that the house was originally bought by and has been in the family forever.   There were lots of people out this morning exercising .  One lady was doing the breaststroke as she walked.  I can never get the video going quick enough to catch these precious moments of inhibition .   Exercise is one thing our neighbors do really well.  I watched a lady in her late 50s early 60s doing kicks and bends the other day that I haven't been able to do sin...