Friday I was able to find some of the allusive items I had been searching for such as a liquid measuring cup--I had been using my dry measuring cups for this and just praying it was close enough to make the recipes work.
Saturday was relaxing, as we do not go anywhere that is not within walking distance for us. (We try and give the driver the day off as he has to take us to church on Sundays). Even though it was overcast on Saturday we were able to take our walk down to the stores just outside our community. Dustin showed me the store he had found (more Chinese--i.e.--you do not see many foreigners in this store) and I showed him the store I had located (almost all imports and lots of foreigners). We decided to do lunch at Papa Johns and this time Josh did not scream and cry while we were there. (Last time I had to leave the restaurant he was so upset). Overall, it was a lovely day and we were able to catch up from the week.
Sunday started out normal, but after leaving two hours before church started and it taking almost that entire time to get there, we were all gratful to see the familiar surroundings of the stores around our church. We did not anymore than than turn the corner to park the van than Josh had a little cough which when I turned to check on him, turned out to him getting sick all over his jacket, shirt, jeans and car seat. I scrambled to the back as he continued to get sick and I frantically tried to contain it. It was getting pretty crazy as he was begining to do what previously I had never encountered--projectile sickness--may you never experience--and if you have, I sympathize with you. I must add in here that this was the first day in our van. We had returned the rental van and were driving for the first time in the van we will have full time now. The driver had just brought it to its highest level of clean (it is an old van, so this is relative, but he had done a nice job) when Josh got sick.
Thankfully, I was able to keep everything to Josh's clothes and the car seat. I had been barking orders at poor Dustin as to wear to find kleenex in our diaper bag and to search for a platic bag in there as well. I quickly worked at cleaning him up with a mountain of kleenex and then wipes. It was a blessing that while I did not have any change of clothes for Josh, I had put a pair of pants in for Danny as it was his first day to wear big boy underwear. I quickly stripped Josh out of his clothes and put him in his brother's extra pair of pants. The only other thing I had was my short trench coat that I had brought as my coat. He was quite a site in a women's lime green trench coat with the sleaves pushed up and jeans rolled up to his ankles.
Dustin and I decided it was best for me to go track down clothes for Josh and that it made no sense for us all to do this. So, Danny and Dustin went onto church while the driver, Josh and I headed to the mall. (Danny was looking forward to his class, and well you do not travel 2 hours to anything and not have a desire to go to it, so I wanted at least one of us to attend the service). Now, just to let you know which mall is the mall that I am referring to, this is the high end mall. I want you to think of the scene from Pretty Women where the lady refused to help Julia Roberts because the sales clerk thought she was not good enough to shop in the store, and this is basically the mall that I am entering. Entering with Josh naked to the waist, wearing my lime green trench and jeans rolled up and hanging off of him because they are too big. I can only imagine what they were thinking as they watched me go by with Josh.
The driver was kind enough to come with me and we entered one store. I of course forget sometimes what a stir we make, especially when I am focused on something. So I began browsing the racks, trying to determine Josh's size (it is not listed by what I am familiar with at all) and find something that I think I can use again. The prices are high, so I do not want to just throw my money away. I am moving from one rack to another and then back again. The driver at this point is holding Josh for me and he is trailing behind me around the store. (I should qualify that these stores are really just boutique size and there is not much floor space or selection). You should have seen my surprise as I looked up half way through this ordeal to realize that I had a whole spectator section watching me. (Even in this high end mall, there are not a lot of foreigners, let alone foreigner with half naked children wearing a women's trench being carried by the driver behind their shopping mother).
The crowd of course gets me extremely flustered and I grab something that I believe to be some what cute and not too babyish and head to the check out. Unfortunately, the spectacule is not over, because I want to change him right away, and signal to the driver (as this is how we do most of our communication) that I am going to take Josh to the bathroom. What you have to understand here in China is that they do not have any public areas set up for children. I had thought that this bathroom was the one I had been to previously that had a changing table (it is not normal to have a changing table as the Chinese do not use diapers--their children's clothes through toddler age is called split pants--let your mind go and you will understand what this item is instead of diapers, hence no need for changing tables). I had thought since this was a high end mall, and this was the children's area, they would have one here, but unfortunately I was wrong. I had to walk back out to the driver and look around for an area to change him. I was stuck with a corner of sorts as my only option. I layed my coat down and changed him as fast as I possibly could but not fast enough to not have a lot of stares for some very rich Chinese.
Upon putting on the clothes, I came to find out that what I had chosen was way to short for him. It came to about three quarters down his legs and arms. I quickly covered him again with my coat and we headed back to the car.
We were able to get home from church, but Josh started to get sick again close to home, so Dustin dropped me off with Josh and took Danny to get McDonalds for us. Unfortunately, they misunderstood the discussion between Danny and Josh and thought Dustin did not want chicken mcnuggets and instead ended up giving us hot wings. So the day ended with Dustin gulping down the hot wings and Danny eating Dustin's hamburger. Overall the day was quite an ordeal.
Monday continued on this theme in that Danny had a set back in the potty training, so I spent the afternoon dealing with this issue. Joshua helped in that he awoke from his nap extremely fussy and crying. Dustin was running late from a meeting, so he suggested that I take the boys to the clubhouse for dinner. They had calmed down and were playing, so his suggestion of not cooking sounded great to me after the stressful afternoon. Oh how I would regret that decision. We entered the restaurant and thankfully it was not too crowded. I realized upon getting there that I only had Danny's sippy cup of water. Rather than trecking back to the house to get Josh's I thought Danny could drink out of a regular cup (they give nice kids cups with straws here and he is getting really good at this) and I could have them fill Danny's sippy cup with the milk for Josh. I of course failed to realize that my kids have been programed to associate the color of their cups with whether it is milk or water, and when the waiter brought the cup with milk to Josh (in the green cup I had, milk I put in a blue one), Josh took it and threw it off the table. Now I do not mean knocked it off, I mean picked it up and heaved it to the side of him. The waiter laughed (I was praying at this point that this behavior was mild compared to what they have witnessed) while I was mortified by his behavior.
The restaurant here is good, but the service takes a while. I had of course come prepared for this with crackers for Josh and Danny. Josh would not have any of it though and only wanted the crayons (which he would proceed to eat if I gave them to him) that Danny had been given to color him menu, and so he fussed while we waited for the food. Upon receiving our meal, Josh perked up, but I made the fatal mistake of giving him one of his chicken nuggets that I thought was cool enough and was not.
Well, if you have not seen a child nearly hyperventalate while crying, you should have been a fly on the wall in the restaurant. Josh immediately went hysterical on me. He did not want me to hold him, but did not want to be put down, he would not quiet at all. He just screamed and squirmed in my arms. I could not calm him at all. After about 10 minutes, I asked the staff to box my meal and Josh's up--thankfully Danny through all of this was just calmly eating his pizza and was nearly finished. I put Josh back in the stroller only to be met with harder crying and now gasps for air between. We exited the restaurant and headed for home. I have never had such an experience and as this is the staff that is always there, and one of the only restaurants we frequent, it is going to be a joy to go back in the future (the other one is the extremely fancy buffet--see previous blog of when we first saw the apartment). As I stated previously I just tried to console myself with the fact that they were very kind to me and the boys and that hopefully as there are a lot of kids living here, they have seen this kind of behavior before and realize it just comes with the territory of parenting.
I am going to bed with the prayer that the boys wake up refreshed in the morning and myself as well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment