Had the most wonderful summer with family and friends! We are so truly blessed by our family. They continually worked their schedules around for us so we could spend the maximum time with them while we were home. So sweet and lovely! My boys so enjoyed spending time with their grandparents and Aunts and Uncles, but most of all with their cousins, who they consider to be their best friends. It fills me with such joy to see them all getting along so well. I was blessed with similar relationships growing up with my cousins, and prayed my boys would have this same closeness. It is so wonderful to see them play with them all.
The hard part of this summer was that Danny was one year older, and therefore truly able to understand what it means to head back to China and say goodbye for now to our family and friends. While there was anger and tears, I was so proud of how he was able to fairly quickly redirect these emotions to looking forward to our life in China and looking forward to when we return to the States to see everyone again at Christmas time.
I think the part of living here that astounds me the most is how separate our lives at home in the US and our home in China feels to us. I truly feel like I have to switch gears going from one location to another because life in both places is so widely different from each other. The differences span from the appearances of our surrounding to the way of life, to the simple fact that in China we are separate physically from family and friends back home, and when in the US we are separated most usually from Dustin and then also from what has become our surrogate family here in China--our China friends (mostly from our expat community and church community here).
I must say the transition is a little like you having to flip a light switch…of course you have a 14-15 hour flight to do that flipping in, so it is not too bad. By the time we were arriving here this time the boys were excitedly talking about the upcoming school year and their friends and of course the most about seeing Dustin. When they awoke in the plane to land into Shanghai, they were literally jumping up and down (no worries…this was sitting down style jumping with their seatbelts on) in their seats and chanting “we’re going to see Dad, we’re going to see Dad.” So unbelievably cute!
We unloaded the plane and headed to security to be greeted with the fact that the man in security did not feel we qualified for the special lane (usually families get to go in this lane and speed up the process as the little ones are still really tired upon arriving). After smiling at the camera with our passports, we headed to baggage. (Chinese security requires them to look at each passport then ask you to look at them to make sure it is really you, and then you must smile into a camera…this of course is quite funny now as Josh’s passport picture is really a baby photo and Danny is about the age of Josh is now in his photo. I also have grown my hair long, so it is quite a leap for them to make).
At baggage, I usually have someone help me pull all the bags off the conveyor, but that evening no one was there. So, I lugged the 5 suitcases onto two carts myself, and had Danny help me push one. I then pushed the other cart, while pulling Josh in the stroller behind me. He fussed at first, but I explained he was being like Mater (Cars movie) who drives backwards a lot. We as always were a sight to behold. J We were of course greeted almost immediately by the worst part of Chinese society--the rudeness…while trying to push through the last security arches with the two carts and stroller. I cannot tell you how many Chinese people tried to push past us with their carts or rolling suitcases. All I could think was, you have got to be kidding me…you see a 5 year old (okay he looks like he is 8 because he is so tall, but that is still a young child) pushing a large cart that he can just barely control, and a mother pushing another cart and with her other free hand she is dragging a stroller loaded with a very tired toddler and you do not think to give them some room, or even more shockingly offer to help. Their total lack of awareness or care for others is to me one of the craziest and saddest part of their society. We made it through finally, and Dustin hopped over the line of people to help Danny with his cart. Unfortunately, it was out of security that I realized that I left a suitcase behind. We came with 6 not 5 bags. Thankfully it was not the situation I did on the way to the US, in which I left our suitcase at the end of our bed…yes the suitcase that contained all our clothes, toiletries and presents for everyone. Rather, I left it on the conveyor belt. Only problem is we’re in a communist country with tight security and a language barrier. Thank the Lord for my husband, who has master quite a bit of Mandarin, and he was able to explain what I did and that we needed to go get it. After a little stress, we got all the bags and headed home.
Amazingly I have managed to unpack everything already, however, I must say I will be spending the first weeks of the kids being back in school organizing my storage room and closets that hold all the food and crafts and random things we cannot buy here (or cost an obscene amount here) that we have brought from home and is just randomly stacked in there now.
Looking forward to this fall and getting back into the swing of things here. Promise to keep this blog going as well this year. J
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