International-NESS

One of the things that I wasn't expecting but have greatly enjoyed since arriving in China almost 2 years ago is the incredible mix of cultures that are part of our lives here.  Yes, of course, there are lots and lots of Chinese people but we also interact with Koreans, Japanese, Germans, British, Africans, South Africans, Spanish, French, Aussies, New Zealanders, Slovakians, Dutch, Canadians, Finish, and the list goes on.  I just listed those that came to mind right away that we play with, go to school or church with or have just grown friendships from chance encounters.  I'm often struck by how small my view of the world was before we came to live here and I continue to be very grateful for the opportunity for not only myself to be exposed to these other incredible cultures and languages but also that my girls, and particularly Xan.  She is old enough right now to  interact and build her own friendships with these "different" people and yet doesn't see them as different at all. 

Sure, they may talk differently or eat different foods than we do but those differences aren't things that keep us from having friendships with them and honestly in the US I'm not sure that we would be that way.  Now before you go judging…..hear me out on this........I don't think we would have as many multicultural friends for a couple of reasons.  

1- We just aren't exposed to them.  We never lived in a large city or near a large population of people that were really much different than us....our biggest "difference" was often the University you attended or the denomination of your church ;-). 

2- We gravitate to what is easiest.  I have many, many wonderful American friends here and to be honest they are probably the ones that I'm most "comfortable" with but it's because it's easy for me.  I don't have to work or try very hard to find common ground, they get my jokes, like the same foods, etc.  My non-American friends often don't laugh when I say something I think is quiet funny, they think we eat way too much sugar and they find my southern accent a little hard to understand.  However, that being said, I have learned a ton about other cultures by nurturing those friendships and trying to find that common ground that is really pretty easy since we're all living an expat life and most of us are moms and wives.  I have come to love hearing the different ways to prepare foods, raise our children, interact with families, and holiday traditions as well as what their day to day life looks like. 

Xan attended a party this past Saturday for Valentine's Day and when I went to pick her up I just smiled at the faces sitting around the room.  I made the comment to my friend's husband that we were incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to have such a diverse group of friends from literally all over the world.  Xan and the hosts' daughter were the only American kids there.  There were children from Mexico, England, Korea, Hong Kong, and one I'm not certain of.  Food is often the center of conversation for we moms since we are all trying to "recreate" familiar dishes from our home countries in a foreign land and I just had to chuckle as those sweet moms sat around my friends table happily munching on cheetos and rice krispy treats.......I was in heaven but I'm pretty sure they were enjoying it too.  

Well it has taken me a while to get where I'm going but my inspiration for this post was an experience I had this past Sunday at church related to this whole idea.  We attend what is called an International Fellowship church that is open to foreign passport holders only and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that we literally have 30+ nationalities represented most Sundays.  It is a very diverse group and we often say that it has to be similar to what heaven will be like one day.  Anyway, I was in the nursery with Maggie and due to a helper shortage (seriously.....every church nursery, even in China, has helper shortages haha) I needed to stay in the room with her.  There is another little girl in the room that was playing away with the toy dishes and food.  I know her mom and see her often around so I wasn't a complete stranger for her.  She is 3 and has lived in China her entire life and I knew that she was fluent in Chinese.  Now I must tell you that Sarah's parents are from the Congo and have the most beautiful dark skin you've ever seen and it is AMAZING to watch them in worship.  They make you want to know whoever it is they know cause it is just beautiful.....but I digress.    So here is sweet little Sarah speaking 90 miles an hour in Chinese to me and I'm trying to answer back and ask her questions with my very limited vocabulary.  It was obvious that she wasn't understanding my Chinese a couple of times and I'd revert to my  English and sure enough she'd understand me. (Her mother and father are both fluent in English.)  One particular time, though, she was trying to tell me something and I didn't understand and she busted out with some French (with a perfect dialect I might add).  So....here is this 3 year old who in the course of a 30 minute interaction used 3 languages on me.  WOW!  Talk about humbling....I only know one little language and struggle mightily to try and grasp a tiny bit of another.  We Americans are certainly behind on the language issue.......so, so many of the people I meet know at least 2 and many know 3 or 4 different languages.  Again I say WOW!  We are doing our part to help Xan with a second language and she is actually doing very well with her Chinese.  Stan attends classes too so needless to say my Chinese is by far the back of the pack at our house and I'm not ashamed to admit that I've used Xan on more than one occasion to translate for me.  I've had a tutor in the past but haven't had one for quite some time now and maybe, just maybe it's time to get back into the learning mode.  I'll keep you posted.  

So.....a bit of rambling but I think you get my drift.  We live in the midst of some very different but great people from all over the world and I just think that is pretty cool.   Our lives will be better because of them.  

Chat with ya later-

Drum Roll Please

We started the adoption process for our 2nd daughter back in 2008 and after lots and lots of forms completed, authorizations received and years spent waiting we were "matched" (adoption lingo for the birth country identifying a specific child we could adopt)  to our precious girl.  There are still some formalities to complete and government appointments to attend and of course several more forms to complete but we hope to have it all wrapped up by April or May and then bring this sweet girl home to meet the rest of her family this summer.  Living here has definitely afforded us some opportunities for blessings that we never, ever would have anticipated.  One huge one is when we were asked to care for a little girl with some health issues that was living in the local orphanage to help prepare her for some surgery.  Well...that little girl was our daughter and God gave her to us in the most unpredictable but amazing way but that's a whole other story so without further ado......please meet our precious MAGGIE MEI.

She has one very happy big sister who not only shares the same middle name with her but also her birthday.  God saw fit to give us two girls who came into this world on January 26.  As you can imagine, we had a little bit of celebrating to do last week.  

So glad to finally share her with you and get back to updating you all on our lives.  It just didn't feel right sharing blog posts without including such a major part of what is going on. Now you are all in on it.  We are blessed for sure!  

Chat with ya later!

Mother and Daughter

I have mentioned our ayi here before.  Her name is Dong Mei and we are so very fond of her.  We truly consider her part of our family and in the 15 months she has been with us our relationship has grown into such a sweet friendship.  I've been warned by those with more "china" experience than me that I should keep our relationship as strictly employer/employee and not to get "too friendly" but our hearts and personalities just won't allow that.  We learn something from Dong Mei almost every day about the food, the culture, the language, the country, etc.  It's like having a full time teacher in our house and the learning is all hands-on, interactive fun things.  It's priceless for our family wanting to soak up as much of this country and people as possible.  

One of the cultural differences that is just hard for us westerners to understand is the grandparents role as the primary caregivers in the majority of families.  The one child policy makes it a bit more manageable for those grannies and grandpas. :-)    Dong Mei's daughter, Anna, is a product of this custom and she resides with her grandparents, Dong Mei's mother and father, in the Sichuan province.  Now as a reminder, we live in Suzhou.....the Jiangsu Province.  There is a lot of miles kilometers between this mother and daughter most of the year.  The Chinese usually travel to their home towns during the Chinese New Year holiday (Jan/Feb) and get to see their children in addition to most of their other relatives who've made the same journey.  Dong Mei didn't go this past January but instead made the trip home in August.  She was there for 2 weeks (yes...we survived without her but she was sorely missed).  The wonderful part of her returning (and the main point of this post) is that her daughter came back to Suzhou with her.  Anna was here for about 5 weeks and she came to our apartment with her mom most days.  She is 13 years old and is very shy but we enjoyed getting to know her and as we had so hoped...she felt comfortable in our home after not too many days.  

It was her first time to visit Suzhou and Stan wanted to make sure she saw some of the "sights".  She had studied about the beautiful gardens of Suzhou in school so our first outing was to the Humble Administrators Garden.  We made a day of seeing the garden, getting some lunch and doing a little bit of old Suzhou sightseeing.  She had her camera with her and was taking pictures every 5 minutes or so.  It was fun to see her get so excited about seeing something she had studied.  I equated it to seeing the Liberty Bell as a young girl myself.  It was a bit surreal that I was really looking at what I had read about so many times and she was just as excited as I remember being.  

Anna also wanted to experience swimming....something we take for granted for sure.  She got a suit and some floaties (yes....floaties b/c she had never done this before) and away we went.  Fortunately, the compound across the street from ours has a great pool and a very relaxed visitor policy so we frequented the pool while she was here.  After a couple of days she convinced her mom, Dong Mei to also get a suit and join us in the water.  Again...so fun to watch them experience these things together and for the first time.  I think that is what I enjoyed most.......seeing them together as mother and daughter.  I was saddened to think through their situation and realized that this was probably the longest time they had spent together since Dong Mei left the Sichuan province over 7 years ago.  Most years it's just a couple of weeks once and maybe twice a year.   

When the time came for Anna to return to her home in order to begin school there was definitely an air of sadness.  Anna and Dong Mei cried most of the day and when I stopped long enough to think about it I cried too.  I hated it for them.  I can't imagine being in that situation and I'm grateful that the LORD saw fit to put me in a culture where that wasn't the norm.  However, I also don't want to be arrogant enough to think that the way "we do it" is the only "right" way.  Anna spoke very little english but she understood a bit more.  We were so glad to get to know her and can't wait for her to return.  On the morning after she left we each found a note that she had written in english and decorated in a 13 year old girly kind of way.  The sweet sentiments that she expressed and the effort it took her to write each one in english were a blessing to us and will be a keepsake for many years.  

HAPPY Day

I know there's probably some unspoken blog rule that you just should have a post about the first day of school and that you should have at least 17 pictures (which have been expertly posed- to not look posed -that include grade or age indicating props and cute new shoes and hairbows and on and on and on).  Well I'm just going to rebel and not do it.....nope ...not gonna do it. I refuse to be persuaded by peer pressure and do things just because I'm supposed to.   (whisper from my powerful internal rule follower:  You can see my first day of school photos  on facebook).  Instead I'm going to show you another day that caused quite a bit of happiness here a few weeks ago.  Rebellious I know......

It was one morning and Xan and I were in the living/dining room.  We heard some incessant knocking on our neighbors door and since I was nosy concerned about who would knock for so long when clearly no one was home and at such an early hour (it was before 8am) I looked thru the peep hole and boy was I glad I did.  There was a guy trying to deliver a package that was obviously from America and I knew my neighbors weren't so I decided I needed to intervene.  I opened the door and in all my pajama clad, sheet creased cheek, bed head glory I walked over to him, glanced at the box and confidently told him that it was mine.  He was a bit startled by my appearance boldness but after convincing him that we were indeed the Everitts that were listed on the label he smiled and went on his way.  

Xan and I couldn't wait to tear into that box and see what treasures awaited us.  Stan's parents (who love us very much as evidenced by what they pay to send these surprises over to us) had packaged up some little pieces of home and we were absolutely giddy.   We had no idea what all was included but the anticipation is 1/2 the fun......well at least 1/4 of the fun.  We thought about waiting for Stan but then thought again and decided he wouldn't find it near as exciting as we girls would so we went ahead without him.    

There were lots of goodies in the box and we had fun spreading it all out and taking our time to look at each thing.  Here are a few that made us really HAPPY.  

This made Xan very HAPPY.  Her Nana knows how she loves gum and the assorted flavors were just almost too much.  

These made me very HAPPY.  Nana also knows how much I love sunflower seeds and the "jumbo" variety too!  Oh my......I was so very smiley.  

These little treasures made me HAPPY too.......wonderful and cute note cards (you can't find any little notecard things here and particularly faith based ones) and this book that I'd been wanting for sometime.  

These made all of us HAPPY.  We love pepper and this brand is very hard to get here.  If you had told me two years ago I'd be cheesy, big mouth, grinning over McCormick pepper I would have rolled my eyes and thought something smart but today....today I was HAPPY.

So that, my friends, is me letting my inner rebel out.  No first day of school post here....nope.  I'm certain that these pictures of pepper and sunflower seeds have made your day too.  Glad to share some of our HAPPY with you.  If you need me I'll be reading my new book, eating seeds and asking Xan to quit smacking her gum.  

Chat with ya later-

Bubbles

When it's hot outside you get creative to pass the time.  I think Xan spent almost 30 minutes on two different occasions blowing bubbles in this old mixing bowl.  On this particular day I just kept watching her and had one of those "I'm so blessed to be her Momma" moments.  I hurried to snap a photo and I'm so glad I did.....I love it!
Chat with ya later.

Red Rover

Red Rover, Red Rover
Let Xan Come Over!

Xan's bestest little friend here in China, Kallie (next to her in white shirt) had her 6th birthday party
and fun games were played along with delicious cupcakes and lots of giggling.  

I loved her expression.  Pure joy!  This one will be cropped and printed for sure!

Girly Stuff

 So I went earlier this week to have a pedi with some friends of mine and I'd like to say it was because one of them had a birthday the day before but really we just like to go get pedis together and the fact that she had a birthday was just gravy.  We could at least "say" it was for her birthday.  Well....anyway, when Xan got home that afternoon and saw my toes she was jealous to say the least.  I stepped way out of my toenail polish comfort zone (Oh come on!  you know you have those colors you don't ever venture far from....don't judge me!) and went with a dark purple and then really let my inner rebel out and asked them to paint a flower on each of my big toes.  I live on the edge here people.

Stan had to go out of town this weekend so I bribed promised Xan that if she was a sweet girl then we would go get hers painted while he was away.  She kept her end of the bargain and so Sunday afternoon we headed over to a nail shop close to our house.  We had a gift card from a friend who had moved back to the states (thanks Ms Lori) and so on top of it being close and a fun treat.....it was free!  I love free!

Here is little Miss Thing being way to comfortable getting pampered.  I can't imagine where she has learned to enjoy such fine things.  

She was loving it!

Seriously......she had the best time!  It was fun.

And for the final results -

She thinks it is so cool that we have matching toes.  I think it is so cool that she wants to have matching toes with her Momma.  


Chat with ya later-