Two friends each sent me the link to this men's a cappella group from Indiana University --thanks to Kris and Joanne for some wonderful holiday cheer! Merry Christmas everybody!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Things to do while your spouse is traveling
As of December 14, we're on day 16 of McLeod being out of town, and I have to say, we are ready for him to come home to us! Not that we've had a bad time. It's just time to move out of my "hold down the fort" routine and into the more balanced family life we love. I am beyond blessed to have a network of fellow moms who know the ins and outs of life as an expat gal. They understand those crazy weeks when hubby travels to the far flung reaches of the galaxy or has to work extremely weird, late hours because the US is just waking up while everyone in Taipei is calling it a day. When the grump-inducing exhaustion kicks in, there is nothing like having a friend that will kick you in the pants if needed, remind you of how good life really is, and then meet you at Chili's for some comfort food with your squirrely, sleep-deprived, daddy-missing kids. I did, in fact, have just such a meal with friends last night, a meal during which my daughter spent most of the time either climbing on me, hanging upside down over the bench, or crawling under the table. Barret, meanwhile, hand-cuffed himself to his friend Aiden and devoured half a grill cheese and half a hamburger.
Of course, I haven't spent all my time eating at Chili's and being consoled by friends. I have also taken the kids to McDonalds for "Liang ge Happy Meal" - that's how I order two Happy Meals using Chinglish and gesturing toward pictures of french fries, burgers and yogurt drinks. We also made the trek to Jake's Country Kitchen, which is styled after a U.S. truck stop/hole-in-the-wall. Here the wait staff serves up pancakes, bacon, eggs and burritos but secretly eats rice noodles and dumplings behind the counter. And there have been multiple visits to the American Club for mac and cheese or grill cheese sandwiches, bowls of applesauce, and ice cream for dessert. When we aren't eating out, we consume peanut butter sandwiches, hot dogs or pizza with random side dishes of broccoli and carrot sticks. Since the dining table has been covered by craft projects, Christmas goodies, soccer paraphenalia and library books for the last three weeks, we have eaten most of the "home meals" at the coffee table in front of various Disney movies. Yes, nutrition and wholesome family conversation have taken a back seat to surviving the spiraling-out-of-control hours between 5pm and bedtime.
One would think that just getting kids out the door in the morning, getting them home again, feeding, bathing and putting to bed would be enough of a job while on my own. Yet, somehow, though I always vow to keep life simple while McLeod is out of town, I have once again managed to do a lot of stuff anyway. So if you are looking for ideas to keep busy while your spouse is traveling for weeks at a time, feel free to use a few from my list:
Of course, I haven't spent all my time eating at Chili's and being consoled by friends. I have also taken the kids to McDonalds for "Liang ge Happy Meal" - that's how I order two Happy Meals using Chinglish and gesturing toward pictures of french fries, burgers and yogurt drinks. We also made the trek to Jake's Country Kitchen, which is styled after a U.S. truck stop/hole-in-the-wall. Here the wait staff serves up pancakes, bacon, eggs and burritos but secretly eats rice noodles and dumplings behind the counter. And there have been multiple visits to the American Club for mac and cheese or grill cheese sandwiches, bowls of applesauce, and ice cream for dessert. When we aren't eating out, we consume peanut butter sandwiches, hot dogs or pizza with random side dishes of broccoli and carrot sticks. Since the dining table has been covered by craft projects, Christmas goodies, soccer paraphenalia and library books for the last three weeks, we have eaten most of the "home meals" at the coffee table in front of various Disney movies. Yes, nutrition and wholesome family conversation have taken a back seat to surviving the spiraling-out-of-control hours between 5pm and bedtime.
One would think that just getting kids out the door in the morning, getting them home again, feeding, bathing and putting to bed would be enough of a job while on my own. Yet, somehow, though I always vow to keep life simple while McLeod is out of town, I have once again managed to do a lot of stuff anyway. So if you are looking for ideas to keep busy while your spouse is traveling for weeks at a time, feel free to use a few from my list:
- Take your child to his first modeling shoot - 3 hours of outfit changes, hair and face touch-ups, posing, and bribing with candy. American and European kids get tagged for all sorts of ads here from clothes to cars. More on that in another entry.
- Rehearse and sing at two Christmas events, during one of which a teary-eyed daughter should come on-stage and stand there holding your hand and sniffling because she needs her smelly pullup changed in the middle of Silent Night and you can't exactly help her right then. I had to laugh (later) at this reminder of the first Christmas. You know, the one where another child shows up at an inopportune moment (think, "there was no room for them in the inn")?
- Run a Coloring Contest and Letter to Santa booth at the elementary school Winter Wonderland. Now, this was truly eye-opening for me. There were a lot of standard "Dear-Santa-I'd-like-a-bike-please" letters but there were also quite a few "Please-give-me-good-grades-so-I-can-get-into-Harvard" letters in there, too. Did I mention these were K-5th grade kids?
- Plan a class party. Thank the Lord that this was quite easy since Barret's teacher, Mrs. Winter, is like the fairy godmother of fun, easy crafts and party ideas, and she is blessed with a great teacher's assistant who does a lot of the prep work ahead of our get-togethers. We had tons of parents pitch in, so I basically mananged the train of confirmation emails and showed up with the teachers' gifts. We had a fun time of activities, cookies, ice-cream ("snow") and a great music performance by the kids. Since I was busy with Barret's party, I opted NOT to volunteer to do anything for Caroline's Christmas party other than show up with a bowl of popcorn and my camera. She was a doll singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"!
- Find extra time for standard Christmas shopping/holiday gatherings/card and stocking-stuffer exchanges/stuffing your face with your kids' candy late at night after they go to bed. One of Caroline's gift bags from school had really high-end dark chocolate in it. Wasted on a three-year old, I say. Much more appreciated by three-year-old's mother, which was no doubt the giver's intent!! I definitely believe chocolate should be a staple of any mom's survival kit.
McLeod gets home on Dec. 15, and then it won't be long before we are having a little beach bum time in sunny Guam. (Yikes, gotta pack for that!) I think I'm good for one more round of Easy Mac and carrot sticks until then...
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Southbound to Kenting
We've been experimenting with Voicethread.com so thought you'd like to see and hear a slideshow about our recent trip to Kenting, Taiwan. We had a blast at the very family-friendly Howard hotel, swam a lot, ate lunches concoted from things at the 7-11, played arcade games and generally relaxed. We managed to snap a few pictures, so click on my smiling face beside the image to start the commentary and the arrows to browse through the pictures. The kids add their own thoughts later in the show (you'll see their icons appear)--Enjoy!
During the voicethread, I mentioned our cramped return journey to the train station, but I had to quote from my friend Kim's account to her extended family:
It was a great vacation. Well, until we all decided to pile 8 of us in a Ford Escape for our 2 hour trip to the train station. Yes, our friends who had rented this very compact SUV somehow convinced us that it would save on having to hire a driver to take us back to the train station 2 hours away. I have a 6-letter word for that, STUPID. But we all climbed in, 2 men in front, and of course, since the ladies have smaller derrieres, we got to sit in the back with a kid in each lap and 2 in between. (Remember there are no seatbelt laws in Taiwan and in most cases you can't even find the seatbelts in the cars). I will never get in a back seat again unless I have checked for air vents. Cassia and I both gave it each other the “what the heck have we done” look after about 30 minutes of driving. I was already nauseous from the magnification of heat through the sunny window , 98.6 body that had fallen asleep on top of me, and lack of air circulation, when Barret announced he might get sick. We quickly had to shuffle kids around so that should he need to hurl he was closet to the window. Air quickly got turned up from the front. You can only imagine after trying to entertain kids in a sardine can for an hour and a half how well-mannered and calm they are. While we still had the “I’m a little bit nauseous” feeling going on from 2 of us, Nick woke up and decided he should be able to get up and play in the ½ inch space I had between my knees and the drivers seat. Then, Caroline started crying that she was hungry and (I noted) she was drenched with sweat, when Jacob announced quite loudly with his hands over his ears, “These people are annoying me. When can we get in a nice quiet cab??” It continued to escalate at that point only to hear from the front, “Did we miss a sign?” Shoot me now was all I could think. I am, however, happy to say it was a very minor error, and as we pulled up to the train station my hand was on the door handle awaiting the great “escape” from the nightmarish journey into the fresh, polluted, but cool air of Taiwan. What a relief, and we are all still friends.
Poor Kim! She was so traumatized that she forgot to mention that McLeod faced his own bit of trauma while driving. He ran over a pigeon in the road. But never fear. After the thump-bump under the wheels, he looked back in horror to see the bird pop up like a weeble-wobble or one of those blow-up clown boxing dummies we all had as kids. Yes, it was a fake: a rubber pigeon placed in the road by an enterprising veggie-stand man as a ploy to slow motorists. Then, he could wow them with his bins and bins of onions. With the carsick moans, kiddie bickering, complaints about the air vents and general unpleasantness in the backseat, I can see why McLeod didn't brake for the pigeon, much less the onion stand. Just get these miserable people out of this car and on the train!
During the voicethread, I mentioned our cramped return journey to the train station, but I had to quote from my friend Kim's account to her extended family:
It was a great vacation. Well, until we all decided to pile 8 of us in a Ford Escape for our 2 hour trip to the train station. Yes, our friends who had rented this very compact SUV somehow convinced us that it would save on having to hire a driver to take us back to the train station 2 hours away. I have a 6-letter word for that, STUPID. But we all climbed in, 2 men in front, and of course, since the ladies have smaller derrieres, we got to sit in the back with a kid in each lap and 2 in between. (Remember there are no seatbelt laws in Taiwan and in most cases you can't even find the seatbelts in the cars). I will never get in a back seat again unless I have checked for air vents. Cassia and I both gave it each other the “what the heck have we done” look after about 30 minutes of driving. I was already nauseous from the magnification of heat through the sunny window , 98.6 body that had fallen asleep on top of me, and lack of air circulation, when Barret announced he might get sick. We quickly had to shuffle kids around so that should he need to hurl he was closet to the window. Air quickly got turned up from the front. You can only imagine after trying to entertain kids in a sardine can for an hour and a half how well-mannered and calm they are. While we still had the “I’m a little bit nauseous” feeling going on from 2 of us, Nick woke up and decided he should be able to get up and play in the ½ inch space I had between my knees and the drivers seat. Then, Caroline started crying that she was hungry and (I noted) she was drenched with sweat, when Jacob announced quite loudly with his hands over his ears, “These people are annoying me. When can we get in a nice quiet cab??” It continued to escalate at that point only to hear from the front, “Did we miss a sign?” Shoot me now was all I could think. I am, however, happy to say it was a very minor error, and as we pulled up to the train station my hand was on the door handle awaiting the great “escape” from the nightmarish journey into the fresh, polluted, but cool air of Taiwan. What a relief, and we are all still friends.
Poor Kim! She was so traumatized that she forgot to mention that McLeod faced his own bit of trauma while driving. He ran over a pigeon in the road. But never fear. After the thump-bump under the wheels, he looked back in horror to see the bird pop up like a weeble-wobble or one of those blow-up clown boxing dummies we all had as kids. Yes, it was a fake: a rubber pigeon placed in the road by an enterprising veggie-stand man as a ploy to slow motorists. Then, he could wow them with his bins and bins of onions. With the carsick moans, kiddie bickering, complaints about the air vents and general unpleasantness in the backseat, I can see why McLeod didn't brake for the pigeon, much less the onion stand. Just get these miserable people out of this car and on the train!
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