Author: Doris

A. turned 5! We celebrated with her family and had a blast. Everyone dressed up as a princess (well except for the boys) and the adults – ha ha!

The boys hiding out upstairs 🙂

It is still hard for me to admit to anyone that Edda has seizures – the same way it’s hard for me to acknowledge that I’m in my late 30s. The fact that I’m in denial about both of these things does not make these facts any less true.

We went back to talk to our neuro last Monday – Edda’s daytime seizures are pretty much gone, but 4-5 nights a week, she gets a doozy (at least for her) right at 4:30 am when all of us would rather be sleeping. So in conjunction with our neuro, we are upping the dosing of the Keppra just a bit more to see if we can get the nighttime ones under control.

Poor girl has also been constipated this week – way too much talk about poop in this house over the past 3-4 days.

With a babysitter and a day off, Jeremy and I celebrated MLK day by working together on a home improvement project that we’ve been planning on doing for over 2 years. We installed a storm door. We have such awesome date ideas ;).

We were going to pay someone to install the door, but it advertised “oops-proof” installation on the front of the package and promised to replace any part that was miscut for free, so we figured why the hell not…

It took us only 5 hours to do and I don’t think we got frustrated with each other during the whole time.

Hunka-hunka husband with the power tools:

We have been diligently trying to lower the heating/cooling costs of the house. We’ve been trying to seal the house better from drafts and I have been slowly removing drywall in the house to discover the lack of insulation in various key locations – so I’m slowing plugging up the drafts with polyurethane goop. I have a 3 – hole rule. No more than three holes are allowed in the drywall anywhere in the house at one time. If I want to cut a fourth hole, I need to patch at least one of the other ones up. I’m pretty good at taking the house apart, and not so good at cleaning up.

Rena & I have spent a lot of time here in China. My impression is that, in general, Chinese still think the USA is a much modern, cleaner and less corrupted place to live. They think the USA is still the No. 1 country in the world.

In addition, many ordinary Chinese still can sense us are from outside even though we speak Chinese, wear the same type of clothes as they do. The reason, after I asked several people, is that we are more polite, smiling most of the time, joking and saying “thanks” a lot.

Here in China, in my views, on the positive side:
1) New constructions are everywhere, even in pretty rural areas.
2) People have more money to spend.
3) Their shops and markets are full of all kinds of goods.
4) Cars are everywhere (+ or -?) with fewer beeps.
5) Excellent infrastructure, especially, their schools, highway & rail system.
6) Knowing outside world much better than before.
7) Ordinary people are very proud of their achievements, including the rise of their living standard, the world no. 1 super computer and their new stealth fighter (J20), etc.
8) There are a lot foreigners from African countries and the Muslim world which indicates China has much wider reach in those areas.
9) …

On the negative side:
a) Smokers are everywhere. They smoke all the time, even in no-smoking areas.
b) People get fatter and fatter, evidently, with less exercise and more food.
c) Not lining up for anything. Some place with no line at all.
d) Ignoring EPA laws, even openly selling some supposedly protected animals for food.
e) Not paying attention to details. In their pretty modern bathrooms, one can always find some crappy things there. There are small but annoying. Evidently, housing inspection & other inspections depends on those paper with Chairman Mao on it (ie, $$$) a lot. In Quang Zhou city, there are still some temporarily steel structures to beef up over pass highway. One can get scare by looking at them.
f) Corruption is everywhere. Ordinary people hate it but can’t do anything about it.
g) Housing is more expensive than those in the USA.
h) People are under tremendous pressure to get more money to support their higher living standard and/or to match others.
i) …

In all, Rena & I, as Chinese Americans, are also very happy to see their advancement. Even though, many tough problems and new challenges have faced Chinese citizens all the time.

Edda’s good appetite and growth has been a blessing, we have not had to struggle very much with one of the hallmarks of Rett Syndrome, poor growth. She is fast approaching 60 pounds this year and this is the first year that I’ve noticed that I’m really having trouble lifting her in the car, up the stairs and out of the bath. Finally, after years of thinking about it, we finally have a minivan in the family with a mobility seat installed.

Denise, our new au pair from Switzerland, arrived here this weekend. Today was her first working day and it was a doozy because the kids did not have school today!

You are 10 and always putting Maxi in her place! Happy birthday 😉

I was with a hilarious, enthused and happy Edda at Occupational Therapy yesterday – happy that she was happy at swinging, knocking wind chimes and spinners with her hands when Deb, our OT asked me if I had read Amy Chua’s excerpt from her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It makes for interesting reading about the “Chinese” approach to parenting, basically yelling at your kids for not being the best at academics and piano and/or violin. Of course, my parents were not this extreme, and I’m really way, way not like this – I am your standard Western coddling mother in which I say “Good job!” to everything my children do because they are already brilliant and perfectly behaved in all situations (except when you need to use a fork, because neither child really knows how to use a fork).