Zadie & Granddaddy Hal

This is Kim again, posting another entry during Kate's absence....my dad sent this family email out tonight and I thought Zadie would enjoy reading it many years down the road.

************************************************
Subject: Zadie Stuff that Tickles Me
1. I was carrying Zadie tonight and she said "I'm as tall as you." I said, "you're not as tall as me." She said "I'm almost as tall as you." I explained that she's only almost as tall as me when I'm carrying her. I then put her down on the ground and ask her if she still thought she was almost as tall as me. She said "yes" but she didn't say it with conviction.

2. I heard Zadie count to 12 today and I heard say all of her ABCs. At 2 years 7 months she's about 3.5 years ahead of where I was at that age.

3. When Kate was a kid she was obsessed with McDonalds. Every time we drove by one she begged then screamed for us to go in to Macs. It's pay back time. We've been taking Zadie to Macs every night for a hot fudge sundae. By the time Kate and Tori return Zadie will be a Mac addict. I'm wondering how Kate will deal with that.

4. When Tori's brother Hank met Denise is San Clemente to hand over Zadie at the beginning of this trip, Hank told Denise that Zadie doesn't take naps anymore. When Denise got home she called me to tell me that. We agreed "she still takes naps." And she does. She's been taking 2-3 hour naps each day. When she wakes up she finds 2 chocolate covered blueberries left by the Nap Fairy. She can't understand why the Night Time Fairy doesn't leave prizes like the Nap Fairy does. We just tell her that it's one of the great mysteries of life.

5. Zadie wanted to go swimming today but she stood by the pool refusing to go in until Izzie and Sophie came. Denise explained they won't be here for 5 more days. She is so excited about her cousins coming she can hardly stand it.

Hal

Zadie's San Diego Adventures

This is Kate's sister, Kim, hacking into Kate's blog to post an email that our mom sent about Zadie. My mom is currently watching Zadie while Tori, Kate and Skip are traveling in China. I wonder who is having the most fun?!


From Denise:
We are having a good time here in Bonita with Zadie. Her swim class went well yesterday. I think she did everything Ben wanted her to do. I did hear her bossing him around a wee bit. She also talked him out of him a water ball that he uses for classes ~ and two plastic "treat" bracelets. The only bad thing that happened was she did a face plant on the cement when she tripped on her towel. It bled a little and is just a little swollen today. Right now we are on the deck playing with play dough. Ben should be here in about 30 min. After swimming we will go to Kids Playhouse and take our picnic lunch there. Then we will come home for naps.

The naptime fairy worked great yesterday! She slept for 1 1/2 hours. Last night she was eager to go to bed and when she woke this morning, she asked if the fairy came. I explained the fairy only came for nap time, so she wanted to go back to bed and take a nap. I could not convince her differently, so I put her back to bed. She stayed in there for about 10 mins. then wanted up. She didn't say anything else about the fairy. Of course I had to answer all her questions about why did the fairy only come at naptime; where was she; why was she at work, etc.

I want to go to the Children's museum and the zoo but haven't done so yet. I think today we will try to go to the park after naptime, but it may be too hot (I think it's supposed to be 100 today), so we may just swim. In the afternoon the pool is a huge attraction for the bees. They swarmed us yesterday afternoon and I was starting to get worried that she was going to get stung. Zadie doesn't seem to mind them at all.

I told her this morning that Mommy called last night. She listened as I updated her on the traveling parents and Skipper-doodle. I am keeping a picture out of you, Tori and Skip that Kim took at my birthday celebration in Coronado. She also is enjoying looking at some photo books.

She's busy with the play dough and now has mixed all the colors together. Hmmm, I guess I'll just let her have fun with it all. Okay, now she's making a huge mess on the deck. Gotta jam!

Love you all,
Mom

Report from China

We've been in China a little over two weeks now and we're having a great trip. We're now in Xichang, which is the community where I lived for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. I could go on and on about the changes here (good and sad), but I want to write about Skip's experience in China.

Skip is loved and adored by the Chinese people. When I think back on it, I don't recall ever seeing a foreign baby during all my time in China, so I guess I can understand why he creates such a stir (hopefully that doesn't mean we're the only parents stupid enough to bring their baby to China!).

Everywhere we go people stop us and want to play with him. We hear "hao guai!" all around us -- that means "how cute." People are also always commenting on what beautiful eyes he has. And people often come up to him and give him candy, fruit, and sometimes other food items that he can't really eat (like a duck bone someone wanted him to chew on).

The best part is going out to restaurants with him. Taking our kids to restaurants in the States is the worst because you can't really enjoy your meal since you're trying to manage the kids and of course you don't want to horrify the other customers with your children's behavior. But here in China we let Skip loose and soon there are two or three waitresses taking care of him. They tell us to enjoy our meal and they take him around, introduce him to other children, and love playing with him. I would pay top dollar to have this kind of service in America!! It also helps that most Chinese restaurants are terribly overstaffed and so the waitresses don't have more important things to do anyway. And we don't have to worry about his safety since they are completely overprotective of him and basically won't let him walk around without holding on to his arm.

The only time that I think the Chinese people didn't love Skip so much was on the overnight train to Xichang. Skip woke up every time the train stopped, which was pretty often and he cried pretty loudly. I'm the worst about worrying about bothering people (it causes me great stress, just like my sister), but since all the people around us we're snoring so loudly hopefully people weren't too upset. But the result of that experience is that I bought a plane ticket for Tori and Skip to fly back to Chengdu, which I've never done before. But the train trip was so exhausting with Skip that Tori actually got strep throat from lack of sleep.

That's the update from China!

Signing Off (for now)...

I'm signing off for now because my flight leaves in a few hours and I've heard that I won't be able to access Blogspot in China. I've been really excited about my China trip because I haven't been back in four years and going to China, seeing friends, eating Chinese food, and practicing my Chinese are some of my very favorite things in life. But all of the sudden I'm starting to have a little bit of anxiety about my trip and, as my friend Erin would say, I'm starting to do some "stinkin' thinkin'."

This is one of the many ways that I've really changed since having children -- and I don't think it's for the better! Whereas I used to be a footloose and fancy free person who didn't even comprehend the word "anxiety," now suddenly I'm second-guessing our decision to leave Zadie at home, feeling super sad about not seeing her for a month, and running through every possible worst-case scenario. Who am I?! I got totally weepy saying good night to Zadie tonight (not that she noticed). I know it's crazy because she'll have a great time with her two grandmas, but I think it's all compounded by the fact that leaving your child behind for a month is not a super mainstream, traditional thing to do. That doesn't help with the second-guessing!

Anyway, I think the best thing to do is to march forward and try to enjoy every moment of the trip and stop thinking about my plane crashing (which, by the way, I never thought about for one second prior to having children!!). All week long I've actually been giddy and excited about my 16-hour plane ride because that means 16 hours of free time to do whatever I want. Yeehaw!

Okay, really signing off now.

Preparing for Big Trip

I'm really excited about going to China in a few days, but also getting sad about saying goodbye to Zadie. I'll be in China for four weeks and Tori and Skip will come for three weeks. Zadie, on the other hand, will stay with Grandma Linda for a week and Grandma Denise for two weeks. I know that Zadie will have a great time with her grandmas and won't really miss us, but we'll definitely miss her!

Zadie, in case you're reading this many years later and want to know why we chose to take Skip and not you, it's for a number of reasons. We wish we could have taken the whole family, but I think that would have been really difficult to manage, especially because a lot happens in China from 7-10pm (outdoor barbecue!) and we didn't want to be stuck at home with our sleeping children. We figure we can put Skip to sleep on our chest and take him with us. Also, we thought Skip was going to be free since he's under two years old -- but it turns out that on international flights you have to pay a certain percentage for infants, so he's not entirely free. Lastly, you are used to going to the park everyday and having lots of wide open spaces to run in, which there just aren't a lot of in China. I think you'll have way more fun with your grandmas. Just wanted to put this all out there in case you wonder later on. We look forward to going on future trips with you, that's for sure.

We've really tried to raise Zadie so that she would be comfortable spending time with others when we're not there, and I think we've definitely succeeded in that respect! Sometimes I wish she would be a little bit more sad when she left us, but overall I'm glad that she's more independent than that. Skip is a little less independent at this point, but I think that's because we didn't remember to work as hard on getting him used to being with other people (sorry, second child!). He is particularly attached to Tori. Then again, when he's gone to my parents house for the weekend I don't think he misses us for one second.

So the point of this post was really to say that I'm getting sad about saying goodbye to Zadie. Maybe since I'm going to be saying goodbye, I suddenly think she's in a way cuter phase lately. She's OBSESSED with playing hide and go seek and she's really funny about it. Some of her favorite hiding spots include hiding under the couch with half of her body hanging out. And I typically have to cough in order to have her find me because she's not the best looker. But she plays with relish! I'm also really enjoying spending time with her because she speaks in full sentences and cracks me up. Lately she's been telling me, "That's not polite, Mommy" or "People don't like to be tickled, Mommy." Funny!