Packing

The process of packing myself and my almost 15 month old Baby Girl up to move to China has officially begun! Let the fun begin!!! I've sold, given away, thrown away, and packed away so much stuff in my lifetime that I think I could almost do this part in my sleep!

I will admit that it gets a lot harder when you add kids to the mix, though. I know I could live without my Pooh Bear Sing-Along book, but when it is one of your kid's most favorite treasures you want to desperately find the room for it.

Luckily at this age they still have short memories and will quickly find new treasures to love. My Girl is so funny, her very most favorite most loved treasures in all the world right now are the rocks in Grampaw and Mimi's courtyard. She carries them around, kisses them, holds them, moves them from place to place. Part of me wishes so much I could take the whole courtyard with us to China with as much as she loves to spend time out there. I have memories of myself as a little kid all dressed up in ballet clothes with mamma's shoes and jewelry twirling in that courtyard and I do get sentimental that our Little Darling may not have memories of "home" - the one place that is always there for you. I know she'll have different - and still good - memories. But different is sometimes difficult for us with Rees blood in our veins.

So I'll get back to my packing - making split second decisions on whether the item in hand gets to go with us and enjoy the smiles of our Little Darling for another season, gets to spend a life cooped up in a dark storage unit, or gets a second chance at life through the hope second-hand shops offer to previously loved toys and clothes.

Do I feel cold blooded? yes, at times. But that's the life we've chosen! And don't worry, several of those courtyard rocks will end up making their way to China!

Summer '07 In Review

Summer is (almost) officially over for us. Guess I am holding on tightly to the idea that it's not quite over... even though I get on a plane in one week to fly to China and begin teaching the day after I arrive!

So here's my "Ode to Summer" slideshow.... who can get enough Annabelle pictures anyway, right??

PS - I have TONS more pics but just got tired of waiting for them to upload. So maybe I'll do an "Ode 2" and "Ode 3" in the future. Then again, I'm a pretty lazy mom, too!

YAWN

Apparently the "cure" for morning sickness (the little white pills the doc gave me today) DO help a person not feel nauseous because it is hard to feel nauseous, I have found, when you are passed out in bed.

So the conundrum now is: be unable to function due to vomiting and nausea or be a unable to function due to extreme drowsiness..... choices, choices!

On the upside, I got to hear the little sweetie's heartbeat today... my first actual "signs of life." Hubby's question was "Did it sound masculine?" hahaha!

Confidence

My parents did a really good job of raising my sister and I with a lot of self-confidence. I've never been one to shy away from voicing my opinion or joining in a conversation. I think of myself as a rather assertive person. I generally tend to think I have a decent answer for most things or at least can figure out how to get the answer.

But there's something about shopping for baby shoes that has revealed to me my inner indecisiveness. (well okay, shopping in general tends to do that in me!) I guess it must be that at just 14 months Baby Girl is too young to tell me if the shoes feel good or not. And since we are on such a limited budget it's not like I can get her several different pairs. She's also right between a size 4 and 5. She has some adorable size 5 hand-me-down sneakers that make her trip. She has some really cute size 4 sandals but I wanted something to cover her toes. I'd keep her in Robeez all the time if I could afford them but I just can't spend more on baby shoes than I would on my own shoes!

So there I was today - after going to every consignment shop in town with no avail and then every shoe store and department store in the mall just to find shoes out of my price range we ended up back at Target. There were several choices and I think it took me nearly half an hour to pick these ones out:

Cute, huh? The best part is how Baby Girl ran around in them when we got home and got them on her feet. She has loved shoes for a while (mom's shoes, Mimi's shoes, her own shoes...) You could tell that once we put these on her feet she felt like she could go anywhere and do anything - and do it running! She ran circles around the kitchen table then circles around Grandpa's wheelchair... it was hilarious!

She's such a cutie pie!

Puking...

...it has to be one of my least favorite things to do in the world. Unfortunately I had to spend most of the morning doing it. Blah! I pray for week 16 to get here. Maybe then I'll get some sweet relief as I did with Baby Girl. Lord, may it come quickly. Week 16 will also mean that I'll have been in China for one week. Fun, scary, exciting....

Talkin' Turk

When Baby Girl was born we thought we'd be raising her in Turkey and that her Turkish would be as fluent as a native speaker. But right now that's not happening. Maybe her Chinese will be great, though. Nevertheless we plan on moving back to Turkey in the years ahead and I'd love it if she could speak Turkish.

We thought about having one parent speak to her in Turkish, but they say that as a parent you should always speak your heart language (strongest language) to your children. Plus, I don't want her to have mom's accent when she speaks Turkish.

Still, I find myself at very predictable times throughout the day naturally switching to Turkish. Diaper changes is one of the most frequent times. At the end of the diaper change when she starts to get wiggly I automatically say to her something like "bir daka canim, bekle...bitiriyoruz" etc (wait a minute.... it's almost over, etc etc) I also speak Turkish to her sometimes when she's doing something she shouldn't - like how some parents call a child by their first and middle name when they are really in trouble! because this is so automatic I haven't tried to correct it.

I'm in hopes that in China we can find a Turkish babysitter or someone who can spend enough time with her only speaking Turkish. Of course we hope she picks up Chinese as well. I imagine it'll be a while before she actually starts speaking.... i have a German friend who's daughter grew up around German, English, and Turkish pretty evenly being spoken to her and it took her 3 years or so to talk - and then all 3 languages came out of her mouth perfectly! :)

Craving The King!

So as I've mentioned, I'm preggers once again. For everyone out there who's been preggers you know that your body does strange things once that little booger is inhabiting it. Right now I'm going through the "gotta pee every 15 minute" stage. The first one - that is, the first trimester "pee pee" stage one not the "I'm so big this baby has squashed my bladder pee pee stage."

Getting on to my point - this weekend I had to make an emergency stop on the road to pee and happened to choose a Burger King. When I walked in, the smell of grease and loads of calories overwhelmed my senses and sent me right into what might be best described as a semi-nirvana experience. Unfortunately I had to do my business quickly and get out of the BK as my friend, her kids, and my kid were all waiting for me in the parking lot.

Since that moment I've been out of my mind for Burger King. I happen to be a 15 year vegetarian and the last time I endured BK was as a special treat for my nephew's birthday a few years ago. I found myself - my whole body - yearning for the french fries and (I haven't TOTALLY lost my mind) veggie burger they serve (bonus points for BK!)

As luck would have it, I couldn't actually find a BK between south Tyler and Nacogdoches and since my Little Darling was sleeping like an angel in the back seat I ended up waiting an ENTIRE 1 1/2 hours to grab it at the Nac drive through.

Was it worth it? Every last greasy, ketchup/mayonnaise soaked, gazillion-calories-a-bite bite! Was it good? heck no - it'll probably be years again before I have to stop at a BK, but that's the beauty of having a person with their own developing personality taking up residence in your tummy... you get to eat what THEY want sometimes!

Editor's Note: If you've never experienced the taste sensation of mixing your ketchup and mayonnaise together before dipping your fries you are definitely missing out!

Editor's Second Note: I ordered Baby Girl the chicken nugget kid's meal. What the heck shape are those nuggets supposed to be? They looked like they had been molded to be shaped like chicken feet! In China people actually eat chicken feet - I can't for the life of me figure out how that is supposed to make those nuggets more appetizing for kids. (I don't think Baby Girl could figure that one out either, I showed her how to dip her nuggets in ketchup and she spent the rest of the meal digging her hands in the ketchup and eating that plain.)