Sebastien at TWO

Happy Birthday to our little boy! Now a true toddler he's more running than falling over - except now when he does fall over it's with more force and therefore there's more blood (or a bigger bruise).His Council of Friends might be smaller than Alex's, but we don't include all the many cars, trucks and trains that he loves to death. We started out the day with "regular" breakfast - a bowl of milky oats and banana that is bigger than either his sister's or his Daddy's - this is his best meal of the day.

Then, he enjoyed pancakes for second breakfast (well, the chocolate chips anyway - Alex enjoyed the rest). Alex deigned to read him a Thomas the Tankengine story before leaving for school.He opened a couple of his presents before it was time for Alex and Daddy to go to school - of which I only have video and no still photos. Alex found it very difficult to restrain herself from opening them for him - now that he's two he doesn't really need help. She was also upset that she wasn't allowed to play with the presents herself.
Pretty soon it was just Sebastien and Mummy playing at home.

We found out that there had perhaps been a mitigating factor to Alex's tantrum meltdown in the morning (something I don't have a video of) as Daddy got a phone call from school saying Alex had woken up from the after-lunch nap with a temperature so please come and get her (thanks H1N1 guidelines). Brett had a seminar and dinner that night so Mummy and Sebastien dashed over in a taxi and picked up a miserable Alex. This was at 3.30pm when school finishes at 4.30pm.

Poor Alex had a temperature had a temperature of 100.1F/38.4C so it was doses of ibuprofen for her which she outright refused several times and had to be coerced to take. By 10.45pm her temperature at the end of the medication cycle was 102.7F/39.3C. Not a good night's sleep for her or Mummy either. The next morning she woke with a 99F/37.2C temperature which rose to 104F/40C by lunchtime and it was time to go to see a doctor. We were lucky to have a chinese friend take us to the Zhongshan Hospital where we lined up to pay in advance for our doctor appointment (they're advanced here with an electronic ticket number system for waiting) then joined the multitude in the hall looking in on the current consultation.

I must admit to a western distaste for this complete lack of privacy and tend to stand a little way away from the consultation room in an effort to conserve my sense of privacy. Oftentimes there will be several patients standing in the room whilst a consultation is going on. Once we saw the doctor, we were sent to have Alex have a bloodtest to confirm bacterial or viral infection - so more queueing to prepay for the test then queueing to have the test (Alex was exceptionally unhappy to have this test - a prick in the finger that was milked - and screamed and struggled. Pretty embarrassing.) For any sort of injection or blood test you do not receive a bandaid after. Instead you have this small stick with cottonwool wrapped around one end to hold until the blood clots. The floor of the bloodtest area was strewn with used ones - not a nice place to hang out and wait for the results. I was glad to not have Sebastien there to worry about.

So the bloodtest showed bacterial infection for which Alex was prescribed an antibiotic and some sort of chinese powder medication that you dissolve in water and drink. Well the antibiotic was ok (we had to cut the tablets to give the right dosage - though I still think that a three day course is short) but the first time Alex had the other medicine she vomited it right back up. So Mummy decided that the antibiotic (plus keeping her hydrated and her fever below 39C/100.4F would be enough and ditched the other. Alex had managed to contain her vomit to the bathmat and would continue to ask for the next week why it was she managed to keep it only on the mat.

Alex had the rest of the week off from school (4 days - there was a Saturday school day in there thanks to the PRC birthday holiday the following week) and spent her time lying on the floor in front of the tv drifting in and out of sleep. Sebastien couldn't understand why his sister was at home and not playing with him and Mummy spent her time removing him from her vicinity. She recovered in time to go to Sebastien's birthday party - of course.

Filling our days

We had some time (2 weeks) before Alex went to school so we took the opportunity to wander around Gulang Yu and watch the fishing boats as they unloaded their catch for the restaurants and cleaned their boats. Later at home, Alex then decided that she was a fisherman carrying his load to the restaurant when she was playing. Things have definitely changed for Sebastien - another year older than when we first arrived in China. He no longer is fascinated by being passed from stranger to stranger and has learnt his first chinese phrase - "No, bu yao!" He actively pushes people away and runs for Mummy when he is accosted. Though his acquisition of a chinese phrase just makes him all the more irresistable to them.

He really enjoys wearing the Mardi Gras beads we have here - though lately it's been Thomas and friends going to Mardi Gras.Since coming back to the humidity of China, his hair has sprung back into curls from that sorry excuse for a mullet he sported in wintertime Australia. Perhaps it is time for his first haircut...maybe after his birthday.
Mummy spent some time cleaning Alex's shoes - a necessary evil - and was happy to have some company.
Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - here she is enjoying playing cards with Daddy.The cards are made from the front illustrations of "Furry Friends" chocolate wrappers and were made before Alex was born. More interesting to her than the "usual" pack of cards as these have numbats, kangaroos, possums, koalas, dingoes etc on them. Nice to see that they've lasted so long.

Sebastien really enjoyed having his sister play at home with him - he's going to miss her once school starts!
We prepared for our anticipated water outage - the island's water pipes were being replaced in conjunction with construction of a railway station and this would cut water to the island for four days. But having prepared for the worst (some expats moved to hotels on the mainland for the duration) we suffered no effect - not even an apparent lowering of water pressure! Alex enjoyed helping the fill the tong (barrel) with water anyway.We saw many people taking advantage of the last of the truly hot weather to dry food - here are shreds of sweet potato in the courtyard of our building compex. Seeing this makes Mummy pause to think about what she buys from the market - and then she figures what she doesn't know can't hurt her...can it?
Before long it was time to go to back to school. Alex was in two minds about this - on one hand she wanted to see (and play) with her friends. On the other, she's scared of her a few of her teachers (the ones who shout, stamp their feet and smack hands - though she's quick to tell me she's never been smacked, she has admitted to being yelled at). But in the end friends won and she headed off to start another school year in Zhong Yi Ban (middle first class).

A year later

Things have come full circle - we've now been in China for a year. It's a little different to last year, we're not looking for baby cereal and foods, we're not carrying Sebastien in a carrier in the heat and humidity, Mummy isn't breastfeeding,

But some things are different. Daddy's teaching every other weekend in Shanghai which means it is going to be difficult to get in some family time.

We tried to get Sebastien into the nursery school but no luck. He needs to be toilet trained and there is high demand. Maybe in the next semester.

Alex was expected at school - no registration was required, indeed we'd mentioned to no-one whether she'd be attending the next year or not. Now she's gone from Xiao Yi Ban to Zhong Yi Ban. That means a new classroom, the same teachers and getting off the bus later as the small kids get off first.

Sebastien had his birthday - again at Pizza Hut - but this year we also went to an indoor play area (post to follow).

First week back and readjustment.

Our first week back was busy so I'll just run it through quickly:

Parched from arriving back to little water in the house, we ordered a barrel of water for the water dispenser - and it actually came!

The battery for the stove gas igniter ran out - and we were worried that the gas had been turned off without us knowing...

We worked it out eventually.

The kids reassured themselves that everything was still where it should be.Alex enjoyed a couple of playdates with one of her tongxue/classmates (whose father and grandfather speak english - nice for us!) both at Daddy's work and at the friend's house.

Mummy had another birthday in China - which meant more cake (the kids love chinese cake - Mummy not so much) this one was a marshmallowy confection with chocolate spirals that Alex coveted.
It also meant that Mummy got a counter-top toaster oven for her birthday.

Brett had an inner and outer ear infection which required two visits to a doctor plus oral and topical antibiotics (and the last of Mummy's ibuprofin :().

And finally, Mummy confidently took Alex to her japanese encephalitis booster injection and finally worked out the chinese system of throwing the medical record on the desk to indicate you wanted service and then waiting for the nurses (well they were wearing the starched outfit) to create order out of the chaos. They were somewhat confused as it was baby immunisation day (we had been in Australia when the booster fell due) but we managed to tell them enough information so they could find Alex's records (no computers here). Imagine this with twelve or so parents crowding around one small window waiting for their book to be picked up. Unfortunately Mummy was too busy congratulating herself to notice that the nurse was intent on giving Alex some, as the nurse called it, tanguo/candy (what was revealed to be an oral polio vaccine - after Alex had swallowed it). Oh well, at least it didn't involve a needle of dubious origins.

Hello China - and H1N1

Our horror trip was somewhat mitigated by Ben and Jerry's at Hong Kong airport (thanks to Poppie for introducing Alex to that :)) whilst we waited for our delayed flight (so much delayed that we were given vouchers to eat at the airport). The kids had a ball playing on the various play mock-airplanes in the food court area. But it was late - and only getting later. We eventually arrived at Xiamen airport only to have to fill out additional paperwork to do with H1N1 and join a humongous queue to have our temperatures taken and then mouth swabs taken. Alex was already cranky and tired (being up 3 hours past your bedtime without a party in sight does that to you) and she had a melt down when she saw that there were doctor types poking and prodding people and putting sticks in their mouths. But we made it through and with instruction sheet in hand telling us to self-quarantine at home for seven days :( - and then into a taxi and home to collapse in a heap. It was then that we realised that we should have had a barrel of water waiting for us at our house - as we had no drinking water and no shops were open at 11pm. We scavenged a little water from the fridge then resolved to fix things in the (soon to be) morning.

Welcome home...

Sydney and out.

***More photos are to come as my parents are sending us their photos - but I need to catch up**
Our plans were to stay in Sydney two nights before heading back to China. We were lucky to be able to catch up with our friends Andrew and Marie and their two kids Jess and Jenn (who are a little older and younger than Alex) as we stayed at their house. We were collected at the train station by Andrew and he managed to squeeze all of our luggage into his car - no mean feat! His two girls, Jessica and Jennifer, were very excited to have Alex and Sebastien to play with. Conversely, Alex and Sebastien were tickled pink to have english speaking kids to play with.The first night was filled with action as the kids got to know each other - it was a struggle to get them to settle down. But eventually everyone settles down for the bedtime story.The next morning we took the train into Circular Quay to meet Grandie and Poppie who had driven all the way from Armidale to spend the day with us at Taronga Park Zoo. It was fun and excitement as we took the ferry across the harbour to the Zoo - Alex and Sebastien enjoyed it, but not as much as the chocolate coated liquorice that we had brought as a small gift for Poppie (who we hadn't seen before now on this trip). Poppie was lucky to have some left for himself as both Alex and Sebastien liked it.
Unfortunately the wind was so high that they closed down the skyline from the ferry landing up to the top entrance of the zoo so instead we waited for what seemed an interminable time for the bus.

We had a great time at the zoo - it was a great day filled with animals,
(Alex trying to imitate a monkey in the mirror)
(Grandie giving Alex a lift to see the giraffes)
(Grandie giving Alex yet another boost to check out the penguins training session) a train ride,
and birthday cake. Yes, Grandie had packed a special cupcake dessert to celebrate Sebastien's and Mummy's upcoming birthdays. Yum!
Sebastien did the rounds to collect all the lollies/candy that graced the tops of the cupcakes. Grandie even packed party hats and blowers!
We enjoyed lunch there - Grandie and Poppie introduced Alex to the delights of prawn crackers...a whole bag!
Whilst Sebastien delighted in scaring off the pigeons. It all ended too soon - Grandie and Poppie were driving all the way back to Armidale that afternoon so we didn't want them to stay too long - for it would already be a long drive. We made our way home on the train.We saw to the homework requirements (Jess being in first class and Alex wanting to show off her chinese homework) - and then made our homemade pizza for dinner - we probably needed to make three as all the children wanted more than we'd thought they would! Then it was time to hit the sack ready to rise and shine to catch our flight back to China in the morning. Lucky for us, Andrew was able to swing past the international terminal on his way to work to drop us off and save us the pain of public transport with our luggage (and children on the loose).

We had a horror trip home, with Sebastien refusing to sleep (except in the waiting lounge) and Alex not doing too much better. Thankfully they are both young enough to share a seat (this is Sebastien's last trip as an "infant") and there were enough children's programmes on the in-seat entertainment system to keep them reasonably amused.And thanks to H1N1, we saw a very few passengers with surgical masks - the majority of them at Hong Kong airport.

Last Day in Port Douglas

Our last day in Port Douglas dawned and whilst others in our group headed to the Daintree, we headed out the door to go snorkelling - well Alex and Brett were going snorkelling. We'd found the Reef Sprinter tour which sounded like the kids' speed - glass bottomed boat with a fast in and out to the reef (remember Brett had suffered motion sickness on the bus trip so we didn't want to take chances) and the tour duration wasn't too long to tax a child's concentration span. Other tours were day tours and they weren't for us. The time spent in the pool the previous afternoon had been with borrowed snorkelling gear (thanks Streets!) to show Alex what was involved. She was pretty excited about it - and with a back float was able to scoot about the pool quite nicely (no photo as Mummy was upstairs with Sebastien).

Alex wasn't too keen on the idea of going out on a boat with just Daddy. Mummy talked up the whole thing, pointing out different boats on the marina and talking about single hulled and double hulled boats and catamarans. She also made Alex promise to say hello to Ariel and Sebastien the crab if she saw them. Oh, and to take a photo of the fish' garden (coral), if she got the chance, so she could show Mummy.

Sebastien fell asleep on the walk from the bus stop to the marina (we had a somewhat circuitous route) so he missed seeing the two suit up!Then they were off down to the boat. They left their shoes behind on the pontoon and found a seat. Mummy managed to take a photo whilst balancing Sebastien against her shoulder. The size of the group was quite small - which made for a good tour.

Daddy managed to take a photo looking the other way.They headed out to the reef and had a great time - though Alex was nervous and didn't snorkel for long. She did feed the fish - which made Daddy a little nervous as he was in the water at the time - and had another little girl in the tour to make friends with. They were even allowed to "drive" the boat (a fact that didn't come to light until she saw her photos developed in China).
Whilst Alex and Daddy were out on the reef, Mummy and Sebastien enjoyed a chocolate milkshake at a tea shop on the main drag.Afterwards they wandered through the shops and came across the Guide Dog donation box. Sebastien thought this was great and (Mummy thinks) believed it to be a strange "live" dog. He patted it and kept kissing it on the nose - and took some convincing to leave.Mummy and Sebastien took a shuttle bus back to the apartment building. When the driver of the shuttle bus heard that Sebastien loved cars, and in particular their horms, every stop along the way was accompanied with the horn. Sebastien had a great time and the other passengers seemed to enjoy his delight.

That evening we put the kids to bed and then hosted a "Wine snob" evening in our apartment where everyone (or each couple) brought a bottle of wine to be blind tasted. Great fun and amusement was had and we got to sample to widely varying wines (from sparkling through to heavy reds - but interestingly no dessert wines). The evening drew to a close and soon only a hardy few were left solving the world's problems on our couch. At 1.30am Sebastien woke up with severe croup. A quick trip into the steamy bathroom somewhat eased the stridor, but Mummy and Daddy were still concerned enough to call Healthdirect, a special service in Australia that helps to decide whether your symptoms warrant a hospital visit, ambulance or doctor's surgery visit in the morning. When the nurse on the phone heard Sebastien, she told Mummy that she was organising an ambulance to visit - oh boy! Two ambulances were sent as it was treated as a 000/911 call - but when the first paramedic arrived and saw Sebastien, he cancelled the second ambulance. He didn't have any pediatric equipment (blood pressure cuff or mask etc) so felt it best to take Sebastien to the local hospital (located in the next town - Mossman). So Mummy and Sebastien got to take a ride in the back of the ambulance. Because Sebastien's symptoms had been somewhat relieved by the steamy shower, Mummy chatted to the driver about his experiences attending calls and life in the tropical north of Australia.

It was a short trip and the local hospital appeared all closed up except for one nurse on duty. Sebastien had a nebuliser treatment and was all but symptom-free by 3.30am - Daddy came to collect us (and some medication) and by 4.30am Mummy and Sebastien were trying to fall asleep. Sebastien was pretty wired by all the action - Alex had blissfully slept right through all the drama. We woke up exhausted but needing to check out of the apartment and catch the bus back to Cairns airport we gratefully handed Alex off to some of our friends so she could enjoy some last-minute swimming with their children. She also got to eat some of the food that they brought back from the markets - she thought this was great!

Sebastien appeared none-the-worse-for-wear and happily checked out the goldfish ponds at the front of the apartment building while we waited for the bus. Then we said sad farewells (and thank yous) to our friends - whom we likely wouldn't see for another couple of years - and made our way back down to Sydney. We would be spending a couple of nights there catching up with one last group of friends - and Grandie and Poppie were making a special effort to see us before we headed off for China!