It's official

Well, at least I believe so. Sebastien has what Alex had. Same symptoms, a week apart - except Sebastien threw up the whole week (mainly because he was comfort nursing) whilst Alex didn't eat for most of the week so just threw up the one day. Tonight Sebastien has started with the same rash as Alex had - on his legs just like her (though hers have improved over this past week).












So Alex doesn't have a shellfish allergy - cause neither Sebastien or I eat it.

Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure of our life...coming at you!

The Grand Tour

Alright - finally I managed to get it done. I've got video and also some photos in case the video is too big to open. This is after not quite 3 weeks of being here. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer them in later posts or email.

Entry










Book nook










Bathroom










Alex and Sebastien's room










The toy room (spare room)










Kitchen










Our bedroom










Living room










There are also some photos taken from our balcony.

Just when I thought

Sebastien was on the mend - smiling, playing a little, but still whinging - three heaves and his stomach contents are on the floor.

One thing I've noticed, things bounce a long way on marble floors...

Learning Chinese II

Brett and I have been trying to get in a half hour of chinese each night after the kids go to sleep. We've been using the BBC languages to get some pronunciation action. It's been pretty useful.

So numbers 1-10
1 yi (like ee)


2 er (like urr)


3 san (like sahn)


4 si (like suh)


5 wu (like woo)


6 liu (like leo)


7 qi (like chee)


8 ba (like bah)


9 jiu (like jeo)


10 shi (like shr)




Useful sentences
你会说英文吗？Nǐ huì shuō yīngwén ma? Do you speak english?
我叫 ... wǒ jiào ... I am called/my name is ...

That's enough for now.

Who knew?

Keeping up with my local reading: http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news_msg.php?titleid=3958

Mad scramble to get visas

Having waited twice as long as anticipated for the Australian Embassy to get Sebastien's citizenship certificate organized, we had run out of time to get an Australian passport and then our chinese visas. So we applied for his US passport - which arrived within a few days of our application - and having then just received our paperwork from China, headed to Chicago with everything we thought we needed for our visas.

We made it to the embassy in time for their shortened opening time after lunch - only to find that they required the certificates (birth and marriage) to be attested as valid by the authority of that country (the Secretary of State in Illinois for the birth certificates, and for our marriage certificate the Dept. of Foreign Affairs in Australia - plus the Chinese Embassy in Australia had to attest it too) - uhoh. Brett put his marathon running into practical use (:)) and ran over to the Secretary of State's office whilst I kept the kids amused. Luckily the marriage certificate wasn't necessary for them to issue the visa, so we were able to arrange that from China (thanks so very much Chelle - we owe you BIG time!)

Here's what we did to keep occupied while Brett was doing the rounds:

First we went to oft-heard-about Trader Joes - and bought some special cookies for the final Friday's playdate at Donita's - Alex loooved this place because it had shopping carts just for her. She was responsible for bringing the cookies to the counter to purchase because "Mummy has to use the stroller with Sebastien and I have the cart".

Then we walked a little around the block and came upon this charming little landmark. I really wanted to check out what it looked like inside!














It was Wednesday, we dropped it all off and arranged to come back and collect it the following week on Tuesday (we were supposed to fly to China that Sunday so this was a very tight turnaround - no room for errors).

Finally, before heading off to C-U we stopped for an icecream at ColdStone Creamery.










(One very cheeky little girl)

Alex was so happy to be going back to Chicago the next week with Daddy - they managed a quick trip to the zoo. Is it any wonder that she still mentions today that "I wish I could go back to Chicago after China, it was fun."

Oh, and we did get everything organized in the end - our marriage certificate from Australia arrived in China the last possible day it could before we would start being fined for not having done appropriate paperwork.

We interrupt this retrospective for some current news...

Hooray!

About once each eight days or so, our drinking water needs a new bottle. So we need to get on the phone and call them, asking for some water, giving our address etc. Up until now Brett has done that (twice I believe) so today was my turn.

And the water just arrived!!

Now I just wonder whether they actually understood what I was saying or whether we are their only foreign customers so as soon as they hear us they know it's us...hmm.

Still, not going to let it burst my bubble - we have water for another week!

And now for my chinese clothes

When we lived in Orchard Downs, Alex was given some dressup clothes from a playgroup - and in the lead-up to leaving for China she decided she wanted to wear them (having only worn them at Chinese New Year Festival before this). Nothing like wearing very padded long clothing in the middle of the heat of summer...

Never seen so much art!

Even after around three months of preschool, I hadn't seen as much art generated as I did once Alex was enrolled in "summer pre-school" (what we called Swingsetters and Art Smart Kids). Here is a selection (some of which made its way over the ocean to Australia to live another day on someone else's fridge/office cubicle wall) - I was pretty impressed with her beads and the 3-D sculpture.

The problem with teeth

It seems that we have a "biter" on our hands. Now that Sebastien has 8 teeth, and truthfully even before that, he takes great delight in biting any part of clothing he can find. Plus books are in mortal danger in this household - having had a child who rarely even tore books let alone ate them, we are now in possession of one child who loves putting things in his mouth.

But the other problem with having teeth is that when you're learning to cruise, they become weapons. Here's a photo taken at Orchard Downs a little before we left: It was hard to get any photo as he just won't sit still. Got to watch those fangs Sebastien!

Purging

When we packed up to head over to China, we had to make a lot of different decisions. What would make the cut for China? We only had a set allowance to bring things here and all of our accumulated stuff would not make the cut. It was particularly our wardrobes that got the "purge" treatment:- my business suits: gone, Brett's very many t-shirts: picked over and mostly gone.

Brett has accumulated some medals from his marathon running and they weren't going to make the cut - so I photographed them for posterity, here are some of them:



























Someone decided they were very nice necklaces and even wore them to the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Breakfast hosted in our neighborhood. But they didn't make it "all the way to China".