Yeye is here now. It’s been interesting. He loves the boys, though he said if we came when they were five, they’d be more fun… As it is, he annoys them to death and I see where Jack gets it from. I have to bite my tongue and instinct to drag them away when they get upset. But they annoy back. He gets upset that they just call for mama all the time and only stay out for brief periods if he takes them alone. But he will just have to wait til they get used to him. He’s not the kind of grandpa to go buy them presents all the time, but he does buy them watermelon, and suckers every day, which they are addicted to (always grape for Isaac and always a new flavor for Ethan every day which he then discards two minutes later and asks for more). He speaks his kind of non-standard Mandarin to them and tries to teach them but so far they aren’t picking up a lot. I’m sure, like with English the first couple years of their lives, they are absorbing a lot and I can tell they understand more and more even if they don’t say more than “ni hao” and “xie xie” when they feel like it (and “pigu” when they see a kid with the open pants).

Speaking of open pants, one unexpected positive side of our trip is the boys are going diaperless when they are not sleeping. And I now understand the benefits and ease of the open pants and may even get some! It’s very handy to be in a country where no one looks twice if your kids stop to pee in public. Heck, grown ups do it too. They have been getting very good and holding it and going when we tell them or letting us know when they are starting to go. Isaac even poopooed in the potty yesterday of his own volition. He was soooo proud of himself. He is so eager to be a “big kid” and when he does something like that or eats all his dinner, he will stand up tall and say “big, strong”. Of course it probably has something to do with wanting to be big enough to ride the roller coaster at the zoo. Ethan, as usual, is more in lalaland. He’s refused to poo poo for the last few days, will sit on the potty as long as I sit there too playing with him or reading a book, but nothing happens L However, he has progressed vastly from a few days ago when he was peeing on the floor to telling me he has to go (and sometimes then pointing out to me where some of it didn’t make it to the potty!)

Okay, enough potty talk. I’m just excited about that! In other news, we finally got them the scooter they have been longing for. They always see the other kids on the square with their cool toys. So daddy went and bought them one and they have been riding it non-stop. I do have visions of my brother as a kid getting a big injury from a scooter, but this one is small and hard to have a serious accident (she says hopefully). They do fight over it though and try to ride it in the house, in the street… They even got into a fight with a girl about it this morning. This little girl, kind of tomboy, we see all the time with her granny, she was riding it for a while while the boys played with her bucket and shovels and some dirt and they alternated blowing the cheap plastic trumpet daddy also got them. Well, after a while Ethan wanted to ride again, got on and while her granny was chatting to someone and I was rushing to tell her to just wait a minute, the girl pushed Ethan off. He of course became very upset and when granny intervened and the girl also didn’t get to ride it, she also started throwing a fit. Granny suggested we just take off and let her cool off, so we did.

It’s also been good to catch up with a few friends. We see Pamela every now and then, last time went to the Botanical Gardens with her and her replacement at her job (she starts a new one at China Daily) and his Russian cousin. Mark is supposedly coming before we leave – we’ll see. And we’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get together with Rob who seems to wake up about the time we’re going to bed! Today we also had lunch with Laurie Lew, who helped me get the job at CCTV, along with Edwin Maher, a really sweet older Australian man who is an anchor there. Where we live is the compound for the hotel staff. It’s kind of weird to see all these people we were used to seeing dressed up serving us, walking their dogs in their civvies. A lot of the same ones are here and they all remember us well, as well as remembering how pregnant I was when I left. Jack does better at remembering them though than I do! Jack has a lunch with his classmates tomorrow – we’re still debating whether the boys and I should go or not, I think probably not. He hasn’t got together with any of them since we got back. One sent us the tickets to the sports performace at the Bird’s Nest and then later asked if I would teach his wife English in exchange for her watching the boys. I couldn’t quite picture the logistics of this, especially with her living a ways away. Jack has another friend, Wang Hao, who we used to spend some time with who has disappeared. He kept changing jobs and lived in a $10/month shack and now noone can track him down. Another good friend of ours who lives in Sichuan we also can’t get a hold of. That’s kind of troublesome considering his family is from the earthquake area. Jack thinks though it’s just that he didn’t write down the correct cell phone number the last time they chatted before we left. I certainly hope that’s the case.