The Cousins Descend

The cousins have descended. And despite the small space and her frequent instruction to me on the correct way to do things or raise my kids, it’s been good. The boys love their cousins, for some reason especially the 10-year-old girl. She reminds me a bit of Katie back in Athens – pretty, smart and mature for her age. They do like the 4-year-old boy too though I guess he’s not quite “big kid” enough to be as much fun and he’s could use a bit more discipline (but then again mine probably could too!). Still I am reminded how much humor and play is universal and cross-culture.

It does get a bit crazy here though – they took to throwing blocks at Hong Ting, the girl, who seemed to think it was funny and despite my constant telling them to stop, their mama was laughing too. Finally during one such session yesterday when I wasn’t paying attention she apparently got hit and was crying. I didn’t even notice she was crying, just thought she was hiding from the barrage. Her brother claimed it was our two who did it and Jack started to get angry at them, but I told him not to blame them since they were encouraging it and there wasn’t much I could do to stop it if I didn’t have their mama’s support. Anyway, everyone is good friends again today. They went by themselves today to the Great Wall, returning hot and exhausted but with tales (and pictures) of fat foreigners, who were horrified when the boy smashed a butterfly. I have to say I would have been too.

And if one more person tells me the boys shouldn’t be wearing a diaper even to sleep at 3 years old, I just might punch them. Chinese people have very standardized and mechanical views of child rearing. I’ve been really pleased at their quick success at going diaper-less during the day and know we should work on sleeping soon (though they both went pee-less during nap today when I promised them suckers in return!), but I really am not worried about that. The constant advice I am given is starting to wear on me, probably because Jack’s cousin is here. The first thing when she arrived was to say how skinny and sick they were. We assured her they were not sick at all. Meanwhile her son who snacks all day and only drinks sweet drinks has actually been sick. The other thing everyone says is you have to chase them to get them to eat if that’s what it takes. I strongly disagree on this matter, try to explain that kids won’t starve themselves and the most important is that what they eat is healthy. But I have had to relent to let Jack feed them in front of the tv to make sure they eat as much as he thinks they should even though I disagree with that.

Meanwhile, we squeezed in a trip to Daxing. It was nice if a bit disconcerting as it took me quite some time to orient myself and recognize everything – partly because so much has changed. It wasn’t terribly exciting for the boys but they still kept the lunch party entertained – Isaac pulling his handwipe magically out of his shirt again and again with squeals of laughter, Ethan crawling under the table and both of them twirling the big lazy susan around after placing some object on it. We saw Gilda, another old student of Pamela’s, and Leonard too who surprisingly but happily (he is kind of shy and not very attractive though smart and funny) married a lovely lady who is more educated than and is due with their child in a few months. We were mostly at their house when not lunching. Also Xiao Hong of course, who hasn’t changed a wee bit. I caught only a brief glimpse of my old apartment and the BIGC.

We leave on Saturday for Chongqing. Tickets were getting hard to come by, so we had to delay a day longer than we planned. Jack went to the ticket office at 7 pm when they started selling the next available train and reserved us two soft berths – that means first class beds. The compartments have doors and air conditioning and other amenities we will no doubt discover. We will have to share with two other people so I hope the boys are on good behavior and that the compartment-mates are not too annoying either! I’m kind of exhausted already thinking about spending the next few weeks on the road and with various family but hopefully it’ll be good and it’s definitely nice to be on the downward trend toward going home.