Package

From 2012.3 March

A very exciting package showed up-my first big purchase for this baby!

From 2012.3 March

Lizbeth is very excited about it too, though she's not sure which she's more excited about, the chair or the box.

From 2012.3 March

We've had a lot of fun with both.

From 2012.3 March

Busy Hands

I'm working two days a week this semester. While I only actually teach 1 1/2 hours each of those days, with commute, prep time, lunch, and Chinese class, I end up being out of the house pretty much all day Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday mornings, Lizbeth has a play time class at our school's Early Childhood Center.

By Wednesday afternoon, I'm exhausted.

Well, enter the 9th month. I now have to head all the way to the hospital every week for my prenatal appointments. The commute is about a half hour each way (if I can get a taxi right away). As I am teaching Monday and Tuesday, have Chinese class Thursday afternoon, and my doctor is out of office Thursday morning and Friday, this leaves Wednesday afternoon for for these lovely appointments in which they tell me everything is fine and to go home and wait some more.

Not to mention, the Chinese health system is very different than American. Instead of setting up an appointment, you just show up...and wait behind everyone else that is ahead of you. They also often only have one sonogram or NST machine going at once, which means the wait can be very long. On average, these appointments take over two hours, not including commute time.

So, on to my exhaustion. To make matter worse, Nathan comes home on the late bus on Wednesdays. Today I was so tired I put on the Little Mermaid for Lizbeth to watch. Thinking she was content and I would hear her if something changed...I closed my eyes on the couch. Oops. A half hour later I woke up to find she had gotten into the vaseline. It was all over every exposed part of her body, much of her clothes, in her hair, smeared across the toilet, bathroom floor, hallway floor, into the living room, on the pleather chair, and who knows where else...

I have learned my lesson. No sleeping when she is not. This is going to make Wednesdays very long...

男宝宝

In case you were wondering, 男宝宝 (pronounced "nan bao bao") means boy baby. This is the first to come of my maternity pictures from my awesome friend and photographer, Kiley Ariail.

From Maternity

You can find more of her pictures on her website www.kileyariail.com, including a few of Lizbeth's 1 year old photos and some of my beautiful friend Jacquelyn.

First Braids

From 2012.2 February

Lizbeth has long straight bangs that hang down right in her eyes. Actually they're almost to her chin now, but still refuse to be tucked behind her ears. Unfortunately, most days she hates having her hair brushed, ponytailed, or clipped back, and almost anything I do seems to just slip right out after just an hour or two.

Well the other day I was looking at her hair and realizing that it is just about long enough to french braid, at least part of it. So I bribed her with chocolate and convinced her to sit down long enough for me to braid her bangs back. I was amazed at how long the braid stayed in-at the end of the day it still didn't look too bad, and was very successful at keeping her hair out of her eyes. We've done this many days since, and I think is both of ours favorite way to keep her hair in some sort of order. Beats fighting her to put her pony tail back in every couple hours!

From 2012.2 February

Pregnancy Pictures

As my connection to blogger is intermittent, I wanted to quickly post a couple fairly recent pictures of my pregnancy. Funny, we all say how we will not take less pictures with the second baby, but as far as I know, we all do...I think we've only photographed this pregnancy three times!

On the other hand, I am getting professional shots on Friday (tomorrow). I'm pretty excited but a bit not sure what to expect. I have no idea what to wear! haha. But this photographer is amazing and I'm sure she will do a fantastic job.

Okay, here for the not-professional shots :-)

31 Weeks Pregnant

From 2012.2 February

From 2012.2 February

33 1/2 Weeks
I've been teaching on Mondays and Tuesdays, and unfortunately the class times are right through Lizbeth's naps. We try and sneak short ones before or after, but by Tuesday afternoon she's getting pretty tired. Here she had fallen asleep on the bus home, stayed asleep as I carried her the whole 7 minute walk home, transferred to my bed, and continued to sleep another 20 minutes. She woke up crying and so we cuddled on the chair for a little while. She thought my tummy was the comfyist place and ended up falling back asleep for a whole hour more.

From 2012.2 February

34 Weeks

From 2012.2 February

My Sweet Angel Girl

From 2012.2 February

Finally Some New York Pictures

As part of our five week break from school we decided to go visit our friends who moved from China back to New York last summer. We miss them terribly, but I have to say I was a bit nervous about going, wondering how it would be to be back together after so long. I knew we would have all changed, the kids would have grown and matured, and our lives are very different.

To my wonderful surprise, it was the most incredible week. Lizbeth was back in her Uncle J Dogg's arms before he could even get his coat off. Anna and I bonded again just before, and Jacquelyn and I had wonderful moments of just getting to talk, be together, and catch up. I miss them so much! But now, on to some pictures...

My Traveling Beauty

From New York

From New York

The kids playing while we waited for Jeremy to get home from work.

From New York

It didn't take long for Lizbeth to be back in his arms-his coat isn't even off!

From New York

Of course everyone wanted to be a part of welcoming him home.

From New York

Look at those handsome guys!

From New York

New York City Baby! I was so stoked to be there.

From New York

Waiting while Jk's awesome sister looked into show tickets for us.

From New York

Finally together again. I miss you Jacquelyn!

From New York

From New York

Cute babies with their daddies (we only took Micah and Lizbeth downtown with us)

From New York

From New York

Amazing architecture

From New York

From New York

From New York

So many churches

From New York

Egyptian exhibit at the MET

From New York

Very old graffiti on much older ruins

From New York

Medieval Armor area

From New York

This was on the top of a Japanese helmet.

From New York

We wanted lots of pictures together

From New York

The four of us after the show we went to, Chinglish

From New York

Jacquelyn's sister was so incredible, she even took both babies/toddlers by herself home by train--over 1 1/2 hours!--so we could go to a show.

And her niece was so incredible, she even got Lizbeth to go to sleep.

From New York

Not too many pictures from the rest of the trip, but here is one of Anna reading me a book.

From New York

And a cool New York skyline on the way back to the airport

From New York

We miss you guys! Thank you so much for a wonderful visit!

I can see!

Yay, I had almost given up hope, but today for some reason the internet let me through. Bet you had given up on me too! :-)

So, I'm going to type quickly and hope my luck lasts out. If it does, then I will add more posts afterwards with more details and hopefully lots of pictures.

So, what's new with us?
Lizbeth is potty trained! Completely by her own choice, she begged for months, but I held off due to impending Christmas travel. Well, in America she proved she was serious by using the big toilet three times. When we arrived back in China we immediately bought her a toilet and she took off. There's definitely some ups and downs as we face stubbornness and testing of wills, but really, she's doing amazing.

I'm 33 three weeks pregnant. Hard to believe little boy will be here in just around 7 weeks. It's been an up and down pregnancy, with him hanging out low and causing bazillions of contractions, worrying the doctors and putting me on semi-bedrest. Good thing is all the contractions are not causing any real progress so I'm pretty much released unless they come back in force again.

I'm teaching drama two days a week, two hours each day. It feels really good to be in the classroom again. The school provides someone to watch Lizbeth during that time, and Nathan's schedule is left open to cover for me whenever I can't make it. (For instance this last week with Lizbeth's 103 degree F fever). I hope to take a few weeks of maternity leave once I have the baby and finish out the semester with them.

As a whole, we have not been a healthy family for the past two plus months. We all got the flu this past week, although thankfully I was hit least so have been able to take care of the other two. Unfortunately, this is my third time in a row getting sick, the first two lasting over two weeks each. I've also had what the doctor calls a "painless migraine" and have had to have a bunch of testing (all coming up relatively normal) to rule out many other things. Needless to say, we've seen the doctors a LOT these past couple months!

Lizbeth is growing more and more independent and toddler like. In general she has a very sweet disposition, but we have our moments of "mama, no!" Her new word is "You!", she says it whenever she's upset about something and doesn't want you doing it. "You, no!" "You, sit!" "You, get it!" We are working on respecting mommy and daddy and Ayi.

We're also having night time issues. Before going to America for Christmas, she was the easiest kid to put to bed. Simply hug her, put her in, and sing her a song or two, and she was great. Usually only about 10 minutes. Now we average between and hour and an hour and a half, taking up most of our evening. She is afraid of being alone and won't fall asleep unless we are there. It has been very trying and we have tried many tactics.

Well that's about it. I haven't said much about Nathan, he's keeping on keeping on. He's enjoying his classes a lot this semester, teaching video production, involved in the middle school drama, and continuing to teach programming (among many other classes too!). His class load is also a little lighter this semester since I am taking the other drama class (6th Grade) and his computer science class is smaller this semester. They are also transitioning Broadcast Journalism to another teacher so he is phasing out of that class as well.

Well, Lizbeth is giving me her "You! Hand off Computer!" Not sure when I'll have access again so until then, know I am thinking of you guys constantly even when I can't write.