Good Times with Grandparents

We're lucky.  We just are.  No matter where we move to, both sets of grandparents are game for visiting -- or in some cases, even moving nearby!  One of the cool things that I see every single day here in Shanghai, and likely all over China, is grandparents taking care of their grandchild (and yes, here in China it is grandchild, not grandchildren).

Grandparents are often the primary source of day care here.  It's not unusual to see a granddad out alone with a teeny baby.  Grandparents together feeding, caring, playing with their grandchild for the bulk of the day.  I love watching it.  Love watching grandparents play such an integral role in the lives of their grandchild.  Then I think to myself, what kind of moron drags their kids 7,000+ miles away from their two amazing sets of grandparents.  Morons like me and Matthew.  Sorry Charles and Gloria and Roger and Joyce.  We love you all very much and will come home soon.

Golden Week

This week has been a Golden Week here in China -- basically a week holiday to celebrate China's National Day (Oct. 1st) and the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival.  Matthew and the kids are all home from work/school.  Lots of people travel during this week.  I read somewhere that they were expecting 7 million people to visit Shanghai.  I think we saw them all on the subway.

Matthew and Eli started the week with new haircuts.  Eli got a 40 minute haircut.  No joke.  Complete with hair washing, blow dry, and style (with product!). 

Totally Tai Tai

Allison -- what are you doing now that the kids are in school?  I get that a lot.  From all of you.  And even if you haven't asked it outloud, I know you're thinking it!  What is it that you do now that you are a stay-at-home-mom without any stay-at-home-kids?  It is rather ridiculous.  Am I really a Tai tai or an "accompanying spouse" or a "lady who lunches"?  How did this happen?   Should I just embrace it and enjoy it or run for the hills? 

Naomi and Townes started piano lessons.

I checked out the American Women's Club of Shanghai.  I tried to find my people there among the sparkly shirts and expensive shoes.  I spied one woman in a t-shirt and ponytail and no makeup.  Hey, there she is, my people.  Turns out she was a college kid visiting her mom who dragged her to the meeting.  Fail.


I've been to a few coffee mornings sponsored by Shanghai Mamas.  These are nice.  Women from all over the world, UK, Singapore, Brazil, USA, Netherlands, all trying to figure out their new identity and where to buy cheddar cheese.  One new friend from the group and I took a sightseeing bus tour together and have plans for other outings. 

Tips for the Day

Two important things, always use the tooths and never leave your baby on the road.

And in Shanghai, they got bored...

Just a quick post to share this great article from the China Daily News -- the largest English language paper in China.  It highlights the work of our friend and Matthew's colleague Pan Tao, and his amazing farm -- Eco Land Farm (NOT Ego Land as stated in the article).  Completely ridiculous picture of Matthew and Naomi and I.  I wonder if people now think that carrots at "Ego" Land Farm come out of the ground with eyes and a nose?

A Triumph of Packaging

Last week was India – 3 days in New Delhi, 2 days in Hyderabad. I traveled with my colleague Elaine, who was delighted to find a road in Delhi named after renowned Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Elaine and I share an erstwhile passion for 19th century Russian novels, and we both found it odd yet characteristic of India to have a road named after a man who lived thousands of miles away, never visited Delhi, and most likely never gave the place much thought.

India is that kind of hodgepodge. A melting pot that puts the United States to shame. It has 22 official local languages (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, and so on), yet the lingua franca is the imported language of English. People from different parts of India – close enough to travel back and forth in an hour – can’t communicate in their own languages, but can often get by in English. Although it’s not uncommon for an Indian to speak 5-6 languages as a matter of course, either (another way that India puts the United States to shame).

India is all cultures at once, and yet quintessentially Indian. It absorbs cultures, absorbs religions, languages, art, and whole peoples like a sponge absorbs liquid, and yet, like a sponge, doesn’t really change as a result. It stubbornly, admirably, retains its own distinctive form and function. Wring all of those external influences out of it and there, still, is India, incredible India (as the motto goes), baking under a sweltering sun and deliquescing under torrential monsoons and bedazzling you with the sheer, titanic, interminable hammer-hammer-hammering of its colors, and chaos, and cacophony. It can be exhausting, to say the least.

But today is not about making sense of India. Better men than me have tried. No, today is about trying to make sense out of something even more crazy and unbelievable than India: the insanity of product packaging.

Tough Times

There are many hard things about living in Shanghai.  These, however, are not two of those things.

My first pedicure in Shanghai.  Electric blue.

OMG.  It's a dumpling.  Then they fry it.  Until it carmalizes on the bottom.  And cover it with toasted sesame seeds.  It does spew boiling hot pork juice on you when you bite into it.  But whatever, there's ointment for that.

First day of school pics coming soon...