We have a Nack for it

Secret Agents

Julie — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:02:16 +0000

The kids were bored, so I glued six pieces of paper together for each of them, told them they were secret agents & that they needed to draw up their super secret plan. Ben thought this was AWESOME. He was so excited, he could hardly contain himself. He likes pretending to be a spy.

Ben’s plan; to build a huge net, hang it from the ceiling & capture daddy.

Update to not having an oven: we bought a big toaster oven. It’s working pretty well as a replacement.

19 Weeks

Julie — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:45:24 +0000

I figured I should start making Jeremy take pictures to document #3 a little. I’ve been tracking my progress with cell phone pictures, but I always cut my head off (on purpose). I much prefer my studio, but the wall in our bedroom here in China will have to do. I’m sure Jeremy will be so excited to do my maternity pictures back home in a few months (can you hear the sarcasm?). He may or may not care, but he will do it for me because he loves me.

If you haven’t heard, IT’S A GIRL!!!

We’re Staying Busy Today

Julie — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:47:49 +0000

We went to a new grocery store last night. It was filled with goodies we can find at home……marshmallows, candy….all sorts of candy. Oh, and cereal, pork chops, bagels, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I found finger paint there too, so we picked some up.

Ben’s painting:

And then we made an airplane. It was Ben’s idea, but I expanded on it a little to give them a little more to keep them busy longer. They like the buttons on the dash board & the communication radio (not in pictures).

Update: Doctor Visit Went Well

Julie — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:32:07 +0000

I had my follow-up appointment today. The ultrasound showed that everything is looking good. The blood clot is still shrinking. Baby is measuring right on target. The doctor wants me to come in again next week for another ultrasound to check up on the clot.

We found out what we’re having too. Stay tuned……

My Two-Year Old is a Backseat Driver

Julie — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:06:52 +0000

She has been for quite some time. I didn’t quite realize how bad it was until we got our driver in Shanghai & she tells him how to drive too! He speaks very little english, so I can only hope that he doesn’t understand her.

I frequently hear, “GO MOMMY!” When stopped at a red light. Or, “Drive faster Mommy.” Or “Woah, Mommy, you’re tipping us (going around an entrance ramp to a freeway).”

She yells at the driver to GO when he’s stopped too.

I hope this phase doesn’t last long. It is funny sometimes, but it’s definitely a phase I could do without.

Not an Experience I Expected to Have While in Shanghai

Julie — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:51:39 +0000

This post will have the gory details. So if you aren’t up for reading about why I spent the night in the hospital, skip this post.

At this point, I’m 17 weeks pregnant. I’m not supposed to have any bleeding. As of today, it has now happened three times. Once just a week before we left on our trip, about a week & a half later & then yesterday. I woke up with it. It was much different than the first two times, worse.

I called Jeremy to tell him what was going on & that I was calling the hospital to make an appointment. They were able to get me in yesterday morning at 11:30 (Jeremy & the kids came with). I saw the doctor & they sent me right over to the ultrasound room next door.

They found a clot/bleeding on the side of my uterus above the baby. The doctor’s recommendation at this point was an overnight stay in the hospital for observation. Over here, ambulance services are pretty much useless. We were told that we’d be better off getting a taxi to the hospital because they can drive more aggressively. Ambulances have nothing on board to stabilize a person. They also stop at red lights. Cars don’t really seem to move out of the way for emergency vehicles either. The reason for the overnight stay was to make sure I didn’t bleed to death before getting back to the hospital (20 minutes away in good traffic, probably over an hour at high traffic time).

I had another ultrasound this morning to check the status of the bleeding/clot. It has moved toward the bottom of my uterus & is now smaller so they sent me home. The doctor told me to rest for a few days & that I could probably start going for walks again after that. To be honest, I’m afraid to pick back up on activity. The three instances where this has happened seemed to be after busier days (physically) for me. But I don’t feel as though I was over-exerting myself by any means, hence the fear to do anything besides sit on my butt all day. I go in for another ultrasound on Tuesday morning to check the status of things.

Shanghai Night

Julie — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 08:39:57 +0000

On one of Jeremy visits over here, he took pictures of downtown Shanghai at night. Of course it was something I wanted to do while we are here, so we headed over to the bund yesterday evening. To be honest, I’m not impressed with the photos that I took. I’m hoping that I can fix them to my liking when I get home to my desktop computer & color calibrated monitor. Until then these will have to do…………

Shanghai Science Museum

Julie — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:28:27 +0000

We have it pretty good at home at the Science Museum in St. Paul. The Science Museum here in Shanghai has a lot of information TO READ and LOOK AT. It doesn’t not have much for hands-on activities. There were some, but it wasn’t like back home where almost every exhibit has something to do. The kids still seemed to enjoy themselves though. There were a bunch of robots, two of which can solve rubix cubes pretty quickly. It was fun to watch.

Bored Kids

Julie — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:29:04 +0000

Okay, I’ll admit it. The kids are watching way too many movies & playing too many games on the Ipad. They are bored & I haven’t figured out (aka not brave enough yet) where to venture out to, to keep them busy/entertained.

Today, we went to the pool after breakfast. It kept us busy for an hour before the kids got cold. The timing worked out well. We were able to come back so I could shower, eat lunch & go to the store. The store keeps us busy for a while. We have the three block walk there, the corralling of two cranky children because they don’t like the three block walk– while trying to find food, and the three block walk back.

This is picture is from last week one evening when Jeremy was in the pool with the kids.

We Have no Oven

Julie — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:23:39 +0000

A few days ago, we discovered that we have no oven. Jeremy finally decided to see if he could figure out how to work what we thought was our oven. After looking up information on this thing underneath our stove top, he found out that it is a “disinfecting machine.”

Occasionally housekeeping will do our dishes, which means they rub water over them with a cloth & stick them in the dish drainer. So, after figuring out that we do not have an oven, but a place to disinfect our dishes, we understand the lack of care in doing our dishes.

We are thinking we’ll supplement our lack of oven with a crock pot and a toaster oven. I think it will work out.