Cold Things Will Kill You! Cake Too!

 Killer Cake by ArcZero. Neat!

One thing I have always despised since living here is when people tell you something so idiotic and they expect you to believe it too. Only problem is I'm from the educated world and they are not.

I'm talking about MIL here and her constant freakout about consuming cold things. Or being too cold. As I type this, Raelynn is napping on our sofa with a blanket AND MIL's dingy winter coat tossed over her for good measure. Not like we don't have heating or anything.

MIL came this afternoon shortly after I'd just scrubbed a round of vomit off Raelynn and the sofa. Early this morning, Raelynn had eaten her usual cereal with milk. She'd also requested an egg, which I'd made her but she'd been picking at. I assumed it was due to her zoning off on her cartoons, which is a frequent occurrence. She tells me her tummy hurts and I assure her she just needs to poop. So off she goes to the potty and makes a totally normal poop. She says she feels better. Problem solved.

Soon, it's time for lunch. I make us some leftovers from yesterday's lunch - a pasta I'd made with mascarpone cheese and sandwiches using the fried chicken MIL had made for dinner. Raelynn had been happily eating this stuff yesterday but suddenly, she didn't want to eat anything. She said her tummy hurt again. I told her to try to make another poop. But this time, she doesn't. She says she's not hungry. She wants to play. I scold her for not eating properly and the next thing I know, she's barfing everywhere. Lovely. Poor thing.

As I clean her up, Seoul is crying away in her crib. Nothing I can do but let her sit there and cry while I attend to Raelynn. Once I get Raelynn cleaned up, I go put Seoul down for a nap. While I'm in there, MIL shows up. When I emerge to check on Raelynn, I tell MIL about how Raelynn threw up. First, she blames my food. The food Raelynn didn't even eat! So I yell at the old cow. What an idiot. My food is to blame and she didn't even consume it.

So then she asks what else she's eaten and I tell her cereal and milk and some of an egg. And she blames the milk! It's cold! You gave her cold milk! How dare you! Bitch, please. She eats cereal and milk every day without a problem.

Then, she blames the cake I made for Jeremy's birthday yesterday. You gave her a piece of cake! You bet I did. It was her daddy's birthday. I gave her a small piece of cake after dinner. Now I'm some horrible mom. And hey, speaking of horrible moms, you not once said "Happy Birthday" to your own son on his birthday. Have you no soul? This woman! Ugh.

She thinks the stupidest thoughts. Do you see why it is so difficult for me to endure her? Here is a woman who insists that milk and cereal are bad for Raelynn and this is the culprit but will take her to the yogurt shop around the corner. THAT YOGURT IS COLD! She cooks food and lets it sit out. Oh that won't kill you but a small piece of cake? Geez.

I cannot even wait for our upcoming trip. That was a pleasure, telling her we were going. She had no idea. I can't believe Jeremy didn't tell her yet. Oh well...cat's out of the bag. And the lioness is sharpening her claws for the next attack.

Happy Wacky 2015!

A very belated Happy New Year to you all! How did you spend it? Falling asleep before midnight, like we've been doing the past few years since having children? Maybe one day I will make it past midnight. At least this year, I had an excuse besides the children.

Before the end of the year, I'd gotten a cough. It wasn't much more than that. Just a hacking, annoying cough that I likely picked up from one of my germy students. Or Raelynn. She was coughing too. But then she got a fever right before the kindergarten performance. We took her to the doctor after and consulted him about my cough as well. We each got some medicine and figured that would be the end of it.

A day or two later, Seoul had a fever and a very slight cough. Ugh. Here we go again. Another trip to the doctor. Medicine for her. Which worked...on the fever. The cough kept persisting.

Even through the new year. Onto New Year's Day, which is FIL's birthday. Since marrying my husband, I've always felt the new year started out in a crappy way each year because we'd have to celebrate FIL's birthday instead of relaxing without my in-laws. But now I think I've changed my mind.

There's worse things than a lunch full of food and booze.

Like taking your kids to the hospital.

I've said it before - in China and Korea, a trip to the hospital doesn't necessarily mean an emergency. It's just where you go for treatments and such. Whatever Raelynn had was much worse than we thought. She had to get an IV treatment for a total of 5 days. The good news was that she didn't have to stay in the hospital - she only had to come once a day for about an hour or two. On the third day of her treatments, I was feeling worse than ever. And Seoul's cough was getting worse. So I told Jeremy I wanted us to be checked out as well. Seoul, thankfully, just had a viral cold, the doctor told us. She prescribed some medicine and said the cough was not in her chest and she would be fine. It was a huge reassurance since I'd made myself insane looking online at the symptoms of RSV and Whooping Cough.

After we had her checked out, it was my turn. The doctor sent me down to radiology for a chest x-ray and then to have my blood tested. My father is a radiologist so this is a familiar area for me. How I wished he was there then! A ripple of terror ran through me as I stood there, positioned for my x-ray. What if it was cancer?

A man that the doctor was speaking to before us had a serious lung disease. I know this because Jeremy told me what they were saying. Here, it is very common for others to be in the room while you're being diagnosed or examined. Jeremy had shooed Seoul and me away from him but I figured the old guy had probably smoked all his life. And then it hit me. God. I was sooooooooooooooooo stupid for soooooooooooooooooooo many years. I smoked. God. Please don't let it be cancer.

A couple years ago, my brother sent me an email that he had written our dad, along with his response. My brother had asked him what had happened when Mom died. Phillip was 17 then and I was just 9, but his memory is blurry too. He couldn't remember how long she'd been sick with lung cancer and how we'd found out. My father said that one morning, Mom woke him up because she couldn't breathe. He took her to the hospital. They did an x-ray and when my father saw it, he fainted it. She had an extremely rare form of lung cancer. There was nothing Daddy or anyone could do. She was going to die. It was August 1985 when they found out about the cancer. She died on October 20, 1985. Yes, just months later. She was only 42. I'm 38. I'm getting close to that number.

I don't want to die young! I want to see my precious children grow up and have families of their own. I want to grow old with my husband.

And then, the x-ray was over. And the x-ray tech told me not to worry - it was not cancer. No sign of cancer! Thank God!

But guess what it was - bronchitis! Man, I have not had that since I was a heavy smoker years ago. The doctor prescribed some medicine that was safe to take while breastfeeding and told me to get bed rest.

That left me with a problem - how to rest AND take care of the children?
MIL.

I have to admit, she's been so helpful. She's the only one of us who can give the baby her medicine without her spitting it back up. Plus, I've been too weak to cook, much less make sure Raelynn eats properly. Either she's making good food or I've just been that sick that it doesn't taste so bad. Or I'm delirious.

Yes, it's a wacky new year, alright. I could look at it in 2 ways though - I could sit here and say this sucks and this is the shittiest new year ever, or I could think positively, learn from this and have a great year despite this bumpy start. I chose the latter.

I've learned that it's OK to ask for help when you need it. I've learned that I should be nicer to MIL because she does care about all of us and just wants to be helpful and useful. Yes, she's annoying sometimes and she will likely try to annoy me once I'm completely well and don't need her here from the time Jeremy goes off to work and then returns home again. I've learned to be grateful for what I've got and that I should think positively for 2015.

So that's what I'm going to do. Oh hey now. Don't worry. I'm still the same bitchy me. I'll find plenty to snark about, even MIL, as the year goes on. I'm just remembering a little humility, and that never hurt a person now did it?

Much excitement coming in the next few weeks but more rest is needed now. And with that, I'll leave you with some bad hospital Engrish. Wishing you all a prosperous and healthy 2015!

Resuscitation Roomg. I'd cut them a break if there were signs to Resuscitation Rooms A - F, but there were none anywhere else, leading me to conclude that they think that "roomg" is a word.

This one is a bit tougher to see. Let's see if you can spot the error.
Did you find it yet?
How about now?
Give up?
It says "Emergency Surgery Clinc Area." It's so subtle, I know but the "Clinc" made me giggle a bit.

F-Off FIL!

You know what would be nice? To go more than 2 weeks at a time without any of us in this household getting sick. I would fucking love that. More than anything, I would love for us to enjoy a healthy weekend outside of the house before this baby comes along and makes us all insane.

Of course, we have FIL to make us insane until then.

Very early this morning, Raelynn woke up coughing. My husband was yelling at her which is what actually woke me up. I thought she was coughing because she was upset he'd yelled and she simply needed some water. But she kept coughing after that. Long after that. And we realized she wasn't in need of water. She needed medicine.

Jeremy has finally come to realize that it doesn't matter how much clothing your kid is wearing, if the wind is blowing on them, or the A/C is turned on, or what kind of food you feed your child because none of this is what makes children sick. After we Skyped with my folks, we took Raelynn to the doctor.

I suggested she stay home from school tomorrow. Jeremy was unsure about it but before bed, she was still showing a fever, though thankfully a much lower grade of fever. So he called his folks to ask them to please come watch her while we're at work. While he did that, I got Raelynn ready for bed. And as I read her stories, I heard my husband screaming into the phone.

I tried to listen but it's hard when you're busy reading in your first language and trying to listen in your 4th language, a language you suck badly at. Once Raelynn was in bed and he got off the phone, we were able to discuss what happened. He'd called FIL first and FIL screamed at my husband and blamed him for Raelynn being sick again. It shook Jeremy up so much, to the point where he confided that he thinks something is mentally wrong with his father.

It's crazy when MIL is the more sane one, isn't it? Jeremy talked to her next and she was much more rational than her husband, thankfully. FIL has been pissing me off so much lately with his idiotic ideas about putting a blanket on Raelynn when she naps when it is warm inside the house or closing the window because the wind will make her sick. He seriously thinks this! He's fucking nuts!

If MY father had said it was our fault she got sick so often, I'd listen. BECAUSE HE'S A DOCTOR! But on Skype today, my folks simply expressed sympathy, saying this is what happens with small children. My parents are educated. My in-laws are not, which isn't their fault, but it sure is infuriating when you have someone with the brain of a scarecrow (or lack thereof) trying to tell you how to care for your child and telling you you're a bad parent. 

It makes me fearful of when we go to the hospital to have the baby. Jeremy has already made his mom promise to bring Raelynn to see us each day but I want to talk to her about not letting her husband take Raelynn anywhere by himself. And other things. With the exception of buying useless ugly clothes despite our protests, MIL actually listens to the things we ask her to do when she watches Raelynn. I might despise her cooking and she certainly grates on my nerves daily but I have to give her credit for this. She even tells her husband when he's being nuts. A couple weeks ago, Raelynn was sitting on her little potty. It was warm inside the house but her legs were bare because she'd pulled down her pants to sit on the potty. FIL freaked out and got his jacket to put on her legs. Raelynn refused the jacket and to my great surprise, MIL told him to stop it because it was not cold in the house. I turned to her and thanked her for that one. See? She is the more sensible one. Just not by too terribly much.

So to FIL I say...

Please Keep Your Germy Kids Home!

This one goes out to The Chihuahua and his parents, who saw fit to send him to school hacking up a lung today. I had to check to make sure it wasn't some vagrant chain-smoking Chinese guy that had wandered into my classroom. Nope, it was The Chihuahua, coughing away on everyone around him. So I show him to cover his mouth when he coughs. I tell the whole class to please remember not to cough all over the place, especially not on me. I've been sick since last week and if you've never had the pleasure of being sick while pregnant, then let me just explain how much it sucks. IT SUCKS. BAD. Everyone else can take medicine, except you!

As I've been teaching over here, I can't help but notice how many moms just think it's ok to send their sick child to school. Raelynn was sick this weekend. We took her to the doctor and he told us that it was ok to let her go to school as long as her fever didn't come back. I also taught Raelynn to cover her cough. She's 3. My students are 7. Yet, very few of my students remember to cover their coughs and sneezes and just spray everyone in the vicinity. It's no wonder I'm so sick.

I did the responsible thing, and we were prepared to have my in-laws come and stay with her should she be unable to go to school. When moms at my school send their kids in with a serious cough and no medicine (proving they'd gone to a doctor for treatment), it makes me extra angry. Not just because their children are infecting everyone else, including me, though that is a huge part of it. But it's because NONE of them work. They shop. They get their nails done. They get their hair done. They lunch. Except for the handful that have younger children to care for at home, these women have nothing to do. Would it KILL them to watch their sick children? I should also point out, many have an ayi. That's the Chinese word for an aunt or a nanny who comes to cook and care for the children. Some of the better ones actually clean and have been trained to clean properly and not like how MIL cleans for example.

After being coughed on again, I told Christina my Korean teacher who explained to the children why it was extra important not to cough on me. Yet, several other times, this germy kid coughed on me some more. And I can tell you, it was not malicious. This kid is too dippy to do anything so diabolical. Christina asked me to write a note to his parents about his coughing and tell them to take him to a doctor to treat whatever is wrong with him. She also asked me to please make sure to tell them not to send him to school when he's sick. Done and done.

This makes up for the other day. And in case you were wondering about that situation, just as I predicted, Heathen didn't get his lollipop today. He didn't even ask about it. But if he had, it would have been a no-go. He, quite deliberately, scratched one of the girls on her arm. Like a cat. Yeah. I've got one weird group of kids this year.

To The Mom In The McDonald's At Wanda Plaza

What a truly shitty weekend this was. All 3 of us got sick. I've been sick since last week with a sore throat that turned into the disappearance of my voice, then morphed into rivers of snot and phlegm and a horrible cough that hurts my head. Jeremy and Raelynn soon followed suit so off to the doctor we went. Being pregnant, I can't do anything about it except drink ginger tea and eat cough drops. And suffer. But at least we could get Raelynn back to feeling better. She was such a trooper, so my husband suggested we stop for donuts at the Wanda Plaza mall, which is close to our home.

I was excited too. Donuts! Korea is totally a donut-loving country. But China? These people seriously need some education on why donuts should be available on every corner. That's why I was so delighted when we discovered a place called Donut Stop in the Wanda Plaza mall. We hurried up to the second floor, across from the McDonald's and stopped cold. Where did it go? Instead, there was some crappy Chinese bakery that, despite looking nice, had stupid Engrish on the front. Things like "fashion-baking." Whatever the fuck that means. We went in and my husband asked about the donut shop. They said it closed down. I stormed out. I don't want your shitty baked goods. I HATE YOU! You destroyed my donut dreams!

Raelynn had also requested ice cream, and took the news of the donut shop's closure much better than I did. Now where the fuck am I supposed to get my donut fix? Stupid Qingdao. I hate this uncultured city. But at least we do have McDonald's. So my husband suggested we get some ice cream from there. Raelynn was on board and I thought what the hell. But ice cream turned into fries and lunch along with it.

I'll admit the ice cream cheered me up a bit but I'm still sad Donut Stop is gone. That place was as close to Dunkin Donuts in taste as we were going to get in this hole. Now I have to wait until we go up to Beijing to find donuts.

But something, aside from salty fries, double cheeseburgers and ice cream, turned my mood around. At the booth across from us was a Chinese family. A mom, dad and their small baby boy, who I would estimate to be between 6 and 9 months. The adults were having ice cream. And the baby? He soon began fussing. I saw the mom fumble with him and I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to breastfeed him. Unfortunately, she was a bit large so she couldn't situate herself in the booth without hitting her kid in the head on the table so she trotted off to an empty table in the rear. I wanted to tell her to keep being awesome. I didn't want to startle her though. The heat in the restaurant was unbearable, as at this time of year, people are too cheap to turn on the A/C, even big places like McD's. My husband stepped outside because he could no longer wait for Raelynn to finish eating her ice cream at a snail's pace. I wanted him to come back so he could help me tell this woman that I hope she breastfeeds her son until he's ready to wean. That she tells her mom friends to breastfeed. That she never experiences shame when doing something so natural.

It made me happy because many Chinese women are uneducated about breastfeeding. Despite this though, people here are never rude to you for breastfeeding in public. So, in the off chance that mom might read English, I'm sorry you left before I had the chance to tell you to keep up the great work breastfeeding your son. From the American gal with the darling daughter who cried when we finished all the French fries but then stopped when she realized there was ice cream.

Kill, Kill, Kill...

Sometimes I wonder if my husband's parents even have brains in their heads or if it's just filled with dust bunnies...the kind you'd find under your couch. Except more, because, well, they're total idiots. And sometimes I wonder if my husband forgets that I am pregnant and don't need added stress. It is a good thing guns are not legal in this country because I've had to restrain myself this entire evening from trying to fillet the 3 of them. His parents more so than him.

I was getting ready to cook dinner when the door opened and guess what hideous beast crossed the threshold before I could slam and lock the door? Yes, the head troll. She said she'd come to make wontons for Raelynn and I wanted to punch her in the throat. Because I, the pregnant person, should not ever be permitted to eat something that remotely fucking resembles food. Usually, I love her wontons. But when she serves them so often, they lose their deliciousness in my eyes.

She shuffles around my kitchen and now she's in my way. How am I to make something that sounds appealing to me? Or make something normal for my daughter who is finally getting her appetite back on the tail-end of the illness she caught? Oh but no. Fatass is in my way in the kitchen with no plans to move. It's then that I completely lose my appetite.

I text my husband and let him know that now I am severely depressed. After all, he was the one who told me they wouldn't be coming for dinner tonight and I could make something I wanted for dinner. Fortunately, he arrived home soon after, while the head troll was stinking up my kitchen. He said he didn't know they'd be coming for dinner today. He went to the kitchen to talk to her and she said her heart was breaking because all she wanted to do was cook for Raelynn. YOUR heart is breaking?!? FUCK YOU. I just want some fucking peace and quiet on a weeknight without you barging into my crappy-ass kitchen to make us food we don't want to eat.

It is at this exact moment that I completely lose my mind. Gone. Buh-bye. My husband then realizes that this is making me insane and tries to soothe me. He tells me because Raelynn is sick, his mom wants to help and that she'll back off for a few days. Except not really. Tomorrow she'll come feed Raelynn soup because I am too stupid to do this myself. I mean really. I loathe this woman right now.

My husband did save the day by bringing a duck home for dinner so at least I had something I wanted to eat. But I couldn't eat much of it. And then, after eating, my FIL tells my husband that he wants to take Raelynn to buy some fruit. It is 7:15 at this point and I'm seething. NO. I put my foot down about it but my husband just lifted it up and let them go, saying they would be back in 15 minutes. 15 minutes go by. 20. 30. 40. And I begin to scream and cry, convinced that she's been stolen away by thieves in the night or that my moron FIL has let her get hit by a car or something horrid. I can barely breathe. I demanded of my husband to find my daughter NOW.

That was agonizing, waiting and wondering what the fuck was going on. 10 minutes later, I heard my precious daughter in the stairs leading up to our apartment. I flung open the door and hugged and kissed her like crazy. Now it's after 8pm, when she's normally in bed. And this kid needs a bath. By the way, she's still recovering from being sick. What a splendidly brilliant idea to take a child who has had a fever off and on for days out into the night. To buy fruit. We have a giant watermelon! And a shit-ton of mangoes. Asshole. Because THAT won't make her more sick. Oh no. Blame ME for not putting a blanket on her while she was fucking napping in 3 layers of clothes on the sofa. Go ahead.

And do you think my husband will even say, "Hey Dad, that was not very cool what you did"? No! He doesn't seem bothered by this. Right now, I am fighting the urge to beat the living shit out of all 3 of them. I think most people would say I'm justified for doing so. My husband singing happy songs while in the bathroom just clinches it for me.

I fucking hate everybody right now.

Gah!

I just want to relax on my Sunday evening. Of course, because it is just what I want, it is not what I'm getting. Not by a long shot.

This was a mostly marvelous 4-day weekend. On Thursday, my husband took Raelynn and me to a botanical gardens park. We'd never been and it was just what we needed. We packed snacks of melons and chips and found a quiet place to munch on them. It satiated my desire to get out and do something yet not be stuck with lots of crowds and made Jeremy happy as well. He'd initially suggested going out to Laoshan Mountain, where his parents have another house. I've shown you that house before. If you haven't seen it or you forgot how much it sucks, click here. Even if they didn't have property out there, I hate it out there. HATE IT. It is so unbelievably boring, it makes you feel like you are waiting for death.

After the park, we went to a total dump of a place for lunch. It was a Chinese BBQ place. I was a bit apprehensive but I didn't want to spoil the mood by whining. Turns out, the food was amazing. We had a great lunch and then we did a little shopping out in Taidong. It was fantastic.

Our Friday was also a nice family day. We went looking at big girl beds for Raelynn so we could get a feel for what our options were and at what prices. We've still yet to make a decision but those fancy showrooms made me feel right at home. I had no idea they even had furniture this nice out here. Equally as confusing were the prices...I have no idea who can afford that furniture either. It was expensive to us and we're not struggling. We found a great bed that was raised up with storage drawers underneath. It had a railing and an adorable little 3-step ladder to climb up. The price? 6,000rmb. For comparison, Raelynn's crib cost us 600rmb. Yeah.

Later though, that's when things began to suck. Raelynn was coughing and had a fever. Saturday was spent trying to deal with her being sick. We wanted to take her to the doctor but his office was closed for the holiday. Today, Sunday, my husband had to return to work. Yes, that's right. Because in China, they will give Chinese people days off during the week and then expect them to work on the weekend to make them up. Which defeats the purpose of a holiday if you ask me. My school is a Korean school and they feel much like the rest of us Westerners about it - we are NOT coming in on the weekend to make up a holiday, thanks.

Worried about us getting to the doctor and language issues, my husband called his boss to say he'd be a little late. Then off to the doctor's we went. Aside from a fever that broke during the day but returned at night, we had a coughing, sneezing little munchkin. One who had no appetite. We should have known something was wrong when she couldn't finish a piece of chocolate she'd received as a reward for making a poop in the potty. The doctor gave us something that seems to be working. No more fever and my poor little princess fell sound asleep watching cartoons while I was cleaning.

As I finished my chores quietly, my phone rang. It was my husband telling me that those 2 imbeciles that he calls parents are going to come over later to make Raelynn noodles.

Yes, noodles. Because Lord knows I am too fucking stupid to make and serve noodles to my daughter. I need these 2 to come make them. I mean COME ON! My husband wouldn't hear my pleas and now I'm a bit steamed actually. These fuckmunches come and butt into my life constantly. It's not that they want to see Raelynn. They want to be in charge of everyfuckingthing and that is what pisses me off.

So here they are, making a fucking mess in my kitchen. Asking me why the sink is leaking again. Telling me I haven't dressed my daughter warmly enough (I have her in a long sleeve t-shirt, jeans and socks and we are indoors with the windows closed with an outside temperature of 64F). Telling me she has a fever when the thermometer says her temperature is fine. Taking her outside for a walk when they are telling me it's too cold in here for her (it's not fucking cold!!!). Forcing her to eat watermelon when the kid doesn't have an appetite for anything, especially chocolate, her favorite. The list goes on and on. And my husband? He might be a little late returning from work. So I am stuck with Wingus and Dingus over here, ruining what should be a peaceful Sunday evening. Making me food that smells like it was dug out of the garbage. Squawking away at each other like chickens about to be plucked and boiled alive.

My husband says to be polite. "Just take a bite of something she gives you and that will satisfy her." Sorry Honey, but I think you hit your head on something. Whether I like something or don't, whether I am hungry or full, my in-laws will both keep putting things onto my plate. They won't stop no matter how nicely I ask. And that's with things I like! I once had my FIL keep peeling shrimp and putting them on my plate. I kept asking him to please stop but he wouldn't. I BEGGED him to please eat the shrimp but he kept dropping them on my plate for me as if I was incapable of grabbing them myself. So if they do that with things I like, imagine how much it sucks for them to do it with things I don't want to eat. It is so beyond frustrating and I am completely running out of patience for this kind of shit. Gah!

Bad Medicine

Sorry to disappoint, but the in-laws began to slack on their countdown to Christmas. Then again, we've been too sick to notice. Again, my germy students thwarted my attempts at staying healthy and spread some of their sickly goodness on over to me. Joy! The school nurse informed me that I had a fever on Thursday and recommended I go home and rest. I would have been fine just sleeping in the nurse's office except they chose this week to replace all the heaters in the school and her quarters were freezing. I wound up putting my head down on my laptop until my Korean teacher tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go home and get some real rest.

When I got home, MIL watched Raelynn for me while I rested. And then when I awoke, she said she'd make wontons, which she makes rather well. Only this time, she served them to me floating in some very unsavory seaweed, and I'm a gal who likes her seaweed. I didn't have much of an appetite to begin with either. After all, it was 4:55pm that she was forcing me to eat dinner. For once, I didn't want to be a complete bitch because it was nice of her to help me out when I felt so ill, but I couldn't suppress my laughter about how early it was. I even reminded her that I wasn't an old person in Chinese but she just laughed, thinking I was joking. I told her I wanted to wait for my husband to come home but she poo-pooed that and forced me to eat then.

That night, Raelynn fell asleep in less than 5 minutes. I thought it was too good to be true. Until she woke up an hour later and was acting a bit odd. I should have known it then but hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? Anyway, she kept me up most of the night between wanting breast milk even more than usual and then, getting out of bed to pull things off the dresser and hit her dad with (which, I must admit, was hilarious). Neither Jeremy nor I slept very well that night.

I managed to make it back to school on Friday, but barely. My fever left me alone all day but made a return visit in the afternoon. Just in time for when I arrived home. My in-laws were planning to have dinner with us anyway to celebrate the winter solstice. Chinese people love to celebrate these kind of things and I have to admit, I think that's really cool. They make jiaozi (that's the Chinese word for "dumplings") for the occasion. I was excited about getting a chance to nap until I found out poor Raelynn had a fever, and suddenly her nutty nighttime behavior made perfect sense. My in-laws and my husband assured me that I should just get my rest and they would give her some medicine.

About that:
One thing that I find absurdly idiotic about China is how they administer medicine to infants and small children. In the states, we have those droppers and nicely-flavored liquids that go down with little fuss or objection from the wee one receiving it. I have a few of those for fever only, thanks to my parents and also Phillip and Kimmy. So when Raelynn has just a fever, or is teething, I can drop in some fruity deliciousness and she doesn't scream and run away from me like someone in a Friday the 13th movie.

The medicine for babies and infants here all smells horribly. No matter what you get or where you get it from, starts as a powder that you must mix with a little hot water to dissolve it. Then, you're supposed to take this concoction by way of spoon and pour it into your child's mouth. If I could describe the smell to you, I'd say it was like burnt dried leaves, that horrid star anise thing, rotten tea and death rolled into one. My in-laws have better success feeding it to Raelynn for several reasons:
1) Many things MIL makes are smelly, perhaps even smellier than any medicine we've had to give Raelynn.
2) MIL never lets Raelynn feed herself even though she can totally do it. Jeremy just bitched at her about that the other day, but she shot him down on that. I would have hollered some but I was too sick to make a sound. Way to drop the ball though, Honey. She has until Raelynn's 2nd birthday to knock that shit off before I knock her off. In any event, perhaps this is why Raelynn doesn't run for the hills when MIL shoves a spoonful of shitty medicine in her face.
3) My husband loses his temper at me for not restraining her properly (because if I don't hold her hands out of the way, she whacks the spoon and goodbye medicine!) and begins his bellowing which, if you know me, I'm not having it. So she associates her daddy's bad temper with the bad medicine.

Now I'm feeling better and it seems Raelynn is improving too, though I have to tell you all, I'm beat. At points during the weekend, she wouldn't go to sleep unless I was holding her so I became a makeshift pillow. Any attempt to lay her down onto the bed was shot down with an instant screech of disapproval from her. My neck and back ache, but I'd do it all again just to have her feel all better.

In fact, my husband said he'd ordered me a crock pot and some measuring cups for Christmas. None of those things have arrived yet (but all the toys we ordered for Raelynn have, thankfully) and it's okay with me, as long as Raelynn is healthy again. It's all this mommy wants for Christmas. Here's hoping Santa will make that happen.

And so we can all feel better, here is a picture of Raelynn licking her face after she had her first taste of chocolate pudding. Awwww!