Completely Clueless

When you know you're moving away from your moron in-laws, life seems rosier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. And you tend to overlook some of the annoying things, reasoning with your brain that soon, very soon, you will be flying over 8,000 miles away from them. Of course, my in-laws seem to really want to help...help me go completely insane before we leave that is.

Today, I came home and discovered this...

Yes, that's part of a green bell pepper on our dish drying rack. Why? Lord knows what ever goes through the head troll's empty head except a constant swirl of sawdust.

As I took the baby back into our bedroom, I noticed something less amusing...amongst all the toys in there, there was an open box of Raid plug-in mosquito repellent discs. Really? Because she has absolutely nothing else to play with. Let's give her a freaking box of poison! I holler to MIL and ask her what the hell is up with this being in the crib and she of course blames her idiot husband. OF COURSE! Not that I doubt he's probably the culprit but if you see your nutsy husband giving the baby something unsafe like that, how about telling him NOT to do that? Or taking it away? No, this couldn't possibly occur to MIL because she has such an alarming lack of common sense it's frightening.

But soon I will have the last laugh. It turns out that maybe they don't know quite when we are moving away. Jeremy confessed that he simply told them we were leaving this summer. So that will be interesting. I told him not to tell them until the day we leave. Ha! Bye Felicia!

Genius.

A few evenings a week, my in-laws take Raelynn over to the neighborhood mountain park. They're usually gone for about an hour, returning her to us around 8pm. Which is a little annoying but because we're moving away, I am letting it go. It won't be much longer we have to endure The Stupids. Thank GOD!

When I came home today, I found half of a watermelon sitting on our table. My husband had cut it open last night and wrapped the remainder of it with cling wrap. Now it was sitting out, sans wrap, attracting gnats. Who wants watermelon with gnat corpses? Oh me me me ME! NOT.

She saw me scowl at it and quickly covered it up. Why don't you take the tainted watermelon home and eat it then, if you like leaving food out for insects so much? Dummy.

Then, I went to turn on the satellite TV so Raelynn could watch Nickelodeon while I fed Seoul. And as I go to turn the cable box on, I see, sitting on top of the wires that connect it to the TV in a place the baby can't yet get to (thank GOD!) a gnawed on apple segment that was now rubbery and textured like it had been sitting there ALL day. Please note this was not there when I left for work. I grabbed the offending apple piece, chucked it at the table and just began shouting at the sky. "I hate it here! Gah! I can't wait to move!" Is she trying to make me even more excited about moving away? If so, job well done, though I sincerely doubt that's her intention.

Just after 8pm, as I'm almost about to worry, I can hear Raelynn in the stairwell. So I start to whip open the door. Only FIL and Raelynn are standing right there and he's stupidly rang our loud, noisy ear-splitting doorbell even as the door is opening. Because. He's. A. Total. Idiot. Hello???? Sleeping baby in here! I tell him as nicely as possible the baby is sleeping and he seems confused as to why this is an issue. Or he's just jerk. I'm not really sure about that, but what I am sure about is that very soon, we will be moving away and I won't have to deal with these troglodytes for a good long while at least. Hooray!

How Hard Is It?

Image comes from here, a Chinese Roommates tumblr which is cracking me right up though sadly doesn't seem to have had a new post in a while.
 
The same stupid thing happened in our house in the same week. The first time this idiotic incidence occurred, it severely irked me. But twice in one freaking week? I'm mega-irked now.

We buy imported milk here. Always have. Even Jeremy doesn't want to drink the Chinese milk since you never can be sure what's up with it. Plus, imported just tastes better. Of the imports, we purchase what is on sale. Sometimes it's from Australia. Other times, it's from Germany. And sometimes, like this time, it's from Italy. The milk is shelf-stable until opened, at which point, it must be refrigerated. We usually keep unopened ones in the fridge too so that they are nice and cold when needed.

The first time this happened this week, we left the milk on the table for Jeremy, as he usually requests us to. He uses it shortly after we leave since he doesn't have to go to work until after we've gone. Normally, Jeremy is good about putting the milk back. Annoying as it is, I can forgive one slip of the brain in forgetting to return the milk to the fridge. What reignites the rage inside of me though is that MIL is here ALL day with the baby. And she leaves it out on the table. Because. Because she's a fucking halfwit. I mean, really!

But still, I tried to forgive her too. I sent Jeremy a stern message via WeChat and he promised he'd be more careful. And as for MIL? I snarled at her in Chinese to put milk in the refrigerator. I figured they'd both pay more attention after that.

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But of course, men are idiots who do stupid things so it is no surprise my husband found himself in a rush and forgot to put the milk away when he was done with it. And MIL is a total moron, so should I be surprised that when I came home today, our lovely Italian milk was STILL sitting on the table? No, I shouldn't be. Just like she shouldn't be surprised when I get angry at her lack of attention to detail. Or anything, really.

At least I can find solace in the fact that we're leaving in 2 months and after that, it will be a long while before MIL can ruin our dairy products. WOOHOO!

My Incredibly Incompetent Assistant

Ever since the semester started, I've wanted to write about this but I thought, hey, give the girl a break. After last week though, I can no longer restrain myself from shouting from the rooftops that my assistant is totally useless.

I know, I know. I only have 2 more months of enduring her before we move away (HOORAY!) but I seriously am about to lose my mind. See, this year is different because my sweet Korean teacher and director, Christina, has to now teach Korean to our 7 year old class AND the 6 year old class. AND be a director. So to ensure we'd have assistance when needed, the school took the cheap way out and hired another Chinese teacher. Now we have 3 Chinese teachers, one for every kindergarten class.

This was SUPPOSED to make my life easier. But it hasn't. And Christina feels my pain. We sit and laugh over the things my Chinese assistant does. We laugh because it's funny. We laugh because we can't believe she could be that dense. We laugh because we can't believe this is happening.

So what did my Chinese assistant do? Well, for one thing, she's lazy. I've said it before in this blog - Americans get a bad rep for being lazy. And there are many lazy Americans. But in China, they take lazy to a whole new level. She's supposed to take out the trash in our classroom every day yet I need to chase her down to do it. She's supposed to stay in my classroom during English time but she often vanishes and it is ALWAYS when I need her help. When she IS in the room, she's playing around on her phone. I give her tasks to keep her busy and she always does a half-assed job on them or asks me if I'm going to help her. Um, no, sweetie. I'm supposed to be teaching these kids English. That's MY job.

My annoyance with her began to grow when they FINALLY hung my boards back up in my classroom, after 6 weeks of school. There had been a lot of back and forth with the chairman who wanted new boards but decided that hanging the old ones for now was better than having bare walls. So up they went. The problem was that the wooden borders made it look worn and old and it clashed with the new wood floors, wainscoting and wallpaper. So the other teacher had made borders and I thought that was a brilliant idea. I enlisted my Chinese teacher for help. I had to nag her several times but she finally finished cutting them for me. Then I asked her to put them up. She seemed confused as to why SHE should put them up. I have class, you dope! The students aren't here to sit and watch me have an awkward conversation in Chinese with you and watch us put these borders up! Derp!

I help her with some of them during snack time. Then I have a free period and I figure she'll do more with it later. But no. She doesn't do anything else for it. I figure when she comes back for my next English class, she'll get busy on it. But she doesn't even come back there and as I teach, I'm fuming that only one of my boards has most of a border on it. Lazy cow.

I had a lot of other stuff going on so my free time was filled with those teacherly tasks. But as I knocked out each thing I had to do, my borders just sat on the shelves, being ignored. I was so angry I just slapped them up there during one class when my kids were occupied with a writing assignment.

I created a birthday board with little cupcakes for each month. I made candles with each child's name on it and put them on the proper cupcakes. She laminated the cupcakes but only because I asked her to. I also asked her to cut them out, which she did begrudgingly. Prior to this, I'd made a "Happy Birthday" sign and asked her to laminate it for me while I was in class. I didn't realize then that I should have told her to cut it as well. She just laminated it and left it on my desk. Christina and I laughed about that one.

But this week, she made me so angry that I actually left the classroom. I had to. Because if I didn't, I knew I was going to scream at her and I couldn't do that in front of the children. What she did made me realize she isn't just lazy. She is also stupid. So incredibly stupid I simply cannot fathom what it must be like to be this dumb.

When they hung my wall boards, they also hung the ones in our gallery. Each class has to make a display on it. Teachers design the display and decorate it but we must use something the children make on our boards. So I looked online and found a delightful spring idea with a tree and butterfly cutouts as the leaves.

That's awesome, right? I thought it would be fun since I only have 7 students and we could see how many they could cut out. Anyway, I made a template and started tracing the butterflies so that my kids could just cut them. If I didn't have to let the students help, I would have just traced a few and then cut several at once. But that would defeat the purpose. Eventually, I was running out of time and had to go to my next class. So I asked the Chinese teacher for help.

My Chinese is not excellent. But it doesn't completely suck either. I called her over and showed her the photo above. I told her I was going to do this for my board and that I wanted the children to cut the butterflies. To be sure she understands, I point at her and tell her, "You trace these," and I hand her a pencil. Then I very sternly tell her "DO NOT CUT!" I tell her this 5 times. I point at the scissors and make the "NO" sign with my hands. And she tells me she understands.

I go and teach class and at the end of it as the children are packing up to leave for the day, Dummy trots back in holding the butterflies. She cut out every single last one of them. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I stare at her incredulously. What an absolute imbecile! I bet MIL was this dumb at this girl's age too.

I glare at her and tell her, "I said DON'T cut them." And she realizes suddenly, "Oh! Don't cut them!" THAT IS WHAT I TOLD YOU IN THE OFFICE! I SAID DON'T CUT THEM! GAH! But instead of shouting at her, I just stalk down the hallway to the office. Christina is in there and when she sees my face she looks alarmed. I tell her what happened and she's as annoyed as I am.

Now I had to start all over again, tracing on new little squares of colored paper because she screwed it up. She wasted all that paper, though I did turn it into hearts and made her glue them onto the border of our classroom mirror. Part of me wonders if she's really that dumb or if she just messes up everything so we'll stop asking her to do anything. I won't be surprised if Christina has her fired after this year. I don't think she's thrilled with her Chinese lessons either.

When I told Jeremy what I'd told her about helping me with the butterflies, he assured me she was the idiot here. He said I'd explained myself properly in Chinese and only a moron would have done what she did. So there you go. She's an idiot. I feel sorry for the teacher who will replace me but at least that person will have borders up on the classroom boards now. When I leave this place behind, it will be hard to say goodbye to some people at the school, like Christina, or Kelly - Raelynn's teacher. But I will not miss my lazy and dimwitted Chinese assistant, that's for sure!

Jeremy's Revenge

My husband is an amazing guy. Sure, some husbands buy lots of flowers and jewelry for their wives. Mine's not too stingy with those things either. But Jeremy knows exactly how to make a gal feel loved. Sure, he says it plenty but it's how he shows it that makes me feel like the luckiest woman alive.

Today for lunch, Jeremy took me and the kids out for lunch at the Shangri-La. It's home to our favorite buffet here and while it's not cheap, the quality of the food is perfection. Cafe Yum is a large restaurant with a huge maximum capacity. You better believe on a Sunday, it was packed. They seated us at a square table for four and brought over a quality high-chair for Seoul. Our table was at the back of the restaurant, along a wall. There was a very small gap between our table and the wall, which was fine by us. They'd put the high-chair between my chair and Jeremy's chair right in that gap along the wall.

The tables around us on the other side began to fill up fast. Jeremy and I took turns getting up for food. Sushi, fresh crab, Italian meatballs, assortments of cheese, minestrone soup, soft baked pretzels and gobs of other things adorned our plates. After I'd returned from one round, I came back to find Seoul had been none too pleased with my departure. She was wailing, a combination of being ready for a nap and being pissed off that I hadn't taken her in the carrier and had dared to venture off without her. I stood in the small gap between our table and the wall, trying to comfort her and put her back in the high-chair. And to my great astonishment, some woman from a table back by the windows that overlook the garden PUSHED past me in what little shred of space still existed in that gap even with my ass occupying it.

"Hey!" I snap. But she's off making her way toward the food. And now I'm pissed because there's a large space on the other side of the table that is MUCH easier for anyone to navigate through. In fact, there are many other ways she could have taken that were not out of the way for her that had much more space to walk through. She didn't even say sorry or excuse me, in Chinese, English or any other existing language. She just shoved by me and the baby like the rude nouveau riche pig she was.

"It's too bad money can't buy class," I huff to Jeremy as I sit back down to try to enjoy my food and keep Seoul busy. Meanwhile, Jeremy gets up to grab some more food. He comes back quickly with a big smile on his face.

"I just stepped on that rude lady's foot," he says, his eyes twinkling and his smile growing wider.
"Oh what a happy coincidence!" I giggle with glee.
"No, I did it on purpose," he explains.

Yes, my awesome husband went and accidentally-on-purpose stomped on that stupid woman's foot (more than once too, I might add) and bumped into her quite deliberately as he pretended to be overly engrossed with the Korean food. She threw him a nasty look and he then feigned surprise and said, "Sorry!" In English. God, I love that man.

As he relayed this tale while we enjoyed the rest of our lunch, I laughed so hard I cried. And then I realized just how much my husband loves me. We were in a nice place so he couldn't just shout at the woman and call her out on her rude behavior. Yet, he wasn't going to allow anyone to get away with it either. Thank you, sweet husband. I love you too!

How Many Times?

Every day when I get home, I am filled with pure joy when I see Seoul. She warms up my heart when I come in from the cold. Before I can hold her though, I must put down my things and wash my hands.

I rushed to put my pumped milk away and as I was washing my hands, I heard Raelynn angrily screaming in her room. Raelynn's pretty uppity and is usually very grouchy when you first take her off the bus and get her home since you're waking her from a good nap. But this was a different angry grumbling from her.

When I went to investigate, I saw just why she was so upset and it made me furious. Right there on a shelf that is eye level with her in her own bedroom, there was the peeled remains of a kiwi AND A FREAKING KNIFE! Dumberella (that would be MIL) peeled a kiwi in Raelynn's room and left the skin and the knife in an easily accessible place to Raelynn. I yell for MIL to get in there. When she sees it, she's all, Oh hahaha! Oops! (but in Chinese of course). Oops? OOPS?!? Are you kidding me, lady? You make a mess in Raelynn's room which is typical of you AND you leave something dangerous lying about and all you can say to me is the equivalent of oops?!? You make me feel real good about leaving my baby with you each day. And why the hell were you peeling and eating a kiwi in Raelynn's room? Can't you do that in the kitchen?!? Geez!

I scold MIL and then whisk Seoul off to our bedroom where I can feed her privately. I always love this feeding time with her because it's extra special since I haven't seen her all day. As I'm preparing to give her milk boobie goodness, I hear Raelynn cry. "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She wails. "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! She bwoke my gween toyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" I ask her what all the fuss is about and it turns out that this plastic watermelon half from her play food set of items has been broken. When I inquire as to how, she explains that her grandma told her that Seoul broke it. Seoul shouldn't be playing with Raelynn's toys. She is a baby and has baby toys. The play food items are not for a child Seoul's age and I have told this to BOTH of my idiots-in-law numerous times IN CHINESE mind you but to no avail.

I plan to tell Jeremy but I'm sure he'll just tell me that they're old or to forgive them or some lame excuse because that's almost always what I am told when this kind of thing happens. But who knows...the knife thing is very dangerous and I hope he seriously says something to his parents about being more careful. The longer I spend in this country the more I question whether it is them that is insane...or is it me? If it's me, it's only because they drove me there.

Pay Attention, MIL!

Yesterday was my blissful MIL-free Thursday. I made us a taco fiesta for dinner. But now today, she was back to cook her non-Chinese New Year dishes which means overcooked, overfried and overgross. Despite this, I tried to be kind as she plodded around our home, even willingly offering her the baby to hold.

Ok, look, she'd have asked to hold her anyway and soon, I'll be back at work when this vacation ends which means my time to prep my online portfolios, LinkedIn and other crud for my US job hunt is growing shorter. I was trying to upload my scans of some of my writing samples. Only problem was the files were too large. So I took photographs of them instead. This made some of the copy on these photos a little harder to read so I had to manually input these articles I'd written. AGAIN. Good thing I type fast. I'd managed to do quite a bit while Seoul napped early in the day but there are lots of samples, so I figured I'd keep rolling on it until Seoul cried for me.

I heard her fussing after a while so I went to see what was going on. And that's when I saw MIL holding Seoul on her lap at the table. MIL was stuffing her big face with a tangerine, with the rind torn apart and haphazardly strewn at the edge of the table, within easy reach of Seoul, who was quite predictably grabbing at it. I snap at MIL and scoop up the baby. In our bedroom, I discover the fruit's telltale pulp on her lips. And her breath smells orangey! I stalk back into the kitchen and ask her if she gave the baby any of her fruit. Although Seoul is old enough to try solids, I am carefully testing things out one week at a time and only a small amount each day. I do not want this woman randomly giving her food. She has no sense at all. Clearly.

So she at first tells me no. Then she says she slurped a little off MIL's fingers. Which is it??? Don't lie to me, you old hag! I tell her not to do this and she kind of laughs the way old Asian people tend to do and I. Lost. It. My husband wonders why I don't speak more Chinese. I'll tell you why - because he doesn't teach me the phrases I really need to know. Like "Don't laugh at me, you old goat-faced troll," for example. Even though I lack the vocabulary to tell her I will cut her if she does this shit again, I am very able to pantomime it, which is what I did. She stopped laughing, as she should. Of course, I'm not really going to cut her. But I do reserve the right to pelt her with rotting fruit. That's allowed, right?

Especially after what I discovered next. I thought Seoul had a booger in her nose so I carefully used a cotton swab to get it out of there. It wasn't a booger...it was a bit of pulp from the tangerine. If you thought I was angry before, it just multiplied...by a million.

I stormed into the kitchen brandishing the cotton swab and shouting at her that I'd found tangerine in the baby's nose. Now she looked sorry. Maybe I'm a mean bitch but she totally deserved to have her ass handed to her. I screamed at her in Chinese and although it was broken and intermittently peppered with American cursing, she definitely got the gist of it.

I wasn't keen on leaving her with the baby before this. Now I'm even more worried about it and still stuck having her watch Seoul. In the US, someone like her would be barred from caring for children. But over here, old people with absolutely no sense in their heads are entrusted with watching over precious babies. It's completely ludicrous!

Pay attention, MIL, because if anything happens to my sweet little Seoul, I will suggest to your government that they put you before a firing squad.

Insanely Idiotic FIL

As you know, I'm not a huge fan of my in-laws. I've felt trapped in our home even though I am on vacation because one or both of them has been here much thanks to Raelynn having being sick. I am grateful for the assistance and have been trying to be polite but it can be so incredibly hard. Like when your MIL blames you for baking a cake for her son's birthday because she wholeheartedly believed my demon cake from America is what made Raelynn sick.

Newsflash: it didn't.

After a day of vomiting, Raelynn spent a day with a fever that wouldn't quit. It kept getting higher so my in-laws took her to the hospital to see what was wrong. I was hysterical, still never getting over that taking your kid to the hospital is as normal as taking your kid to the doctor's office back home. I feared she'd have to have another IV treatment. My poor precious girl.

I busied myself with all kinds of tasks in preparation for our upcoming Guangzhou trip like organizing our documents for the 50th time and trying to figure out what outfits I should pack. Soon, darkness fell and it was 5:30pm. I was so worried that I didn't feel like eating but because I'm breastfeeding Seoul, I knew I must eat something. With not much around to work with, I began chopping up leeks to saute with egg, a very quick Chinese dish that I actually like. I put Seoul in the Baby Bumbo at the entrance to the kitchen and she cooed away at me while I worked. Suddenly, I heard the sounds of an old troll in the stairs. I thought I must be imagining things. I didn't expect them to be back from the hospital already. But to my absolute delight, they were! Raelynn didn't need an IV treatment this time, thank the Lord! They gave her some medicine for a sore throat.

Jeremy had been just as worried but trapped at work. I called him to give him the good news. He'd be home shortly. When he finally did get home, he spoke to his mom. She told him that the doctor said this was NOT caused by cake. Well, duh. She said the doctor asked what we'd done 72 hours before she became sick. Guess where we were? We were at church and Raelynn must have picked up this lovely grossness from some kid in her play group. I sincerely hope whoever gave her this ailment had no idea their child was sick because sending your sick kid into a play group is pretty low. I'd like to think the best of people so I am hoping the parents were not aware. Or any of those kids could have been carriers of the illness without being sick themselves.

Raelynn is now feeling much better, in time for our trip, which makes us happy. And once the doctor told MIL that the cake was not the cause of Raelynn's illness, she shut the fuck up about my cake. No apology for blaming my American cooking and baking, mind you, but that's just the kind of cow she is. But FIL? That guy is a fucking insanely idiotic psycho. Yesterday, in addition to causing Raelynn to act out and then DEFENDING her bad behavior, he tells me her throat hurts because she ate my cake. Are you fucking serious? I unloaded about 50 fuck yous in his direction and called him a total moron. Even your wife has more sense than you, and that's pretty fucking bad when someone as dumb as MIL is considered a step up.

When I told Jeremy, he just shook his head. He wasn't surprised. Oh how we hang on and hope that our trip to Guangzhou will bring us a brighter future in the form of a visa for my husband. We need to get away from these people.

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.

The Postman Never Rings Once

My mom is the queen of sending the most rockin' care packages ever. Seriously, give this woman a crown. She deserves it. She's sent us many a'package while we've been here. Like this one here. But I think you might remember this package best. It's the one that should have arrived for my birthday, but alas, China Post is just sloth-like when it comes to delivering things.

At the beginning of December, my mom had told me she had just dropped 2 packages to us and was hoping they would be delivered by Christmas. She's a dreamer, but hell, so am I. She sent them in plenty of time too, but of course we wouldn't get them by the 25th. I should be thankful they arrived before 2015 though.

In them, my folks had sent wonderfully thoughtful gifts for the girls and some of my favorite food items...powdered donuts, swiss cake rolls, sinful candybars...oh yes. Delightful stuff, all of it.

The packages were both the same size and roughly the same weight. Not exceedingly heavy but not light as a feather either. For 2 weeks, my husband had called every day to find out if the packages were at the post office closest to us yet. Nope. Nope. Nope. And then finally, Jeremy called me from work to tell me the packages were here! I jumped for joy getting ready to fling open the door for the delivery guy but my husband told me not so fast.

See, they delivered them. To the store downstairs. Where they deliver packages when no one is home so they don't have to try to come back and deliver them. So when you get home, you go to the store and sign for your package and carry it away.

"But I'm home!" I wail into the phone! No one had called or knocked or anything. And that's when my husband tells me they told him they couldn't find anywhere to park so they just delivered them to the store.

Yes. Because they didn't need to stop the fucking van to get out and take out 2 fucking packages and go into the store with them. No, they drove right into the store and tossed those packages out the window at the clerk. *facepalm* The real story here is that some dolt just didn't feel like carrying 2 packages up 6 flights of stairs to a woman who was home alone with a baby and one small child and couldn't possibly come get them herself. Thank you, asshat!

Anyway, at least I have more chocolate to comfort me in those moments of homesickness. I swear, it's getting worse. I was just sitting at the table yesterday and I burst into tears. Maybe I'm still just out of it from being sick. Maybe I'm getting sick of MIL being here to help me. Maybe I realize that vacation fucking sucks ass when you live on this side of town and your husband is busy at work all day, leaving you with 2 small children. Or maybe I just feel like that because I was too sick to enjoy it for the last week.

Whatever the case, here's some photos of the girls enjoying the gifts they got from their Papa and Mimi. Thanks again Mom and Dad! I love you guys so much!

Finally, a toy that is all mine mine MINE! Bwahahahahahahaha! Seoul is thrilled she has something that is not a hand-me-down. She loves this doll!

Raelynn models one of her new outfits and snuggles her Palace Pet. She especially loves this pink shirt with the dogs and hearts on it. She wants to wear it every day.

I Can't Even...

I think I'll just sit in a permanent facepalm position. Remember my post from yesterday? Three separate idiotic airplane incidents here in China caused by stupid and/or selfish fucks. Well, add a fourth one to that, won't you?

This time, 2 female passengers got into a brawl over their seating arrangements. You can read the whole story here.

As for me, I fear that when we take our next trip down to Guangzhou for Jeremy's visa interview, which we will be scheduling soon, that some buttwipe will pull some crap like this and cause our flight to turn around. Or when we go to America.

So this is my message to you people of China: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF! SIT IN YOUR FUCKING SEATS! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND EAT YOUR FUCKING SHITTY NOODLES!

Because let me tell you assholes something...if you do some fool shit like these other people did on a plane that I happen to be on, I will take a diaper full of my baby's shit and shove it in your fucking face. I think the other passengers on the plane will be happy to assist with this. So please, chill the fuck out and get your shit together.

For The Love Of...!!!

Dear China, we need to talk. There have been 3 separate incidents in as many days regarding some of your citizens aboard airplanes which leads me to believe that a severe outbreak of stupid is reaching epidemic levels in your country.

First, there was the flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Nanjing where 2 very selfish and moronic people engaged in an argument with a flight attendant and then threw steaming hot instant noodles onto said flight attendant. I believe I recall Xi Jinping imploring you folks to stop eating noodles whilst traveling. Which makes me insane for many reasons, but primarily because I cannot even fathom shelling out money for airfare and hotel in a new destination only to hide in my hotel room and eat some shitty convenience food instead of trying the food from another place. Something is wrong with you. Very wrong. Really.

Then, there was this selfish prick who wanted to get off the airplane faster so he opened the emergency exit, which in turn, deployed the emergency slide and caused the plane to be 2 hours late for take-off for its' next destination. Can I just ask you what kind of a moron do you have to be to not understand the words "EMERGENCY EXIT" printed in big red letters? It's in Chinese too for God's sake! It's just like the idiots who don't lock the doors to the airplane bathrooms on Chinese flights, even though it is in English AND Chinese. Hence, every single time I've had to use the bathroom when flying around China, I've walked in on someone using it because it says "VACANT" because the imbecile inside didn't lock it.

And today, I saw this one of some yokel who had never before been on a plane and of course did not listen to the safety instructions before take-off because he opened the emergency exit to get a breath of fresh air. At least this idiot opened the door over the wing so there was no emergency slide to deploy.

The level of stupid here is seriously astonishing. It deserves to be in the Guiness Book of World Records. "Most Stupid People Assembled in One Place at One Time." Congratulations, China. You're a winner!

I Do What I Want

Yesterday, when I posted about the people of China blatantly ignoring signage in their native language - such rebels - I totally forgot to include another photo my husband took of more rule-breakers. Forgiveness please.

 So, what did these people do?

I'm not sure you can tell from this photo but the car in front of ours, as well as the ones in the adjacent lane, has the right of way. See, the light is green. It's our turn to go. But we can't. Because the city buses as well as regular people driving their cars have blocked the intersection. Thanks assholes. This is such a common sight over here. In the US, those blocking the intersection would be ticketed. But over here? No one does shit. I always get so nervous when shit like this happens because I fear we'll be stuck in some epic traffic jam. Like that one that lasted 2 weeks in Beijing a few years ago. No, I'm not even joking. Seriously. Click here to read about that (or here to see a bunch of images of that insanity). It terrifies me to think of an emergency vehicle trying to get through.

People here just do what they want and that, coupled with a lack of enforcement of these laws, is what causes this to be, as Jeremy so adorably coined it, "a fall-behind country." He also uses "disorder" to describe things here quite a bit. It's rather fitting.

Fortunately for us, the buses and cars that were blocking the way finally moved up and, to our great relief, the vehicles behind them stayed put at their red light so we could take our turn on the green light. It's stuff like this that I will think about when we move to the US and we're sitting in traffic. I won't complain ever again about traffic in the US, even if it is rush hour in Miami. That is infinitely less atrocious than the chaotic disordered state of being that the roads of Qingdao so often exhibit.

Breaking All The Rules

As Christmas quickly approaches, Jeremy and I took the kids and headed to the mall this weekend. In America, I'd just say fuck it and order everything online because there is no way in hell I will set foot in a mall there after Thanksgiving all the way through around January 10th. But here, it's quite different at this time of year. Sure, there's Christmas crap everywhere. And Christmas music, much to my joy (and before you think I'm insane for that, please come join me for Chinese New Year and you will understand what annoying music being piped through a sound system truly is). But Christmas shoppers? Not really.

On a Sunday at around lunch time, the Marina City mall, which is usually busy even when it is not the holiday season, was very placid. I was thrilled. I'd wanted to go there because there's an H&M. I had no idea what to get Jeremy for Christmas except this shirt I'd seen him looking at the last time we were there a few weeks ago.

Can I just tell you how much I love H&M? It's true. I can always find something I like in there. Always. This time, as soon as we walked in, a sweater called to me. It did. It was so me, it wasn't even funny. I rush up to it and adore it some more. It's black and has a fluffy pink heart in the center. Oh I have to have it. HAVE TO. It's 149 rmb which isn't too bad. And they have it in my size. Oh please fit me. Please look nice on me. You have to! Jeremy loves it. He wants me to try it on. On the way to the fitting room, I find another gem. A Tiffany-blue sweatshirt with a horse silhouette on it. It's so soft and comfy. I dash off with one of those too. I hand the baby to Jeremy and try on clothes faster than Superman. Lucky for me, both items look awesome so I've just gained 2 very fab Christmas gifts. Sure, there's no surprise but at least my husband knows they fit and they are liked.

Now for him. We head to the men's section. There's a huge sale going on but the shirt he liked is not where it was before. I finally find it and discover it's 249 rmb. Jeremy doesn't want me to spend that kind of money on him for a shirt. But it's Christmas, I'd protested. I want him to have something he really likes. So he says he'll look at the sale items instead. And for about 300 rmb, we found him 2 dashing sweaters.

We were high on a shopping buzz. And to top it off, Raelynn had been such a good girl. We decided to buy her an ice cream from McDonald's to reward her. After that, as we were walking around, we saw some weird displays. I thought they were dinosaurs and wanted a closer look.

 Well, it's not a dinosaur but it is some sort of life-size creature from some movie. Which movie, I've no clue but there's some poster to the left that seems to be advertising it. Unfortunately, it's in Chinese. And my Chinese just happens to suck.

But you know what? Despite my sub-par Chinese skills, I will tell you this: I understand the sign posted with the creature there. That coupled with the roping tells me that you do not want me to get close to this display or touch it. So I don't. But the Chinese people around us? Oh, China...

 This little girl's mom told her to get inside with the creature. Great parenting. Let's ignore the sign that's posted which, Jeremy says, essentially translates to "do not touch or climb." Why is it that I suck at Chinese but yet I totally understand and obey the sign that I can't really read? Oh, and the man with the baby in the first picture? Just before Jeremy snapped that photo, he was putting his baby on top of the creature. We just didn't snap a photo quickly enough.

Yes, go ahead. Touch the display even though it says not to. Get inside the roping even though it is obvious you are not wanted within its' confines. Brilliant.

People Suck

Sometimes, people just suck. I've been meaning to write about some of the suckier ones I've unfortunately encountered but other stuff's been popping up. After today though, I'm ready to snap, so I need to vent. And believe it or not, MIL and FIL are not on this particular list. They suck, for sure, but this is strictly about encounters with strangers who totally blow. So, join me for a tour of suckage, won't you?

The Gaggle of Suckotrons at the Metro
Around the end of October, we had gone grocery shopping at the Metro. This was while Raelynn was adjusting to being back at school and Jeremy and I were working tirelessly to correct the negative behaviors his mutant parents had encouraged while I was out on maternity leave. We were on line waiting to pay when Jeremy plucked Raelynn from the cart. She wanted to stay in the cart but she was crushing our bread and some other items, and she wasn't happy about being suddenly removed and made to stand. And into a tantrum she went. Jeremy handled it expertly, giving her a stern warning to correct her behavior (she was hitting him and shouting) or else he'd put back the bag of pretzels she'd wanted. The bad behavior continued so I fully supported my husband when he took the pretzels out of our cart and put them back. Raelynn wailed and wailed and still continued this epic tantrum of embarrassing proportions. So, with Seoul strapped to me in the carrier, I snatched Raelynn under one of my arms and dragged her out of the store.

There's a glass-enclosed exit area where, in the colder months, various vendors have other items to sell, like overpriced Belgian chocolates or plants. I carried her there and set her down to wait for Jeremy. The people at the chocolate booth started to come over and try to offer samples. I did not want people giving my kid candy during her tantrum, like people here are known to do. As I'm yelling at Raelynn to stop this insanity now and mentally lamenting that I didn't get the car keys from Jeremy, I look up and see some college-aged girl from some volunteer group booth taking my picture with a Nikon. No fucking joke. And that's when I absolutely lost it. I began screaming at her in a mixture of English and Chinese and as she snapped away, I flipped her off. Then and only then did she turn away in embarrassment. I struggled with Raelynn some more and now about 20 people had congregated to stare. Bunch of suck-ass fucks. The security guard then approached me and I thought he was going to offer Raelynn some candy as she writhed on the floor like a total jerk while I desperately tried to pick her up without dropping Seoul from the carrier. But he was the only one of all those people - now more had gathered - to even bother to help me out. He picked her up off the floor. And he said nothing judgmental at all. Thank you, Kind Metro Security Guard.

Shortly after this, which incidentally, felt like 1,000 years but was more like 10 minutes, Jeremy emerged with our cart of groceries and he, who usually implores me to be patient with the people of China, totally told all of them off. My hero husband. I love you. Thank you for chasing the suckos away.

The Sucky Nosy Lady on Our Street
Maybe a week after the Metro incident, this next mess occurred. Raelynn was also prone to throwing tantrums when I woke her up on the school bus once we arrived at our stop. I tried everything I could think of - punishing her, keeping her awake, offering a reward for waking up without pitching a fit - but every time, it was agony. I felt like the bus driver hated us. I wouldn't have blamed him.

So I drag her kicking and screaming off the bus and ignore the usual stares. Then she tries to dart away into the street. So I grab her, carry her to a safe patch of sidewalk and give her a spanking for doing such a dangerous thing. She cries and says she hates me. I then tell her she's in big trouble and I'm taking a toy from her. Now she changes her tune. She's sorry and crying and just a total mess while I tell her I'm not speaking to her for now. As we're talking and walking, and she's crying away, some nosy lady skitters up to us, like that small yippy dog that always followed Spike the Dog in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. And like all idiot people here, she tries to interfere. In Chinese, she asks Raelynn why she's crying. We ignore her, as we're talking to each other, and keep walking. She persists and keeps bothering us. So finally, I stop and turn to her and in Chinese I tell her to mind her own business, and that my child is crying because she was being bad and now she's in trouble. The woman stares at me. Again, I repeat myself. And she still just stares as if I'm speaking some alien language to her. Finally, I shriek at her to fuck off and get out of my sight and she hightails it out of there. You, Sucky Nosy Lady on Our Street, suck tremendously.

The Sucky I-Can't-Believe-It's-A-Girl Lady in the Restaurant
On Sunday after church, we went to our favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant. We requested a private room and as we were led there, a woman around MIL's age (perhaps slightly younger) who was seated at a table we passed became overjoyed at the sight of Raelynn and the baby. So she popped into our room and asked if she could take a look at the children. Sure, we say. She makes a huge deal about how gorgeous Raelynn is. And then she turns to the baby and she says it must be a boy. Is it a boy or a girl? It's a boy, right? Um, no. She is also a girl, I say, giving her the eye. And then the woman complains to my husband that I frowned at her about this. He tells her that she's rude for judging us for having 2 daughters, that we are very happy to have 2 daughters and that we didn't want a boy. She leaves and loudly complains about us to her table in the main part of the restaurant. Asshole. You suck for thinking a boy child is better than a girl child.

The Sucky Mom Who Basically Called Me Fat
As you know, I had my 2nd child in mid-July. I work. And when I come home from work, I have maybe an hour or 2 before my baby gets tired and cranky and wants to sleep. That time before sleep is filled with nursing her, bathing her, singing her songs, playing with her, talking to her and other Seoul-and-Me things. How I would love time to get in a real workout but this time will pass all too quickly and I don't want to miss a moment of it. So I'm not yet a stick again, like I'd hoped. I lost about 22 lbs. from breastfeeding and have remained at the same weight no matter how much or how little I have eaten since. Every chance I get, I am moving around during my classes and trying to take advantage of the general activeness of kindergarten children.

This week, we have optional PTA meetings. Of course, for my class, the only parents who want to meet with me are the parents of my very best student. I have nothing new to tell them about their wonderful daughter so I have no idea why they want to have a meeting. It's always this way for the 2nd semester. For 1st semester, meetings are mandatory. But when they are optional, it seems only the good students' parents want to show up. So for my fellow kindergarten coworker, Jon, the parents of his student with the best English skills came in for a meeting today.

The meeting was toward the end of the day so I guess his parents just stuck around until the children were dismissed. Before bringing my students out to their school buses, I popped into our office to grab my coat and change into my outdoor shoes (we have to wear slippers inside the kindergarten) and ran into the mother of this boy. I greet her and as I'm slipping into my coat she asks me, "Oh are you expecting a baby?" I freeze, with one arm mid-sleeve and stare at her. Christina, my Korean teacher, looks appalled by this woman and even though I've said nothing yet, knows me well enough to know how pissed off I am. My pleasant smile dissolves instantly and I cast her an icy glare. "No, I just had one four and a half months ago, but thank you so much for calling me fat," I tell her. She gives a half-assed apology and I give her the mean-girl laugh. If you know me, you know EXACTLY which one. She is just lucky she's a parent of one of our students because if not, I'd have tore her a new one.

The funny thing is, I was feeling pretty good about myself until that moment. And even funnier is that woman was in the room when I was pumping my breast milk during my break time. Yes, I'm pregnant AND pumping milk. Moron. The only wise thing she did was stay out of our office and away from me after insulting me. Talk about the height of rudeness. No, my stomach is not flat yet. I have 2 beautiful daughters to show for it though. Some day, I will get my body completely back in shape but for now, I have to take baby steps to get there. I know that I will never regret spending time with my girls. Sure, it's disappointing to not have bounced back but I'm not 20. I only LOOK 20. Ok, 28. But still. It's a work in progress and I really resent some sucky bitch asking me if I'm pregnant when I'm not even close to looking like a pregnant person. Even a pregnant person in the early stages of pregnancy. Yes you, Thinks-She's-So-Perfect-Mom, suck most of all. 

By the way, some good did come out of the first 2 encounters with sucktastic people...Raelynn has learned her lesson after being punished for her bad behavior. That, coupled with limited time with her grandpa, has left us with a wonderfully well-behaved little girl who no longer throws tantrums in an attempt to get her way. Thank goodness, on so many levels, especially so that I no longer have to endure gaping stares from sucky strangers on the street.

Great Going, Grandpa!

Thank goodness for Google searches so I can find the perfect images to illustrate my posts. This one's from here. 

Please read the title of this post with as much sarcasm as you can drip from your voice. Because FIL has outdone himself yet again in undoing the positive progress we've made in Raelynn's behavior.

Despite my repeated pleas, FIL comes to meet us at the bus drop-off each day. When I was pregnant with Seoul, this was very helpful because I couldn't carry a sleeping Raelynn and our bags off the bus, up the hill, down the street and up 6 flights of stairs. But now that I'm not pregnant, I welcome the strenuous exercise. It's the only workout I've got time for at the moment and FIL ruins it every day by being there. But with any luck, we'll be moving to the US soon enough so I think to myself, "What's the harm in letting him come to greet his eldest granddaughter when she gets home from school?"

Oh silly me.

I should have known there would be great harm in allowing this. After all, we remember what a maternity leave of daily outings to the park with her grandparents resulted in: crazy behavior at the US Embassy in Guangzhou.

Today, Raelynn had fallen asleep on the bus. Some days she doesn't, but today she did. I tried to wake her which resulted in a groggy toddler. She started to follow me but FIL came on board and she didn't want to go with him. I keep calling her from the door to come with me. The bus driver looks dull-eyed and annoyed. Certainly he wants to move on from here and go play mahjong for hours on end while drinking tons of beer and smoking tons of cigarettes, or whatever he does when he's not driving the bus. Finally, FIL just scoops her up and she kicks and screams and goes into full-blown tantrum mode.

We get her on the side of the road and she's completely flipping out. And then, she bites FIL. On his thigh. Savage. So, still carrying all our bags, I snatch her up and carry her, telling her things like "No!" and "We don't bite people! Wait until Daddy hears about this!" And she's upset but she's listening to me. Until I put her down a block away. Because I am wearing high-heeled boots and I cannot keep wobbling in them, with our bags and carrying her on this lumpy craptacular sidewalk. She's furious about this and flips out. She wraps her arms around one of my legs - classic toddler tantrum move - and I have to hobble down the sidewalk the rest of the way. Now instead of not wanting her grandpa, who she was saying she didn't like moments before, she says she doesn't like ME. Because I won't carry her anymore.

Of course that idiot feeds into this and allows her to behave this way, carrying her like a baby and giving into her demands. Once up the stairs and away from nosy morons on the street who kept trying to butt in (and were abruptly cursed at by yours truly), we enter our home. MIL is naturally curious about why Raelynn's crying this time so I explain to her what happened from the whole biting incident on forward. I tell Raelynn to go to her room until she can come out and tell her grandpa she's sorry, which she STILL had not done because he gave in to her.

She screams and carries on, while the actual baby in the house serenely peers at me from MIL's arms. She wiggles and reaches toward me and I'm so happy to see her little face again. She wants her milk boobs so I tell MIL to have Raelynn stay in her room until she says sorry to FIL.

I can hear everything from the bedroom but I can't do anything because Seoul is blissfully latched on and enjoying breastmilk straight from the tap. All I can do is send Jeremy WeChat messages from my phone, telling him all about it. Once Seoul finishes her meal, I take her with me to talk to Raelynn who has now stopped crying her eyes out.

She's fine, actually. And as I try to talk to her about why her behavior wasn't good, she tells me, "Grandpa gave me a piece of candy!"

"WHAT?!?" I say, stunned. And then I turned to him and asked him in Chinese, "Ni gei ta tang?!?" And that total imbecile says yes, because she was crying and he didn't want her to cry. Oh. My. GOD! What is wrong with him?!? I actually ask him this. I then tell him as politely as I possibly can in my poor Chinese that I don't want him to give her candy when she's been bad because then she thinks she can act out like that and get rewards. And he harped on the whole "but she was crying bit." Augh!

Jeremy gave him a big lecture when he got home but FIL didn't understand still. I asked my husband to explain to him that if he loves Raelynn, he sometimes needs to let her cry and be disappointed. One day she'll be in America and I don't want her acting this way. I would be absolutely embarrassed if she acted like this at my parents' house. Then again, my parents wouldn't be giving her candy if she'd been that rotten in their presence.

But one good thing did come of this incident - FIL said he won't wait at the bus stop tomorrow to punish her for biting him today. I don't know if that will work but hey, I'll be happy to not have him mess up my parenting.

Oh and in case you're wondering about MIL, let me just bitch about her for 2 seconds. See, I'm finishing this post after Raelynn's bedtime routine and after hanging out with my husband in the living room. We enjoyed some ice cream together while watching TV. When I went to serve him that ice cream though, I noticed something odd on top of our mammoth refrigerator. I tried taking photos but the flash whites it out completely and without flash, you can't see it, much thanks to the pathetic, paltry little light in our kitchen, so you'll have to envision what I'm about to describe...

On top of the refrigerator, I noticed a plastic food container (calling this wonky thing "Tupperware" is a stretch) covered with a clear plastic bag. Because she just can't ever figure out how to use lids. I saw it when I was opening up the freezer to get the ice cream. I opened the freezer door and stopped. I closed it and reached up to this foreign object. And I noticed with disgust that it had a leftover cooked fish dish inside of it. Leaving food out is totally MIL's calling card but this is a new one. I mean ON TOP OF THE REFRIGERATOR. You know, I'm not a tall girl at five-foot-four but I'm not short either. Still, I had to reach up to grab this thing. It required effort on my part. MIL is not taller than I am. She's not shrunken and short either. So she had to actually work at putting this container of food up there. Jeremy just laughed. And I'm sure you are too but I'm not. Because only a crazy person would do that and we are stuck leaving that crazy person to watch our precious baby. Lord!

The In-Laws Have A Death Wish

Somehow, I yet again resisted the urge to strangle both my in-laws today. I know, I know. You're not at all surprised by that revelation, are you?

Last week, MIL stupidly asked me if she could hold the baby. After she'd been with Seoul allllllllllllllllll day long and I had just started enjoying my time with her before she fell asleep. Incidentally, because both my in-laws are too idiotic to care for a baby and have no idea how to get her to go to sleep, this poor child falls asleep within one hour of my arrival home. So I get one hour with my precious baby, who is now 3 months old today. ONE HOUR. The rest of the time, I watch her sleep and nurse her when she needs to eat. Jeremy yelled at them about this, but it's still happening. Because. They. Are. So. So. So. Stupid. Or maybe they're doing it on purpose.

Anyway, like hell I'm giving up Seoul to let those fuckheads hold her when I get home. Aside from quickly tossing a load of laundry in, I stayed right by Seoul's side. While I was starting the washer, MIL poked her head into the bathroom and asked me if FIL could hold the baby. No, I tell her in Chinese and finish what I'm doing so I can hurry back in to Seoul who had begun crying.

I realize I've left my phone in my bag by the door so I take Seoul with me to get it and MIL again asks me if her husband can hold the baby. I stop, stare at her and then ask her if she's lost her mind. Because that's what I'm to assume, isn't it? You AND your idiot husband watch MY baby all day. And now he wants to hold her? Not on my watch!

I told Jeremy about this so I hope he's clued them in that they should never ask that question ever ever EVER again. I imagine he said something like, "Hey bumblebrains, my wife works all day and just wants to see our other beautiful daughter because she's been away from her all day and you guys are selfish fucks for even asking her if you can hold the baby when she gets home from work." Ah, in a perfect world! How I wish! Hell, if he just told them they can't hold the baby when I get home from work, I'll settle for that.

Look at this sweet face! What kind of dolts could possibly think that I even want to be apart from her during the day, and then not want to spend all the time I've got with her once I get home? What is wrong with them? Are they stupid? Selfish? Both? Argh!

We're still organizing before scheduling Jeremy's visa interview but I hope it won't be too much longer until we do. I need to know if we're approved. God, please let my husband be approved. I can't leave him with those chodes. And we've got to get our girls away from them before they catch the stupid too.

Surlier Than Surly

I was expecting my first day back at work to be much worse. But you know what? It was pretty nice. I have a few less students than last semester, but the ones that have returned were being so good today. Some of them even told me, "I missed you," which made my heart melt. It was a nice distraction from missing my precious Seoul, who survived her first day in the care of the head troll, thankfully.

At the beginning of last semester, you might recall the problem I had initially had with Surly. He was the bus driver that was too lazy to drive an extra couple of minutes to my stop. It bothered me for many reasons, the first of which was because I was pregnant. Secondly, I had Raelynn with me. And thirdly, because students are required to pay a bus fee, I'd PAID for bus services for my child. You can read more of the Surly saga here.

Anyway, today I was expecting to see our pal Surly when we got on the bus. But instead, there was a woman bus driver. I talk to her briefly since she doesn't know who I am. I tell her where Surly had been dropping us and she says "hao hao" which is "OK" in Chinese.

But as we get to the last stops before ours, she speaks to some of the Chinese teachers on the bus and now she doesn't want to take Raelynn and me to our stop because of the same lazy-ass reason Surly had given! See, just before you arrive at our main road, there's a street she turns right on where she is to drop off the bus when she's done dropping off the students and teachers. It is no exaggeration that this is just a couple minutes from our destination.

Now I'm livid. This woman is now telling me via the Chinese teachers she's about to drop off just before her beloved right turn that she doesn't want to take us there. I PAID FOR BUS SERVICE. Why is this so difficult? Why is it an argument with these people EVERY fucking time I need them to do their jobs? I hate people here. Seriously. Something is totally fucking wrong with you if you can't 1) do your job and 2) if you'd leave someone with their small child far from their bus stop.

She's pulled the bus to the side of the road and turned it off, refusing to budge until she makes some phone calls. She calls the school but can't get anyone there who has any information about the bus routes. So one of the Chinese teachers helpfully suggests she call Yang Shufu, or Surly himself. After talking with him, she huffily says she'll take us to our stop today but not tomorrow. "She says maybe you should take a different bus tomorrow," one of the Chinese teachers explains. Which is EXACTLY what Surly had said last semester. He gave me so much attitude until he realized I was married to a Chinese person. Maybe I should have told this bitchy bus driver that too.

She starts the bus and proceeds but she turns down a side street that's parallel to mine because she doesn't want to have to make the u-turn that Surly always made after she drops me off. U-turns are legal here unless otherwise posted, in case you were wondering. So she arrives at the intersection of Harbin Road and Nanjing Road and instead of turning left at the light to officially bring us to our stop where the city buses also stop, she turns right. Because she doesn't want to make that u-turn. And because it's totally normal to send someone with a small child to cross a very large and busy intersection even though they paid for the bus service.

At this point, Raelynn has fallen asleep so now I must take my bag, her bag and my other bag with my breast pump, not to mention Raelynn herself, off the bus and cross the intersection twice to get to where the actual bus stop is. The surlier than Surly bus bitch was saying something to me about my daughter being asleep as we got off the bus. Some sort of "isn't that cute" kind of remark and I told her I hoped she got mauled by a bear. But I doubt she understood since I have no idea how to say that in Chinese. I'll talk to the school about this mess in the morning and if they can't help me, I'll ask the gals that translate there to help me say "I hope you get mauled by a bear" for my next encounter with that bitchy bus bitch or anyone else who doesn't want to do the job they're paid to do.

Kaboom!

I bitch a lot on this blog. A LOT. Hell, that's why I created it in the first place. But have you ever wondered exactly what happens when I completely snap and lose it? Many of my friends tell me I have the patience of a saint for enduring MIL. I really, really try to be polite and cordial as best I can, but this morning, I absolutely flipped my shit on her. Right in front of Jeremy too.

Every weekday while I've been on maternity leave, my in-laws have come in the morning to take Raelynn to play at the mountain park near our home. It's nice for them to spend time together though my husband and I recently discovered how much their lack of common sense really does affect our daughter. Well, HE discovered. I already figured that one out but hey, I get that he wants to believe the best about his parents.

In addition to their spending time together, it allows me time to spend with just Seoul, or to get some extra rest when I get Seoul back to sleep. Each day, MIL dresses Raelynn though, which pisses me off. Raelynn used to pick her stuff out herself and one of us would help her get dressed. Well, the old troll decided to take over letting my daughter pick from her lovely threads because she has been picking her the same kind of shit each day. Like these crappy light-weight pants that MIL of course bought her. There's nothing too horrible about them, when paired with the right top, but MIL will not bother to match it. So when Raelynn does come home, I find her dressed like a mini-MIL and I want to kill. Also, it's still warm out! Why aren't you dressing her in skirts? Or shorts? Or dresses? I get that you're going to a park and you don't need to put her in formal wear but for fuck's sake, choose something appropriate for warmer weather! If I didn't throw her clothes in the laundry basket each night, that old goat would dress her in the same garments every day. I shudder to think if she were able to get into our room and rifle through our dirty things. You know she's done that before just to poorly hand-wash something she's given Raelynn. Cow.

Anyway, I got sick and tired of her not choosing something other than those light-weight pants she bought for Raelynn. So I took them out of the closet and put them in our room. I told Jeremy I did this too because I wanted Raelynn to enjoy wearing her warm weather clothes for the next week or two before she's unable to. Most of these things will be too small on her next year. Why did we buy them? So they could sit in the closet collecting dust while MIL puts her in the same 5 outfits each week? That's so stupid. Especially when that old bat bought her a skirt and a dress that aren't completely unfortunate-looking. Why buy those things and then ignore them every time you go into your grandchild's closet to dress her?!?

Fast forward to this morning. Seoul was making me insane and had been since about 4am. No clue why. At least she was smiling at me when she was doing it though. I think she just wanted to hang, you know? Jeremy had moved to Raelynn's room at some point in the night. I vaguely remember her bursting into our room, crying loudly and he rushed off with her to keep her from waking the baby. It was his way of making it up to me for making too much noise when I was putting Seoul to sleep earlier in the evening, causing me to have to work my ass off for nearly 2 hours to get her to go back down without waking right back up. While he and Raelynn got good sleep, I was busy trying to get to that point with Seoul. No such luck for me. Brief spurts of sleep were all I was able to get. At about 7:30am, Jeremy comes into our room and finds me sleepily rocking Seoul. He asks where I've put the pants. I protest and he snappily tells me it's cooler outside today so Raelynn needs to wear pants. I show him where the confiscated pants are and hand him a pair in black. He leaves.

Seoul has now fallen asleep and I'm thrilled. I'm about to put her down when he comes in, screaming at me. "Where are the thicker pants?!? These are too thin!" Now, the baby is startled completely awake and I'm ready to kill. He's scared her with his screaming and what's worse, is that it's his stupid mother's fault. I'll tell you why...because, front and center in Raelynn closet are - get this - all kinds of pants. Jeans. Cords. You name it. They're all there. In a big stack, because this closet consists of 2 long and deep shelves and there is no choice but to stack things in piles. The thinner pants had been in the middle of this stack until I took them away yesterday. So this fucking idiot woman now can't find the pants she'd deliberately sift through and blissfully ignore to rummage out her vile culottes. My husband was yelling at me. The baby was screaming and this stupid buck-toothed zombie can't even manage to dress my toddler for their outing because she's too senseless to check the rest of the clothes that, up until her arrival, had been neatly arranged in the closet in their respective piles, all folded lovingly by me, for just such a purpose.

And that's when I totally lost it. I screamed at my husband and his fatheaded mother. Mostly at her. I basically told him to shut the fuck up and thanks for waking the baby who I'd spent all that time trying to get to sleep so he could wake it up shouting about pants that were right in his braindead mother's face the whole bloody time. Then, I turned to the head troll herself and unleashed all my rage from the last couple days. Stuff I hadn't yet had the chance to write about - how she either didn't wash the dishes with hot water and sanitize them properly or served us unclean food, causing Jeremy and I have to have stomach aches (Jeremy also wound up with diarrhea) and poor Raelynn to throw up yesterday. How she then, after Raelynn threw up, took her for yogurt AND ice cream. Because! She's THAT stupid. And I went on and on and on, shouting at her and telling her to go fuck herself. I only regret shouting in front of the children, especially Raelynn since she repeats everything now, but in all fairness, Jeremy's newfound love of Pulp Fiction causes him to recite lines with worse strings of curse words, so we're both guilty here.

After I let that all out, I stormed into our room again and went back to work trying to get Seoul to sleep. I could faintly hear Jeremy yelling at his mother over the hissing sounds of the white noise app on my phone. I started to feel bad. Not about telling MIL off, but about being that mean to her in front of Raelynn. I don't have to like this woman but that's my children's grandmother, dumb as she is. And I thought about my husband and how he'd come bursting in at any minute to tell me off for shouting at his mother.

A bit of time passed and I finally got Seoul to sleep again. I waited extra just to be sure. As I was standing up, getting ready to head into the living room, I saw Jeremy's silhouette through the frosted glass on our bedroom door. I braced myself for a lecture. But instead, I got an apology...for waking the baby, for his mother not having enough sense to check the closet for the jeans that were right in her face, for her messing up the closet yet again (because I organize it every time I put the laundry back and am forever complaining about this and now he knows WHY - because she tears it up like a dog burying a bone) and for our house being too small. And I apologize for yelling.

Jeremy tells me from now on, whenever Raelynn has an outing with the idiots, I should lay out an outfit the night before so that way, there are no problems with Dumbo there fucking up the closet and whining she can't find shit that's right in her big dumb face and so I don't lose my mind again. I think my husband wasn't mad at me because I'd been telling him lately, quite calmly and politely I might add, that his mother was getting on my nerves with all sorts of things and that I was teetering on the edge. From the clothes, to the food she'd cook, to her telling Raelynn loudly in Chinese to go tell me to give her the baby when I was busy FEEDING the baby...SO many things! Oh! And last night, she half-assedly washed her hands so she could hold the baby. I protested that she didn't wash well enough and she grabbed her from me. Thankfully, Jeremy intervened and told her, NO. You did not wash your hands properly. Go back and wash them again. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. This is the person that will be watching the baby when Raelynn and I go back to school. How lovely. More reason to despise her. 

Now I feel much better since all that fury exploded out of me. Of course, it is the weekend which means no in-law interactions. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!

Attack Of The Socially Awkward Woman

This past weekend, Jeremy and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary. We had enjoyed a nice lunch, even with our toddler and infant present. After our lunch, as we were leaving the restaurant, Jeremy asked one of the employees there if she'd mind taking a family photo for us. Of course, she was happy to oblige. While Jeremy was asking her, Raelynn and I were exiting the restaurant. It's inside a very high-end but very dead mall. There are a few very expensive stores, a Starbucks and a play place. It amazes me that it still opens each day.

Just outside the entrance to the restaurant, there was a big red Chinese display, perfect for a photo opp. I put this photo in the last post but here it is again, in case you're too lazy to look...

You may or may not have noticed that in this photo, Raelynn seems highly agitated. That's because she is. See, she was tired from our busy day already. But as we were walking out of the restaurant, a Chinese family consisting of a mom, dad and a little boy, probably around Raelynn's age, were about to walk out the doors of the mall. The woman spotted Raelynn and me. She then began jabbering like an idiot in Chinese, grabbing her giant smart phone and poising it in photo-taking position and began approaching Raelynn with rapid speed. Raelynn became frightened so she ran from her and this stupid woman kept chasing her.

As this is going on, I'm telling this woman, in her own language no less, to stop. But she ignores me and keeps pestering my poor daughter, who is now running in circles around that red display in the photo you see just to get away from her. I'm also trying to catch Raelynn myself so I can take her away from this moron but it's hard for me to go fast thanks to my new sandals I bought in Guangzhou and Seoul, who is sleeping in the carrier. But despite these obstacles, there's no way in hell that I'm letting that lady get a photo of my child after she scared her. Now this woman's son gets in on the chase, following his mom's lead. They seem to think this is hilarious so now I begin shouting quite loudly and angrily at her in English this time. It finally gets her attention. She's laughing until she sees the look on my face. Which tells her I'm going to kill her if she doesn't get out of my sight now. And she finally figures it out that I don't want her scaring the shit out of my child just so she can get a photo and show her idiot friends that she saw a mixed-race child today. She quickly shrinks away, taking her son with her.

This is the kind of shit I have to put up with here all the time. I hate it. Chinese people love to brag and show off. They'll snap photos of foreigners like me and tell their Chinese friends that I'm a friend when I don't even know those people. They do it to us all. And they love to snap photos of our children too. Not all people are as socially inept as that stupid woman though. Some people actually come up and say hello and talk to us first. We're always happy to let polite people take photos of or with us. But people like that woman can walk their shitty asses into oncoming traffic.

Oh and to further illustrate what a chode that woman was, my husband told me that as she was leaving, he spoke to her and she said her son started chasing our daughter first. That's right...she blamed her own child. No, asshat. YOU started chasing my poor child and your son copied your behavior. What a bright future that kid will have with you as his mother. After the photo was taken, we walked right out of the mall. That woman and her family must have run as fast as they could because they were long gone. Good. You have to be a complete dumbass when you scare someone's child just for a photo of them without asking the parent's permission. Or not even picking up on the fact that you are scaring someone's child.

Does this happen anywhere else or is it just in the socially awkward country known as China? Let me know in the comments if you've experienced this here in China or elsewhere in the world.