Save My Weekend, Please!

I love my sweet husband. Very much. Except when he snores. But he knows this. There is very little I hate more than the sound of snoring when I am trying to sleep. Even when I'm wearing earplugs I can hear him! But you know what just sucks? That stupid World Cup is starting this weekend. GAH!

My husband played soccer in college. He plays on a team now, just for fun. Remember when he hurt his foot? Yeah. He fucking loves soccer. But, try as I might, I find it heinously boring. Unless I'm drunk. Oh alcohol, I miss you. You've been making boring sports less sucktacular for thousands of years. Now I'm going to be subjected to intermittent whoops and shouts, some that may occur while Raelynn and I are sleeping, and I won't even be able to drink to make it more bearable. The last time that damn World Cup was on was when we were in Seoul and it was so much more fun because we went out drinking with friends. Now I'm trapped in China and over 8 months pregnant. Sigh.

And I can't even complain because it's Father's Day this weekend and I should let my husband be happy. Stupid boring World Cup. Why can't you be more like American football? Urgh...

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...

Incisions And Decisions

I'm 32 weeks along now and you'd think I'd be so excited to hold my 2nd baby. But I can't even think about that right now. Because I'm having a bit of a mommy-panic moment. And I can't even think about THAT rationally. Period.

When I first announced my pregnancy, my father, a doctor, advised me to get a c-section again. If you're not familiar with the birth story of Raelynn, click here. Don't worry...it's nothing gross. I wound up having an emergency c-section after nearly 24 full hours of labor. It took forever for me to dilate and once I did, Raelynn turned around inside of me. It was grueling and worse than I ever expected it to be.

Naturally, I want to avoid this sort of thing this time around. But even from the start, my dad's suggestion of a second c-section kind of freaked me out. It was one thing to be in an emergency situation with only one way out. Now I have options. My doctor has been suggesting this whole second pregnancy to have a VBAC. She keeps asking me with every single visit if I am sure I want to do another c-section. Quite frankly, it's scaring me.

When I Skyped with my folks the other day, they assured me all would be fine with my c-section. But a few days later, Daddy emailed me and said he was having second thoughts about my c-section and that a VBAC would likely be less risky.

Risky? I don't like this word. There's a risk here? My father continued to express concern about general anesthesia. And that's when I began to panic. God, WHAT am I doing? I don't even know. Why can't men have babies?!? Why can't they fall off our arms, like spores?!? Am I fucking crazy for having another child?!? Will this kill me?!? I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING DIE!

So panic I did. And I read a lot about VBACS compared to c-sections too. And I'm still no closer to deciding on willingly being filleted or attempting to push the baby out the old-fashioned way (with an epidural of course).

My biggest fears are that, if I try to go VBAC, I will have just as long and horrible a labor as I did with Raelynn. And that something will go wrong again and I'll be forced to have another emergency c-section and be gassed with general anesthesia. I'd really rather just be given local anesthesia to avoid any problems. But if it's an emergency, in this country and the US, they knock you out. What if I go beyond my due date and need to be induced? I've read that's a greater risk for uterine rupture. And that's spooky. But if I have another c-section, I'll be stuck with a catheter (ugh) and I'll have a long and painful recovery ahead. If I can manage a VBAC, I'll be able to exercise again a month after the baby.

I'm torn, pardon the pun, between these decisions. I have a friend here who just underwent her second c-section here in China, using my same doctor, with great success. But she wasn't given a choice for a VBAC. She got pregnant very quickly after her first and Dr. Wang was concerned about a uterine rupture.

I don't know how to make this decision. I feel like it's the scariest thing ever. Even scarier than leaving my in-laws in charge of Raelynn while we're in the hospital. Is one choice right? Is one choice wrong? How do I even know I'm doing the right thing? Is there even a right thing?

How Rude!

Our 3-day weekend began with the ending of our Sports Day/Economic Fair event which my students' parents were all invited to attend. Because the parents were all around, I didn't have to look after my students. I only had to look after my child.

It was a particularly hot day so after checking out the lame selection at the booths, Raelynn and I stayed in the A/C. She wanted to play in her classroom so I sat there with her, laughing, playing and just enjoying her cuteness until it was time to get on the buses to go home. Many of the other moms left early with their children, as was there right. And some waited for the buses to ride home with their kids.

Before it was time to leave, I made sure Raelynn picked up all the toys she'd been playing with. I helped her put them away so that her teacher wouldn't be left with a giant mess. So imagine my surprise when I come in to work today after our 3-day weekend to find my classroom to be a big mess. There are toys out on the mat. Not a huge pile of blocks or anything but just little odds and ends. Someone obviously did a half-assed job of cleaning up in there. The bookcases were a disaster too. I was absolutely appalled that the parents would think nothing of letting their kids play and read and then leaving a mess for me and Christina to clean up. Seriously? How fucking rude! I'm 8 months pregnant and I picked up toys WITH my kid. What the heck is wrong with you people?!? Christina was disappointed as well. She had no idea the room had been left a mess when we went home on Friday.

These parents should be ashamed of themselves. I now understand exactly why this batch of students is my worst group ever. Their parents don't care enough to teach them how to behave properly or to study English. I'm a teacher, not a miracle worker. My students in all previous years were never like this. Then again, when their parents came to the school for an event, they picked up after themselves and their children.

Coming up this Friday, we'll be having our English Village event and the parents will again come to participate with their children. Christina had asked me if I could go over the dialogues we sent home for practice with the students. I was a little annoyed since I never had to do that in all the 3 years we've been hosting this event. We always sent these things home and the parents were always responsible for helping their kids understand. But not this group. I asked my kids who had been practicing and only 7 out of 20 raised their hands. It truly explains so much about this group.

The children are not our future. Not this classroom of them at any rate.

How Metro Lost Our Business

I've talked about Metro many times before. It's a German-owned Costco-like store. I've complained about how stupid the employees are there. Actually, I also complained about them in this post too. And let's not forget that Metro came in at number 3 on my countdown of Qingdao's worst bathrooms. Well today, we can forget all about ever shopping at Metro again. Because they don't want our business.

Like Costco back home, you need to have a membership to Metro. Which we have. When we first moved to Qingdao in late 2010, my husband's family included us in the membership. I was so happy because it is just a few minutes from our home and has tons of imported items. But as I've mentioned in previous posts, the employees tend to suck and the bathrooms are heinous. Still, we've been shopping there regularly since we've been living here. Until today that is.

Today is Duanwu's Holiday. Which has something to do with dragon boats and zong zi. So we had off work.

That's a zong zi, by the way. I don't care for them but my husband and Raelynn love them. It's rice with assorted fillings steamed inside of banana leaves. Sometimes they use jujubes inside with the rice and other times it's meat. I've tried both and I'm just not a fan.
 
We had wanted to go to Metro yesterday but after going to the doctor to check on the baby and discovering my salt intake was off the charts, we were caught in a torrential downpour. Plus Raelynn had fallen asleep in the car. We decided to just go home and head to Metro later. Of course, everyone else decided to go to Metro today too. But now as we entered, we were made to line up and write down our membership number. The guy in front of us, incidentally, was shaving with an electric razor. Jeremy and I were so stunned we couldn't even figure how to nonchalantly photograph him. Now I've DEFINITELY seen it all.

The line was being held up by an incredibly stupid family. And the line backed up more. And more. And we thought, fuck this. We left and decided to go to another supermarket. We sat in the car for about 10 minutes, trying to decide which one. Carrefour would also be crowded, particularly the location we like on Hong Kong Road. It's so much more foreigner-friendly over there and has a much better selection of imports than the Carrefour that's closest to our home. We discussed this back and forth, trying to figure out what option was the least aggravating. Jeremy then decided to run into the Metro one last time to see if that daunting line had finally cleared away. A few minutes later, he came back to the car.

He tells us there's no more Metro for us. Metro, quite stupidly I might add, has decided to only keep memberships for businesses. They don't want to allow any more family memberships. They offered us the chance to shop one last time today, but we were so angry, we refused. Fine, Metro. You don't want our money? We'll shop elsewhere. We were not the only family turned away today and I suspect those families were rather pissed as well. Some of them, Jeremy had said, were complaining that they'd come from much further away than us only to be turned away. How absolutely infuriating for those people.

My husband says Metro came to Qingdao about 10 years ago. They had only opened up to sell to businesses. Only problem was that they built it and no one came. They had so few customers so they decided to expand their business by granting memberships to families as well. And thus, Metro became successful in Qingdao. But now for whatever idiotic reason, they've decided to go back to only hosting business memberships. Be that way then, Metro. You won't last another 10 years in this town without those family memberships.

Even though we were bummed out, we decided to go to the Aeon, a Japanese-owned supermarket formerly known as Jusco, in the Wanda Plaza mall. There are several Aeon locations in Qingdao, but if you've lived here for a few years like us, you can't help but refer to it as Jusco. It's just what all of us know it as.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover how uncrowded it was. And the staff was friendly and helpful! Imagine that! The prices were mostly fair there too. And there were so many more things to choose from. The bakery was hands-down 100 times better than Metro's. They actually had real frosted donuts. Metro would occasionally have unfrosted donuts that tasted like crap. These donuts, I must admit, I did not have high hopes for but we decided to try them out. And they were great! While in the bakery, I saw a woman with what looked like a spinach tortilla wrap sandwich. I had to find it. As we ventured back into the ready-made deli area, there it was by a huge selection of sushi (which I had to ignore because, hello, pregnant here...no sushi for this girl). The wrap was filled with vegetables and chicken. I never could have found anything like that at Metro.

The verdict? My wrap rocked! Jeremy got some Chinese potato bread thing that I normally find just so-so. Here it was incredibly delicious. We were so pleased with the outcome of our supermarket adventure that, sorry Metro, we just won't be needing you anymore. Go ahead and beg for us back but honestly, as someone who majored in marketing, that was the absolute stupidest business move you could possibly make, even after 10 years of establishing yourself in this market. Congratulations on your impeding failure.

The Loneliest Bicycle Has Left The Building!

You may recall when I wrote about the idiots on the 4th floor who had chained a bicycle that they never ever used in the stairwell since this building was built. And if you don't, check it out here. Well, it's a freaking miracle, yo, because that bicycle is now gone!

This morning, Jeremy ran out to get eggs and yogurt from the store up the street and when he returned, he joyously delivered the news. That pain-in-the-ass bicycle is gone. Why now? We don't know. We wonder if the noisy people who promised they were going to be done with their remodeling 3 days ago (of course they weren't) are to thank for this. I might just let all the noise from the last few weeks slide if they are the reason this dusty-ass old bike is gone. Hopefully for good.

When we went to the supermarket, I snapped some photos of the stairwell sans bicycle.

This is the crustiest part of this stairwell because that bicycle was here for over 10 years collecting heaps of dust.

There's the chain that once bound the bicycle to the stairwell. I am so happy that we no longer have to maneuver around it. I always felt like that one episode of Friends with Ross and the couch and "pivot!"

Hey, Thanks MIL!

If you detected sarcasm in the title of this post then you win a prize. The prize being that you don't have my MIL for your MIL. And if yours is even one iota like mine, my sympathies.

Today, we have a whole new reason to be thankful for the pushy troll. Yes, that was sarcasm again. My, you're getting good at this, aren't you?

Add this to the list of reasons why MIL pisses me off...

We went for a check-up today at 32 weeks. As it's been getting warmer outside, I've noticed my ankles swelling up a bit. Dr. Wang was a bit concerned about it too so she had me take a urine test. The results stated that I'm taking in too much salt and now she told me I can't have any salt. On anything. Until the baby is born. Yay. Thanks, MIL.

How do I know this is her doing? Well, let's be fair. She didn't do it to harm me. This is just how she cooks. And if all the things she cooks suck, well, it's going to suck even more without salt, isn't it? My husband rather sheepishly admitted that his own father has always complained that MIL puts too much salt in everything. When I cook, if I use salt, I use a pinch. So now I can forget about even having a small handful of chips every now and then. Thanks, MIL.

It's totally her fault for insisting she cook for us 3 times a week. I didn't want her in here cooking in the first place and now look what happened. Not. My. Fault. Someone (coughcoughJeremeycough) should bow down now and start rubbing my swollen cankles whilst pinning diamond earrings to my ears.

The good news though is that the baby is doing very well. And my husband will be scolding his mother about her over-salting the food. And banishing her from using salt on our food. Can't he just banish her, period? Sigh. How I wish.

In other good news, Dr. Wang did not say that I'd gained too much weight (even though I seriously wanted to cry while being weighed) and she did not tell me I couldn't have sweets like she did when I was pregnant with Raelynn. So at least I can still enjoy some treats while I'm pregnant.

Until Baby Qu #2 arrives though, we will now officially be a salt-free family. That's if the queen of the dumbed can remember not to use salt on anything she cooks. This should be fun, seeing that she always forgets that the blue rags I keep far away from the kitchen sink are for scrubbing counters and she's always wiping her hands on them to clean off her fingers. Or washing our dishes with those rags. Lord help us all!