Whatever!

Can you believe they feed this to babies??

Whatever! This word can have so many different meanings and connotations. It can be used as a general term saying that you don’t care what happens, you are good with anything. It can be used to show frustration, letting the other person know that you really aren’t happy with the situation but will go along anyway. And in my situation, it can be used to show that you know you aren’t in control of the situation but know something crazy is going to happen. This response normally comes with a shrug of the shoulders. Whatever has become the theme word of our time in China! Adding to this is a wonderful coffee mug that I was given before leaving for China by Wanda Dukes, my former manager at Garden Plaza. It is a bluish green colored mug with the word WHATEVER written on it. This was Wanda’s theme word and she gave it to me on my last day there as a way to remember her. She didn’t know how much I would use that thing over the next course of my life.

Fish, pig, cow and chicken flakes. Made for babies...???

He LOVES to stand up!

Now I brought a lot of different coffee mugs with me, but on almost any given morning (unless the dishes have not been done…no I would never leave dishes in the sink…never…..) using that mug for my morning cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. It reminds me of a lot of different things. One…the verse taking about Whatever is good, pure, lovely….so on and so forth. That helps me keep my mind in check as well as my attitude so I will quit complaining. I know I know…all of you reading this would NEVER believe that I would complain about China, but alas I must tell the truth.  There are days that I find myself complaining quite a bit…so this is a good reminder. The second is the reminder that things over here are CRAZY and are probably always going to be CRAZY and I really don’t have any control over things. Most things work some of the time, schedules are always changing and everything changes! HA! So with a shrug of the shoulders you just say “Whatever” and just go with it…it’s all going to work out in the end one way or the other. Whatever our DAD has in store that is what I have to remember. So jokingly (and seriously) the theme word of our time in China has become “Whatever.”

Daddy and Aiden

I go about once a week to the grocery store with my friend Julie. This is a wonderful way to have a “girls night” as well as to stock up on food for the week. Though, it never fails that we either see something hilarious or something crazy happens. One of the things is the Chinese kids. Now I know I’ve mentioned “split pants” and I’m SLOWLY getting used to them…not quite though…but things get crazier. A few weeks ago we went to Auchon, one of the big stores in the area and saw a little boy JUST wearing a shirt and NOTHING else. Forgive me, but if you are just going to wear a shirt and nothing else then what is the point of the shirt??? Just go fully naked! We thought this was just a one time thing but we KEEP seeing it. Haven’t fully figured that out yet…maybe I don’t want to. HA! But on that same trip as we were walking through the fresh seafood area, and by fresh, I mean TONS of fish tanks filled to the brim with fish of all kinds, one fish jumped out of the tank and about hit me right in the leg. Embarrassedly enough, I screamed. Julie had her daughter AJ with her and she looked panicked!  But slowly all of our blood pressure started going back down and we had to laugh it off. Apparently this is a normal occurrence there since one of the employees calmly came over, scooped up the fish and put it back all in about 2 seconds. Needless to say…I haven’t walked back through that section yet. 

Don't I look cool in my shades?

Today as we went to the store, both Julie and her daughter Kailyn saw a mom holding her baby over a trash can and he was pooping. I’m extremely glad that I was in my own little world (don’t worry they know me there…) and totally missed that. But they were both TOTALLY grossed out! The bright side of that is that at least the mom had himover a trash can and not right on the ground as they do some times.

A whole crab anyone? Only $80 US!

Eating out here in China is always a fun and interesting experience. I am so grateful that almost all of the menus here have pictures along with the description, esp since the description is in Chinese. Makes it so much easier to figure out what you want to eat. Almost all restaurants are “family style” with a huge lazy susan in the middle. Everybody shares everything…so it always helps to go eat with people who you know like the same types of food you do. 

Mommy and Aiden

We went to a restaurant over in the Nanchan Temple area last week and boy was it SPICY!!!!!! At one point I ate something that was so hot I felt like my throat was closing up. Jeffrey was teasing me about being dramatic (can’t imagine why he would do that?????) but I couldn’t even answer him. All I could do was point to any bottle of water on the table and drink all that I could. It took quite awhile for that feeling to go away…needless to say, everyone else at the table stayed away from whatever it was that I ate! The rest of the meal was really good! My favorite part were these strawberry pastry like things that came out with dinner. Yummy!!! 

The "Western" restaurant! Ha!

Jeffrey and I did try a restaurant called "Western" just for the name last weekend. They had old wagon wheels every where and the waiters all wore Cowboy hats. The food, with the exception of the fries any my raspberry fruit drink, was not worth going back for, but it cracked us up none the less! 

Getting ice cream at the 7 Eleven

Aiden is now 7 ½ month old! Can you believe it? He is crawling around like crazy and pulling up on EVERYTHING. Today he actually cut his first tooth. Whoo Hoo! He still eats everything in sight, other than his bottle…he would give that up today if he could.  He LOVES his sippy cup though and constantly has that with him. He gets so excited when he sees it. All in all he gets excited about most things. The most adorable is when he hears the key in the lock meaning Daddy is home. Together they have their little rituals. When Daddy gets home he takes Aiden with him to go change clothes. Aiden sits up in the big chair we have in our room and plays with a special car that he only gets to play with there. He loves it. Then Daddy sets him down and he goes crawling to find Mama. He really enjoys for Daddy to hold him so he can watch Mama cook. He gets so intrigued with it.

Speaking of cooking…I’m trying to get creative and try new things. I tried this week to make sweet and sour pork…and it turned out great I’m proud to say! But if any of you reading this have a good recipe that you would like to send me, PLEASE DO! If I get some good ones I’ll talk about them in my different postings and let you know how they turned out.

Well friends…that must be all for now. Stay tuned as our adventure continues day by day.  I look forward to getting some recipes.