Avoiding Bitterness: Why Not Knowing is Okay

“So, you’re moving this summer, right? You’re moving back to the US?”

The question that keeps getting asked.  A lot. Well, actually we don’t know.  

“You mean Jamie doesn’t have a job?!”

Well, Jamie’s role during his time in China was to train up a Chinese national to take his position.  The time has come for the national to take over and we are excited about this!

“Can’t he just go back to the job he left in the US?”

Jamie’s company encourages their employees to move roles/positions/jobs every 3-5 years.  It is necessary for career development and learning new skills.  Jamie’s skills have grown, changed and evolved while we’ve been in China and a different position will be a better fit (just like if he would have been in a role for 4 years in the US).

“Is there a job for him?”

Well, in a large company it is really about timing.  What other people are also looking for their next position within the company and what positions will be available when we think we'll be moving?   This is the point that we’re at, looking at what might become available in the next 6 months.

“Don’t you want to move back to the US?”

Sure, that would be great.  Family, friends, cheese, driving and Target are all great things about the US.

“Don’t you want to have another expat assignment?”

Sure, that would also be great.  We love to travel and there are so many more places to see.  The experiences that our girls are having are shaping their world-view in such a positive manner.

“Aren’t you freaking out?”

Not yet.  I had tea with a friend last week and she mentioned that there were about 102 days between last Friday and their projected move day (at the end of the school year), which is potentially our move date.  She was meeting with the relocation people in the afternoon to start assessing their belongings and what it would take to move everything back to the US.  One hundred and two days is not long at all!

The conversation with my friend put me in a very reflective mood.  I started remembering all the feelings that I had before we moved to China and one of the emotions I had was bitterness.  I was excited to move, I was ready for an adventure, I was sad to leave family & friends, but our little family of four wanted to go.  We were choosing this.  However, as the process got started, emails started rolling in, the continuous stream of calls with lawyers, accountants, packers, etc. I developed a lot of bitterness.  I didn’t want to spend my last 8 weeks feeling harassed by my to-do list.  I had the distinct feeling that the only thing keeping me from breezily sailing through this move was me.  Me not willingly to stay up all hours of the night filling out forms, responding to emails, organizing our things, and marching through the to-do’s.  But, I couldn’t escape it and those things had to be done.

I wanted to spend the time leading up to the move savoring time with family, enjoying one more round of hugs and laughs with my closest girl friends and giving my girls an extra big dose of Americana to sustain us through the first 6 months of our move.

So for now, from my perspective, if we don’t know where we’re going, then I can’t have a moving to-do list.  Frankly, if an international move gets crammed into 30 days, then fine by me because it will be crazy and exhausting no matter how many days I am given.

I’m avoiding bitterness at all costs.  Instead, you can find me soaking up all things Suzhou and China and enjoying what time we have left here.

July's Highs

I'm still not back in full-time blogging mode, but that's okay with me!  Now the adoption is finalized, ChinaBean has made it successfully through another heart surgery, my girls and I were re-united with Jamie after living three months on separate continents, and I am simply enjoying "being".

We are settling into school routines, I'm finalizing my schedule for helping out with some speech kiddos at school, volunteer responsibilities are resuming, and our family is just relishing being back together.  

Thanks for bearing with me as I took a break from this virtual scrapbook and journal!

June was a fun month for us, but July was even better.  Everyone was healthy and we were able to do lots of fun activities.

Great-grandpa had some things to show ChinaBean (and it didn't involve an Apple product)!

ChinaBean got the "all clear" and we started weaning her off of three of her meds.  She returned to China only taking her baby aspirin.  Yippee!

We played, a lot.  Inside. Outside.  With friends. With cousins. We played some more.

Well hello there!  Didn't you live in Suzhou at one time too?

At the local candy shop "on the square"

Okay, I played with friends too.  The spa, late night trips to Walmart, and saying hi to the "neighbors".  My friend Shannon (below) lives in Suzhou too and we just happened to spend some time in the US living across the street from each other at our respective friends' homes.  I called the street the Suzhou Respite Area.

Picnics on the patio with cousins

Time with the other great grandparents, Mom-o & Pop-o

4th of July! Complete with a parade, floats, candy and fireworks.

Have you ever seen a cuter little bug dressed in red, white & blue? She caught onto the idea collecting candy at the parade very quickly!

Poised and ready for some more candy to come her way.

Thanks to Jamie's cousin Josie, ChinaBean
got a nice frozen treat too.

EBean thought is was a bit hot on the float! I say
keep throwing that candy.

More visits from family.  I love my Aunts very much and I really love watching them as Great Aunts to my girls.  They drove several hours just to have lunch and the afternoon with my girls before turning around and driving home.  That's the kind of aunt I aspire to be.

And, finally VBS (vacation Bible school).  My girls asked for three things for their summer (well actually four...to take off their shoes and run through the grass): go to the American Girl Store in St. Louis, go to the Wisconsin Dells and go to VBS.  I am happy to say check, check, and check to all of their requests.  We ended our time in the US with a bang and a whole lot of memories!

The Reflective Post: Part 3

Quick catch-up: This is part of three of three installments regarding our family’s first trip back to the states.  (You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.)

So, did he? Did Jamie have to drag me onto the airplane to get me back to China? Although I was the only crying at the airport, no, Jamie did have to coerce me onto the plane. Actually, I was ready to be “home”. Living out of a suitcase for 3 weeks with your children and without a routine is really hard.  I was looking forward to being back in the apartment and getting back to normal, whatever that might be! I will be honest, having our trip to the Philippines dangling in front of me helped a little, too.

The tears at the airport were because I had to say goodbye to my friend. It was so good to see friends and the trip reinforced just how special my friends are to me. It made it even harder to leave. I feel the same way about my family, but we had been used to being at least a few hours from family since we went to college. But, my friends were part of my every day life and had seen me through the ups & downs of being a mother, the challenges that face every married couple, and our evolving identities as we get a little bit older.

Looking back over the trip I had so many emotions. It was good to be back in Illinois, good to be around the familiar, good to know my surroundings and good to know where to find things. It was nice to be in control of my day and to be able to hop into a car without texting a driver to come get me.

I liked the feeling of being “back in my element.” Where I was good at something, whether it be a speech pathologist, the person that could be trusted to plan an event, the mom that knew where to get pictures taken, how to plan a birthday party or simply the person that could make a positive contribution of some sort. As I told the friends from our small group, some days in China I feel like I’m just “sucking air” (which, considering the air quality, is not necessarily a good thing)! I was so new that I felt like I just wasn’t good at anything. I felt as if in every new friendship I was the one doing the taking, asking questions, being needy and not being able to return the favor.

It was great talking to friends and family about our experiences. My favorite question was, “Do you like it there?” and then the surprised look on the person’s face when I said “yes”--and I meant it. I could tell who reads the blog! I don’t expect expect all my friends and family to read the blog, that’s not why I do it. But, it was funny when someone would ask a question and I would think to myself, “If you read my blog post from...., you’d know the answer.” For those who do read the blog, it was nice not to be asked the same questions all the time and to be able to go in more depth about our experiences because the person asking already knew the basics. From the beginning I have had three goals for the blog: 

1)  Provide my daughters with a scrapbook of our time in China. I plan to have the blog posts printed off and made into a book someday (yes, there are websites that do that). I want them to see our memories through their mother’s eyes and to try and spark memories of the little every-day experiences we had.

2)  To give encouragement to the spouses of future expats. I was a bit of a blog stalker before we moved. I just needed confirmation that other moms were doing this and that they were okay. I put “mom blog China” in the Google search engine several times digging for new information.

3)  To keep the grandmas happy. The least I could do after I moved their granddaughters half way around the world was to keep them happy with pictures, explanations of our life and some common ground for them to ask our girls questions about what had been going on in their lives.

But, to be very, very frank, life looked a little predictable there, too. I guess I want the best of both worlds -- a little predictability and a little adventure. Many days I long for the US, but I have no regrets moving to China and I wouldn’t want life any other way.

I like that the Chinese have not yet been caught up in the intense speed of life that has taken over our American culture. I love watching the girlfriends and boyfriends or husbands and wives riding on their E-bikes (electric scooters) with their arms around each other and whispering in each other’s ears. I like watching friends ride their E-bikes side by side in the E-bike lane laughing and talking as they go to and from work. I love, love walking everywhere and being in the hub of things. 

Although LBean’s school day is long and Jamie works very hard, the way our week runs is so great. As a family, we eat almost 16 meals a week together. We all have breakfast together and then Jamie walks LBean to the bus. That would not be a possibility for us in the US. We eat dinner together every night except when Jamie has business dinners. I like that once LBean gets home from school we are home for the evening. We are not running to Scouts, lessons, church activities, or get-togethers.  I know that some families do things in the evenings here, but for the most part, the restricted transportation, the long school days, and the general views of those here don’t support evening activities. Also, the weekends belong to us. We aren't close enough to drive to family, we don’t have meetings to attend, and there are no household improvement to-do lists. We are together all weekend long...which can be a good or a bad thing depending on the weekend.

I love all the cultures that we encounter every day. Our city has a large Spanish, German and South Korean population, but we have friends that are from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Africa, Mexico, Canada, Japan and so many other countries. Coming from a small town this is really awe-inspiring. Most of the people here are tri-lingual: their native language, English and Chinese, it is amazing.

Of course, the travel is such a nice perk. I won’t go into much detail, but part of the international employee benefits package includes travel. For us, it’s two trips a year plus a trip back to the US after we’ve been abroad for a year. Jamie and I always said we were saving our money for travel and now we’re getting a chance to really live it. We are in a community where expats can spout off their trips to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Dubai, Korea, etc. Not only that, but they can tell you the best places to stay, where to eat and the best shopping deals. When we live so close, there is no reason not to travel!

To sum it up, I’ll steal my friend and fellow expat’s assessment of China. “Do I like China? Sure, China’s okay, but I like my life IN China.”

There's a lot of Christmas and US goodies
in those suitcases!

These suitcases are deceiving, they're not just clothes, but
one has a big box of Bisquick in the middle and the
other two have similarly heavy items buried in the middle.

The Reflective Post: Part 2

Early that Saturday morning the girls and I hit the open road and headed back to Peoria. We were spending the weekend there and had several appointments scheduled for that Monday morning. 

Quick catch-up: This is part of two of three installments regarding our family’s first trip back to the states. (Read part 1 here: The Reflective Post: Part 1 )After nearly a week of struggling to get some sleep – at the proper time – the girls and I find ourselves hitting the open road once again and heading back to Peoria. Since I’d scheduled several appointments for a Monday, we decided to spend the weekend there. Two words I could use to describe the weekend: wonderfully crammed!

I really do miss driving myself places, but this trip quickly reminded me of the reality of driving young children around. I do not miss driving with children complaining, yelling orders, and fighting from the back seat. The trip was a mixed-blessing for sure.

We started our whirlwind weekend attending our former neighbor’s Christmas party. In the 10 years we’ve known them, I’m not sure we’ve missed a party yet! Besides that, we got to totally surprise the host, who didn’t know we were coming! The hostess kept “the secret,” though. She knew we were coming because she’d called my old cell phone number a month or so before. You may recall that I’d switched phones with my mom before we left for China. Consequently, they had a chance to chat and catch up.

Let me tell you a little bit these wonderful people who hold a very special place in our hearts. They were our first neighbors when we moved into first house. They took us under their wings when didn’t know a soul in town. In fact, to announce that I was pregnant with LBean, I put a sign in our bathroom window because their kitchen window looked directly at it. When we remodeled our only bathroom in our first house, these were the people that gave us a key to their home and let us use their bathroom for not one, not two, but three weeks! They are those kind of people!

That weekend I tried to cram everything that LBean might have possibly mentioned that she missed or do some “regular” things that she missed. We went swimming at the local indoor swimming pool with friends and even ran into a former preschool classmate that had sent Lilly a pen-pal letter. Since the girls and Jamie fell asleep early after being worn out from swimming, I snuck out for a little girl time at the local Mexican restaurant. Nothing like chips & salsa and some gabbing with friends to make a girl feel good!

We attended our home church and the girls went to Sunday school (and we didn’t even have to take a bus to get there!). After church, we had lunch with friends. Later that evening, we went back to the church to catch up and eat with our small group. We plunked the food down in the middle of the table, pulled up chairs and ate, and talked the night away! It wasn’t nearly long enough, but it meant so much, especially during the busy Christmas season.

Me with two of my dearest friends...our friendship is older than our children!

This is quite a crew!

Monday was a slew of doctor’s appointments and dentist appointments. We took LBean & EBean to the one place they requested to eat...McDonald’s. They got to run around the play land and we caught up with even more friends who met us there. Next, we snuck in a quick trip to the “square” to buy some cute hair bows -- a rarity in China.  This was a well-timed-out weekend!

At our last appointment of the day  -- the dentist – it was discovered that LBean had some “suspicious” spots on her teeth. We were told “the spots” should be monitored over the next few months. As they’re telling me this, I’m thinking: “What?!? We’ll be in China! How are we going to make this work?” I desperately tried to explain the situation that we were flying out in just under two weeks, and that coming back really wasn’t an option for us.

Regardless, we made an appointment for three days later and tried to mentally prepare ourselves for wasting an entire day on the road to come for her appointment. Clearly this was important and I wasn’t go to ignore it, but it was messing up my carefully planned week!

Thankfully, it all worked out. Here’s how: as Jamie and I were sitting there discussing what other errands we needed to run and when and how we were going to return his rental car, etc., the receptionist approached us and said that the doctor had finished an appointment early and could squeeze LBean in right now. What a relief! I was so happy and I need to make a mental note to take back some pearl earrings for everyone in the dentist’s office!

Our “cramming” didn’t just end with this wonderful weekend. Let’s see, what else did we cram into the next few weeks?
-My niece, Rachel's basketball game.
-A trip to the salon to have my oldest niece, Alison, cut my hair.
-A trip to St. Louis to see the Illini v. Mizzou basketball game and catch up with more friends.

Me & my Dad!

Jamie with his college friend J.C. and his wife Jennifer.

Jamie standing under the Toyota sign talking with
Craig, one of the famous college "study buddies".

Me with my friend and former college roommate Sally.

-Another party for EBean’s birthday, this time we celebrated with family.

-Lunch with my best friend from high school.
-Lunch with a treasured friend from college.
-Jamie and LBean went to his sister’s elementary classroom to talk about China and teach them how to write some Chinese numbers.

-Shopping, shopping, shopping...I wish I could say that shopping was all fun, but mostly it was hurried and frantic. Everyone needed new shoes. Quality shoes are hard to find in China and it’s hard to find shoes that fit my larger-than-the-typical Asian woman-sized feet. I found some clothes for the spring, things for LBean’s May birthday party, and food and household items.

-Four different family Christmas celebrations. We made them all!  Here are some of my favorite photos from Christmas.

The annual Christmas photo at my parents before dashing
out the door to Christmas Eve service.

My nephew Ian with his
steak-flavored Pringles...all the way from China.

My niece Molly with her new pink Chinese slippers.

EBean & LBean showing off some new
dress-up clothes.

My sister-in-law Angela with a book
that I gave her for Christmas called "Dreaming In Chinese"

EBean and Molly putting the finishing touches on
the Baby Jesus Cake (everything on the cake
symbolizes something related to Christ's birth).

My niece Alison and Jamie's grandmother, wearing her
new Chinese freshwater pearls.

Ian and his new Mickey kung fu
t-shirt from Hong Kong Disneyland.

Jamie with the Christmas tree I won
at a charity auction.

Uncle Matt with his new Chinese ear picks
from Hong Kong Disneyland. What every man needs!

Grandma Callie with her Chinese painted tile...
a pig of course (from the Chinese zodiac).

By the end of the week I was literally exhausted. I didn’t want to say no to anything. This was my one chance (at least for a while) to see friends and family and I didn’t want any regrets. I did spend one day lounging around on the couch because I was fighting off sickness and didn’t want to spend 14 hours on a plane feeling miserable.

The last few days and nights were spent slowly and methodically packing our 9 bags. I had Christmas presents, new clothes and shoes, food and other comfort items to stuff into our bags. I thought I was going to have to leave a small box of things behind, but when I turned it on to its side to weigh it (yes, I had to the luggage weigh-in dance again) things shifted and I got it all to fit!

LBean & EBean playing by "the holding area"
with all of our Christmas treasures.

We said goodbye to some of our family and my mom and Jamie’s parents divided our luggage between their two cars and we headed back to Peoria. We were ending our trip where we started, at our friends’ house. The grandparents said a quick goodbye, no reason to prolong the emotional part. 

Our college friends that had faithfully sat with us through 10 years of Illini football drove up to Peoria as well to watch the Illini bowl game with us. We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve with some of our closet friends. We stayed up late chatting and trying to avoid the inevitable. Finally, we gave in and headed to bed.

We were up by 3 a.m. or so to make our 5:30 a.m. flight. We had our personal chauffeur (my friend) to drive us to the airport and it did make the check-in process go much smoother than our move to China.

But, the big question is, did Jamie have to drag me back on the plane? To be continued... 

The Reflective Post: First trip to the US, Part 1

I’ve been avoiding writing this post for weeks. I’m not completely sure as to why, but perhaps it’s because more reflective in nature. Consequently, it’s more emotional than giving a detailed log of our vacations or daily life in China. But, it’s March and high time to get caught up on any loose blog strings I’ve got floating around cyberspace!

In early December, we all journeyed back to Illinois for our first time since moving to China. I, at first, wrote “home” instead of “Illinois,” but felt I had to delete it. Why? Because “home” is where my husband and children are and that is no longer Illinois. I’ve tried really hard not to refer to Illinois as home in front of the girls because I don’t want to encourage the idea that where we are isn’t home.

So, after five months of living in China, we packed up our bags and flew back to the states to spend Christmas with family. I fully understand how lucky we were to spend Christmas with family since we have friends who haven’t been back for years. For some, it’s a choice. For others, it’s financially related or because they’re in the middle of adoptions and couldn’t leave the country with the newest additions to their families because their adoptions had not been finalized yet.

In my mind, and funny enough, also on a map, China seemed so far from the US that I think I mentally separated “here” and “there” and didn’t want to think about both at the same time. (Give me a pass here, please! So much change can be overwhelming. Couple that with trying to make everything “normal” for the kids and I guess you see a coping strategy coming to play!) But, if the trip reminded me of anything, that although the 14 hour flight is brutal, it really is easy to get back to “there.” We took a two-hour trip to Shanghai, hopped on a plane, and landed in Chicago. Just 2 1/2 more hours and we were in the town we moved from; another 2 1/2 hours further we were back with family! It was very reassuring to me that, in all reality, it is very easy.

I could have gotten really teary-eyed when the US immigration officer said, “Welcome home,” but I managed to hold it together. (I’m sure I wouldn’t have been the first person to “break down” at that the greeting, though!) Now, having the point-of-view that I do, I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the personnel at the airport yelling (not in anger, just to get a point across) at the “foreigners” coming into the country to “go here” and “stand there.” Saying it louder will not make visitors to our country understand what you’re saying any faster. Trust me...I know.

We made it to the car rental place and got the girls strapped into their car seats, which are optional in China (not for our family, just no seat belt laws in China). Jamie put his foot on the gas, first time in 5 months, and off we went!

Completely surreal.  It’s just that it was so “normal” and we had not been living “normal” for a few months. LBean asked why we didn’t bring our driver from China with us. I tried to imagine what his reaction might have been to the sights & sounds of suburban Chicago. I did tease Jamie a bit about the “touchy” brakes, or maybe it was his foot, but there was some adjustment there. We also had a touch-and-go moment with some traffic.  I told him that the girls’ grandmas would be very ticked if we made it this far with their granddaughters and then got into accident 5 hours from their houses!

There was comfort in knowing that we were in charge of our own car and we could stop at any time along the way. The first bathroom stop did make me pause and wonder why I’d been pining for US bathrooms so much (squatter toilets aside), because it really wasn’t very nice. Our first fast food stop...Arby’s! Mmmmm…so yummy!! Jamie looked through the window and saw a co-worker inside (we were still 1 1/2 hours from our town) and I had to laugh. What were the chances?

For the rest of the drive I was priming Jamie to stop at our friends’ house. We were tired and jet-lagged and it was late, but I was determined. The girls and I were spending one night in town before going back to Jamie’s parents’ house. If I didn’t see my friend that night, it was going to be a week before I’d have the chance again. I borderline-begged him to drive straight to their house and, because I have an amazing husband, he did! I cannot tell you the joy I had (and it makes me tear up as I type) knocking on my friend’s door and seeing her face! I had a suspicion she might try to meet us at our hotel when we arrived and I wanted to beat her at her own game. I was right! I’m glad I got there first! We plopped down at their house and savored our time together. (Love you S.G.!) 

In our hotel and enjoying our surprise.

The night just got better because when we checked into the hotel there was a very large box from the “Washington Christian Hospitality Committee.” Have I mentioned that I have amazing friends? The box was filled with fresh fruit, water, homemade cinnamon rolls, fruit snacks, and my beloved Diet Caffeine-Free Pepsi. They know us very well! The fruit didn’t even see the light-of-day because we woke up very hungry in the middle of the night from our jet lag and promptly proceeded to devour the grapes!

Trying to do the Chinese "victory" sign!

The next morning Jamie went to work. He was working in the home-office for a week and then would join the rest of the family in our hometown for two weeks of Christmas vacation. Jamie’s mother graciously agreed to drive over and not only pick up the girls and me, but also let me have a “play-date” with two dear friends and their children before leaving town. Jet lag couldn’t even ruin this play date!

The next few days were a blur of sleepless nights and the excitement of seeing friends and family. It took about 4 days before the girls were sleeping through the night. During one night we were all up at 2 a.m. and I had planned a shopping trip for the next day to get shoes for the girls, so they had to go with me. I knew that we would never get out the door on time because they needed baths. So, since we were all up anyway, the girls took warm baths at 2 a.m. by the light of the moon, literally. I didn’t want them any more awake than they were, so I refused to turn on the lights!

We had a good week with family and went to a very special Friday night performance at the remodeled college auditorium in our hometown. I thought the musical production was really great, but poor LBean was so tired she slept through most of the Trans Siberian Orchestra-inspired show. Also that night was a silent auction to raise money for the local hospital’s new building. Items to be auctioned were theme-decorated Christmas trees. Wouldn’t you know, I found one I had to have (it was covered in earth-moving machines!).  I secretly bid on it and was hoping to win and surprise Jamie with it on Christmas.

This is turning into multiple posts, please stay tuned for part 2!