Blessing in Disguise

One morning last week I was in my room trying to put Sophie to sleep.

Now, a mother's ears are fine-tuned. She can tell exactly what her children are doing in other rooms just by listening. She knows what it sounds like when the phone is lifted off its cradle. She knows what it sounds like when the microwave door is opened or shut. Same for the refrigerator and freezer. In fact all doors and cupboards in the house have their own unique sound. She knows breaking glass, the different tones of beeps that certain buttons make, the sound of running water....

As I bounced my baby I heard a series of sounds from the living room.

Click, click, click. Click, click, click. (Anna turning on and off the DVD player.)

Bleep, bleep. Bleep, bleep, bleep. (Anna pushing buttons on the air conditioner remote control.)

I poked my head out my bedroom door. "Anna, stop pushing buttons. Do not try to put a movie in by yourself. I'll be right there."

Still, when I came out ten minutes later the air conditioner was blasting hot air. I switched it over to cold again, turned it off, and unplugged it, because we can have either the air conditioner on or the TV, not both.

As I slid the plug for the DVD and TV's power strip into the wall, though, I heard a distinct poompft.

That was the sound of the DVD player blowing a fuse.

Sure enough, it wouldn't turn on. The TV was fine, the DVD player was fried.

"Well," I said, looking at Anna, "I guess we won't be watching TV until we get back to America."

Maybe that was a little cruel, because she looked at me with wide, horrified eyes, as if I had just pulled her beating heart out of her chest with my bare hands.

No TV? You mean, no Barbie movies for three weeks?

As I thought about it more, I felt increasingly upset too. I mean, I don't like to admit it, but there are many slow afternoons when I turn on a movie for Anna and Gabe while Sophie's taking a nap. And I have "mommy time." The fried DVD player meant no more mommy time.

It's been about five days without TV and this is a progress report:

We're doing grrrreat!

Gabe and Anna are taking afternoon naps again instead of sitting like zombies in front of the tube. They've been ornery the last few weeks. Maybe some of it is spring fever, but probably mostly they're dealing with transition stuff and the naps are good for them.

When they get up from naps, we've been playing games: war, memory, and a weird card game that's not really a game. It's more like passing cards around the circle; it has no point and no winner, but the kids love it.

Anna's playing dress up and blocks in the morning instead of hounding me to watch movies. Since the movies aren't an option, she's stopped bugging.

Of course, we can still watch an occasional special movie on Aaron's Macbook if we need to. But I have to admit, I'm enjoying a quieter house.

I think the death of the DVD player might turn out to be the key to a smoother transition. Which reminds me, I'd better get back to packing.

Oops!

I guess I was so excited about shamelessly promoting myself that I gave out the wrong link to vote for the purple prose tracker over at Query Tracker!

The one I gave out before must have been the form to enter the contest -- that's why it was saying it was already closed. Sorry! Here's the link to the voting form.

I think there are still a few more hours to vote, because voting ends on Friday, May 29, which probably means American time. If you don't make it, don't worry. I do appreciate all the people who tried to vote for me but failed because of my incorrect link. It's nice to know I have friends (and relatives) who support me, even in ridiculous contests for bad writing.

Remember #2 - vermilion lips....

Shameless Self-Promotion

I was so excited this morning to see that my sentence in the purple prose contest over at Query Tracker Carnival was in the final 15.

Yes, my writing was actually bad enough to be a finalist.

Yippee!

So, here's the shameless self-promotion I mentioned in my title.

IF you have a Query Tracker account (membership is free)

and

IF you don't like any of the other purple prose entries better than mine (they're all pretty bad!)

Then would you consider voting for me?

Mine is #2, the one about the vermilion lips. You can access the voting form here.

Ahh, the excitement of a contest. There's nothing like it. I never knew I was so competitive.

WIP Wednesday: More Packing, Less Writing

Not too much writing going on around here lately. My mom was in town until yesterday (slaving away at my housework) and I used self-control during her visit. Although my novels, their plots, subplots, and characters, were rattling around in my brain, I used my time to organize and pack.

Good girl.

Any time I have spent writing has been on my present work-in-progress, the Valentine's Day novel that doesn't have a title yet. Reading and editing, reading and editing.

Editing is a lot like combing through tangled hair: slow and satisfying. Working out the snags, recombing. It's satisfying when the hair falls away smooth from the comb at last, gleaming in the light.

But just yesterday I started something ... pretentious? Insane? Definitely something that's more than I can chew, and I know it. I got an idea for a new ending for my already-finished novel. Part of me doesn't want to touch it, but the new ending makes it so much more terrifying, sad, and (dare I say it?) meaningful.

I took the wimpy, safe route and am writing the alternate ending in a separate document. When I'm done with it I'll compare the two again and decide which one to use; whether I'm going to stick with my polished, safe ending, or go wild and throw in that ending twist that seems so impossible to finish right now.

At the same time, writing is one thing I do to relax. And right now I need to relax. Desperately.

Maybe carving out an hour-a-day for my alternate ending isn't such a bad idea after all.

Top Five Reaons to Buy a Chinese Darth Vader Mask

My friend Marilyn sums it up here.

And she models the masks as well, which is a bonus for those in other countries who may have not even been aware that such things existed. Yes it's true, people do wear Darth-Vader-like masks in Tianjin when they ride their bikes in summer.

Another popular face covering are large scarves that can be wrapped all the way around a person's head to keep rather large hair styles in place. Supposedly these scarves keep the dust off your face too, but I have to admit I'm not convinced. I also have to admit that I've been absolutely petrified more than once upon witnessing a faceless bike rider hurtling toward me in the street. I don't have any pictures of this fashion phenomenon. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Want One? I Do!

My sister Michelle is a creative lady. She uses her amazing sense of style (which must be genetic, but somehow I missed it when I was swimming around the family gene pool) and her ingenuity on the sewing machine (missed that gene too) to make very cool, very practical things:

Coffee cup cozies

Note cards (these aren't made on the sewing machine, but they're still cool)

Most recently ... beautiful folding bags

And lots more!

You can find her at mrpard.blogspot.com. She and her similarly crafty/artsy friend Salome are going to start their own website where you will have the opportunity to purchase this stuff. But until then, you can browse her blog and drool.

And you can wish you were me because I get these things for birthdays and Christmases. *evil laugh* Or, if you are a crafty person, you can take Michelle's designs as inspiration and try them out for yourself. She doesn't mind.

A Cup for My Water

Tonight we suppered at TGI Friday's to celebrate Aaron's homecoming from Guilin. Ahh, Fridays. A tidbit of America in the heart of Tianjin.

The wait staff wear the Friday's uniforms, though maybe with not quite as much flare on their suspenders. There are red and white striped table clothes, just like America. And interesting things mounted on the walls: antique tricycles, a canoe, lots of old photographs and postcards. While the wait staff are generally kind and speak English, they spend a lot of time standing around picking at their fingernails or having small, friendly slapping fights with each other. But the food is good and when you order a Coke, you get a jumbo size with free refills. If that isn't quintessential America, I don't know what is!

Tonight we ordered soft drinks along with our food.

"And can we get waters for everyone, please?" Aaron asked our waiter.

The waiter grunted in reply and stalked away.

Aaron and I exchanged glances. "That was weird," he said, and I agreed. Since when was ordering water an inconvenience?

He came back a while later with our assorted drinks.

"And can we get water too please?" Aaron asked again.

"No, no, no!" the waiter said. "No cups. No cups. Only this kind of cup." He pointed to our kids' plastic cups.

"Okay, well, we'll take that kind of cup," Aaron said.

"Wait a moment. Wait a moment," the waiter said, scurrying away.

He never came back with the water.

We glanced around the half-empty restaurant and wondered how on earth a TGI Friday's could run successfully without enough cups. Is it that they have to give away the water for free, so they are losing money washing the cups we use to drink water? Is there an unwritten rule that each customer is only allowed one cup?

Still, it was a fascinating study on the difference between our two cultures. In Chinese culture avoidance is an acceptable form of refusal; you can't lose face for not doing something if you pretend that you don't need to do it. Just ignore the problem -- ignore the customer. It will eventually go away. So will the customer. And there are plenty of other customers in a country of billions. Nobody's going to miss you.

We felt instinctively that it would be wrong for us to ask for water a third time. Maybe we're just wimps, but then again, we're used to it here, and making the waiter lose serious face by having to refuse us water for whatever bizarre reason he had to refuse us water, just wasn't worth the water.

So, we finished our dinner feeling only mildly annoyed, and left to enjoy our water at home. Where there are plenty of cups.

FitG Update: Dark Fire, Sovereign

I'm finally able to cross two books off my Fill-in-the-Gaps Project list: Dark Fire and Sovereign. I've been a little bit of a slow reader lately, but I did enjoy C.J. Sansom's historical mystery series. The plots were compelling (I guessed who the murderer was in Dissolution, but he fooled me in both Dark Fire and Sovereign) and I loved the setting: Henry VIII's England.

Dissolution and Dark Fire are both set in Cromwell's England, a time period I didn't know very much about. Sovereign is set a few years after Cromwell's execution, during Henry VIII's infamous progress to York. All three books immerse us in the bloody intrigues and conflicts of that time period. Henry has become head of the church, beheading papists and Anabaptists right and left, and Matthew Shardlake, the hunchback lawyer protagonist with a sharp eye for detail and a talent for solving mysteries, finds himself tangled up in it all, first working for Lord Cromwell and later for Archbishop Cranmer.

I like Shardlake as a protagonist and as a detective. At the same time, oddly, if anything struck me as unbelievable in this series, it was him. He was too modern in some of his thinking, which I thought spoiled the realism. However, I don't blame Sansom for making him modern. It would be hard, if not impossible, for modern readers to relate to a full-blown sixteenth century character. Our cultures are too different. This was a day and age when people were hung for stealing and had their fingernails pulled out for their faith; a time period when the King was attempting to rule the religious roost, claiming to be God's chosen one, and using brutal force to make the British people comply. Most of us can't relate to that in the modern world. I think Sansom needed to give his readers someone they could empathize with, someone who wasn't as bloodthirsty and dogmatic as most men of standing seemed to be in that day and age. The fact that Shardlake is a hunchback makes his modern, inclusive views more understandable. He has spent his whole life as an outcast; it makes sense that he would have learned to think independently too.

It wasn't until I was looking up links for this post that I realized Sansom wrote a fourth book in this series: Revelation. It's not on my FitG list, but I may have to squeeze it in. I'm curious to find out what could possibly motivate Shardlake to get involved with politics again. From the beginning of the series, he's been trying to get these men of power to leave him alone, to let him lead a quiet life. But they always have other plans for him. In Henry VIII's England, where blackmail and intrigue abound, even an unassuming lawyer doesn't get much of a choice in how he spends his time.

Psycho Week, Super Mom

This week has been psycho.

But very nice in some ways, too. My mom is visiting us. I have her slaving away for me 24 hours a day. If I dare to wash any dishes she gives me the evil eye and says, "Who did the dishes? That's my job."

Ahh ... it's wonderful.

My mom is here for several reasons:

1) She wanted to come up one last time before we leave China.

2) She is helping me by taking three-year-old Anna out to play in the sandbox during Sophie's morning nap so that I can pack/organize in preparation for our imminent move.

3) Aaron is gone for a week in Guilin with thirty tenth graders. My mom is here so I don't start wailing and pulling out my hair and barking like a dog from too long a confinement with my (delightful) preschoolers.

Aren't mothers wonderful?

I've been thankful for my mother this whole psycho week. But this morning I was especially thankful.

I was helping the kids get ready for school. They seemed fine; that is, until Olivia went into her room to get dressed and absolutely lost it.

"I hate changing my underwear!"

I pursed my lips, but didn't say anything.

"I don't like this dress! It's uncomfortable!"

"Well, put on a different dress," I said.

Olivia pulled out a different dress, struggled with the zipper for about 0.27 nanoseconds and tossed it on the floor. I picked up the dress and unzipped it. By that time, she was lying across the bed, kicking, crying, and doing what looked like a break-dancing move that may be called "the caterpillar."

It was getting later and later. I knew if things continued like this the child would miss her bus.

To make a long, tough story short, I'm thankful for my mom. She stayed upstairs with Anna and Sophie so that I could take my kicking and screaming seven year old (when do they grow out of this?) to the bus stop and deposit her on the bus. I don't think I could've pulled that off with a baby on one hip and a three year old with a propensity for darting out in front of bicycles yanking on my other hand.

As a footnote, I have to slather some grace on Olivia right now. It's tough having your dad gone. It's tougher knowing that in three weeks you're moving 6,000 miles away from the only home you've ever known, away from all your (wonderful) friends. I know I need an extra measure of patience with my kids right now; all our kids are exhibiting a double-dose of drama. They need extra patience with me too, for that matter.

But amid all the psychotic chaos and the turmoil of transition -- I'm so glad my mom is here!

WIP Wednesday: The Road

Revisions are like smoothing a road. You've hacked through the jungle, cleared the space. You pound down the big lumps, spread the gravel, try driving over it. Still bumpy in places. Go back, keep smoothing, pounding down those bumps you didn't notice the first time. Repeat, repeat, repeat until you're cross-eyed.

The goal is that people will one day drive comfortably here. They'll be able to relish the scenery, without even thinking about the road. It should never occur to them how much effort it took to smooth it, how many years the process took off your life. They should not have to consider how you worked with that shovel until your hands were bleeding, operated that pounding machine until your brain was vibrating in your skull.

They get to enjoy the journey. And that's the point.

Perma-Dirt

My friend Megan and I were discussing the joys of perma-dirt last night; how the bottoms of our feet are consistently black. Soap doesn't help. Scrubbing with a loofah doesn't help, either. A foot scrubber, akin to a mini cheese grater, is the only thing that works. Every night I sit and scrub, watching gray flecks of water speckle the sides of the bathtub.

That's what I get for walking around bare foot in my house and wearing flip flops outside in China.

Maybe that explains the Chinese women's style of ankle-high nylon stockings with sandals. Keeps the perma-dirt at bay.

The really disturbing thing is that my son Gabe has quite a lot of perma-dirt, most noticeably on his knees. Baths don't help. Scrubbing with a sponge doesn't help. Last night, in desperation I applied the foot scrubber (aka mini cheese grater) to his knees.

"Does this hurt?" I kept asking.

No, it didn't hurt. I used it on the bottoms of his feet and his ankles too. He's got a perma-dirt patch on the front of his ankle from wearing his Crocs every day. People keep asking if it's a bruise. But really, it's just perma-dirt.

I would welcome suggestions for eliminating perma-dirt. Also, I'm curious: does anyone else have this problem in another part of the world, or can I give all the credit to Tianjin dust and pollution?

Query Tracker Carnival

Okay, I just sat down after doing my happy dance (check the post below if you have no idea why I'm dancing). I'm back in business, baby!

And I'm not wasting any time telling you about the Query Tracker Carnival to celebrate Query Tracker's second birthday.

You can find out more at www.querytracker.net/carnival.


The query tracker tool has been a life saver for me because I'm a very disorganized wanna-be writer. I can use the tool to find agents, record when I sent them my query, and note the answer I hear back. It's a one-stop shop for all the agent info I need with links to their websites, email addresses, genre preferences, and so on.

So, I'm thrilled I can help spread the cheer for this anniversary carnival. There are lots of fun contests going on. I'll have to see if I have the brainpower over the next couple weeks to participate or not. The first one is to see who can write the best purple prose ... I'm kind of hoping that one doesn't come too naturally for me, though I suspect it might!

Happy cavorting, all you writers out there!

Blahg!

This is a test that I don't think is going to work.

If you've noticed that I've been a little more quiet than usual lately, it's just because my blog has been blocked by the guv'ment of the country in which I currently live. (I'm not going to mention any names because I don't want to get arrested.) There's a big anniversary coming up on the fourth of June. You can google it if you don't know what I'm talking about. So, the guv'ment has decided to block blogspot just in case anyone decides to spread anti-guv'ment feeling....

Right now I'm using a free "shield" program I downloaded to give me a new IP address, but I still can't post the long-winded book review I wrote yesterday. It's frustrating.

I'm testing to see if a shorter post will be able to make it through the blockage.

If you're able to read this, it's nothing short of a miracle. Just know I will be dancing around my living room with joy if I'm actually able to post anything.

I Recommend: Callie Cat, Ice Skater

When I saw Callie Cat, Ice Skater at our school library, I thought it would be a cute book for my girls to read. A cat that likes to ice skate. That's fun, right?

When I actually sat down to read Callie Cat, Ice Skater, it went far beyond my expectations. It's not just a cute picture book about ice skating (though the artwork is cute). This book is incredibly insightful, well written, and exactly the kind of book I adore reading to my kids.

Don't get me wrong, not all children's books need morals or lessons. I love Dr. Seuss, for instance. But Callie's journey as a performer, as an artist, as a lover of ice skating, brought tears to my eyes. She learns a valuable lesson, but it's learned through having hope and facing disappointment. It's a lesson a lot of adults, especially myself, can learn from.

I loved the ending:

"She knew that the melting sweetness came from doing what she loved. Came not from winning, but doing. The melting sweetness was the best prize of all. And suddenly she knew the name for it. Its name was joy."

I think we all can relate to Callie in some way. We all have something that we love to do, that gives us that feeling of melting sweetness, whether we're the best in the world at it or not. It's about time we all had a little more joy in our lives....

So, what's your source of melting sweetness?

WIP Wednesday: Almost Done

Great news! I'm almost done with the first draft of my work in progress.

I'm at 54,000 words and at the beginning of chapter nineteen, and chapter nineteen is the last chapter. Phew! The daring twist I introduced last week soared to a climax and now I just have to wrap everything up.

If you read last week's WIP Wednesday post and you're good at math, you may notice I didn't stick with my 1,000-words-a-day this week.

Writing these last several chapters was a lot like reading a good book. You know how it is when you can't put what you're reading down and you end up staying awake until the cock crows with your eyes glued to the page? That's how I've been the last few nights writing my WIP. One thousand words came and went and I was still hammering at the keyboard. I couldn't seem to stop and go to bed.

I'm not going to say what I've written is good. It's the first draft; it's probably bumpy in places, terrible in others, generally disorganized with way too many characters. But that's what the second draft is for, and the third draft, and the fourth draft: smoothing it out, tightening it, performing liposuction (and murder) when necessary.

But a big chunk of the job is done. The idea's down on paper. The characters are deepening, finding themselves, becoming real in my mind.

And I can celebrate because it's an accomplishment. I started this novel the day after Valentine's Day, so that means I've finished the first draft in three months. Not bad for me.

Then There Was Light

Simple pleasures.

I finally got around to asking our maintenance guy to buy a new flourescent bulb for our kitchen.

Six kuai later (roughly $1US), I no longer have to rely on my sense of touch to make sure my dinner dishes are clean.

Hallelujah!

Beauty

My heart was full this morning when I walked out of our building complex and down to the main road pushing my double stroller. I saw everything as if in slow motion:

The elderly woman sitting on a sofa by the gate, smiled at me, waving at Sophie and Anna, her eyes glowing.

The familiar face of my friend the pineapple seller; he was bent over, scraping a pineapple, but he looked up, his face creasing into a smile when he saw us.

Two women, walking arm in arm, smiling at my children, crying out, "Oh, look how cute!"

Turning my head to the right I saw my friend the vegetable seller, smiling, lifting her hand in a wave.

The men gathered around an outdoor card game, looking up, smiling, nodding at us as we passed.

I think what I'll miss most about China is the beauty of its people.

I remember when I first moved here from Washington State, I said goodbye to the tall trees, the snow-capped mountains, the trails. I came to a gray city, which, at the time, had a dirty canal running through it and zero vegetation. I wondered how I'd survive our two year contract.

But one day I had an epiphany: there are other kinds of beauty. Dig deeper; find them.

Eight years later, I've found beauty. I've found contentment. Eight years later, I'm leaving it.

The thought of leaving, returning to the mountains, to the trees, to the winding rivers, is exciting in some ways. But knowing that I won't have this, this procession of loving strangers, these smiling acquaintances, threatens to shred my heart.

Will I be able to dig deeper there, too? Can I have the best of both worlds?

I wonder.

Mother's Day

A Very Happy Day to all you mothers out there.

I spent a long time in bed this morning, waiting for the breakfast in bed I knew was coming. I'd already been quizzed the night before about what I wanted for breakfast in bed, and I was tickled about the idea of it.

I'll be fair and say my darling husband came in at one point (while I was still sleeping) and asked me if I was ready for it, and I said, "No."

Then, a little while later, I was awake. So, I waited.

And waited.

I read.

And read. (I'm not complaining. Lying in bed and reading is an incredible luxury!)

Finally, the door opened and Aaron came in with Sophie who was hungry and ready for her morning nap. So, I fed her, and after she went to sleep I got up.

And ate breakfast at the kitchen counter. (Aaron made me a smoothie.)

I realized I should have communicated that I was awake and ready for breakfast in bed, but somehow the very act of communicating seemed to conflict with the purpose of breakfast in bed, which is to stay in bed and feel all relaxed and excited when they bring the breakfast in to you.

When I came out of the room, however, I was delighted to find that there were various presents waiting for me.

Gabe gave me a card with a drawings: one of him and me snuggling on the sofa; another of me playing the piano. I was touched. These are two of my favorite things in the world to do and I thought it was awfully sensitive of him to draw those two particular things. What a nice boy!

Olivia also gave me a hand-drawn card, complete with flowers and labelled diagrams. But Olivia's big present for me was that she wanted to paint my nails. She pulled out all the nail polish colors. I chose purple, because I thought it was just mildly-purple, practically-clear varnish. (I'm not too into painted fingernails - I wash too many dishes for that!) Well, the color I chose turned out to be bright, thick purple, and after my darling Olivia had finished slathering it on my fingernails, it also proved to have a lot of texture. I will have very purple, textured fingernails for the next few days because I discovered this evening that my nail polish remover pads dried up when I wasn't looking.

Anna gave me lots of songs and dances for mother's day. She kept saying, "Happy mother's day! You're my best mommy in the whole world!", wrapping her arms wildly around my neck, and giving me large, wet-lipped kisses.

Sophie took a long morning nap -- such a thoughtful baby! I was hoping she would learn to crawl for my mother's day present, but she just lay on her stomach, flapped her arms and legs, and squalled. She did let me kiss those wonderful, chubby cheeks of hers, which is about the most delicious activity in the world.

So, all in all, it was a very satisfying Mother's Day. How was yours?

All About Anna

Three years ago today, Aaron and I were heading to the Beijing hospital on a bus to have our little Anna.

And she was little! Six and a half pounds.

Being little hasn't slowed Anna down at all. She crawled at six months. Walked at ten months. Can climb up on virtually anything in our house as long as she can get a toe-hold. (We're enrolling her in gymnastics immediately upon our arrival in the United States.)

Even now that she's three, she's still little. Since she dresses herself, I often find her walking around the house in Sophie's clothes. They weigh almost the same. I think Anna just has longer legs and arms. My sister fondly calls her our primordial dwarf.

This morning she held out her arms and looked down at herself, her face flushed with disappointment. "Mommy, I'm still not big! I'm still little!"

Now she's sitting next to me on the couch while I type this entry, sucking her thumb (I guess three-year-olds still do that) and holding onto the tag of my shirt with her other hand (Anna's unique weird habit) and begging me to write: "Lucy loves me," because Lucy is her best friend.
"Please, Mommy! Please, Mommy! Type 'Lucy loves me.'"

The other day, Gabe had his friend Jackson over and I sent them outside to run around. There's a big triangle-shaped planter below our bedroom window; it's a great place for the kids to go when they're getting too feisty for the house.

"I want to go too!" Anna cried, so I let her. Maybe against my better judgment.

I stood at the window and watched them all. The boys had their light sabers and were busy fighting. Anna was wandering around with an extra light saber, off in her own little world.

A man came up to her. He had a camera. He squatted down next to Anna, asking if he could take her picture. Anna reached into the planter and started throwing dirt and torn-up grass at him. The man eventually gave up and left.

Then Anna disappeared behind one of the corners of the planter and I couldn't see her.

"Gabe, where's Anna?" I called from the window.

"She's back here," Gabe said, pointing, and went back to his light saber duel.

A few moments later I saw Anna. She was standing, with no shoes on, with her dress pulled up around her waist -- and no underwear.

"Anna!" I hollered. "What're you doing?"

I heard her scrawny voice: "I went poo poo!"

Thankfully Aaron had just come home, so I grabbed a handful of tissues and clamored down the stairs and around the back to the triangle planter.

The boys were already congregating around the outdoor toilet, grinning. Anna was still standing there with her dress hiked up and her shoes off. Most of the poop looked like rabbit pellets, but there was one enormous turd, too.

I took a deep breath, wiped her bottom, and gathered up the poops as best I could in the tissues. It was probably a lot like cleaning up after your dog.

And that's how Anna lost her privilege of going outside to play with the big boys.

To understand the context completely, though, you have to realize that pooping outside works in China. Honestly, my foreign friends and I are the only ones who would care that my daughter just pooped on the sidewalk. Our Chinese friends wouldn't give it a second thought. Their kids pee and poop wherever they feel like it: at the foot of a playground slide, in the aisle of a crowded train, down the front steps of a shop. Hey, when the kid needs to go, they go!

This is an adjustment my now three year old is going to have to make when we move. A whole new world, with all new rules.

And, Grandma Nai Nai, if your garden experiences an unsurpassed amount of growth this summer while we're staying with you, we may be able to guess the reason why.

(Happy Birthday, my sweet, incorrigible Anna!)

WIP Wednesday: Fits and Starts

After our miserable sick week last week, I slipped back into writing like a swimmer slips into water on a hot day. Ahhhh....

But in my zest for life and the chocolaty feelings writing gives me, I went a little overboard. Instead of sticking to my 1,000 word-per-day limit, I wrote 3,000 words my first day back.

Then there was the weekend, in which I had to go through all my cupboards and decide what I was going to keep and what I was going to throw/give away. There were ten plus enormous bags of stuff to carry down the stairs to get rid of. There were crying children to console. Needless to say, the WIP didn't get any attention over the weekend. It's okay. Life happens. We're moving across the ocean in five weeks. I need to keep reminding myself of that.

On Monday I wrote my 1,000 words. Good job.

Yesterday, I started off in a funk, staring at the computer screen, wondering where on earth this novel was going. I was bored by the direction. I was bored by this particular scene. It's supposed to be the protagonist's DTR (Define The Relationship) talk with her best friend. Maybe I should've been excited about this part, but even I'm not sure how I feel about the two of them dating. Are they good for each other or not? I love them both, but isn't he a little controlling? Isn't she a little too emotionally needy to have a relationship right now? But do either of them agree with me? Of course not! They will probably want to go through with this. It's going to be a nightmare! Blaaagh!

(Okay, so that was a peek into my crazed YA-writing brain....)

I ended up doing something I shouldn't have done. I threw in a plot twist. An enormous one. One that's going to mean going back and inserting other scenes earlier in the book.

The scary thing is, I don't even know if I want this particular thing to happen.

My first book was literary, meaning it was much more character-driven than plot-driven. I didn't think I liked action-packed books very much. They set me too much on edge. I like delving into people's heads more ... But last night I sat and added a huge, adventure-packed twist. Today I'm wondering if I'm crazy.

I now have almost 40,000 words on my WIP. That's 10,000 shy of the minimum for a YA novel. I'm hoping to get to at least 55,000 before I wrap it up and go back for my first revision. That will give me some cutting space so that I don't have too short of a book at the end....

But I guess this book, the one that started off so smoothly, that seemed at first so easy to write, the one I actually sat down and planned out (for once!), is starting to get a little feisty.

Good thing feisty is fun!

Tooth Brush Time

Sophie obviously already knows the importance of oral hygiene.

Gum Head

Yeah, we had to cut the gum out. Instant bangs.

On the way to the bathroom to cut her hair, Anna wailed,

"But I won't look like a girl anymore!"

Bare Necessities

It's hard to fit eight years into eleven suitcases.

Hard for adults; potentially traumatic for kids.

Today we started the purging process in earnest. Round one. Who knows how many more rounds until we can squeeze all our precious dongxi (stuff) into our allotted luggage allowance.

My children sat in a semi circle on the floor around my husband. He had a box sitting next to him. Behind the children was a mountain of stuffed animals.

"Okay kids," Aaron said, "it's time for you to choose which animals you're going to take to America and which ones you're going to leave."

Anna picked out her biggest bear and stuffed it into the box. It took up about half the space.

Gabe chose his giraffe "Alex" and his crab "Jack."

Olivia said she wanted to keep all her Beanie Babies. She counted them out. I think there were about seven. One of them was a panda. We put them in the box. She reached in the pile and pulled out a huge panda.

"There's not enough room for that one, honey," Aaron said.

"But the baby panda needs its mommy!" Then she started to cry.

From outside in the hallway where I was standing listening, I almost lost it too. I've been incredibly emotional lately. I keep wondering if I'm pregnant, but then I think, "No, we're just moving."

The kids watched Annie this afternoon. I wept at the first song:

"Betcha they're good, why shouldn't they be?
Their one mistake was givin' up me...."

When Annie tells Daddy Warbucks he can't adopt her because she wants to find her birth parents, I had tears running down my face. And when Daddy Warbucks watches her getting in the car with her mom and dad and sings:

"Maybe I'll forget how much she meant to me,
And how she was almost my baby ..."

I completely lost it. Tears. Snot. Hiccups.

I hauled about ten big bags of stuff out of our house today and down to our first floor company apartment that acts as a community room. It was our bi-annual exchange, something like a garage sale on steroids, only there's no money involved. Everybody on our team brings their unwanted, gently-used stuff, deposits it in the community room, and then takes whatever they want from the pile. After the foreign staff (whose stuff it is) go through it, our school's national staff gets a turn, and then we open it up to all our household helpers. It's a wonderful system. Our stuff finds happy new homes, and we can purge our small apartments with clear consciences.

So, tonight I'm tired. Emotionally. Physically. Hauling all that stuff down six flights of stairs is a real workout. I'm just glad I don't have to haul it back up again. It's gone. Our apartment is a little barer tonight. But that's good. Necessary.

Our kids went to bed without crying for their lost stuffed animals; they're cuddling close the ones they chose to keep.

And if anyone's wondering, we let Olivia keep both Mommy and Baby Panda. Of course we did.

The Trials and Tribulations of Quotation Marks

If you're not a punctuation and grammar nerd like I am, stop reading immediately. This post will bore you to death.

For the last few months I've been struggling with quotation marks. Yes, quotation marks.

More specifically, how to punctuate around quotation marks.

Punctuating speech is no problem. It was other quotation marks that were driving me bonkers. For instance:

We all like singing "America the Beautiful".

OR

We all like singing "America the Beautiful."

Which is right? Does the period go inside or outside the quotation marks?

Serious question.

I'd read somewhere that ALL punctuation should go INSIDE quotation marks. But this rule went against my grain. It didn't make sense to me. When I wrote, I still found myself sticking those periods, question marks, and exclamation points OUTSIDE the quotation marks.

Again, I'm not talking about speech here. I know you always put punctuation INSIDE the quotation marks in speech, except in the following situation:

Did he say, "Good morning"?

But I digress....

I decided to go to old, faithful, always-available Wikipedia to find the answer to this question about quotation marks. And what I discovered knocked my socks off.

I have quotation mark confusion because, while in Hong Kong, I went to British school for nine years. Yes! It's true.

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

The traditional convention in American English is for commas, periods, and question marks to be included inside the quotation marks, regardless of whether they are part of the quoted sentence, whereas the British style places them inside or outside the quotation marks according to whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted phrase. The American rule is derived from typesetting while the British rule is grammatical.

This new-found knowledge is balm to my anxiety-laden grammatical soul. I know I'm American now (sort of), so I need to get used to the American way (even if it was "derived from typesetting" and does not make logical sense).

I also have to get used to the American way of not including commas wherever I would naturally take a breath. That's also a difficult British habit to break.

Still, it's nice to know I'm not "crazy".

Oops ... I mean, "crazy."